52 pickup

15

"I don't know," Leo Frank said. "Deal looks clean and simple, then all of a sudden it gets complicated. There must be something. I mean the guy's got some dough, hasn't he?"

Bobby Shy looked over at Alan. Those two were talking. Bobby sat on a pillow with his back leaning against the wall. He was uncomfortable but he was listening, getting it clear in his mind. There was a funny sound in the talk: somebody jiving somebody.

Alan was over by the window that had a tree painted on the shade, a brown heavy line for the trunk and a green circle for the leaves. Alan was home. He was smoking a joint, exhaling with barely a trace of anything coming out of his mouth.

He said, "The man has money. I told you he had money. He can get his hands on more money when he cashes in his stocks and bonds and shit. But the government has got him by the balls. He owes them over a hundred and fifty grand on his income tax the last two years and he's got to pay up. If he doesn't they make him sell his house, his business, everything."

Leo said, "Then why did he have money the other day, in the envelope?"

"Because he had to hold us off," Alan said. "He was afraid we might jump and call the cops on him. So he let us smell the dough figuring we wouldn't do anything right away. That gives him time to set up the meeting."

"I don't know," Leo Frank said.

"I know you don't," Alan said. "Jesus, I'm glad he talked to me and not to you. He might be a fuck-up in business, but he had that much sense."

No, Bobby Shy was thinking, something is not right. He didn't like the sound of the talk. He didn't like being here in Alan's apartment. The place looked bare, like he'd just moved in and hadn't put anything where it belonged; and yet it was full of all kinds of weird shit on the walls, on the floor, even hanging from the ceiling. There were psycho designs and names and words in bright aerosol paint sprayed all over the white walls and on the shades-like the men's room of a jive joint or a New York subway station. Man had gooseneck lamps you could twist around in every direction, black lights and colored mood lights in white globes, Indian bells and shit, birds and mobile shapes hanging down, balls on aluminum sticks that hit against each other, rugs that looked like they were made out of animal hair, pillows from India lying around, a couple of straw chairs and all these big red and green and purple and yellow pillows. Like they'd turn the men's room in the jive joint into a Turkish whorehouse.

"I mean," Leo said, "if a guy makes that kind of dough, how come he doesn't have any left to pay the government?"

"He invested it. Look," Alan said, "he's supposed to pay the government quarterly, every three months. If he doesn't he has to pay a penalty at the end of the year, like six percent. But he figures he can put the dough to work and make more than six percent on it. So he invests. Only the stock he invests in goes down. A business he puts dough in folds. So he's not only lost the money he invested, he still owes the fucking government the income tax he didn't pay."

Leo was nodding, trying to understand it. "Don't they give him time to pay?"

"They call him in," Alan explained, ready for that one. "He talks to a clerk in the Internal Revenue office. He says look, I'll pay. Give me some time. The clerk looks over the guy's tax return. Shit, he sees the guy spends more on booze than he makes in a year and he throws the fucking book at the guy. Pay up, right now."

Leo said, "You know this for sure?"

"No, I'm making it up," Alan said. "Leo, I saw the correspondence with the Internal Revenue office, their stationery, Department of Internal Revenue across the top. I saw his books, I saw his bank balance. The guy gives us five bucks and they want to know where it went."

Alan squeezed the joint between his fingernails and got a last suck out of it before he dropped the burned brown stub in an ashtray. He said, "If you want to know something, I'll tell you. I had a gut feeling the guy was too perfect. We wait for somebody like him like a guy waiting for the most beautiful chick in the world. She comes along, man, there she is. But it turns out her fucking breath smells or something."

"Jesus, all the time we put in it," Leo said. "And the girl-"

"That brings us to something else," Alan said. "The girl. This part I don't like, what we have to do." He looked directly at Leo Frank. "You know why?"

Leo had a puzzled look. "I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Leo, I asked him. He said it was you told him where to find me."

"I didn't! I never even gave him your last name!"

"Leo, I ask him. I said hey, who told you where I work? He says who do you think? Your friend Leo. His exact words."

"Honest to Christ, I didn't."

"Leo," Alan said, "the show's over, or almost over. I don't give a shit really, it's done. You let me down. Okay, live and learn."

Bobby was still watching Alan, wondering why Alan hadn't mentioned this before, first thing when they came in. He was wondering also why Alan was so cool about it. Alan should be stomping Leo with words, cutting him up; but he was passing it over like it didn't matter. Live and learn-shit.

