Unknown Man #89 jr-3

by Elmore Leonard

  “No, leave those,” Ryan said. He put the two empty half gallons on the counter. “Dirty dishes, everything. You’re not getting ready for company, you’re on a drunk.”

  Denise watched him, holding her arms, cold. “Will I be in bed?”

  “Not in it, on top of the covers, with the raincoat, and barefoot. That’s a good touch, the raincoat.”

  “It’s what I wear,” Denise said.

  Ryan smiled at her. “So it won’t be too hard to fake, will it? Your eyes are great.”

  “Thanks,” Denise said.

  Ryan opened the door. Mr. Perez came in, followed by Raymond Gidre, who was wearing only a suit coat, his shoulders tightly hunched.

  “Cold enough for you?” Ryan said.

  “Jes-us,” Raymond said.

  Mr. Perez walked over to the counter, laid his attachй case down flat, and snapped it open.

  “She called me this morning about five,” Ryan said. “You can see what she’s had.”

  “Like a couple of gallons,” Raymond said. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, little skinny thing.”

  “Where is she?” Mr. Perez said. He had typewritten papers in his hand and was taking a pen out of his inside pocket, his gloves still on. He was wearing a gray hat, a gray herringbone topcoat with a black velvet collar, and the thin, tight-fitting gray gloves that looked like suede.

  “She’s in the bedroom,” Ryan said. “You want to take your coat off?”

  Guess not. Mr. Perez didn’t bother to answer. He took the papers and pen and went through the hall area into the bedroom. Ryan followed him, seeing Denise lying on her side in the raincoat, her white feet drawn up, her eyes closed. Mr. Perez sat on the edge of the bed looking down at her.

  “Miz Leary,” Mr. Perez said, “how you feeling, dear?”

  Denise made a sound or mumbled something, burrowing into the pillow, that Ryan couldn’t hear.

  “That’s a shame, little girl taking sick. Honey, look at me. I got something for you.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Denise said, barely moving her mouth, eyes still closed.

  Mr. Perez said, “Is that nice?”

  “I guess she talks like that,” Ryan said, “when she’s been drinking. You should’ve heard her before.”

  Mr. Perez nudged her gently. “I’d just like you to sign these papers, little girl, then you can sleep long as you want.”

  Denise asked him, slurring the words just right, why he didn’t fuck off and leave her alone and get his ass off the bed. Mr. Perez looked over his shoulder. As Raymond came in, Mr. Perez said, “Sit her up,” losing some of his sweetness.

  Between them they got her upright, leaning heavily against Raymond, her legs doubled under her beneath the raincoat. Raymond pulled the collar of the raincoat out a little, trying to look inside. Mr. Perez put the pen in her hand.

  “Pull the table over.”

  Raymond grabbed the night table with one hand and gave it a jerk to bring it over in front of them, letting the lamp with the glass chimney fall and shatter to the floor. Denise opened her eyes.

  “What’re you doing? Hey, for Christ’s sake-”

  “There she is,” Mr. Perez said. “Got your little eyes open?”

  Ryan went over and began picking up the pieces of broken glass, listening to Mr. Perez’s sweet words.

  “That’s a good girl, hold the pen. There. Now, see those papers? Right in front of you on the table. All you got to do is sign your name where you see the little Xs. Precious, you see them? Down there at the bottom. Write ‘Denise L. Leary.’ You don’t have to worry having it notarized, I’ll get that done for you.” To Raymond he said, “Take her hand and put it there.”

  Raymond tried to. Denise pulled her hand away and let the pen drop to the floor.

  “Get it, Raymond.”

  Ryan stood up, carefully holding the pieces of broken glass. As he started out, Mr. Perez was saying, “Now, let’s try it again. Come on, sugar, you can do it. Hold the pen. That’s it.”

  In the kitchen Ryan opened the cupboard beneath the sink and dropped the glass fragments into the trash basket.

  “Goddamn it, sign the goddamn thing! Now!”

  Ryan tensed. In the silence that followed, he let himself relax. He lit a cigarette, then took the tin paper and screw-top off the fifth of Gallo on the counter. He was in the living room when Mr. Perez and Raymond came out. Ryan looked at the papers in Mr. Perez’s hand.

