Unknown Man #89 jr-3

by Elmore Leonard

  “You ready?” the uniformed cop said.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. Where we going?”

  “Down the autopsy room.”

  Ryan followed him to the basement and along a hallway past a deep-freeze room where, the cop said, they stored bodies that weren’t claimed right away. Also the badly decomposed ones: firm ’em up before they were autopsied. Ryan felt like he was getting the tour. He was interested, but he was more anxious to know why he was here. “Come on down the morgue and see your friend,” Dick Speed had said over the phone. Playing games. It didn’t matter. Ryan knew who it was going to be.

  Dick Speed was in the doorway of the autopsy room smoking a cigarette. When he saw Ryan, he waved for him and led the way to one side of the room where the cement floor was raised a few feet and set apart by a low metal railing. Following him, Ryan looked around.

  He counted four autopsy tables equipped with sinks and hoses. Two men in white coats were working at a body tray pushed up to the second table. Ryan could see thin yellowish legs and the brown paper bag and the identifying tag, but he couldn’t see the rest of the body or the face. The two white coats were in the way, on this side of the table with their backs to him. One of them was hunched in close to the table and Ryan could hear the high-pitched whine of a power tool.

  Jesus.

  “You can see better up here,” Dick Speed said.

  “Who is it?”

  “Unless you want to get down close. How you feel?”

  “I’m fine,” Ryan said. He was-no queasy feeling or saliva in his mouth-and felt pretty good about it. Then he wasn’t so sure.

  One of the white coats moved around to the other side of the autopsy table and Ryan was looking at the whole body, cut open from breastbone to groin and seeing the man’s insides, his vital organs and a slab of ribs, lying in a pile on the table.

  Like dressing a deer.

  “That’s the medical examiner,” Dick Speed said. “The other guy with the power saw’s an assistant. Something like this, we know it’s a homicide, but we want a complete autopsy to be sure. Defendant’s lawyer gets in court, he says, ‘Yeah, it might’ve been gunshot, but who says it was fatal? Or how do you know he wasn’t already dead?’ That kind of shit.”

  The opened body seemed less human than the ones upstairs. It was a carcass with no face, or a face without features, a store mannequin. Ryan stared at the man’s head and realized he was looking at the bare skull. The skin and hair had been peeled, pulled down, and lay inside-up over the man’s face. That’s why he seemed featureless. The attendant with the power saw had been cutting into the man’s skull. He removed a wedge-shaped section. The brain was exposed for a few moments before the attendant pulled it out of the skull and placed it on the autopsy table.

  “Who is it?”

  “See,” Dick Speed said, “the medical examiner, if he’s got any doubt at all what killed the guy, he takes samples from the stomach, the liver, drains out some pee-pee, takes a piece of the brain-where you going?”

  Ryan went down the steps and over to the foot of the tray table, not looking at the man’s open body, keeping his gaze down and seeing only the yellowed, slightly bent legs and the bare feet pointing at him, like the man was stretching them out and in a moment the feet would relax to a normal position. Ryan didn’t want to touch him. He was careful reaching for the tag and turning it over to read the words written in blue ink.

  Unknown Man No. 89.

  Behind him, Dick Speed said, “Now positively identified by his prints as Robert Leary, Jr., age thirty-five. Also known as Bobby Lear.”

  “You know who it is,” Ryan said. “How come the number?”

  “Before we know who it is, we got to call him something.”

  Ryan, staring at the tag, let his gaze move up the yellowed legs, past the man’s darker-shaded organ and thick pubic hair to the violent red opening. The assistant was doing something, scooping Robert Leary’s stomach and internal organs into a clear plastic bag. He dropped the bag into the open cavity, working it in to make it fit, and laid the slab of ribs on top.

  Unknown Man No. 89.

  He might as well keep that, Ryan was thinking. He wasn’t worth anything as Robert Leary, Jr. Not to anybody.

  “Found dead at the Montcalm Hotel,” Ryan said.

  “Room 312,” Dick Speed said. “You were getting close, weren’t you? How’d you find out?”

  “His wife. Turns out she’s the wine drinker with the blond hair.”

  “Where’s she live?” Ryan told him, and Dick Speed said, “We’ll have to get hold of her for the disposition. Not to mention asking a few questions.”

