Road Dogs

TWENTY

THEY GOT ON HER AGAIN THE NEXT DAY. FOLEY STOPPED BY as she was fixing breakfast for a change-Cundo saying the fucking eggs were too runny, the coffee was like water; Dawn saying, "Then hire a cook, you cheapskate."

It was an insult to his being a man, the little Cuban still a macho guy. Foley came in, Cundo told him to sit down, have a cup of watery coffee. Foley said no thanks, he came over to get the check.

Dawn said, "What check?"

"The one for ten thousand you picked up."

"You want to endorse it for us?"

"I'm giving it back."

"I get nothing for all the advice and counsel I gave her?" Foley turned to Cundo seated at the kitchen table. "Not once," Dawn said, "did she tell me she was faking, and I spent a lot more time with her than you did, Dr. Jack."

In this moment she was thinking she should pull back a little, and Cundo saved her from talking too much.

He said, "Give him the check."

"I have spent quite a lot of time on this failure."

"Give him the fucking check."

"You now do whatever Dr. Jack wants?"

"Don't call him that again," Cundo said. "Flip the fucking egg and go get the check."

She said to Foley, "You want me to tear it up?"

"I told you, I'm giving it back," Foley said.

"You think that'll get her pants off?"

"Jesus Christ," Cundo said, and put his hand flat on the table to get up.

Dawn laid the spatula on the range and left them.

"She wants that ten grand," Foley said.

"Keep it for yourself," Cundo said. "I won't have to give you an allowance. Last night she kept telling me the guy's ghost is in the house, whether the Karmanos woman was faking or not. I said to her, 'Honey,' in a nice way, 'will you please shut the fuck up.' Eight years inside I dream about her. I come out, she acts like she's my wife."

"It's none of my business," Foley said, "but I wouldn't let her put the houses in her name."

"She say something to you?"

"No, but I bet it's what she wants."

"The homes gonna stay with Little Jimmy."

"Watch she doesn't get too close to him."

"Last night when she don't shut up I slapped her a pretty good one across the face," Cundo said. "It stung my hand. I was sorry and tole her I try not to hit her again. But maybe I shouldn't have said that."

She came in the kitchen and handed Foley the check folded in half. He felt her hand touch his and saw her smile as she changed from a woman who was always right to a girl with green eyes circled in black, the way she was in some of the photos, having fun, with a serious intent.

"I might as well tell you," Dawn said, "what I was hoping to do with the money, get Cundo some new outfits so he'll look cool at his homecoming party, a big welcome-home blast, and invite everybody on the canal. It's a costume party, you have to wear a mask, since we don't know any of the people anyway. But, what'll make it the Venice party of the year, we have it on the roof."

"Costume party," Cundo said, "so she can do her Egyptian number. You have it on the roof, somebody'll fall off and kill themself."

"We string colored lanterns along the edge," Dawn said, "to show just how far you can go." She said to Foley, "What do you think?"

"About a bunch of masked drunks stumbling around forty feet from the ground…?"

"We can have it in the street, anywhere we want," Dawn said. "We have to celebrate Cundo's return."

Cundo said, "You want a party, you pay for it."

"We can talk about it some other time," Dawn said. "Remember, I'm fixing dinner this evening for my favorite guy. We want you to be here, Jack, and I've asked Little Jimmy. Oh, and I'm getting Tico to help me serve and clean up." She looked at Foley again. "You're going to see Danny later on?"

"For lunch."

"At her home?"

"Some place in Beverly Hills."

"So you might not make dinner."

"Jesus Christ," Cundo said, "he can keep the check or give it back and go to bed with the broad, it's his money, right? He can tear it up, he can give it to a bum, he can do anything he wants with it, so leave him the fuck alone, all right? Please."

Foley waited for Cundo to finish, said thanks, and asked if he could borrow the car.

"Take it, I'm not going nowhere."

Dawn said, "If you're picking Danny up…"

Foley said, "Yeah, at her house."

Dawn said, "She looks at the VW, garage paint on the front bumper-"

Cundo said, "Leave me out of this."

"Where my darling scrapes the bumper now and then driving into the garage-twice a day since he's been home. I see Danny look at the car, she says, 'Jack, why don't we take my Cadillac?' And gives you a half-assed reason why she doesn't want to be seen in a twelve-year-old VW."

"How do you know she drives a Cadillac?"

"Jack, come on."

What she said was, "Jack, do you mind if we take my CTS?"

Asking if it's okay, showing him more consideration than Dawn.

"The valet guys know my license plate. They like to take care me."

All Foley said was, "Sounds good," without saying why or knowing what a CTS was.