  “She sign them?”

  “She can’t see to pee straight,” Mr. Perez said.

  “Goddamn drunken woman. There’s nothing worse than a drunk woman.”

  Ryan stepped aside to let Mr. Perez walk over to his attachй case on the counter.

  “Maybe when she sobers up a little,” Ryan said.

  “I swear, all I been doing on this one is waiting. Waiting to find her, waiting for her to make up her mind, waiting for her to sober up.” He dropped the papers into the open case.

  “I was thinking,” Ryan said, “she starts to come around she’s gonna want a drink, glass of wine. So let’s say I give her about a half a glass. Then when she wants some more, dying for it, I say, Okay, but you got to sign some papers first. I think, the condition she’s in, it’ll work.”

  Mr. Perez turned a little to look at Ryan. “You’re betting thirty thousand dollars it works. If it doesn’t, I don’t see I’ll need you anymore.”

  Ryan shrugged, showing he was at ease. “It’s okay with me. I never intended making a career out of this. Give me till about noon and I’ll call you.”

  “Maybe it won’t take that long,” Mr. Perez said. “Maybe, but I think a couple of hours the way she’s sleeping,” Ryan said. “Let her dry out a little, she’ll wake up dying of thirst.”

  “Well, Raymond and I could wait around for that matter.” Mr. Perez was playing with him now.

  Ryan shrugged again, as though it didn’t matter. “It’s up to you,” he said, “you want to sit around.”

  “Or I could leave Raymond.”

  “You decide what you’re going to do,” Ryan said. He was tense and had to move. He walked around into the kitchen and turned the burner on under the kettle. “You want some coffee?”

  “No, I guess we’ll leave it in your hands,” Mr. Perez said, taking the papers out of the attachй case and laying them on the counter. “Two copies of the agreement, two giving us power of attorney. It won’t hurt to get them both signed, and the copies.” Mr. Perez picked up his case and started out. “You’ll be sure and call me, now.”

  “The minute she signs,” Ryan said. “You got my word.”

  Denise sat up as she heard the door close. She was scuffing her feet into her sandals when Ryan came in, looking at the papers.

  “What does it say?”

  “Wait-‘We believe you are the legal owner of assets you are entitled to receive.’” He paused. “No, this is the agreement.” He looked at the other typewritten form. “‘I, Denise L. Leary, hereby appoint Francis X. Perez’-I love that, named after Saint Francis Xavier, the son of a bitch. This is it.” Ryan looked through the form quickly, then read it slowly, every word, before shaking his head.

  “What?” Denise said.

  “No company or stock name. The spaces are blank.” He dropped the papers on the bed. Denise didn’t pick them up or even look at them.

  Ryan walked over to the window. He looked out at the wet asphalt of the parking area that was empty except for a few cars. His light-blue Catalina stood alone near the entrance. It was quiet in the bedroom.

  “They didn’t have to break my lamp.”

  Ryan was thinking, Get in the car and go.

  There was silence.

  “Look, I don’t care,” Denise said. “If I don’t sign, then he doesn’t get anything either, does he? So why don’t we let it go at that? I’m tired and I really don’t care one way or the other. Really. I’d just as soon forget the whole thing. Shit, everything.”

  There was silence again for at least a minute,
maybe a little longer.

  Ryan turned from the window. He said, “Pack a bag, a suitcase.”

  Denise looked up at him. “Why?”

  “Come on, pack something and let’s get out of here.”

  19

  THEY WENT TO FLORIDA. Ryan was going to drive, but changed his mind heading south on 75 and made the turn to Detroit Metropolitan, got them seats on a Delta flight to Lauderdale and a Budget Rent a Car to Pompano Beach, a Pinto without air, and by seven o’clock that evening they were in an efficiency at the Vista Del Mar with groceries, new bathing outfits, thongs, and Coppertone, looking out at the Atlantic Ocean.

  “There,” Ryan said. “No more thinking for a week. Whoever mentions Perez or the stock or anything connected with it has to put five bucks in the kitty.”

