Road Dogs

  When you went down, Foley said, how come they didn't take your property?

  I don't own any. Listen, when I was making money out there, buying homes, cheap compare to what they worth now? I sign them over to a guy is my bookkeeper, the Monk. We both come out of Combinado del Este in Cuba, the Monk in there 'cause he embessle money from a company, to buy things for himself. You look at the Monk, Cundo said, you don't see a criminal, not even a white-collar one. He's a good-looking guy, man, but timid, ascared to death in Combinado of these guys want to dress him like a puta, put red lipstick on his mouth and fuck him. I work it with the guardias to put him in my cell and the Monk cried, man, he was so fucking grateful.

  Foley said, He was your wife?

  Once in a while I let him smoke my cigar, sure, but I never care for it much with a guy. The guardias are bringing me ganj and half pints of rum I sell and we split. I tell the cons who want to fuck the Monk, behave yourselves or you don't get stoned no more. Okay, Fidel let us out, I bring the Monk to Miami and get him a job with Harry Arno. Harry use to run a sport book till he retire and marry a stripper, the only one I ever saw wore glasses when she danced, so she don't fall off the fucking stage. Then, after I almost die from being shot that time, we get out of town, move to L. A.

  You bring the Monk along, Foley said, everywhere you go?

  He's become a business partner, Cundo said, for different ways he knows of using money to make money.

  Foley said, Like running a sports book?

  Tha's one of the business where I'm a silent partner. It goes down, the Monk goes down. You understand he's always been an accountant, an expert with numbers, man. He works a calculator, he don't even look at what his fingers are doing. We in another business called Rios and Rey Investment Company. Is like a bank with numbered accounts, no names of investors.

  A real bank? Foley said. Like a Swiss bank?

  Is it real? It must be, Cundo said, they's money in it the Monk invests in bonds and real estate. Have it work for me, not bury it someplace, hope nobody finds it. Do you pay income tax on the money you take from banks?

  Not as a rule, Foley said.

  I do, Cundo said, I pay my fucking taxes. Maybe you like to rob this bank. How you do it? There's no teller you call sweetheart and ask her for money. The Monk say a time will come we won't use cash no more for most things you want. The Monk knows all this electronic shit with the digits. But I have to remind him also to keep an eye on Dawn for me. See nothing happens to her.

  Foley said, You're full of surprises, aren't you? Who's Dawn?

  Dawn Navarro, man, the best thing ever happen to me.

  For two years he'd been telling Foley his life history and never once mentioned he was married. Cundo said he didn't want people to know she was living alone in Venice, California, the Monk keeping an eye on her.

  Foley said, You trust the Monk?

  Why you think I call him that? He's like a monk who took a vow never to fuck a woman. He don't even check them out. Listen, Cundo said, after I was given the sentence I phone Dawn. I say, 'Can you live the life of a saint for seven years or longer? Not fuck any guys, not even an old boyfriend you run into and do it in the car with him for old time sake?' Dawn say she would wait for me her whole life. Not leave the house except she's with the Monk.

  Foley said, He can keep guys away from her?

  He packs, has a guy looks like a fox with a big Dirty Harry gun drives him, he goes anyplace. I was married to Dawn four months before I was return here to Florida. The first time I ever saw her was at a party in the Hollywood Hills. Dawn is laying down tarot cards, telling people their fortune. It becomes my turn and she starts doing my cards. But she don't say nothing to me. I ask her to tell me what she sees. Her eyes raise

  Foley said, She tell you you're going on a long journey?

  How do you know that?

  Isn't that what fortune-tellers tell you?

  She say I'm going back to Florida within one year. I say oh, for what reason? She say she don't know, but I can tell she does and I wonder, why she wants to hide it from me.

  Foley kept his mouth shut.

