by Sue Grafton
Ray shook his head, baffled. “He must have misunderstood,” he said. “Sure, I was looking for you, but I never said anything about danger. That’s odd. Old guy can’t hear. He might have got it mixed up.”
“Never mind. Just skip that. Let’s talk about something else.”
He glanced over toward the entrance to the restaurant, where a motley group of adolescent kids were beginning to collect. It must have been the same kids I’d seen running out on the road the day before. They must have been in town for some kind of track-and-field event. The noise level increased, and Ray’s voice went up to compete with the din. “You know, you really surprised me in my hotel room the other day.”
“How so?”
“You were right about Johnny. He was never in the service. He was in jail like you said.”
I love being right. It always cheers me up. “What about the story about how you knew each other? Was any of that true?”
“In the main,” he said. He paused and smiled, revealing a gap where a first molar should have been. He put a hand against his cheek where the bruising was deep blue with an aura of darker purple. “Don’t look now, but we’re surrounded.”
The track team seemed to spread out and around us like a liquid, settling into booths on all sides of us. The lone waitress was passing out menus like programs for some sporting competition.
“Quit stalling,” I said.
“Sorry. We did meet in Louisville, but it wasn’t at the Jeffersonville Boat Works. It wasn’t 1942, neither. It was earlier. Maybe ‘39 or ‘40. We were in the drunk tank together and struck up a friendship. I was nineteen at the time, and I’d been in jail a couple times. We hung out together some, you know, just messing around. Neither of us went in the army. We were both 4-F. I forget Johnny’s disability. Something to do with a ruptured disk. I had two busted eardrums and a bum knee. Bad weather, that sucker’s still giving me fits. Anyway, we had to do something – we were bored out of our gourds – so we started burglarizing joints, breaking into warehouses, stores, you know, things like that. I guess we pulled one job too many and got caught in the act. I ended up doing county time, but he got sent to state reformatory down in Lexington. He did twenty-two months of a five-year bid and moved his family out to California once he got sprung. After that, he was clean as far as I ever heard.”
“What about you?”
He dropped his gaze. “Yeah, well, you know, after Johnny left, I fell into bad company. I thought I was smart, but I was just a punk like everyone else. A guy steered me wrong on another job we pulled. Cops picked us up and I got sent to the Federal Correctional Institution up in Ashland, Kentucky, where I spent another fifteen months. I was out for a year and then in again. I never had the dough for a fancy-pants attorney, so I had to take pot luck. One thing and another, I’ve been inside ever since.”
“You’ve been in prison for over forty years?”
“Off and on. You think there aren’t guys who’ve been in prison that long? I could’ve been out a lot sooner, but my temper got the better of me until I finally figured out how to behave,” he said. “I suffered from what the docs call a ‘lack of impulse control.’ I learned that in prison. How to talk that way. Back then, if I thought of it, I did it. I never killed nobody,” he added in haste.
“This is a big relief,” I said.
“Well, later in prison, but that was self-defense.”
I nodded. “Ah.”
Rawson went right on. “Anyway, in the late forties, I started writing to this woman named Maria I met through a pen pal ad. I managed to escape once and I was out long enough for us to get married. She got pregnant and we had us a little girl I haven’t seen in years. A lot of women fall in love with inmates. You’d be surprised.”
“Nothing people do surprises me,” I said.
“Another time, when I was out, I ended up breaking parole. Sometimes I think Johnny felt responsible. Like if it hadn’t been for him, I might never have gotten in so tight with the criminal element. Wasn’t true, but I think that’s what he believed.”
“You’re saying Johnny kept in touch all these years because of guilt?”
“Mostly that,” he said. “And maybe because I was the only one who knew he’d been in jail besides his wife. With everybody else, he was always pretending to be something he wasn’t. All the tales about Burma and Claire Chennault. He got those from books. His kids thought he was a hero, but he knew he wasn’t. With me, he could be himself. Meantime, I got into grand theft auto and armed robbery, which is how I finally qualified for accommodations in the penitentiary. I did time in Lewisburg and a bid in Leavenworth, but I was mostly confined in Atlanta. That’s a real test of your survival skills. Atlanta’s where they’re housing all the Cuban criminals Castro’s sending over to keep us company.”
“What happened to Maria? Are you still married to her?”
“Nah. She finally divorced me because I couldn’t straighten up and fly right, but that was my fault, not hers. She’s a good woman.”
“It must be unsettling to have freedom after forty years.”
