Riding the Rap

  “I know about the bookends, the brass bulls,” Raylan said. “I know you saw only one on the shelf in the woman’s apartment, where there should’ve been two. You decided, nothing to lose, the missing one must be the murder weapon.”

  She said, “How did I know there were two?”

  “You saw them, when you were up there before.”

  “But the only time I was in Mary Ann’s apartment,” Dawn said, “was with the detectives.”

  “Whether that’s true or not, you know bookends come in pairs,” Raylan said. “You say about people who’re alike, they’re a couple of bookends. You guessed, not taking much of a chance, and you were right. Chip saw why you were doing it and told you, to get your picture in the paper, become a famous psychic.”

  She said, “What’s wrong with wanting to do better? I have the gift.”

  Eyes wide open, just a girl trying to get ahead in the world. For a moment there Raylan actually felt sorry for her. He said, “But if you guessed . . .”

  “I didn’t. I knew.”

  “Did you know where the missing bookend was?”

  “I didn’t even think about it.”

  “You don’t know what suits you not to know,” Raylan said. “You tell me Harry’s okay, but you don’t know where he is. Don’t you realize that if he’s seen these guys and can identify them, they’ll kill him? Whether they score the money or not. Don’t you know that?”

  “He hasn’t seen them,” Dawn said, turning to the window again. “He’s blindfolded.”

  “That’s what you’re betting the man’s life on, a blindfold? How do you know he hasn’t seen them?”

  “I just do.”

  Sounding like a little girl now.

  “Tell me where he is.”

  Raylan waited.

  She looked like a little girl: at the window in sunlight, her fingers stroking dark strands of hair. She said, “Right before Bobby came you were looking at me—remember? You were trying to tell, even with all that business on your mind, if I had on a bra.” She turned from the window to look at Raylan. “You couldn’t decide, could you?”

  Raylan said, “You slip in and out of conversations, from one thing to another. . . .”

  “You were about to say ‘like a snake,’” Dawn said, “and changed your mind.”

  He watched her come away from the window, past him.

  “Where you going?”

  “To get ready. I see I’m gonna meet the woman in your relationship.”

  Each time she took him by surprise like that, he’d try to keep from asking how she knew. Raylan said, “I’m gonna hide you out in Harry’s apartment, the Della Robbia Hotel in South Beach. I imagine you already know where he lives. Joyce has a key, so I guess, yeah, you might see her.”

  “She’s dying to meet me,” Dawn said, at her bedroom door now. “I’ll pack a few things. . . . You go ahead, I want to have my car, case I have to be somewhere.”

  Raylan said, “I don’t know. . . .”

  And Dawn said, “Bobby’s not coming back. He’s home waiting for you.”

  twenty-four

  Chip was going through mail Louis had found in the box on the road and skimmed on his way in with it. Mostly catalogs and junk. What Chip would hope to find was a dividend check he could forge his mama’s name on and cash, the checks turning up every now and then. Louis glanced at the front drive on the TV screen, switched the picture to the room—Harry stretched out on his cot—and switched to the front drive again. Louis said, “Bobby should be getting back,” and left the study.

  A few minutes later he was back with a tray from the kitchen. Chip said, “What’s this?” as Louis set a plate of food on the chest in front of him.

  “Your dinner.”

  “I mean, what is it?”

  “Pork chops done to a crisp,” Louis said, going over to the desk with the tray. “Butter beans fixed with drippings and okra done in a tangy creole sauce. The okra, man, you have to stir it and stir it.”

  “I can’t eat that,” Chip said, making a face.

  Louis was seated now, mouth watering and having to swallow, deciding what his first bite would be. The okra. He took some—mmmmm—and said to Chip, “Your tummy acting up on you?”

  “Heartburn,” Chip said, touching his chest.

  Ever since last night the man had been popping Tums like peanuts, Tums and shots of Pepto-Bismol. He’d taken sick while trying to clean blood from the carpeting, most of it where the S&L man’s head had come out of the blanket bumping down the stairs, Bobby dragging the body and not caring he was leaving a trail; the stains still there like rust spots.

