“What about his friend?”
“Same thing.”
“Who killed them?”
“Nobody knows. Maybe the man from the house they tried to rob. Or the man’s butler. Yeah, maybe the butler done it.”
“They dead, too?”
“I ‘magine it looks like Jack Foley shot them the same time they shot him and his friend, Mr. Buddy. Something like that. I get back I’ll tell you how it took place.”
“I have to say who I am,” Moselle said, “to collect any reward. I do, it’s like giving them your name, too. Don’t you know that?”
“You like your grocery money, you like to weed out on that polio pot and become paralyzed, but you don’t like to work for it.” Maurice came over to the window to stand there looking out. “I thought I heard him. Yeah, there’s Kenneth. Got a plumbing and heating truck. Look like we going out on this emergency call. Man’s furnace quit on him.”
Moselle watched him move back to the bed and pick up two of the guns. She said, “They three white men in the house. I try to collect this reward you talking about, they gonna be more white men in this house’n you ever saw before.”
Maurice turned to her with a .38 Smith snub-nose and a Beretta nine. He said, “This one’s for Jack Foley,” handing her the Beretta. “And this one’s for his friend Mr. Buddy. I like you to see they get them while I change my clothes. Would you do that for me?”
“I ain’t calling any police,” Moselle said.
“We talk about it when I get back.”
“I don’t care you beat me up, I ain’t doing it.”
“Honey,” Maurice said, “getting beat up would be nothing.”
Moselle had her hands in the pockets of her green silk robe, one of her hands holding the card Karen Sisco had given her, the hotel phone number written on it.
• • •
WHEN KENNETH CAME IN, NOT PAYING ANY ATTNETION TO them in the living room, White Boy got up and followed him through the foyer to the back part of the house, maybe the kitchen. Right after that the woman appeared, handed them each a gun and left. Foley said, “How come nobody wants to sit and chat with us?”
Buddy checked the .38, stood up from the sofa to stick it in his waist, and looked down at Foley holding the Beretta.
“You know how to work it?”
“I ought to, I’ve seen it used in enough movies.”
Buddy took the pistol from Foley, checked the magazine, racked the slide to load the chamber and handed it back to him.
“It holds fifteen rounds. You have fourteen in there.”
“You think that’s enough?”
Buddy sat down again. “These guys are wacko.”
Foley nodded. “I’ve noticed.”
“They’re gonna try to set us up.”
“I believe it.”
“Leave us dead at the scene. Look at the shit in the fireplace.”
“I saw it.”
Maurice came in the living room wearing white coveralls that looked custom tailored, a white sweatshirt showing at the neck Foley said, “That what they’re wearing these days to break and enter?”
“Take it and git, how it’s done,” Maurice said. “Don’t waste any time. Stick a gun in the man’s mouth and give him a count of three. Where’s it at?”
Buddy said, “How’s he gonna tell you with the piece in his mouth?”
“That’s his problem,” Maurice said. “Y’all want a drink? There ain’t any hurry. I’d as soon wait here a couple hours.” He looked at his watch. “Half-past twelve already. We wait and be sure the people snug in their beds. We come, they all sleepy-eyed. You know what I’m saying?”
Foley said, “You’re not worried about Glenn?”
“If he told on us,” Maurice said, “the police’d be here by now.”
“Or they’re waiting at the guy’s house.”
“Don’t worry, we gonna check it out. Look around good before we go in.”
Buddy said, “Maybe he’s dead.”
And Maurice said, “Yeah, got run over by a car. Or slipped on the ice and cracked his head. Glenn’s gone on his own, that’s all I can tell you.”
Buddy said, “Well, we got to pick up another car. That Olds is fairly clean.”
“No need,” Maurice said. “We all go in the truck Kenneth got us. Man called us don’t have any heat in his house. We come back, your car’s here waiting.”
Foley looked at Buddy. Buddy shrugged. Maurice watching.
