Out of Sight

by Elmore Leonard

  “You’re having second thoughts,” Foley said.

  She raised her cigarette and looked at it.

  “I know what’s bothering you and I can understand how you feel.”

  He waited while she took a deep drag on the cigarette and turned her head to blow the smoke away from them. When she was looking at him again he said, “You think I’m too old for you.”

  He waited again.

  This time while she seemed a little surprised.

  He waited with no expression.

  She began to smile. Good. Not giving it much, but looking right at him and it was the right kind of smile, conspiring with him again, knowing something no one else did. She put on a serious look and nodded. She said, “Or I’m too young for you. Do you think we can work it out?”

  • • •

  THEY WERE ON THE SOFA NOW WITH WHISKEY AND PEANUTS, no plan, letting it happen, gradually feeling a glow. Karen’s shoes were off, her legs tucked under her. Foley took off his jacket but not his tie; he felt good in the tie. He remembered the clipping, Karen’s picture with the shotgun, and laid it on the coffee table. She said, “So it wasn’t by chance. You found out I was here.” He told her he’d called her room from downstairs. She said, “If I had answered, what were you gonna say?” He told her, well, he’d say who he was and did she remember him and ask if she’d like to meet for a drink. “If I remembered you,” Karen said, “I came looking for you. I would’ve said sure, let’s do it. But for all you knew I could show up with a SWAT team. Why would you trust me?” He said because it would be worth the risk. She said, “You like taking risks,” touching his face with her hand, then kissed him, very gently, and said, “So do I, peanut breath.” He felt her fingers brush through his hair as she kissed him again, still gently, and it was hard—aware of her scent, remembering it—it was hard to keep from eating her up. He put his arms around her, feeling her slim body in his hands, and she brushed his mouth with hers, saying, “What’s the hurry, Jack? You have to be somewhere?”

  • • •

  SHE KNEW HIS VOICE FROM THE TRUNK OF THE CHEVY AND the look in his eyes from before that, in a glare of headlights, the quiet look in his eyes as he said, “Why, you’re just a girl.” As he said, “I bet I smell, don’t I?” Conversational, covered with muck from a prison escape. If there was a moment, the kind of moment they’d talked about, that would’ve been it, in the headlights. Now he was clean, his face smooth and hard, her fingers touching his cheekbone, the line of his jaw, a tiny scar across the bridge of his nose. She said, “Sooner or later . . .” She stopped and he looked at her over the rim of his glass, about to take a drink. She loved his eyes. She said, “You have a kind look, trusting.”

  “That’s not what you were about to say.”

  She shrugged, letting it go. But sooner or later she would ask him . . . Sooner or later she would begin saying things to him and not be able to stop. She said, “Remember how talkative you were?”

  He said, “I was nervous,” lighting her cigarette and then his own.

  “Yeah, but you didn’t show it. You were a pretty cool guy. But then when you got in the trunk . . .”

  “What?”

  “I thought you’d try to tear my clothes off.”

  “It never entered my mind. Well, not until—remember we were talking about Faye Dunaway?”

  “I know what you’re gonna say.”

  “I told you I liked that movie, Three Days of the Condor, and you said yeah, you loved the lines? Like the next morning, after they’d slept together, he says he’ll need her help and she says . . .”

  “’Have I ever denied you anything?’”

  “I thought for a couple of seconds there, the way you said it, you were coming on to me.”

  “Maybe I was and didn’t know it. Redford tells her she doesn’t have to help him and she says . . . You remember?”

  “No, tell me.”

  “She said, ‘You can always depend on the old spy-fucker.’”

  “Why’d she say ‘old’?”

  “She was putting herself down.”

  “Would you call yourself that, a spy-fucker?”

