The Big Bounce

2

“THERE IT IS,” Billy Ruiz said. “It’s brown, you can’t see it much in the trees.”

“I see it,” Ryan said.

“The people with the sailboat? They’re from the house. And the ones making the fire, I think.”

“How many would you say?”

“I don’t know. Twenty cars. Frank say they must have start coming before noon.”

“I like it so far,” Ryan said. He was smoking a cigar, a thin one that was now half smoked. He looked all right with it because he was at ease; his jaw clamped it lightly and he didn’t fool with it or keep blowing out smoke.

They were walking along the shoreline where the water would wash in and leave a strip of sand wet and smooth. They walked barefoot with their pants rolled to their knees and sneakers in their back pockets; they wore sunglasses and peaked fishing caps and walked along taking their time, taking it easy, two guys from one of the cottages or the public beach out getting a little exercise, looking around at the boats and the people on the beach, looking at the cottages that were up on the slope, back a good two hundred feet from the water. By now most of the swimmers and sunbathers had gone in, though there were children still playing and digging in the sand and a few people walking along the shore.

“How would you like some of that?” Billy Ruiz said. “The red two-piece.”

“Maybe in a couple of years,” Ryan said.

“Man, young and tender.”

“There’s one.”

The girl was coming down from a beach-front store. She wore sunglasses and a white sweatshirt that reached to her tan thighs and covered her bathing suit.

“You can’t see what she’s got,” Billy Ruiz said.

“She moves nice.”

“Now you can see the house good,” Billy Ruiz said.

The house was a brown-shingled, two-story house that seemed as old and permanent as the pines closing in on it. A square of white interrupted the dim look of the house, a sign, a canvas banner strung between two of the porch posts. It became a sign as they drew nearer the house.

ANNUAL ALPHA CHI ALUMNI OUTING-red letters on the white field. There were a few people on the porch, but most of the alumni and their wives seemed to be on the beach; in a gypsy camp of lounge chairs and beach towels or in small groups standing by the beached sailboat and around the cookfire they were building, each one holding, elbow at his side, a paper cup or a bottle of beer.

“I like it,” Ryan said. He squinted toward the house, chewing a little on the end of the cigar.

“We better cut up, uh, before we get there?”

“No, we’ll walk past. Then up through the trees.”

“I wouldn’t mind another beer.”

“Just take it easy.”

They approached the group by the sailboat. Billy Ruiz started to walk out into the water to go around them, but Ryan touched his arm and he followed Ryan past them on the beach side, Ryan pausing to look at the fiberglass catamaran hulls of the boat and Billy Ruiz thinking, God, he’s going to talk to them. When they were beyond the people, Ruiz said, “You want them to see you?”

“I never saw a boat like that,” Ryan said. “You see it? Like two hulls.”

“Man, why don’t you ask them for a ride?”

Ryan grinned with the cigar in his mouth, glancing back at the house. “Come on, this is far enough.” And now they crossed the beach, climbing the rise to a deserted stretch of frontage that was overgrown with brush and young pines. They stopped to put on their shoes, then made their way through the trees to the private drive behind the cottages. They could hear cars passing on the highway, the Shore Road off beyond a stand of trees, but they couldn’t see the cars from here. The private drive was good and private: no cars except for the ones parked near the brown house, parked in the yard and on both sides of the road and in front of the sign nailed to a tree. YOU’RE HERE! the sign said, and something smaller beneath the two words.

“A nice turnout,” Ryan said. “A nice active group.”

Billy Ruiz was looking up the drive toward the cars. “That goddamn Pizarro,” he said.

Ryan felt a little tight feeling in his stomach, but it was natural and there wasn’t anything you could do about it; he stood at ease with his hands in his pockets and watched Billy Ruiz: Ruiz squinting and frowning, his bony shoulders hunched, walking a few steps and turning, kicking a stone, pulling a cigarette out of his shirt pocket now, and taking three matches to light it.

