Authors: Elmore Leonard
“Wait a minute. Who’s Marta?”
“Marta Diaz, the maid. Sister of Jesus.” Vivian pronounced the name Hay-soos.
Roland said, “Sweet Jesus working on this?” and pronounced it Jesus. “I never knew he had a sister. I never knew
what
he had. He don’t talk hardly at all.”
Vivian said, “Listen, all right? The recorder is in Marta’s room. Every night she takes the cassette out and gives it to Jesus.”
“Then what?”
“Then—he was bringing it here, but now he gives it to you and you listen to it. You write down the names of men she talks to. If it looks like she’s got something going with one of them, you find out about him, go see him, tell him Mrs. DiCilia would like to be left alone. You understand? You don’t hit anyone unless you ask us first.”
“For how long?”
Vivian shrugged. “Long as she lives, I don’t know. She’s not to see anyone in a serious way that she might go to bed with.”
Roland squinted, like he was looking into sunglare. “Grossi want her for himself?”
“It’s not his idea, it’s the husband’s.”
“The man’s dead.” Still squinting.
“Is that right? But people still do what he
wants,” Vivian said. “He wants his wife to remain pure, true to him even after death, and we see to it.”
“That’s a good looking woman,” Roland said.
“Yes, very stylish.”
“And she’s not getting anything? Jesus, she must be dying.”
“Everyone isn’t a sex maniac,” Vivian said.
“You don’t have to be wild with the notion to want some poon.” Roland saw the poor woman alone in her house at night, looking out the window. “Maybe she has some boy sneak in, give her a jump.”
Vivian shook her head. “Marta says no one stays, they don’t go in the bedroom.”
Roland was thinking, You don’t have to do it in the bedroom. Shit, he’d done it in a car trunk, in sand, weeds, an air boat in the middle of Big Cyprus Swamp, one time right on the Seventy-ninth Street Causeway like she was sitting on the railing . . . on floors—all kinds of floors, carpet, linoleum—on a table— He’d never done it on a glass table though.
Roland wanted to get it straight in his mind. “This is Frank’s idea not Ed’s.”
“Like he left it in his will to Ed,” Vivian said. “Watch her so she doesn’t fool around with anyone, ever.”
“Jesus—” It was a hard proposition to understand,
cutting the poor woman off like that. But then these guineas did all kinds of things that didn’t make sense. Serious little buggers with their old-timey ideas about honor, the
omerta
—no talking, man, keep your mouth shut—all that brotherhood bullshit.
Roland said, “It seems to me, an easier way—why don’t Ed tell her, no fooling around. Here’s what Frank wants, dead or not, and that’s the way it’s gonna be.”
“Why do you ask questions?” Vivian said. “Ed doesn’t like the idea but he’s doing it, uh? For his friend.”
“But he doesn’t want her to know.”
“He doesn’t want to be involved,” Vivian said. “The woman’s also a friend. He wants her to be happy, but he has to do this to her. So he gives it to you because he gave his word to Frank. But he doesn’t want to be in
volv
ed in it personally. You understand now? God.”
“Who knows about the setup?”
“The three of us. See, he doesn’t even want to hear himself tell you about it. I have to tell you.”
“What about Jesus? He knows.”
“No, he thinks the woman is being protected.”
Roland liked that idea. He thought about it some more and said, “What’d Frank leave her?”
“None of your business.”
“I bet a big shit-pile of money,” Roland said.
“And I bet that’s part of the deal. She starts putting out, she gets cut off, huh?”
“Pick up the tapes and listen to them,” Vivian said. “That’s all you got to do.” She rose from the table to walk over to her desk. It was not clean like Ed Grossi’s, it was a working desk with papers and file folders on it. Vivian picked up an envelope that was thick and sealed closed, no writing on it.
“Protect her,” Roland was saying, nodding, accepting the idea. “Keep all these dinks away from her who want to get in her little panties. All right, I guess I can do that.”
Vivian came back with the envelope and handed it to him, saying, “Roland”—reading his mind, which wasn’t difficult—“while you’re protecting her little panties, don’t try to get in them yourself. I told you, she’s a very good friend of Ed’s.”
