Road Dogs

FIVE

LOU ADAMS, THE FEDERAL AGENT WITH "jACK FOLEY" IMprinted 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 plain 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."

John Dillinger would always be Lou Adams's favorite bank robber. Then Jack Foley because you had to give him credit, he was conscientious, never shot his mouth off, and made sticking up banks look easy. Lou threw in Willie Sutton because he was good conversation, famous for something he never said.

Okay, here was Lou's question to the general public:

"You all have heard of Dillinger, Jack Foley and Willie Sutton. Now let's see you name three agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who are as well known."

He'd give the general public J. Edgar Hoover, "And you can have his sorry ass. Now try to name two more. You like Eliot Ness? Me too, only he wasn't FBI. Let's see, how about Melvin Purvis? Your general public thinks about it and says, 'Melvin who?'

"Jesus Christ, he's only the guy who said to John Dillinger coming out of the picture show, 'Stick 'em up, Johnny, we got you surrounded' and Dillinger took off. Melvin Purvis held his fire. Three agents on the scene shot at Dillinger and he went down for good. It was never revealed which agent actually killed him. The same year," Lou said, "1934, Melvin Purvis was named the most admired man in America. It galled Hoover to the point of his forcing Melvin Purvis to resign. It was Melvin Purvis's buddies gave him a chrome-plated.45 as a farewell present, the same pistol Melvin Purvis used in I960 to blow his brains out.

"And that's where we are," Lou Adams said to his buddies. "Who the fuck's Melvin Purvis? The good guys fade from memory while the bad dudes catch the public eye and become celebrities."

Lou believed with all his heart he should get some attention before he retired. Look here, will you, I'm one of the fucking good guys. Will you watch what I'm doing? I'm gonna dog Jack Foley till he robs a bank. I mean it, take my leave, thirty days is all I need and put that sweetheart away for good.

He saw a prison guard — no, two of them over there unlocking the gates to let Foley out. It got Lou Adams sitting up straight behind the wheel. He watched Foley come through the gates and turn to give the hacks a wave-So long, boys, no hard feelings-showing the kind of ass-kissing sweetheart he was.

Lou got out and walked around the front of the Crown Vic he'd put through a car wash at 8 a.m. Came all the way around to lean against the right-side front fender and fold his arms, the way he'd seen himself doing it all morning, looking directly at the double gates by the administration building, to the right of the cars parked ahead of him in the row nearer the fence. He watched Foley come out past the cars to the aisle where Lou was waiting, watching him from a hundred feet away, watching him stop, Foley looking this way at Lou holding his pose, Lou reading Foley's mind now and saying to him, I told you, didn't I? Well, here I am, buddy. Want me to drop you somewhere? He watched Foley raise his arm and Lou raised his, a couple of old pros taking each other's measure.

Only Foley wasn't looking at him.

His gaze was down the aisle and Lou turned his head to see a car coming, Lou standing as a Ford Escort went past him, a woman with dark hair in a red Ford Escort, nice-looking. Now he saw the car from the rear slowing down, coming to a stop where Foley was waiting, Foley raising his arm again and looking right at Lou as he got in the Escort. Lou didn't raise his this time, hurrying to get in his car-the Escort out of view circling behind him-but there it was again, leaving the prison grounds. No need to hurry, he could keep it in sight.

The main thing was Foley saw him. It was the whole point of Lou being here this morning. Like telling Foley, See what I mean? Every day of your life I'm gonna be watching you. If Foley ever stopped to talk he'd tell him in those exact words: every fucking day of your life. Foley wouldn't believe him. How could he maintain a watch like that on one man, around the clock?

When he came up with the idea of how he'd work it, Lou told himself, You're a fucking genius, you know it?

He recalled now it was Foley's ex-wife Adele owned a Ford Escort. Divorced him while he was at Lompoc and here she was giving him a lift. The one Foley must've known he could count on. Honey, can you pick me up when they let me out of prison? Why sure, sweetheart. The kind of broad you could talk into doing whatever you wanted. At the office they had pictures of Adele in tights, nice jugs, taken when she was working for the magician, Emil the Amazing, disappeared from a cage and got sawed in half. Nice-looking broad, the dark hair, pure white skin, five-seven and about 140, plump compared to Lou's ex-wife Edie. A year ago divorced him and moved to Orlando with the two kids. Edie said because his job was more important to him than his family, why he was never home, and when he was all they did was argue. Man, women. They all had problems they imagined or made up. They didn't get their way they told you to take a fucking hike.

He'd get his Foley file out of the glove box and look up Adele's address in Miami Beach, on the south end of Collins Avenue, if she was still living there. Stop by and find out what she was doing with Foley, as if he didn't know, the guy fresh out of the can. She must still like him. Lou remembered she was not bad at all; he'd seen surveillance photos of her when they were looking for Foley, but only in person once: at Foley's trial, the first one, this nice-looking woman biting her nails waiting for the verdict.