The Switch

by Elmore Leonard

  Melanie sat up, drawing her knees to her and wrapping her arms around them. “What’s she like?”

  “She’s—” Frank had to think. He sipped his Scotch. “She’s—what can I say? She’s just kinda there. Nice looking, good figure. Everybody tells her how cute she is, you know, how does she stay so slim, all that.”

  “She good in bed?”

  “Well, it’s not really a big thing to her.”

  “No pun intended, huh?” Melanie said.

  “It’s not important to her. The way she was brought up, like a lot of the women we know, sex is something . . . they look at it as something you have to do when you’re married. Something you have to put up with.”

  “That’s weird,” Melanie said.

  “Well, you weren’t brought up like that. How old were you, the first time you got laid?”

  “Fourteen, I think. Yeah, fourteen. But I was giving hand jobs before that.”

  “My wife, these women we know, they lead a very sheltered life,” Frank said. “The big thing they talk about at the club—well, some of them, they play golf, they’re pretty active. But the others, along with my wife, the big thing to talk about would be what they’re gonna cook for dinner.”

  “That’s really weird,” Melanie said. “I’d eat out.”

  “You don’t eat out every night,” Frank said. “No, you sit at the table, try and make conversation. I tell her about the business. It could be a problem I’m having with a sub-contractor, like trying to get the cement guy to come in when I need him—”

  “Yeah?” Melanie said.

  “She listens, but she doesn’t give a shit. I try and keep it light, tell her about my round of golf maybe if I played that day. No response.”

  “No response,” Melanie said. “What’s she interested in? You mind my asking?”

  “No, I don’t mind. What’s she interested in?” Frank thought again. “How much I drink. She says, we go to a party and I’m a little high, she says your problem, you don’t count your drinks. I say I did too count ‘em. I had twenty-eight, exactly.”

  Melanie nodded and laughed.

  “She doesn’t think it’s funny. I tell a joke, you know, like the one the guy gets bit on the pecker by the rattlesnake?”

  Melanie grinned. “Yeah?”

  “She doesn’t think it’s funny. Oh, she laughs. If other people are there she laughs, but she doesn’t think it’s funny. She’s more interested in is the house clean? Or, where’s Bo? It’s late and Bo’s not home yet. I say to her it’s only ten-thirty, for Christ sake, he’ll be home.”

  “What about your son? What’s gonna happen?”

  “That’s something we’ll have to discuss along with the settlement,” Frank said. “She’ll probably keep Bo, the mother, you know, I’m not gonna argue with that. It’s all right, he and I’ll see each other.”

  “I’d like to meet him,” Melanie said.

  “You probably will, you don’t pack that big canvas bag and take off somewhere.”

  “Leave my place? I’m getting to be a homebody,” Melanie said. “I’ve planted flowers—Hey, there was a guy renting the next apartment. He was there a couple of weeks with his wife. I was outside for awhile, I went in, I just got in and he knocks on my door. I answer and he goes, ‘I’ll give you $500 if you’ll take your clothes off and let me look at your body.’ No shit.”

  “Just look? Come on—”

  “No shit. I go, ‘Hey, get fucked, okay?’ Creepy guy—”

  Yeah, Frank thought. She’d have the Arab dress off, or the string bikini, before the door closed. That was the only thing that bothered him. He had more than enough money to keep her happy, but she’d still fool around. He noticed the way she looked at young guys with flat stomachs and nice builds. They could be Bahamian, it didn’t matter. If it ever bothered him too much or he ever caught her with somebody he’d end it, throw her out. He’d have to. It was her age. Pretty soon though, when she got to be twenty-two, twenty-three, she’d begin looking ahead and settle down. Growing flowers, that was a good sign.

  They were in bed when the telephone rang, in semidarkness: lamplight from the living room on the floor; moonlight on the bed, the imported palm trees stirring outside the window. Frank raised his eyes, past the mound of her belly, past round pale breasts (her tummy-tum and her ninnies, he called them), to her face on the pillow. He raised his head then and her eyes opened.

