Bandits

17

LITTLE ONE CAME OUT of the hotel kitchen to the back hall where Jack was using the pay phone, Little One saying he had a bone to pick with him, saying his good nature was being taken advantage of. Jack raised the palm of his hand to Little One while he said into the phone, “If you could come right away I’d appreciate it.”

Helene’s voice said, “You’d appreciate it? You’re not talking about just a drink, are you?”

“We can have dinner after, if you haven’t eaten.”

“After what? You call up at-what time is it?-almost eight-thirty, and ask me if I’ve eaten yet.”

“Have you?”

“I’m not hungry. I had a big lunch.”

“I was gonna call you earlier, but I had to go to Gulfport.”

“This guy takes me to Arnaud’s,” Helene’s voice said, “for a job interview. By the time we’re having our coffee he’s telling me how important compatability is and we should stop off at the Royal Sonesta after, continue the interview in a relaxed atmosphere. Which means if I go to bed with the guy I get an office with drapes, carpeting, and a word processor. I said, Gee, what I’ve always wanted, a word processor.”

“You get the job?”

“Listen, I was tempted. I have to be out of my apartment in ten days or else buy it; they’re turning the building into a condo. I’m thirty-two years old and I don’t have a job or a place to live.”

He felt sorry for her feeling sorry for herself, the poor girl. She wasn’t thirty-two, she was thirty-five, at least, married once before he met her, married again for about a year while he was in prison. What had either of them learned?

“I’ll meet you in the bar. And wear a dress, okay?… Helene?”

“You sound different. You’re the same, but there’s something, I don’t know what it is, different.”

“It’s been a long time,” Jack said. He told her to hurry and hung up.

Little One, waiting, said, “Now then.”

“I didn’t leave the key because I have to use it again. I told you I might. Remember?”

“And I said to you we was even, I don’t owe Roy nothing and I don’t need no unexpected shit coming down on my life.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen. There’s no way, I promise.”

Little One said, “There’s no way you going in the man’s room, neither, long as he’s in there.”

“I have to work on that… He have his dinner sent up?”

“Bottle cold wine was all, some shrimp. Man love his shrimp. Say he’s waiting on his car.”

“He’s being picked up?”

“No, the man bought a new car, brand new Mercedes. Told me he give ’em cash for it and they had to deliver it to him tonight or no deal. Man likes to talk about himself like that.”

“He say he was leaving?”

“Uh-unh, but it look like it.”

“How about the other two guys?”

“Haven’t seen ’em. They not staying here, they come by’s all.”

“Can you find out if the colonel’s checking out?”

“You don’t think they would look at me strange at the desk? How’m I suppose to ask ’em that?”

Jack said, “I wouldn’t think a Dale Carnegie graduate’d have any trouble at all.”

Little One served them drinks in the hotel courtyard, looking over Helene in her black dress with the little thin straps, giving Jack a look then but not saying anything. He walked off.

And Helene said, “You’re out of your mind.”

He was thinking this would be the place to begin an evening, let the soft glow and the sound of the fountain and a few drinks set the mood… But he said, “All I’m asking you to do is get him out of the room for ten minutes.”

“What do I do, pull him out by his hair?”

“You could, he’s a little guy.”

“The little guys are the worst; they’re more physical.”

“You go up to 501.” Jack’s eyes raised. “The top railing, that’s the fifth floor. See the alcove right by the elevator? That’s his suite. You knock on the door. He opens it. You say, ‘Oh, gee, I’m sorry. I have the wrong room.’ ”

Helene said, “ ‘Oh, gee, I’m sorry?’ ”

“ ‘I have the wrong room.’ ”

“You’re practically in the tree. Why don’t you pull your chair out so I can see you?”

“I’m okay.”

She said, “You’re hiding, aren’t you?” Picked up her scotch and water and continued to stare at him. “What’re you into, Jack?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“You said you quit.”

“I did. This’s something else. Okay. You say, ‘Sorry,’ you turn and walk away.”

“You’re not doing it for fun. I can tell.”

“You start to walk away, take a couple steps, you turn around… You listening?”

“I turn around.”

“You say, ‘Oh, if another girl comes, it’s a friend of mine. I told her I’d meet her, but I guess I have the wrong room.’ You understand? Then you say, ‘I’ll watch for her downstairs. But if I happen to miss her, would you tell her I’m down in the courtyard? Or else I’ll be in the bar.’ ”

“Do I have to say it word for word, Jack, or can I ad lib?”

“Any way you want, as long as you understand what you’re doing. You can’t just walk away. You have to let him know where you’ll be, so he’ll come looking for you.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“He will.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“You make him want to. The way you look… I don’t mean you roll your eyes, anything like that.”

“Flash my tongue?”

