Riding the Rap (11 page)

“Good-bye,” Torres said and hung up.

S
tarting out, Chip had pictured a damp basement full of spiders and roaches crawling around, pipes dripping, his hostages huddled against the wall in chains. He wanted it to be as bad as any of the places in Beirut he'd read about.

He told Louis and Louis said, “Where we gonna find a basement in Florida?”

All right, but the living conditions had to be miserable, the worse the better. They could certainly find a place infested with bugs, those big palmetto bugs. Maybe a shack out in the Everglades.

Louis said, “We gonna be out there with the hostages and the bugs? And the different motherfucking kind of swamp creatures out there like alligators? We already got ants upstairs in the room.”

All right, then some place with concrete-block walls. Drive in steel staples and hook up chains with two-inch links, the kind they used over in Beirut.

Louis said, “I don't know nothing about any steel staples or how you drive them into concrete. Chains with two-inch links—how you bend a chain that size around a man's ankle? Bicycle chain's what you use, the kind you chain your bike to a post with so nobody gonna steal it.”

Chip said they'd feed their hostages cold rice and mutton, hard stale cheese. . . . Spill the food on purpose, the way the guards did over there, and make them eat it off the floor. He favored leaving overripe bananas in the room, out of their reach, the smell becoming worse each day.

Louis said, “Worse for anybody has to go in there.” He said, “Where we gonna get mutton around here? The same place we get the straw mattresses? Spill the food—who cleans it up, me or you?”

When he brought in cookies and potato chips and stuff, Chip wanted to know if they were holding a hostage or having a house party.

Once they saw they'd have to use this place, Louis said, “Chipper, there's no way to treat hostages like they did in Beirut in a five-million-dollar house in Manalapan, Florida.”

 

This morning, Thursday, Louis said, “Almost a week now I been taking the man to the toilet. Have to unchain him, wait for him to do his business and chain him up again.”

“In Beirut,” Chip said, “the hostages had ten minutes in the morning to wash up, wash their clothes, brush their teeth when they had toothbrushes, and take a dump. Ten minutes. If they didn't have to go right then but had to go later on? They had to hold it till the next morning.”

Louis said, “We ain't over in Beirut and I ain't a Shia. I ain't even trying to pass no more as Abu the Arab, am I?”

He went upstairs and added ten feet of bicycle chain to the end hooked to the ring bolt. As he was working on it Harry said, “Are you the one?”

Louis kept his back to the video camera mounted high on the wall, like in a bank. Hunched down over the ring bolt he said, “What if I wasn't? Man, you keep your mouth shut ‘less I say something to you. All right, what I've done, you can feel your way into the bathroom now by yourself.”

“I appreciate it,” Harry said.

Louis looked up at him sitting blindfolded on the cot. “Man, you beginning to smell.”

“What do you expect?” Harry said. “I haven't washed in . . . how long's it been, a week?”

When Louis came down to the study again, to Chip pushing buttons on the remote, the man
trying to look eagle-eyed staring at views of his property, Louis said, “Harry needs to wash hisself and shave. He can't do it with that blindfold around his head. How'd they manage over in Beirut?”

Mr. Chip Ganz, the authority on hostage-living, didn't say anything right away. Louis saw he had to think about it.

“Well, there were different ways. The guy that was there the longest, they moved him around a lot.”

Louis said, “Blindfolded?”

“Yeah, they put a cloth over his head and taped it on, the same way we did. They'd say, ‘Death to America' and give him a slap.”

“So they spoke to him.”

“They'd say things like, ‘No move, no speaking,' but he didn't know them, so he wouldn't recognize any of their voices.”

“Didn't you tell me this man read the Bible, he played chess?”

“He made the chess pieces out of tinfoil some of the food was wrapped in.”

“How could he do that, you say he was blindfolded all the time?”

“I meant when the guards came in the room. If they caught the guy trying to peek out under his blindfold, they'd beat him up.”

“So the hostage could take the blindfold off if the Shia wasn't around.”

“Sometimes; it worked different ways,” Chip said. “Harry has to be kept blindfolded because he knows us.”