He said, “Y’all have your ways of doing banks. I have my ways of doing this type of business. We in the house, we go right upstairs. Anything worth taking’s gonna be in the man’s bedroom, nine times out of ten. I tell you to do something, like check the other rooms first? See if they any guests in the house? It’s on account I know my business. Understand? It ain’t ’cause I want to boss you around. See, my boys know what to do, so I won’t be telling them much. But I may have to tell you to go here, go there. Understand? What else? You say you want the cut to be down the middle. Well, even though we been doing all the work so far, I’m gonna agree to that, so we don’t sit around here arguing about it. We move fast, in and out, and it’s done. Y’all have any questions?”
Buddy said, “Where your guys at?”
“I ‘magine they in the kitchen. You want to stir up White Boy again? Try to shame him and get him cross at you? For what? Think a minute. What good would that do us?”
“I just wondered,” Buddy said, “if they were shooting up or what.”
“Yeah, well Kenneth has some meth to keep him all the way live. Some beer, that’s all. Anything else you want to know about?”
Foley looked at Buddy. Buddy shrugged and Foley said to Maurice, “You have any bourbon?”
Maurice smiled.
• • •
MOSELLE WATCHED FROM THE BEDROOM WINDOW: WATCHED them get in the big commercial van that had a company name on the side; watched until the van’s red taillights were way up the street and gone. She went to the phone looking at the card Karen had given her, the card saying Karen Sisco, Deputy United States Marshal, sounding important, nice-looking card with a silver star on it in a circle. The clock by the bed was on 2:20. They’d been down there almost two hours talking and having drinks, Moselle waiting for them to leave. She knew what she wanted to ask this Karen Sisco, but didn’t know what she’d say after, or how she’d answer any questions, knowing she’d be asked some. She had her hand on the phone. Then took it off, wanting to think about it some more. Get her words right in her mind. Have some weed first.
TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
FOLEY SAW HIMSELF PLAYING OUT THE END OF HIS LIFE AND was quiet, watching it happen scene by scene: in Maurice’s living room, a half-gallon jug of vodka on the coffee table, watching Maurice duck and weave, telling how crafty he’d been in the ring; listening to White Boy’s dumb remarks and the annoying way he laughed; listening to Kenneth speaking a language that seemed all hip-hop sounds, rhythmic, but making hardly any sense; Foley listening to sociopaths offering their credentials, misfits trying not to sound like losers, Foley realizing, shit, here was just a little more of what most of his life had been. He would hear Buddy make quiet comments that were meant to zing but fell flat, the same old same old, that stand-up talk you heard in the yard, but nobody here bothering to listen, busy thinking of what they’d say next. All us tough guys, Foley thought.
In the living room with the vodka, Maurice passing out knit ski masks before they left. Now in the back end of the big van full of plastic pipe and equipment: Kenneth driving, flying up Woodward Avenue past miles of dark storefronts and lit-up used-car lots, snow piled in the median, the road wide-open to them this time of night. Twice, Buddy told Kenneth to slow down. Kenneth grinned at the mirror. Buddy got out the .38 and touched the back of Kenneth’s head with the stubby barrel. “Get ready to grab the wheel,” Buddy said to Maurice, “when I shoot this asshole.” Kenneth looked up at the mirror to find Buddy in there as Maurice told
him, “Do like he says, man; slow down.” They came to Long Lake Road, took it over to Vaughan and crept up and down the road twice, looking for security service cars or any kind of surveillance, before turning into Richard Ripley’s circular drive.
• • •
ALL FIVE OF THEM WERE IN THE BACK END OF THE TRUCK now, bumping into each other until Maurice let White Boy out the rear end and left the doors open enough so he and Foley could watch. “He’s ringing the bell,” Maurice said. ‘They open the door, we’re in. They don’t open it but ask what he wants, White Boy says he’s the heating man come to fix the furnace went out. They say they didn’t call any heating man, White Boy asks can he use the phone, call his boss as he must’ve been given the wrong address. They look out the window, see the truck. Yeah, he must be telling the truth, he’s a heating man, all right, and he’s white.”
