Elmore Leonard - Road Dogs

THEY PUT FOLEY AND THE CUBAN TOGETHER IN THE BACKSEAT

THEY SAT ACROSS FROM EACH OTHER IN ONE OF THE

THEY WERE TAKING THEIR WALK THE DAY AFTER FOLEYS robbery

AT FIRST, TRYING TO TALK ON THE PHONE IN THIS

LOU ADAMS, THE FEDERAL AGENT WITH JACK FOLEY IMPRINTED on

THEY WERE DRIVING SOUTH NOW ON THE TURNPIKE, ADELE telling

THERE WERE PHOTOGRAPHS OF DAWN NAVARRO ALL OVER the house,

ILL COME OVER, DAWN SAID. I HAVENT BEEN ACROSS the

LOU ADAMS MET THE LAPD GANG SQUAD DETECTIVE AT THE

HELL BE HERE THE END OF NEXT WEEK, FOLEY SAID,

FOLEY CAME DOWN FROM THE ROOF, THE GLASSES HANGING from

THEY WATCHED DAWN COME THROUGH THE GATE SAYING, Youre starting

FOLEY CALLED LITTLE JIMMY ABOUT THE PAINTING THAT needed to

THEY SWAPPED HOMES IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON, FOLEY moving his

HE TOOK HER UP TO THE BEDROOM AND THEY MADE

LATER IN THE EVENING FOLEY SAT WITH CUNDO IN THE

WHAT DOES A CERTIFIED ADVANCED PARANORMAL INVESTIGATOR say to a

LAST NIGHT ON THE WAY HOME DAWN SAID, THE NEXT

ALL THE TIME WE INSIDE, CUNDO SAID, IM THINKING when

THEY GOT ON HER AGAIN THE NEXT DAY. FOLEY STOPPED

IT WAS THE FIRST TIME FOLEY COULD RECALL GOING IN

LITTLE JIMMY WAITED ON HIS KNEES IN THE CONFESSIONAL for

DAWN WATCHED TICO SETTING THE OVAL TABLE IN THE DINING

THE WAY FOLEY LOOKED AT HIS CHANCES WITH DANNY Karmanos,

LAST NIGHT FOLEY WALKED UP TO THE KID ON THE

ZORRO WAS IN HIS ROOM ON THE THIRD FLOOR WATCHING

FOLEY PUT THE VW IN THE GARAGE, PULLED IT UP

DAWN DROVE HOME AND EASED HER SAAB INTO THE GARAGE

MAYBE TELLING FOLEY HIS BUDDY WAS IN THE FREEZER WAS

ONCE THE BODIES WERE RELEASED, CUNDO AND TICO WERE given

THEY PUT FOLEY AND THE CUBAN TOGETHER IN THE BACKSEAT of the van and took them from the Palm Beach County jail on Gun Club to Glades Correctional, the old redbrick prison at the south end of Lake Okeechobee. Neither one said a word during the ride that took most of an hour, both of them handcuffed and shackled.

They were returning Jack Foley to do his thirty years after busting out for a week, Foleys mind on a woman who made intense love to him one night in Detroit, pulled a Sig Sauer .38 the next night, shot him and sent him back to Florida.

The Cuban, a little guy about fifty with dyed hair pulled back in a ponytail, was being transferred to Glades from the state prison at Starke, five years down, two and a half to go of a second-degree murder conviction. The Cuban was thinking about a woman he believed he loved, this woman who could read minds.

They were brought to the chow hall, their trays hit with macaroni and cheese and hot dogs from the steam table, three slices of white bread, rice pudding and piss-poor coffee and sat down next to each other at the same table, opposite three inmates who stopped eating.

Foley knew them, Aryan Brotherhood neo-Nazi skinheads, and they knew Foley, a Glades celebrity whod robbed more banks than anybody theyd ever heard ofwalk in and walk out, nothing to ituntil Foley pulled a dumb stunt and got caught. He ran out of luck when he drew His Honor Maximum Bob in Criminal Court, Palm Beach County. The white-power convicts accepted Foley because he was as white as they were, but they never showed they were impressed by his all-time-high number of banks. Foley sat down and they started in.