Louis said, “I'm gonna look around the house, see if I can find something the man can slip over his head when we in there and slip off when he needs to clean hisself up.”

“What do you mean, something he can slip on and off?”

“Like take a mask and tape up the eyeholes.”

“This Bobby's idea?”

“Be cool,” Louis said and turned to leave.

“Wait. Where is he?”

“Bobby? Getting dressed. We going to see if Mr. Ben King's ready for us.”

“Are you serious? You're gonna pick him up in broad daylight?”

“I told you about it. We'll see how it looks.” He turned again toward the door.

“Louis.”

He stopped and looked back.

“Last night you said you knew someone at the bank in Freeport, where Harry has his account.”

“I said I'm from there, so I
might
know somebody.”

“You said you'd mentioned it to me before.”

“Didn't I?”

“Louis, why do I get the feeling you and Bobby are into something you don't want me to know about?”

The man was maintaining on reefer, Louis could tell, so he'd seem to be relaxed.

Louis said, “I tell you things and you forget is all.”

“You're changing the whole setup, to the way you and Bobby want it.”

“What you mean, like the blindfold? Man, we new at this hostage business. Have to see what works here and what don't.”

“Louis, what's going on?”

The weed making him think he was cool and knew things.

“Ain't nothing going on you don't know about,” Louis said, turning again to the door. “I'll see you.”

Chip's voice raised as he said, “You put a blindfold on Harry he can slip on and off . . . Louis? You know sooner or later . . .”

Louis was already out the door.

He went upstairs to the bedroom Bobby was using that used to be Chip's mama's room, dark in here with the dark furniture and the heavy rose-colored drapes almost closed. Sunlight came through the narrow opening, across the rose bedspread and the rose carpeting to where Bobby stood at the dresser looking at himself in the mirror. He had on his black silk pants and lizard shoes, no shirt, and was gazing at himself with his arms raised, muscles popped, twisting his ponytail into a knot.

Louis said, “You getting ready?”

“We have time,” Bobby said to himself in the mirror. “What's going on?”

“The man thinks we're planning shit against him.”

Bobby said, “Who knows, huh?”

He watched Louis, in the mirror, open the door to the closet and begin pawing through the woman's clothes.

“You looking for something to wear?”

“I won't know what I'm looking for,” Louis said, “till I find it.”

 

The phone rang.

On the table next to the sofa where Chip was sitting on his spine staring at the television screen: the front drive on, the hidden driveway. He had made up his mind to go out, give Louis the watch and get away for a while. He thought of Palm Beach and the Au Bar, where he used to hang out, back in the days when his credit cards were good.

The phone rang.

They were spending the money Harry had on him for food. Guy with all his dough, a hundred and seventy-six bucks in his wallet. But now the credit cards . . . Why hadn't he thought of them before? They weren't doing Harry any good. The credit cards could come in handy.

The phone rang.

He pushed a button on the remote and was looking at the patio now, the pool and the sweep of weeds that used to be a lawn extending to palm trees and sky, clear blue. A path through the bushes beneath the trees led to the beach. At one time he thought of the ocean here as part of his property.

The phone rang.

He had to get out for a while. Not go to a bar—take his clothes off and walk down to the beach and look at the ocean, smoke another joint to clear his mind, see everything enlarged . . .

He didn't answer the phone because he wasn't supposed to be here, but then, without thinking, as it was ringing again, he picked it up.

Dawn's voice said, “Chip?”

“Hey, I was about to call you.”

“I'll bet.”

“Really, I have your money.”

“I'll believe it when I see it.”

“Don't get pouty on me. Meet you in Delray?”

“Why don't I stop by?”

“Honey, you don't want to come here, not just yet. If you get my drift.” He liked that. And liked the silence on the line, Dawn pulling in, reconsidering, seeing she'd better not be so fucking aggressive. He said, “I'm gonna be out and around. Why don't we meet at Chuck and Harold's for lunch? Twelve-thirty?”

She said, “Chip? You'd better be there.”

Threatening, with nothing to back it up.

