Lloyd was released on June 1. His crime, committed in Reno, had been attempted rape. The lady was a showgirl on her way home, and she had shot a load of teargas into Lloyd's eyes. He felt lucky to get only two to four, plus time served, plus time off for good behavior. At Brownsville it was just too f**kin hot to misbehave.
He caught a bus to Las Vegas, and Poke met him at the terminal: This is the deal, Poke told him. He knew this guy, "one-time business associate" might describe him best, and this guy was known in certain circles as Gorgeous George. He did some piecework for a group of people with mostly Italian and Sicilian names. George was strictly part-time help. What he did mostly for these Sicilian-type people was to take things and bring things. Sometimes he took things from Vegas to L.A.; sometimes he brought other things from L.A. to Vegas. Small-time dope mostly, freebies for big-time customers. Sometimes guns. The guns were always a bring, never a take. As Poke understood it (and Poke's understanding never got much beyond what the movie people call "soft focus"), these Sicilian-type people sometimes sold iron to independent thieves. Well, Poke said, Gorgeous George was willing to tell them the time and place when a fairly good haul of these items would be in the offing. George was asking twenty-five percent of what they realized. Poke and Lloyd would crash in on George, tie him and gag him, take the stuff, and maybe give him a couple of biffs and baffs for good measure. It had to look good, George had cautioned, because these Sicilian-type people were no one to fool around with.
"Well," Lloyd said, "it sounds good."
The next day Poke and Lloyd went to see Gorgeous George, a mild-mannered six-footer with a small head which sat incongruously above his roofbeam shoulders on a neck which did not seem to exist. He had a full head of waved blond hair, which made him look a bit like the famed wrestler.
Lloyd had had second thoughts about the deal, but Poke had changed his mind again. Poke was good at that. George told them to come around to his house the following Friday evening around six. "Wear masks, for God's sake," he said. "And you bloody my nose and black my eye, too. Jesus, I wish I'd never gotten into this."
The big night came. Poke and Lloyd took a bus to the corner of George's street and put on ski-masks at the foot of his walk. The door was locked, but as George had promised, not too tightly locked. There was a rumpus room downstairs, and there was George, standing in front of a Hefty bag full of pot. The Ping-Pong table was loaded down with guns. George was scared.
"Jesus, oh Jesus, I wish I'd never gotten into this," he kept saying as Lloyd tied his feet with clothesrope and Poke bound his hands with Scotch brand filament tape.
Then Lloyd biffed George in the nose, bloodying it, and Poke baffed him in the eye, blacking it as per request.
"Jeez!" George cried. "Did you have to do it so hard?"
"You were the one wanted to make sure it looked good," Lloyd pointed out. Poke plastered a piece of adhesive tape across George's mouth. The two of them had begun to gather up the swag.
"You know something, old buddy?" Poke said, pausing.
"Nope," Lloyd said, giggling nervously. "Not a thing."
"I wonder if ole George there can keep a secret."
For Lloyd, this was a brand-new consideration. He stared thoughtfully at Gorgeous George for a long hard minute. George's eyes bugged back at him in sudden terror.
Then Lloyd said, "Sure. It's his ass too." But he sounded as uneasy as he felt. When certain seeds are planted, they nearly always grow.
Poke smiled. "Oh, he could just say, 'Hey guys. I met this old friend and his buddy. We shot the shit for a while, had a few beers, and what do you think, the sonsofbitches came over to the house and took me off. Sure hope you catch em. Lemme tell you what they look like.'"
George was shaking his head wildly, his eyes capital Os of terror.
The guns were by then in a heavy canvas laundry sack they had found in the downstairs bathroom. Now Lloyd hefted the bag nervously and said, "Well, what do you think we ought to do?"
"I think we ought to pokerize him, ole buddy," Poke said regretfully. "Only thing we can do."
Lloyd said, "That seems awful hard, after he put us onto this."
"Hard old world, buddy."
"Yeah," Lloyd sighed, and they walked over to George.
"Mph," George said, shaking his head wildly. "Mmmmmnh! Mmmmph! "
"I know," Poke soothed him. "Bitch, ain't it? I'm sorry, George, no shit. It ain't a bit personal. Want you to 'member that. Catch on his head, Lloyd."
That was easier said than done. Gorgeous George was whipping his head wildly from side to side. He was sitting in the corner of his rumpus room and the walls were cinderblock and he kept rapping his head against them. Didn't even seem to feel it.