“You know what to do. You have guys coming on to you all the time.”

“But I don’t do anything.”

“Come on, you could be in the movies, all the different looks you turn on.”

“The guy’s a Latin?”

“From Nicaragua.”

“Is he cute?”

“He’s a doll, looks like a waiter at Antoine’s… Wears red Jockeys.”

“How do you know?”

“He comes down, you’re at this table. He offers to buy you a drink, you say, ‘Oh, no thank you.’ ”

“Why would I say that?”

“Why? You don’t know this guy. But he’ll keep after you and finally you say okay, one. You chat about this and that, how’re things in Nicaragua… Oh, try to get into talking about cars. Find out if he just bought a Mercedes, yeah, and how long he’s staying, when he’s checking out. Mention Miami if you can, see what he says.”

“I thought I was just suppose to keep him busy.”

“Well, you’ll be talking to the guy. You’re not gonna do card tricks, are you?”

“I could do a tap routine. On the table.”

“I only need ten, fifteen minutes. Or till you see me up there. I’ll stand by the rail for a minute. You tell the guy you have to leave or go to the can, whatever you want, and I’ll meet you across the street at the Sonesta, in the bar… Okay?”

“But what if he doesn’t come down?”

“I can’t believe it’s you saying that,” Jack said. “With your looks, those big brown eyes…”

“My nose. You always liked my nose.”

“I love it, I love your nose.”

“You like my hair like this?”

“It’s you.” It was. Her frizzed red hair was beginning to look good to him. “Helene, there’s nothing I can think of that could keep the guy from coming after you.”

She said, “Yeah, I guess.”

Colonel Dagoberto Godoy opened the door wearing his red Jockeys and a scowl that changed at once.

As Helene said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Gee, I have the wrong room,” and began turning away.

The colonel reached out and took hold of her arm in a grip that startled her and pulled her around to face him again. “You don’t have the wrong room. This is the room you want. You come to see a man, didn’t you?”

Helene said, “I happen to be staying in this hotel.” Cool, but not quite haughty. “I see now that I got off the elevator on the wrong floor. If you’ll be kind enough to let go of my arm and behave yourself, I won’t have to report this to the manager.”

She could, Helene was thinking, knee him in the crotch. Take some of the spunk out of the arrogant little asshole. But that wouldn’t get her a drink, would it?

She let the colonel tell her, “Oh, please, you must forgive me. You must let me show you how I’m a real nice guy…”

Jack stepped from the elevator to the hall railing and looked down into the courtyard. Helene was seated at the table again. The colonel stood over her talking, bowing over her, taking her hand, kissing it-Jesus Christ-holding onto her hand as he sat down, talking a mile a minute.

He turned and walked back past the elevator to 501, listened at the door, and then used the key to go in.

There was the bottle of wine Little One had delivered, open in a silver bucket. A bowl of melted ice and shrimp tails. Shrimp tails in ashtrays. Letters on the desk by the TV set, the same letters he saw the last time he was here.

Two packages of clean laundry on the bed. That could mean something. The light on in the bathroom. Towels on the floor. A bottle of cologne with the top off, on the wash-basin. Next to it a blow-dryer, the cord plugged into the wall. He didn’t want to be here.

He didn’t want to be here the other night when he came. But this time the urge to hurry up and get out was stronger, the feeling more intense that he was crazy to be doing this. He was too old to be doing this. He wasn’t the same person. He could feel it walking over to the dresser, his body telling him he shouldn’t be here. He felt slow. He had felt alive going into all those other rooms, to score but also to be doing it, to be in there-look at him-getting away with it. But that didn’t make any sense at all now.

It was a show-off thing to do you could only do in front of people who were asleep.

He opened the colonel’s shirt drawer, slipped his hand beneath folds of soft silk, and felt the pistol and two extra magazines. He brought them out, closed his hand around the grip of the Beretta, feeling the solid heft of it as he walked over to the desk. The pink copy of a car dealer bill of sale lay next to the bank deposit and withdrawal receipts.

Helene had to pick up her scotch and water with her left hand. The colonel, hunched over the table in his black silk jacket, wouldn’t let go of her right hand. He held it in both of his, the one with the diamond on top. He looked like a gangster in the movies. Or a record promoter, hard rock. Except when he spoke.

“I’ll tell you something from long experience. I have never seen a woman so attractive as you in my life.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that,” Helene said. “You’re exaggerating. Aren’t you?”

“I have had associations with very beautiful women. One of them was going to be in the Senorita Universo. You know of that? To choose the most beautiful woman in the world. But she got sick.”