Rawson shrugged, looking off across the room. “They did what they could to prepare me for the outside. When I turned sixty, the BOP – Bureau of Prisons – started weaning me off hard time. My security level dropped to the point where I was eligible to move out of the joint. I got sent back to FCI Ashland, and what a revelation that was. It’d been thirty-five years since I’d seen the place. I’m looking at punks the same age as I was when I first got sent up. All of the sudden, I’m ‘getting it,’ you know? Like I can see the big picture. I did a complete turnaround in the space of a year, picked up my GED, and started taking college classes. I started taking care of myself, quit smoking, started lifting weights, and like that. Got myself buffed up. I went before the parole board this time and got early release.”
Ray paused to look around at the kids nearby. They were crowded into booths and tables, chairs pulled up. Menus were being passed hand to hand above their heads while the rustle of restless laughter washed across them in waves. It was a sound I liked, energetic, innocent. Ray shook his head. “Kids are up on my floor, about two doors down. My God, the shrieking and pounding up and down the halls. It goes on ‘til all hours.”
“Are you still in touch with Maria?”
“Now and then. She remarried. Last I heard, she’s still in Louisville somewhere. I’d like to go back and see her as soon as I’m done with this. I want to see my daughter, too, and make it up to her. I know I haven’t been a good father – I was too busy screwing up – but I’d like to try. I want to see my mother, too.”
“Your mother’s still alive?” I asked, incredulous.
“Sure. She’s eighty-five, but she’s as tough as they come.”
“Not that it’s any of my business, but how old are you?”
“Sixty-five. Old enough to retire if I ever had a real job.”
“So you were released fairly recently,” I said.
“About three weeks ago. I went from Ashland to six months in a halfway house. Soon as I was sprung, I headed for the coast. I wrote to Johnny in April and gave him my release date. He said to come ahead, he’d help me out. So that’s what I did. The rest is just like I told you before. I didn’t know he was dead until I knocked on Bucky’s door.”
“What kind of help was Johnny talking about?”
Rawson shrugged. “Place to stay. A stake. He had some ideas about a little business we could run. I worked in the joint – every able-bodied inmate works – but I was only earning forty cents an hour, out of which I had to pay for my own candy bars, soda pop, and deodorant, stuff like that, so it’s not like I had any kind of savings built up.”
“How’d you pay for travel getting out here?”
“My mother lent me the money. I said I’d pay her back.”
“Who’s the guy who broke into Johnny’s place?”
“His name is Gilbert Hays, a former celly of mine. He’s a guy I did time with a coupl
e of years ago. I shot off my big mouth, trying to impress the crud. Don’t ask why. He’s such a cocky piece of excrement, I’m still kicking myself.” His grimace opened up the split in his lower lip. A line of blood welled out. He pressed a paper napkin to his mouth.
“Shot your mouth off about what?”
“Look, we’re in the joint. What do any of us have to do except BS each other? He was always bragging about something, so I told him about Johnny. The guy was a miser, always squirreling cash away. Johnny didn’t come right out and say so, but he used to hint he had big bucks hidden on the property.”
“You were going to rip him off?”
“Not me. Hey, come on. I wouldn’t do that to him. We were just telling tall tales. Later, Hays and me had a falling-out. He probably figured he could pick up a wad of cash and I’d never know the difference.”
“You told him where Johnny lived?”
“California is all I said. He must’ve followed me across country, the slimy son of a bitch.”
“How’d he know you’d been released?”
“Now that, I don’t know. He might have talked to my PO. I seem to recall I might’ve threatened him once upon a time. He probably told ‘em he was worried I’d come after him. Which I still might.”
“How did you figure out it was him?”
“I didn’t at first. Minute I heard about the breakin, I knew something was off, but I didn’t think about Hays. Then I realized what happened and, like, it had to be him. Simple process of elimination because I never breathed a word about Johnny to anyone else.” Ray lifted the napkin away from his bleeding lip. “How’s that?”
“Well, it isn’t gushing,” I said. “Can we back up a bit? Once you heard Johnny was dead, what made you so sure he still had money stashed somewhere?”
“I wasn’t sure, but it just made sense. Guy drops dead of a heart attack, he doesn’t have time to do anything. Talking to Bucky, I realized the kid didn’t have a dime, so if there’s money, it’s probably still hidden somewhere on the premises. I figure if I rent his place, I can look around at my leisure.”
“Meanwhile, you didn’t say a word to Bucky about this.”
“About the money? No way. You know why? Suppose I’m wrong? Why get their hopes up if there’s nothing? If I do find some money, I can ask for a cut.”