Dawn was right, it turned out to be a Cadillac. Foley liked the interior, with a screen that came up out of the instrument panel. He said, "You watch movies while you're driving?" Danialle said the video screen was in back. This one was a computer; it told how to get where you wanted to go and what was playing on the stereo. Foley said, "Yeah?" It was as much as he needed to know. He was wearing his shades for Beverly Hills, his drip-dry sports jacket over a black T-shirt. He felt good, liking the way he looked. Danialle had on hip-hugger jeans and a man's white dress shirt, the tails tied together in a way that gave Foley a look at her tan midriff and navel.

"You must spend a lot of time in the sun." "Alone by the pool," Danialle said, "with my grief. Thanks to you I'm beginning to feel like myself again." "I haven't done anything."

She glanced at him. "Are you sure?" And said, "I was thinking we could go to the Sunset Marquis or the Beverly Wilshire, avoid the crowds."

"Aren't those hotels?"

"They serve lunch, Jack." She said, "I thought of Spago," and brought a cell phone out of her straw bag. "If Wolfgang's there he'll find us a table. I wanted to call this morning, but the girls, my Asian twins-they put their hands over their mouths, fingers straight up, when they're talking about me-they're driving me bananas, absolutely sure Peter's ghost is still around." She pressed buttons on the cell and said, "Hi, this is Danny Karmanos. Let me speak to Wolfgang." She listened and said, "Too bad. Tell him when he comes out of hiding he missed his chance to meet America's foremost bank robber." She turned off the cell. "I'll try the Ivy."

Foley said, "I'd just as soon people don't know about me," bringing her check out of his coat, folded, the way Dawn had handed it to him. "And I'd like to give this back to you. Not that I don't appreciate it, but I didn't earn it."

She looked at Foley, stared for a moment, glanced at the road descending through Benedict Canyon and looked at him again, not saying a word as they crossed Sunset and now were going south on Canon.

Foley got as far as saying, "I remember you were writing the check-" and she cut him off.

"Shhhh, don't say anything, I'm thinking." "Where to have lunch?"

She didn't answer and they were both silent all the way through the busiest part of Beverly Hills, past shops and restaurants, bumper to bumper from Little Santa Monica to Wilshire where Danialle said, "That was Spago we just passed," and turned left saying, "I've thought of the perfect place," and turned south on Beverly Drive, "the menu's great and the location's ideal for what I have in mind." She said, "You do like Italian."

"Everybody likes Italian."

"There it is on the left, Piccolo Paradiso. They have my very favorite Italian wine, Amarone, and Norberto the maitre d' I think is in love with me." She turned into a lot next to First Bank of Beverly Hills, directly across from the restaurant. They sat in the car while she told him why she had an account at First Bank.

"I was meeting an agent at Piccolo's, the guy dying to represent me, couldn't wait to tell me why I should be with him. I got there first. I'm late, but not nearly late enough; I'm waiting for an agent. So I came over here and opened a checking account. I have one at Citibank too, across from Spago. I got back to Piccolo's and now the agent's waiting with his bottle of water. I say, 'Sidney, I'm so sorry I'm late.' Sidney said, 'Danny, I'd wait day and night for you.' In Hollywood, you never want to be the one waiting unless you can make a story out of it."

Crossing the street to Piccolo's, three empty tables on the sidewalk, she said, "You know who I saw the last time I was here? Billy Baldwin."

Foley took a moment to say, "No kidding."

"After lunch we'll stop in the bank and open an account for you. It'll only take a minute."

By the time they were having their risotto, one with sliced sausages, the other with spinach puree and pesto, and a bottle of Amarone…

Dawn was taking her walk, jogging when she wanted to make a show, got to Tico's aunt's house and took off her top. Tico came after her with the towel to grab her from behind, get his young arms around her-God, but he was just right, a horny youth in his prime, slim, a main event, and she told him, "Sweetheart, I want you so bad, but…we don't have time. Tonight's the big night."

Tico, moving the towel over her back and around to her ribs, her arms raised, said, "Tonight, uh?"

"What have we been looking for," Dawn said, "trying to decide how to approach the job? Go in with guns drawn or try to be a little more subtle. I was thinking it could be an idea we've already considered but decided no, because it looked too simple. There was one plan we had I looked at again. I remember how easy it looked except for one, well, drawback."

Tico said, "What is it we doing?"

All the ideas she'd whispered to him during the afternooners, and he didn't know what she was talking about, pressing himself against her.

"Tico, what is it we want?"

"Yes, Cundo's fortune. Yes, of course, and you see a way to make off with it?"

"Not take everything but enough." "Tell me how we do it." "It came to me-" "In a trance?"

"Out of the blue. I've been wearing myself out, becoming irritable, trying too hard to think of a foolproof way-"

"Yes, I remember-a way to slip a fortune, you said, out from under the old man."

"I never called him old," Dawn said. "He's old to you, but he isn't old. He pays attention. He has his guys who keep watch over his money, his accounts. He knows how to work things, and he's lucky."

