"When I have enough to buy a house on the beach." "You couldn't give it back, could you?"
"Danny Karmanos said, 'If you don't want it, tear it up.' I told her I can't do that and offered her the check. I said, 'If you want to destroy ten thousand dollars, here.' But she wouldn't take it."
"That was close. But then you're lucky, aren't you? You knew she wouldn't tear it up. So now," Dawn said, "you've got a stake. Maybe someday, if you don't fuck up, you'll get to Costa Rica. But I kinda doubt it."
"Concentrate," Foley said. "You don't see a sandy beach in my future?"
She paused to stare at him and said, "No…" and made a face, a frown, that Foley took to mean she was having a tough time reading him, not sure of what she saw. Dawn smiled and said, "Not tonight, I'm tired. You want to hear the old Cuban guys? What's your favorite?"
Foley said, "I think you've got 'Y tu que has hecho?'"
She turned to the table saying, "Yes, I'm sure. Why don't you go out in the kitchen and pour a couple of Old No. 7's while I find it?"
"I'm gonna pass," Foley said. "I've had enough for one day."
"I've got 'Y tu right here."
"No, I'm going to bed." Foley started for the open door and stopped. "Who was at your dinner party?" "Just Tico, Little Jimmy and myself." "And Cundo."
She said, "And Cundo, the guest of honor," staring at Foley like she was trying to read him again. "Tell him I'll see him tomorrow." Foley let her stare a few moments more and left.
Gone by the time she got the Walther from the drawer, a full load and the silencer in place ready to fire and went after him to shoot him and push him in the canal, Jesus, get it over with.
Then talk to the police as they fished him out of the canal. It could be done. She'd say she barely knew the man. He was only here a few days. Since Mr. Rey came home. Don't mention prison, but they will, they'll know and try to trap you. Tell them you're Mr. Rey's housekeeper. Then why are those photos of you on the walls? Jesus, it was harder to make up an alibi than read minds. And thought, Why didn't you see Foley lying dead, in the canal or the morgue? In her vision he was in the sitting room of her house, where they were moments ago when she was trying to read him. But he looked different. Something about him… They would have to get Cundo disappeared for good. Tomorrow. Tico lines up a boat and takes the little fella to sea tomorrow night.
No, Officer, I can't imagine where he could be. If it came to that.
This was in her mind as she stepped outside the house. By now he should be across the footbridge on his way home, almost to the pink house. But he wasn't; or not in plain sight, foliage holding the walk in darkness. She moved along the walk on her side of the canal to place herself opposite the pink house. She squinted in the darkness feeling she was wasting time. Where was he?
She looked toward the footbridge, then the other way and saw him on Dell Avenue where it began to rise over the canal. Foley was on the bridge-Dawn sure that's who it was. Now another figure appeared, coming over to the rail, she watched Foley approach him.
TWENTY-FIVE
LAST NIGHT FOLEY WALKED UP TO THE KID ON THE DELL Avenue bridge, a black kid about fourteen, and asked him, "You know who I am?"
He wore a baseball cap set two inches crooked to shade one eye, a white T-shirt and black jeans slung low, belted around his skinny butt. The T-shirt hung out to cover what Foley believed was a piece stuck in his waist, the boy wanting him to notice it.
He said, "Hey, you the bank robber?"
"That's right, the guy you're supposed to be watching. You know I could go out the back, you'd never see me."
"They somebody be there," the kid said. "How many banks you rob?"
"Couple hundred. What do they call you?" The kid said, "T.B."
"I knew a T.G. in the joint, grown up but still called Tiny Gangsta. But T.B. What's that, Tiny Babe, Tiny Boy?" Foley said, "No, I bet it's Tiny Banger. Still a kid but made it as a gangbanger. You shoot somebody?" The kid was nodding and Foley said, "You're almost grown, you don't mind being called Tiny? Or there's nothing you can do about it."
"Was O.G. gimme the name."
"Old Gangsta. There was an O.G. the fall I took up at Lom-poc. That Old Gangsta was twenty-five. He and I shot baskets and pushed each other around. He was pretty good. Tell me how come you're packing."
"So no cholo try and jack me. He step up in my face I smoke him."
"Has Lou Adams been around?" "Don't know a person that name."
"He'll take the piece away from you," Foley said. "Son, you're working for the FBI and don't know it. Who's your shot caller, Tico? Where's he?"
"How do I know. Wha' chew mean I'm working for the fucking FBI?"
"It's how it is," Foley said. "Lemme have your piece." "For what?"
"Keep you out of juvie hall," Foley said. "So you can grow up to be a famous bank robber."
"You teach me?" the kid said, bringing out his cell and then a Glock he handed to Foley.
In the morning Foley had his breakfast and at ten went over to the big house-the way he thought of it-to have a cup of coffee with Cundo. If he called it the White House he'd see President Obama cleaning up Bush's mess. He didn't see Cundo all day yesterday and missed talking to the little Cuban. It surprised him, a feeling he'd never had before.
Dawn told him Cundo was still sleeping off a killer hangover. Foley said that was something new. Cundo claimed he'd never had a hangover in his life.
"He's been lying to you," Dawn said. "He has a cold beer and then opens his eyes. But this is heavy, diarrhea and he keeps throwing up. It might be the dinner last night."
Foley said he'd stop by later.
Dawn said, "I'm still thinking of a party, a big blowout on the roof. My darling said it was okay with him if he didn't have to do anything. I told him I'd get Tico to hang the balloons and string the party lights."
Foley looked at his watch. He said, "I still have the keys to the VW. Mind if I use it?"
She told him no, go ahead. "See if it needs gas."
Foley said, "I'm not going far."
She watched him go out, thinking of the Walther in the drawer again, but now was not the time, there were neighbors outside, a guy washing the windows of the cool, all-glass house next door. Meanwhile the little Cuban had to be taken out to sea and deep-sixed. Tico's job. Have him stop at the lumberyard and pick up a few cement blocks, and make sure he had rope. What else? She had to see Little Jimmy today. Have him sign the houses over to her and she'd put them up for sale. Take care of Foley. Get him to disappear. It would be so simple if he wasn't hanging around watching. She didn't think he was suspicious. He comes back later she'd tell him Cundo's still throwing up, the poor little guy. She gave him Kaopectate but it didn't seem to be helping. It was that fucking Cuban dinner. But how long could she keep Foley from seeing the man who wasn't there? It sounded like a movie.
It came to her in the next few moments, a way to remove Foley from the picture without shooting him, without endangering herself, and it was brilliant.
Get him up on the roof, with Tico.
She phoned him at his aunt's.
Tico said, "I call the guy has a boat at Marina del Rey. He say I can use it, yeah, for five hundred dollar." "Hon, that's cheap."
"I think he believes I want to throw something overboard."
"Don't worry, I'll give you the money. You think this guy would do the whole job, dispose of Cundo?"
"Cost about five thousand, then you got the marina guy to worry about."
"You mind taking care of it, hon? You could do it tonight. Roll him up in that horrid orange and brown rug in the guest bedroom, tie on a few cement blocks-all there is to it."