  “It’s that microwave shit,” Louis said, “angers your tummy you eat too much of it. I’m gonna cook from now on, fix you some of my favorite dishes.”

  Chip was watching him. “How can you eat that?”

  “Love it. I acquired the taste learning to be African-American; it’s part of our culture.”

  “Nigger food,” Chip said, “if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  Louis watched the man go back to looking at mail, Louis deciding not to make something of the disrespect. That was weed talking. The man’s nerves were strung tight and the weed helped him sound like he was one of the guys. Push him, he could go over the edge, run off screaming. Look at that—throwing aside the Victoria’s Secret catalog without even checking out the cute undies. Louis started eating his dinner, mixing the okra and butter beans together and taking big, heaping bites.

  Chip said, “Jesus Christ.”

  Louis looked up to see him reading a postcard, the man’s eyes glued to it.

  “There’s no way he could know,” Chip said. “There’s no fucking way.”

  Louis didn’t recall a postcard when he’d skimmed the mail. The man kept staring at it. Louis finally got up, went over, and took it out of his hand. It showed a government building on the front. Louis turned the card over and saw it was made out to Harry Arno at this address on Ocean Drive, Manalapan; it had the zip, everything. The message was short. It said:

  Harry—

  Hang in there.

  Help is on the way.

  Raylan

  Louis said, “Hey, shit,” grinning, reading it again and then holding the card up to Chip. “You know what this building is? The federal courthouse in Miami. The message is for Harry, the picture’s for us.”

  Chip said, “You think it’s funny?”

  “You got to appreciate the man’s sense of humor,” Louis said. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “He knows Harry’s here.”

  “How could he? If he knew, or like he had good reason to believe it? He’d have been here with the SWAT team the day he mailed the postcard. You understand what I’m saying? The man’s trying to get us to jump. Run out the door with Harry and the cowboy’s there waiting on us.” Louis caught movement a on the TV screen, glanced at it, at the black car coming through the shrubs, and said, “Here’s Bobby.”

  “He’s the reason,” Chip said, “this whole fucking thing is coming apart.”

  “We still in business,” Louis said. “Soon as I get hold of my man in Freeport, make the arrangements, we’re out of here in two days, three at the most.”

  Chip said, “But you haven’t talked to him yet.”

  “If he ain’t in jail he’ll call me, I left this number. Man has a thirty-six-foot boat.”

  Chip was looking at the screen, nothing there to see now but bushes. He said, “That fucking Bobby.”

  “I’ll tell you something,” Louis said, “he’s never been what you’d call a favorite of mine neither.”

  “I thought you two were cooking something up between you,” Chip said, “and you were gonna cut me out, after I come up with the idea, the whole scheme.”

  “That’s your nerves,” Louis said, “they cause you to look over your shoulder and imagine things creeping up on you. We cool, huh? Me and you? Thinking back on all the time we been together, we ever have a problem? You always
been the man. See, but now we getting to where I can make this deal with Harry work out how we want it to. What you have to do is trust me.”

  He saw the man blinking his eyes, thoughts running around slow-motion in his head.

  “You trust me?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Yeah, but what?”

  “That fucking Bobby.”

  Louis held up his hand. “He’s coming.”

  “She wasn’t home,” Bobby said.

  Like that was all he had to report on the subject. Looks at the plates of food, one then the other, and starts to go. Leaving something out, Louis believed, he didn’t want to tell.

  Louis said, “Hey, Bobby?” and waited for him to look around. “That’s it, huh, she wasn’t home?”

  Now Bobby was looking suspicious. “You want me to tell you again she wasn’t home? She wasn’t home.”

  From the sofa Chip asked, “You stop by the restaurant?”

  Bobby shook his head. He started out again as Louis picked up the plate he’d set there for Chip. He said, “Bobby, you going upstairs, aren’t you?”

  He stopped, but didn’t say he was or he wasn’t.

