Riding the Rap

by Elmore Leonard

  Raylan said, “A person in the spirit world?”

  “No, it’s someone close by, though I don’t see him yet.”

  Reverend Dawn Navarro, Certified Medium & Spiritualist on her business card, would look up with her eyes closed and shake her head to one side, a quick little move to get her hair out of her face. The way her hair was parted in the middle and hung long and straight made Raylan think of how girls looked back in the days of hippies and flower children. Otherwise she seemed to have no particular style, wearing jeans and a loose white T-shirt. He believed her eyes were green and would check it out when she opened them again. He had already decided she was good-looking enough to be in a pageant or have a job on TV pointing to game-show prizes. The only thing that bothered him about her, looking at her hands resting on his, she bit her fingernails as far down as he had ever seen fingernails bitten.

  “Did you know,” Reverend Dawn said, “you have psychic powers of your own?”

  He thought of Joyce accusing him of it.

  “All that energy in you.”

  “Is that right?”

  “You like to help people,” she said. “I see you taking someone by the arm.”

  Raylan didn’t comment. Then she didn’t speak either, her head raised as though listening for something. The house was quiet, this little stucco place full of old furniture and knickknacks sitting on shelves.

  “The message I’m getting,” Reverend Dawn said, “there’s an individual you’re having a disagreement with and you want to get it settled. Now what I’m getting”—she paused—“yes, it could be someone who’s gone over to the other side.”

  Raylan gave it some thought and said, “Did I harm this person in any way?”

  She shook her head, eyes still closed. “I’m not getting any kind of vibes like that. I think it’s something that was left undone, something that’s been bothering you and you want it cleared up. That’s the message I’m getting. There was some kind of disagreement between you and this person?”

  “Well, there’s one I can think of.”

  Raylan paused and Reverend Dawn said right away, “That’s who it is, the first one who comes to mind.”

  Raylan paused again. “I was responsible, you might say, for his death.”

  This time Reverend Dawn said, “Oh,” and opened her eyes. They were green. “Your fault—you’re not talking about an accident, like a car wreck, something you caused.”

  “Nothing like that,” Raylan said. “But see, the thing between us was settled. There isn’t anything left has to be done.”

  She kept staring at him now as she said, “You’re positive of that?” Not sounding as psychic as she did before, telling him about earth planes and spirit guides. She said, “What about a relative?”

  “My dad’s over there,” Raylan said. “Died of black lung before his time. I’d just as soon leave him rest in peace.”

  “I mean a relative of the one you had something to do with his passing over,” Reverend Dawn said. “A person that might be holding a grudge against you.”

  Raylan shook his head. “I doubt it.”

  Reverend Dawn seemed to study him, thinking, making up her mind. Finally then she closed her eyes again and raised her face as though to stare off past him, a really nice-looking girl, while her figure remained a mystery beneath that loose T-shirt.

  “The gray wolf is trying to tell me something.” She paused and said, “You’re a teacher, aren’t you?”

  Raylan said, “You’re kidding,” and thought too late, Wait a minute. Before being assigned to Miami he was a firearms instructor at Glynco, a training center for federal agents. He let it go as not important, or not the kind of teacher she meant. With her eyes closed he could stare, look at her closely. She seemed to him too young and attractive to be stuck in this place telling fortunes.

  She said, “You are in a profession. I want to say lawyer, even though I know that isn’t it.”

  Raylan kept quiet.

  She said, “Coming across the yard you had your hat off, but as you reached the door you put it on.”

  “I guess I did, didn’t I?”

  “You were being . . . I want to say official, and your hat’s like a badge of office. You like to set it forward a little, close over your eyes.”

  “I’ve had that hat eight years,” Raylan said. “I never thought I wore it any special way, I just put it on my head.”

  Reverend Dawn surprised him this time saying, “You’re from either West Virginia . . . No, you’re from Kentucky. You worked in coal mines at one time, but haven’t done that for a while now, it’s way in your past. You still think of yourself, though—not all the time but once in a while—as a coal miner. Don’t you?”