"But," Alan was saying, "we do have a problem. Somebody got killed. He saw it. At the time he didn't know about us, but now he does."

Bobby Shy spoke for the first time. He said, "He knows about you two. He don't know about me."

Alan looked at him. "That's right. That's why you're going to have to do it. You can walk up to him, shake hands and blow him away. Man won't even know what hit him."

"For what?" Bobby Shy said. "What do I get out of it?"

"Peace of mind," Alan said.

"I look nervous to you?"

"All right," Alan said. "You want to take a chance? He knows she's dead, right? He knows three of us did it. Not just me and Leo, also a spade wears a stocking over his face and packs a thirty-eight Special. Bobby, you been to Jackson. I believe you lived there ten years, armed robbery? You really want to take a chance? His conscience gets to him, he goes to the police and they start ripping the fucking walls out looking for us. Hey Bobby, you want that to happen?"

Bobby Shy grinned. "Listen to the man. Wants me to clean up his mess."

"I thought you were the pro," Alan said. "One likes to pull the trigger."

"Giving me some sweet jive now."

"Shit, you walk up, ring his bell, he opens the door, it's done."

"That's how you do it, huh?"

"Why not?"

Bobby Shy nodded. "Maybe. Do it in the man's house. Make it look like a B and E."

Alan was grinning now. "Hey, possibilities, right? You like it?"

"I'll think on it," Bobby Shy said.

Alan had him; he could feel it. He said, "While you're thinking I'll do a time-and-motion study on the man and I'll let you know when. In fact, you want, I'll go with you."

"Hold my hand?" Bobby Shy said. "I appreciate it."

"We just have to stick together," Alan said, and looked over at Leo to include him. "I mean we start something, we have to finish it. Then-we got time, we got nothing else to do-we look for another guy. Why not?"

He got them out of there and sat down on a pillow to smoke another joint and relax. Jesus, all that footwork took it out of you. Slipping and sliding around, juking the spade and fat Leo right out of their socks. Shit, right out of their shares. But the guy could still be pulling something and Alan decided he'd better think on that a while.

The funny thing was he started thinking about the guy's wife again. At home, in the living room standing there mad with her legs a little apart. Getting in the car in front of the show, giving him the show, her legs apart again, nice glimpse of some inside thigh. He said to himself, Now come on, there's a role in this piece for Slim. How about it? He sucked on the joint and pictured her at home, alone again, and started to put something together.

They went out the door of the apartment building and walked around the corner toward Leo's car. Leo expected Bobby Shy to say something, say it and then maybe hit him. He never knew what Bobby Shy was going to do. He always felt uneasy when he was with him-quiet, easy-moving black dude could have a gun on him right now.

Leo said, "You going home or where? I'll drop you."

"I think over Doreen's," Bobby Shy said. "I got half my clothes there now. I don't know where I live."

He sounded calm. He didn't sound on the muscle at all. Leo said, "Listen, I'm telling you the truth. I didn't tell the guy where to find Alan."

"What difference does it make?" Bobby Shy didn't bother to look at him.

"It makes a difference. Alan's trying to blame me," Leo said, getting a little excited about it now. "If the guy told Alan it was me, then the guy's lying."

"Yeah, okay." Bobby Shy didn't see the point yet.

"And if the guy lied about me-for some reason, I don't know why he would-then he could be lying about not having any dough."

"Alan believed him. He seen the books."

"Let's say Alan also believes I told on him."

Bobby Shy still didn't look at Leo, but he began to put it together in his head. "You saying Alan is dumb to believe the man?"

"I'm not saying that. We know Alan isn't dumb. He's got a weird fucking mind, but he isn't dumb."

"We finding out maybe the man ain't so dumb either," Bobby Shy said. "So what you trying to say?"

"I'm saying either Alan's lying or the man is."

Bobby Shy walked on a few paces, thinking about it, before he said, "Or both of them."

"Or both," Leo said. "I thought of that."

"It's a shame, ain't it?" Bobby said. "Everybody trying to mess up everybody."

"We picked the wrong guy," Leo Frank said. "That's the whole thing. We picked the wrong fucking guy."

It took Bobby Shy the rest of the day to locate a whole lid of Colombian reefer. It was Doreen's favorite. He brought it to her and said he was sorry he doubted her word. No, he hadn't doubted her really, it was only he had to be sure. It turns out, he told Doreen, it was Leo told the man. Because that's what the man told Alan, and why would the man lie about it?