  Louis walked over and shoved the plate at him. “This’s for Harry. Be a treat for him, some home cooking.” Bobby took the plate and Louis said, “Hold it in both hands, you don’t drop it.” That got Louis Bobby’s dead-eyed look, one Louis was getting used to. Bobby walked out and Louis said after him, “You come back, I’ll dish you up.”

  Louis turned to Chip.

  “Never wants you to forget he’s a mean motherfucker. The man practices up there front of the mirror, trying different mean looks to use on people.”

  “All he says is she’s not home,” Chip said. “What do you think?”

  “I’m thinking he might’ve done the fortune-teller,” Louis said, “and he’s practicing his story.”

  “Jesus,” Chip said, his nerves showing through the weed in him. “I could call her up and see.”

  “Don’t,” Louis said, using the remote to switch the TV picture to the upstairs room, Harry still lying on the cot. “I’ll drive over there in a minute, peek in a window.”

  Louis picked up a pork chop from his plate, got ready to take a bite and held it in the air seeing Bobby on the screen now, his pigtail hairdo, his back in the fiesta shirt moving toward Harry with the dinner plate. Now they were looking at Bobby in profile standing over Harry stretched out on the cot.

  “He’s asleep,” Louis said. “Don’t have his mask on.” Louis raised his voice to the TV screen, saying, “Harry, pull the bathing cap down, man.”

  Now it looked like Bobby was saying something. Harry didn’t move, eyes still closed. Now Bobby nudged the side of the cot with his leg. Now he raised his foot, put a lizard-skin shoe against the side rail of the cot and gave it a good bump. Harry’s eyes opened. Opened wide seeing Bobby at the same time Bobby turned the plate of food upside-down, dumping the chops, the butter beans, the tangy okra all over Harry’s face. They watched Bobby come away looking up at the camera, but with no expression to speak of.

  “The guy’s crazy,” Chip said.

  Louis watched Harry, sitting up now, wiping the food off him, the man looking dazed, but then seeing a pork chop and picking it up from the floor, studying it close, both sides, before taking a big bite.

  Louis took a bite of his pork chop, laid it on the plate and brushed his hands in the air, ready to go. He said, “Well, least Bobby didn’t shoot him.”

  Bobby came up to the Mercedes as Louis was backing the car out of the garage.

  “Where you going?”

  “Get laid; I’m overdue.”

  “The guy was there, Raylan? At the fortune-teller’s house. He pulled a gun on me, told me to go on, get out of here. I didn’t want Chip, the way he is, to know the guy was there, so I didn’t say nothing.”

  “You didn’t get to talk to Dawn.”

  “No, he came out, Raylan did.”

  “You had your piece in the sack?”

  “Yeah, but I never did it that way. What I want to do, man, is meet him face-to-face with my piece right here”—Bobby patted his stomach—“and draw. I know I can beat him.”

  “Like in the movies,” Louis said.

  “Yeah, only it’s real life. I want to practice doing it with you, so I be ready.”

  “You want to practice . . . ?”

  “Get so I can pull it out quick.”

  “Man, you crazy. You know it?” Louis took a moment, sitting there with the motor running, Bobby hunched over his arms on the windowsill. “You didn’t see her?”

  “She was inside.”

  “You don’t know if they talked and she told him anything.”

  “It don’t matter,” Bobby said. “I’m gonna kill him.” He straightened, stepping away from the car. “You get back, we practice.”

  Dawn’s front door was open a crack. Louis walked in and there she was, coming out of the bedroom, something in her hand. Seeing him, she stopped next to a canvas suitcase sitting in the middle of the floor.

  “You leave your door open?”

  “I was on my way out,” Dawn said and held up her sunglasses. “I forgot these.”

  Louis moved toward her standing there in a white skirt he’d never seen before, Dawn—with that nice dark hair—looking afraid of him or afraid of something. He held his hands out and now she moved toward him, coming into his arms. She said, “Hold me,” and he took her slender body close, tight against him, his fingers feeling the bones in her shoulders, stroking her hair now.

