Riding the Rap by Elmore Leonard
“He’s there, but I wasn’t able to get near him. He’s selling dresses.”
“Buy one,” Raylan said.
“I’m not supposed to have any money. You forget?” She said, “You should hear some of their weekend names they use. Fat Cat and Cherokee, Reservoir Dog; two girls there are Bambi and Ling-Ling. They go, ‘Love you,’ or ‘Gimme a hug,’ and then try and put their arms around you. I’m in the woods there taking a leak? This big, hairy pervert comes up, wants to hug me. He goes, ‘Welcome home, sister. Love you.’ I’m telling you . . .”
“Is there much dope?”
“Not out in the open, but it’s there. This goomer stops by, he goes, ‘Want to get zooked?’ and shows me a Visine bottle. I told them my name’s Peanut.” She stared at Raylan and said, “You’re . . . let’s see. How about, you’re the Cat in the Hat.” She left the car again to look for Cal, give it another shot.
It was almost four now; she’d been gone over an hour.
Raylan picked up his binoculars and put them on the groups by the tables, over in the trees, to see Huggers in grungy clothes and tie-dyed outfits, dropout campers having fun: drinking beer, sniffing the guy with the snake tattoos’ smudge stick, banging on drums, sucking on balloons a guy was filling with nitrous oxide from a tank, Huggers giving new arrivals peace signs and hugs. Dawn had described a sign, WELCOME HOME, and there it was, fixed to a tree. Raylan edged his binoculars past other groups, normal-looking picnickers, families.
He watched a girl come out of the rest room building and lowered the glasses, a fat girl coming over to the car now, saying, “I need a hug, bad. Will you give me a hug?” She squeezed her head and shoulders through the window and got Raylan around the neck, pressing his face to her breast before he could protect himself. She said, “Love you,” and walked away as he took his hat off and replaced it over his eyes.
Not long after that he saw Melinda coming up the path along the banyan thicket with a skinny guy in jeans and white tennis shoes, a red, white, and green rugby shirt, sunglasses, the guy fairly young, his hair blond in the sunlight—until Raylan put the glasses on him and he became an older guy with gray hair. Finally, the one and only Chip Ganz, the guy slouching along next to Melinda, middle-aged hip, talking, smoking a joint pinched between his thumb and finger. Raylan watched him offer the joint to Melinda as they came past the parking circle. Bringing the stub to her mouth and taking a drag, she looked right at the car. Now they were heading toward the phone booth by the rest rooms, Chip digging into his pocket for change and then counting what he had in his hand. Now Melinda had her little purse open and was feeling inside.
Raylan got out of the car and walked over to them, standing by the phone booth now. He saw Chip look at him and start to look away—at the grass, the trees, at whatever was there that seemed to hold some fascination for him—Raylan was sure Chip knew who he was.
“You need change?”
Chip came around showing surprise now. “Oh . . . yeah, if you could help us out.”
Raylan put his right hand in his pants pocket, his left hand in the other pocket and stood this way looking at Chip, not saying anything for several moments. He watched Chip studying his change again to be occupied.
“You see Harry lately?”
Chip raised his eyebrows looking up. “Harry?”
“The one you owe the sixteen five.”
Chip put on a tired smile now, shaking his head. “He sent you to collect?”
“That was another guy,” Raylan said, “your gardener.”
“Oh. Yeah, the one my mother hired.”
“While you’re down in the Keys.”
“That’s right, but I did see the guy. I explained it to him.”
“What?”
“That I’d pay Harry in the next sixty days or so.”
Chip maintaining an innocent look: blank, but somewhat bewildered.
Raylan said, “You came all the way up here to get hugged?”
Chip grinned. “Well, among other things. I like the atmosphere, it takes me back, man, to that time, the peace movement, we were gonna change the world. You must’ve been around then.”
“I was in a coal mine,” Raylan said. “You know who I am, don’t you?”
