Out of Sight

by Elmore Leonard

  “He’s got it,” Glenn said, “don’t worry.”

  “Man, the only thing I’m worried about is you, if you can step up and do it. Understand? ‘Stead of just talking the talk.”

  “Can I do what?”

  “Walk in a house with me I got picked out. Man that lives there, a white guy, I used to sell to when I was in Young Boys, Incorporated.”

  “Excuse me,” Glenn said, “but I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “Quit looking out the window and listen, you find out. Young Boys, man, we had the whole west side. This man I’m talking about would drive down to the projects, stop by my corner and I’d fix him up. Okay, now later on when I was doing business for the Chambers brothers—the ones had the crack factory?”

  Glenn shook his head.

  “Had girls working there cooked the rocks they called the Rockettes.”

  “I thought you were into credit cards.”

  “That was like on the side, use ’em to buy clothes, things for my house. See, but when I got ratted on and the feds wanted me for product, I had the credit cards to plead down to. Understand? They saw it as better than nothing, sent me to Lompoc and I let you talk me into escaping. Only stupid thing I ever done in my life. Okay, now this man I’m talking about . . . You know the one I mean?”

  “The guy who used to buy coke off you.”

  “Was scag he bought off me. After while kicked it and found his happiness with crack, what I started dealing him when I worked for the Chambers brothers. But, see, the man turned around and got into dealing himself, selling to white people out this way. You with me?”

  “This is a long fucking story,” Glenn said, looking out the window again at shrubs, stone walls, driveways, trying to be cool, but feeling his control of the situation slipping away as Maurice took over the car and now, it seemed, was taking over the whole fucking deal, the con named Snoopy nowhere in sight.

  “Look,” Maurice said, “I know you cool, but don’t give me no tone of voice, okay? You don’t like what I’m saying, you can get out anywhere along here you want.”

  There it was. Still, Glenn felt he should call him on it. He said, “I think you’re forgetting, this is my car. I drove it up here.”

  Maurice said, “Hey, shit, come on. I say I want this car, man, it’s mine. You go get yourself another one. Now you gonna listen to me?”

  They weren’t having a discussion, Glenn realized for sure now, they were arm wrestling, Maurice showing him who was boss. Glenn, sitting there bundled up in his new wool-lined raincoat, his wool gloves and scarf, acted surprised, for what it was worth, saying, “What’s all this fucking hostility about? I thought we had an understanding.”

  “I said you gonna listen to me or not?”

  So much for the understanding.

  Glenn took his time, making Maurice wait, before he said, “This guy who used to be your customer is dealing now, selling to white folks. You’re thinking of a way to rip him off, knowing he won’t call the cops ’cause it’s money, as you say, from illegal trade,” Glenn getting just a hint of a bored tone in there. He glanced at Maurice in his silk bandanna, sitting there like some fucking African prince. “What else?”

  “You either stupid or you showing me some nerve,” Maurice said. “Okay, we gonna find out how much you actually have.”

  • • •

  A YOUNG WOMAN NAMED MARCIE NOLAN, THE POLICE BEAT reporter for the Free Press, spotted Karen Sisco going into 1300 Beaubien, Detroit Police headquarters. Marcie was coming back from lunch at a Greektown restaurant, two blocks away, approaching 1300 when she saw Karen. But by the time Marcie got to the lobby and through the metal detector, Karen was in an elevator on her way up to . . . Well, she could be seeing one of the brass on the third floor, or someone in the Homicide section on five or Major Crimes on seven. If Karen was picking up a prisoner she’d eventually end up on nine, where the holding cells were located. Unless her prisoner was across the street, in the Wayne County jail. Marcie Nolan went up to her office on the second floor, a partitioned room she shared with the News beat reporter, and called an assistant editor at the Free Press.