They watched him ring the bell again. This time not a half minute passed before coach lights on either side of the entrance came on. “Get ready to go skiing,” Maurice said, pulling his mask down. Now the door was opening and he said, “Here we go.”
Foley had time to see a young guy in the doorway, his shirt hanging unbuttoned over jeans, in the moment before White Boy gave him a push and stepped inside the house with him. Maurice was out of the truck and Kenneth, with a shotgun, was scrambling to be next. Buddy caught him by his jacket collar and held him squirming until Foley was out. But then the moment Kenneth’s feet hit the driveway he turned the 12-gauge on Buddy, still in the truck. Foley took the barrel in one hand and shoved it straight up in Kenneth’s face, seeing the guy’s eyes freaked with speed. Foley said, “Go on in the house before you get hurt.” Kenneth had to put his face up close to Foley’s and stare at him good before going inside.
Buddy said, “What’re we doing here?”
Maurice had the young guy backed against a table in the foyer the size of a living room: good-looking young guy about eighteen with hair down on his shoulders; the pants and shirt he must’ve thrown on hearing the doorbell, but no shoes, barefoot on the marble floor. He looked scared and had to be, facing five guys in ski masks holding guns. Foley saw him trying to act natural, shaking his head.
“Honest to God, he isn’t here.”
Maurice said, “Out for the evening?”
Now the young guy looked surprised. “He’s in Florida, Palm Beach.”
Maurice hesitated. “When’s he due back?”
Foley said, “Jesus Christ, what difference does it make? You want to wait for him?”
“Mr. Ripley’s down for the season,” the young guy said, “Christmas to Easter.”
“Now tell me who you are,” Maurice said.
“I’m Alexander.”
Maurice said, “Boy, I don’t care what your name is. I want to know who you are to the man, what you’re doing here.”
“I’m house-sitting.”
“You by yourself?”
He seemed to hesitate before saying, “Yeah, just me.”
Foley caught it and glanced at Buddy.
Maurice said, “What are you to the man, Mr. Ripley?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“How’d he come to hire you, watch his place?”
“Oh, he’s a friend of the family. Him and my dad are old buddies.”
“Your daddy a crook too?”
“No—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Where’s Ripley’s safe at, he keep his valuables in?”
“His safe? I don’t have any idea.”
“Let’s go upstairs,” Maurice said, and nodded to the house-sitter to lead the way.
Alexander said, “You know what? I think the safe’s downstairs, in the library.”
Maurice pushed him toward the wide staircase that took one turn on the way up to an open section of the hall with a railing.
“You just said you had no idea where it was.”
“I mean I think that’s where it would be.”
“Yeah, and I think you don’t want us to go upstairs. Go on, take us to the man’s bedroom.” On the stairway Maurice said, “Alexander?” and the young guy paused and looked over his shoulder. “You set off any kind of alarms, or how you turn on all the lights outside? You’re a dead housesitter. Understand?”
He said, “Yes sir.”
“They any guns in this house?”
“Not that I know of.”
In the wide second-floor hallway—lined with paintings of horses and fox hunts on dark oak paneling, upholstered chairs and lamps on bombe chests—Maurice said to Foley, “All right now, you and Mr. Buddy go on check the other rooms. Look at the wall behind any pictures hanging on it. Look at the wall in the closets, behind the clothes.”
Foley said, “You check the walls, huh?”
“The man has a safe,” Maurice said, “it’s gonna be up here somewhere.”
“How about his place in Florida?” Foley said. “If you’d called we could’ve checked his walls down there before we left. This is if you’d checked to see where he was. You follow me?”
Maurice took his time now. He said, “Jack, don’t fuck with me. Understand? I don’t have time right now to be fucked with.” He turned to Alexander. “Where’s the man’s bedroom at?”
“This one,” Alexander said. “Yeah, it could be in here,” sounding eager. But just as Maurice gave him a shove toward the door, Foley saw Alexander look right at him, scared, worried—wanting to say something? Foley waited while Maurice and his guys filed into the bedroom. A light went on in there and he heard Kenneth’s voice, Kenneth saying, “Hey, shit. Man, look at this.”