He told himself to be nice and said, “I'll be counting the minutes,” and hung up. He wouldn't show and tomorrow he'd put her off again, think of an excuse. Busy for the next few days doing something, he'd tell her, she would definitely not want to know about. He said out loud, “Okay? You told me you didn't want to know anything, and if I tell you then you're involved in whatever it is, right? Hey, you're already involved. So quit your bitching.”

Send Bobby to see her. . . .

Saturday go to a Huggers Gathering and try to scrounge up the fifteen hundred. Find a runaway whose daddy misses her.

He should've asked Dawn about the guy, the dude in the hat, what he was like, what they talked about.

He pushed a button and was looking at the front drive again, Christ, thinking about the guy and there he was, in his suit, the hat, coming through the trees toward the house.

Ganz hurried out of the study to the front hall, started up the stairs and yelled as loud as he could, “He's back! The guy's back!”

R
aylan saw them as soon as he came around the side of the house past the garage: Bobby the gardener and a black guy sitting at the table on the patio, their shirts off, getting some sun and reading the newspaper. Both of them holding open sections of the paper, reading away.

It took Raylan all of a moment to realize they knew he'd come back and were putting on this show for him.

There were sections of the paper and a white shirt on the glass-top table; but not lying flat,
Raylan noticed, something under there. Maybe their gardening shears, or the machete the guy had the other day.

“I see you got yourself some help,” Raylan said to Bobby Deo. “What you need for this job is a crew.”

Both of them had looked up and were watching him now, coming across the patio.

“I noticed your car in the garage, figured you were around somewhere. You taking a break?”

The one he knew was Bobby Deo had on his good pants again and his reptile wing tips, shiny clean. The other guy was wearing cream-colored pants and sandals.

Bobby Deo said, “Yeah, we resting.”

“I don't blame you,” Raylan said, taking time to squint at the sky and reset his hat on his eyes. Looking out at the scraggly date palms and sea grape lining the property he said, “What I don't understand is why you're doing this instead of your collection work.”

He turned now to face them.

“There's a lot more money in getting deadbeats to pay up, isn't there?”

Bobby didn't answer. The two of them sat there staring at him.

Raylan said, “You'd like me to get to the point here, wouldn't you?”

The guy still didn't answer.

“Okay, maybe you can help me out. I understand you do collection work for a friend of mine, Harry Arno. Is that right?” Raylan waited, watching the guy making up his mind.

Finally Bobby said, “Sometimes.”

“I'm told you worked for him last week.”

“Where you hear that?”

“From another friend of Harry's. He told this friend you made a collection for him and he was suppose to meet you in Delray Beach. Harry waited and called this friend when you didn't show up.”

Bobby said, “You heard that, huh? Who told you I was here?”

“Your buddy Santo.”

“Yeah? How do you know to ask him?”

Time to identify himself.

Raylan held open a leather case to show his star and I.D. “It's what I do, find people, fugitives on the run. I'm United States Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens, Bobby. I do the same thing you used to do, only, I bet, for a lot less money.” Raylan put on a slight grin, showing he thought it was funny they had this in common.

Bobby didn't grin back.

“Let me ask you something,” Raylan said. “When you track down a guy who skipped, he ever offer you money to leave him alone?”

“That what you want?”

“Wait now,” Raylan said. “You think I'm looking for a payoff?”

“What it sounds like.”

“For what? Not ask you questions?”

“Forget it.”

“All I asked was if a fugitive ever offered you money.”

“Sometimes.”

“More than you'd make bringing him in.”

“Always.”

“You ever take it?”

Bobby shook his head.

“Why not?”

“I wouldn't do it.”

“You mean it would get around and you'd be out of business,” Raylan said, “which you are now anyway. No more skip tracing since that fall you took. Or, you're saying you wouldn't do it ‘cause you're a straight shooter. I believe that, Bobby. So tell me how come you didn't meet Harry in Delray last Friday, one o'clock?”

“Something came up, I couldn't be there.”

“But you'd made the collection.”

“No, I told Harry the guy can't pay him.”

“The guy,” Raylan said. “You mean Warren Ganz.”

Bobby shrugged and Louis spoke up.

“You see that sign out front where you drive in, say ‘keep out'? That means you, man. This is private property, so leave.”

Raylan turned to him. “Who am I talking to?”