  She said, “Hi, it’s Marcie,” eager to tell about Karen Sisco, the federal marshal she got to know in Miami when she was at the Herald, but had to answer questions first. No, they still weren’t giving out information. All they seemed to have was the witness report of four guys in a blue van. Two of the women were here this morning for show-ups. She said they had to release the suspect they’d brought in. “But listen, there’s a U.S. marshal here from Miami, Karen Sisco . . . I don’t know yet, I have to find her. She’s probably picking up some guy they have on a detainer . . . That’s what I’m gonna find out. In the meantime the Herald has a terrific shot of her taken in front of the federal courthouse . . . No, in Miami . . . It wouldn’t matter, it’s a really terrific shot. Karen has style, and she’s a knockout . . . You’ll see. It’s the kind of shot, if what she’s doing here isn’t a story, you could run it in ‘Names & Faces’ instead of whatever Madonna’s up to . . . It’ll have a cutline with it we can revise, add that she’s picking up a prisoner, or whatever she’s doing here . . . That’s fine with me. Once you see the picture I know you’ll use it.”

  • • •

  KAREN PHONED HER DAD LATE MONDAY AFTERNOON FROM her room in the Westin. He asked about her flight, hoping, he said, Northwest wasn’t still serving that scrambled egg sandwich with the banana and yogurt, and the bagel if you got the sandwich down and were still hungry. A cold bagel, for Christ sake. He didn’t wait to hear what she did have or ask about the weather.

  “So what’re you doing?”

  “Right now?” Karen said, standing at her window. “I’m looking at Windsor, Ontario. You remember that movie Stranger Than Paradise?”

  “No—who was in it?”

  “Nobody. It doesn’t matter,” Karen said. “I went to see Raymond Cruz.”

  “The Homicide guy.”

  “He was. He’s crimes against persons and property now, also sex crimes and child abuse.”

  “Detroit, he must be pretty busy.”

  “Home invasions are big, sexual assaults . . . They’re after a gang that cruises around in a van raping women, four guys. They pick up a woman off the street or pull her out of her car, gang-bang her in the van and throw her out. Raymond says they’re close to nailing these guys so he’s staying on top of it. But, he knows who Maurice Miller is, the guy Glenn Michaels stayed with when he was here in November? Or said he did. They even had Maurice’s case file out, looking at it—his priors, a lot of credit card stuff. They’re checking him out to see if he’s into home invasions. They had a wiretap on some guys who were hitting dope houses and heard Maurice’s name mentioned as someone, it sounded like, they wanted to bring in.”

  “The bad guys.”

  “Yeah, to work with them.”

  “Has Maurice been picked up?”

  “They haven’t looked for him yet. I told Raymond maybe I could save him the trouble. He gave me Maurice’s last known address, but doesn’t want me to go after him alone. I said, ‘Raymond, I’m a federal officer, I’m armed . . .’ What it is, he wants to go with me, but he’s tied up.”

  “Would this be like a date?”

  Some of the things her dad said she ignored.

  “I noticed in Maurice’s case file,” Karen said, “something that might interest you. He gave his occupation as prizefighter and his employer, the Kronk Recreation Center. You’ve heard of it, haven’t you?”

  “The Kronk? Sure, all the good Detroit fighters the last twenty years came out of there. Emanuel Steward’s program, the guy who trained those fighters, Tommy Hearns . . .”

  Her dad paused.

  “McCrory,” Karen said.

  “Yeah, Milton McCrory.”

  “There was a lightweight, Kenty?”

  “Hilmer Kenty. You remember those guys? You were a little girl. Your friends are at the mall, you’re home
watching the fights.”

  “Well, once in a while I did. And soaps,” Karen said. “General Hospital, I almost became a nurse.”

  “What’re you doing tonight?”

  “Nothing. Watch TV if there’s anything on.”

  “Monday night, Poirot’s on followed by Miss Marple. You thinking of going to the Kronk?”

  “I might, just to see what it’s like.”

  “A place like that,” her dad said, “the fighters are okay, they’re in there working their tail off. Then there’re the guys who want you to think they’re fighters, they might even shuffle around like they’re doing their footwork, hit the bags, but they never go in the ring. And you got the ones who hang out there ’cause it makes them feel like they’re tough guys. You know, the atmosphere. But you can take care of yourself, right?”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, let you know how I’m doing.”

