Karen Makes out (1996)

by Elmore Leonard

  Geraldine Regal, the first teller at Sun Federal on Kendall Drive, watched a man with slicked-back hair and sunglasses fishing in his inside coat pocket as he approached her window. It was 9:40, Tuesday morning. At first she thought the guy was Latin. Kind of cool, except that up close his hair looked shellacked, almost metallic. She wanted to ask him if it hurt. He brought papers, deposit slips, and a blank check from the pocket saying, "I'm gonna make this out for four thousand." Began filling out the check and said, "You hear about the woman trapeze artist, her husband's divorcing her?"

  Geraldine said she didn't think so, smiling, because it was a little weird, a customer she'd never seen before telling her a joke.

  "They're in court. The husband's lawyer asks her, 'Isn't it true that on Monday, March the fifth, hanging from the trapeze upside down, without a net, you had sex with the ringmaster, the lion tamer, two clowns, and a dwarf?' "

  Geraldine waited. The man paused, head down as he finished making out the check. Now he looked up.

  "The woman trapeze artist thinks for a minute and says, 'What was that date again?' "

  Geraldine was laughing as he handed her the check, smiling as she saw it was a note written on a blank check, neatly printed in block letters, that said:

  THIS IS NO JOKE

  IT'S A STICKUP!

  I WANT $4000 NOW!

  Geraldine stopped smiling. The guy with the metallic hair was telling her he wanted it in hundreds, fifties, and twenties, loose, no bank straps or rubber bands, no bait money, no dye packs, no bills off the bottom of the drawer, and he wanted his note back. Now.

  "The teller didn't have four grand in her drawer," Daniel Burdon said, "so the guy settled for twenty-eight hundred and was out of there. Slick changing his style-we know it's the same guy, with the shiny hair? Only now he's the Joker. The trouble is, see, I ain't Batman."

  Daniel and Karen Sisco were in the hallway outside the central courtroom on the second floor, Daniel resting his long frame against the railing, where you could look below at the atrium with its fountain and potted palms.

  "No witness to see him hop in his BMW this time. The man corning to realize that was dumb, using his own car."

  Karen said, "Or it's not Carl Tillman."

  "You see him last night?"

  "He came over."

  "Yeah, how was it?"

  Karen looked up at Daniel's deadpan expression. "I told him I was a federal agent and he didn't freak."

  "So he's cool, huh?"

  "He's a nice guy."

  "Cordial. Tells jokes robbing banks. I talked to the people at Florida Southern, where he had his boat loan? Found out he was seeing one of the tellers. Not at the main office, one of their branches, girl named Kathy Lopez. Big brown eyes, cute as a puppy, just started working there. She's out with Tillman she tells him about her job, what she does, how she's counting money all day. I asked was Tillman interested, want to know anything in particular? Oh, yeah, he wanted to know what she was supposed to do if the bank ever got robbed. So she tells him about dye packs, how they work, how she gets a two-hundred-dollar bonus if she's ever robbed and can slip one in with the loot. The next time he's in, cute little Kathy Lopez shows him one, explains how you walk out the door with a pack of fake twenties? A half minute later the tear gas blows and you have that red shit all over you and the money you stole. I checked the reports on the other robberies he pulled? Every one of them he said to the teller, no dye packs or that bait money with the registered serial numbers."

  "Making conversation," Karen said, trying hard to maintain her composure. "People like to talk about what they do." Daniel smiled.

  And Karen said, "Carl's not your man." "Tell me why you're so sure." "I know him. He's a good guy."

  "Karen, you hear yourself? You're telling me what you feel, not what you know. Tell me about him-you like the way he dances, what?"

  Karen didn't answer that one. She wanted Daniel to leave her alone.

  He said, "Okay, you want to put a wager on it, you say Tillman's clean?"

  That brought her back, hooked her, and she said, "How much?"

  "You lose, you go out dancing with me." "Great. And if I'm right, what do I get?" "My undying respect," Daniel said.

  * * *

  As soon as Karen got home she called her dad at Marshall Sisco Investigations and told him about Carl Tillman, the robbery suspect in her life, and about Daniel Burdon's confident, condescending, smart-ass, irritating attitude.

  Her dad said, "Is this guy colored?"

  "Daniel?"

  "I know he is. Friends of mine at Metro-Dade call him the white man's Burdon, on account of he gets on their nerves always being right. I mean your guy. There's a running back in the NFL named Tillman. I forget who he's with."

  Karen said, "You're not helping any."

  "The Tillman in the pros is colored-the reason I asked. I think he's with the Bears."

  "Carl's white."

  "Okay, and you say you're crazy about him?"

  "I like him, a lot."

  "But you aren't sure he isn't doing the banks."

  "I said I can't believe he is."

  "Why don't you ask him?"

  "Come on-if he is he's not gonna tell me."

  "How do you know?"

  She didn't say anything and after a few moments her dad asked if she was still there.

  "He's coming over tonight," Karen said.

  "You want me to talk to him?"

  "You're not serious."

  "Then what'd you call me for?"

  "I'm not sure what to do."

  "Let the FBI work it."

  "I'm supposed to be helping them."

