When Old Men Die (6 page)

I thought it might be a good idea to try beating the hell out of Dino even if he hadn't tried to set me up.
 
I would never have gotten involved in this mess if it hadn't been for him, and there was no way out of it now.
 
I was going to have to try to find Harry.
 
I was going to have to try to keep him from winding up the way Jan had.

"What are we going to do about it?" I asked Nameless.

He didn't answer, having curled up and gone to sleep with his tail over his nose.
 
Obviously Harry's plight didn't bother him in the least.
 
I wished that I could have taken things that calmly.

I got out of the chair and took a shower, trying not to get any water on my bandage.
 
Then I came back into the bedroom and turned off the CD player as soon as The Drifters finished singing "Money Honey."
 
I went over to the bed and shoved Nameless out of the way.
 
He woke up and looked at me without resentment.
 
After a little more licking, he settled down on the other side of the bed.

He was asleep a long time before I was.

T
he sky was covered with clouds the next morning and the low gray overcast fit my mood perfectly.
 
I fed Nameless in the kitchen, then let him outside.
 
He charged into the brush, and I brought in the paper.

My headache was gone, so I put on a pair of shorts and a top and went out for a run.
 
I pulled the bandage off to let the air get to the cut on my face.
 
The sweat stung it a little, but otherwise it was a lot better.
 
Even my knee held up better than I'd expected.

The house where I lived was out past the developed part of the Island, and though the development started again a little farther down the road, my nearest neighbors lived in places with rolls of hay or old car bodies in the yard.
 
I wondered what the people who lived in the fancy condos and houses on stilts thought about that.
 
I don't suppose it worried them much.
 
In a few years the run-down old houses would be gone, replaced by more fashionable residences.
 
Most likely, no one would miss the old places but me.
 
I thought they added a little character to the neighborhood.

After a couple of miles I turned back.
 
Nameless wasn't around, and I didn't waste any time looking for him.
 
I went inside and took a shower.
 
For breakfast I had some Frosted Mini-
Wheats
while I went through the paper.
 
There wasn't much of interest outside the comics pages.
 
When I'd read all I wanted to read, I called Dino.

"What'd you find out?" he asked.

"More than I thought I would.
 
Are you going to be at home for a while?"

"Yeah.
 
I'm just reading the Sunday funnies.
 
'Calvin and Hobbes' cracks me up.
 
You read that one?"

"I read them all except 'Rex Morgan,' I said.

"Hey, you
oughta
give that one a try.
 
It deals with some serious stuff."

"So do I.
 
I'll be over in a few minutes."

I had on a clean sweatshirt and the jeans I'd worn the day before.
 
With the ripped knee the jeans were much more fashionable than they had been.
 
Before I left, I slipped on an old corduroy jacket.
 
If there was no sun, the day would be colder than the one before.

Dino's house was in a neighborhood not far from Moody Gardens, along with a lot of other brick houses that wouldn't have looked out of place in one of the older neighborhoods of Waco.
 
If I hadn't known the Gulf was just a short distance away, I'd have thought I was in Central Texas.
 
Lots of the Island's older residents like it that way; they don't want anything to remind them that they're sitting at sea level, just a stone's throw from the water.

"Hey, Tru," Dino said when he met me at the door.
 
"Come on in.
 
I got some Big Red in the refrigerator, but I bet even you can't drink that stuff this early in the morning."

It was nearly ten o'clock, which wasn't early except to people like Dino, who really didn't get going until noon.
 
I told him I could drink a glass of Big Red.

I didn't mention that I'd thought about beating the hell out of him.
 
It hadn't seemed like such a good idea last night, and in the light of day it seemed even worse.

Dino went into the kitchen to get the Big Red.
 
There had been a time when he'd had someone to do that sort of thing for him, but that friendship had come to a bad end.
 
I thought about Ray and what had happened to him.
 
I hoped nothing like that was going to happen again.

I sat on the sturdy floral sofa that looked as if it had been in the house for forty years, which it probably had, like nearly all of Dino's furniture.
 
The room hadn't changed much at all since I'd last been there except for a Super Nintendo game system that was now hooked up to the huge TV set.
 
The only modern stuff in it was the electronic equipment.

On an end table by the couch there was a lamp that provided the only light in the room.
 
The heavy curtains on the windows were drawn to keep out the outside light.
 
And maybe to keep out any reminders of the outside world as well.

Dino came back in a few minutes.
 
He had the Big Red in a glass with some ice cubes.
 
He had something brown for himself, but I didn't ask what.

"Playoff games this afternoon," he said, handing me my drink and pointing at the TV set.
 
"You think the Cowboys will win again?"

I said I didn't know and took a sip of the drink.
 
I wasn't a Cowboy fan.

Dino sat on the other end of the couch.
 
"You said you found something out.
 
Are you gonna tell me what?"
 
He looked at me as if noticing the scratch on my face for the first time.
 
"And what happened to you?"

The Big Red was sweet as bubble gum.
 