“You talking to
me
. Who you think you talking to?”

Raylan said, “You want to get in this? Tell me who you are and what you're doing here with this guy. Couple of gardeners—you put your good clothes on to clear brush. Sit here for my benefit like you're taking a break? If you're not working here then you must be trespassing. So I'll have to cuff you and take you in.”

“I
live
here,” Louis said.

“Maybe I'll take you in anyway.”

“For what?” Louis sounding surprised now. “Man, I'm the caretaker. He's staying while he does the work and I help him out some.”

“What's your name?”

“Louis Lewis.”

“You putting me on?”

“It's my
name
. You want me to spell it for you?”

“Where's Warren Ganz?”

“Down in the Keys someplace, been gone all week.”

“When's he coming back?”

“Didn't tell me.”

Now Bobby said, “When I came here to collect, he was leaving. He said go see his mother, she'd pay me. So I go see her at the home—”

“They're talking,” Louis said, “Bobby tells her he's a gardener and she hires him to clean the place up.”

“Yes, but first,” Bobby said, “she tell me no, she won't pay the debt, even for her own son. So I call Harry, I say maybe if you try—you the one her son owes—you can get her to pay you. He say to meet him and we can talk about it. But I never went there.”

Like they were getting their stories straight.

Raylan said, “You told Harry about the mother?”

“I did. Told him how she is, how you don't know what she's talking about sometime. Like when I go to get paid for my work.”

Bobby shook his head, resigned, before looking up at Raylan with sort of a frown, interested.

“You went to see her the other night, didn't you?”

“I spoke to her,” Raylan said.

“Yeah? How was she?”

“Older than she looks,” Raylan said. “We talked.”

“About what, her piano? Then you talk to a nurse and she tell you the old woman don't have a piano? You ask about her son, the nurse tells you he never comes to visit? Then you come back here and sneak around look in the windows?”

“Woke me up,” Louis said. “I almost call the police, tell ‘em there's a prowler, man could be armed and dangerous, so shoot the motherfucker on sight. You mean that was you?”

 

Louis waited until Raylan, giving them a look but no last words, walked off around the corner, back the way he'd come, before Louis said to Bobby, “Hold up your hand.”

“What?”

“Man, put your hand up in the air.”

Bobby raised his right hand above his head and Louis came out of his chair to reach over and slap the hand saying, “Yeaaah, we done it, man. The dude's gone off scratching his head wondering what happen to him.”

Bobby smiled, not giving it much.

Still, it was the first time Louis could recall ever seeing the man smile, Louis smiling with
him, sitting down again. He said, “There's no way the dude can say any different than what we told him. You see a way?” He pushed the newspapers off the table and picked up the shotgun he'd laid there underneath, with the machete. Then looked at Bobby again. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“See how the man can believe anything but what we told him?”

“I don't know what he believes,” Bobby said. “I have to think about it. The first time, he act like a cop trying to be a nice guy. Now we know he's a cop, so he don't have to act nice.” Bobby speaking with a thoughtful tone. “Comes here looking for Harry. . . . Why would they send a U.S. marshal, a federal cop?”

“Nobody sent him,” Louis said. “Didn't you hear the man say he's a friend of Harry's? Hasn't seen him in a few days, so he ask around, follows some leads, decides to check on people owe Harry money. See if they've seen him, that's all.” Louis looked toward the house and raised his voice to say, “Hey, you suppose to be down in the Keys.”

Bobby turned to see Chip in the sunroom, watching them through a pane of glass. He said, “Leave him in there.”

“Scared to come out,” Louis said. “Look at him,” and said, “Come on, man, the coast is clear.”

“I told you leave him in there,” Bobby said, his tone getting Louis's attention. “We have to think about this guy—what's his name?”

“Raylan something,” Louis said, “believes he's a cowboy. Got the hat, the boots. I wouldn't mind a pair like that, black with the tan wing tips?”

“Had his coat open, thumbs in his belt,” Bobby said. “You see that? Ready to draw his gun. I always wonder what that would be like, two guys facing each other with guns.”

“Like in the movies,” Louis said.

“Yeah, but it could happen,” Bobby said. “This guy isn't going away.”