When Old Men Die (2 page)

"So what do you want me to do about it?" I asked, though I was afraid that I already knew the answer.

Dino looked at me.
 
"What the hell do you think I want you to do?
 
I want you to find him."

I stood up and gathered up my rods and bucket.
 
"It's five o'clock," I said.
 
"You can carry the book."

T
he thing is, I don't try to find people anymore.
 
I still have my P.I. license, but I gave up on finding people when I couldn't find Jan.
 
Someone else did that, and they didn't find her, not really.
 
They just found what was left.

I decided that if I couldn't even find my own sister, couldn't save her from her own death, then I couldn't find anybody, and for a while I was as bad as Dino, more or less hiding out from any real involvement with the world.

I painted houses for a few months, and then Dino asked me to find his daughter.
 
I did that, and while it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, it did get me out of my self-absorption temporarily.
 
Then someone hired me to find out who'd murdered an alligator.
 
I took that job against my better judgment, but at least it hadn't involved finding anyone.
 
And it had helped get me out of my shell a little more.
 
I quit painting houses, and a month or so ago I'd gotten a real job, if you count working for a bail bondsman as being a real job.

But I still don't try to find anyone.
 
I'm not a bounty hunter.
 
I just answer the phones and check up on people.
 
If someone jumps bond, I do a little skip-tracing by phone, but the heavy-duty stuff is up to someone else.

When we got to the seawall, I waved to Evelyn and waited until two
rollerbladers
in helmets and pads swooshed by.
 
Then I pitched the fishing rods and the bait bucket in the back of my Jeep, which was parked just in front of Dino's car, one of the last big Pontiacs they made before Detroit started downsizing.
 
Dino didn't like small cars, and he hadn't bought a new one since the early '80s.

I, on the other hand, was driving what the former owner swore to me was a genuine World War II-vintage Jeep.
 
I didn't really believe it was really that old, though it certainly looked it.

"You need a new ride," Dino said.
 
"You find Harry, I'll get you one."

"You're already doing enough for me," I told him.
 
"You're letting me live in that house of yours."

"Yeah.
 
Maybe I should start charging you some rent."

"It's not that great a house," I said, and it wasn't.

The house was old and run down.
 
It was located out past the western end of the seawall off Stewart Road, and it was nearly covered with bushes and vines.
 
If you didn't know there was a house under there, you might think it was just a briar patch.
 
And if we got a hurricane with a strong storm surge, God forbid, water would probably go right over the top of it.

"I fed your cat for you when you were trying to solve the murder of that alligator," Dino said.

I nodded.
 
"He appreciated it.
 
Me too."
 
I started to climb in the Jeep.

Dino put a hand on my arm.
 
"You can find Harry if you'll look.
 
You're good at that stuff.
 
I wish you'd stop this moping around."

"I'm not moping around.
 
I fish, I go to work."

"Fishing.
 
Yeah, right."
 
He tossed
Look Homeward, Angel
into what was left of the passenger seat of the Jeep.
 
"And you read books."

"Nothing wrong with reading," I said.
 
"It improves the mind."

"Sure it does.
 
So does helping people out, doing a little favor now and then."

"And I run," I added.

Dino glanced down at my right knee. "But not very fast," he said.

He should know.
 
In college, we both played football, and we were both pretty good.
 
We weren't on the same teams, though, and it was a collision between Dino's helmet and my knee that had left me with permanent ligament damage.
 
I could still run, even if I couldn't go very fast, but I could never be sure when my right knee would collapse and send me sprawling.
 
I had to take it easy when I jogged along the seawall or the beach.

"Look, Dino," I said, "Harry's probably around somewhere.
 
Maybe he's just taking a few days off."

"Off what?
 
It's not like he has a job or anything.
 
If he was around, I'd know about it."

He was right, so I just shrugged and started to get in the Jeep.
 
If I'd been faster I might have made it, but before I could get it started, Evelyn got out of Dino's car.
 
She was a little older than Dino, but not too much.
 
Her dark hair had hardly any gray in it, and it was tied back with a red ribbon.

She had to be careful getting out.
 
There was a steady stream of pickup trucks and cars passing by on the wide street, their tires shushing along the pavement.

"Are you going to help him, Tru?" she asked.
 
She was a head shorter than me, so she had to look up to catch my eyes.

I sighed and looked at the miniature golf course across the street.
 
There was a giant turtle with a purple shell, something that looked like an anorexic dinosaur, and a small wrecked boat.
 
There was no one playing golf that I could see.

I looked back down at Evelyn.
 
"You know I don't like to do that kind of thing," I told her.

"Harry's your friend," she said.

Well, that wasn't really true.
 
Harry was someone I knew, someone I talked to now and then, not a friend.

"Besides," Evelyn went on, "if you don't look for him, nobody will.
 
Nobody cares what happens to an old man like that."

I should have said, "Why don't you and Dino look for him," but of course I didn't.
 