“We’re all friends,” Roland said, ripping open the envelope, “that’s why we get along so good.” He looked at the money, counting through it quickly, then at Vivian. “I don’t get any extra? Shit, I just did six months at Butler, hard time, lady, and I pick up my paycheck as usual, huh?”
“Join a union,” Vivian said. “What’re you complaining to me for? You got eighteen thousand dollars there, back pay for your six months.”
“The way I see it, chopping weeds at Butler is worth more than that,” Roland said. “Way more.”
DURING THE TIME
Maguire was being held in the Wayne County Jail, downtown Detroit, he’d say to himself, If I get out of this—sometimes even beginning, Please, God, if I get out of this I’ll change, I’ll get a regular job, I’ll stay away from people like the Patterson brothers and never fuck up again as long as I live. At least not this bad.
Sitting there in his cell facing something like 15 to 25, Jesus, the scaredest he’d ever been in his life.
While over at the prosecutor’s office they could push computer buttons and Maguire would appear in lights on the desk-set screen.
CALVIN A. MAGUIRE
, Male Caucasian, a date of birth that made him thirty-six, tattoo on his upper left bicep,
Cal
, in blue and red, a list of arrests going back eleven years, one in Florida, but no convictions.
An assistant Wayne County prosecutor looked at the screen, frowning. No convictions? The guy had
stolen automobiles, broken into homes, business establishments, once attempted to shoot a man, apprehended with a concealed weapon, one willful destruction . . . and no con
vic
tions? Well, they had the guy this time. Two eyeball witnesses who’d picked him out of a line-up, two positive IDs, man. Calvin Maguire was going away.
The prosecutor’s office also had an impressive computerized light show on the Patterson brothers: Andre Patterson and Grover “Cochise” Patterson, both male Negroes, both with previous convictions going back to ages thirteen and fourteen, and both picked out of line-ups by the same two tight-jawed no-bullshit witnesses. Bye-bye Maguire and the Patterson brothers. The assistant prosecutor was going to trial happy. He didn’t see how he could lose.
Andre Patterson had come to Maguire with the deal. This man was going to pay them fifteen hundred each to go and take a hit at the Deep Run Country Club out north of Detroit. Mess the place up, but mostly mess up their minds, the people out there. Maguire didn’t get it. A man was paying them to hit a place?
Paying them and furnishing clean weapons. The man had some reason he didn’t like the place, or he wanted to pay them back for something, not anybody
in particular, the whole place. Maguire said, At a club they
sign
for everything; there’s no money at a club. Andre Patterson said, But the rich people who go there have money; put it in their locker, go out and play golf. See, they could keep whatever they took. The man didn’t want a cut; it wasn’t that kind of deal.
Maguire was uncertain. What’s the matter with your buddies Ordell and Louis? Why me? And Andre answering that those two were away for a while. No, you my man, only man I know can do it cool, without a nosefull. Maguire told Andre he was doing fine without the thrills; he had a job he thought he’d stick with at least until the end of the year, then take off.
Andre Patterson saying, Yeah, making the
cock
tails for the salesmen flashing around the hotel, listening to all the big deals, the
cock
tail music coming out the wall, standing at attention in your little red jacket, man, hair combed nice, yes sir, what would you like? And for the young lady?
Maguire thinking of a snowbanked Durant Mall in Aspen, deep powder on the high slopes, the rich ladies in their snow-bunny outfits. Then thinking of the Pier House in Key West, sitting out on the deck with a white rum and lemon, six in the evening. Places out of the past. Thinking of fifteen hundred bucks and what they could scrounge out of the lockers, maybe two three hundred more each.
Thinking of islands and palm trees . . . get out of the cold, the slush, try the Mediterranean for a change, Spain, the south of France. Fifteen hundred guaranteed. Maguire liked to be outdoors. He liked to work outdoors, if he had to work. What was he doing in Detroit? Like a guilt trip, always coming back to Detroit, visit his mom and tell her yeah, everything was great. Listen to her describe her poor circulation and Detroit Edison rates and finally saying, Hey, thanks very much for everything, accepting the hundred dollar bill she always offered and getting out of there.
Andre Patterson saying, No security people. Walk in, pick up the wallets, watches. All right, everybody take off your clothes, get in the shower. Carry their clothes outside and throw ’em in the bushes—they all running around the club nekked.
Maybe wear ski masks, something like that?