Doreen looked up at him with the eyes, sitting on the edge of the flowery couch, rolling two professional joints, and said, "You never know who you can trust, do you?"

"Deal we been working fell through," Bobby Shy told her.

And Doreen said, handing him a lighted joint, "I admire you, love, but please don't tell me about it. They some things I don't want to know."

"Man was going to pay us a hundred and five grand so we don't tell stories on him," Bobby went on. "But Alan talk to the man, he say he find out the man don't have any money. Owe it all to Uncle Sam."

"Alan told you that, huh?"

"He's the only one talk to him."

"You believe it?"

"That's where we're at," Bobby Shy said.

"Well, you could talk to Alan again, put a pillow over his face."

"Yeah, I could do that."

"Or," Doreen said, "you could go see the man."

"I could do that too."

"Ask him, how come if he's broke he's carrying all that money around in an envelope."

Bobby Shy held the reefer, about to take a drag. "You see that envelope of his?"

"He took it out of his pocket and put it back," Doreen said. "It was thick."

"Leo say ten grand in it."

Doreen nodded. "I believe it."

"What I want to know," Bobby Shy said, "why he showed it to you."

Doreen drew in on the joint. It calmed her and gave her confidence. She said, "He mentioned something about he wanted to give it to Alan. I forgot to tell you that the time you ask me."

"You forgot to tell me."

"He just mentioned wanting to see Alan. It didn't seem like any big thing."

"He showed you the money?"

"Little bit of it."

"And he gave you some?"

"He took it out, peeled off a hundred. That's when I told him I was busy."

"That's all, huh? You didn't tell him anything about Alan. Where he lives or works-"

"Hey, Bobby," Doreen said. "What're you worried about Alan for? He tell you the deal's off-he's not worried about you, is he?"

"That's a point," Bobby said.

"Alan saw the man's money? In the envelope?"

"I believe he did."

"And he's just going to forget about it?"

"That's another point."

"Something's going on, baby, Alan hasn't told you about."

"As I said a minute ago, that's where we're at."

"And as I mentioned," Doreen said, "you could go see the man. Find out if he's still got his envelope laying around someplace? You understand what I'm saying?"

Bobby Shy nodded. "Could do that."

"Like at night. Late."

"After everybody's asleep."

"Man, that little envelope," Doreen said. "It holds more than a whole bus full of people, don't it?"

They were back where they had been for twenty-two years and it was even better than it had been for a long time. He wanted to be with her He felt good with her. There was nothing to hide now, no excuses that had to be made.

It was Sunday, sixty degrees and a clear sky, and they decided not to think of anything or anybody but themselves today. They played three sets of tennis outside, at a high school court near their house. It was a little windy, but it didn't matter. It was good to be out, together. They played hard and perspired, Mitchell more than Barbara, going all out and beating her 6-3, 6-3, then letting up a little and having to put the pressure on again and come from behind to beat her 7-5 in the third set. He shouldn't have let up. If you go out to play you go out to win, even if you're playing your wife. Barbara was glad he felt that way. When she did beat him, once in a while, she knew she had won on her own and had not been given anything.

Several times, working to beat Barbara, he had thought of Cini. Cini alive. He wasn't sure why. He couldn't picture Cini playing tennis. She would laugh at the idea. She was a girl made to be held and played with in other ways. She was soft and vulnerable, a little girl. Barbara was also a little girl-running hard, swinging, chopping, stroking the ball, saying to herself "You dummy!" when her shot went out or hit the net-but she was a little girl in a way that was different. She could turn off being a little girl. She could be a lady or a woman or even a grandmother, and she would be natural, at ease, on all these levels. Though at home as they showered together and made slow love in the afternoon, alone in the silence of the house, it was hard to imagine her as a grandmother.

Lying on the bed, looking at each other, Barbara said, "It's better than that dumb movie, isn't it?"

And Mitchell said, "Way better. You have to be in love to find out."

"Do you feel that?"

"Of course I do."

"Tell me."

"I love you."

"There isn't any other way to say it, is there?"

"I don't know of any."

"It's good to hear. That's something," she said. "It's always good to hear. I get a feeling inside when you say it."

"Even after-?" He paused.

"Don't."