  “It’s what all the men on both sides of my family did,” Raylan said. Today he was wearing a blue-and-white sport shirt with sailboats on it and jeans with his hat and cowboy boots, not wanting to give her any idea of what he did for a living.

  Her hands moved on his, fingertips brushing his knuckles, it seemed needing only a light touch to read him. She said, “You’re looking for someone, a man.”

  When she paused Raylan said, “If you mean on this earth plane, yes, I am.”

  “The one you’re having this disagreement with.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. He said, “We—”

  And she cut him off. “It’s not an argument exactly, it’s just, there’s something about him that bothers you.”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Well, that bothers me, too, a lot. I won’t allow myself to be an instrument in this matter if you intend to do him harm, or anyone else.”

  “I’d never do him harm.”

  “But he’s on your mind all the time?”

  “Not him, no. Someone else is.”

  She opened her eyes, stared at him and said, “Now you’re talking about a woman, aren’t you?”

  Raylan nodded and she closed her eyes again to get back into it, her expression, he noticed, more at peace.

  Reverend Dawn said, “Okay, there’s a woman . . .” and said, “Wait a minute, I see another woman. You have a situation here I didn’t sense right away, this man being on your mind. Okay, now there’re two women. You’re married . . .”

  “I was.”

  “I see children, a couple of little boys.”

  “How are they?”

  “They’re fine. Living with their mother . . .”

  “Ricky and Randy. I wanted to call them Hank and George, after Hank Williams and Ole Possum, George Jones? But Winona got her way, as usual. Yeah, they’re with her up in Brunswick, Georgia.”

  “She divorced you,” Reverend Dawn said, “to many a man she met.” She paused. “But he isn’t the one you’re looking for.”

  “There was a time I almost went after him.”

  “Because of your boys, not so much over his taking Winona from you.”

  Raylan said, “That’s right,” even though he believed it was Winona’s idea to start something with the real estate man who’d sold their house, Gary Jones, and not a matter of her being stolen away.

  Reverend Dawn was saying, “You met this other woman.”

  “That’s right, in Miami Beach.”

  “You and she are close,” Reverend Dawn said. “I’ll go so far as to say intimate.”

  Raylan wasn’t sure that was still true. “You shared a frightening experience. . . .”

  She waited, but Raylan didn’t help her.

  “That part isn’t too clear, but there’s someone else, a man. He stands in the way of you and this woman planning a life together.”

  Raylan said, “That’s pretty good.”

  “He’s an older man.”

  Raylan waited.

  “But not her father.”

  “You don’t see him, huh?”

  “Not too clearly.”

  “I’m surprised,” Raylan said. “He was here just the other day, Friday afternoon.”

  He waited for R
everend Dawn to open her eyes and look at him. When she did she stared without speaking and he was aware of how quiet it was in the house.

  She said finally, “What’s his name?”

  “Harry Arno.”

  Raylan kept watching her thinking she’d close her eyes as she tried to recall Harry, but Reverend Dawn continued to stare at him, hard, and Raylan had to concentrate to stare back at her, not look away. He said, “Harry’s sixty-eight—no, sixty-nine—medium height, grayish hair, lives in Miami Beach. I imagine he told you all about himself. Harry loves to talk.”

  Reverend Dawn kept staring at him even as she shook her head back and forth, twice.

  Raylan frowned and then tried to smile. Was she kidding? He said, “You don’t remember him? Harry Arno?” He watched her shake her head again and said, “I wonder if Harry used another name for some reason. How about, did anyone who came here Friday ask you about going back to Italy? Whether he should or not?”

  She said, “Oh . . .” this time nodding. “Parts his hair on the right side, which is kind of unusual, and touches it up to cover the gray. Drives a white Cadillac.”