  “She was in the bag last night,” Ryan said. “She didn’t want to see him, have anything to do with him.”

  “That’s something in itself, isn’t it?” Speed said. “Married to the guy, but doesn’t want to see him. So maybe she gets somebody else to see him.”

  Ryan watched the autopsy assistant lacing Robert Leary together, using a hook and what looked like heavy cord.

  “How was he killed?”

  “With a shotgun. Dead center, twice. Also, yesterday evening out in Pontiac,” Speed said, “you remember the faggy-looking guy was with Tunafish? At the methadone clinic. Lonnie, the drug snitch with the hair and the shoes. Same thing, with a shotgun. Twice.”

  “So you think it’s the same guy.”

  “I’d bet on it,” Speed said. “Get a match of the buckshot, the gauge, we’ll know.”

  The autopsy assistant was at the opposite end of the tray table now. He replaced the skull section and-as Ryan watched-carefully pulled the hair and scalp up over the skull, revealing the face a little at a time, a man appearing, features forming, as though the assistant were fitting the lifeless skull with a Robert Leary mask.

  Ryan stared at the face, the mustache, the closed eyes, the round cap of coarse black hair.

  He said, “Jesus… look. The guy’s black.”

  “He’s black all right,” Speed said. “That’s what colored guys are, they’re black.”

  “Jesus,” Ryan said.

  “You didn’t know that? You’re looking for a guy, you don’t know what color he is?”

  “I don’t know why,” Ryan said. “I guess I should’ve, the people he hung around with, at least some of them. But the thing is-you see, his wife is white.”

  Dick Speed waited. “Yeah?”

  “I mean she’s white.”

  “You mean very white, uh?” Dick Speed said. “Is that it?”

  Ryan wasn’t sure what he meant.

  It was nearly ten by the time he got to her apartment, with the vitamins and the milk and stuff. He’d see how she was, talk to her, and then give Dick a call.

  The place was really bad. The hallway dingy with dirt and soot, the linoleum worn out, peeling. He knocked on her door twice and waited, listening in the silence. She was probably still asleep. He hoped so, as he turned the knob quietly and walked in.

  The daybed was empty. The bathroom door was open. The light was still on in the kitchenette.

  Denise Leann Leary was gone.

  10

  “SNOWING,” MR. PEREZ SAID. “Nearly the middle of April, it’s still snowing.”

  “It’s just flurries,” Ryan said. “That kind of snow, it doesn’t stick to the ground at all. It’s a wet snow.”

  “I remember, coming in from the airport there was still some snow, very dirty-looking snow, patches of it along the highway, with all the rain you’ve had.” Mr. Perez stood in the alcove of the floor-to-ceiling window looking out at the gray mass of sky and the light snow swirling in the wind. “You certainly have a long winter,” he said.

  “Or you can look at it as kind of an asshole spring,” Ryan said. He didn’t believe it-sitting here talking about the weather. “It’s great for the skiers, though. Up north, I heard on the radio, they’ve still got a fifteen- to twenty-inch base,” Ryan said-if the guy really wanted to talk about it.

  Maybe he
was finished. Mr. Perez came away from the window and sank into his favorite chair-the Spanish governor of a colony, member of an old, titled family, who’d been sent out here and was pissed off about it, but kept it locked up inside. Ryan was here to give his report.

  He was sitting on the couch this time instead of a straight chair, figuring they would have quite a bit to discuss. It was one-thirty in the afternoon. Near the door was a room-service table pushed out of the way. So Mr. Perez had eaten his noon dinner. Everything on the menu, it looked like, the way the table was cluttered with dishes, empty wineglasses, those silver dish covers and messed-up napkins. The man had a noon dinner, he had a dinner. He still seemed too skinny to be a big eater. Or else the white shirt, the collar, was a couple sizes too large.

  “You find out he’s colored,” Mr. Perez said. “How does that change anything?”

  “Didn’t you think he was white?”

  Mr. Perez nodded. “Yeah, I guess I did, judging from his name. It wasn’t Amos Washington or…Thurgood Marshall, one of those. But now Mr. Leary’s deceased and we know he has a wife.

  What’s her name?”