  "Yeah, but what good are you? You want to believe the guy's clean. Honey, the only way to find out if he is, you have to assume he isn't. You know what I'm saying? Why does a person rob banks? For money, yeah. But you have to be dumb, too, considering the odds against you, the security, cameras taking your picture. ... So another reason could be the risk involved, it turns him on. The same reason he's playing around with you. . . ."

  "He isn't playing around."

  "I'm glad I didn't say, 'Sucking up to get information, see what you know.' "

  "He's never mentioned banks." Karen paused. "Well, he might've once."

  "You could bring it up, see how he reacts. He gets sweaty, call for backup. Look, whether he's playing around or loves you with all his heart, he's still risking twenty years. He doesn't know if you're on to him or not and that heightens the risk. It's like he thinks he's Cary Grant stealing jewels from the broad's home where he's having dinner, in his tux. But your guy's still dumb if he robs banks. You know all that. Your frame of mind, you just don't want to accept it."

  "You think I should draw him out. See if I can set him up." "Actually," her dad said, "I think you should find another boyfriend."

  Karen remembered Christopher Walken in The Dogs of War placing his gun on a table in the front hall-the doorbell ringing -and laying a newspaper over the gun before he opened the door. She remembered it because at one time she was in love with Christopher Walken, not even caring that he wore his pants so high.

  Carl reminded her some of Christopher Walken, the way he smiled with his eyes. He came a little after seven. Karen had on khaki shorts and a T-shirt, tennis shoes without socks.

  "I thought we were going out."

  They kissed and she touched his face, moving her hand lightly over his skin, smelling his after-shave, feeling the spot where his right earlobe was pierced.

  "I'm making drinks," Karen said. "Let's have one and then I'll get ready." She started for the kitchen.

  "Can I help?"

  "You've been working all day. Sit down, relax."

  It took her a couple of minutes. Karen returned to the living room with a drink in each hand, her leather bag hanging from her shoulder. "This one's yours." Carl took it and she dipped her shoulder to let the bag slip off and drop to the coffee table. Carl grinned.

  "What've you g
ot in there, a gun?"

  "Two pounds of heavy metal. How was your day?"

  They sat on the sofa and he told how it took almost four hours to land an eight-foot marlin, the leader wound around its bill. Carl said he worked his tail off hauling the fish aboard and the guy decided he didn't want it.

  Karen said, "After you got back from Kendall?"

  It gave him pause.

  "Why do you think I was in Kendall?"

  Carl had to wait while she sipped her drink.

  "Didn't you stop by Florida Southern and withdraw twenty-eight hundred?"

  That got him staring at her, but with no expression to speak of. Karen thinking, Tell me you were somewhere else and can prove it.

  But he didn't; he kept staring.

  "No dye packs, no bait money. Are you still seeing Kathy Lopez?"

  Carl hunched over to put his drink on the coffee table and sat like that, leaning on his thighs, not looking at her now as Karen studied his profile, his elegant nose. She looked at his glass, his prints all over it, and felt sorry for him.

  "Carl, you blew it."

  He turned his head to look at her past his shoulder. He said, "I'm leaving," pushed up from the sofa and said, "If this is what you think of me . . ."

  Karen said, "Carl, cut the shit," and put her drink down. Now, if he picked up her bag, that would cancel out any remaining doubts. She watched him pick up her bag. He got the Be-retta out and let the bag drop.

  "Carl, sit down. Will you, please?"

  "I'm leaving. I'm walking out and you'll never see me again. But first ..." He made her get a knife from the kitchen and cut the phone line in there and in the bedroom.

  He was pretty dumb. In the living room again he said, "You know something? We could've made it."

  Jesus. And he had seemed like such a cool guy. Karen watched him go to the front door and open it before turning to her again.

  "How about letting me have five minutes? For old times' sake."

  It was becoming embarrassing, sad. She said, "Carl, don't you understand? You're under arrest."

  He said, "I don't want to hurt you, Karen, so don't try to stop me." He went out the door.

  Karen walked over to the chest where she dropped her car keys and mail coming in the house: a bomb+! chest by the front door, the door still open. She laid aside the folded copy of the Herald she'd placed there, over her Sig Sauer .38, picked up the pistol, and went out to the front stoop, into the yellow glow of the porch light. She saw Carl at his car now, its white shape pale against the dark street, only about forty feet away. "Carl, don't make it hard, okay?"

  He had the car door open and half turned to look back. "I said I don't want to hurt you."

  Karen said, "Yeah, well ..." raised the pistol to rack the slide and cupped her left hand under the grip. She said, "You move to get in the car, I'll shoot."

  Carl turned his head again with a sad, wistful expression. "No you won't, sweetheart."

  Don't say ciao, Karen thought. Please.

  Carl said, "Ciao," turned to get in the car, and she shot him. Fired a single round at his left thigh and hit him where she'd aimed, in the fleshy part just below his butt. Carl howled and slumped inside against the seat and the steering wheel, his leg extended straight out, his hand gripping it, his eyes raised with a bewildered frown as Karen approached. The poor dumb guy looking at twenty years, and maybe a limp.

  Karen felt she should say something. After all, for a few days there they were as intimate as two people can get. She thought about it for several moments, Carl staring up at her with rheumy eyes. Finally Karen said, "Carl, I want you to know I had a pretty good time, considering."

  It was the best she could do.

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