  We left the party. I took Dawn to Venice, to my white home I won't stay in the pink one the walls full of pictures of me with various movie and TV stars. We stay three days, man, never leaving, telling each other of our lives, not so much you know details, but basic shit. How I stole cars at one time and danced go-go as the Cat Prince. She thought that was hot. I ask her what she can see in her future. She say you can't be psychic about yourself, no real psychic can. She say most of the ones who call themselves psychic are frauds, they turn cards and tell you you gonna meet a tall, dark stranger. We drinking wine, smoking some good ganj, I say to her, 'So I'm going back to Florida, uh?' She don't want to tell me why I'm going, but I keep at her and she tells me she sees me in a courtroom on trial for killing a guy. You understand this is four months before I was arrested and then sent to Florida. I say to Dawn, 'Oh, I happen to kill somebody?' In her vision she sees me and another guy one night out in the Atlantic Ocean fishing.

  The mozo, Foley said, who fell over the side and drowned.

  His girlfriend say he went out with me and never came back. I say I drop him off down the beach. No, the point I make, Dawn saw me in the courtroom four months before I was there.

  When'd you get married?

  The next day after she tole me, we drove to Vegas.

  She's all for it, uh? Once she's seen the homestead?

  You say something like that you don't even know her. She say she been waiting all her life for the right guy, wha's a few more years? She looks me in the eye telling me things.

  She ever come to visit?

  I tole you, I don't want nobody knowing things about her. She sends me pictures instead of coming here. Some of them, she don't have no clothes on.

  Is that right?

  Keep me interested. She could go in a bank with you, tell you which teller will freak, which will stay calm.

  You little devil, Foley said, you're gonna use her fortune- telling to tell you where the fortunes are, aren't you, work as a team.

  Is like Dawn tells this woman she's under some kind of spell, like maybe a ghost is fucking with her, hiding her jewelry she can't find.

  You're the ghost?

  I can do that, sure. Or I go in the house at night and throw the woman's clothes in the swimming pool.

  You've done that?

  Not yet we talking about it. See, Dawn gets rid of the fucking ghost she calls an evil spirit and saves the poor woman from going crazy. Charges her ten to twenty-k for it, and the woman is happy again. Is like I deliver a key for seventeen to twenty-k to a famous actor and he gets his confidence back again.

  You and the wife, Foley said, devoting your lives to caring for people. Is the reason we fall in love with each other. We alike in how we know how to make people happy. But running a psychic con, Foley said, doesn't mean she's actually psychic.

  She saw me in the fucking courtroom, didn't she?

  She as cool as Megan Norris?

  They both cool, but in different ways. Miss Megan is cool because she smart, man, always knows what to say. Dawn is cool because she knows what you going to say.

  They must be a lot different, Foley said, in how they see things.

  Tha's what I just tole you, they different.

  Megan asked me how could I stand to throw away some of my best years in a dump like this. She wanted to know why I didn't get in a prison rehab program. Learn how to grow sugarcane.

  Burn the field you ready to go in and cut the cane, these poison snakes in there eating rats, man, they come out at you. Hey, fuck that. You tell her God made you a bank robber?

  I think she knew it.

  The way I see you, Jack, you smart, you can be a serious guy, but you don't like to show anything is important to you. You here, you don't complain not anymore you could be an old hippie living here. You get your release Ah, now you get to think what you going to
do.

  I've been reading about Costa Rica, Foley said. Go down there and start over.

  Yes, someday, uh? You want me to tell you, Cundo said, you leave here, the first thing you going to do?

  Rob a bank.

  See? Is already on your mind.

  It's on your mind, not mine.

  How you gonna get to Costa Rica?

  If I make up my mind that's where I'm going, Foley said, don't worry, I'll get there.

  I see you walking out the gate, Cundo said, you thinking about the things you miss. Getting drunk on good whiskey for a change. Getting laid as soon as you can How you gonna work it you don't have any money?

  It's already arranged, Foley said.

  Cundo stared at him to see if he was kidding, reading his face, his eyes.

  Is already arranged? How you do that?

  Chapter FOUR

  AT FIRST, TRYING TO TALK ON THE PHONE IN THIS PRISON was work, all the morons in the line behind Cundo telling him what to say to Dawn, knowing he was talking to a woman. That's who every one of them talked to, a woman. These guys talking trash to him, telling him what to say, dirty things the morons thought were funny. He told Dawn, They say to tell you, I get out what kind of things I'm going to do to you. Dawn said, Like what? They ask me if I ever stick hamburger in your I think they saying 'twat' and have a pussyburger. Dawn said, What else?