“A friend of Harry’s. You must be the one stopped by and spoke to my caretaker, Louis? He called and told me.”
“While you were in the Keys.”
“Yeah.”
“Were you going home from here?”
Chip shook his head. “No reason to.”
“Is Louis there?”
“I think he has Saturday off.”
Raylan said, “Who’s there, just Harry?”
He watched Chip frown now, giving it all he had.
“You think Harry’s at my house?”
Frowning and then shaking his head.
Raylan said, “Where’re you parked?”
Chip hesitated. “On Summit. In one of those strip malls. Why?”
Raylan said, “Give me your car keys.”
“Why? What for?”
Raylan said, “You want to see my I.D.?”
“I just don’t understand why you want my keys.”
Raylan held out his hand.
Chip shrugged. He dug the keys out of his jeans and held them up, a finger in the key ring. “Okay, now what?”
“Take off the one for the car.”
Chip sighed now, going along, worked the key from the ring and handed it to Raylan. He said, “You know, this would appear to be a car-jacking, except you don’t seem the type that goes around boosting cars.” His expression turned deadpan, a stand-up comic now as he said, “Hey, but what do I know?” Then seemed to laugh without wanting to, ruining the effect.
Raylan thought Chip was doing the best he could, trying hard to seem innocent, good-humored, but the man was becoming giddy. Raylan doubted he’d be able to keep it together for long.
Handing the car key to Melinda, telling her, “It’s a tan Mercedes that needs bodywork,” came close to finishing Chip off.
He said, “Peanut?”
The poor guy, betrayed by this nice-looking young girl. She said to Chip, “It’s Melinda, just so you’ll know who set you up.”
“Summit’s that way,” Raylan said, pointing south.
Melinda nodded. “I’ll see you later,” and walked off across the grassy park.
Chip watched her with an expression Raylan thought of as forlorn, lost, no one to help him. But then said to Raylan, still with hope at this point, though not much, “How do I get my car back?”
“I don’t know,” Raylan said. “You don’t have Bobby to pick it up, do you?”
That seemed to finish Chip off, at least for the time being. He looked at Raylan with nothing to offer.
Raylan put his hand on Chip’s shoulder.
“Come on, I’ll take you home.”
twenty-nine
Yesterday when Harry said he heard something that sounded like shots, coming from outside, Louis said, “Yeah, is that right?”
This morning when Louis went in the room and saw Harry pulling his bathing cap over his face, Louis said, “You don’t need that no more. The one you had to worry about’s gone.”
Harry said, “The guy that shot King?”
“I fired him,” Louis said.
“He left?”
“Gone. You never see him again.”
“We still going to Freeport?”
“We going today, so clean yourself up.”
“We gonna fly?”
“You see me taking you through Customs and Immigration? The man ask the purpose of your visit? We going by private yacht.”
“What time?”
“Be cool, Harry, I let you know.”
This afternoon Louis brought Harry his snack and Harry asked if they were going now.
“Pretty soon,” Louis said. “Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll take the plywood down off the window; you can look out, see the boat when it comes.”
Porky little guy looking up at him.
“Me too,” Louis said.
“You know I don’t have any clothes,” Harry said. “I’m gonna look like a bum over there.”
The little guy worrying about his appearance.
“You be fine,” Louis said. “You don’t even need shoes. We gonna walk out in the ocean—walk in the water like Ramsey Lewis, no relation to me. Get in a rubber raft to take us to the yacht. My man was gonna pick us up in the Innercoastal, but he say he look at his charts and don’t like the way it becomes so narrow by here. He like it where if the Coast Guard’s coming you can see the motherfuckers before they down on you.”
Louis remembered Harry the first few days asking was anybody there and then yelling, saying he wasn’t gonna say nothing if they didn’t talk to him, so fuck you. Acting tough way past his prime. Now Harry was submissive, as Chip had said he’d become, but without it taking weeks. Louis felt, in a way, he had made a friend of Harry, had saved his life, kept Bobby from killing him; so there wasn’t anything wrong with letting Harry give him half his money. Like it wasn’t a crime kind of gig no more.
