There.
“Will you do me a favor?”
“If I can,” Rita said.
“Call the News and the Free Press tomorrow. I want to put a message in the personals for the day after.”
“Sure. What do you want to say?”
“I’ll have to think about it, the right words.” He looked at her now and grinned. He could relax again, for a while. He said, “How about if we went in there and laid down, took a little rest? Aren’t you tired?”
Rita stared at him, her expression softening. “Now the little boy comes back. You’re a hard guy to know, Ryan.”
Rita left a little before midnight.
At two-fifteen in the morning, Ryan’s phone rang again.
“I’m fucking up,” the girl said, her voice sounding faint, far away from the phone. “I’m really fucking up good and I don’t want to. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be inside me, but I can’t get out. I don’t know how.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m so tired. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I know,” Ryan said.
“I’m so fucking tired of thinking and being in here and I can’t-goddamn it, I can’t get out.”
“Lee? Where are you?”
“I’m-the place’s closed, I have to go home. Listen, I’m sorry. Let’s forget the whole thing.”
“Give me your address,” Ryan said. He listened closely as she mumbled something and he said, “What? Give it to me again.” He reached for his notebook and wrote down the street and number on Cass. An apartment upstairs. Two-oh-four. Probably within a block or two of the bar.
“Go right home, okay? Go to bed. But listen, Lee? Leave the door unlocked.”
“I told him, I don’t give a shit what happens to him. I don’t give a shit if he exists even. The son of a bitch.”
Ryan waited. “Who’re you talking about?”
“Christ, Bobby. Who do you think?”
“Was he with you?”
“I mean it. I don’t give a shit what happens to him. And do you know what?”
“What?”
“I never did. He wants me to-”
Ryan waited again. “What does he want you to do?”
“I told him he can go fuck himself.”
“Lee, go on home now, okay?… You hear me?”
“I hear.”
“Good,” Ryan said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
7
THE VOICE ON the phone said to Virgil Royal, “You still in the subcontracting business?”
Virgil recognized the voice. “Yeah-but I got something on right now.”
“I know what you got on. Thing I don’t see is what you living on. Some lady feeding you?”
“I’m scratching,” Virgil said. “I don’t want this one to get away.”
“Somebody’s gonna tell you when he come out on the street. What you worried about?”
“Man’s got people anxious to see him beside me. Got to get to him first or wait in line. But yeah, I could use something. How much we talking about?”
“I can go fifteen hundred for some fast action. Like today.”
“You too busy?”
“Yeah, shit,” the voice said, a tired, slow tone. “I got one, man won’t sit still. It’s taking some time. This other one, somebody wants right away. Reason I’m calling you this early. You want it, I can give you what you need.”
“Who we talking about?” Virgil said.
“Name of Lonnie-used to work for Sportree? You know him?”
“Lonnie? With the high heels and shit? He’s a doll baby.”
“Talking doll,” the voice said. “The policemen play with him and he talks to them. You want it?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Lemme see, I need some working capital, get me a driver. Only thing I got right now’s this twelve-gauge Hi-Standard I was saving for somebody.”
“Flite-King?”
“I don’t know. Six-shot pump action. One thirty-four ninety-five.”
“Yeah, it’s all right. It’s a big motherfucker.”
“I already cut it down,” Virgil said.
“I can give you a nice clean piece, still got the factory oil on it,” the voice said. “If you want it. I never tell a man his business.”
“I don’t know. I been wanting to try the twelvegauge before I shoot for the prize.”
“Yeah, see what way it pulls.”
“I’ll be over pretty soon,” Virgil said. “Let you know.”
An hour and forty minutes later, Virgil called his brother-in-law from Sportree’s Lounge on West Eight Mile. He told him he wanted to see him. His brother-in-law said, Man, way out there? His brother-in-law sounded half asleep. Virgil said it wasn’t far, take him about fifteen minutes. His brother-in-law said he had some things he had to do. Virgil said patiently, “Hey, Tunafish? One more once. I’m at Sportree’s and I want to see you. I want to give you some money… That’s what I said. Right now it’s two hundred and fifty dollars. But you know what? It’s gonna go down ten every minute you aren’t here past eleven o’clock. You understand what I’m saying?… Then quit talking, man. Run.”
Virgil came out of the phone booth grinning, seeing Tunafish throwing his clothes on, flying out of the house and jumping in the car-if Lavera hadn’t driven to work. Then he’d have to borrow a car. Or pick one up. Virgil looked at the clock that was over the cash register, between the bar mirrors. Tunafish would get here about five after and he’d pay him two hundred. Which he’d already decided was about right.
See, there was the hard way to do things and there was the easy way. The hard way looked good at the time; in fact, it looked like the only way. But it upset your stomach and could break your knuckles. It produced blind spots that could mess you up and cause pain, not to mention losing your ass. The easy way required thinking and remaining cool. Not standing-around cool, but authentic genuine cool. Cool when you wanted to smash something or break down a door. No, hold it right there. Think on how to do it the easy way. Then turn the knob gently and the door opens.
Virgil learned patience at Jackson. Not the first time he was there, on the assault with a deadly weapon conviction-when he was still trying to do it the hard way, pushing and shoving, getting caught with tin shivs and spending a total of nine months in solitary-but the second time, the Wyandotte Savings and Loan armed robbery conviction. He learned patience thinking about Bobby Lear as he stamped out license plates-Michigan, the Great Lake State-and how he was going to get the motherfucker as soon as they turned him loose.
His lawyer had said Bobby didn’t have any Wyandotte money, maybe a few bucks was all, and anybody who said he had a sizable amount was blowing smoke up Virgil’s ass. There wasn’t any talk that Bobby Lear was on the street spending money. He always had money, but he wasn’t throwing any around, was he? Virgil didn’t talk about it much at Jackson. He kept it in his head. Bobby Lear either had the money, hidden somewhere, or he didn’t. Either way, it didn’t matter. When Virgil got out he would go see the man- “Hey, Bobby, how you doing?” and all that shit-and ask him where the money was. If Bobby said, “I’m glad you mention that, I been saving your piece of it…” Then it better be close to eight, nine thousand, half what they said was taken. If it happened like that he would say thank you before shooting the man in the head. If the man gave him five seconds of bullshit he’d do it right then and not have to listen to any more. It was the only way to protect yourself from the man.
He didn’t care for Bobby. Just looking at him and feeling something, he didn’t care for him. He also didn’t care for the way Bobby ran out and left him humming Joe Williams in the Wyandotte vault all by himself while the blue and whites were slipping up to the curb. Bobby and Wendell Haines made it out, with or without the cash from the cashiers’ windows, leaving him dumb and alone in the vault. Virgil heard they got away clean. He sat in the Wayne County jail between arraignment, examination, and trial and didn’t say a word. Then he learned Wendell Haines was found shot dead in his room. That wasn’t hard to see. Either Bobby decided he didn’t want to split with Wendell or he was afraid Wendell would get picked up, cop, and turn him in.