"I was going to say, even after all these years?"

"It gets better."

"I guess if you want it to it does."

"Do you remember when you used to come home from trips? Even if you were gone only a day or two, we couldn't wait."

"I was thinking about that the other day."

"Were you really?"

"Why would I lie? I'd rather make love to you than-I don't know, name a good-looking movie star."

"Than Paul Newman."

Barbara smiled. "You really do love me, don't you?"

"What do you think I've been trying to tell you?"

"It's different now, isn't it? Do you feel it?"

"Like starting over."

"Being in love rather than just loving."

"I guess there's a difference."

"You were letting me win the third set, weren't you?"

"I got tired about in the middle."

"Mitch, I love you."

And he said, "Then we've got nothing to worry about."

They stood at the counter in the kitchen to eat hot homemade chili with French bread and hard butter-Barbara wiping her eyes, Mitch blowing his nose-and drank ice-cold Canadian beer from stem glasses. Late Sunday lunch was chili or hot dogs. Saturday Mitch fried hamburgers and onions. Today was the first time they had observed either of the rituals in almost three months. It was good to be back.

It was good to sit on the couch in the den and watch an old Gary Cooper movie, Good Sam, and remember they had seen it together before they were married. It wasn't so good-not at first-when the friends dropped in, three couples who were close friends, coming from a cocktail party. But it did get better with good talk and drinks and the chicken they sent out for, and by ten o'clock the house was quiet again. At eleven-thirty, after the late news, they went to bed and for a little while longer it was the way it had been for so many years, holding each other as they went to sleep.

She said very quietly, "Mitch?"

"What?"

"There's somebody downstairs."

"I know there is."

Mitchell was lying on his back, his eyes open now for several minutes in the darkness of the bedroom. He was fully awake-tense, listening-with the knowledge that someone was in his house. Raising his head he could see the outline of the windows, a bleak wash of moonlight on the wall facing the bed and the dark shapes of the open doorway and the dressers on either side. He felt the covers tighten as Barbara moved, rolling slowly away from him. The telephone was on her night table.

"Wait," Mitchell said.

"I'll dial the operator, tell her to call the police."

"No, not yet. Wait."

Barbara lay motionless, listening. "He's coming upstairs."

"I think so. Is the flashlight still in my closet?"

"On the top shelf."

"Close your eyes. Don't move."

"Mitch-"

"Shhhh."

More than a minute passed before he was aware of the figure in the doorway. Mitchell closed his eyes and let his head sink into the pillow. He breathed with his mouth slightly open. There was no sound in the room, but he could feel the presence of someone and, after a moment, a slight bump against the foot of the bed. Mitchell waited, breathing in and out slowly. When he heard the clink of metal, a faint sound across the room, he opened his eyes again and saw the figure standing by his wife's dresser. A pinpoint of light passed over the surface and went off. The figure moved across the doorway to the other dresser. Mitchell heard a clinking sound again, his loose change. He saw the envelope, briefly, in the pinpoint of light. He saw it lifted from the dresser as the light went off and the figure turned. Mitchell closed his eyes. He opened them again after only a moment, saw the room empty and raised the covers to get out of bed. Barbara whispered his name, an urgent sound, but he didn't look at her now. Mitchell went to his closet and got the flashlight from the shelf above his suits. He was careful not to make noise, but didn't waste time stepping out into the hallway.

The figure was almost to the stairway that turned once as it descended to the front hall. Mitchell started toward him. He took a few cautious steps, and then he was moving quickly, reaching the man and seeing him come around, at the same time bringing the turned-on flashlight up, the beam momentarily in the black man's face before Mitchell slammed his left in straight and hard, chopped with the flashlight and felt it come apart as the light went out and the black man grunted, made a noise, and fell backward down the stairway. Mitchell reached for the light switch. The hall lights came on in time for him to see the man hit the wall at the landing and fall down the remaining stairs to the foyer. Mitchell was moving then, his hand sliding down the railing. He got to the man and planted a foot on the wrist of his outstretched arm. He reached down to take a.38 Special out of the man's belt and the envelope out of his inside coat pocket. With the envelope came a woman's nylon stocking.

Above him his wife called his name.

As she appeared on the landing he said, "Get the camera. And a flash."

They were in the den now. Bobby sat holding a handkerchief to the side of his face. He would dab at his cheekbone and then look at the fresh blood spot that appeared on the cloth.

