The Big Bounce

8

HE LIKED BEING ALONE. Not all the time, but when he was alone, he liked it. He liked it now with the surf coming in and the wind stirring in the darkness. He could be alone on a beach anywhere. The houses back up in the trees were dark shapes that could be the huts of a village. The boats lying on the beach could be sampans used by the V.C. The word was they had brought in a load of mortars and automatic weapons, Chicom supplied by the Chinese, and he was on a one-man recon patrol up north of Chu Lai somewhere; get in and chart the V.C. ammo dumps and radio positions to the fleet sitting five miles out in the stream. It was funny people were afraid of the dark. What some guys did in the war, Underwater Demolition or the Special Forces guys, moving through the jungle at night with an M-16 and their faces black, one false step and you’ve got a pungi spike up your behind. And some people would be afraid to be out here. If you could buy the nerve to sneak up on people who were waiting to kill you, then it wasn’t much to sneak up on people who were afraid of the dark. It was funny, but it was also a good thing people were afraid of it.

You got used to it, that was all. You made up your mind you were going to be good at it and not panic. It was something you developed in your mind, a coolness. No, cooler than cool. Christ, everybody thought they were cool. It was a coldness you had to develop. The pro with icewater in his veins. Like Cary Grant. Pouring champagne for the broad or up on the rooftop and the guy with the steel hook instead of a hand coming at him, he’s the same Cary Grant. No sweat. That was good when he threw the guy and as the guy fell his hook scraped down the metal slant of the roof, making sparks.

Cary Grant was a good jewel thief. But it never showed what he did with the jewels after he stole them. There was an Armenian guy in Highland Park who would take TV sets, clothes, furs, things like that; but what if you brought him a $100,000 diamond necklace? “Harry, I got this $100,000 diamond necklace. What’ll you give me for it?” Could you see Harry?

But no more of that. Without a car and 150 miles from a pawnshop, they could keep their TV sets and suitcases. No, no more of that anyway.

During the time he had worked with the colored guy, Leon Woody, they would look for the easy ones first: newspapers on the front steps, or houses that were dark in the early evening with the shades down, or houses where the lawns needed to be cut. They would make notes on the houses they liked. They would note down what lamps were on at what time, and if the same lamps were on two or three nights in a row-one or two downstairs and one up-they would go to the front door and ring the bell and if no one answered, they’d go in.

Leon Woody’s favorite way was to go up to a house in the afternoon and ring the bell. If someone answered, he would tell the person they were looking for odd jobs-painting or wall washing or cleaning up the yard. The person, the lady, would almost always say no, and Leon Woody would ask about the people next door, if the lady knew if they were home or not. Sometimes the lady would say no, they were away for the summer or in Florida, handing it to them. Leon Woody would shake his head slowly and say, “Doggone, we is sure doin’ poorly,” putting on his dumb-nigger act but looking at Ryan and just barely almost smiling. If the lady did have work for them, Leon Woody would say, “Oh, thank you, ma’am. We sure do ‘preciate it. But seein’ it’s so late, maybe we best come back in the morning.” And walking away from the house, he would say to Ryan, “In the morning, she-it.”

If no one answered, they would park in the drive and knock at the back door. If still no one answered, they would go in, usually through a basement window, and look for luggage first, something to put stuff in. Then they would walk out the front door carrying the suitcases full of clothes, fur coats, silver, and the TV’s and radios-whatever they thought was worth taking-and throw it in the car.

They had always stayed cool during the B & E’s, not showing each other anything but feeling it inside. One would never say to the other, “Come on, let’s go.” Or look anxious to get out. The idea was to walk through it, take your time, pick up what you wanted. Once Ryan walked into the den and Leon Woody was sitting down reading a magazine with a drink in his hand. That was about the coolest until the afternoon the guy came with the dry cleaning. Ryan went to the door: he took two suits and a topcoat from the guy, thanked him, and put the clothes in a suitcase. Thanking the guy was the touch. It was a hard one to beat. Leon Woody came close the time he answered the phone and the guy calling wanted to know who the hell this was speaking and where his wife was. Leon Woody said, “Waiting for me up in the bed, man. Where do you think?” And hung up. They gave themselves a few more minutes, just enough time, and were up in the next block when the cop car pulled in front of the house.

