Road Dogs (2009)( ) (4 page)

Is like Dawn tells this woman she's under some kind of spell, like maybe a ghost is fucking with her, hiding her jewelry she can't find.

You're the ghost?

I can do that, sure. Or I go in the house at night and throw the woman's clothes in the swimming pool.

You've done that?

Not yet we talking about it. See, Dawn gets rid of the fucking ghost she calls an evil spirit and saves the poor woman from going crazy. Charges her ten to twenty-k for it, and the woman is happy again. Is like I deliver a key for seventeen to twenty-k to a famous actor and he gets his confidence back again.

You and the wife, Foley said, devoting your lives to caring for people. Is the reason we fall in love with each other. We alike in how we know how to make people happy. But running a psychic con, Foley said, doesn't mean she's actually psychic.

She saw me in the fucking courtroom, didn't she?

She as cool as Megan Norris?

They both cool, but in different ways. Miss Megan is cool because she smart, man, always knows what to say. Dawn is cool because she knows what you going to say.

They must be a lot different, Foley said, in how they see things.

Tha's what I just tole you, they different.

Megan asked me how could I stand to throw away some of my best years in a dump like this. She wanted to know why I didn't get in a prison rehab program. Learn how to grow sugarcane.

Burn the field you ready to go in and cut the cane, these poison snakes in there eating rats, man, they come out at you. Hey, fuck that. You tell her God made you a bank robber?

I think she knew it.

The way I see you, Jack, you smart, you can be a serious guy, but you don't like to show anything is important to you. You here, you don't complain not anymore you could be an old hippie living here. You get your release Ah, now you get to think what you going to do.

I've been reading about Costa Rica, Foley said. Go down there and start over.

Yes, someday, uh? You want me to tell you, Cundo said, you leave here, the first thing you going to do?

Rob a bank.

See? Is already on your mind.

It's on your mind, not mine.

How you gonna get to Costa Rica?

If I make up my mind that's where I'm going, Foley said, don't worry, I'll get there.

I see you walking out the gate, Cundo said, you thinking about the things you miss. Getting drunk on good whiskey for a change. Getting laid as soon as you can How you gonna work it you don't have any money?

It's already arranged, Foley said.

Cundo stared at him to see if he was kidding, reading his face, his eyes.

Is already arranged? How you do that?

Chapter
FOUR

AT FIRST, TRYING TO TALK ON THE PHONE IN THIS PRISON was work, all the morons in the line behind Cundo telling him what to say to Dawn, knowing he was talking to a woman. That's who every one of them talked to, a woman. These guys talking trash to him, telling him what to say, dirty things the morons thought were funny. He told Dawn, They say to tell you, I get out what kind of things I'm going to do to you. Dawn said, Like what? They ask me if I ever stick hamburger in your I think they saying 'twat' and have a pussyburger. Dawn said, What else?

This was during his first year of imprisonment at Starke, the state prison, before being transferred to Glades. One week he skipped calling Dawn to get hold of the Monk, Cundo telling him to find the names of the guardia officers running this place and bribe them. Man, I need space to breathe. The Monk worked the Internet to learn whatever he wanted to know. He sent a ham and a case of whiskey to the home of each guardia on his list and signed Cundo's name to the card that said: I am hoping because of my poor health, you will allow me to work in a prison office. I can serve as a writer of letters in Spanish whenever there is a need for one. It got Cundo a manual typewriter and a telephone he could use to call Dawn and reverse the charge. In his quiet corner of the office Cundo would hear Dawn's voice accept the charge and he'd ask:

Are you being a saint?

Dawn would say, Of course I am. Or she would vary the answer and say, Aren't you my love? Or sometimes, Aren't you my undying love?

Cundo believed saints never got laid, so he'd say, You swear to Almighty God you being a saint for me?

I swear to God I'm being a saint.

For me.

Yes, for you.

I want to hear you say it so I believe it.