“I was homecoming queen at Fortier,” Helene said, “my senior year. I probably could’ve been Sugar Bowl Queen one time, but I didn’t try very hard. You know, why bother? You get in those big pageants I hear it’s just politics. You know, who you go to bed with, and I’m not that kind. I have too much self-respect.”

“Politics, yes, of course. My whole life I devote to the government of my country. Yes, I was in Washington, I know your president very well. He wrote a letter to me I like to show you. He sign it Ronald Reagan, the president. Listen, I’ll get it to show you.”

“No, that’s okay, Dagoberda. What do you like to be called, Dago?”

“No, I prefer with my friends, Bertie.”

“That’s cute. I like that, Birdy.”

“No, not Birdy, like a bird. Bertie. Ber-tie.”

“That’s cute, too.”

“I think you the cute one. Listen, you visiting, uh? From where?”

“Miami.”

“No. Is that true? You from Miami?”

“Have you ever been there?”

“Sure, I been there. I’m going back there, too, pretty soon.”

“Are you? When?”

“You from Miami. You know what this is, how you come to my room and we meet? Is destiny. It was going to happen and we don’t know it. See, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.”

“It’s weird,” Helene said. “When’re you going?”

“You have to give me your phone number and your address, for when I go there.”

“Why don’t you give me your number instead?”

“I don’t know it yet.” He looked up, straightened, letting go of her hand. “Ah, but now I can get it for you, good.” And called out, “Crispin!”

Helene turned enough to see two men coming over from the lobby, both Latins in mod-cut suits with pointy shoulders. The one coming ahead of the other, hands in his pockets, had on sunglasses. Now the colonel was saying, “Crispin, this beautiful lady is from Miami. Elene, Crispin, my associate, is also from there. Crispin, sit with us, have a drink.”

Helene said, “Listen, you guys, I’m gonna have to run in about two minutes.”

Now the colonel was shaking his head, telling her he wouldn’t hear of it. She watched him snap his fingers, once, at the other Latin guy, who’d hung back holding his hands in front of him, but came toward them now as the colonel told him something in Spanish that sounded like an order and tossed his room key in the air for the guy to catch. There, do it. Then turned back to her smiling, Bertie again.

“He’s going to get the letter from President Reagan so I can show you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Helene said. “I really wish you wouldn’t.”

But the colonel was snapping his fingers now at the giant black waiter and the one named Crispin turned his sunglasses on her to ask, “Where you live in Miami?”

Jack went through the deposit and withdrawal receipts, saw nothing that looked like a transfer to a Miami bank, saw one new account that had been opened and copied all the figures down again, just to be sure. Several more names had been checked on the colonel’s prospect list, others crossed out. He came to the letter on White House stationery and began reading it again, wanting to memorize his favorite parts: the one where our president tells the colonel to “win a big one for democracy,” and the one where he mentions “my friends in the Pelican State.” Jesus Christ, the Pelican State. That closing, in Spanish, Jack had figured out to mean “he isn’t heavy, he’s…”

In the silence, concentrating, he heard the sounds coming from the other room. The key in the lock. Someone coming in, trying to, pushing on the door but having trouble with it. Trying again now. Jack picked up the Beretta from the desk. He moved around to the other side of the bed, by the window, eased down against the wall behind the headboard and hump of pillows and didn’t like it, the feeling of being cornered here. He’d rather be standing and thought of the closet with its sliding doors, closed now. They made a noise when you pushed them open. He’d have to move past the bedroom door to get to the closet. He’d have to hurry. Now he didn’t want to move.

Then did it all at once. Got up as he began to crawl, crossed toward the closet, looking into the sitting room and saw the door knob jiggle, saw it turn. He kept going, past the closet into the bathroom, turned off the light, eased the door half closed, and stepped behind it, against the tiled wall. He held the Beretta upright, almost touching the side of his face, listening.

It was quiet now.

It was dark in front of him, a crack of light along the inside edge of the door, next to him. He waited. He heard nothing until the door moved.

The door moved toward him. The bathroom light came on. The door moved away from him, closed, and he was looking at a head of dark hair, nappy, thick, above the sharp angles of the man’s suit coat, the shoulders hunching over the washbasin. Above the man’s head was his own reflection in the mirror. He watched himself bring the Beretta down from his face to extend it, almost touching the man splashing cologne into his hand. The Nicaraguan Indian with the weird name, rubbing his hands together, raising them to his face as his head came up. Now Franklin de Dios was in the mirror with Jack, the Indian who looked like a Creole. He stared, his fingers pressed to his pointy cheekbones, at the half face above his own. He brought his hands down, starting to turn.

Jack put the Beretta into the groove at the base of the Indian’s skull, into his hair, and that kept him looking straight ahead.