Once Leon Woody brought along a set of power tools he had stolen somewhere and they plugged into the porch light and drilled the lock out of the front door. Ryan said it made too much noise. Leon Woody said yeah, but it seemed more like the professional way. It was good to vary the style, he maintained, so all your B & E’s didn’t look alike. He was a funny guy, a tall skinny jig who had played basketball in high school and got college offers but couldn’t pass the entrance exams even at the jock schools. Leon Woody’s problem was heroin. He was strung out most of the time Ryan knew him and it was costing him fifteen, twenty dollars a day. But he was a good guy and he would have gotten a kick out of the job Sunday, walking into the house with fifty people out in front eating hamburgers.

There were lights in the darkness, but they were pinpoints, cold little dots off somewhere in the night, as far away as stars and not part of the beach, not part of now.

There was another light, faint orange, above him. The lake frontage had climbed gradually from the low rise at the Bay Vista to a steep bluff above the beach: a brush-covered slope rising out of the sand and lined every two hundred feet or so by wooden stairways that reached up into the darkness.

Ryan stared up at the slope as he walked along, as the realization that he was wasting his time sunk in and became a fact. Finally he stopped. He should have stayed in bed. What was he supposed to do, guess which stairway led to her place? Then what, if you found it? Go up and knock on the door and act casual and say, “Hello, I just happened to be walking by.” The hell with it.

Nancy watched him. Above him, up on the bluff, she had watched him pass. She had watched him stop and stand for a moment gazing up the slope; now he was coming back. Nancy walked into the orange glow of the post lamp-a girl in a dark sweater and shorts and sneakers-and out of it, a dark figure again moving down the stairs to the beach.

She waited, one hand on the railing. He was staring up at the slope and not until he was almost even with her did his gaze drop and there she was, stopping him only a few strides away.

“Well, Jack Ryan,” Nancy said. “What a surprise.”

Ryan walked up to her and she didn’t back away or shift her position. She was at ease. She had been waiting for him, expecting him, and he could feel it.

“I was taking a walk,” Ryan said.

“Uh-huh.”

“You think I was looking for you?”

“Uh-unh, you were taking a walk.”

“Just up the beach, nowhere special.”

“I believe it,” Nancy said. “Do you want me to walk with you?”

“I was going back.”

“Why don’t you relax a little?”

Walking along the beach, doing something, he felt better; though he was still aware of himself walking along next to her. They didn’t talk much at first, just little probing introductory questions that Nancy asked about the migrant camp and Camacho and picking cucumbers. He answered them simply: The camp was okay. He didn’t worry about Camacho. Yes, picking cucumbers was hard work. They stopped to light cigarettes and he felt her hair against his cupped hands as she leaned in and saw her face clearly for a moment in the glow of the match. She was really nice looking. The rich girl in the movies.

“You look like somebody in the movies,” Ryan said.

“Who?”

“I can’t think of her name.”

“What type is she?”

“Like you. Dark hair, long.”

“Is she sexy?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“What was she in?”

“I can’t remember right off.”

“I probably didn’t see it anyway. I don’t go very often. Just sometimes.”

They walked along in silence and Ryan said, “Do you watch any television?”

“Hardly ever. Do you?”

“If it’s something good.”

“Like what?”

“A war movie, something like that. Or spy stuff.”

“Wow, real-life fakey drama.”

“They don’t have to be true, long as they’re good.”

“They’re boring.”

“Well, what do you like, then?”

“Doing something.” She looked up at him with the dark hair slanting close to her eye. “Something that makes an impression. Something that leaves a mark.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. A bullet maybe. That would be a good clean example.”

“Shoot somebody?”

“Shoot something-hear it go off.”

“How about dynamite?”

“Beautiful. I think dynamite would really be fun.”

“But you have to put in your detonators and wire the charge and string the wire out-how about a grenade?”

“Oooo, a grenade, yes! Just pull the pin and throw it.”

“Or hook it up to a trip wire,” Ryan said. “As a joke.”

“I think I’d rather throw it,” Nancy said. “The other way you might have to wait too long.”

“Okay, but where’re you going to throw it?”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Nancy said. “I picture throwing it up on a porch or through a window. Isn’t that funny?”

“A guy was telling me, during World War Two the Japs would send these Geisha girls over to our lines bare naked but with grenades under their arms; then they’d come in and the American guys would tell them to put up their hands and wham.”

“Do you believe that?”

“A guy told me that was there.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Why not?”

“Why would they walk in? Why not just throw them?”

“Because they were ordered to. The Geisha girls.”