Mitchell was unloading the.38. He put the cartridges in his pajama pocket and the empty revolver on the coffee table. As he sat down across from Bobby Shy he looked at his wife.

"Why don't you see if you can find a Band-Aid?"

Barbara stood in the doorway, behind Bobby Shy, in her nightgown. She seemed to want to say something, but Mitchell's calm gaze held her off. He was in control. As she turned away Mitchell looked at Bobby Shy again.

"You got pictures of me," he said, "and now I've got pictures of you and Leo. All but Alan. You want some coffee or a drink or anything?"

Bobby Shy's eyes raised, his hand holding the handkerchief against his face. "Man bust in your house, you always serve him drinks?"

"On special occasions."

"Maybe you thinking I'm somebody I'm not."

"We can waste a lot of time," Mitchell said, "or we can get to the point. I know your voice, I can identify you."

"How come you ain't call the cops?"

"Now you sound like your friend Alan," Mitchell said. "You think I want the police involved? The only thing I want to know, why you bother to steal ten grand when I'm going to give you more than fifty thousand. Hand it to you."

"You going to give me fifty thousand?"

"Fifty-two," Mitchell said. "That's the figure. Alan told you, didn't he?"

"About what?"

"Maybe you haven't seen him. You see him today?"

"What fifty-two thousand?" Bobby Shy said.

"Or he meant to tell you and he forgot."

"Hey, I'm asking you, what fifty-two thousand?"

"The figure we agreed on. What I can afford to pay. He didn't tell you about it?"

"He say something about you owing the government."

"Oh." Mitchell nodded and was silent, giving the man time to think about it.

"You don't owe them anything?"

"Everybody owes the government. What's that got to do with it?"

Bobby Shy took the handkerchief away from his cheek, but didn't look at it. "You made a deal with Alan?"

"It was Alan I spoke to," Mitchell said. "The payment's supposed to be for three of you, however you split it up."

"Or however he don't split it," Bobby Shy said.

Mitchell shrugged. "Well, that's not my problem, is it? Who gets what."

"When you make this payment?"

"In a few days. When I get it together."

"Where?"

"Look," Mitchell said, "why don't you talk to Alan about it? I told him I'd pay. You want to know anything else, talk to him."

"I'm going to do that," Bobby Shy said. "Yeah, have a talk."

Mitchell nodded. "I would." He watched Bobby Shy get up, look at the handkerchief and put it in his pocket. "Don't you want a Band-Aid?"

"Thanks, I don't think I need it."

"You can sit, rest your head some more if you want."

"No, I'm fine."

As Bobby Shy turned and started to walk out Mitchell said, "Hey, you forgot something."

Bobby Shy looked back at him. "What?"

"Your gun," Mitchell said.

Alan didn't usually go to the movie theater until late in the afternoon or early evening, unless he needed some extra spending money. Then he'd make a day of it at the theater. Take tickets for a while in the afternoon, pocket a handful of them, then resell them later and keep the money, when he worked the ticket booth in the evening while the girl was on her relief. Twenty tickets were usually enough. Twenty times five was a hundred dollars and the guy down in Deerfield Beach, Florida, who owned the theater, never knew the difference. The money went for sugar candy and cigarettes-very often for the two teenaged sisters who lived in the building. Laurie, fourteen, and Linda, fifteen. He would let them come to his apartment after school and take their clothes off and listen to music and smoke dope and sometimes drop a little acid. Little teenyboppers with skinny white bodies. Groovy little girls who squealed and giggled when they got turned on and loved to jump on Alan, on the Indian pillows, and undress him and do everything they could to turn him on too. Alan called it playing with his kids.

Laurie and Linda and the rock music were turned way up when Bobby Shy knocked at the door.

Alan, still dressed, went over and opened the door a crack with the chain on. He said, "Hey, Bobby," grinning but not liking it one bit, closed the door, took the chain off and let him in.

Bobby Shy looked at the little naked girls on the pillows. They looked back at him, not turning away or trying to cover themselves. They stared at him with knowing little smiles and gleams in their eyes.

Bobby Shy said, "Get rid of the fuzzies. We got something to talk about."

Alan got the warning in the man's quiet, cut-dry tone. Bobby was in a mood, so don't mess with him or ask questions. But stay loose; don't ever look scared. Alan clapped his hands once and said, "That's it for a while, kids," like a stage manager. "Let's take a break."

