Stick

by Elmore Leonard

  “She’s sleeping,” Mary Lou said, lowering her voice, but let him into the living room of shiny maple and blue-green plaid, Stick remembering living rooms like this, though not this particular one. He hadn’t seen this maple set before. Or the electric organ. Or the grandfather clock. Mary Lou saying, “You didn’t expect her to be up, did you?”

  Stick said, “You go on with whatever you’re doing. I won’t bother you any.” With a drawl to his voice he hadn’t heard in years; as though being in the presence of this woman caused him to revert and he should go out and fix her car seat that was always slipping when she stopped.

  She said, “I’m not going back to bed with you here,” clutching that pink robe around her—more of the past coming back—like he might have a quick Sunday morning jump in mind. No thank you. He thought of Kyle and his spirit dipped. He would have to work his way back up and show her he was ordinarily fit and dependable. It was pride; but he was also fascinated by her and maybe a little bit in love. Really.

  He said, “You sleep in curlers now?”

  She raised her hand partway up but didn’t touch her head. She turned and went out of the room.

  Stick sat down to wait, careful of the crease in his pressed khakis. Looking around—there wasn’t a piece of furniture or flowery print he recognized, here or in the dining-L. Everything looked new.

  Mary Lou took till almost nine-thirty to return, wearing slacks now and a sleeveless print blouse, her dark hair combed blown up in a bouffant, cheeks rouged. He said, “Katy still asleep?”

  “I didn’t open her door to see.”

  “Why don’t you wake her up?”

  “Because she needs her sleep.”

  “You getting along all right?”

  “You mean are we making ends meet without any help from you? Not one cent in over seven years? Yes, thank you, we’re doing just fine.”

  “I sent you a couple hundred from Jackson.”

  “You sent a hundred and eighty-five dollars. Mr. Wonderful.”

  “I’m going to help out,” Stick said. “In fact”—he dug out his wallet—”I got paid this morning. I even got a raise. I thought I was going to get fired for something I did, he gave me a raise. So I can let you have . . . here’s three hundred. How’s that?”

  “In seven years,” Mary Lou said, “I’d say it’s pretty shitty. What would you say?”

  He knew this would happen. “I’m going to give you something every week now, for Katy. Or every month.” He laid the bills on the end table.

  “You bet you are,” Mary Lou said. “At least till you go to prison again. When do you think that’ll be?”

  It was hard not to get up and walk out. Stick said, “Not ever again. I’ve changed.”

  “Does the man you work for know you’re a convict?”

  “I’m an ex-convict, Mary Lou.” The thought came into his mind that Mary Lou would make a pretty good hack at a women’s correctional facility. Or even a men’s. He said, “Tell me how your mother’s doing.”

  She said, “Mama’s dead.” Giving him a withering look, as though he were the cause of it.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, I really am.”

  “Why, ’cause you got along so well? You never said a kind word about mama in your life.”

  “I couldn’t think of any,” Stick said, seeing that tough old broad squinting at the Temptations on Ed Sullivan, saying, “Is that niggers?” Ready to turn off the set, miss her favorite program if they were. There was a twenty-four-inch console color TV set now. Plus the organ, all the new furniture . . . Looking around the room he said, “You must be doing pretty good over at Fashion Square.”

  She said, “Oh, you’re interested in how we’re getting by?”

  He said, “Your mom left you fixed, didn’t she? I know the last time I saw her she still had her First Communion money.” It wasn’t a good subject to stay with. He got off of it asking, “You dating anybody?”

  She said, “I don’t see that anything I’m doing is any of your business.” She looked toward the front door a moment before Stick heard it bang open and there was his little girl:

  Skinny brown legs and arms, coming in yelling, “Mom!” and stopping, looking amazed as she saw him on the sofa. He didn’t want to say anything dumb. He smiled . . . She knew who he was, he could tell. But she glanced at her Mom for confirmation; got nothing. Mary Lou wasn’t going to help.

  When he stood up and said, “Katy?” she came to him, into his arms and he felt her arms going around his middle, the top of her head touching his mouth. He felt her clinging, meaning it. Heard her say against him, “I got your letter . . .”