  “Denise. Denise Leann. But she goes by Lee.”

  “And you talked to her.”

  “Yeah, but not knowing, as I mentioned, she was his wife. The way I got it, she was like an ex-girlfriend.”

  “An ex-something, huh? Well, now we contact the wife, who we’ll presume is his legal heir, and deal with her. You say she’s gone. But she doesn’t have any reason to hide, does she?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “And you know what she looks like.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So you shouldn’t have any trouble locating her. Do you see a problem?”

  “There’s a couple of things,” Ryan said. “More than a couple. Something I didn’t tell you. He’s black, but the wife, Lee, is white.”

  “Up here, I’m not too surprised,” Mr. Perez said.

  “The other thing, she’s an alcoholic.”

  Mr. Perez thought about that a moment.

  “I like alcoholics. I’ve had a few. They’re very easy to deal with, very cooperative. What kind of an alcoholic is she?”

  “What do you mean, what kind? What does she drink?”

  “I mean, how far along is she? Does she work? Or does she sit home and hide bottles around the house?”

  “I don’t think she works. No, she couldn’t. But it’s not that kind of a setup either, hiding bottles. They’re right there on the sink.”

  “See,” Mr. Perez said, “a white woman marries somebody like Robert Leary, what we’ve learned about him, she’s pretty hard up, scraping bottom. A woman like that, her nose stuck in the bottle, no income, she’s going to take anything she can get.”

  Ryan kept quiet. He’d listen and let the man tell him about alcoholics, what they were like.

  “We make an offer, this kind of deal, the alcoholic woman isn’t going to see money, unh-unh. She’s going to see visions of gin bottles dancing in her head. She’ll sign the agreement in blood if she has to.”

  “She’s a wine drinker,” Ryan said.

  “Cheap dago red, huh?”

  “Chilled Sauterne.”

  He could see the dirty glass on the bar and the empty half-gallon jugs in her kitchen. He realized he was trying to upgrade her and he didn’t know why.

  “The other thing, or one more to add to it,” Ryan said, “the police are looking for her, too.”

  Mr. Perez raised his eyebrows. “They suspect she might’ve killed him?”

  “Well, they’ll question her, there’s no doubt about that,” Ryan said. “As my friend was saying, it’s a homicide and they’ll give it the full treatment. It doesn’t matter, the fact they’re glad the guy’s dead. Somebody killed him and it’s their job to find out who.”

  “You have any ideas about that? You seemed to’ve been getting in there pretty close,” Mr. Perez said.

  “Well, I ran into a guy, yes, and I know he found out where Leary was staying. The same night it happened, in fact. This guy, I don’t know what his name is, knows Leary’s wife. I told the police about it already, gave them a half-assed description of the guy-his clothes, his hat, you know-but I don’t know what’s going to come of that. What I started to say-they’re looking for his wife, yes, but mainly so she can claim the body, get it out of the way.”

  “And you say they don’t know where she is.”

  “No, but I think it’s only a matter of time,” Ryan said. “They go looking for somebody, the cops, they find them. They’ve already checked the hospitals. She hasn’t been admitted anywhere.”

  “Checked the hospitals?” Mr. Perez said. “Check the bars, you say she’s an alcoholic.”

  “Well, see, she’s in pretty bad shape.”

  Ryan heard the toilet flush and paused. He looked over at the closed door that led to the bedroom. Mr. Perez waited, not offering an explanation.

  A woman, Ryan thought. He wondered if she’d come out. He said, “I think his wife might’ve finally realized she was in trouble and it could kill her if she kept drinking. Her calling me like that was a good sign.”

  “So maybe she’ll call you again,” Mr. Perez said. “Save you some work.”

  “That’d be fine. But now I’ve got a feeling she’s still drinking. She had a couple this morning to straighten her out and they went down so good she kept going. So then she might’ve gotten another room somewhere. She could call me, sometime, but I’ll probably have to wait till she bottoms out again.” Ryan shook his head. “It’s very tough, trying to quit like that.”

  He saw Mr. Perez’s gaze move past him. Ryan glanced over at the doorway to the bedroom.

  A stringy, heavy-boned farmer-looking guy had opened the door and was coming out, his head down, buckling his belt.