  “I think she was still scared to death, trying to keep it light but hip. Before they ever go to bed she accused him of getting rough. He says, ‘What? Have I raped you?’ And she says, ‘The night is young.’ I thought, Come on—what is she doing, giving him ideas? No, I wouldn’t say that, definitely, or call myself a spy-fucker. Or any other kind.” She said, “You know you kept touching me, feeling my thigh.”

  “Yeah, but in a nice way.”

  “You called me your zoo-zoo.”

  “That’s candy, inside, something sweet. You don’t hear it much anymore.” He smiled and touched her hand. “You were my treat.”

  His sheet said no visible scars, but there was a white gash across three of the knuckles on his right hand and half the third finger was missing.

  “You asked me if I was afraid. I said of course, but I wasn’t really; it surprised me.”

  “I might’ve smelled like a sewer, but you could tell I was a gentleman. They say John Dillinger was a pretty nice guy.”

  “He killed a police officer.”

  “I hear he didn’t mean to. The cop fell as Dillinger was aiming at his leg and got him through the heart.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Why not.”

  “You said you wondered what would happen if we’d met a different way.”

  “And you lied to me, didn’t you? You said nothing would’ve happened.”

  “Maybe that’s when I started thinking about it. What if we did?”

  “Then how come you tried to kill me?”

  “What did you expect? You could’ve been dumping the car for all I know, hiding it somewhere, and I’m locked in the fucking trunk. I warned you first, didn’t I? I told you to put your hands up.”

  “Yeah, after I said come on out. You knew I wasn’t gonna leave you in there. You start shooting at us.”

  She thought of the gun and said, “That Sig .38 was my favorite.” She watched him fixing up their drinks, the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. In that moment he seemed from another time.

  “I’ve wondered about that,” Karen said, “what you were gonna do with me.”

  “I don’t know, I hadn’t worked that part out yet. All I knew was I liked you, and I didn’t want to leave you there, never see you again.”

  “You waved to me in the elevator.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you caught that.”

  “I couldn’t believe it. I was thinking of you by then, a lot, wondering what it would be like if we did meet. Like if we could take a time-out . . .”

  He said, “Really?” He said, “I was thinking the same thing. If we could call time and get together for a while.”

  She wanted to ask, yeah, but for how long? Then what? But she said, “That day we met on the street, did you know it was me?”

  “You kidding? I almost stopped.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I wanted to, but I was embarrassed wearing that tourist outfit. I didn’t want you to think I dressed like that.”

  “The black socks with the sandals.”

  “Part of the disguise.”

  “I watched you all the way down the street.”

  “I could feel it.”

  “You were going to see Adele, weren’t you?”

  “I don’t think we should get into that.”

  “No, you’re right. Or Buddy. I won’t ask if he’s with you or what you’re doing here. Or if you’ve run into Glenn Michaels yet.”

  He said, “Don’t talk like that, okay? You scare me.” He said, “I was trying to remember—Faye Dunaway and Robert Redford start kissing . . .”

  Karen nodded. “As he’s untying her.”

  “How did they get from there into bed?”

  • • •

  FOLEY WATCHED HER GET UP FROM THE SOFA AND HOLD OUT her hand to him. She said, “Come o
n, I’ll show you,” and took him into the bedroom. He sat on the bed to take off his shoes, stood up to take off his pants. Got his socks off. She said, “Are you gonna leave your tie on?” Watching her undress, Karen getting down to a black bra and panties, he said he wasn’t sure if the old ticker would be able to take this. When she got out of her undies and came over to him, standing close to help him with the tie, he was thinking he might’ve died already and gone to heaven. When his clothes were off he looped the tie around his neck again. Seeing her in lamplight before she turned it off he said, “My God, look at you.” He had never seen a woman’s body like hers naked. In magazines maybe, but not in real life. In the next few minutes he realized he had never met anyone under the covers like she was: man, all over him with her scent, touching, kissing, saying his name, saying “Oh, Jack,” in a whisper that sounded sad. He asked her if she was having fun and saw her face in the light from the sitting room that filtered the dark, saw her smile, but even her smile was sad. They made love and she didn’t speak or make a sound until she began to say his name again, “Jack?” He asked her what. But that’s all she was doing, saying his name, saying it over and over until she was saying it pretty loud and then stopped saying it. No woman had ever said his name like that before.

