“I told him that.”
“Then we’ll have to get the keys back to them.”
“We won’t worry about that-we can throw ’em in the lobby. I always thought I was patient, but I don’t think I am.”
“I thought you were, too.”
“We’ll just get started and I’ll probably have to go to the bathroom. Once I was in a hotel room, guy and his wife lying there asleep, when all of a sudden I had to go. I hadn’t even picked up anything yet. I went all the way downstairs… But that was it, I was through for the night.” He touched the front of his jacket. “You know what I did? Left the gun under the seat of my car. I better get it.”
Lucy watched him open the door. “You won’t need it for a while, will you?” Her gaze moved back to the garage opening, the square of daylight, and she said, “Jack, there he is.”
Franklin came along the driveway past the first aisle of cars, past the second aisle of cars… He saw Jack Delaney’s old car, the door open, at the end of the next aisle and the woman’s blue car in the aisle behind it. He saw Jack Delaney appear then, rising next to his car, looking this way, and raising his hand. Franklin didn’t wave back to him. He turned into the aisle where the new cream-colored Mercedes was parked and walked toward it, not looking at Jack Delaney now, but knowing he wouldn’t have time to get in the car and drive off. Jack Delaney would be in front of the car. He didn’t want to hit him with the car, but he would do it rather than shoot him. He looked back again, quickly, and saw it would be difficult even if he tried. Jack Delaney was coming with a gun in his hand.
“Franklin-wait up!”
The guy had his flight bag in one hand and was unlocking the car door with the other. He had it open and was getting in by the time Jack reached him.
“Wait a minute, will you?”
Franklin hesitated and then came out, leaving the flight bag on the seat, raising his hands as high as his shoulders.
Jack pushed the door closed, out of the way. “Franklin, what’re you doing?”
“I was going.”
“With them? After what I told you?”
“No, not with them. I have to go be on the boat.”
“You’re stealing the guy’s car? What’re you gonna do with it?”
“Leave it there-I don’t know.”
“Wait a minute-what’d you tell those guys?”
“I told them I quit and said good-bye.”
“Yeah? And what’d they say?”
“Nothing.”
“Franklin, Jesus Christ…”
Lucy was coming. He could hear her leather sandals slapping on the cement, coming in a hurry. He glanced around. “Franklin’s gonna swipe their car. You believe it?”
“We haven’t met,” Lucy said, looking at Franklin as she came past Jack, between the Mercedes and the car parked next to it, offering Franklin her hand. He brought his hands down slowly and Lucy took one of them in both of hers. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Franklin. I had a friend who was Miskito we treated at Sagrada Familia. You know the hospital for lepers? He stayed with us a long time. His name was Armstrong Diego. Did you happen to know him?”
Jack watched Franklin shake his head. The guy seemed a little awed or surprised.
“Colonel Dagoberto Godoy’s men killed Diego,” Lucy said, “and some of the other patients, with machetes.”
“We’re standing here talking,” Jack said. “Franklin, what was the colonel doing?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“They laying there, that’s all.”
“All right, Franklin, is the money in the car?… You’re taking everything, aren’t you?” Franklin seemed more resigned than cornered. Jack watched him nod his head, twice. Just like that. Ask him a question, you got an answer. Jack said, “You are?” And saw him nod again, twice. “I have to give you credit, Franklin, you’re a pretty cool guy.” Jack brought up the Beretta and held it level with the man’s Creole Indian face. “Now you give us the keys. Hand ’em to Lucy.”
Franklin’s eyes didn’t move from the gun barrel. He gave Lucy the keys without looking at her, letting her take them out of his hand. Jack didn’t look at her either, paying close attention to the man’s eyes, his solemn expression, until he saw Lucy beyond Franklin at the car’s rear deck. Lucy was looking at the ring of keys, selecting one.
Franklin said to him, “If she opens it…”
“What?”
“She’s going to be dead.”
Jack said, “So will you if you move.”
Lucy’s voice said, “He has enough keys.”
“She won’t be dead from me,” Franklin said, “but she’ll be dead.”
They stared eye to eye, Jack trying to hold the pistol steady. “I mean it. Don’t move.”
But Franklin was turning as Jack said it and now he yelled at him, “Franklin, goddamn it!” Aiming the automatic at the man’s back and seeing Lucy, bent over, looking up, straightening as Franklin reached her, Franklin saying something to her and taking her by the arm. Jack saw her eyes, her startled look. He moved past the side of the car to the rear deck. Franklin was taking the keys from her. She was giving him the keys, glancing at Jack now as he reached the back end of the car and saw Franklin slipping a key into the lock.
She said, “Jack. Don’t touch him.”
Franklin, on his knees, placed the palm of his hand on the down-curve of the trunk lid, turned the key with the other hand, and let the trunk come open gradually, a few inches. He hunched in close to look in.
Lucy said, barely above a whisper, “It could be wired to explode.”
“How does he know?”
“He thinks it is,” Lucy said. “They’ve done it before. There was a priest in Jinotega, he opened his trunk and was blown to bits.”
“He was gonna let you open it.”
“But he didn’t.”
They watched Franklin raise the lid slowly, holding it, letting it come up a little more, feeling the tension of the mechanism. With the trunk open about eight inches he put his arm in to the shoulder, his face in profile against the cream-colored sheet metal, composed, feeling without seeing, his fingers working in there. He began to straighten then, getting his feet under him, raising the trunk lid with his shoulder as he stood up and turned to show them what he was holding, a hand-grenade, with one end of a straightened coat hanger hooked to its ring.
“MK-two,” Franklin said, “they call a pineapple.” He looked at Jack, offering him the grenade, and grinned. “You don’t want it? Okay.” He slipped it into his coat pocket.
Jack said, “You’re a kidder, aren’t you, Franklin?” He didn’t know what else to say to him: the guy standing there with a grenade in his pocket; the guy could’ve let Lucy blow herself up. She was saying that to him now…
“Why did you stop me?”
Franklin, still grinning a little, a trace of it left, shook his head, Jack watching him. The guy didn’t know what to say either, turning to the open trunk to raise the lid all the way up. Lucy looked in. She said, “Jack?” He moved closer and saw two full-size aluminum suitcases inside lying flat, side by side.
ROY GOT OFF THE ELEVATOR and stood looking at 501 in the alcove. He stared hard, but the door wouldn’t tell him a goddamn thing. So he followed the open hallway around to the other side of the courtyard, came to 509, and heard the phone ringing inside. Then he couldn’t get the goddamn key to turn. The phone kept ringing in there. Roy hit the door with the heel of his hand, kicked it, yanked the knob toward him as he turned the key, and the door gave up and clicked open. He left it like that, got to the bedside table, and picked up the phone.
“Who’s this?”
Cullen’s voice said, “Roy? It’s me. You all are still there, huh?”
“I think so,” Roy said. “Lemme look. Yeah, we’re still here.” He brought the phone away from the table, as far as the cord would let him-just enough-so he could look out the door toward the elevator.
“Nothing doing yet?”