Out of Sight

by Elmore Leonard

“Did you ever tell Jack?”

  Adele took time to draw on her cigarette. “Once in a while he’d ask I might’ve told him about some of the easy ones.”

  “How do you do the switch with the lion?”

  “If I tell you, you’ll be disappointed. It’s always simpler than it looks.”

  “Come on, just that one. I won’t ask you about anything else.”

  “No more about Jack or those guys?”

  “I’ll leave you alone,” Karen said.

  “You promise you won’t tell anyone?”

  “I swear. Cross my heart,” Karen said, facing Adele sitting at the end of the table. Karen saw her about to speak and saw her jump at the sound of three quick raps on the door, three and three more and a voice then from outside, in the hole.

  “Adele? I want to speak with you, please.”

  Sounding far away.

  Karen watched Adele turn her head.

  “Who is it?”

  “I’m the man call you about work.”

  “I said I’d meet you.”

  “Look, I’m here. Open the door.”

  “I’m not dressed.”

  He said, “Listen to me.” And in a lower voice, “I’m a good frien’ of Jack Foley.”

  Karen got to her feet, bringing her bag to the edge of the table. She saw Adele staring at her and said, “Ask him his name.”

  Adele turned her head again, the rest of her rigid, upright in the chair, her cigarette held in front of her between two fingers.

  “Who are you?”

  There was a pause.

  “José Chirino.”

  Karen brought her Beretta out of the bag.

  “Or maybe you hear Jack Foley call me Chino. I’m the same person.”

  Karen moved along the table to Adele. She said, barely above a whisper, “Tell him to wait in the hall, you have to get dressed. Say it loud, raise your voice.”

  She did, yelled it out and her words covered the sound of Karen racking the slide on the 9-millimeter pistol.

  The voice outside the door said, “Tell me where is Jack Foley, I don’t bother you no more.”

  Karen said, “Tell him you don’t know.”

  She did, and Chino said, “Listen, I’m the one help Jack escape from prison. He tole me, I can’t find him to see you.”

  “I said I don’t know where he is.”

  “Listen, why don’t you open this fucking door. Okay? So we can speak.”

  Staring at Karen, Adele said, “Go away, or I’ll call the police.”

  “Why you want to do that, to a frien’?”

  Adele didn’t answer and there was a silence.

  Now he said, “Okay, you don’t want to help me, I’m leaving.”

  Adele started to get up and Karen put her hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m going now,” Chino said. “I see you maybe some time, okay? Bye bye.”

  In her whisper Karen said, “Go in the bedroom and close the door.” She waited until Adele was crossing the room before she moved to the apartment door and put her left hand on the knob.

  Karen turned it, held the lock open and looked over her shoulder. Adele, in her makeup coat and plastic mules, was watching from the bedroom doorway. Karen motioned to her, waving the Beretta, to get in there, go on. But Adele didn’t move. She stood watching and it was too late now to say anything to her. Karen brought the door toward her, opening it a few inches, listening, then stepped aside, out of the way, a moment before the door banged open and Chino, a solid figure in black, was in the room, Chino going for Adele and was past the table when he stopped, glanced around and then turned to Karen and she saw the gun in his right hand, the .22 pistol, its slender barrel pointing down, close to his leg. Karen brought up the Beretta in two hands, cocked it and put the front sight on his chest.

  She said, “Lay it on the table and turn around.”

  Chino raised his left hand to her saying, “Wait,” frowning. “You not Adele?”

  “I’m a federal marshal,” Karen said, “and you’re under arrest. Put the gun on the table. I mean now.”

  “For what? I haven’ done nothing. If you not Adele,” Chino said, “this must be Adele, uh?” He turned to face her.

  And now Karen was looking at him in profile, the pistol in his right hand, away from her. She glanced at Adele. “Go in the room.”

  Adele didn’t move, staring at Chino.

  “Do it. And close the door.”

  Adele started to turn as Chino said, “No, I come to see you.” He raised the pistol, aiming it point-blank at Adele, and she stopped.

  Karen said, “Put it down or I’ll shoot.”