“Why no clothes? I think your friend’s putting you on.”

“He’s not a friend. He’s just a guy I know.”

“I’ll bet he wasn’t even there,” Nancy said.

“I don’t care,” Ryan said. “Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t. I don’t care one way or the other.”

Nancy was looking up the slope. She stopped, her gaze holding on the bluff, and Ryan stopped with her. “How about rocks?” she said then. “What if we used rocks and pretended they were grenades.”

“And do what?”

“Throw them.”

“You want to throw rocks.”

“Find some, come on.”

A nutty broad. God, looking for rocks. Very seriously in the dark looking for rocks. It was a dumb thing to do, but he was feeling pretty good now. “Little rocks or big ones?”

“I think a little smaller than my fist,” Nancy said. “They shouldn’t be too heavy.”

“No,” Ryan said. “You can’t have them too heavy. How many you need?”

“Just a few. We’ll make them count.”

Very nutty broad. They took their rocks and went up the next stairway they came to, up to the lawn of a house that was totally dark, partly obscured, and shadowed by trees and shrubbery.

“They’re probably at the club,” Nancy said, her voice low and close to Ryan.

“You know them?”

“I don’t think so. Everyone along here belongs.”

“You’re going to throw a rock at that house?”

“Uh-huh, right through the picture window.”

“Why this house? If you don’t know them-”

“Because it’s there,” the girl said.

“Maybe they’re asleep.”

“What difference does it make?”

They were crouched on their knees at the edge of the bluff. As the girl rose Ryan held her arm with the back of his hand.

“Wait a minute. What do you do after you throw it?” He had taken his sneakers out of his back pockets and was putting them on now.

“I don’t know. Run, I guess. Don’t you run?”

“Where? You got to know where you’re going. You got to have a plan.”

“We’ll keep going around to the front.”

“To where?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just stick with me, Jackie.”

Jackie. Man, he started to think, what are you doing here? But Nancy was up, running crouched across the open lawn, and he was following her, running crouched because she was. It was dumb. There was no reason to hunch your shoulders. You walked in and walked out. Hunching your shoulders didn’t make it work better. You don’t hide hunching your shoulders.

Nancy stopped within twenty feet of the picture window, which would cost three hundred dollars to replace, and threw the rock in her left hand, throwing it like a right-handed man throwing left-handed. The rock fell short, landing in the shrubbery. “Damn!” Nancy said the one word clearly. She moved in closer, somewhat crouched, turning sideways and throwing in the same motion, and the picture window, a dull reflection in the night, exploded in a shower of glass. She was gone, somewhere around the left side of the house. Ryan raised the rock in his right hand shoulder-high; he started in set to throw as he would for a play at the plate. What the hell are you doing? he thought, and threw in a quick, short motion, not looking at the window, and heard the rock strike somewhere inside the house as he took off after the girl.

“Here!” A whisper hissed from the pines near the road.

She was out of breath, her shoulders moving as she breathed. As Ryan reached her she said, “Did you hear it?”

“Did I hear it? They heard it in Geneva.”

“Loud? Wow. Imagine a real grenade.”

“You know, you throw like a girl. It’s funny, I didn’t think you would.”

“Did any lights go on?” She was looking out through the branches, calming down now.

“I don’t see any. I guess you’re right, they’re at the club.”

She looked up at him. “Let’s do it where people are home.”

“You think that’d be fun, uh?”

“See their reaction.”

“Just stand around and watch.”

“I don’t know.” An irritable little edge in her voice. “Let’s pick the house first.”

The Pointe was old and overgrown with trees, a village of comfortable homes in the north woods, large homes set back from the elm trees that lined the beach drive, smaller but expensive homes on the winding lanes among dense pines and stands of birch. There were more houses than Ryan had pictured, dim shapes now in the tree darkness, soft lamplight showing windows and screened porches beyond well-groomed lawns. Here and there in driveways Ryan picked out the metal shine of automobiles, but there were no cars moving, no headlights creeping along the drive or coming suddenly through the trees. In his mind it seemed quieter than naturally quiet after the shattering sound of the window.

They followed the row of elms, drawn toward the house lights, Nancy leading, then quickly across the road to the pines that bordered one side of a two-story brick and frame Colonial.

“You like it?” Ryan asked.

“I don’t know.” She studied the house for a time. “Lights but no people.”

“They’re in back. In the kitchen. They’re having a glass of milk before they go to bed.”