  “I forgot to ask you,” her dad said, “what’s the weather like?”

  • • •

  “WAS A TIME,” MAURICE SAID, “YOU SEE A GOLD MERCEDES OVER in the parking lot has a license plate on it say hitman? You know Tommy Hearns is inside. Seeing the car would get our juices flowing.”

  Glenn said he thought there’d be guys hanging around outside or running, doing their roadwork. Man, it was a bleak, depressing neighborhood, trash blowing in the street . . . Maurice said it was too cold to be outside, the dude in his lilac dorag and tailored black pea jacket, enough shoulders in the coat for White Boy Bob—White Boy wearing a wool shirt hanging out over his T-shirt—coming behind them up the ramp to the front door of the Kronk Recreation Center at McGraw and Junction, a two-story red-brick building that looked to Glenn like a public library no one used in a poor section of town. The streets around here were a clutter of up-and-down two-family flats with porches, dingy cars out front narrowing the streets.

  Inside at a table they signed their names, the time, and wrote “boxing” in the last column. Glenn could hear kids’ voices, basketballs beating on a wood floor, in there where auditorium doors were closed, as they walked past to a stairway, went down to the basement and along a hallway that brought them to kronk boxing, lettered on a door painted yellow across the top and the rest of it a bright red, with more words on it that said this door has led many to pain & fame.

  “More the one than the other,” Maurice said, waiting for White Boy to edge past them and open the door. Going in, Maurice said to Glenn, “You feel the heat, uh? Hits you smack in the face.” Maurice slipping off his pea jacket now, getting down to his black silk shirt and pleated trousers a shade of taupe. “Even how much they sweat in here, it don’t smell bad, does it? Go sit over there on those benches. I be with you in a few minutes.”

  Some were like park benches, along the near wall facing the ring, a big one flat on the floor, its size taking up most of the gym. Four young guys, three black and one who looked to Glenn like an Arab were in there shadowboxing, weaving, ducking, throwing jabs with their taped hands. Glenn had noticed a body bag over where they came in, pictures of fighters all over the walls, a sign above the ring on the other side that said turn up the heat. Another one, the bigger the reward the bigger the sacrifice. Glenn stared at it a few moments thinking it should be turned around, lead with The bigger the sacrifice . . . In the space to the left of the ring were workout machines, a speed bag, a training table, athletic bags in jazzy colors on the floor. There were old black guys over there in yellow T-shirts with kronk in red, the trainers, talking to kids working out, watching the ones shuffling around in the ring. Maurice and White Boy were over there now, Maurice approaching the trainers one at a time, faking jabs, rolling his bony shoulders, jiving with them, but not getting any kind of cordial response, no smiles; a trainer would shake his head and Maurice would move on to the next one. White Boy was on a workout machine now, shirts off, popping his muscles.

  Glenn brought a cigarette out of his shirt, looking at another one of the signs. no pain no gain. No shit. He reached in for his lighter, the cigarette in his mouth, as one of the trainers, a big heavyset guy, came along from the other side of the gym—where the door was—shaking his head at him and pointing to a no smoking sign. Glenn held his raincoat open to slip the cigarette back into the pack, chin on his chest to see what he was doing. When he raised his head again he was looking at two white guys in overcoats coming this way, the two guys looking right back at him.

  Christ. Jack Foley and Buddy.

  Buddy the one saying, “Hey, Studs, how you doing?” as they walked up, Foley with kind of a mild expression, neither one acting like a hard-on, except they sat down on either side of him, close. It gave Glenn only a few moments to deal with his nerves.

  He said, “Jesus Christ, what’re you guys doing here?” and it didn’t sound too bad. Surprised, but not overdoing it, almost like he was glad to see them.

  Foley said, “Weren’t you expecting us?”

  Getting to it right away. Glenn said, “Listen, I’ll tell you what happened.” It was awkward the way they were sitting, the three of them facing the ring, only two guys in there now. He said to Foley, on his right, “That broad you picked up—did you know she was a U.S. marshal, for Christ sake?” He turned to Buddy as Buddy stood up, took off his overcoat and sat down again. “She knew me, from that bullshit dope bust. She drove me to court. Twice. You know what she said, we’re in the car on the turnpike? ‘I never forget anybody I’ve cuffed and shackled.’”