  She watched him look past his shoulder at her, raising his eyebrows, saying, “Oh, is that right? You going to shoot me? Nice girl like you?” Smiling at her as he said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  That little smile hooked her.

  Karen said, “You don’t huh?” and started toward him and saw his expression change, the smile gone, saw him glance at Adele, still holding the pistol on her, then look back this way again at Karen moving toward him, Karen saying, “You can live or die,” as she reached him and put the Beretta in his face, the muzzle inches from his eyes. “It’s up to you.”

  His eyes closed for a moment and opened, looking at Karen’s eyes past the muzzle.

  “You wouldn’t shoot me . . . Would you?”

  She said, “What do you want to bet?”

  He said, “I could walk out of here.”

  She said, “If you move, if you look at her again, you’re dead.”

  They stared at each other. She saw him let his breath out, his shoulders sag and saw him lower his arm and heard the pistol hit the carpet and she almost looked down, but continued to stare at his face, his eyes dull now, beyond hope.

  “Turn around and put your hands on the edge of the desk.”

  When he was leaning against it, off balance, Karen raised his jacket, felt around his waist from behind and, when she was finished, kicked his feet out from under him. Chino dropped to his knees, grabbing for the desk and hitting his head on the edge. He looked up at her in pain.

  “I think you would shoot me.”

  Karen picked up his gun and told him to lie facedown on the floor. She stepped around him to the desk, punched a number on the phone and looked over at Adele staring at her.

  “Daniel Burdon, please. Karen Sisco.”

  She waited, Adele still watching her, then turned to the window as she said, “Daniel? I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  THIRTEEN

  * * *

  “I SAID TO BURDON, ‘IF I GET CHIRINO, WILL YOU PUT ME ON the task force? I can work it out with my boss if you okay it.’”

  Her dad said, “You didn’t tell him you had the guy?”

  “I felt I had to make a deal first.”

  Her dad said, “My little girl.”

  They were on the patio with Jack Daniel’s over ice, the sun going down. Her dad had told her often enough it was Walter Huston’s favorite time of day in The Virginian and Walter was right. This evening he didn’t mention it.

  “Burdon naturally was suspicious. He said, ‘Girl, are you trying to run some kind of game on me?’ I said, ‘All you have to say is yes or no.’ He said, ‘You come up with the Cuban you can call your shot.’ He got there about twenty minutes later. He took one look at Chirino and got his surveillance guys to take him away. He had to ask how I got an escaped con to lie on the floor, but didn’t act surprised or make a big deal about it.”

  “You sandbagged him,” her dad said. “I don’t think I’d be civil with you either.”

  “He had to decide what kind of attitude to have, how to treat me, and he wasn’t sure yet. He talked to Adele, asked her a lot of questions. She was pretty cool about the whole thing. I was surprised.”

  “If anybody was cool,” her dad said, and raised his glass to her.

  Karen sipped her drink. Her eyes raised to her dad and she said, “Once you’re into it a
nd you’re pumped up and you know who the guy is and you know you can’t give him one fucking inch . . . He has the choice, you don’t.”

  “You tell that to Burdon?”

  “No, but he said, ‘Let’s go have us a cold beverage and talk some.’ We went over to the Cardozo for about an hour.”

  “What’s he drink, water?”

  “Yeah, Evian, one of those. He warmed up. For the first time since I’ve known him he came down from heaven and acted like a normal guy. He asked me if I would’ve shot Chirino if he didn’t drop the gun. I said yes and he said he believed it. He wanted to have dinner. He’s asked me before, but always made it sound like he was making my day. Wow, I get to go out with Daniel Burdon. I turn him down and he thinks it’s a racial thing with me. When I was in college almost every black guy who asked me out was like that. I’d say no thanks, ’cause the guy was an idiot or an asshole or had bad breath, and he’d accuse me of being racist.”

  “What’s Burdon’s problem?”

  “He thinks he’s irresistible. He wants to get me in bed, that’s all, and I don’t see any future in it. Ray Nicolet is the same way, he’s getting around to it. All those macho guys . . . Jesus, give me a break.”