It was about a quarter after four. If he had left the camp by one, he would be in Detroit now. But Pizarro and Billy Ruiz had talked him out of it. They had stopped in a place about noon for cigarettes and all these guys were in the store buying cases of beer and ice and all kinds of mixes. Pizarro and Billy Ruiz had followed them to the house on the beach and there it was, man, waiting for them, just like they had talked about it over the wine and tequila all those Saturday nights. Man, he couldn’t go home now. Later, maybe. Now he had to at least look at it. So they had picked up a case of cold beer and had driven past the place, out to the state park, where they drank three beers each and talked about it, Ryan wanting Pizarro to go in the house with him but Pizarro insisting that he drive the truck because it was his truck. (“You can drive after,” Ryan had said. But Pizarro had said no, “I drive it all the time. Nobody else.” “Frank,” Ryan had said, “if Billy dents the son of a bitch, we’ll pay you for it.” No, Pizarro wasn’t having any of that. “I drive,” he had said, “nobody else.”) All right, Ryan had thought. No arguing. It would have been good to let him have one in the mouth and wake him up, but the better thing was to get it over with and get out. So he and Billy Ruiz had taken off down the beach.

“He’ll be here,” Ryan said now.

“He don’t know we’re going to take so long.”

“Then, what’re you blaming him for?” As he said it they heard a car door slam and saw the car backing out of the yard behind the brown house. It moved off in the other direction.

Billy Ruiz stood rigid. “Where is he going?”

“He’s going to get some mustard,” Ryan said. “They brought the charcoal and the hamburger and the paper plates, but his wife forgot the mustard.”

He was watching the car and saw it edge close to the side of the road as Pizarro’s panel truck, coming this way, squeezed past. “Here comes a friend of ours,” Ryan said. He heard Billy Ruiz let his breath out in a sigh of cigarette smoke and both of them stood waiting for the truck.

“You were supposed to be here,” Pizarro said. “I come by before, you’re not here.”

“It took longer than we thought,” Ryan said. “All right?” The first and last time, he was thinking, and said to Pizarro, “You wait here. If somebody comes, you still wait here.”

“What if it’s cops?”

“What if we forget the whole thing?”

“Listen, I want to be sure. That’s all.”

“Who’s sure?” Ryan said. He went to the back of the truck and brought out the beer case. The full bottles and empties had been taken out. He glanced at Billy Ruiz and the two of them walked away from the truck toward the brown house, Ryan still with the little stub of cigar in his mouth.

“What if somebody’s watching?” Billy Ruiz asked.

Never again, Ryan thought. He said, “Billy, what are we doing? We’re delivering beer.”

They walked past the cars parked in the road, cut between them, and were in the yard. “Here’s where you wait,” Ryan said. “You watch for the sign. If I don’t give you the sign, you don’t come. But if I give it to you, then you come now, you understand?”

Billy Ruiz nodded, concentrating. He watched Ryan go up a narrow aisle between the cars parked in the yard, carrying the beer case now with both hands as if it were full. He watched Ryan step up on the porch, put the case down, and knock on the screen door. Ryan waited. He put his face close to the screen, shading out the light with one hand. He picked up the case again and went inside.

Billy Ruiz waited. This, he knew, would be the worst part. He heard cars on the Shore Road beyond the trees. He turned and looked up and down the private drive and saw Frank Pizarro standing by the truck, looking this way. Get inside! God, the idiot, standing there! Ruiz’s gaze swung to the house and now there was no time to worry about Frank Pizarro. Ryan was standing in the doorway motioning to him. He hurried past the cars and up onto the porch, trusting Ryan now, putting it all in his hands.

Ryan picked the cigar stub from his mouth and drew Billy Ruiz close to him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Somebody’s in the living room,” Ryan said. “But I think we’re all right. It’s at the end of the hall and the stairs are about halfway. I go up first. You bring the case and follow me but not right behind. If you hear me talking to anybody, walk out. I mean walk.”

That was it. Simple. Like a huddle in a touch football game. You go out deep and cut. You go short and buttonhook. I’ll throw to whoever’s clear. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t.