After several months of this Dawn began to say, without raising her voice or showing any strain, How many times do I have to tell you, yes, I'm being a saint for you?

Your tone of voice doesn't convince me.

Because you make me say it over and over and over. Now there was a hint of strain. Will you please stop asking me if I'm being a saint?

One day, still during Cundo's first year inside, Dawn said, If you ask me that again, I swear I'll hang up the phone. I won't be here the next time you call. I'll vanish and you'll never hear my voice again as long as you live. If you don't believe me, ask if I'm being a saint. I fucking dare you.

He believed her.

But how could she remain a saint living by herself in Venice, cool guys around, movie guys who were good with women and would go for her, Dawn Navarro, man, blond hair and cool green eyes, a hot chick with a gift.

The Monk swore to it, yes, she was being a saint. He never got a report of a guy visiting her. They went to a club, she never spent time with any guys. The Monk always had a bodyguard along, Zorro. After a while everybody in the club knew who Dawn was she could talk to people, different guys, all she wanted. But if one of them tried to take Dawn home, Zorro would step in Zorro, the Monk's personal bodyguard would step in and open his coat enough to show his Dirty Harry pistol.

Cundo decided, okay, she was a saint. Pretty soon he would be with her not have to imagine her anymore with different gringos, all these tall white guys.

Today at Glades talking to Dawn on the phone, his bodyguard standing behind him, Cundo said, Jack Foley got his release this morning.

Good for Jack, Dawn said.

I sent him to a guy in Miami's fixing him up with a driver's license and a prepaid credit card. He's gonna fly to L. A. and live in my pink home while he gets the feel nobody's watching him. He don't mind it being pink.

I'm in the pink one, Dawn said.

I know you are. I told him to stay in the white one, but switch with you before I come out, I think the week after next. Why are you so nice to him? I told you he's robbed hundreds of fucking banks. I like to know does he want to do any more.

Of course he does.

But is it something he has to do?

I'll let you know, Dawn said.

I tole him about you, how you can read minds. He goes, 'Yeah?' and listen to every word. He won't believe it, Dawn said, till I tell him to quit trying to picture me naked.

Don't say that, please. I don't want to think of him getting ideas. You and Foley going to be neighbors across the canal. You meet and sit down to talk, you can tell him his fortune.

You mean tell you his fortune.

Look in his eyes, see if they any coming attractions, things you can tell me about. I got money invested in this guy.

Once he gets the credit card you might not see him again.

He has to wait two days for the license, but I know he won't run off on me. Jack Foley is the most honest fucking con I ever met, and maybe the smartest. But he's different than the ones here they say have the high IQs.

What do they do?

Have to suck guys off unless they jailhouse lawyers. Foley has his own way of dealing with all the different kinds of bad guys. He's our celebrity, robbed a hundred more banks than John Dillinger or anybody you can name. And, has never had to shoot anybody. He say to a con, 'If you don't understand why I'm proud of that, you and I have nothing to say to each other.'

What you don't know, Dawn said, is how he is with women.

I know Miss Megan got goose bumps talking to him.

Who told you that?

He did. She calls him Jack in the letter she wrote with her bill for thirty-k. Listen, Cundo said, when he busted out, there was a woman United States marshal chased after him. They met at a hotel and spent the night together before she brought him back.

Dawn's voice on the phone said, You're kidding.

And spoke for him in court, tole what a sweet guy he is. Listen, his ex-wife name Adele? She wrote all the time saying she still in love with him.

Dawn said, You want me to use him.

With your gift, your spirit guides and ESP shit. I like to see you work Foley into your act, make us some money off him.

I've got a new client, Dawn said, another widow in Beverly Hills.

You and your widows.

She came to one of my psychic house parties, stayed after to talk and said she'd been seeing Madam Rosa

I remember her, the gypsy queen.

Rosa has my client believing her dead husband's put a hex on her, the reason she can't find true love.