  She said, “Are we gonna answer it?”

  “I don’t know.” Frank held his position, his can rounding over the foot of the bed, toes dug into the shag carpeting, a freestyler ready to dive. The phone continued to ring.

  “You want me to?” Melanie said.

  “No . . . I guess I better.”

  It could be Bo, something about the tennis camp he didn’t like. It could be Mickey—because he’d forgotten to call earlier. Something about the car, playing helpless. Where should she get it fixed? Frank walked into the living room naked, scratching his crotch, feeling a little heft but nothing like he’d had before. That was all right, Melanie could get it back with one touch. She liked to touch it and talk to it, get down there and say dirty things to it softly. It was coming back already . . .

  Then began to shrivel fast as the voice on the phone said, “How you doing, man? With that fine young lady you got with you—”

  “Who is this?”

  “Hold the line. Your wife wants to speak with you.”

  14

  * * *

  THEY HAD MICKEY DOWNSTAIRS sitting in the straight chair by the telephone table with her mask on. Louis watched her fooling with her fingernails as she waited, as Ordell spoke into the phone. Louis and Ordell had their masks on, Louis holding a sheet of paper in his hand. Richard was wearing his monster face. Mickey was the only one in the room seated.

  Ordell said, “I’m telling you the truth, man. Here she is.” He looked over at Louis.

  Louis watched him go to one knee and place the phone against Mickey’s face. When her hands raised, he pushed them down. He’d hold it for her, his face close to hers. He touched her shoulder then, meaning for her to go ahead.

  Mickey said, “Frank?”

  Louis could hear the man’s voice, some of the words, asking who that was and where was she and if this was her idea of a joke or what.

  She said, “I don’t know . . . Frank, listen to me . . . I don’t know! They want you to hear my voice. That’s all . . . No, I’m all right . . . Frank, I don’t know—”

  Ordell put the phone against his chest. Richard took Mickey by the arm and led her across the room to the hallway and the stairs. Ordell looked at Louis and nodded to the chair. Louis shook his head. He took the phone from him, held it out as he looked at the sheet of paper in his other hand, then put the phone to his ear.

  “Mr. Dawson,” Louis said, “how you doing? And how’s Melanie? I understand she’s got great big ones.” He looked over at Ordell and had to grin. Ordell was jiving his shoulders around with his elbows tucked in, not able to stand still. Louis put the phone against his chest and said, “He wants to know who this is.”

  Ordell had to turn away, laughing the way you did smoking grass when something that wasn’t that funny forced the laugh out of you.

  Louis said into the phone, “I’m not allowed to tell you, Mr. Dawson. But I can tell you this. Tomorrow go to the Providence Bank and Trust and draw a million dollars out of your account . . . Mr. Dawson? I think you better quit talking and listen, cause you’re in deep shit, man. I want you to draw one million dollars in a cashier’s check and deposit it at the same bank . . . you listening? To account number eight nine five double-oh thirty-nine.” Louis waited. Ordell could hear the man’s voice saying, “Hello? Hello?” Louis said into the phone, “You write it down? . . . Then get one.” He waited again and repeated the number. “Now then, if the money’s not deposited by noon tomorrow, you’ll never see your wife again. If you go to the police . . . listen to me. You’ll never see her again. You do any
thing but put the money in that account, your wife’s gone, man. Gone.” Louis hung up.

  He said to Ordell, “How’d it sound?”

  “No shit,” Ordell said, “I was him, I be waiting for the bank to open.”

  “The only thing,” Louis said, “what’s he tell this Melanie? How tight you think he is with her?”

  “She’s ass, what she is,” Ordell said. “He got her along for ass.”

  “I hope that’s all,” Louis said.

  Louis sat in the dark with Mickey, without masks. He said, “Tomorrow afternoon’ll be all over. You’ll be home. It’s not so bad, huh?”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “Your son, he didn’t go with him, did he?”

  “He’s in Florida, with my mother and dad.”

  “You know your husband had a girl with him down there?”