Andre saying, Wear a tuxedo you want to. We going to the
club
, man.
That would be funny, tuxedos. It was good to keep it light, have a couple of drinks, smoke a joint before going in . . . lock the outside door after you . . . little details to think about. Watch the door that went from the locker room to the grill—
Maguire said, “I haven’t done this in a couple years. I mean I haven’t
ever
actually done it, Christ, gone into a country club.”
Andre said, “Who has?”
* * *
They went in on a Wednesday, August 16, four o’clock in the afternoon, when all the doctors and sales reps would be out there playing golf, rolling Indian dice for drinks, talking their locker room talk with all the obscene words they couldn’t say at the office.
They parked the van Cochise had picked up and went in a side door that led directly into the men’s locker room—without the ski masks, too hot—Andre Patterson wearing a knit cap and faking some kind of Jamaican-Caribbean British-nigger accent, Cochise wearing a red and white polka-dot headband that bunched up his Afro like black broccoli. Maguire had quit his job at the hotel cocktail lounge, had a photograph taken for his passport application, then let his dark, black-Irish beard grow for three days. Once in the locker room he picked up a green Deep Run golf cap and set it on low over his sunglasses. He and Andre carried 9mm Berettas, brand new; wild-ass Cochise went in with a sawed-off double-barreled Marlin to scare the shit out of the members, get their attention quick and make them behave.
Maguire was nervous going in, Christ yes, but he wasn’t too worried about the Patterson brothers overreacting, becoming vicious. There was a moment right in the beginning when they either
grabbed control of the situation and it went smoothly, or they didn’t grab control and it could turn into a fuck-up with a lot of yelling and jabbing. That moment of surprise—
The golf club members talking loud, their voices coming from the shower and the rows of lockers, middle-aged men in their underwear and towels, shuffling around in paper slippers . . . looking up and seeing, Christ, a wildman, a Mau-Mau, twin blunt holes of a Marlin pointing at them, Oh, my God! Sharp little startled sounds, seeing
two
mean-looking black guys with guns—
Then silence.
God Almighty, was it a revolution or a holdup? Hoping all they wanted was money. Andre Patterson telling the members in Jamaican to be cool, mon, and go in the shower room. Herding those wide-eyed, slow-moving white bodies in there, guns touching naked flesh—go on, mon, move your chickenfat ass—like a scene in a high-class concentration camp, moving them into the gas chamber. Getting the shit-scared locker room attendant to start opening up the lockers. Cochise going through the shoeshine room and the service bar into the ladies locker room—yeah, let’s get everybody in here—the three of them actually grinning. Sure, because they knew they had it in their hands now. Unbelievable, Maguire thought, relaxing a little, already seeing himself and the Patterson brothers
talking about it after, laughing, giggling at the scene, retelling parts of it one or the other might have missed.
Maguire dumping the clubs out of the golf bag, hanging it over his shoulder and throwing in all the wallets and watches, silver money clips with the club crest, a few pinkie rings, electric razors, hair-blower for Cochise—all the stuff he got out of the lockers. Unbelievable, the doctors and sales reps contributing something over twenty-five hundred in cash, like eight-fifty apiece.
Still talking about it the next day at Andre’s, eating Chinese food, reading about it in the paper,
ARMED TRIO ROBS COUNTRY CLUB
. Bet to it, cleaned it out. All those chickenfat doctors out on the links, a man lining up a putt not knowing at that moment he was getting robbed.
They had fun talking about it. Maguire borrowed Andre’s car, picked up his photos and a passport application at the post office, brought back some more scotch, shaved, cleaned up, and they went over the scenes again, waiting now for the man to send them the fifteen hundred each.
Talking about Cochise bringing the five women in through the service bar from the ladies locker room on the other side. Four ladies going to fat, holding their towels up around their titties. One
not too bad, nice blonde, quiet, fairly calm, Maguire might’ve set up for a drink at some other time. Cochise pulling the towel off the last one, hearing her squeal as he poked her in the ass with the cut-down Marlin.
That was the highlight, making them all drop their towels or take off their extra-size undies once they were in the shower with the men. The men standing there trying to hold in their stomachs, looking at the bare-naked ladies, at their big titties and bushes. So that’s what so-and-so looks like without any clothes on, Jesus. Looking, making little mental notes. Couple of the women sneaking glances at the guy’s shriveled-up joints. The shower room full of bellies and dimpled asses that looked like they’d been kept in a dark cave for years.