Instead I said, "All right.
 
You win.
 
But I have to go in to work on Monday."

"So what does that mean?" Dino wanted to know.

"That means that I'll look for him tomorrow, but if he doesn't turn up, I have a real job that I have to report to."

"This is a real job," Dino said.
 
"I'll pay you.
 
What're your rates?"

"I'm not doing it for money."

He reached in the back pocket of his cotton pants and pulled out a leather billfold.
 
"You'll have expenses.
 
Gas, food, maybe you'll even have to give somebody a few bucks for information."

He took out some bills and tried to hand them to me, but I didn't take them.

He was going to say something else, but we had to step into the street between the Jeep and the car to let a couple of joggers go by.
 
There weren't as many people out as you might expect on such a nice day, but that was because it wasn't the tourist season.
 
The BOIs, the people who were Born on the Island, were all at home.
 
The exercisers had probably driven down from Houston, or maybe they were newcomers who worked at one of the hospitals or taught at the medical school.

Dino tried again to give me the money.
 
I didn't take it that time either.

"It's just for one day," I said.
 
"I won't need any gas, and I have to eat anyway."

He shoved the money into my hand.
 
"You're a professional.
 
Don't you want to be paid?"

He had a point there.
 
I closed my hand on the money.

"Anyway," he said, "I don't want you to wait until tomorrow.
 
I want you to start today."

"It won't be today much longer," I pointed out.

"I don't care about that.
 
I want you to start now."

"You must like Harry a lot," I said.

"It's not that," Evelyn said.
 
"He's an old man, and nobody cares what happens to him.
 
Somebody should care."

I began to wonder just whose idea this whole thing was, but I knew better than to ask.

"All right," I said.
 
"Can I go home and feed Nameless first?"
 
Nameless is my cat.
 

Dino walked to his car and opened the front passenger door.
 
He reached inside and came out with an unopened box of Tender Vittles.

"Seafood Supper," he said, holding it up for me to see.
 
"We'll take care of the cat."

I shook my head.
 
"You were pretty sure of me, weren't you?"

"You're a sucker for a sob story, all right," Dino said.

"I'm a sucker, period.
 
Well, since the two of you have talked me into this, have you got any ideas about where I should begin?"

Dino grinned.
 
"You're the detective."

"Great," I said.
 
"Just great."

He punched me in the biceps with his free hand.
 
"Don't be a sore loser."

I opened my hand and looked down at the bills.
 
"I hope there's a lot of money here."

"'The workman is worthy of his hire,'" Dino said.
 
"That's what they used to tell me in Sunday School."

"You never went to Sunday School in your life."

"Maybe I heard it on Postoffice Street, then."

"Hush, Dino," Evelyn said.

She probably didn't like to be reminded of Postoffice Street, which is where Galveston's red light district was located for a long, long time.
 
Evelyn knew.
 
She had worked there.

She didn't work there now, however.
 
She was a receptionist in the
Ashbell
Smith Building, built in 1890 and better known as Old Red, the first building of the Texas Medical College, now The University of Texas Medical Branch.
 
She didn't want anyone there to know about her past, and I didn't blame her.

"Well," Dino said, "I heard it somewhere.
 
It doesn't make any difference where it was.
 
And there's plenty of money there."

"I know there is," I said.
 
"It's just that there's not a whole lot to go on here.
 
I don't even have a place to start."

"We're not worried about that," Dino told me.
 
"Like I said, you're a professional.
 
You'll think of something."

I shoved the money into the pocket of my loose-fitting jeans.
 
"You have a lot more faith in me than I have in myself."

Dino tossed the box of Tender Vittles in the air and caught it.
 
"That wouldn't take much, would it?" he asked.

"No," I said.
 
"It wouldn't take a whole lot."

"I didn't think so," he said.
 
"And that's another reason why you should take the job."

Maybe he had a point there.
 
But I didn't really think so.

A
ctually, things weren't as bad as I'd tried to make them seem to Dino.
 
There was somewhere to start, even when you were looking for a street person like Harry.
 
There was always somewhere to start.

Or if not, there was some
one
to start with.
 
At least there was if I could find him.
 
His name was Ro-Jo, and to my surprise, I located him in less than a minute.

I said good-bye to Evelyn and Dino, got in the Jeep, and drove east on Seawall Boulevard.
 
I spotted Ro-Jo after I'd gone about twenty blocks.
 
He was on the concrete walkway leading to the 61st Street Pier.
 
His grocery cart, never out of his sight, was beside him.
 
There was no one fishing on that pier, either, so Ro-Jo wasn't in anyone's way.
 

I hadn't expected to find him so easily.
 
He's usually scrounging in the dumpsters behind Kroger or Randall's, or maybe one of the fast-food places, hoping that someone's thrown out something edible.
 
It wouldn't have to be something I'd consider edible.
 
Ro-Jo was like Harry.
 
They had standards that were a little different from mine.