  “What’s wrong, baby? Got caught in the middle, huh? Bobby tuggin’ at you from one side, the law tuggin’ from the other . . .”

  “I didn’t tell him anything.”

  “I know you didn’t, baby. The cowboy come to see you—then what?”

  “When Bobby came, Raylan wouldn’t let him in the house.”

  Calling him Raylan.

  “He talk to Bobby, ask him what he wanted?”

  “They were outside. Bobby had a paper bag with a gun in it. I didn’t see it, but I knew it was a gun.”

  Louis said, “Bobby take it out, show the marshal?”

  He felt her shake her head no, close to him. She smelled nice. “And the cowboy, the marshal, he didn’t show his gun either?” He felt her shake her head, again saying no. “Told Bobby to leave and Bobby did, huh? Didn’t give the marshal any shit out the side of his mouth?” She said no, still scared; he could feel it the way she clung to him.

  Like she clung to him the first time he came here.

  Told him what he was thinking: “You’re trying to imagine what I look like without my clothes on.” And he said, “I know you gonna look fine. Let’s see if I’m right.” He opened his arms and that was when she clung to him the first time—back when she was still seeing Chip but about to break it off, telling Louis Chip talked a good game, but that was all. Louis had caught her when she was tender, in need of loving. She would read him and they’d go to bed and satisfy each other until they were worn out. Fifty dollars for the first reading, on the house after that, once a week or so, Chip never knowing a thing about it. Chip hadn’t even seen Dawn in months when Louis thought of using her to set up Harry.

  “Chip say you going to the police if he don’t pay you.”

  Dawn said, “I had to tell him something. I stick my neck out—what’ve I gotten? Nothing.”

  “Your ship’s coming in, baby, pretty soon now. Tell me what the marshal knows.”

  “He thinks he knows everything, except where Harry is.”

  “But can’t come up with a probable cause, the way the system works, to get some action going. Else they’d be all over us,” Louis said. “I never saw a deal get fucked up so quick—one thing after another. I won’t give you the messy details.”

  “Please don’t,” Dawn said.

  “I should be making my move tomorrow, Sunday the latest. You hear what I’m saying?”

  “Your move
,” Dawn said. “You’re making plans of your own.”

  “See, according to my horoscope my reputation for shrewd business ideas is paying off, but it also say romance could suffer. What should I do?”

  “Well, for one thing your star pattern is going through a dramatic change.”

  Talking to him in her fortune-teller voice now while he held on to her, letting her feel he could hold her tighter if he wanted.

  “The cosmic dust is just now beginning to settle. The good thing is that during this astrocycle others are extremely open to your ideas.”

  “I see it happening,” Louis said, “starting to put my ideas to work. Seeing who I want and who I don’t want, who’s gonna get cut out or left behind. Tell me what you see.”

  “An empty house,” Dawn said.

  “Whose?”

  “This one.”

  “Where you gone to?”

  “I see myself on a beach.”

  “Around here?”

  He felt her shake her head.

  “On an island in the Bahamas. Isn’t that where the money is?”

  Louis grinned. “You something else.”

  She said, “Am I going with you?”

  “You gonna follow, in a day or so. But tell me where you going now, where you gonna be.”

  “You won’t believe it. Harry’s apartment in South Beach. For my own protection.”

  “You feel you need it?”

  “Well, I sure don’t want to see Bobby again. I’ll call when I get there, give you the number.”

  “I got all kind of numbers for Harry Arno,” Louis said. “What I need to know, if it’s true what my horoscope say, about romance could suffer.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Tell me what you feel.”

  “Well, I feel something,” Dawn said, “pressing against my tummy. It means you haven’t lost confidence in your ability to please others.”

  “I get next to you, girl, I become confident in a big way.”

  She looked up at him, making a face with sad eyes.

  “I have to get going, or Raylan’ll be looking for me.”

  “You call him Raylan,” Louis said. “What’s he call you?”

  “I didn’t tell him anything, honest to God.”