"Tell me again why you wanted me to find Harry," I said.

Dino moved three or four remotes out of the way and set his drink on the Duncan Phyfe coffee table that stood in front of the couch.
 

"I already told you that," he said.
 
"I've sort of been helping him out.
 
He's a friend, I guess you could say, and I'm worried about him."

"Sure you are."

He tried to look hurt.
 
"You sayin' I can't have a friend like Harry?"

I took another drink of Big Red.
 
"I'm not saying that.
 
I'm just wondering if there's anything you didn't tell me.
 
Anything that I might need to know."

He furrowed his brow.
 
"You think I left something out?"
 

"That's what I'd like to know," I said, and then I told him what I'd learned from Ro-Jo and what had happened later on.

"Jesus, Tru. I'm sorry somebody took a shot at you.
 
And I'm sorry you got hit in the face.
 
But I didn't have anything to do with it.
 
I hope you don't think I was holding out on you.
 
You didn't think that, did you?"

"It crossed my mind."

"I thought you knew me better than that."

"That's the trouble," I said.
 
"I know you too well."

Dino laughed, but it wasn't very convincing.
 
"Well, I was telling you the truth.
 
If there's someone looking for Harry besides you, I don't know about it.
 
Anyway, how can you be sure that you didn't just scare some other street person who was looking for a place to get out of the wind?"

I hadn't considered that, but now that he'd brought it up I didn't really think it was a possibility.
 
It was too much of a coincidence to think that someone else besides Harry would be staying in the old marine lab, especially someone who'd open fire on me.
 
I don't believe in coincidences like that.

"Maybe I did scare somebody," I said.
 
"But it wasn't a street person.
 
I've got another question for you."

"Shoot."

"Poor choice of words," I told him.

"Sorry.
 
Ask away."

"Who owns The Island Retreat?"

Dino looked over at his TV as if he wished the playoff game had already started.

"I don't know," he said.
 
"I lost track of who owned all those places a long time ago."

"There's a realtor's sign on it."

"That doesn't tell you much.
 
What difference does it make, anyway?"

"Probably none.
 
It was just one of the places that Ro-Jo suggested that I might look for Harry.
 
I thought that if you had a key, I could get in without any trouble."

"Go by the realtors' office.
 
Tell them you're in the market."

I put the Big Red on the coffee table and spread my hands to indicate my sweatshirt and torn jeans.

"I'm sure they'd believe that I'm a high roller."

"OK, maybe not.
 
Are you gonna look for Harry in there?"

"Maybe.
 
But I want you to find out who owns the place.
 
With your connections it should be easy."

"All right, I can do that I guess.
 
But what are you going to do?"

"First of all, I'm going to try having a talk with Ro-Jo.
 
I want to know just exactly what he told the other man looking for Harry."

"You should've thought about that yesterday."

"I did, but I didn't see the need to question him more closely.
 
I didn't know I was going to be shot at."

"You keep bringing that up.
 
You don't sound too happy about it."

"Would you be?"

"Probably not, but you don't know for sure that it has anything to do with Harry.
 
What would anybody want with him?"

"That's what I'd like to know."

"Are you gonna keep looking?"

I said that I was, but there was something in my voice that must have bothered Dino.

"It's not going to be like the last time," he said.

"You don't know that.
 
It's not starting off very well."

"Look, Harry is just an old guy who goes around dumpster diving and living off the streets.
 
Nobody's after him for anything.
 
What happened last night was just an accident."

"No," I said.
 
"It wasn't an accident.
 
One shot can be an accident, but not five or six.
 
Somebody was trying to put me out of commission."

"OK, say that's true.
 
All the more reason you need to find Harry."

I didn't say anything.

"You'll find him," Dino told me.
 
"You'll find him before the other guy does."

I picked up my glass and swallowed the last of the Big Red.
 
"I wish I could be as sure of that as you are," I said.

R
o-Jo wasn't anywhere around the 61st Street Pier.
 
I drove down 61st, which in spite of its palm-lined esplanade is a lot like a midway filled with a little of everything:
 
tire stores, gas-and-go food stores, pet shops, guitar stores, fast food restaurants, and bait shops.
 
Most of the bait shops are close to
Offats
Bayou, which by the time you get close to the Causeway comes right up to the street and then goes under it.
 
Sometimes I fish there when I don't want to go out on the pier.

I stopped at Jody's Bait and Tackle.
 
According to the hand painted signs on its flaking blue plywood walls, if you didn't want squid or mullet or bait shrimp, you could buy table shrimp instead.

When I fished, I usually bought my bait shrimp from Jody, and he knew Ro-Jo and Harry, both of whom occasionally scavenged along the street.

Jody's place was lighted inside by a couple of bare fluorescent bulbs, and the smell of shrimp and fish was nearly overpowering.
 
There were some dusty rods and plastic lures on the wall, and some reels in a glass case.
 
Jody, a heavyset black man, was behind the beat-up counter.