  Ryan looked back at Mr. Perez, who was watching the man with a relaxed, pleasant expression. Mr. Perez said, “I hope you had a good one, Raymond. You were in there a half hour.”

  “Traveling,” the man said. “It throws me off my schedule. I sure don’t like to go on the airplane.”

  “Raymond Gidre,” Mr. Perez said. “Shake hands with Mr. Ryan, fella I was telling you about.”

  “Yes-sir, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Raymond Gidre smiled cordially, reaching for Ryan’s hand as he rose. The man seemed eager, flashing perfect dentures in a weathered face that had been recently shaved and bore traces of talcum powder. His curly black hair, combed back severely, plastered down, glistened with tonic that Ryan could smell and recalled from barbershops years before. Lucky Tiger. The man had a small-town-barbershop look about him. Like he’d just come out of one. He wore a short-sleeved sport shirt. Ryan noticed the tattoo on his right forearm-something black and red-but didn’t want to stare at it. He shook Raymond Gidre’s hand and nodded and said he was glad to meet him, held for a moment by the dentures and the pale eyes smiling. Just a good-natured back-country boy-stringy and hard after a half-dozen years on a Louisiana prison farm.

  “Raymond here’s visiting from a place near New Iberia, Louisiana,” Mr. Perez said. “Avery Island, huh, Raymond? Where the hot sauce comes from.”

  “Home of Tabasco,” Raymond said. “Yes-sir,” walking over to the room-service table. He poked through the napkins and silver lids, found a hard roll, and bit into it, still poking around. “You didn’t eat your snapbeans.”

  “Finish ’em up,” Mr. Perez said, and looked at Ryan again. “Raymond works for me on and off in special capacities, you might say. For instance, if we see you need some help, Raymond’s the boy for it.”

  Ryan nodded as though he knew what Mr. Perez was talking about, then decided he might as well ask.

  “What kind of help?”

  “Well, if you were to need protection of one kind or another, somebody to see you don’t get hurt. I wouldn’t want that to happen.”

  “I wouldn’t either,” Ryan said. “But what would I need protection from? I’m looking
for the wife now. The bad guy’s dead.”

  “That’s true,” Mr. Perez said, “but somebody killed the bad guy, didn’t he? Somebody, you said yourself, found out where he was staying. By the way, this man you talked to last night, was he colored?”

  Ryan nodded.

  Mr. Perez looked past him, across the room. “Got a colored boy, Raymond, might want to give us trouble.”

  “It’s all the same to me,” Raymond said, eating from a plate of green beans, “I’m not prejudice.”

  What the hell was going on? Ryan felt himself starting to get a little worked up. Perez talked to him very seriously, then would say something to his hired hand and almost break out in a giggle.

  “I don’t understand something,” Ryan said. “We don’t know who the guy is, the black guy I met. We don’t know if he was the one that killed Leary. I mean, we can’t even begin to assume something like that. Or, okay, let’s say even if he did, what’s it got to do with me? That I’d need protection? I’m looking for the wife.”

  “You said you put a notice in the paper-”

  “I also put another one in,” Ryan said, “that’s due to run tomorrow.”

  “Let me finish,” Mr. Perez said. “All right?” He waited a moment, staring at Ryan with his solemn expression. “You put a notice in the paper and two people called you up. Is that correct?”

  Now he was standing on the carpet, in the principal’s office. “That’s right,” Ryan said.

  “You thought one of the two might have been Leary, but not both of them.”

  “That’s right,” Ryan said.

  “You suspected somebody was looking for him.”

  “I knew that. And it’s obvious somebody found him. The guy’s dead.” Ryan paused a moment. Mr. Perez’s tone might be a little pissy, but maybe he was sincere, at least meant well. “I see,” Ryan said. “You think if it was the guy I met in the apartment, he might be afraid I’ll identify him.”

  “That type of thing,” Mr. Perez said. “I didn’t have anything that specific in mind, of course, when I telephoned Raymond and asked him if he’d like to visit the Motor City. I felt we were mixing with ugly people, getting ready to do business with one of them; so it wouldn’t hurt to have some protection. Mr. Leary’s dead, but there are still some ugly people around, aren’t there?”