This is a long list. If this thread takes off, hopefully we can get into degrees of culpability, ignored warning signs, the price paid, whether the guy deserved it, and so on.

1) Stick - was it 7 years in prison?
2) Cal Maguire - only told to fuck off.
3) Woz - death.
4) ?

Perhaps a little more elucidation.

That’s a good question. Did Stick misread the signs? Were there any sings? Did Arlene een know what she was going to do.

It’s one of the things I like about the book, none of the characters really know what they’re going to do until they’re actually faced with it. Plenty of people tell you, oh I’d never do that, and neer have the chance to really find out. These people actually face it.

Maybe Stick should have seen Arlene thinking about herself, she made him bring along that life-size cutout of herself - but she didn’t even know what she was going to do.

Guys always misread Karen Sisco, both in ‘Out of Sight’ and even more so in that short story, ‘Karen Makes Out.’
Alas, both Jack and Carl end up walking with a limp.

I’m thinking about Roland Crowe & Karen DiCilia. And then all the Crowes, in fact; it seems to be a family trait. What about the uncle with the wooden leg whose wife takes it - the prosthesis - away from him when he gets antsy? And then the Crowe who delivers the supposedly dead ‘gator to ‘Maximum’ Bob Gibbs? After all, the ‘gator was a female & Crowe sure misread her.

The “uncle” with the wooden leg is in fact Dale Crowe Sr. Rowland and Elvin’s oldest brother who did lose the leg to a gator of undetermined sex sometime before Max Bob. Does anyone know this story? Sheriff Givens says “how’s a one legged man do the Texas Two-Step? Is he related to Raylan? Touchstone?
The deliverer of the “dead ‘gator” is not a Crowe. Dicky Campau’s wife Inez is the sister of Dale Sr.‘s wife Mavis.
Dale Sr. and Dicky were friends in the boozin and pot importation bidness
Inez thinks the Crowe family trait is a sullen, mean expression,
although they sure do have a way with women.

son slater - 20 February 2007 03:27 PM

... although they sure do have a way with women.

Not Dewey Crowe who disrespects Ava in front of Raylan Givens ... check out ‘Fire in the Hole’

Johnny Mac wrote: “That’s a good question. Did Stick misread the signs? Were there any signs? Did Arlene even know what she was going to do.”

Stick blew it because he told his business to a woman. Period. Forget the rest. You get into ‘I think I can trust her’ and it’s the beginning of the end. At least that would be the clear answer per Frank’s 10 Rules of Robbery, or whatever he called them.

The guiding principle of Frank’s Rules would be ‘don’t tell anyone and no one can rat you out.’

And it’s not just women. I think every person in the book who knew what Frank & Stick were into tried to or succeeded in screwing them over. Sportree, Leon Woody (one of my all-time favorite character names, btw), as well as the little black girl who worked at Hudson’s (Marlys?), and Arlene.

Clement Mansell, the Oklahoma Wildman, knew that good present intentions can change with circumstances, like arrest and the threat of prison. He told Sandy Stanton that. So even if Stick was positive Arlene meant what she said when she said it, he should have known he was on a slippery slope.

Bottom line: why go through all those changes? Just keep your mouth shut and ease your mind.

T’would it be so simple
The simple act of being “Stick” in the first place let him meet Arlene
The thing which he wished for most
Unlike Frank for who the rules were meant in the first place
Imposed upon Stick

These are very good points, some of the many, many reasons Swag is such a good book. Yes, anyone who knew their business would try and screw them over - even (maybe especially) Arlene, and being in the business they were in, these are the people they would meet.

(I think there’s a touchstone in Marlys, she gets mentioned again, maybe Freaky Deaky and maybe Mr. Paradise.)

Has anyone ever seen the cover for this book when it was called Ryan’s Rules?

Sure, I have a copy of Ryan’s Rules. You can pick it up via ABE.com no problem.

For example: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=111723872&searchurl=sts=t&an=elmore+leonard&y=0&tn=ryan%27s+rules&x=0

So, are the guys getting better at reading the women, or are the women changing, or are the guys?

In the most recent books, stuff like The Hot Kid, Mr. Paradise and Tishomingo Blues some men and women end up together at the end. This didn’t happen in earlier books.

I think Johnny Mac makes a good point. Guys are ending up with women in Elmore’s books nowadays.

In fact, I understand Elmore said recently that his characters have been getting softer. Maybe the “happy ending” trend is part and parcel of that.

Which doesn’t mean that that will always be the case. Who knows what kind of rotten people we’ll find in the next one?

I don’t know about the characters getting soft, but a lot of the guys have been able to find women. Maybe it started with Killshot where the main “character” is actually a married couple, so he already found her. The stuff between them is great.

I guess you could say the Blackbird really misread Carmen, though, and paid for it.

I need to reread 52 Pick-Up). I always loved the ending to Pagan Babies.

Even in some of the older books, the guy gets the girl in Unknown Man #89, so it’s not entirely new. But it’s always true to character. There’s no way Frank or Stick is going to come through that story and get the girl - it’s just not who they are.

SPLIT IMAGES

The guy doesn’t get the girl.

The girl gets murdered.

Who misread who?  I don’t know.

I’ve always thought that the main theme of Split Images is that it’s Robbie Daniels who’s always destined to misread people because he is so bound up in his own vanity (he can’t believe he’s got his come-uppance thru Walter, because he’s esteemed him so little). And his vanity is so great that others become victims of it even though they’ve seen him for what he is.

Vanity is a difficult trait to describe naturally (i.e. without the author saying “This character is vain”) because it is a self-reflexive behavior. The writer has to observe the character’s behavior & also observe the character in the act of observing his own behavior; he’s always putting on an act of some kind. Elmore puts in bits of naturalistic detail, like Robbie’s stroking his torso under his cashmere pullover. As a portrait it’s quite a success. You ask yourself, How many other novelists could achieve the same thing without (if my memory serves me right) using the word vanity once in the book?