  • • •

  “WHAT AM I NOW?”

  Lying in his arms in the king-size bed, light from the sitting room almost reaching them.

  “You’re still my zoo-zoo.”

  She moved away from him to sit up and swing her legs off the bed.

  “Are you coming back?”

  She said, “You can always depend on the old bank-robber fucker.”

  He reached her before she could leave the bed, and sat up, getting close behind her, his hand touching her breasts as his arm came around to hold her against him.

  “Are you being funny?”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Are you?”

  She said, “I don’t know.”

  He let go of her, watched her get up and go into the bathroom. The door closed. He felt they were coming to the end of the time-out and he’d hear a whistle blow the way hacks blew whistles to tell you to stop doing something and start doing something else. He didn’t know what to say to her now to get her back; he wasn’t sure if he could put himself in her place to know what she was thinking. He did know how to listen and how to wait; he was good at waiting. If he couldn’t get her back, at least for a while—there was no time limit—then he would become serious, not wanting to but knew he would, and they’d play it out.

  But when she came back to the bed and stood naked looking down at him, he believed he could get her back.

  She said, “I want you to know something. I wasn’t looking for just a fuck, if that’s what you’re thinking?”

  “Why are you mad?”

  “Or I did it for some kind of kinky thrill. Score with a bank robber the way some women go for rough trade.”

  “What about my motive?” Foley said. “Now I can say I fucked a U.S. marshal. You think I will?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “Come to bed.”

  He raised the covers and she stood there making up her mind before finally slipping into bed and his arms took her in. He said, “I know of a guy—his wife held him down, wouldn’t let him go out with the guys, wouldn’t give him any money—he was a drunk. So he robbed a bank to get back at her, a bank where he was known and he’d be sure to get caught. The wife was humiliated and the guy was happy. He did fifty-four months, came out, patched things up with his wife and robbed the same bank all over again. Another guy, he goes in the bank holding a bottle he says is nitroglycerin. He scores some cash off a teller, he’s on his way out when he drops the bottle. It shatters on the tile floor, he slips in the stuff, cracks his head and they’ve got him. The nitro was canola oil. I know more fucked-up bank robbers than ones that know what they’re doing. I doubt one in ten can tell a dye pack when he sees one. Guys like—remember that movie, Woody Allen robs the bank?”

  “Take the Money and Run.”

  “He hands the teller the note, she looks at it and says, ‘You have a gub? What’s a gub?’ That’s par, because most bank robbers are fucking morons. You’ve heard some of the nicknames they get? The B.O. bandit, the Chubby Cheeks bandit, Mumbles, the Laurel and Hardy bandits? A guy they call Mr. Pleats? Another one, the Sheik, guy wears something that looks like a turban? The Vaulter? Guy always jumped the counter for no reason. Robby Hood?”

  She said, “What were you known as?”

  “I don’t think I had a nickname. But the point I’m making: to go to bed with a bank robber so you can say you did, you’d have to be as dumb as they are. I know you’re not dumb, I know you’re not looking for kinky thrills, as you say. So why would I think that? Why would you think I might think that?”

  She said, “You’re not dumb.”

  “You can’t do three falls,” Foley said, “and think you have much of a brain.” He waited a few moments, lying there holding her, before he said, “If you get serious on me, it’s over. You have to stop thinking.”

  Now Karen took time, holding on to him. She said, “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “That’s part of the feeling we both have. It’s how we got here. But there’s nothing we can do—you know that. You’re not gonna give up the life you have and it’s way too late for me. I couldn’t if I wanted to. Change my name and look for work? You say ‘work’ to a con he’ll go out the window, not even bothering to see what floor he’s on. Look, we knew going in,” Foley said, “when the time’s up, it’s up. I say that knowing I love you with all my heart, I sincerely do.”