  Denise looked around the room, from the picture window to the flowered rattan chairs to the twin beds, against opposite walls, that featured tailored beige spreads and bolsters that disguised them as sofas. Forty-five dollars a day including color TV and the ocean view. What more could you want? Ryan said.

  Denise said, “What I’d like more than anything is a glass of wine.”

  Ryan went into the kitchen and dug into a grocery bag. He came back out with a bottle of Blue Nun and two jelly glasses.

  “You mean it?” Denise said.

  “If the corkscrew works,” Ryan said. He took it out of his coat pocket.

  Denise watched him twist it into the cork. “You’re gonna have one, too?”

  “So you won’t have to drink alone,” Ryan said. He got the cork out. Pouring the wine, he said, “It’s not cold, though.”

  “I don’t care.” She took the glass he offered, with yellow daisies on it, and said, “Jesus, I don’t believe it.” Then took a drink and closed her eyes and opened them. “Jesus,” she said again, and watched Ryan sip his wine. “Why’re you doing this?”

  “I guess-I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I want us to be like normal everyday people on a vacation. Not think-I don’t mean get drunk and not think. I mean not worry about anything, relax, and have a good time. We can have the steak and a salad, I thought, instead of getting dressed and going out someplace.”

  “That sounds fine.”

  “I got a bottle of red, too, we can have with the steak.”

  “I didn’t see you get the wine.”

  “No, well-we can have this before, then the red with dinner. You want to fix it, or you want me to?”

  “No, I’ll do it.”

  “You feel okay?”

  “I feel fine. This morning, it seems like a long time ago,” Denise said. “I was going to take a shower, unless you want to eat right away.”

  “No, go ahead,” Ryan said. “We’re not in any hurry. We’re on our vacation.”

  They were polite, but it didn’t seem forced. That was the idea, to be natural.

  Ryan went outside with his wine. He turned on the orange light by the door, then turned it off again and sat down in a deck chair, propping his feet on the low wall that separated the patio area from the empty beach. It was a good time of the day: alone, feeling the breeze and listening to the ocean as it came in out of the darkness and broke and washed in forty yards away. He was here and she was in the shower and Mr. Perez was somewhere and out there were the Gulf Stream and Bimini, the Bahama Islands, and way out there in the darkness some of Denise’s whales talking to each other, not giving a shit about Mr. Perez getting mad and tense as he telephoned and got no answers. Maybe he’d go out to Denise’s again. Then what? Ryan could think about Mr. Perez without putting five bucks in the kitty, but he wished he could turn the man off in his mind. Kick the habit. He didn’t know what he was doing with the wine. Playing a game. Helping her through a bad time. Having some with her so she wouldn’t feel like a drunk. Making excuses. It didn’t taste that good, yet. She was probably pouring herself another one. He almost got up, but he made himself sit there, looking out at the ocean, and smoked a cigarette, and then, after a few minutes, smoked another one.

  “I was thinking about your whales,” Ryan said. “What do whales do?”

  “What do they do?” She held her knife and fork poised over the piece of sirloin on her plate and looked from the kitchen to the picture window in the other room. She looked clean and scrubbed in the faded green sweatshirt. Her tongue moved around inside her mouth. “They eat squid,” she said finally. “They love squid. And they like to play around, talk to each other.”

  “Make love?”

  “When the cows are in the mood.”

  “It’s up to the girl, uh?”

  “I guess so, unless the boy whale’s really horny.”

  Ryan was feeling good-when he came in, he saw the wine in the Blue Nun bottle at the same level-but he didn’t want her to think he was working up to something, talking about the whales making out. It was strange, last night she’d been naked, shoving her box at him; but now she was a different person and he was afraid to say the wrong thing.

  They had finished the white while she broiled the steak. They were halfway through the Almadйn red now. When her glass was down, she wouldn’t pour her own. She’d wait for Ryan to pour it, and he’d feel or imagine her watching him fill their glasses, making sure he didn’t take more for himself. He imagined it because it was something he used to do. He didn’t look up to see if she was watching; he was afraid to.

  When they finished eating, there were still two inches of wine left in the bottle. She picked up the bottle as she cleared the table and didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

  “You want to finish this?”

