"I believe a major star, but they don't tell me who the snitch is. The magistrate set a two-million-dollar bond and I put up a home worth two and a half I bought for six hundred when I was first out there, all the rooms with high ceilings. I pay nine bills for another worth an easy four and a half million today. Both homes on the same canal, almost across from each other." Foley said, "In Hollywood?"
"In Venice, California, like no place on earth, man, full of cool people and shit."
"Why do you need two homes?"
"At one time I had four homes I like very much. I wait, the prices go up to the sky and I sell two of them. Okay, but the West Coast feds see Florida has a detainer on me for a homicide, a guy they say I did when I was in Miami Beach."
Foley said, "The mozo?"
Cundo said, "Is funny you think of him."
"Why didn't you trust him?"
"Why should I? I don't know him. They say one time we out in the ocean fishing I push him overboard." Foley said, "You shot him first?"
Cundo shook his head grinning just a little. "Man, you something, how you think you know things."
"What I don't understand," Cundo said, walking the yard with Foley, "I see you as a hip guy, you smart for a fucking bank robber, but two falls, man, one on top the other, you come out you right back in the slam. Tell me how you think about it, a smart guy like you have to look at thirty years."
Foley said, "You know how a dye pack works? The teller slips you one, it looks like a pack of twenties in a bank strap. It explodes as you leave the bank. Something in the doorframe sets it off. I walk out of a bank in Redondo Beach, the dye pack goes off and I'm sprayed with red paint, people on the street looking at me. Twenty years of going in banks and coming out clean, my eyes open. I catch a dye pack and spend the next seven in federal detention, Lompoc, California. I came out," Foley said, "and did a bank in Pomona the same day. You fall off a bike you get back on. I think, Good, I've still got it. I made over six grand in Pomona. I come back to Florida-my wife Adele divorced me while I'm at Lompoc and she's having a tough time paying her bills. She's working for a magician, Emile the Amazing, jumping out of boxes till he fired her and hired a girl Adele said has bigger tits and was younger. I do a bank in Lake Worth with the intention, give Adele the proceeds to keep her going for a few months. I leave the bank in the Honda I'm using, America's most popular stolen car at the time. Now I'm waiting to make a left turn on to Dixie Highway and I hear the car behind me going va-room va-room, revving up, the guy can't wait. He backs up and cuts around me, his tires screaming, like I'm a retiree waiting to make the turn when it's safe to pull out."
"You just rob the fucking bank," Cundo said.
"And this guy's showing me what a hotdog he is."
"So you go after him," Cundo said.
"I tore after him, came up on the driver's side and stared at him."
"Gave him the killer look," Cundo said.
"That's right, and he gives me the finger. I cranked the wheel and sideswiped him, stripped his chrome and ran him off the road."
"I would've shot the fucker," Cundo said.
"What happened, I tore up both tires on the side I swiped him. By the time I got the car pulled over, a deputy's coming up behind me with lights flashing."
"Tha's called road rage," Cundo said. "I'm surprise, a cool guy like you losing it. How you think it happen?"
"I wasn't paying attention. I let myself catch a dye pack in Re-dondo Beach, something I swore would never happen. The next one, seven years later, you're right, I lost it. You know why? Because a guy with a big engine wearing shades, the top down, no idea I'd just robbed a bank, made me feel like a wimp. And that," Foley said, "is some serious shit to consider."
"Man, you got the balls to bust out of prison, you don't have to prove nothing."
"Out for a week and back inside."
"What could you do? The girl shot you, the chick marshal. You don't tell me about her."
Karen Sisco. Foley kept her to himself. She gave him moments to think about and look at over and over for a time, a few months now, but there weren't enough moments to last thirty years.
Foley's conviction didn't make sense to Cundo. "You get thirty years for one bank, and I'm maxing out seven and a half for killing a guy? How come you don't appeal?"
Foley said he did, but the attorney appointed by the court told him he didn't have a case. "If I can appeal now," Foley said, "I will. If I have to wait too long, one of these nights I'll get shot off the wire and that'll be that."
Cundo said, "Let me tell you how a smart chick lawyer can change your life for you."
"I was told by the Florida state attorney, the federal court in L.A. gave me up 'cause I can get the death penalty here or life with no parole. But this cool chick lawyer I got-and I thank Jesus and Saint Barbara I can afford to pay her-she say the reason L.A. gave me up, they have a snitch they don't want to burn."
"One of the movie stars," Foley said, "you turned into a drug addict?"
"Miss Megan say maybe because they like his TV show. Plays a prosecutor, busts his balls to put bad guys away. You have to meet her, Miss Megan Norris, the smartest chick lawyer I ever met. She say the Florida state attorney isn't sure he can put me away on the kind of hearsay evidence he's got. She believe he's thinking of sending me back to the Coast. They find me guilty out there I do two-hundred and ninety-five months, man, federal. You know how long that is? The rest of my fucking life. But Miss Megan say they don't want me either if they have to give up their snitch, the famous actor. So she say to the state attorney here, 'You don't want Mr. Rey?' She say, 'Even if he was to plead to second degree and does a good seven for you straight up, no credit?' Man, the state attorney is tempted, but he like me to do twenty-five to life. Miss Megan tells him she can get that out on the Coast where they have new prisons, not old joints full of roaches, toilets that back up. No, she sticks to the seven and adds, okay, six months, take it or leave it. She ask me can I do it. Look at me, I already done five years at Starke. It got crowded up there, the state prison, man, so they send me to this joint, suppose to be medium security, 'cause I don't fuck with the hacks or have snitches set on fire. Ones they can prove. Can I do three more less five months, all I have left of my time?"
"Standing on your head," Foley said. "What's the runout for the federal action?" He saw Cundo start to grin and Foley said, "It already has."
"They have five years to change their mind and bring me to trial if they want. But I'm doing my time here in Florida by then, safe from falling into federal hands. I said to Miss Megan, 'Girl, you could have made a deal, six years, I be almost to the door right now.' Miss Smarty say, 'You lucky to max out with seven plus. Say thank you and do the time.'»
"You get out," Foley said, "you're free, they can't deport you?"
"Fidel won't take us back."
"You glad you came to America?"
"I'm grateful for the ways they are to improve myself since I come to La Yuma. I respect how justice wears a blindfold, like a fucking hostage."
"Where'd you find Miss Megan?"
"I happen to read about her in the Palm Beach newspaper. I call her and Megan come to look me over, see if I can pay her. She like my situation, a way she sees she can make a deal. I tole her I pray to Jesus and Saint Barbara. Those two, man, always come through for me. You ever pray?"
"I have, yeah," Foley said. "Sometimes it works."
"You want to appeal?"
"I told you one guy turned me down."
"Let me see can I get Miss Megan for you."
"How do I pay her, rob the prison bank?"
"Don't worry about it," Cundo said. "I want you to meet her. Ask what she thinks of me, if she goes for my type."