This waiting was a bitch, sitting around thinking. Having time to think, work out what he’d do, was good. It was while thinking about walking out in the ocean with Harry, and having Chip along too, Chip whining, bitching, Louis decided the best thing would be to put Chip in the swimming pool soon as he got home. Not wait to drop him in the ocean. Do it and don’t think no more about it. Having too much time to think wasn’t good. Then you began to think of different ways your plan could get fucked up and you’d change your mind.
As soon as they were driving out of the park Raylan had begun to break Chip down with consequences.
“Here’s how it is. For kidnapping, abduction, or unlawful restraint, you’re looking at fifty-one to sixty-three months in a federal prison, a real one, not some army base with tennis courts. Now if you demanded payment—and I don’t see you’d have a reason to hold him if you didn’t—you’re looking at ninety-seven to a hundred and twenty-one months. If Harry’s injured, sustained any kind of bodily injury, you’re looking at more time over and above the basic offense level. If a dangerous weapon was used you go up two levels. If Harry is released, allowed to walk out or turned over to law enforcement authorities within thirty days, you’ll save yourself a couple of years. I’m gonna assume you did not abduct Harry for any reason that would come under sexual exploitation. Am I right?”
Poor Chip. “How can I answer that?”
“With a simple yes or no.”
“If I say either one I’m admitting Harry was kidnapped.”
“All right, let me ask you,” Raylan said, “is Harry in your house at the present time?”
Chip didn’t answer.
“I’ll give you an easier one. Is Louis?”
He said, “I don’t know.”
“If he isn’t,” Raylan said, “I bet I know where he is, with Dawn.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“You didn’t know he’s been pokin’ her? I thought maybe you’d handed her down, like an old pair of shoes.” Raylan glanced at the poor guy sitting there, helpless but agitated. “That Dawn,” Raylan said, “she’s something. She can touch you and tell what you had for breakfast. I guess she’s been touching Louis enough to know what’s going on. She’s sitting on the fence now waiting to see how it turns out. I told her, I said, ‘Honey, you’re liable to get your tail in a crack sitting there and go down with the boys.’ You and Louis. We don’t worry about Bobby no more, do we?”
No answer. Chip over there with his own thoughts.
“Since nobody’s home,” Raylan said, “you gonna invite me in your house?”
Chip said, “Why would I do that?”
“You don’t have to. You can tell me to go to hell or go get a warrant, one.” Raylan glanced at him again. “I haven’t threatened you in any way, have I?”
“You just finished saying I could go to prison for a hundred and twenty-one months.”
The high number sticking in his mind.
“It wasn’t a threat,” Raylan said, “it’s how the sentencing guidelines read for the crime you’re committing. It’s in black and white, partner, the letter of the law. So, are you giving me permission to enter your house?”
Raylan let Chip take his time. He felt the man was all the way into himself now, looking around in his head and not seeing any hope left.
Chip said, “I guess so.”
“The traffic’s not too bad on Saturday,” Raylan said, heading down 95 to Lantana to take the bridge over to Manalapan, “but we could still use another north-south freeway. What do you think?”
Louis switched the video picture from the front drive, waiting for Chip’s car to come nosing in, to Harry upstairs shuffling in his chains from the window he could see out of now and had opened, to his cot, turning but not sitting down, then shuffling back to the window, anxious.
Louis was becoming anxious himself. If Chip wasn’t home by the time the boat got here they’d have to wait for him, Louis not wanting any loose ends to trip him up. But it would be close to dark in half an hour and Mr. Walker wouldn’t be able to spot the white house with the red roof from out in the ocean. Louis had told him he’d put the backyard floodlights on just in case. Look for them like two miles north of the Boynton Inlet and collect fifty thousand. He’d said, “Nothing to it, my man; Mr. Walker, the salty sailorman.”