  This was during his first year of imprisonment at Starke, the state prison, before being transferred to Glades. One week he skipped calling Dawn to get hold of the Monk, Cundo telling him to find the names of the guardia officers running this place and bribe them. Man, I need space to breathe. The Monk worked the Internet to learn whatever he wanted to know. He sent a ham and a case of whiskey to the home of each guardia on his list and signed Cundo's name to the card that said: I am hoping because of my poor health, you will allow me to work in a prison office. I can serve as a writer of letters in Spanish whenever there is a need for one. It got Cundo a manual typewriter and a telephone he could use to call Dawn and reverse the charge. In his quiet corner of the office Cundo would hear Dawn's voice accept the charge and he'd ask:

  Are you being a saint?

  Dawn would say, Of course I am. Or she would vary the answer and say, Aren't you my love? Or sometimes, Aren't you my undying love?

  Cundo believed saints never got laid, so he'd say, You swear to Almighty God you being a saint for me?

  I swear to God I'm being a saint.

  For me.

  Yes, for you.

  I want to hear you say it so I believe it.

  After several months of this Dawn began to say, without raising her voice or showing any strain, How many times do I have to tell you, yes, I'm being a saint for you?

  Your tone of voice doesn't convince me.

  Because you make me say it over and over and over. Now there was a hint of strain. Will you please stop asking me if I'm being a saint?

  One day, still during Cundo's first year inside, Dawn said, If you ask me that again, I swear I'll hang up the phone. I won't be here the next time you call. I'll vanish and you'll never hear my voice again as long as you live. If you don't believe me, ask if I'm being a saint. I fucking dare you.

  He believed her.

  But how could she remain a saint living by herself in Venice, cool guys around, movie guys who were good with women and would go for her, Dawn Navarro, man, blond hair and cool green eyes, a hot chick with a gift.

  The Monk swore to it, yes, she was being a saint. He never got a report of a guy visiting her. They went to a club, she never spent time with any guys. The Monk always had a bodyguard along, Zorro. After a while everybody in the club knew who Dawn was she could talk to people, different guys, all she wanted. But if one of them tried to take Dawn home, Zorro would step in Zorro, the Monk's personal bodyguard would step in and open his coat enough to show his Dirty Harry pistol.

  Cundo decided, okay, she was a saint. Pretty soon he would be with her not have to imagine her anymore with different gringos, all these tall white guys.

  Today at Glades talking to Dawn on the phone, his bodyguard standing behind him, Cundo said, Jack Foley got his release this morning.

  Good for Jack, Dawn said.

  I sent him to a guy in Miami's fixing him up with a driver's license and a prepaid credit card. He's gonna fly to L. A. and live in my pink home while he gets the feel nobody's watching him. He don't mind it being pink.

  I'm in the pink one, Dawn said.

  I know you are. I told him to stay in the white one, but switch with you before I come out, I think the week after next. Why are you so nice to him? I told you he's robbed hundreds of fucking banks. I like to know does he want to do any more.

  Of course he does.

  But is it something he has to do?

  I'll let you know, Dawn said.

  I tole him about you, how you can read minds. He goes, 'Yeah?' and listen to every word. He won't believe it, Dawn said, till I tell him to quit trying to picture me naked.

  Don't say that, please. I don't want to think of him getting ideas. You and Foley going to be neighbors across the canal. You meet and sit down to talk, you can tell him his fortune.

  You mean tell you his fortune.

  Look in his eyes, see if they any coming attractions, things you can tell me about. I got money invested in this guy.

  Once he gets the credit card you might not see him again.

  He has to wait two days for the license, but I know he won't run off on me. Jack Foley is the most honest fucking con I ever met, and maybe the smartest. But he's different than the ones here they say have the high IQs.

  What do they do?

  Have to suck guys off unless they jailhouse lawyers. Foley has his own way of dealing with all the different kinds of bad guys. He's our celebrity, robbed a hundred more banks than John Dillinger or anybody you can name. And, has never had to shoot anybody. He say to a con, 'If you don't understand why I'm proud of that, you and I have nothing to say to each other.'