  But now Mary Lou was giving them a furious look.

  “Where have you been!”

  It pulled them apart. Katy said, “I told you I was staying at Jenny’s.” She seemed surprised. “Remember? And we’re going to the beach today? They’re waiting for me, I just came home to get my towel and stuff.”

  “Well,” Mary Lou said, showing she was helpless, “your father finally comes to see you and you run off.”

  Katy said, “But I didn’t know . . .”

  “It’s okay,” Stick said, “go on. I just stopped by—I’ll be around here, we’ll get to see plenty of each other.” He saw gratitude in the girl’s eyes—more than that, recognition that they were in tune and would be at ease with one another. He said, “You look great. You’re all grown up . . . How’s school?”

  “It’s okay.” She didn’t seem anxious now.

  “You like it?”

  “Sorta. We go back, God, in two weeks. I can’t believe it.”

  Mary Lou was moving to the front window. “Who’s out in the car?”

  “Just some kids. Jenny and David. And Tim. I told you we were going.”

  “Who’s driving?”

  “Lee.” Surprised again. “I told you, his dad’s letting him use the car.”

  “I thought his license was taken away.”

  “He got it back two months ago.” She looked up at her dad, smiling. “How’ve you been?”

  “Fine. I’ll call you real soon, we’ll go out for dinner. School’s okay, huh?”

  “It’s all right.” She was edging away.

  “What’s your favorite subject?”

  “I guess typing.”

  “Typing,” Stick said. “You any good?”

  “Pretty good. I gotta go, okay?”

  He watched her hurry out of the room, into the hall. “She spends the night out,” he said to Mary Lou, “and you don’t even know it?”

  “I work. You should try it sometime.”

  “You work last night?”

  “I was at services. You going to give me the third degree now? You should be quite good at it, all the experience you’ve had. Come out of prison and have the gall to start criticizing . . .”

  She glanced away and Stick looked over to see Katy with a beach towel and a plastic bottle of suntan lotion, her expression vague, lost. Then came back into character with a look of innocence.

  “I gotta go, okay? They’re waiting.” She came over and kissed him on the cheek and he kissed hers.

  “I’ll call you in a couple of days.” He could see a reflection of himself in her, a little-girl version of his nose and mouth. More than anything he wanted to know what she was thinking. He watched her give her mother a peck on the cheek and start for the door.

  Mary Lou said, “You have your towel, your lotion, you have your suit on?”

  Katy pulled out the neck of her T-shirt and peered in. “Yep, it’s still there.”

  “Don’t stay in the sun too long.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You’ll get skin cancer.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And don’t be late. What time’re you coming home?”

  “Ma-om, I gotta go.” She looked at her dad again, said, “See ya,” and was gone.

  Mary Lou remained at the window, sounds outside fading. He studied the round sag of her shoul
ders in the print blouse and felt a sadness and hoped she wouldn’t say anything more to him. Her belly showed in the slacks, worn high, her hips broader than he remembered them . . . He would tell her she was cute as a bug and she would wrinkle up her nose at him and sometimes slap his arm . . . He was aware for the first time that she had no sense of style or color. He didn’t want to talk to her anymore and still he asked, “How can she be out all night and you don’t know it?”

  Mary Lou turned from the window. “You’ve got a lot of nerve.”

  “We’re not talking about me, we’re on you for a change. Just tell me that one thing and I’ll get out of your way.”

  “I knew she wasn’t home,” Mary Lou said. “I forgot for a minute, that’s all. I went to services last night and when I got home her door was closed—it’s always closed, I never know if she’s in there or not. She’s either in her room or on the phone.”

  “Services,” Stick said. “You don’t go to mass anymore?”

  “I suppose you do?”

  “Not too often.”

  She said, “Well, I attend the Church of Healing Grace now, since I’ve become acquainted with Reverend Don Forrestall . . .” Letting it hang.

  So that Stick had to say, “Acquainted?”

  “We’re seeing each other. Reverend Don Forrestall has asked me to join his ministry as a healing assistant and I’m now studying for it. As soon as I heard him speak,” Mary Lou said, “I had absolute certainty for the first time in my life.”