  Her dad said, “I don’t want to know everything, okay?” He sipped his drink looking out at the lawn. After a bit he said, “How come we don’t play catch anymore?”

  She smiled at him. “Anytime you want. How’s your arm?”

  “I don’t know, it’s been so long.”

  Twelve years old she had her own glove, a Dave Concepcion model, and they’d throw a hardball at each other out on the lawn.

  “You discovered boys and quit playing ball.”

  “I didn’t want to show them up.”

  “You could’ve, too, you had an arm. You never threw like a girl.”

  They were quiet for a while in the last of the day’s light. Her dad said, “I don’t want to lose you. I think I’m gonna live forever and I need my daughter around. I lost your mother, that’s enough.” There was a silence again. This time he said, “You’re too smart to pack a gun and deal with felons. You’re too smart and you’re too nice a person.”

  Karen got up, went over to his chair and kissed him and stayed there, hunched over, her arm around his shoulders. She said, “I didn’t go out with Burdon ’cause I wanted to stay home with you. Before that, the plan was to see Adele and come right home and be waiting for you. You know why?”

  “Because you love your dad.”

  “Because I love you and because you have an idea how to find Buddy.”

  “You gave me the idea. Remember you said what if Buddy’s his real name?”

  Karen got up. “And it is?”

  “No, but it was something to go on.”

  Karen turned to sit on the wrought-iron cocktail table, facing him now.

  “I called my main source.” Her dad paused to sip his drink.

  And Karen said, “Gregg, the computer whiz. Just tell me, okay, don’t drag it out.”

  “That’s what I’m doing”—acting a little offended—“I’m telling you. I called Gregg, I said, ‘What can you do with this combination? Your search criteria’s the name Buddy, bank robbery or armed robbery, and California between 1970 and 1990.’ I told him Buddy got out of Lompoc either this year or last year, but we don’t know how long he was in.”

  Karen lit a cigarette. Her dad took it from her, for himself, and she had to light another one.

  “You happen to have any grass?”

  “I don’t do that anymore. Come on, what about Buddy?”

  “You start with a nickname it looks impossible, doesn’t it? But if you can add a few facts, and if you’re lucky . . . Gregg used, I don’t know, Nexis, Lexis, one of the programs he has, and came up with Orren Edward Bragg, arrested March 22, 1985, and charged with robbing a branch of City Federal on Sepulveda in Los Angeles, three months before. And how did they find him? The way they get most of those guys, on a tip. LAPD got an anonymous call that turned out to be from the guy’s sister, of all people. One of the detectives quotes her as saying, ‘It was Buddy Bragg who robbed the City Federal bank and some others, too, may Almighty God forgive him.’ That was the only reference to a Buddy associated with bank robbery, buried way down in the news story, and Gregg had it in about five minutes, printed it out and faxed it. It’s inside.”

  Karen stood up and then sat down again.

  “We don’t know for sure, though, do we, if it’s our Buddy?”

  “I called Florence—you met her one time—still one of my best sources. I said, ‘See if you can run an Orren Bragg for me in Dade, Broward or Palm Beach County.’ I called her from the club, the same as I did Gregg. I come home, both faxes are waiting. Orren Bragg has accounts with Florida Power and Light and BellSouth. His phone number’s in there too. Buddy resides in Hallandale at the Shalamar Apartments on AlA, he’s in 708.”

  “That’s our Buddy,” Karen said. She stood up again.

  “My sources,” her dad said, “will bill you about fifty bucks each. I’ll give you the invoices when they come.”

  Karen stood facing him, nodding and then saying, “Why do you suppose Buddy’s own sister ratted him out like that?”

  Her dad said, “She felt it was for his own good. Or maybe she never liked him. He was a brat, made her life miserable when they were kids.”

  “Foley said she was a nun, or used to be.”

  “I don’t know,” her dad said, “I always liked nuns. They’re so clean. They never seem to sweat.”

  She finished her drink and saw her dad watching her.

  “You’re not thinking of calling, are you? Ask if your friend’s there? Please don’t tell me that.”