  What you don't know, Dawn said, is how he is with women.

  I know Miss Megan got goose bumps talking to him.

  Who told you that?

  He did. She calls him Jack in the letter she wrote with her bill for thirty-k. Listen, Cundo said, when he busted out, there was a woman United States marshal chased after him. They met at a hotel and spent the night together before she brought him back.

  Dawn's voice on the phone said, You're kidding.

  And spoke for him in court, tole what a sweet guy he is. Listen, his ex-wife name Adele? She wrote all the time saying she still in love with him.

  Dawn said, You want me to use him.

  With your gift, your spirit guides and ESP shit. I like to see you work Foley into your act, make us some money off him.

  I've got a new client, Dawn said, another widow in Beverly Hills.

  You and your widows.

  She came to one of my psychic house parties, stayed after to talk and said she'd been seeing Madam Rosa

  I remember her, the gypsy queen.

  Rosa has my client believing her dead husband's put a hex on her, the reason she can't find true love.

  Wha's a hex?

  A curse, an evil spell. My client decided Madam Rosa's a fraud, but still believes her dead hubby's bothering her and wants me to help her.

  You know how?

  I deal with ghosts all the time.

  I got to hang up these fucking guys Listen, think of a way to use Foley.

  I'll look him over.

  See if he's any good with hexes.

  Chapter FIVE

  LOU ADAMS, THE FEDERAL AGENT WITH JACK FOLEY IM-printed on his brain, had called Glades to learn the date and time of Foley's release. They told him today by ten A. M. they'd have him separated out of there. Lou arrived a little after nine to make sure Foley didn't slip out on him. What Lou had in mind, he'd wait in the car until Foley was coming through the double gates. Lou would get out then and stand in plai
n sight and wait for Foley to see him. Lou believed Foley would stop in his tracks, remembering what Lou had told him thirty months ago: From the day of your release, the manpower of the Bureau will be covering your ass like a fucking blanket. Not in those exact words they were in a court of law when Lou laid it out but that idea.

  Lou Adams's buddies in the West Palm field office thought it was something personal with him, the hard-on he had for this bank robber. Lou said, I know I looked unprofessional in court. I was trying to make the point this guy is not just another fucking bank robber, and I lost my temper. But if the guy robbed a hundred banks, that's who he is. The Man Who Robbed a Hundred Banks. It makes him special. Who else has done that many bank licks that we know of? Nobody. You remember the press he got? The picture in the paper, Foley and that knockout lawyer, that little broad who practically got him off? I bet you ten bucks he fucked her. Where, I don't know, but he's a good-looking guy, he's our star bank robber.

  An agent said, You keep waiting for Foley, you're gonna get Professional Responsibility on you.

  Listen, Lou said to his buddies, I'll bet you anything that as we're speaking a writer is doing a book on Foley. Gonna call it The Sweetheart Bandit, the name we gave him, his note to the teller always saying, 'Sweetheart, give me all your hundreds, fifties and twenties, please.' Some book reviewers will give it their own fucked-up interpretation and the general public will think the writer's calling Foley a sweetheart 'cause he's a nice guy, never threatened or scared the shit out of the teller when he asked for money. No, he says to the teller, 'Do the best you can.' You'll see a bank employee saying in the paper, 'It's true, he was a sweetheart. He took the money, thanked me, and gave my hand a pat.'

  Lou said, Or you take a guy like Willie Sutton. Willie Sutton became famous for saying he robbed banks because that's where the money was. It didn't matter Willie Sutton never in his fucking life said it. Once the general public believes he did and thought it was a cool thing to say, Willie Sutton's famous. The newspapers loved him: they said he must've made off with a good two million during his career. Oh, is that right? If Willie Sutton spent over half his fucking life in stir, how would he have time to score two million bucks? I say that because I estimate Foley's take working his ass off, out of action only ten years counting his falls at half a million for his hundred or so bank licks. Not bad. Foley and Willie Sutton both drew thirty years and both escaped from prison in a tunnel, and that's the only similarity in their careers.