  A lie. He could never remember her being uncertain. She knew everything.

  “I felt waves of love, which you would not understand, but it happened to me as he laid on his hands and Reverend Don Forrestall told me I had received the gift. He said, ‘All things thou has seen the Lord do through me now shall be done through thee unto His praise and glory.’ “

  “He said that?” Stick said.

  “In front of the congregation. I opened my mouth then and my fillings over here on this side”—Mary Lou hooked a finger inside her cheek—”had turned to pure gold. He’s done it many, many times. Reverend Don Forrestall has cured thousands of severe toothaches, he’s filled cavities with gold or silver, usually gold, he’s corrected overbites, does wonderful things through laying on his hands and saying, ‘In the name of Our Lord Jesus, let this mouth be healed that it may shout thy praise and glory.’ It’s all he has to do.”

  Stick said, “You mean Reverend Don is a dental faith healer?”

  “Ailments of the mouth,” Mary Lou said. “He does cold sores, fever blisters and inflammation of the gums also. Wisdom teeth . . .”

  Stick said, “You had gold crowns put in there in ‘Seventy-two. They cost a hundred and twenty-eight dollars.”

  “I never did. It was regular fillings and now they’re gold, through the healing ministry of Reverend Don Forrestall.”

  “How much you give him?”

  “Nothing. He doesn’t charge, he does it in praise of the Lord Jesus.”

  “How much you contribute to the Church of the Healing Grace?”

  “None of your business.”

  As soon as Aurora got home she called Pam at Chucky’s, talked to her for almost a half hour about her experience and how she was going to tell off Mr. Barry Stam, the creep, who didn’t think of anyone but himself. She said she wouldn’t care if she never saw his big boat and his little pecker ever again.

  Pam jumped on Chucky’s bed, got him bolt upright and told about Barry’s new driver taking Rorie home at eight o’clock in the morning for God’s sake after being cooped up on Barry’s boat for like almost two days. Chucky asked Pam what the new driver’s name was and she said Aurora didn’t know but she thought he was cute. Chucky called Moke, told him it would be worthwhile to go out and look for a gray Rolls returning to Bal Harbour, license number BS-one.

  Moke sat in the blue Chevy van at the east end of Broad Causeway from ten-thirty to eleven-fifteen Sunday morning, wearing his brand-new forty-dollar Bullrider straw he’d bought with his own money. He smoked weed to help him wait and listened to WCKO playing nigger gospel. He said, “A-man and A-man,” when he saw the gray Rolls come out of the chute past the twenty-cent toll gate. He followed after, turned in at the Bal Harbour shopping center and watched Stick get out of the Rolls and go into the drugstore. No suit on this morning, wearing khakis and a blue shirt, but it was the guy, no doubt of it. He had said to Chucky, why not call this fella Barry and ask him about his new driver? But Chucky said if they aroused suspicion the guy might take off; no, let’s ease up close, Chucky said, not let on. Moke watched him come out of followed behind again and watched the son of a bitch drive in past the Bal Harbour gatehouse guard, giving him a wave.

  Moke crept past in the van. Now should he call Chucky back, listen to him piss and moan? . . . Or call Avilanosa and get her done. Bright and clear, it was too nice a day to sit around smoking weed.

  16

  STICK PULLED INTO THE TURNAROUND wondering what Kyle was doing, wondering what he’d say to her. Cornell was standing by the open garage door.

  “You have a nice time with Rorie?”

  “She never shut up all the way to Lauderdale.” He pulled the Rolls into the garage and came out.

  Cornell said, “Love the scene, sneaking her off the boat this morning. Man so hung over he could barely see to walk.”

  “Aurora says she’s going to tell him off,” Stick said. They were moving across the cobblestones toward the lawn.

  “He’s heard it,” Cornell said. “Man will put up with just so much, then she be looking for another daddy. Speaking of—the lady was looking for you.” Stick’s gaze swung toward the pool and Cornell said, “Not that one, the lady of the house. I told her it was your day off. But she’s gone now, went to the club to fool around, have a few salty dogs. How come you’re back?”