Nothing to it, shit. It was getting close. Too close. Mr. Walker could even be early.
That got Louis out of the sofa, leaving Harry on the screen. In the sunroom he switched on the floodlights, went outside and looked up at them mounted on the roof, weak spots of light in the dusk. He walked out past the scummy swimming pool, across the yard and into the palm trees and sea grape, following the path to where the property sloped down full of scrub and driftwood to the beach. He saw the ocean wasn’t doing much, a lazy kind of surf coming in green, easy for a rubber raft to make it all the way here and they wouldn’t get too wet. Louis had on his new black silk jacket, but thought now maybe he should put it in the hanging bag with the rest of his things. He’d filled a carry-on bag with snacks, Fritos and salted peanuts—not that dry-roasted shit, real peanuts. Peanut brittle for Harry, the man loved his peanut brittle. What else?
The shotgun, in the chest in the study; no sense leaving it in the house. He had buried the Browning he’d used on Bobby, had the other one in his hanging bag, and Bobby’s piece, the Sig Sauer, in with the snacks to give to Mr. Walker. The sky was already dark out on the ocean, misting up out there under big heavy clouds, a few boats. . . . What looked like charter fishing boats coming in, but another one he couldn’t tell if it was or not. Maybe Mr. Walker.
Louis hurried back to the house, ran upstairs to get his hanging bag—decided to leave his new jacket on—and stuck his head in the hostage room.
“Five minutes, Harry.”
The man came around from the window looking more anxious than before. He said, “I got to go to the bathroom.”
“Well, hurry up, man. Gonna take my things down and come back for you.”
Louis ducked out, leaving the door open.
He got the stubby shotgun from the study, went in the kitchen for the snack bag and believed that was it. Outside, he crossed the yard again, made his way through the palms and sea grape down to the beach this time—deserted either way he looked—to set his things down in the sand, the shotgun on top the hanging bag.
The boat that might be Mr. Walker’s didn’t seem any closer. Louis watched it thinking, It still could be him. He turned around to see the floodlights up on the house looking a little brighter now.
Time to get Harry.
Raylan turned in past the PRIVATE DRIVE, KEEP OUT sign and eased the Jaguar through the shrubs. He thought about checking the garage for Bobb
“Your mom needs a gardener didn’t learn his trade in prison.”
Chip said, “And I guess I need a lawyer.”
Raylan hesitated. “We going in or not?”
“If that’s what you want to do.”
Raylan hesitated again. He said, “Wait,” and went back to the Jaguar, opened the trunk and took out an extra pair of handcuffs he slipped into a side pocket of his coat, ducked his head in again and came out with his Remington 12-gauge.
Chip, watching him, said, “What’s that for?”
“Whoever wants it,” Raylan said.
“I told you no one’s home.”
“I know you did. Would you open the door, please?”
Raylan followed Chip to the front stoop and watched him unlock the door, push it open and step aside.
“After you,” Raylan said, motioning with the shotgun.
Chip said, “I have no reason to go in.”
Sounding like a different person on his home ground, as if his hope had been restored.
Raylan said, “You think Louis’ll save you?”
Chip didn’t answer. What Raylan saw him do was come to a decision, like it was now or never for him. He seemed to square his shoulders as he looked at Raylan. And stepped inside. Raylan followed.
He was in the house.
Some window light showed in the front rooms bare of furniture. From the foyer the hallway became gradually darker to where a square of light lay on the floor, coming from a doorway down at the end.
“That way,” Raylan said and kept two steps behind Chip moving along bare walls in no hurry, cautious in a house that was supposed to be empty. They approached the doorway now that showed light inside, a soft lamp glow. Raylan kept his eyes on the doorway, past Chip’s left shoulder, almost there when Chip moved, yelled out, “Louis!” and flattened against the wall. Raylan kept going, went through the doorway to the study and put his shotgun on Harry in chains, Harry full length on the TV screen, turning from an open window.