Billy Ruiz followed Ryan through the kitchen he had never seen before to the hall and now heard a voice in the living room, a woman’s voice, and laughter. The hall was dim, but the stairs were in light that came through two windows at the landing. He saw Ryan go up and turn the corner. He followed and when he reached the upstairs hall, Ryan had already found the room where the men of the Alpha Chi alumni had changed into their bathing trunks. Ryan stepped in and locked it.

“Look in the bathroom,” Ryan said. He took the beer case from Ruiz and placed it on the bed, laid his cigar stub in an ashtray on the nightstand, and began going through the shorts and trousers on the bed and chairs and on the dresser, removing the wallets and dropping them in the beer case, then checking the pockets for loose bills; he did not take silver. He looked around the room as he fished through the pockets, noticing the two windows that would be at the side and the back of the house. Good. The back window would open onto the porch roof.

“Another bedroom,” Billy Ruiz said. He seemed surprised, but part of it was fright. “The women’s clothes are in there.”

“I’ll check it,” Ryan said. “You wait here.” He moved through the bath to the adjoining bedroom, closed the door to the hall and locked it and turned to the clothes on the bed, in neat piles and messy piles, just as the men’s were. Who goes with who? Ryan thought. That would be something if you had time. Try to match them up. There were seven purses on the dresser; he carried them into the men’s bedroom and dropped them on the bed and began removing the wallets from those that had wallets and checking side pockets for rolled-up wads of bills. They would take all the wallets and go through them later.

When he had cleaned out the purses, he took them back to the women’s bedroom. Just once have all the purses in one place. Man. Seven here, the rest would be scattered all over the house and when it’s time to go, a couple of the women, half loaded, will be running around saying, “I can’t find my purse.” And the guy, more in the bag than his wife, will say, “Well, where did you put it?” He checked sweater pockets quickly but found nothing except tissues and a couple of combs.

He paused in the bathroom to open the medicine cabinet. It was funny about medicine cabinets-all the stuff in them, medicines and cosmetics he had never seen before. He took a bottle of Jade East from the shelf and studied the label going into the bedroom.

Billy Ruiz looked at him, still with wide-open eyes. “What are you doing?” Ryan was rubbing the after-shave lotion over his jaw.

One of Ryan’s fingers, upright, moved to his mouth and he stood still. He waited, and then began rescrewing the cap gently and dropped the bottle to the bed. There was a sound from the stairs. Steps now in the hall. The doorknob turned.

Ryan, on the far side of the bed from the door, saw the doorknob and Ruiz’s expression at the same time. Get to him, Ryan thought. Get a hand on him. He moved quietly to Ruiz’s side at the foot of the bed and touched his arm, held it.

The knob turned again, back and forth; the knob was jiggled, pushed, and pulled.

“Hey, who’s in there?” A pause. “Come on, let me in.”

Ryan waited. He said, “Just a minute,” and moved to the closet and began going through the sweaters and sport coats and pants hanging inside. He found three billfolds and put them in the beer case.

“What’re you doing? I got to go to the bathroom.”

“Use the other one.”

“Hey, who is it?”

“Look, we’ll… get out if you’ll go away.”

“Who’s we?”

Silence. Let it sink in, Ryan thought. He wants to say something, but now he’s not sure.

Ryan waited until he heard steps in the hall and a door close-the other bathroom. Now, Ryan thought, he’ll open it again quietly, the son of a bitch, and wait to see who comes out. How about a guy like that?

“Time to go,” Ryan said. He moved to the back window that looked out on the porch, unfastened the screen, and motioned Ruiz to get the beer case. They climbed out. Ryan went down on his stomach at the edge of the roof and listened, not moving. After this he did not hesitate again; he rolled over the edge holding the gutter and dropped. Billy Ruiz lowered the beer case to him and followed and they went into the brush and trees at the side of the house, pointing now toward the private drive and Pizarro’s truck. They walked, they didn’t hurry; they walked because Ryan said that’s the way it was done.