Wha's a hex?

A curse, an evil spell. My client decided Madam Rosa's a fraud, but still believes her dead hubby's bothering her and wants me to help her.

You know how?

I deal with ghosts all the time.

I got to hang up these fucking guys Listen, think of a way to use Foley.

I'll look him over.

See if he's any good with hexes.

Chapter
FIVE

LOU ADAMS, THE FEDERAL AGENT WITH JACK FOLEY IM-printed on his brain, had called Glades to learn the date and time of Foley's release. They told him today by ten A. M. they'd have him separated out of there. Lou arrived a little after nine to make sure Foley didn't slip out on him. What Lou had in mind, he'd wait in the car until Foley was coming through the double gates. Lou would get out then and stand in plain sight and wait for Foley to see him. Lou believed Foley would stop in his tracks, remembering what Lou had told him thirty months ago: From the day of your release, the manpower of the Bureau will be covering your ass like a fucking blanket. Not in those exact words they were in a court of law when Lou laid it out but that idea.

Lou Adams's buddies in the West Palm field office thought it was something personal with him, the hard-on he had for this bank robber. Lou said, I know I looked unprofessional in court. I was trying to make the point this guy is not just another fucking bank robber, and I lost my temper. But if the guy robbed a hundred banks, that's who he is. The Man Who Robbed a Hundred Banks. It makes him special. Who else has done that many bank licks that we know of? Nobody. You remember the press he got? The picture in the paper, Foley and that knockout lawyer, that little broad who practically got him off? I bet you ten bucks he fucked her. Where, I don't know, but he's a good-looking guy, he's our star bank robber.

An agent said, You keep waiting for Foley, you're gonna get Professional Responsibility on you.

Listen, Lou said to his buddies, I'll bet you anything that as we're speaking a writer is doing a book on Foley. Gonna call it The Sweetheart Bandit, the name we gave him, his note to the teller always saying, 'Sweetheart, give me all your hundreds, fifties and twenties, please.' Some book reviewers will give it their own fucked-up interpretation and the general public will think the writer's calling Foley a sweetheart 'cause he's a nice guy, never threatened or scared the shit out of the teller when he asked for money. No, he says to the teller, 'Do the best you can.' You'll see a bank employee saying in the paper, 'It's true, he was a sweetheart. He took the money, thanked me, and gave my hand a pat.'

Lou said, Or you take a guy like Willie Sutton. Willie Sutton became famous for saying he robbed banks because that's where the money was. It didn't matter Willie Sutton never in his fucking life said it. Once the general public believes he did and thought it was a cool thing to say, Willie Sutton's famous. The newspapers loved him: they said he must've made off with a good two million during his career. Oh, is that right? If Willie Sutton spent over half his fucking life in stir, how would he have time to score two million bucks? I say that because I estimate Foley's take working his ass off, out of action only ten years counting his falls at half a million for his hundred or so bank licks. Not bad. Foley and Willie Sutton both drew thirty years and both escaped from prison in a tunnel, and that's the only similarity in their careers.

John Dillinger would always be Lou Adams's favorite bank robber. Then Jack Foley because you had to give him credit, he was conscientious, never shot his mouth off, and made sticking up banks look easy. Lou threw in Willie Sutton because he was good conversation, famous for something he never said.

Okay, here was Lou's question to the general public:

You all have heard of Dillinger, Jack Foley and Willie Sutton. Now let's see you name three agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who are as well known.

He'd give the general public J. Edgar Hoover, And you can have his sorry ass. Now try to name two more. You like Eliot Ness? Me too, only he wasn't FBI. Let's see, how about Melvin Purvis? Your general public thinks about it and says, 'Melvin who?'