The girls pouted and said awwww and oh shit, but Alan got them into their clothes and out of there in a couple of minutes. He closed the door and looked over to see Bobby taking a chair away from the table in the dining-L. He placed it in the middle of the floor and sat down. Alan sat against the wall on a pillow, yoga-fashion, and began building a joint. When he finished it and looked up again, reaching toward the low coffee table for a match, Bobby, seated about fifteen feet away, facing him, was screwing a silencer attachment into the barrel of his.38 Special.

"Hey now, come on," Alan said, "don't fool with guns in here, okay? The goddamn piece's liable to go off."

"It's due to go off," Bobby Shy said, "unless you give me the straight shit when I ask you a question."

"Come on, what is this?" The extension on the barrel was pointing at Alan now; he could see the little round black hole. "Are you kidding, or what?"

"This number don't kid," Bobby Shy said. "You ready for the question?"

"Man, what're you on?"

Bobby Shy crossed his legs and rested the butt of the revolver on his raised knee. "The question," he said, "is how much did the man say he give you?"

"Give me?"

"Give you, give us-say it."

Alan was silent. He stole a little time by lighting the joint and tossing the matches back on the coffee table.

"You went out to see him, didn't you?"

"What's the answer?" Bobby said.

"Before I can talk to you, you go out on your own and see the guy. Is that it?"

Bobby turned the revolver on his knee slightly, a couple of inches, and shot a pig off the coffee table-a blue ceramic jar shaped like a pig that seemed to explode from within because there was no sound relating the exploding fragments to the gun.

Alan sat up straight, his back against the wall, his eyes open. He said, "Bobby, listen to me for a minute, all right?"

"Man pull shit on me," Bobby said, "he got to be very brave or stoned out of his head." His gaze lowered, he pulled the trigger and shot a fairy-looking figurine he never did like off the coffee table. It flew apart, was gone, with bits of it landing in Alan's lap. "Which are you," Bobby said, "brave or stoned?"

"My mind is clear, man," Alan said. "Think about it a minute. How am I going to tell you with Leo sitting there? I called you later, you were gone. I called Doreen's, nobody answered."

"She was home." Bending his wrist, Bobby raised the trajectory of the revolver and shot two birds off a mobile hanging to Alan's left.

"All right, maybe she was home. I'm saying nobody answered, for Christ sake."

The barrel shifted past Alan to ten o'clock. Bobby squeezed the trigger and shattered the globe of a mood lamp hanging from the wall.

"You could be shooting into the next room, for Christ sake!" Alan said. "What if you hit somebody!"

Bobby sprung open the cylinder of the.38 and began reloading it, taking the cartridges from his coat pocket. "I'm going to hit somebody, you don't say what the man offer us. Last call," he said, snapping the revolver closed and putting it squarely on Alan. "How much?"

"You know as well as I do," Alan said. "Fifty-two thousand."

Bobby Shy smiled. "Don't you feel better now?"

"Look," Alan said, "how was I going to tell you if I can't find you?"

"Tell me now, I'm listening."

"All right, the man made us an offer. Fifty-two thousand, all he can afford to pay."

"You believe it?"

"I looked at his books," Alan said. "Yes, I believe him. The way he's got his dough tied up he can't touch most of it. He offers fifty-two. All right, let's take it while he still believes it'll save his ass. But-here's what we're talking about-what do we need Leo for?"

"I don't see we ever needed him."

"Leo spotted the guy. He did that much. But now he's nervous, Christ, you don't know what he's going to do next."

"So me and you," Bobby said, "we split the fifty-two."

Alan nodded. "Twenty-six grand apiece."

"And we go together to pick it up."

"And we go together to hit the guy, whether we do it then or later."

"All this time," Bobby Shy said, "what's Leo doing, watching?"

"Leo's dead. I don't see any other way."

Bobby Shy thought about it. "Yeah, he could find out, couldn't he?"

"We can't take a chance."

"Man's too shaky, ain't he?"

"Do it with the guy's gun," Alan said. "How does that grab you?"

"Tell Leo we want to use it on the man."

"Right. He hands it to you."

"I guess," Bobby Shy said, "seeing he's a friend of yours, you want me to do it."

"Not so much he's a friend," Alan said, "as you're the pro." He grinned at Bobby Shy. "Don't tell me how you're going to do it. Let me read it in the paper and be surprised."