  “That’s Harry.” Now Raylan was nodding. “So you did talk to him.”

  “For a few minutes,” Reverend Dawn said, “at a restaurant where I do readings.” Nodding again. “He did mention Italy. Has a house there? . . . But I didn’t give him a reading, here or at the restaurant. I offered to and he said some other time. He seemed—now that I think about it—in a hurry.”

  There was a silence and Raylan felt her moving the tips of her fingers over his hands. Almost, he thought, like she was tickling him.

  “I could let you know if I see him again,” Reverend Dawn said. “You have a business card?”

  “I told her,” Raylan said to Joyce on the restaurant phone, back there again, “I didn’t have one. I just gave her my name.”

  Joyce said, “But if she does hear from him . . .”

  “She wanted the card to find out who I am, what I do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her?”

  “’Cause I’m pretty sure Harry went to see her and I can’t figure out why she’d lie about it.”

  “How do you know he was there?”

  “It’s a feeling I have.”

  She said, “That’s all, a hunch?”

  “Joyce, I ask people questions and listen to how they answer. It wasn’t she acted nervous or evasive. What it was, she sounded different after I mentioned Harry. Before that it was all psychic stuff, like she saw a gray wolf in the room with us. But she didn’t know why I was there till I asked about Harry.”

  “There was a wolf?”

  “A spirit guide. Reverend Dawn said when I arrived a guy in a black cape walked up to the door with me. Another spirit.”

  “Reverend Dawn?”

  “Dawn Navarro. I didn’t ask why she’s ‘reverend.’”

  “But you think she’s a fake.”

  “I had the feeling she put on some of it, talking about the spirit world and this earth plane we’re on. She did say I was looking for someone, but to clear up a misunderstanding. And she said I was originally from Kentucky. But might’ve gotten that from something I said.”

  “Maybe,” Joyce said, “Harry asked her not to tell anyone he was there.”

  “Why would he think anybody’d care? Either he didn’t go see her and took off from here on his own—”

  “Why would he?”

  “So you’ll worry about him. Or he did see Reverend Dawn and she lied to me.”

  “You think she knows where he is?”

  “She might’ve looked at a tarot card and saw him taking a trip. He liked the idea and made her promise not to tell anybody. Or . . .”

  “What?”

  “She knows where he is and has some other reason for not telling. What it could be,” Raylan said, “I have no idea. How about Harry’s ledger—you find it?”

  “I have it right here,” Joyce said. “All the ones he’s checked off are the ones he saw when I was driving him around.”

  “Any up this way, around Delray Beach?”

  “It lists just names and phone numbers, and the amount owed. Some of the ones not checked off have 407 area codes.”

  “That’s up here, Palm Beach County.”

  “I know,” Joyce said. “And the guy who owes Harry the sixteen five? Harry has it written sixteen point five K. His name is Chip Ganz, with Cal in parens, and a phone number with a 407 area code. I could call him, find out if the money was collected.”

  Raylan said, “Well . . .” thinking about it. “Why don’t you give me the number. I’ll find out where Ganz lives and go see him, unless you hear from Harry. It won’t be for a couple of days, though, we’re pretty busy.”

  “What if I don’t hear from him?”

  “Let me know. I’ll have another talk with Reverend Dawn.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “The way girls used to look twenty years ago. Long, dark hair parted in the middle. Thin . . .”

  “How old?”

  “Maybe thirty.”

  “She’s young.”

  “Nice-looking, but bites her fingernails.”

  “You want to see her again, don’t you?”

  “I may have to,” Raylan said.

  eleven

  Dawn phoned Chip’s pager as soon as Raylan was out of the house, no wolf following him now, Raylan putting on what seemed his official hat as he walked from tree shade into sunlight, cocking the brim low on his eyes, and Dawn thought, He knows you’re watching. Okay, Mr. Raylan Givens, I’m gonna keep watching. Pretty sure he’d be back in the next couple of days.