  “Why would I want to leave this,” Stick said, his eyes moving across the slant of lawn again to the swimming pool: to Kyle on a lounge, motionless, long brown legs shining in the sun. Her suit, wide blue and white stripes, was cut high on the sides, almost to her hips. He wanted to walk up to her—say something to Barry first. Barry sat at the umbrella table with a pile of Sunday papers. Looking at Barry he felt sorry for him, or else it was a twinge of guilt; or an awareness that he might feel guilty if he thought about it long enough or hoped to be seduced again by the man’s wife. But there would never be another night like that one. He’d keep it to bring out and look at now and then, close to his vest, knowing his amazement would be shaded with remorse once he got to the part with Kyle. Not because he’d failed but because he’d tried, because he’d included her in his personal record attempt. Dumb. Still, he could forgive himself. It wasn’t that dumb. He didn’t know on the guest-house sofa he was going to have a knot in his gut thinking of her the next day. There was no one to tell to get a reaction. All he could do was start again from scratch—something he’d had a lot of practice doing—and this time hope she’d feel he was worth waiting for.

  Cornell said, “Was a man name of Harvey stop by, look like he was gonna be sick he didn’t find you. Gave me a number said for you to call soon as you got back. Hey, you see your little girl?”

  “I sure did.” It picked him up, like that, thinking of her arms around him, saying close to him, I got your letter . . . It reached deep into him. He felt a sadness even while he smiled, telling Cornell about Katy, and asked, “How ’bout you, you have a good time last night?”

  “Fell in love,” Cornell said. “Again. Yeah, while you doing the chores.”

  “They keep you humping,” Stick said.

  “Man got good and smashed, uh? I hear him say he don’t remember nothing. That’s safe.” Cornell looked off. “I think he’s waving at me. Wants a bloody.” Cornell walked to the edge of the grass, watched Barry beneath the umbrella waving his arms, gesturing. “No, don’t want me, wants you.”

  Stick walked across the grass slope with his magazines and aftershave and toothpaste in th
e sack trying to get words ready and found he didn’t have to. Barry was into the stock market again, throwing questions at Kyle lying motionless a few feet away, sunglasses covering her eyes, arms at her sides.

  “How do you like Biogen? Raised forty million for research, their objective”—glancing at the newspaper—”to become the IBM of biotechnology.”

  Kyle said, not moving, “You’re already into biotechnology.”

  “With what?”

  “Automated Medical Labs.”

  “I want to cover my ass,” Barry said. “This”— looking at the paper again—”recombinant DNA, you understand that?”

  “Gene splicing.”

  Barry waited, Stick watching. “That’s it, uh? Gene splicing?”

  “Transplanting genetic characteristics from one cell to another. Cloning . . . mass-producing human hormones . . . all that stuff.” She sounded sleepy.

  “How do you know that?”

  “You sound like Aurora,” Kyle said, still not moving.

  Barry looked up at the terrace, his gaze monitoring the area before settling on Stick. “Hey, buddy, how you doing?”

  Kyle didn’t look over. Stick said to Barry, “What can I get you?”

  “Not a thing. Listen, I hope I didn’t give you a hard time last night. I don’t remember a goddamn thing from the time we walked outta the club. How was . . . my friend? She give you any trouble?”

  “Not a bit. She was fine.”

  “Last time I got that drunk,” Barry said, “years ago, I didn’t know any better, I pick up a broad someplace—I mean I must’ve ’cause I wake up the next morning and there’s this broad laying there. We’re in a motel, that Holiday Inn over on LeJeune. I’ve got my arm out like this and the broad’s laying on it with her head turned away from me? I lean up to get a look at her—I don’t remember a goddamn thing from the night before—and, Jesus, I can’t believe it. This is the ugliest broad I ever saw in my life. I mean that’s how drunk I was. This broad was so ugly . . . Ask me how ugly she was.”

  Stick said, “How ugly was she?”

  “She was so ugly I actually considered chewing my arm off rather than wake her up. You talk about an ugly broad . . .”