Swag
Authors: Elmore Leonard
SWAG
for Jane
Contents
THERE WAS A PHOTOGRAPH OF
Frank in an ad that ran in the
Detroit Free Press
and showed all the friendly salesmen at Red Bowers Chevrolet. Under his photo it said
Frank J. Ryan.
He had on a nice smile, a styled moustache, and a summer-weight suit made out of that material that's shiny and looks like it has snags in it.
There was a photograph of Stick on file at 1300 Beaubien, Detroit Police Headquarters. Under the photo it said
Ernest Stickley, Jr.
, 89037. He had on a sport shirt that had sailboats and palm trees on it. He'd bought it in Pompano Beach, Florida.
The first time they ever saw each other was the night at Red Bowers Chevrolet on Telegraph when Stick was pulling out of the used-car lot in the maroon '73 Camaro. Frank walked up to the side window as the car stopped before turning out on the street. He said, “You mind if I ask where you're going?”
The window was down. Stick looked at the guy who was stooped over a little, staring at him: nice-looking guy about thirty-five or so, long hair carefully combed, all dressed up with his suit and tie on. A car salesman. Stick could smell the guy's aftershave lotion.
Stick said, “I could be going home, I could be going to Florida.” Which was his intention, the reason he was taking the car. He said, “What do you care where I'm going?”
Frank's first impression of Stick was a guy off the farm who'd come to town and somebody had sold him a genuine Hawaiian sport shirt, he wore with the collar spread open, showing a little bit of white T-shirt. Frank said, “Since you didn't buy the car, I mean pay for it yet, I wondered.”
“Uh-unh,” Stick said. “I come here to price a new one.”
Frank kept staring at him. “You always shop for a car after the place's closed?”
“Yeah, that's what I found out. The showroom's all lit up but it's closed. Hey,” Stick said, “maybe you think this is one of yours because you got one like it.”
“Maybe that's it,” Frank said. “Even down to the Indiana plates. It was parked over there where there's an empty space now.” He said, “You say it's yours, you want to show me the registration?”
“Fuck no,” Stick said, and took off, leaving Frank standing there in the drive.
Frank went into the used-car office, called the Detroit police, and gave them a description of the car. He didn't do it right away. He took his time, thinking the guy must be a real farmer to try and steal a car off a lot that was all lit up. The guy had been very cool about it, though. Slow-talking, relaxed, with the trace of a Southern accent. But he might have been putting it on, acting sincere. Frank himself would give customers a little down-home sound every once in a while and grin a lot. It wasn't hard.
He didn't give a personal shit if the guy got away with it or not. The car belonged to Red Bowers Chevrolet. He wasn't out anything. But there was something personal about it if the guy was driving down Telegraph grinning, thinking he'd aced him. That's why Frank called the police. Also he called to see how the police would handle it. To see if they were any good.
They weren't bad. A squad car turned on its flashers as soon as the Camaro was spotted on the Lodge Freeway. It took another twenty minutes, though, and three side-swiped cars on Grand River, before they got him. They found the wrinkled Camaro in a parking lot and Stick sitting in the bar next door with a bottle of Stroh's beer.
The next time Frank saw Stick was at Detroit Police Headquarters on Beaubien, looking through the one-way glass at him standing in line with the five plainclothes cops who stood patiently staring into the light glare. It was funny. Frank hesitated again before saying, “Second one on the left.”
“You're sure he's the one?”
“I'm sure it isn't one of those cops,” Frank said.
Out in the office he asked the detective sergeant about the guy, who he was and if he'd been arrested before, and learned the following:
Ernest Stickley, Jr. No aliases. Address: Zanzibar Motel, Southfield, Michigan. Born in Norman, Oklahoma, October 11, 1940. Occupation: truck driver, transit-mix operator. Marital status: divorced; ex-wife and seven-year-old daughter residing in Pompano Beach, Florida.
The sheet also listed previous arrests. The first time for joyriding; sentence suspended. Arrested two years later on a UDAA chargeâunlawfully driving away an automobileâand received one-year probation. The final one, arrested for grand theft, autoâtransporting a stolen motor vehicle across a state lineâand convicted. Served ten months in the Federal Correctional Institution at Milan, Michigan.
Frank said to himself, Well well well well. An auto thief named Ernest, with a record. Maybe a hick but a fairly nice-looking guy. Mid-thirties. Had nerve. Didn't seem to get excited. Obviously knew how to steal cars. In fact, Frank was pretty sure, the guy had stolen a lot more cars than were listed on his sheet. Four arrests now and most likely another conviction.
The third time Frank saw Stick was at the pretrial examination on the fourth floor of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice. It was an air-conditioned, wood-paneled courtroom with indirect lighting and enough microphones placed around so the people in the audience could hear the proceedings. There were a few cops in off-duty clothes, some cute young black ladies and skinny guys in modified pimp outfits who were either pimps or pushers or might be felony suspectsâB and E, robbery or assaultâout on bond. There were a few spectators, too: mostly retirees who came up to watch felony exams and murder trials because they were more fun than movies and they were free.
Frank was surprised when he saw the assistant prosecutor: a young black guy in a tight sport coat. Young and short and fat. He had thought all young black guys in Detroit were at least six-seven and went about a hundred and a half. Frank decided the black guy was very smart and had passed the bar in the top ten. He looked like he was enjoying himself, shuffling papers, moving around a lot to talk to the judge and the court clerk and the defense lawyers; then turning away from them, smiling at some inside remark, having fun being a prosecuting attorney.
Frank had a feeling the people watching the guy were probably thinking. Look at that little mother. Little kiss-ass with the big horn-rim glasses on to show how smart he is. Everybody in the courtroom was black except Frank, a couple of Jewish lawyers in their sixties, and the off-duty cops waiting to be called as witnesses.
Stick hadn't been able to make bond. They brought him in through a side door and sat him at the end of a table facing the witness stand as the judge, a black guy with graying hair and a neat gray moustache, called a number and read Stick's name from a big file folder he was holding. Then the prosecutor called Mr. Frank Ryan, and he went through the gate and over to the court clerk, who swore him in and told him to sit down in the witness chair, take the mike off its stand, and hold it in front of him. They didn't waste any time. The little prosecutor asked him if he would please tell what happened the night of May twenty-second in the used-car lot at Red Bowers Chevrolet.
Frank told it. Most of it.
Then he was asked if he had, the next day, identified the same man in a show-up at Detroit Police Headquarters.
Frank said yes, he had.
The little prosecutor said, “And do you see that same man in this courtroom?”
Frank said, “No, I don't.”
“And would you pointâ” The little prosecutor stopped. “What'd you say?”
“I said no, I don't see him.”
“You i
den
tified him. Didn't you point him out at a show-up?”