"Boss…?"
They were sitting on the sunporch of a yellow frame house on Broadway near Oakwood Park in Venice, where Tico was living with a good-looking black woman who was supposed to be his ah 'nt, the way he said it.
Lou said, "You fuck with me, Sandy, I'll have Immigration deport your skinny ass back to Central America, drop you off home in Nicaragua. You savvy 'deport your ass'?"
"Yes, boss, of course."
Calm about it. A Spanish dude in his striped do-rag and silver earring.
"Tell me," Lou said, "if you know a Jack Foley." "I don't think so."
"He's only the most famous fucking bank robber in America. Last week he was released from a Florida prison and bought fake ID to get out here in a hurry."
"Can I ask why you looking for him?"
"He's gonna rob another bank."
"How do you know that, boss?"
"It's what he does, he robs banks. I went to the prison in Florida," Lou said. "I talk to inmates, I talk to hacks, administrative people-every one of 'em said, 'Jack Foley? Yeah, he hung out with Cundo Rey, they road-dog buddies.' So I'm thinking, Cundo's put him up. You know about this Cuban? He's still in the joint but suppose to have property out here. Buys homes and sells 'em, all he does is get rich."
"In Venice-ya lo creo."
"Speak English. You know him?"
"I hear of him only."
"Well, I checked with the county. They don't have him down as owning any. But then I find his name as a partner in an investment company. Rios and Rey, Incorporated, Financial Consultants. When'd Cundo learn to add a column of figures?"
Tico shook his head. "I can't help you, boss."
"This squirt's finishing up a homicide conviction in Florida while he's a businessman in California? Yeah, uh-huh. I spoke to a cute woman name of Tibby Rothman. You know her? Little bitty thing."
"I see her around, yes."
"She puts out the Venice newspaper, I understand, when she feels like it. I asked her did she know a James Rios. She said, 'You mean Little Jimmy the bookkeeper?' and grinned at me like she'd said something funny." Now Lou asked his second in command, "Sandy, you know this Little Jimmy person?" Now Tico was grinning.
"Boss, everybody in Venice knows Little Jimmy. He's what you call a character. Sabe usted character, boss?"
This federate being a tough guy was a trip. You fucking with me, Sandy? The question on Tico's mind: what was the guy doing here by himself? They send him to watch a bank robber just got his release who could sit on the beach all day watching girls, do whatever he wants? They send one guy only?
One guy can't do it. So he wants Tico, your young Boy United, to watch the bank robber for him. The man said, "And get some of those gangbangers, their pants hanging off their ass, to help you." He said, "Four times six is twenty-four." He did, he said that. "You need four colored guys and four la Cucarachas, one of each working surveillance at all times, six hours on, six off. Can you handle it? You can't, I'll have your ass sent back to"-what did he say, «Nicaragua»? The man not knowing shit where Tico was from.
Tico's mama Shirlene-once she'd had enough of West Memphis-found her way to Central America with a light-skin Latino guy. Tico was born and she left the first guy for another light-skin guy, a musician famous for playing the marimba, and she began to sing with his band called Los Parados. Shirlene changed her name to Sierra and became famous down there doing Afro-Caribbean funk in San Jose clubs. Days she spent with Tico as he grew up, loving him, teaching him how to be black American on the beat, how to wear his hair long and a hat if he wanted with the do-rag, what kind of silver to wear, rings and an earring. Sierra spoke English to him at home, good English and street English, preparing him for his world. She said, "Baby, feel your cool self, who you are, somebody special." She told him every day, "There is no one else like you. Don't fuck up."
This Lou Adams had big hands and hard bones showing in his face. He was the kind of man believed he knew everything. Be talking, thumbs hooked in his belt, turn his head to spit, turn his head back and still be talking. Why's he want this bank robber? To make a name for himself? Catch this famous bandit Tico had never heard of? Why's he think the bank robber was staying at a house everybody knows belongs to Cundo Rey? The Lone Ranger says no, Little Jimmy Rios owns the house. Tico said, "Oh, is that right?"
"I looked up the records," Louis Adams said, "and saw the signature, James Rios."
What everyone who knew anything was suppose to believe. But if Little Jimmy belonged to Cundo Rey, going back to the time they left Cooba, wouldn't the homes also belong to Cundo? Why didn't the Lone Ranger know that? You own two high-price homes on a canal, the most expensive property in Venice, you had to be a millionaire, even if you were living in a prison cell in Florida.
Tico said to Louis Adams, "What are you paying us for this work?"
"You get to stay here," Lou Adams said. "I don't send your ass home."
"I don't do this work for you, you deport me?" "I make a phone call, it's done." "The guys I get for you, I tell them that?" "They're illegals, aren't they?"
"I don't know. There would be a court hearing to find out, uh? I know of these situations, it could take weeks."
Lou said, "While you're being held in federal detention."
"I understand that," Tico said, "but while you holding us, who's watching the bank robber?"
Lou Adams said, "Sandy, are you fuckin' with me again? I'll get you sent home tomorrow."
Tico said, "You know my place of birth is Costa Rica? No, you didn't, did you? You know my mother was born in the state of Arkansas? I think you knew it and forgot. It makes me also a citizen of the United States. I have a passport."
Tico waited, giving the federal time to think of what he might say, the man trying hard to be a serious FBI man. Help him out.
"Still," Tico said, "I see what you need to do and I think, all right, I get the guys. We see the bank robber leave the house we know is owned by a criminal who isn't there, is in prison. The bank robber has left. Now, nobody is there, this place owned by a millionaire criminal."
Lou Adams said, "You gonna fuckin' act it out next? You want to know what you get out of it? Give your boys some T-shirts that say y.b.u. across the front. You get to see your mama when she comes to visit. We won't detain her, have her x-rayed. 'Well, it looks like you're in a good shape. Except for those balloons in your tummy.'»
Lou turned to get in Tico's face.
"Don't fuck with me, boy."
TEN
"HE'LL BE HERE THE END OF NEXT WEEK," FOLEY SAID, "unless he decides to lay over in South Beach and go crazy."
"He won't," Dawn said. "He'll be here the day he's released." She said, "I'll call Little Jimmy in the morning, have him come by so you can see what he's like. I would've called him today if you hadn't seduced me." She said, "I'm starting to sound like you, aren't I? That's a compliment. What was it you said, we were plumbing our compatibility? I have to say, Jack, you could be a master plumber."
They were in bed, lying close to each other in the dark, the night of their first day together, worn out but not able to sleep. He said, "What do you mean I could be?"
"That's not important now," Dawn said. "The main thing is we've found each other."
He'd accept that. Without looking at the odds, or thinking about what-ifs, Dawn was right. They'd met and it was done, they'd found each other.
She was lying on her side facing him, her arm under the pillow. He could hear her breathing and wanted to see her eyes. He reached for the lighter on the nightstand and flicked it on and saw her eyes in the glow, waiting.