Jesus, look at him eat. Jack, you come back cause you miss the chow?

Boy, you get any pussy out there?

He didnt, whatd he bust out for?

I heard you took a .38 in the shank, Jack. Is that right, you let this puss shoot you?

Federal U.S. fuckin marshal, shows her star and puts one in his leg.

Foley ate his macaroni and cheese staring at the mess of it on his tray while the skinhead hard-ons made their lazy remarks Foley would hear again and again for thirty years, from the Brotherhood, from the Mexican Mafia, from Nuestra Familia, from the black guys all ganged up; thirty years in a convict population careful not to dis anybody, but thinking he could stand up with the tray, have the tables looking at him and backhand it across bare skulls, show em he was as dumb as they were and get put in the box for sixty days.

Now they were after the Cuban.

Boy, we dont allow niggers at our table.

They brought Foley into it asking him, How we suppose to eat, Jack, this dinge sitting here?

Right now was the moment to pick up the tray and go crazy, not saying a word but getting everybodys attention, the tables wondering, Jesus, what happened to Foley?

And thought, For what?

He said to the three white-supremacy freaks with their mass of tattoos, This fellas down from Starke. You understand? Im showing him around the hotel. He wants to visit with his Savior I point him to the chapel. He wants a near-death-experience hangover, I tell him to see one of you fellas for some pruno. But you got this stranger wrong. He aint colored, hes a hundred percent greaseball from down La Cucaracha way, Foley looking at the three hard-ons and saying, Cha cha, cha.

Later on when they were outside the Cuban stopped Foley. You call me a greaseball to my face?

This little bit of a guy acting tough.

Where you been, Foley said, you get stuck with the white-power ding-dongs, the best thing is to sound as dumb as they are and theyll think youre funny. You heard them laugh, didnt you? And they dont laugh much. Its against their code of behavior.

This was how Foley and Cundo hooked up at Glades.

Cundo said Foley was the only white guy in the joint he could talk to, Foley a name among all the grunge here and knew how to jail. Stay out of other peoples business. Cundos favorite part of the day was walking the yard with Foley, a couple of road dogs in tailored prison blues, and tell stories about himself.

How he went to prison in Cuba for shooting a Russian guy. Took his suitcase and sold his clothes, his shoes, all of it way too big for him. Came here during the time of the boatlift from Mariel, twenty-seven years ago, man, when Fidel opened the prisons and sent all the bad dudes to La Yumawhat he called the United Statesfor their vacation.

How he got into different hustles. Didnt care for armed robbery. Liked boosting cars at night off a dealers lot. He danced go go in gay bars as the Cat Prince, wore a leopard-print jockstrap, cat whiskers painted on his face, but scored way bigger tips Ladies Night at clubs, the ladies stuffing his jock with bills. Here is this middle-age mama with big tetas, she say to me, Come to my home Saturday, my husband is all day at his golf club. She say to me, I give you ten one-hundred-dollar bills and eat you alive.

Man, and how he was shot three times from his chest to his belly and came so close to dying he saw the dazzle of gold light you hear about when you approaching heaven, right there. But the emergency guys see hes still breathing, blood coming out his mouth, his heart still working, man, and they deliver him alive to Jackson Memorial where he was in a coma thirty-four days, woke up and faked it a few more days listening to Latina voices, the nurse helpers talking about him. He learned he was missing five inches of his colon but healed, sewed up, good as new. When he opened his eyes he noticed the mozo mopping the floor wore a tattoo on his hand, an eye drawn at the base of his thumb and index finger, a kind of eye he remembered from Combinado del Este, the prison by Havana. He said to the mozo, We both Marielitos, uh ? Get me out of here, my brother, and I make you rich.