  Karen said, “Okay, I won’t.”

  • • •

  IT WAS AN IDEA, THOUGH, SHE DID THINK ABOUT. CALL Buddy’s number and ask for someone, a name, any name, pretty sure she’d recognize Buddy’s voice, or Foley’s if he answered, if he was there, and they’d tell her she had the wrong number and hang up. She was tempted, wanting to do it. But if they recognized her voice . . . She thought of asking her dad to call and decided no, go by the book. So she called Burdon. He was cool, wanting to know how she came about this information, and after she told him he said, “Karen, you’re for real, aren’t you? You can come along if you want.” He’d stop by the home of a judge Mend for a warrant, get a SWAT team together and meet her at the Shalamar Apartments as soon as they could make it. He said, “Karen”—not calling her “girl” this time—“get a key from the manager, if you would, please.”

  • • •

  KAREN WAS AWARE OF DETAILS SHE WOULD TELL HER DAD about later this evening.

  The smell of sauerkraut in the manager’s first-floor apartment. His watery wide-open eyes as she assured him the residents wouldn’t be disturbed. Telling him this as she imagined their reaction to the SWAT team invading the place. The senior citizens in the lobby, mostly women, sweaters over their shoulders, bifocals shining, real fear in their eyes at the sight of black uniforms and jackboots, the helmets, the ballistic vests with FBI in yellow, big, on the backs of the vests, the automatic weapons at port arms, the SWAT team coming through the lobby like a troop of Darth Vaders.

  She thought, No, these old people wouldn’t think of Darth Vader, they’d see Nazi storm troopers coming in to haul them away, because it could have happened to some of them. She had seen old ladies in Miami with faded numbers on their arms.

  Karen would tell her dad what she expected and then say she was surprised Burdon didn’t make it a full-scale SWAT assault. Very surprised.

  He came with eight guys in jackets and wool shirts hanging out, running shoes, half of them carrying bags that could hold tennis racquets or different kinds of athletic gear. The residents did stop what they were doing, watching television, playing gin; they had to wonder what was going on, curious, but didn’t seem alarmed. Burdon posted two men outside, back and front, and sent two more up to seven to c
over both ends of the hall. He said to Karen, “You ready?”

  Then had to pause as a woman asked, “Are you delivering the oxygen?”

  Burdon, Karen and the remaining four SWAT team agents got on the elevator. On the way up Burdon looked at them one at a time. “You’re primary, you’re secondary, you’re point man.” He said to the fourth, “You’re gonna use a ram?”

  He carried it in what looked like a navy seabag.

  Karen said, “The manager’s door is metal. You know what I mean? They might all be.”

  Burdon looked at her. “Yeah, you’ve been through doors, haven’t you?”

  “A ram on a metal door,” Karen said, “makes an awful lot of noise for what good it does.”

  She’d tell her dad how you grabbed the handle on top that was like a dorsal fin, and the handle at the back end and swing the ram hard against the door. If it was wood the ram would shatter it. Metal, you might only dent it. But the fourth man also had a shotgun with a “shock-lock” round in it and that would do the job.

  They reached the seventh floor and the SWAT agents took off the jackets and wool shirts they’d worn over their ballistic vests, heavy ones with a ceramic plate covering the heart area. Karen handed the key to the agent with the canvas bag. He had his shotgun out now, a Remington with a three-inch strip of metal taped to the muzzle. They approached 708.

  The primary and secondary stood to the right of the door, Beretta nines held upright. The point man, who would be the third one in and would cover them, held an MP-5 submachine gun. The one with the shotgun eased the key into the lock and turned it. The door wouldn’t budge, a dead bolt holding it shut. He raised the shotgun and put the strip of metal against the seam, where the lock entered the frame, the muzzle of the shotgun exactly three inches now from the dead bolt, and looked over his shoulder at Burdon and Karen. Burdon nodded. With the sound of the shotgun blast the primary hit the door going in, secondary and point went in right behind him and Karen, her ears ringing, pulled her Beretta, expecting in a moment to hear gunfire.

  FOURTEEN

  * * *