At first Jack bent his knees a little, trying to stay directly behind the Indian, trying to hide. But, shit, he had seen the Indian’s eyes. The Indian knew who he was. So he stood straight to play it straight, not having any idea what he was going to do other than try to fake it somehow, try to get this guy who’d killed Boylan more scared than he was. Shit. But even holding the gun against the guy’s head he didn’t feel in control. He wasn’t sure if the guy would do what he told him.

“Put your hands on the mirror.”

The Indian obeyed, leaned over the sink and placed his palms flat. He looked into the mirror again, past his own reflection, and seemed resigned. Jack reached around in front of him, ran his hand along the Indian’s belt and then up under his arms and felt perspiration but no gun. He felt his coat pockets. He stooped and ran his hand down one leg and started down the other when the Indian moved, tried to turn. Jack jammed the Beretta into the crack of the guy’s ass and heard a grunt as the guy’s hips jerked against the sink and he went up on his toes. Taking control was not as hard as it looked.

There was an ankle holster on the Indian’s right leg holding a two-inch .38 revolver. Jack slipped it into his coat pocket as he came up. Now they were looking at each other again in the mirror. Staring at each other: the Indian’s expression, Jack’s too, mildly curious, nothing more. Nothing to show Jack wondering what he was going to do with the guy so he could get out of here. It would be easier to shoot him than hit him over the head with two pounds of metal. How hard would he have to hit him? Shit, it could kill him, the Indian with the weird name, fracture his skull. Jack had hit guys before they hit him; it was the way to do it if it was going to happen. He could get mad, charge himself up in two seconds, all of a sudden have the desire, that aggressive urge to hit, and would hear himself letting go as he went in and hit, a sound that packed energy and was more than a grunt. He could turn the guy around and belt him and he could break his fucking hand, too. He hadn’t hit anybody in five years, at least.

Franklin de Dios said, “How you doing?”

Jack heard him. The weird-looking Indian was right there in front of him. He saw him say it. The same way he said it coming out of the Men’s room.

But Jack said, “What?”

“I wonder if you are a cop.”

Jack kept looking at him.

“But I don’t think so. Man, now I don’t know who you are. You drive that coach… Will you tell me something? That girl was in there, wasn’t she?”

Jack didn’t answer. The guy spoke with an accent, but without strain or any kind of emotion. The guy sounded as if he really wanted to know. It didn’t make sense.

“See, they never told me what that girl did, why they wanted to have her… If you not going to tell me, it don’t matter. You going to shoot me, uh?”

“You just do what you’re told, is that it?”

“They say you have to take orders.”

“You don’t seem to have any trouble with it. Shoot Boylan in the back, nothing to it.”

“Who is Boy-lon?”

“You mean you kill a guy, you don’t even know his name?”

Now the Indian’s face showed surprise, a glimmer of it, and then gone.

“After, maybe, yes, you can know who you kill. If you have time to look in the man’s pockets for food or for money.”

“For food?”

“Yes, and you see his name sometime. The guys that have army IDs. But what difference does it make? He don’t know you either. He could be looking in your pockets if you not lucky that day.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You going to kill me-do you know my name?”

Jack said, “You’re a weird fucking guy, Franklin,” and saw that glimmer of surprise again on the face in the mirror. “Take off all your clothes and get in the shower.”

Franklin de Dios nodded, moving toward the tub as he took off his coat. “Shoot me in there so there won’t be no blood.” He stepped out of his pants and they were looking at each other directly for the first time.

“We tie their hands behind them, make them kneel. They do that, too, the Sandinistas. I think everybody does it that way.”

“You’re talking about the war. Killing prisoners.”

“Yes, of course. Tha’s what you do.” The Indian’s shirt came off to show a muscular torso, green-striped boxer shorts. He looked over again. “Tell me how you know my name.”

Jack said, “Listen, I’m gonna step out for a minute. Turn the water on and get in. I’ll be right back.”

“I have to take my shoes off.”

“They get wet, what difference does it make?”

“Yes, you right. We always make them take their shoes off. But nobody is going to need these shoes. Unless, do you want them?”

“Will you get in the fucking shower?”

Jack stepped out of the bathroom, closed the door and waited. In a few moments he heard the shower go on. He pictured Franklin de Dios in there in his green drawers adjusting the faucets, not too hot, not too cold… Jesus, the guy accepting it, waiting to die.

The next ten seconds he spent at the dresser, opening the drawer, shoving the Beretta and the extra magazines under the guy’s shirts, then closing the drawer and walking off and then returning to the dresser-because it didn’t make sense to put the guy’s gun back, the guy was going to know he was here-and wasted another ten seconds thinking about it, Christ, hearing that shower going. He told himself, forget the fucking gun; started out again, stopped, dropped the key on the floor, and kicked it under the bed.

No more going into hotel rooms, never again.