Unknown Man #89

never seen. Ryan said, Oh, you mean gar fish. And Raymond said, That’s what I said.

Raymond was freshly powdered, with his hair wetted down. He looked like he’d shaved with a hunting knife. He said most of the time, shit, he’d get dressed and sit here, waiting for somebody to call. When was something going to happen?

Ryan said well, if it didn’t happen soon, he’d give Raymond a treat and drive him past the Ford plant.

Raymond looked at him, not quite sure, scratching at his forearm where the tattoo showed like an old bruise through the hair. The tattoo was a faded black and red scroll within a flower that said In Memory of Mother.

She could have gone anywhere.

Ryan didn’t like to think of it that way, even after three weeks without a word.

She did go somewhere.

That was better. It gave him something to picture, even if the picture was usually a bar in the afternoon. He always saw it the same way: a cheap, dim lounge with glass-brick windows or venetian blinds holding out the sunlight.

What were her thoughts when she woke up that morning?

What were her options? Keep drinking or quit. Kill herself or quit. Want to quit. Or play the I’ll-quit-tomorrow game. He could picture that easily enough: the girl saying she was going to do it herself, without help, resenting help. First, though, a few glasses to get through the hard part. Then a few more, and then, with the glow, a change of attitude: she was all right, it wasn’t a serious problem, Christ no, she had a lot on her mind and the wine soothed her nervous system and melted anxieties. She could quit anytime she wanted. Maybe she wouldn’t do it all at once, though, in one day. That would be like driving along fast and slamming on the brakes. You could go through the windshield. Better to slow down gradually, ease to a stop, and not get hurt.

Or keep going and not touch the brake at all, finish it.

But she had called him. She had said she didn’t want to be inside herself.

She wasn’t a name in a county clerk’s file or a picture in the newspaper, she was a person and he was aware of her as a person. He should have stayed and been sitting there when she woke up and said to her okay, here’s what you have to do. Here’s what you’re going to do, and don’t give me any shit about doing it any other way, because there isn’t any other way. That close, looking at her. A person inside somebody she didn’t want to be. She had told him that. And he had let her get away.

Maybe not far, if she didn’t have much money. If she didn’t work and if Bobby had been in jail or in a state hospital, where would she get money? Unless she got a job.

Ryan dialed Dick Speed’s number, looking out the window at another overcast day, possible showers. Maybe it was the weather that made him feel depressed. At least it helped. He wanted to be doing something. He hoped he didn’t have to leave word and then wait for Dick to call back. Or go out and have to check with the answering service and take all day to get hold of him. Dick Speed answered, and Ryan felt a little lift.

“I was wondering, if Denise Leary was working, wouldn’t she have to give them her social security number and there’d be a record of it in Washington?”

“I guess so,” Dick Speed said, “but it wouldn’t do us any good. They won’t release that kind of information, not even on a murder warrant. You’re thinking, though. Keep it up.”

Keep thinking. That’s all he’d been doing, trying to put himself in Denise Leary’s place. He realized he wasn’t just thinking about her in relation to the money, the fifteen thousand he’d get. He was thinking about her as a person. She had called for help and he had let her down. He could say it wasn’t his fault, she changed her mind. But the feeling, the concern, stayed with him. He wondered if it was a feeling of guilt. Either that or a strong compulsion to kick himself in the ass.

The phone rang.

Dick Speed said, “Guess what? I was talking to a guy in the Seventh Squad, they’re handling it. They found out a Denise Watson applied for a driver’s license three days ago in Pontiac.”

“How do they know?”

“They checked with Lansing, both her married and maiden name. She gave an address on the application, 1523 Huron Street, Pontiac. The Oakland County Sheriff’s Department’s on it now.”

“What’ll they do?”

“Make sure she’s there first, then get back to us.”

Ryan felt the lift again, the second one that morning, and higher this time. It woke up his confidence and kept him up and eager all the way out Woodward to Pontiac, making it from his apartment in a quick twenty minutes. He found Huron Street and followed the numbers and the lift began to descend. The 1500 block was all commercial. Fifteen twenty-three was a red, white, and blue building with a sign that said Uncle Ben’s Pancake House.

Ryan saw the manager. The manager said he had just talked to the police. Who was this girl, anyway? What’d she do? She certainly hadn’t ever worked for Uncle Ben.

Maybe not, but for some reason she had used the address. She was around, somewhere.

That was on a Monday.

13

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, Ryan was sitting in a bar on Saginaw Street in Pontiac. It was about four-thirty, a nice sunny day. Ryan was about an hour away from being drunk.

The bartender said, “Same way?”

“Yeah, do it again.”

“That was a bourbon mist?”

“Early Times over crushed ice.”

The bartender gave him the look that meant That’s what I said. He didn’t say it. Shit no, the guy was made of wood, he didn’t say anything. You had to drag things out of him. Ryan watched the bartender make the drink. He was neat and methodical and slow. He used a chrome shot glass to measure the whiskey and poured it carefully over the crushed ice.

“You don’t do it by sight, huh?” Ryan said. “Pour it right from the bottle, give it that turn with the wrist, little extra hit? You know what I mean?”

“You want a double?” the bartender asked him.

“Yeah, I guess so. If I can’t talk you into anything.”

The bartender got the bottle from the backbar again and picked up the chrome shot glass.

It was too bad. Ryan felt confident and alert, not the least bit down, the way he’d felt the last week or so. He felt like talking to somebody, doing something. Not with Rita, though. He wanted something to happen. It was too quiet in here. It wasn’t a friendly place where you heard people talking and laughing. The bartender didn’t give a shit. He wasn’t paid to talk. Maybe listen, if you held him against the bar and threatened to punch him out.

He placed a fresh napkin and the mist in front of Ryan. Ryan said, “What I started to tell you before.”

“Sir?”

“About the time I was serving papers to the rock group.”

Either the bartender didn’t remember or it didn’t matter. He stood with his hands behind him, at parade rest.

“They were being sued by some hotel where they wrecked the place,” Ryan said. “I was backstage, see, but I couldn’t get near them, all the security cops and groupies and different people. I can’t remember their name. It was something like Norfolk and Western. It sounded like a railroad.”

“Excuse me,” the bartender said. He moved off to serve a customer.

Fuck you, Ryan thought. He drank the bourbon and sat without moving, staring at his reflection in the rose- tinted mirror.

What was he doing sitting here? He could go home right now, take a nap, have dinner, feel a little shitty this evening, get a good night’s sleep, and feel about 75 percent okay in the morning. But if he kept going until the bars