Andre Patterson saying, “I advise you all to go join Vic Tanney quick as you can, else you gonna die soon.” Then saying to a little guy with muscles in his arms and shoulders, who kept staring at Andre, not interested in the naked ladies, “Don’t do what you’re thinking, man, or you gonna die right now.”
See, relaxed but very alert.
Cochise bringing in the two waitresses and the bartender, making them take their uniforms off and get in with the naked club members. Andre saying, Hey, I can’t tell the rich folks from the help. Funny
guys, half-stoned but they knew what they were doing.
Maguire saying, “Something like that, you could sell tickets to, you know it? I mean there some people would
pay
to see a show like that, fucking X-rated stick-up.”
Maguire picking out a set of woods for himself, Andre taking a whole big bag of clubs that must’ve been worth eight hundred dollars, he said for playing at Palmer Park. Hey, shit, can you see it?
Sometime during the evening of the day after, Cochise went out to pick up some grass, trade in some of the country club items maybe.
He came back with about eighteen members of the Detroit Police Department, Christ, through the door with guns and kneeling on them before they knew what was happening.
So there was the robbery armed, something like 15 to 25 or possibly life, and a felony-firearm charge that carried a mandatory two years. More than enough to start Maguire praying and making promises in the Wayne County jail. In there from the middle of August to the end of November, with no way in the world of making the bond set at fifty thousand dollars or two sureties. Maguire saw Andre and Cochise once at 1300 Beaubien, police
headquarters across the street, while they were waiting to appear in a line-up, and asked him, For Christ sake, the man got us into this, he’s gonna put up the bond, right? No, the man couldn’t get involved just yet. The man was under suspicion, using the bonding company to front him on some kind of deal in Las Vegas, so the man couldn’t be seen to be paying the bonding company at this time. But hang on.
Hang onto what, for Christ sake? Hang on in the bus going to Jackson.
Maguire didn’t think much of his court-appointed lawyer because the lawyer didn’t think much of him. Maguire could feel it, the guy was going through the motions. The court was paying the lawyer, and he didn’t give a rat’s ass who won.
Maguire said, “What’ve they got on me? Some circumstantial evidence, that’s all.”
“Your photograph in Andre Patterson’s car,” the lawyer said. “The golf clubs in the trunk.”
“I happened to leave my picture in the car”—shit—“that was the next day. Other people were in that car the next day. Andre’s wife, she went out to get some Chinese food. Was she arrested?”
“You were ID-ed positively in a line-up by one of the victims,” the lawyer said. “Possibly identified by four more. They saw you there. Now I’m representing you, not the jigs. You want to agree to testify against the jigs, maybe I can get you a deal.”
“You can get fucked, too,” Maguire told his court-appointed lawyer. What a rotten guy.
Something happened, several things, Maguire didn’t understand.
The morning of the trial a different lawyer appeared in court to defend all three of them, a sharp young guy by the name of Marshall Fine, with styled hair and a pinched-in three-piece suit.
What’s this?
Nice moves, very stylish; made the prosecutor look like a high-school football coach. Sent from the man? Andre nodding, pleased. Fine of fine and dandy, man. From the company does the man’s legal business. Yeah, but the guy seemed so young. Was he practicing on them, or what? Maguire wasn’t sure he liked it—putting his life in the hands of a young Jewish lawyer who looked about eighteen years old. He hoped to Christ the guy was an authentic hotshot young Jewish lawyer and not just somebody’s nephew.
Marshall Fine didn’t say much that morning, accepting the jurors one right after the other, very calm, courteous, but maybe wanting to get it over with. In the afternoon, first thing, the prosecutor put a witness on the stand. Oh shit, the little guy from the shower room with the muscles in his arms and shoulders—the guy describing what happened and saying yes, he saw the three in the courtroom, the white guy there and the two colored guys.
Marshall Fine got up and asked the club member where he was standing, in front or behind the others, what exactly took place during the incident and, in all that confusion, he couldn’t be absolutely certain of his identification, could he?
Yes, the club member said, he could definitely be certain. He not only saw them in the locker room, he saw the white guy’s picture a few days later when the police officer showed it to him.