As soon as they were alone Foley rolled his mask up on his head. “You ever wear one of these?”
“I don’t ski,” Buddy said.
“What do you bet,” Foley said, “somebody else’s up here?”
They opened the door to the next room, felt for a light switch and turned it on. A white satin spread covered the king-size bed. Foley started for the next room and Buddy said, “You don’t want to check the walls?”
“You bet I do,” Foley said. “Nothing I like better than checking walls. We’ll come back. First I want to see where Alexander sleeps.”
“He could be using Ripley’s bedroom.”
“I don’t know, he could,” Foley said. “He seems like a nice kid, huh? Trying like hell to act natural.”
The beds were made in the next two rooms.
“Guy lives alone,” Buddy said, “what’s he need a house like this for?”
In the first bedroom they came to on the other side of the hall, the bed was turned down. “But hasn’t been slept in,” Foley said.
They came to the next room, the door open, the light off. Foley turned it on and saw stuffed animals on the dresser and a vanity, all kinds of little animals, birds, reptiles, and a bed that had been slept in, covers hanging down on one side, rumpled pillows, a pillow on the floor, a pair of sneakers . . . two pairs of sneakers, jeans and a sweatshirt draped over the arm of a chair. Foley picked it up, a dark blue one with university of michigan lettered on it in yellow. He went to the bed, leaned in close to the pillows and caught a soft powdery scent. He heard Buddy, close by, say, “You might’ve been a good cop.” Foley moved to the bathroom door, a full-length mirror covering it, and tried to turn the knob. The door was locked from the inside. Close to it, his cheek against the glass, Foley said, “Honey, open the door. It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you. I give you my word.”
Silence.
He straightened and saw himself in the mirror wearing the overcoat, the white shirt and tie and the knit cap. He looked stupid. He took the cap off and shoved it in his overcoat pocket.
“Miss? Did you hear me?”
A woman’s voice inside, close to the door, said, “Where’s Alexander?” sounding fairly calm.
“He’s okay.”
“Tell him to say something.”
“He isn’t right here, but he’s okay.”
“What do you want?” r />
“Open the door, I’ll tell you.”
He waited.
“Miss, I can kick the door in. I don’t mean to scare you, but you know I can do it.” He waited again, looking at Buddy and saw Buddy straighten as they heard the lock click. Foley turned the knob, gave the door a push and let it swing into the bathroom.
The woman stood by the shower stall away from the door—not the cute little college girl Foley expected—no, this woman could be forty years old with thick red hair hanging free: a big woman with full breasts that were plain to see in her flimsy bra and low-cut panties, her navel centered in a little pot belly. She looked ready to take a swing at Foley if he approached her.
He said, “You’re Alexander’s girlfriend?” doubt in his voice, and she confirmed it.
“I work here. I’m the maid.”
Buddy moved in closer. “Is this your room?”
She said, “Does it look like Mr. Ripley’s?”
Buddy glanced at Foley.
Foley said, “How long’ve you worked for him?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Tell us where the safe’s at,” Buddy said, “and we’ll leave you alone.”
Foley said, “You and Alexander can get back to what you were doing. What’s your name, hon?”
“I’m not your hon,” the woman said.
Foley couldn’t imagine her being tender, though she might be all a young guy like Alexander could ask for. He said, “I think you ought to stay in there. Get in the shower and don’t make a sound.”
She had her hands on her hips now, like no one was going to tell her what to do, saying, “Who do you people think you are?”
Scowling at them.
“You see the others,” Foley said, “you’ll know we’re the good guys. I mean it, hide in the shower, for your own good.”
She was asking, “What’d you do with Alexander? Where is he?”
When they heard Kenneth.
“Who’s that?”
Before they knew he was in the room: Kenneth coming over to the bathroom with his shotgun, eyes bright in the ski mask, his eyes lighting up at the sight of the redhead in her underwear.