  Foley said, “Yeah? She said that to you?”

  Glenn turned to see Foley, still with a mild expression, almost smiling. Glenn said, “She asked me if I had a gun,” and saw a little more of the smile, not much, just a hint, but like Foley thought it was funny. “She told me to drive, leave you there, or I was going down for the rest of my life.”

  Foley said, “Then what happened?”

  “I drove. What would you do?”

  Foley didn’t answer, his face close, deadpan now. Glenn turned his head and was looking at the two guys in the ring sparring, dancing around each other, ducking, throwing jabs, smacking each other’s gloves.

  “What happened after that?”

  “She wanted me to get off the turnpike so she could take me in. No thank you, I had it on the floor. The next thing I know she wigged on me, grabbed the wheel and we spun out and piled up.”

  “What’d you do then?”

  “Got out of the car and ran.”

  “She try to stop you?”

  “She was out cold.”

  “How do you know she wasn’t dead?”

  “She was breathing.”

  “But she could’ve been hurt.”

  “What was I supposed to do, get help? She wakes up, she’s gonna fucking put me away. I got out of there, man, I ran. I picked up a ride, drove to Orlando and hung around Disney World, in crowds, man, I hid in crowds of people till I figured out what to do.”

  Foley said, “You hid out with Mickey Mouse, huh?”

  “Yeah, Mickey and Minnie, that whole crowd. I thought about it and decided I could kill two birds, hide out up here and do the job I told you about at Lompoc. You know the one I mean?”

  Foley nodded.

  “So I called Maurice.”

  “Who’s Maurice?”

  “Snoopy,” Buddy said, leaning over now to get his suitcoat off. “Snoopy Miller.”

  Glenn—it was weird—felt a sense of relief come over him hearing the name Snoopy. For some reason he thought of Snoopy the dog, saw him in his mind the way Snoopy appeared in the comic strip, before thinking of the other Snoopy who wasn’t Snoopy anymore—the one over there with the trainers; no, talking to White Boy now and they were coming this way, White Boy carrying his shirts. Glenn had to wonder why only a few moments ago he’d felt cornered.

  Leaning against Foley he said, “Here comes Snoopy now. You recognize him?”

  • • •

  FOLEY WASN’T SURE. HE HAD SEEN HIM FIGHT ONLY A COUPLE of times at Lompoc, about the same tim
e they began calling him Snoopy instead of Mad Dog and he quit the ring; and had seen him once in a while with Glenn, in the yard. Glenn got up and Foley looked over at Buddy.

  “The guy in the do-rag.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s Snoopy.”

  “Little squirt,” Buddy said. “What’s he do now, tell fortunes?”

  He was walking up to Glenn when Foley said, “Hey, Snoopy, how you doing?” and he stopped and looked over.

  Standing at the edge of the ring apron, he looked from Foley to Buddy and back again, pretty serious about it. He said to Foley, “I’m suppose to know you?”

  “Lompoc,” Foley said, and waited for Glenn to say something, it was his party. But he didn’t.

  “Yeah, Lompoc,” Maurice said, like he was remembering it now, picturing some part of it.

  Now the big guy with him moved in closer saying, “We have a problem here?”

  It took Foley back to the yard, guys sizing each other up, making judgments that could mean somebody’s life. Foley didn’t look at the big white guy, but kept staring at the Snoop he remembered as all show, had the moves, the weaves, the head fakes when he wasn’t even near his opponent; doing that little jive skip and touching a glove to his head. He stared at the Snoop till he saw the man’s face begin to relax and now he was smiling.

  “Jack Foley. Am I right?”

  Foley nodded.

  “And Buddy. Yeah, I can see you two now in the yard, sure. Jack Foley, famous bank robber. It seem to me I been reading about you in the newspaper. Busted out of some joint in Florida, huh?”