Free Nobody Move by Denis Johnson Page A

practice.”

    It was morning, and—according to Jimmy—Wednesday.
With her lipstick in one hand and the bottle in the other, she took two swallows of Popov, and it went down like mother’s milk. Jimmy wrested it away from her and screwed the cap on and said, “No drunks in court.”
She leaned into the mirror and got her lips just right. She turned to him. “I’m nervous.”
“Beautiful women don’t get nervous.” He rested one hand on her shoulder. “Just cross your fingers and stay calm. And don’t talk fast.”
“I’ve seen it done.”
He escorted her down the stairs.
Just before she got in the car, he took out his wallet and handed her five one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Hey. No.”
“Take it. You’re with me now.”
As she got into the Caddy, he said, “Remember”—and raised two crossed fingers. “And don’t talk fast.”
He shut the door for her as she turned the key. She gunned it twice. He tapped a finger on her window, and she lowered it all the way.
He put his forearms on the sill and leaned toward her and said, “Let’s get it.”
“For real?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t say it if it isn’t real.”
“I’ve more or less done the hard part, which is gunning down a member of the gangster police force. I declare their shit null and void.” His eyes were wide and his face tight with fear.

    Mary came in from the store and set two white plastic bags of groceries on the kitchen counter. The next thing she did was light a cigarette. She wore a skirt today.
Gambol held out the classifieds and shook them at her. “Call this guy.”
“Who?”
“Buy the gun. He’s offering a case of ammo too, but don’t take it. Is there a gun store in town?”
“How would I know that?”
“Look in the book for a gun shop. Get me some MagSafe ammo for a three-fifty-seven Magnum. They come in packs of five or six. Get me ten packs. You need me to write that down?”
“Don’t strain your mind.” She opened a drawer in the kitchen and found a pen and pad. Sat on the coffee table and placed her cigarette on the ashtray’s edge and crossed her legs like a secretary. She had good legs. “Say again.”
“MagSafe. Three-fifty-seven Magnum. Ten packs. And a box of fifty regular rounds too—the cheapest, it doesn’t matter. And get me clothes, three of everything. Extra-large shirts, extra-large T-shirts. At least a forty-inch waist for the shorts. And forty-two waist and thirty-six length for the slacks. I’ll reimburse you later. And shoes, jogging shoes. Eleven-E.”
“It won’t be the same, you without your cute robe.”
He stared at her legs.
“Ernest. What are you looking at?”
“Let me ask you something. What did you think, fighting against the Arabs and knowing you used to be married to a fucking Arab? That one of them used to fuck you?”
“Hey. Arabs are human too.”
Gambol ground his thumb down onto the burning ember in the ashtray and extinguished it. “And get a new robe for yourself. Get a short one.”

    Gambol examined the gun. It looked fine. When he needed to know for sure, he could take it five miles in any direction and find a place where gunshots wouldn’t disturb anybody.
Mary stood before him until he noticed her. “Is this the kind of robe you had in mind?” She pinched its silk and raised the hem half an inch.
Gambol said, “Jesus Christ.”
“You think Juarez would look this good in a shorty robe?”
He meant to say not a chance, but she raised the hem another two inches and scratched lightly with a fingernail high up on her thigh, and when he opened his mouth nothing came out.
She sat on the ottoman’s edge and unfastened the belt of Gambol’s robe, and he said, “I told you—no bedpan.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” she said, and knelt before him.
He watched her. She enjoyed what she was doing, he saw that. And he smelled breakfast cooking too.
She paused, and raised her face to him. “Juarez didn’t pull you out of that culvert. I did.”
She lowered her