"Tell me," Tico said, "what was it came to you?"

She turned in the towel to look at his face. "I can't believe it isn't the only thing you've been thinking about."

That got his white teeth grinning at her.

"See, I don't know," Tico said, "if you only talking or what. Since I have experience in this kind of business and you never stole anything before."

Still another one shoving the guy-thing at her.

"Tonight," Dawn said, "we take Little Jimmy away from Cundo. That's the first step."

"Yes…?"

"Without Cundo knowing we're doing it." It got him grinning at her again, nodding, trying to look into her eyes. He said, "Yes, I think I know how you going to do it." "No, you don't," Dawn said.

"I thought it might take a couple bottles of wine," Danny said, "to convince you it's yours," sounding to Foley a little surprised.

Or maybe disappointed, he wasn't sure. He had told her he was returning the check because he hadn't done anything to help her. "Dawn says she's positive there's a ghost in your house, but for all I know I'm working a con game." He held the check in his hand and waited for Danny to insist it was his, he earned it, something like that.

But she didn't. She said, "It's up to you," with kind of a shrug. "If you don't want it, tear it up." Foley took a moment.

He said, "I've never torn up money before," trying to smile, took a chance and held out the check. "You want to destroy ten thousand dollars, here."

She reached out to take it and he pressed the bank note between her fingers. Her fingers touched the check while she looked in his eyes and she had to smile feeling his grip on the check. To Foley the smile meant she was kidding, she wanted him to keep the check. He thought of saying he'd pay her back, and thought, Why do you want to fuck this up? Tell her thanks. She wanted him to have it because he was…fun. All Foley said was, "You win," and put the check in his pocket.

She said, "Good, you got me out of that nutty role I was playing. I was afraid to tell Dawn. I kept thinking if I don't tell the right person, word will get around I've lost it. I knew I could tell you and you'd understand. You didn't seem that interested in what you were doing, though you and I got along fine. But Dawn? I didn't have a good feeling about her."

"I told Dawn the ghost was your own idea and she said, 'Making up a story about a ghost doesn't mean there isn't one in the house.'»

"She believes there is?"

"She'd like to."

"Well, my maids believe it. And you know I believed you were actually a ghost catcher." Danny leaned on the table, close enough to Foley to look in his eyes. She said, "You know, there might be one after all."

"The rocking chair?"

"And other things that don't seem quite normal." "More paranormal?"

She said, "Listen to the ghost catcher. Have you ever thought of acting?"

He felt her moving in, coming at him now.

"To tell you the truth," Foley said, "I have played a part now and then, when I had to."

She said, "Oh, in prison, yes, of course," still close to him. "The kind of situation-a smelly, hulking convict, tattoos all over him, wants you to be his sweetheart? What do you do, kick him in the nuts?"

"He'd have to be a new arrival. I'd tell him I'm famous, known to the hacks and the population as the most artful bank robber in the known world, and if he tries to bend me to his will he'll do ninety days in the box."

"You just gave me the chills. If I told that to Wolfgang," Danny said, "you could get a table anytime you walked in."

"I'm known inside prison," Foley said, "and to some degree with FBI agents, but not the general public." He almost told her about the book Lou Adams was writing, over five hundred pages into it.

But Danny wanted to know if he'd ever robbed a First Bank, like the one across the street.

"I might've," Foley said, "but I'm not sure. I know I've never done that one." Trying to see the bank through the ornamental plants in front of Piccolo's.

"Would you sit here and case it?"

"I'd look it over from a car, not sitting here. Norberto tells the cops, 'Yes, of course I remember him, Mrs. Karmanos says is the most famous bank robber in America.' I'd pass on that bank anyway, the security guy sitting in front."

"I saw him as we got out of the car," Danialle said, "he's just some old guy they hired."

"Yeah, but he's a good kind of old guy. I saw him too," Foley said. "He's over seventy, weighs a hundred and forty pounds, wears white socks with his uniform and has a big.38 revolver on his belt he knows how to shoot. He took this job after he retired from the sheriff's office."

"You're guessing," Danialle said.

"I'll tell you another reason," Foley said. "In the past hour a cop car has driven past four times. One drove into the parking lot to turn around, instead of making a Uey, what he'd do if he was after somebody going the other way."

Danialle said, "There're cop cars all over Beverly Hills, and policemen on beats, and policewomen."

"I've noticed there's a lot," Foley said. "But you're right, I haven't been around here long enough to get local police customs straight."

The check came. Foley picked it up and she let him. He paid with his credit card balance running low. While he was signing Danny said, "If you want we can go over to First Bank, I'll tell them I have an account, so you won't have any trouble depositing the check."

"What I think I'll do," Foley said, "is deposit half of it and take the rest in cash. I don't walk out of a bank with at lease five grand, I feel like a failure."