  Her face came up to his; they began to kiss and touch again, Foley with a tender feeling he had never experienced before. Looking at her eyes he thought maybe she was crying or was about to. She said, “I can’t go with you.” She kissed him again, and in a voice so quiet he could barely hear her she said, “I want to know what’s gonna happen.”

  “You know,” Foley said.

  • • •

  WHEN KAREN WOKE UP, LYING ON HER SIDE FACING THE the bathroom, she didn’t open her eyes right away. She wanted to; she wanted to look at the radio clock next to the bed and she wanted to turn her body enough to reach with her hand and, if he was there, touch him. As long as she didn’t open her eyes or move he was still there. She could take her time, creep up on him and they’d make love again and she would hear his name coming out of her in the dark. So she lay there with the stale taste of whiskey in her mouth. All that was left. Until she said, Oh, for Christ sake, grow up.

  And opened her eyes.

  It was ten-fifteen. The bathroom door was open, the light off. She rolled to her back and turned her head. His side of the bed was empty; the room silent, the windows dark. She remembered looking at herself in the bathroom mirror and coming out to say things that were so fucking stupid now, hearing herself, her tone, and remembered him saying, “Why are you mad?” And later saying, “If you get serious on me, it’s over.” And that’s what she did, became emotional and blew it because she was thinking too much, wanting to know how it would end. She thought, Well, now you know. And got out of bed.

  Karen walked out to the sitting room with a sense of expectation. Foley was gone, but maybe he’d left a note. She looked around, at the desk, the coffee table. The newspaper photo he’d laid there was gone. But something wrapped in a napkin was lying by the half-empty bottle and the ice bucket. She picked it up and knew what it was as she unfolded the napkin.

  Her Sig Sauer .38.

  TWENTY-ONE

  * * *

  “I DROP YOU OFF,” BUDDY SAID, “GIVE THE VALET GUY THE car, Glenn and a black kid by the name of Kenneth are waiting in the lobby. This is three o’clock in the afternoon, the snow’s coming down, they want us to take a ride with them. I said you were buying a pair of shoes, and if they want to go look for you over there, good luck. We come out, White Boy’s wait
ing in the car. What time did you get back?”

  “About ten.”

  “It took you, what, seven hours to buy a pair of shoes?”

  Wednesday morning now, Buddy had come to Foley’s room frowning, wondering where he’d been.

  “I saw Karen Sisco,” Foley said. “She’s staying at the Westin.”

  Buddy didn’t say anything right away. First he sat down at the table to look at Foley across his room service tray, Foley having the Continental breakfast in his socks and underwear, a bottle of Jim Beam close by.

  “And she saw you?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  Buddy said, “Oh, my,” and watched Foley pour a shot of Beam into his coffee. “Well, we’re sure casual about it, aren’t we? You talk to her?”

  Foley nodded.

  “Buy her a drink?”

  “We had a few.”

  “She knew who you were.”

  Foley nodded again, sipped his coffee and raised the cup. “You want some? You can use the glass in the bathroom.”

  Buddy shook his head. “Have a nice visit and then you left?” Buddy waited but didn’t get an answer, Foley biting into some kind of Danish. “How’s that work, a wanted felon socializing with a U.S. marshal?”

  Foley said, “You know how I felt about her.” He put his cup down. “The night I came out, we’re in the trees by the highway, she’s in Glenn’s car? You kept asking why I wanted to bring her along. I said I just wanted to talk to her. Well, it turns out she wanted to talk to me, too, and that’s what we did.”

  Buddy said, “Did you give her a jump? If you did I might begin to understand where your head’s at. I know the attraction pussy can hold for a man. What I can’t imagine is risking your life over it, though I know it’s done.”