"He's heard that one," Foley said. "It's okay. I may as well talk to him, if that's what he wants."
Adele turned her back to Lou Adams in the doorway. "He said he came to see me."
"When he saw I wasn't there. I'm gonna tell him I'm at the airport, about to leave. I'll call to check on you when I'm through here. The guy's almost finished."
"After he talks to you," Adele said, "you don't think he'll want to hang around and talk to me? In my baby doll lingerie?"
"Tell him you have a headache."
She said, "You haven't changed a bit, have you?" turned to Lou Adams and held out the phone. "It's for you."
"Tell me so I'll know," Foley said, "why you're dedicating your career to putting me away. Because you mouthed off and had your testimony thrown out of court? I never scored two hundred banks and you know it."
Lou Adams's voice said, "You through?"
"Is that why you're pissed off? You blame me 'cause you didn't get your way? You start yelling when you were told to step down?"
"Now you through?"
"You have a bug up your ass on account of me, and I'd like to know why. 'Cause you're a hardnose, you're always right? How about if we had a fistfight and I let you hit me a couple times, get it out of your system."
"We could have a gunfight," Lou said, "stead of fists. Yeah, I'd feel better, but I'll settle for putting you away."
"Lou, I did banks. I'm not a desperado, a public enemy. I was convicted and did my time. Why can't you accept that?"
"So what're you gonna do now," Lou said, "get a job at a car wash? Bag groceries at the supermarket? Tell me what you're gonna do, I'd like to know."
"You ought to see a shrink," Foley said. "Find out why you're fucked up."
" 'Cause I'm asking what you plan to do?"
Foley said, "Lou, I'm at the airport, about to get out of town. You understand what I'm saying? You're not gonna ever see me again. Okay? So take it easy and I will too."
"Jack?"
Foley took a moment to settle down. "What?"
"You think I won't find you?" "Lou, I can go anywhere I want-"
"You're gonna rob another bank. You know it and I know it." "Put Adele on."
"When you come strolling out," Lou Adams said, "it doesn't matter where the bank is. It could be in fucking Alaska, I'm gonna be there waiting for you."
Foley said, "Will you give Adele the phone?"
Lou handed it to her and Adele turned her back to him saying, "Yes…?" Listening for a time and saying all right, okay then, before telling him, "Hon, have a safe trip."
Lou said, "You still care for him."
"Of course I do."
"But glad you're not married to him. Knowing he'll do another bank and end up back inside, 'cause he can't help himself. Am I right?"
"I wouldn't rule it out," Adele said. "It's too bad, you get to know Jack he's really a good guy. Girls love him."
Lou allowed Adele to take him by the arm to the door, still open, Adele saying, "Girls find out he robs banks, they get turned on. And he is good-looking, you have to admit. But say the girls find out he holds up liquor stores? It would turn them off, or they'd be scared to death of him."
"That's true," Lou said. "There's something about bank robbers, the way the general public imagines them as cool guys. Why is that? When nine out of ten are bums, deadbeats, owe car payments or need a fix. Guys who'll never in their life get ahead of the game."
Lou stepped through the doorway and turned to Adele. "What I'm wondering about now, what kind of ID Foley showed to get through all the airport security." Lou said, "His mug shot? Tell me how he buys a ticket, with a credit card he swiped?" Now he was looking at Adele, almost up to him in her heels. She smelled good.
"I know he's still around here," Lou said, "so I better keep an eye on the Normandie, huh? There's a fella at the airport can look at his computer and know if Foley's on any of the flights going out of Miami International. I can sit home watching TV, Foley's name comes up on a passenger list, I get a call and I know where he's going. I told the security guy, you're working with the FBI, partner. You see Foley going somewhere, you're on the trail of a criminal happens to be America's foremost bank robber."
Adele said, "What do you get out of making his life miserable?"
"I hope that's what I'm doing." "Give him a break, he's a good guy."
"You picked him up at Glades Correctional," Lou said. "That's where they keep the good guys, uh? I'll bet you a hundred bucks," Lou said, "Foley robs another bank in the next thirty days." Watching her he started to grin. "You can't bet me he won't, can you?"
SEVEN
THERE WERE PHOTOGRAPHS OF DAWN NAVARRO ALL OVER the house, blown-up prints in the front room, Dawn not bothering to smile but patient, blond hair across her eyes lined in black like the eyes of a pharaoh, Dawn the psychic staring at Foley from photos taken more than seven years ago. And yet he had the feeling she was looking at him now. Her Egyptian eyes telling Foley she could see him, Foley standing there in his prison underwear, the room dim. Dawn saying, I can see you, Jack. She even knew his name. He said to her face in the photo, "No, you can't." She kept staring at him and he said, "Can you?"
There were shots of Dawn taken on the walk along the canal, on the patio, on the concrete steps to the second-floor veranda. Foley could see Cundo following her with his camera saying, "Look at me." Saying, "Yes, tha's it, just like that." Dawn looking over her shoulder.
The property, little more than thirty feet wide, ran back a hundred or so feet to Cundo's garage in the alley. Here he had shot Dawn behind the wheel of his Volkswagen convertible, twelve years old but looking good, dark green with the tan canvas top. Or maybe it was hers. But why keep it here if she lived in the pink house? Foley didn't use the car until his second day in Venice.
The first day he drank rum from Puerto Rico and listened to Carlos Jobim until he passed out in Cundo's king-size bed.
There was a painting of Dawn in this master bedroom on the third floor, close to life size, though at first he didn't realize it was Dawn, now with dark hair, no exotic eyeliner, a more natural-looking Dawn than the ones with the eyes in the photos.
The painted Dawn lying in this bed looking at him, her hands at her sides, was a naked dark-haired Dawn on the wall next to the bed. He saw Dawn when he closed his eyes and when he opened them in the morning, Dawn still looking at him now from the painting.
In all the photos of her she was blond.
The next day he put the VW's top down-anybody who wanted to look at him it was okay-and drove through the streets of Venice to see what they had here, all the million-dollar homes that wouldn't sell for a quarter of that anywhere but on the California coast. It didn't matter. According to Cundo everybody living in Venice was happy to be here. "There rich people and not rich people, but they all have class. Everybody is included except the gangs. They here, but not invited to the block parties." Foley didn't see any gangs. He drove around, stopped and walked up one of the streets that was a sidewalk separating front yards facing each other, each house with its own idea of what the landscaping should look like, from tropical plants and palms to thick patches of bougain-villea.
Foley drove along Lincoln Boulevard until the sign
ross, dress for less
lured him to the lot behind the store. He used his prepaid credit card to buy new clothes, the first time in more than ten years: three pairs of faded Levi's, white T-shirts and briefs, tennis shoes, sweat socks, a green cotton sweater, an off-white drip-dry sport coat, limp, no shape to it, for sixty-nine dollars, then had to pick out some dark T-shirts and a couple of silky black sport shirts to wear with the coat. He drove up Lincoln to Ralphs supermarket and bought bathroom supplies, shampoo, a skin cleaner, a pair of flip-flops, in the habit of wearing them in the shower at Glades; he bought four bottles of Jack Daniel's, fifths, a case of Dos Equis he remembered he liked, six bottles of red from Australia, six rib-eye steaks, Wheaties and bananas, a sack of oranges, apples, cheese, popcorn, milk, French bread and real butter. He asked a clerk if there was a sporting goods store around. The clerk said you bet, the Sports Chalet in Marina del Rey, and he stopped there to buy a basketball before going home. There were courts on the beach. He liked feeling a basketball in his hands. He wanted to shoot hoops while the sun was bringing down a red sky to sink off the edge of the ocean.