The Big Bounce

“Listen, I want to be sure. That’s all.”

“Who’s sure?” Ryan said. He went to the back of the truck and brought out the beer case. The full bottles and empties had been taken out. He glanced at Billy Ruiz and the two of them walked away from the truck toward the brown house, Ryan still with the little stub of cigar in his mouth.

“What if somebody’s watching?” Billy Ruiz asked.

Never again, Ryan thought. He said, “Billy, what are we doing? We’re delivering beer.”

They walked past the cars parked in the road, cut between them, and were in the yard. “Here’s where you wait,” Ryan said. “You watch for the sign. If I don’t give you the sign, you don’t come. But if I give it to you, then you come now, you understand?”

Billy Ruiz nodded, concentrating. He watched Ryan go up a narrow aisle between the cars parked in the yard, carrying the beer case now with both hands as if it were full. He watched Ryan step up on the porch, put the case down, and knock on the screen door. Ryan waited. He put his face close to the screen, shading out the light with one hand. He picked up the case again and went inside.

Billy Ruiz waited. This, he knew, would be the worst part. He heard cars on the Shore Road beyond the trees. He turned and looked up and down the private drive and saw Frank Pizarro standing by the truck, looking this way. Get inside! God, the idiot, standing there! Ruiz’s gaze swung to the house and now there was no time to worry about Frank Pizarro. Ryan was standing in the doorway motioning to him. He hurried past the cars and up onto the porch, trusting Ryan now, putting it all in his hands.

Ryan picked the cigar stub from his mouth and drew Billy Ruiz close to him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Somebody’s in the living room,” Ryan said. “But I think we’re all right. It’s at the end of the hall and the stairs are about halfway. I go up first. You bring the case and follow me but not right behind. If you hear me talking to anybody, walk out. I mean walk.”

That was it. Simple. Like a huddle in a touch football game. You go out deep and cut. You go short and buttonhook. I’ll throw to whoever’s clear. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t.

Billy Ruiz followed Ryan through the kitchen he had never seen before to the hall and now heard a voice in the living room, a woman’s voice, and laughter. The hall was dim, but the stairs were in light that came through two windows at the landing. He saw Ryan go up and turn the corner. He followed and when he reached the upstairs hall, Ryan had already found the room where the men of the Alpha Chi alumni had changed into their bathing trunks. Ryan stepped in and locked it.

“Look in the bathroom,” Ryan said. He took the beer case from Ruiz and placed it on the bed, laid his cigar stub in an ashtray on the nightstand, and began going through the shorts and trousers on the bed and chairs and on the dresser, removing the wallets and dropping them in the beer case, then checking the pockets for loose bills; he did not take silver. He looked around the room as he fished through the pockets, noticing the two windows that would be at the side and the back of the house. Good. The back window would open onto the porch roof.

“Another bedroom,” Billy Ruiz said. He seemed surprised, but part of it was fright. “The women’s clothes are in there.”

“I’ll check it,” Ryan said. “You wait here.” He moved through the bath to the adjoining bedroom, closed the door to the hall and locked it and turned to the clothes on the bed, in neat piles and messy piles, just as the men’s were. Who goes with who? Ryan thought. That would be something if you had time. Try to match them up. There were seven purses on the dresser; he carried them into the men’s bedroom and dropped them on the bed and began removing the wallets from those that had wallets and checking side pockets for rolled-up wads of bills. They would take all the wallets and go through them later.

When he had cleaned out the purses, he took them back to the women’s bedroom. Just once have all the purses in one place. Man. Seven here, the rest would be scattered all over the house and when it’s time to go, a couple of the women, half loaded, will be ru

He paused in the bathroom to open the medicine cabinet. It was fu

Billy Ruiz looked at him, still with wide-open eyes. “What are you doing?” Ryan was rubbing the after-shave lotion over his jaw.

One of Ryan’s fingers, upright, moved to his mouth and he stood still. He waited, and then began rescrewing the cap gently and dropped the bottle to the bed. There was a sound from the stairs. Steps now in the hall. The doorknob turned.

Ryan, on the far side of the bed from the door, saw the doorknob and Ruiz’s expression at the same time. Get to him, Ryan thought. Get a hand on him. He moved quietly to Ruiz’s side at the foot of the bed and touched his arm, held it.

The knob turned again, back and forth; the knob was jiggled, pushed, and pulled.

“Hey, who’s in there?” A pause. “Come on, let me in.”

Ryan waited. He said, “Just a minute,” and moved to the closet and began going through the sweaters and sport coats and pants hanging inside. He found three billfolds and put them in the beer case.

“What’re you doing? I got to go to the bathroom.”

“Use the other one.”

“Hey, who is it?”

“Look, we’ll… get out if you’ll go away.”

“Who’s we?”

Silence. Let it sink in, Ryan thought. He wants to say something, but now he’s not sure.

Ryan waited until he heard steps in the hall and a door close-the other bathroom. Now, Ryan thought, he’ll open it again quietly, the son of a bitch, and wait to see who comes out. How about a guy like that?

“Time to go,” Ryan said. He moved to the back window that looked out on the porch, unfastened the screen, and motioned Ruiz to get the beer case. They climbed out. Ryan went down on his stomach at the edge of the roof and listened, not moving. After this he did not hesitate again; he rolled over the edge holding the gutter and dropped. Billy Ruiz lowered the beer case to him and followed and they went into the brush and trees at the side of the house, pointing now toward the private drive and Pizarro’s truck. They walked, they didn’t hurry; they walked because Ryan said that’s the way it was done.

3

FRANK PIZARRO TURNED LEFT on the Shore Road toward Geneva Beach four miles away and was doing forty as he shifted into third gear. Ryan, behind him in the panel compartment, sitting on his canvas suit-pack and opening the beer case, touched Pizarro’s shoulder.