  Waiting for Chip to answer his pager she looked for a fingernail to bite on.

  Sundays he was never home. He’d stroll one of the beaches or a mall or visit a Huggers Gathering in the park and try not to get hugged while he mingled and looked for runaways. Chip’s favorite kind were young girls who’d left home pissed off at their dads and feeling betrayed by their moms; they came to Gatherings homesick, would get caught up in the flashing peace signs and Huggers saying “Love you” with dopey grins and pretty soon the little girls would be dosing on acid.

  The time Chip held a Gathering at his home Dawn stopped by to see what it was all about. There were Huggers all over the patio and what used to be a lawn that extended to the beach; Chip’s New Age pals and their girlfriends, about forty people, most of them hairy, pierced, tie-dyed and tattooed earth people and born-again bikers. They came in rusting-out vans and pickups with their beer and dope and got high while cops cruised Ocean Boulevard past the PRIVATE DRIVE, KEEP OUT sign, and while Chip moved among them grinning, showing his movie-star teeth he’d had capped in another time, before his life went in the toilet.

  Dawn had the tip of her left thumb between her teeth, gnawing to get a purchase on the nail and thinking about Raylan again, a cowboy in a shirt with sailboats on it driving off in a dark green Jaguar she knew wasn’t his.

  The phone rang.

  Chip said, “This is important, right?” With his deadpan delivery he thought was cool. “Taking me away from business?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Dreher Park, West Palm; I’m picnicking.”

  “Let’s see,” Dawn said, closing her eyes, “the girl you’re with has stringy blond hair, cutoff jeans, she’s from Ohio and hasn’t had a bath in a week.”

  “Indiana,” Chip said, “she’s a little Hoosier. Nasty kid, hates her parents. I dropped acid in her eye and she sweetened up some.”

  “About sixteen?”

  “Going on thirty, but dumb.”

  “Her folks,” Dawn said, “don’t even miss her.”

  “What’re you, a mind reader? I told her dad up in Kokomo, Indiana, I’d let him know where to find his little girl for five big ones. He goes, ‘She isn’t worth near that much,’ and hangs up on me. What we’re doing, you understand, we’re negotiating. I call him back. ‘Okay, twenty-five hundred
and I’ll see no harm comes to your little girl. All you have to do is wire the cash.’ I give him the name I use and he hangs up on me, again. I’m thinking, What kind of a father is this guy? When I call back I’ll talk to the mom. Jesus, parents these days . . .”

  “Try the mom for fifteen hundred,” Dawn said, “so I can get paid. Your new guy, Bobby? He said he’d bring it next week, and I’m sure he’ll come, but it won’t be to pay me.”

  Chip said, “You call to chat or what?”

  “A guy came by for a reading,” Dawn said. “It turns out he’s some kind of federal agent and guess who he’s looking for?”

  Chip said, “What do you mean some kind of federal agent? He show you his I.D.?”

  “He didn’t have to, except he doesn’t look anything like one. He’s forty-three. When he was younger he was a coal miner.”

  “You check his fingernails?”

  “He walked in, I thought he was a farmer, or maybe a rancher. He looks like a cowboy, that raw-boned, outdoor type. Wears cowboy boots and a hat with a curled brim.”

  “The Marlboro man,” Chip said.

  “Yeah, except he’s real.”

  “And he’s looking for me?”

  “Actually your name didn’t come up. He’s looking for Harry Arno.”

  There was a silence before Chip’s voice came back on the line. “What reason did he give?”

  “Are you kidding? The man was here Friday and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “But why is this guy looking for him?”

  “I just told you.”

  “I mean, you say he’s a federal agent, is he investigating Harry’s disappearance or he’s a friend or what?”

  Dawn wasn’t sure, so she said, “What difference does it make? He thinks Harry was here.”

  “How could he?”

  “I guess someone remembered seeing us together, at the restaurant.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “That he wasn’t here.”