Unknown Man #89

I started to say-they’re looking for his wife, yes, but mainly so she can claim the body, get it out of the way.”

“And you say they don’t know where she is.”

“No, but I think it’s only a matter of time,” Ryan said. “They go looking for somebody, the cops, they find them. They’ve already checked the hospitals. She hasn’t been admitted anywhere.”

“Checked the hospitals?” Mr. Perez said. “Check the bars, you say she’s an alcoholic.”

“Well, see, she’s in pretty bad shape.”

Ryan heard the toilet flush and paused. He looked over at the closed door that led to the bedroom. Mr. Perez waited, not offering an explanation.

A woman, Ryan thought. He wondered if she’d come out. He said, “I think his wife might’ve finally realized she was in trouble and it could kill her if she kept drinking. Her calling me like that was a good sign.”

“So maybe she’ll call you again,” Mr. Perez said. “Save you some work.”

“That’d be fine. But now I’ve got a feeling she’s still drinking. She had a couple this morning to straighten her out and they went down so good she kept going. So then she might’ve gotten another room somewhere. She could call me, sometime, but I’ll probably have to wait till she bottoms out again.” Ryan shook his head. “It’s very tough, trying to quit like that.”

He saw Mr. Perez’s gaze move past him. Ryan glanced over at the doorway to the bedroom.

A stringy, heavy-boned farmer-looking guy had opened the door and was coming out, his head down, buckling his belt.

Ryan looked back at Mr. Perez, who was watching the man with a relaxed, pleasant expression. Mr. Perez said, “I hope you had a good one, Raymond. You were in there a half hour.”

“Traveling,” the man said. “It throws me off my schedule. I sure don’t like to go on the airplane.”

“Raymond Gidre,” Mr. Perez said. “Shake hands with Mr. Ryan, fella I was telling you about.”

“Yes-sir, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Raymond Gidre smiled cordially, reaching for Ryan’s hand as he rose. The man seemed eager, flashing perfect dentures in a weathered face that had been recently shaved and bore traces of talcum powder. His curly black hair, combed back severely, plastered down, glistened with tonic that Ryan could smell and recalled from barbershops years before. Lucky Tiger. The man had a small-town-barbershop look about him. Like he’d just come out of one. He wore a short-sleeved sport shirt. Ryan noticed the tattoo on his right forearm-something black and red-but didn’t want to stare at it. He shook Raymond Gidre’s hand and nodded and said he was glad to meet him, held for a moment by the dentures and the pale eyes smiling. Just a good-natured back-country boy-stringy and hard after a half-dozen years on a Louisiana prison farm.

“Raymond here’s visiting from a place near New Iberia, Louisiana,” Mr. Perez said. “Avery Island, huh, Raymond? Where the hot sauce comes from.”

“Home of Tabasco,” Raymond said. “Yes-sir,” walking over to the room-service table. He poked through the napkins and silver lids, found a hard roll, and bit into it, still poking around. “You didn’t eat your snapbeans.”

“Finish ’em up,” Mr. Perez said, and looked at Ryan again. “Raymond works for me on and off in special capacities, you might say. For instance, if we see you need some help, Raymond’s the boy for it.”

Ryan nodded as though he knew what Mr. Perez was talking about, then decided he might as well ask.

“What kind of help?”

“Well, if you were to need protection of one kind or another, somebody to see you don’t get hurt. I wouldn’t want that to happen.”

“I wouldn’t either,” Ryan said. “But what would I need protection from? I’m looking for the wife now. The bad guy’s dead.”

“That’s true,” Mr. Perez said, “but somebody killed the bad guy, didn’t he? Somebody, you said yourself, found out where he was staying. By the way, this man you talked to last night, was he colored?”

Ryan nodded.

Mr. Perez looked past him, across the room. “Got a colored boy, Raymond, might want to give us trouble.”

“It’s all the same to me,” Raymond said, eating from a plate of green beans, “I’m not prejudice.”

What the hell was going on? Ryan felt himself starting to get a little worked up. Perez talked to him very seriously, then would say something to his hired hand and almost break out in a giggle.

“I don’t understand something,” Ryan said. “We don’t know who the guy is, the black guy I met. We don’t know if he was the one that killed Leary. I mean, we can’t even begin to assume something like that. Or, okay, let’s say even if he did, what’s it got to do with me? That I’d need protection? I’m looking for the wife.”

“You said you put a notice in the paper-”

“I also put another one in,” Ryan said, “that’s due to run tomorrow.”

“Let me finish,” Mr. Perez said. “All right?” He waited a moment, staring at Ryan with his solemn expression. “You put a notice in the paper and two people called you up. Is that correct?”

Now he was standing on the carpet, in the principal’s office. “That’s right,” Ryan said.

“You thought one of the two might have been Leary, but not both of them.”

“That’s right,” Ryan said.

“You suspected somebody was looking for him.”

“I knew that. And it’s obvious somebody found him. The guy’s dead.” Ryan paused a moment. Mr. Perez’s tone might be a little pissy, but maybe he was sincere, at least meant well. “I see,” Ryan said. “You think if it was the guy I met in the apartment, he might be afraid I’ll identify him.”

“That type of thing,” Mr. Perez said. “I didn’t have anything that specific in mind, of course, when I telephoned Raymond and asked him if he’d like to visit the Motor City. I felt we were mixing with ugly people, getting ready to do business with one of them; so it wouldn’t hurt to have some protection. Mr. Leary’s dead, but there are still some ugly people around, aren’t there?”

“You might be right,” Ryan said.

“I have to be, least most of the time. Now-anything else on your mind?”

Ryan realized he was being dismissed. “No, I guess that’s it.” He got up and walked over to where his raincoat was draped over the back of a chair. “I’ll follow up on the girl.” What else would he be doing? He wanted to say something, calm and matter-of-fact, and that was all he could think of.

“I’m going to be out of town a few days,” Mr. Perez said. “But Raymond’ll be here. Not right here, but he’ll let you know where he’s staying. Let’s get it done and we’ll all go someplace where it’s warm. How’s that sound?”

It sounded to Ryan like the principal talking again, patting him on the head. He didn’t like the feeling that came with the man’s patronizing tone. The man probably didn’t realize what he sounded like, thinking he was putting one over on the clucks-the dumb process server-with his easygoing one-of-the-boys delivery. Ryan had suspected it the first time they met, getting the feel of the man. Now he was sure of it. Hiding inside the gentleman from Baton Rouge was a pretty cold and heartless son of a bitch.

Ryan’s second insertion in the personal columns of the News and Free Press appeared the day after Robert Leary was found shot to death and his wife disappeared. Ryan had almost called the papers to cancel the insertions if he could, then changed his mind. The notice said:

BOBBY LEAR

MONEY

waiting with your

name on it. Contact

Box 5388

Virgil Royal read the notice and said, Shit.

He should have waited to see what the man wanted with Bobby, though it had felt good, what he’d done… walking into the Montcalm Hotel whore joint with his raincoat on and knit cap down over his head. He didn’t have to scare the night clerk any, because the night clerk didn’t give a shit, he was mostly drunk and looked like he had been mostly drunk and wearing the same shirt and pants twenty years. He took the ten-dollar bill, Virgil almost seeing him translating it into two fifths and a six-pack, and said, “I believe the party you’re looking for’s in 312.