  “No.”

  “You never suspected it?”

  “No.”

  “You get along? You and your husband?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just asking. Most men they go away, they pick up something. It isn’t anything unusual.”

  “How did you know about her?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Louis said. “Your husband, he never mentioned her, uh? Like as a friend, or somebody that worked for him?”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Melanie.”

  “That’s cute,” Mickey said. “No, I’ve never heard of her.”

  “You know about his bank account in Freeport?”

  “He does business there. I assume he’d have an account.”

  “With over a million in it?”

  “How do you know that?” Mickey said.

  “We know,” Louis said. “He knows we know. But you didn’t, huh?”

  “I don’t know everything about his business. It’s some kind of an investment corporation.”

  “Not this one,” Louis said. “It’s a private account. He’s the only one in it.”

  “Maybe your information’s wrong.”

  “It’s the fifty grand a month he’s been taking out of the apartments in Detroit,” Louis said. “He’s been going down there what, about two years?”

  Mickey didn’t answer. It was two and a half years, at least. Frank going to Freeport every month for a day or two while the Fairway Manor project was under way. Then, more recently, going for several days each month, working on land development with foreign investors, Frank had told her. This time the Japanese. He could have told her anything. But he hadn’t said a word about apartment buildings in Detroit. She wondered if the man sitting in the rocker thought she was dumb. The poor dumb wife who didn’t know anything. God, still worried about keeping up appearances. What difference did it make what he thought?

  She said, “Tell me about the apartments in Detroit,” and listened to the man sitting in the rocker, hearing his words . . . her husband renovating apartment buildings with stolen materials and appliances . . . grossing at least a $100,000 a month, renting to pimps and prostitutes . . . taking out about half without reporting it as income, putting it away in a numbered bank account . . .

  And the girl, Melanie (wondering what she looked like) . . .

  Listening and realizing she had lived with a man fifteen years without knowing him. For the time being, Mickey was in her stunned period.

  At seven-thirty Tuesday morning, Frank had a gin and grapefruit juice. Melanie made it for him—a weak one, he told her—and brought it to him on the balcony where he sat in a terry-cloth robe, a convalescent, staring at the deserted 18th fairway. He’d slept about an hour. He needed the drink in order to come down, relax, get his thinking in order. Melanie told him yes, it would be good for him. She knew enough to keep quiet but to be there, in a bleached-cotton caftan, watching him and willing to sympathize, encourage, as he began to rationalize.

  He had told her about it because he had to tell someone, feel some kind of support, hear his thinking affirmed. He told himself she was intelligent, understanding—Then told her—this was incredible—his wife had been kidnapped, honest to God, and was being held for ransom. Melanie said, For how much?

  She brought him another drink and said, Do you have any idea who they are? He said no. Could they be Bahamian? No. Could they have called from the island? No, he could tell by the connection it was long distance. Melanie waited a bit. She said, You can’t risk going to the police, can you? He said no. She said, Even if you pay them, there’s no assurance they would release her, is there? He said no. She said, You can’t deal reasonably with people like that, take their word. You don’t know what they might do. Weirdos, they could panic, they could be spaced out of their minds on something. She said, Frank, your wife might even be dead already. Do you realize that? He said it was possible. She said, You didn’t tell me how much they want. He said, A million dollars. She said, to herself, Un-fucking-real, went inside to the bar and made him another drink and one for herself. For ten months she had been selling Frank short.

  She kissed him on the cheek and sat down with him. The first of the early morning golfers were going by now, teeing off on 18.

  Frank watched them. He said, “Keep your elbow in.”

  Melanie said, “You’re cute, you know it?”

  Frank said, “See, he hooked it.”

  She said wasn’t it strange, filing for divorce and then this happening? Not wanting to be married to her but, gosh, not wanting anything awful to happen to her either. At least if you could help it. The trouble was, they could do anything they wanted, couldn’t they? They were in control. He supposed so. She said, You could pay them the million and they still might—rephrase that—you still might never see her again.