“Let’s give them one anyway. For practice.”

She didn’t hesitate. She took off across the lawn on an angle that would take her within twenty feet of the house; she crossed the walk that led to the front door, stopped and turned to throw left-handed. In a natural forced-play-at-second position he threw hard sidearm and heard his window explode a half count behind Nancy’s: one-two, but almost as one sound. He followed her into the trees on the other side of the yard and they worked their way back to the road, crossing quickly to the elm shadows.

“There,” Ryan said. “Coming out the front door.”

They watched the man standing in the porch light, coming down to the walk and looking around, then going over to the two windows. Within one of the broken windows they could make out another figure, a woman.

“She’s telling him to come in the house,” Ryan said. “She’s saying come in, you don’t know who’s out there in the dark.”

“Just us chickens,” Nancy said. “I’d like to really hear what they’re saying. We’re too far.”

“He’s going in to call the cops now.”

“You think he will?”

“What would you do?”

“Yes, I suppose. Hey, what if we wait for the police car and when it comes-zap-zap.”

“What if we went and got a beer?”

“We have to get closer to one,” Nancy said. “Come on.”

She moved off again through the tree shadows with Ryan behind her, watching her legs and the ground, stopping close to her when she stopped, putting his hand on her shoulder and feeling her collarbone, frail beneath his fingers. She smelled good; not of perfume but maybe powder or soap. She smelled clean.

“There it is,” Nancy said. “Perfect.”

He followed her gaze across the road and the deep lawn to the new-looking, low-roofed house trimmed with grille work and bathed in a soft gray-pink spotlight rising out of the shrubbery. Dim lights showed in every room and on the screened porch that extended along the right side of the house, facing a stand of birch trees.

“A quiet party,” Nancy said. “A few friends over for a tightener after dinner.”

Ryan counted five on the porch. Three women. A man appeared from inside the house, coming out with a glass in each hand.

“Fresheners,” Nancy said. “Tighteners and fresheners. Sometimes drinkees or martin-eyes.”

“Duck,” Ryan said.

Headlights, turning onto the drive, swept the trees. Close to them, as the car hurried past, they saw the Sheriff’s Patrol insignia on the door. The car’s rear lights moved into the darkness and, a block from them, turned bright red.

“They’ll be there ten minutes,” Ryan said. “Then start prowling.”

“How do they expect to find anybody in a car.”

“They have to go through the motions.”

“Dumb official nothing.”

“What?”

“Listen, this time you go around to the back of the house and put one through the kitchen window,” Nancy said.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you get it?”

“You’ll be in the trees by the porch watching?”

“Very good.”

“We’ll only have about five minutes.”

“All we’ll need.”

“Wait a minute,” Ryan said. “I don’t have any more rocks.”

Nancy handed him one. “If you promise to pay me back.”

She moved off. Ryan watched the two red dots of light down the street as he crossed over. There were bushes here separating the houses, and a tall hedge. He moved along close to it, along the edge of the yard all the way to the house, then across the backyard, partly lit by the kitchen and breakfast room windows, to the side of the garage. If he ever ran into Leon Woody again, if Leon Woody ever got out of Milan and he ran into him, he’d say to Leon, “Hey, man, I got a new thing.” Leon Woody would say, “What’s that, man?” And he’d say, “Breaking windows, man. You go around at night breaking windows.” And Leon Woody would say, “Breaking windows. Uh-huh, yeah, that sounds pretty good, man.” For Christ sake, Ryan thought, and threw the rock through the window before he could think about it anymore.

He stepped back to the corner of the garage, partly behind it, and watched. When the man appeared in the kitchen-the man coming in and looking around and not knowing what to expect, and now the rest of them coming behind him-Ryan left. He went into the birch trees and worked his way up along the porch side of the house. He tried to pick out the girl among the trees, the shape of her in the darkness. He came up even with the porch. The girl wasn’t in the trees.

She was on the empty porch. She had a bottle in her hand and two glasses, trying to pick up something else. Finally she put the bottle under her arm. Then with the two glasses in one hand and an ice bucket in the other and the bottle under her arm she pushed open the screen door with her fanny and walked across the lawn toward Ryan at the edge of the trees. See, Leon, you don’t just bust the windows. You bust them and then you go in and steal a bottle of whiskey and some ice. And Leon Woody would say, “Uh-huh, sure, man, you got to have the ice.”