Jesus Christ, he's only the guy who said to John Dillinger coming out of the picture show, 'Stick 'em up, Johnny, we got you surrounded' and Dillinger took off. Melvin Purvis held his fire. Three agents on the scene shot at Dillinger and he went down for good. It was never revealed which agent actually killed him. The same year, Lou said, 1934, Melvin Purvis was named the most admired man in America. It galled Hoover to the point of his forcing Melvin Purvis to resign. It was Melvin Purvis's buddies gave him a chrome-plated .45 as a farewell present, the same pistol Melvin Purvis used in 1960 to blow his brains out.

And that's where we are, Lou Adams said to his buddies. Who the fuck's Melvin Purvis? The good guys fade from memory while the bad dudes catch the public eye and become celebrities.

Lou believed with all his heart he should get some attention before he retired. Look here, will you, I'm one of the fucking good guys. Will you watch what I'm doing? I'm gonna dog Jack Foley till he robs a bank. I mean it, take my leave, thirty days is all I need and put that sweetheart away for good.

He saw a prison guard no, two of them over there unlocking the gates to let Foley out. It got Lou Adams sitting up straight behind the wheel. He watched Foley come through the gates and turn to give the hacks a wave So long, boys, no hard feelings showing the kind of ass-kissing sweetheart he was.

Lou got out and walked around the front of the Crown Vic he'd put through a car wash at 8 A. M. Came all the way around to lean against the right-side front fender and fold his arms, the way he'd seen himself doing it all morning, looking directly at the double gates by the administration building, to the right of the cars parked ahead of him in the row nearer the fence. He watched Foley come out past the cars to the aisle where Lou was waiting, watching him from a hundred feet away, watching him stop, Foley looking this way at Lou holding his pose, Lou reading Foley's mind now and saying to him, I told you, didn't I? Well, here I am, buddy. Want me to drop you somewhere? He watched Foley raise his arm and Lou raised his, a couple of old pros taking each other's measure.

Only Foley wasn't looking at him.

His gaze was down the aisle and Lou turned his head to see a car coming, Lou standing as a Ford Escort went past him, a woman with dark hair in a red Ford Escort, nice-looking. Now he saw the car from the rear slowing down, coming to a stop where Foley was waiting, Foley raising his arm again and looking right at Lou as he got in the Escort. Lou didn't raise his this time, hurrying to get in his car the Escort out of view circling behind him but there it was again, leaving the prison grounds. No need to hurry, he could keep it in sight.

The main thing was Foley saw him. It was the whole point of Lou being here this morning. Like telling Foley, See what I mean? Every day of your life I'm gonna be watching you. If Foley ever stopped to talk he'd tell him in those exact words: every fucking day of your life. Foley wouldn't believe him. How could he maintain a watch like that on one man, around the clock?

When he came up with the idea of how he'd work it, Lou told himself, You're a fucking genius, you know it?

He recalled now it was Foley's ex-wife Adele owned a Ford Escort. Divorced him while he was at Lompoc and here she was giving him a lift. The one Foley must've known he could count on. Honey, can you pick me up when they let me out of prison? Why sure, sweetheart. The kind of broad you could talk into doing whatever you wanted. At the office they had pictures of Adele in tights, nice jugs, taken when she was working for the magician, Emil the Amazing, disappeared from a cage and got sawed in half. Nice-looking broad, the dark hair, pure white skin, five-seven and about 140, plump compared to Lou's ex-wife Edie. A year ago divorced him and moved to Orlando with the two kids. Edie said because his job was more important to him than his family, why he was never home, and when he was all they did was argue. Man, women. They all had problems they imagined or made up. They didn't get their way they told you to take a fucking hike.

He'd get his Foley file out of the glove box and look up Adele's address in Miami Beach, on the south end of Collins Avenue, if she was still living there. Stop by and find out what she was doing with Foley, as if he didn't know, the guy fresh out of the can. She must still like him. Lou remembered she was not bad at all; he'd seen surveillance photos of her when they were looking for Foley, but only in person once: at Foley's trial, the first one, this nice-looking woman biting her nails waiting for the verdict.