Books: Tough Talk and Local Color Bandits

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Who would believe that an ex-nun, an ex-con and some of his pals from prison days could seriously plan to rob a Nicaraguan ex-bigwig before he leaves New Orleans with a small fortune? Who could credit Lucy Nichols' plan for obtaining and spending her share of the loot: the desire to rebuild a clinic in Nicaragua that she saw Colonel Godoy and his contra henchmen destroy? Why would Delaney, safely out of stir and trying to go straight, involve himself in a risky scheme to assist victims of a war of which he is largely ignorant? After hearing Lucy's first explanation of the conflict in Nicaragua, he wonders, "But which were the good guys and which were the bad guys?"

Delaney's question haunts Bandits; it is repeated by other characters and remains unresolved at the end. But little else in the novel stays in doubt. Leonard's confused people are grounded in blindingly clear particulars. Their talk, with the whats slurred ("The hell kind a name was that?" "You talking about?"), sounds gritty and realistic but is actually a highly stylized distillation of normal sloppy speech. Listening to them amounts to a speed- reading course in blighted dreams. One of Delaney's friends confesses, "Jack, what's money? I got enough to last me the rest of my life, if I die Tuesday." Delaney recalls the advice of the man who taught him how to rob hotel rooms: "Always look nice and always ride the elevator. You run into somebody on the stairs they gonna remember you, 'cause you don't see nobody on the stairs as a rule. But a elevator, man, you so close to people they don't see you."

Despite such training, Jack got caught. This time out, his enemies include not only local police but the colonel, the colonel's bodyguards, a suspicious fellow who is probably with the CIA, an interloper from the Irish Republican + Army and, quite possibly, one of the guys he has recruited to help him pull off the heist. "No way," as Leonard's dialogue might describe the problem. And one of the author's indefatigable optimists would surely respond, "Maybe."