  “No, I don’t care for any more,” Ryan said.

  He watched her set the bottle on the table again. While she was doing the dishes, Ryan drying, he put the cork in the bottle and placed it on top of the refrigerator. There it was for whoever wanted it.

  After, they took their shoes off and walked down to the flat smooth sand and stood watching the surf, feeling the shock of cold as the water rushed in and the sand alive beneath their feet as the water was drawn back into the sea. He was at ease with her outside, on the beach, and then sitting in deck chairs on the patio. Even when they were silent he was at ease and felt good.

  But when they went in again and were alone in the room he was self-conscious and wondered what she was thinking, if she expected him to touch her and make the moves. The night before, she had said, “I’ve been wondering when it was coming-all the times you’ve been here.” She had been drunk saying it; still, she had thought it and said it. He wanted to touch her and she probably expected him to. He didn’t know why he felt dumb and awkward. If she didn’t want to do it, she’d tell him. But it had to be natural.

  She went in the bathroom and came out, and he went in and washed and brushed his teeth and combed his hair. When he came out, she was in bed. The slipcover had been taken off his bed and the light blanket and sheet turned down.

  “Where’d you find the pillows?”

  “In the closet.”

  He took off his shirt and pants. “Well, good night.”

  “Good night,” she said. “Sleep well.”

  He got in bed and lay on his back staring at the ceiling with the good-looking girl lying in her bed fifteen feet away. An outside light from somewhere reflected on the ceiling.

  Maybe she’d come over.

  No, she was waiting for him. Go on, for Christ’s sake. She was going to think he was a fag.

  In the silence he could hear the surf, a good sound, far away.

  She said, in the darkness, “Ryan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re a nice guy, you know it?”

  “Thanks,” Ryan said. “You’re nice too.” After a little while he rolled over on his side and rolled quietly a few more times in the hour it took him to go to sleep.

  She had expected him to come over. She was ready and would have let him get in her bed. When he didn’t, she was surprised, but not disappointed. There was time and she kn
ew it would happen, not with one of them making the move, but letting it happen, perhaps when they least expected it.

  He said to her, “You better be careful the first day.”

  She said, “No, I look like I burn, but I don’t. I get tan pretty quick, a couple of days. How about you?”

  “Yeah, I used to burn, but I don’t anymore.”

  That kind of beach conversation and talk about food-Do you like key lime pie? Do you like oysters?-and movies and movie stars and books they’d read, the one Denise was reading-“I know it’s dumb and she’s a terrible writer, but I love it”-lying in the Florida sun, rubbing each other’s back with lotion, going in the water to cool off rather than swim, neither of them was a swimmer-nothing about Mr. Perez. What was he doing? Who gave a shit?-and going to sleep on the beach in the late afternoon, waking up in cool shade, the sun behind the wall of condominiums, going to the Oceanside Shopping Center with the feel of the sun and the sand still on them, natives in one day, to buy straw hats and beach towels that said Pompano Beach, Florida, and oranges and avocados, a half pound of pistachios. They ate ice-cream cones and watched the white Cadillacs of the retirees take fifteen minutes to make a right-hand turn. Ryan said, You know what you do when you’re retired? You wait for the mail. First you wait for the paper and then the mail. Then you wait to get two thousand miles on your car so you can take it in for an oil change and a tune. He said, You see those Bermuda shorts the retired guys wear? You see how high they wear them up over their stomachs? Denise said, Yeah? Ryan said, What I want to know, where do they get zippers that long? Denise said, The same place the wives get the sequined sweaters they wear over their shoulders. Do you think the sleeves are real or fake? Ryan told her why didn’t she ask one of them, a retiree wife? She did, too. She asked a woman in front of the Oceanside Market if the sleeves of her sweater were real or for show. The woman looked at her. They walked back to the Vista Del Mar, past the hot red Pinto parked in front. Washing your car every day is also big, Ryan said. The salt air. Denise said, Washing me isn’t going to be any quick rinse. I’m dying to take a shower. Ryan said, You want some help? She laughed, she didn’t really answer him. It was coming, though.