  “Or what if I couldn’t get to the bank for some reason?” Frank said. “I didn’t make the payment in time?”

  “Right. What would happen?”

  “We don’t know,” Frank said. “We don’t know if they mean it, do we?”

  “We sure don’t,” Melanie said. She liked the sound of that “we” and said, “Well, we could call their bluff, see what happens.”

  “Can we risk it?” Frank said, thoughtful, staring down the fairway at the golf carts moving off.

  “Turn it around,” Melanie said. “I mean put yourself in their place. Where would you be if she was dead?”

  Tuesday evening they let Mickey take a shower—she had to put on the same white slacks and blue cotton shirt—and gave her pot roast and noodles for supper. The one who had talked to her before, with the dark curly hair, came in to take the tray.

  “If you’re finished—” His voice was somewhat familiar—his quiet tone, his manner—but she couldn’t be sure.

  “Do you have today’s paper? I wouldn’t mind something to read.”

  “You aren’t in it,” Louis said. “You weren’t on TV again either. I think your friend forgot about you.”

  Mickey said, “I thought I was going home this afternoon.”

  Louis didn’t say anything right away. He put the tray down and came around to where she was sitting in the rocker and sat on the side of the bed, their positions reversed. He could see part of her face very faintly. She had seen his then, after the business with the masks. He didn’t care. It was strange, downstairs with Ordell—even today, waiting all day, nothing—he felt pretty good. Upstairs, he felt depressed.

  Louis said, “He hasn’t paid yet.”

  “How is he supposed to do it? It might take time.”

  “No, that’s not a problem.”

  “Can I ask how much you want?”

  “A million,” Louis said.

  “A million dollars?”

  “He’s got it. I thought I told you that.” There was a silence. Louis said, “What’re you thinking? What happens if he doesn’t pay?”

  “What did you tell him you’d do?” Mickey said.

  Louis hesitated. “We told him he’d never see you again.” He stared at her face in the darkness. She didn’t move, didn’t make a
sound. She seemed to be staring at him. He said, “Let me ask you. Is there any reason he won’t?”

  “I’m his wife,” Mickey said.

  “That’s not an answer.” Louis waited, but it was all the answer he got.

  Ordell was on the phone. Louis went into the kitchen and dropped the tray in the sink and told Richard to get some putty and fix the goddamn holes in the doors. How many times was he supposed to tell him? Richard said, “I’m eating.” He sure was, sitting with his bare arms on the kitchen table, head low to the plate, shoveling with a biscuit and sucking in the noodles. Ordell appeared in the doorway and Louis went out to the living room with him.

  “Mr. Walker say the man’s up in his apartment, hasn’t left the place all day. The young lady went out, bought two bags of groceries at Winn-Dixie, like they gonna hole up there.”

  “Maybe he phoned the bank.”

  “I phoned the bank,” Ordell said. “Wasn’t any deposit made.”

  “I mean since then,” Louis said.

  “Bank closed at three o’clock.”

  “Maybe he’s sick,” Louis said. “It could’ve affected him, his nerves maybe.”

  “It’s gonna affect his wife what it’s gonna affect,” Ordell said.

  “Well, call him again,” Louis said. “What can you do?”

  “Have her say something?”

  “Yeah, let him hear her voice again. See if we can get the guy off his ass.” Louis said then, “That goddamn Nazi, he still hasn’t fixed the holes.”

  “Here, look,” Frank said. He clicked his silver pencil and jotted figures on the back of a magazine, in a clear section of a Marlboro ad, as he continued. “The building costs a hundred grand. I put about forty grand worth of materials and appliances in it and have it reappraised at two-hundred grand.”

  “Wow,” Melanie said, crouched next to his chair, his little girl, resting her chin on his arm.

  “Okay. I’ve only put ten percent down, right? And the forty-grand worth of materials only cost me about four or five grand. But I’m writing off depreciation on two-hundred grand. Then, on the rentals, I only declare about sixty-percent occupancy. It’s all paid in cash—”