Karen took a moment. She said, "There is one thing I noticed."
"Yeah? What's that?"
"He's got the letters f-u-o-n tattooed on his penis."
Daniel frowned at her. "Foo-on?"
"That's when it's, you might say, limp. When he has a hard-on it says Fuck the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Daniel Burdon grinned at Karen. He said, "Girl, you and I have to get together. I mean it."
Karen could handle "girl." Go either way. Girl, looking at herself in a mirror applying blush-on. Woman, well, that's what she was. Though until just a few years ago she only thought of women old enough to be her mother as women. Women getting together to form organizations of women, saying, Look, we're different from men. Isolating themselves in these groups instead of mixing it up with men and beating them at their own men's games. Men in general were stronger physically than women. Some men were stronger than other men and Karen was stronger than some too; so what did that prove? If she had to put a man on the ground, no matter how big or strong he was, she'd do it. One way or another. Up front, in his face. What she couldn't see herself playing was this sneaky role. Trying to get the stuff on Carl, a guy she liked, a lot, would think of with tender feelings and miss him during the day and want to be with him. Shit… Okay, she'd play the game, but not undercover. She'd first let him know she was a federal officer and see what he thought about it.
Could Carl be a bank robber?
She'd reserve judgment. Assume almost anyone could at one time or another and go from there.
What Karen did, she came home and put a pot roast in the oven and left her bag on the kitchen table, open, the grip of a Beretta nine sticking out in plain sight.
Carl arrived, they kissed in the living room, Karen feeling it but barely looking at him. When he smelled the pot roast cooking Karen said, "Come on, you can make the drinks while I put the potatoes on." In the kitchen, then, she stood with the refrigerator door open, her back to Carl, giving him time to notice the pistol. Finally he said, "Jesus, you're a cop."
She had rehearsed this moment. The idea: turn saying, "You guessed," sounding surprised; then look at the pistol and say something like "Nuts, I gave it away." But she didn't. He said, "Jesus, you're a cop," and she turned from the refrigerator with an ice tray and said, "Federal. I'm a U.S. marshal."
"I would never've guessed," Carl said, "not in a million years."
Thinking about it before, she didn't know if he'd wig out or what. She looked at him now, and he seemed to be taking it okay, smiling a little.
He said, "But why?"
"Why what?"
"Are you a marshal?"
"Well, first of all, my dad has a company, Marshall Sisco Investigations…"
"You mean because of his name, Marshall?" "What I am-they're not spelled the same. No, but as soon as I learned to drive I started doing surveillance jobs for him. Like following some guy who was trying to screw his insurance company, a phony claim. I got the idea of going into law enforcement. So after a couple of years at Miami I transferred to Florida Atlantic and got in their Criminal Justice program." "I mean why not FBI, if you're gonna do it, or DEA?" "Well, for one thing, I liked to smoke grass when I was younger, so DEA didn't appeal to me at all. Secret Service guys I met were so fucking secretive, you ask them a question, they'd go, 'You'll have to check with Washington on that.' See, different federal agents would come to school to give talks. I got to know a couple of marshals-we'd go out after, have a few beers, and I liked them. They're nice guys, condescending at first, naturally; but after a few years they got over it."
Carl was making drinks now, Early Times for Karen, Dewar's in his glass, both with a splash. Standing at the sink, letting the faucet run, he said, "What do you do?"
"I'm on court security this week. My regular assignment is warrants. We go after fugitives, most of them parole violators." Carl handed her a drink. "Murderers?"
"If they were involved in a federal crime when they did it. Usually drugs."
"Bank robbery, that's federal, isn't it?"
"Yeah, some guys come out of corrections and go right back to work."
"You catch many?"
"Bank robbers?" Karen said, "Nine out of ten," looking right at him.
Carl raised his glass. "Cheers."
While they were having dinner at the kitchen table he said, "You're quiet this evening."
"I'm tired, I was on my feet all day, with a shotgun."
"I can't picture that," Carl said. "You don't look like a U.S. marshal, or any kind of cop."
"What do I look like?"
"A knockout. You're the best-looking girl I've ever been this close to. I got a pretty close look at Mary Elizabeth Mas-trantonio, when they were here shooting Scarf ace? But you're a lot better looking. I like your freckles."
"I used to be loaded with them."
"You have some gravy on your chin. Right here."
Karen touched it with her napkin. She said, "I'd like to see your boat."
He was chewing pot roast and had to wait before saying, "I told you it was out of the water?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't have the boat anymore. It was repossessed when I fell behind in my payments."
"The bank sold it?"
"Yeah, Florida Southern. I didn't want to tell you when we first met. Get off to a shaky start."
"But now that you can tell me I've got gravy on my chin…"
"I didn't want you to think I was some kind of loser."
"What've you been doing since?"
"Working as a mate, up at Haulover."
"You still have your place, your apartment?"
"Yeah, I get paid, I can swing that, no problem."
"I have a friend in the marshals lives in North Miami, on Alamanda off a Hundred and twenty-fifth."
Carl nodded. "That's not far from me."
"You want to go out after?"
"I thought you were tired."
"I am."
"Then why don't we stay home?" Carl smiled. "What do you think?"
"Fine."
They made love in the dark. He wanted to turn the lamp on, but Karen said no, leave it off.
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.