Out of Sight

Glenn thought about it returning to the car he'd left on the grassy side of the road, trouble lights blinking just in case: a black Audi sedan he'd taken up to 137 miles an hour when he first hit the turnpike at Palm Beach Gardens.

Or, Buddy brought her for Foley and he was so horny he couldn't wait, gave her a jump in the trunk of the car. Not in the backseat with Buddy watching. It was a possibility. Except these two guys never lost their cool or acted crazy.

Glenn had gotten to know them at Lompoc USP, a twenty four-year-old fish looking around for any reasonably intelligent guys who read books or at least weren't fucking morons. Buddy asked him what he was doing and Glenn said networking, trying to find out who he should know and who he should stay away from. Buddy said he meant how much time was he doing. Oh, two to five, Glenn said, for grand theft auto, but it looked now like he was doing the whole five. He didn't explain that until later. What he told them was he stole Porsche and Mercedes top of-the-line models he picked up on special order and delivered anywhere in the U.S. with clean titles. He told them he'd spot the car a customer wanted and use a slim jim or lemon pop to get in, a slap hammer to yank the ignition, a side lack to extract steering column locks and usually liquid nitrogen to freeze the alarm system.

See if that impressed them.

Foley said between him and Buddy they'd boosted three to four hundred cars in their time, but never sold any or kept them for more than a couple of hours.

These were cool guys for hicks, both fairly tall and stringy, Buddy with dark curly hair that was always slicked back-he kept a comb in his pocket-and looked wet. Foley's light-brown hair was short and thick enough he could do okay combing it with his fingers. Foley smoked cigarettes, Buddy dipped Skoal, stuck it behind his lower lip. They didn't seem in great shape-they'd rather watch than work out-but both had that hard-boned look, like they'd worked construction or in oil fields all their lives instead of robbing banks. Easygoing but looked you right in the fucking eye when you spoke to them or they had something to say.

Glenn stayed close to them and was never seriously apT pro ached by any perverts or butt fuckers. Foley said, "Don't take it up 'less you think you might like it." Buddy said, "What you do, just say no, then kill the guy." They watched each other's backs and never had any trouble they weren't able to stare down, giving ill-tempered assholes a calm look that said, Fuck with us, man, at your own risk.

Glenn believed they let him hang around because he was from L.A." West Hollywood, he knew what was happening, had even spent a couple of years at Berkeley but never copped a superior attitude. He'd tell them stories about when he was in the car-detailing business and got laid a lot: how he'd work on cars at these multimillion-dollar homes in Beverly Hills and wait for the lady of the house to make the move. Get asked in for a cold drink, a dip in the pool? It happened, man, more often than you'd think, couple of times even with movie stars.

This was when they started calling him Studs.

One day in the yard Glenn said, "I'm gonna tell you guys something only one other person here knows about. I was originally at FPC, the camp over there? And was transferred here with another guy for trying to escape."

See what they thought.

"You know Maurice Miller in the boxing program they call Snoopy? Fights lightweight? He was at FPC doing a gig for fraud, I think credit cards. Anyway, we went out one night jogging, like Snoopy's doing road work and I'm his trainer. We made it almost all the way to Vandenberg and got picked up by air base MPs. They thought we were a-wol."

Buddy asked him was he nuts? Do an easy two or even less of his two-to-five at the country club, cable TV, salad bar in the chow hall, and he'd be out. Now he'd have to do the whole five.

"In an altogether different kind of mind-fucking incarceration," Glenn said.

"I knew if we didn't make it Snoopy and I'd get sent here or some other max joint. There're some scary fucking slams you can get sent to, Marion, Lewisburg…

Maybe I was pumped, a little overanxious, but at the time I didn't worry about getting caught. See, what happened, I got next to a guy over at FPC doing three years on a felony conspiracy thing, strictly white collar. He got the three years and was fined-listen to this-fifty million dollars and wrote 'em a fucking check. Like that, fifty mil, signed his name."

Foley said, "One of the Wall Street scammers," and he was right. He said, "I remember reading about the guy. Went up for insider trading.

Paid off snitch brokers to give him information on stock deals before they went down. Like takeovers." Telling this to Buddy, who didn't know shit.