Foley said, "What if I get in the car, I don't go to that bank over on the circle, I drive off."
Tico said, "Yes…?" surprised the bank robber didn't want to know more about Dawn Navarro. "I see you get in the car-you must mean the VW-I call Lou Adams."
"What if nobody sees me?"
"We all over the place, my Young Boys United, like Venice Boulevard and Dell Avenue, where you come out from the canals if you driving. What I like to know," Tico said, "why is he want you so bad?"
"He'll tell you," Foley said, "it's his job to bring me in. But this has to cost him, you and your little helpers? He can't be paying you on what he makes."
"I don't help him, I get deported."
"That's it?"
"You don't believe me?"
"He's giving you something besides free time," Foley said, "or you'd walk away. If Lou can't pay he's leaving a door open someplace. Maybe this house. But you can't bust in till he puts me away. It's some kind of deal like that? He wants me, he doesn't give a shit what you want."
"You think you know me," Tico said, "what I'm willing to do?"
"For money?" Foley said. "I've only met a thousand guys like you in stir. All you want to know is where's the hustle and what's the take."
"You saying Lou Adams can't pay me," Tico said, "so he lets
me, what, come in here and loot this place when he's done with you?" Tico took a drink, having a good time with the bank robber, no problem. He said, "What about your boss, Cundo Rey, you mention. What kind of deal you have with him?" "You think I work for him?"
"Lou Adams say Cundo pays your way, pays for everything, even your lawyer a lot of money. So he say you in Cundo Rey's debt, you have to do what he tells you."
Foley said, "You believe it?"
Tico said, "I think a guy who robs two hundred banks don't need to work for nobody he don't want to. Can you tell me how many you rob?"
"A hundred and twenty-seven," Foley said.
"Some more than once?"
"A few. One of them a bank in L.A., I didn't realize I'd been there before till I was at the window and I recognized the teller, this good-looking black girl, her name in a thing on the counter. I could tell she knew who I was. I said, 'Monique, I only want change for a twenty, all right?'»
"Tha's what you said?"
"In a soft voice. 'Monique…?'"
"She say anything?"
"No, she starts laying it out, hundreds, fifties, all in bank straps, not looking at me, watching what she's doing. I'm thinking she either didn't understand what I said, or she pressed the alarm and she's showing the money to keep me there."
"You took it?"
"I felt I had to. The bank straps made it easy to pick up and slip in my pockets, my shirt. I said, 'Thank you, Monique, for the change.'»
"She think that was funny?"
"She didn't look up. I patted her hand." "Give her a thrill."
"I got to the front entrance and looked back. Now she's watching me. She looked calm, didn't scream or go nuts. For a moment there, you know what I thought she might do? Wave. But she didn't. I got out of there with fifty-two-fifty. Thank you, Monique. But did I steal it, or was it a gift? Something I'll never know."
"Man, tha's cool. So is robbing one hundred and twenty-seven banks," Tico said. "I bow to you. You know how many banks I rob in my entire life so far? Three, tha's all."
"Do any more," Foley said, "it begins to get tiresome."
"Yes, you get tired doing it?"
"Bored. But you still keep your eyes open."
Now he was talking about Costa Rica, saying, "You know how many Americans would move there tomorrow if they could? At least a million. What do you do, you leave the promised land and come here."
"San Jose is no L.A., man. You leave when you can."
"You doing all right?"
"Now and then. You know how it is."
"I'll trade you," Foley said. "I've been reading up on Costa Rica. They don't have revolutions anymore, they don't even have an army. It's the Switzerland of Central America."
"Yes, is nice," Tico said, "if you have money. You make enough to live high there, sure, have a big home with servants waiting on you. You going there, uh, soon as you become rich?"
It got the bank robber smiling a little, smoking his Light Menthol Virginia Slim.
"But if you not robbing banks no more, you think is so boring, where you get the money?"
He watched the bank robber shrug, watched him pick up his glass and take a drink.
"You're having a good time poking around," Foley said, "trying to find out what I'm up to, aren't you?"
"I enjoy to talk to you," Tico said, "one bank robber to another, uh?" and waited for Jack Foley to see he was being funny.
He did, but smiled only a moment.
"We're now and then in the same life," Foley said. "That's all I can tell you."
"Tha's right, we go to prison, we come out. Okay, now what do we do? Check around to see what looks good, what kind of hustle we can work. Maybe something your friend Cundo Rey has in his mind."
"I just got here," Foley said, "and I've known you what, a half hour?"
Tico said, "Yes…?"
"That's not long enough," Foley said, "for me to be telling you my business. All I know about you so far, Tico, you're a bullshitter. You do it pretty well, but you're still a bullshitter. You've never robbed a bank in your life, have you?"
"Man, I want to," Tico said, looking earnest, his eyes innocent. "Don't that count for something?"
"Not to me," Foley said. "Talking the talk doesn't inspire any confidence, nothing I hear I can count on. But," Foley said, "it sounds like you're a pretty good friend of Dawn Navarro's."
"I can say we very good friends."
"I hear Dawn saying nice things about you," Foley said, "that makes you worth talking to."
Foley nodded toward the canal.
Tico looked that way and saw her on the other side, Dawn walking past the line of low hedges toward the footbridge, Dawn wearing a shirt and jeans now, the limp coat over her arm. Tico said, "Oh, now you gonna check on me, uh? Ask her if we friends, if I was ever intimate with her? No, I wasn't." Foley said, "Try to stay calm, Tico."
TWELVE
THEY WATCHED DAWN COME THROUGH THE GATE SAYING, "You're starting early, aren't you? I have to have my coffee first." Foley said, "Did he call you?"
"I've been talking to him all this time, telling him where I've been."
"He was worried about you."
"Now I have to find a straw beach hat, a big one, and stop by Ralphs, pick up whatever I told him I had to get." "He ask you if you're being a saint?"
"Not today. Let me get a cup," Dawn said. "I'm regressing Tico, finding out who he was in a much earlier life. My spirit guide put me in touch with a spirit"-Dawn looking at Tico now-"who knew you sixteen hundred years ago, if you can imagine that. I'll be right back."
"You hear her?" Tico said. "Is no bullshit. Dawn is been trying to find out who I was in another life, she say now was sixteen hundred years ago, man."
"How does she know where to look?"
"She has her spirit guide help her. Didn't she ever look at your past life for you?"
"She couldn't find anything prior to '63," Foley said. "At first she thought I might've been Jack Kennedy-I've had a bad back off and on-but she couldn't tell if I was ever president of the United States."
"Yes, but maybe you were?"
"It's possible," Foley said.
"She say I was of the Maya race in Guatemala," Tico said. "I tole her I come from Costa Rica. She say is close enough. She didn't know what I was called, so she couldn't find out what I was doing there"-Tico looking anxious-"but now I believe she found out."
They waited, smoking Slims and sipping whiskey. Dawn returned with a cup of coffee and sat down with them at the patio table. She said, "Oh, would you like one of my Slims?" in her innocent way. Tico said he already had one. If he didn't know she was putting him on, he didn't know her, Foley thought. They still could've got naked together-or why bother to deny it? Now she was telling Tico, "It seems you appear in the early part of the Maya classic period, about the year 400. You're the son of a god-king, the one and only Fire Is Born. Really, that's his name, Fire Is Born. Your name, Tico, was Spear-thrower Jaguar. You were a famous warrior."