“Oh, right. This is money they don’t know anything about and you’re telling me you’d turn it over to them?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I might skim off a small percentage, but what harm would that do? They’re still gonna come up with more than they ever had reason to expect.”
“And in the meantime, this former cellmate’s followed you to Johnny’s door.”
“That’s my guess.”
“How’d he know about the kickplate?”
Ray held up his battered hand. “Because I told him. Otherwise, he’d have broken every bone in my hand. He had me at a disadvantage because I wasn’t expecting him. Next time I’ll know, and one of us is going to end up dead.”
“How did you know about the kickplate?”
Ray tapped himself on the temple. “I know how Johnny’s mind worked. That day I came up there and you were looking through his books? I was doing a little survey. He’d used a kickplate before – this was way back when – so I was thinking I’d try that first.” He stirred in his seat. “You don’t believe me. I can tell by the look on your face.”
I smiled slightly. “You’re a very slick man. You lie about as well as I do, only you’ve had more practice.”
He started to say something, but the waitress had reappeared with two steaming plates on a tray. She looked harried, to say the least. She set down juice, two side orders of buttered toast, and a variety of jams. She took a couple of small paper packets from the pocket of her uniform and put them by his plate. “I got you these,” she said.
Ray picked up a packet. “What’s Midol?”
“For cramps, but it’ll cure anything that ails you. Just don’t take too many. You might develop PMS.”
“PMS?” he said blankly.
Neither of us responded. Let him figure it out. She refilled our coffee cups and moved on to another table, taking out her order pad. Ray opened a paper packet and tossed back two tablets with his orange juice. We spent a short, intense spell shoveling food down our throats.
Rawson finally dabbed a paper napkin gingerly across his lips. “You want my suggestion, I’d say let’s quit hassling what’s past and figure out what comes next.”
“Ah. Now we’re partners. The buddy system,” I said.
“Sure, why not? Gilbert Hays took Johnny’s money, and I want it back. This is not just for me. I’m talking about Bucky and Chester. Isn’t that why they hired you? To return what Hays stole?”
“I suppose,” I said.
He shrugged laconically. “So how about it, then? What’s the plan?”
“How come it’s up to me? You think of one,” I said.
“You’re the one getting paid. I’m just here to assist.”
I studied him, debating the garbled tale he’d just told. I didn’t really believe he was telling me the truth, but I didn’t know him well enough to know what kinds of lies he told. “Actually, there is one possibility, and I could use some help,” I said.
“Good. What’s the deal?”
I took out Laura’s room key and placed it on the table. “I have the key to Laura Huckaby’s room.”
His face went completely blank, and then his brow was furrowed by a squint. He leaned forward, staring. He said, “What?”
“The woman with the duffel. She’s using the name Hudson, but that’s the key to her room.”
Chapter 10
*
I hauled one of the linen carts out of the utility alcove on Laura Huckaby’s floor. I had changed into my red uniform again, ready to go to work. I pulled a stack of clean sheets and towels from the shelf in the linen room and put them on my cart, adding boxes of tissues, toilet paper, toiletries, and the laminated Maid in Room sign I’d snitched before. I checked the clipboard attached to the cart on one end. A ballpoint pen was affixed to the clipboard with a tatty piece of string. None of the rooms had been done as far as I could see. Bernadette and Eileen were listed on the worksheet, but none of their duties had been checked off as yet. I wasn’t sure what would happen if one of them showed up in the midst of my faux labors. Surely nobody would object to my pitching in… unless these women got territorial about toilet bowls. I pushed the linen cart ahead of me down the carpeted corridor. The wheels kept getting hung up in the high-low pile, and I struggled to keep the cart from lumbering into walls.
The plan Ray Rawson and I had worked out was this: Rawson would call Laura’s room from the house phone on the far side of the lobby within view of the front desk. He’d claim to be the desk clerk, in receipt of a package that required her signature. He’d tell her he was just now going on his break, but the package would be waiting on the manager’s desk. If she could come down as soon as possible, one of the other clerks would be happy to get it for her. If she asked to have it sent up, he’d inform her, regretfully, this was against hotel policy. Recently a package had been misdelivered, and the manager was now insisting the guests appear in person.
While this was going on, I was to loiter in the corridor near her room, making careful note of the time she left. As soon as the “down” elevator doors closed behind her, I would let myself into 1236 with her key. Laura would reach the lobby, where the desk clerk would search in vain for the nonexistent package. Confusion, upset, and apologies forthcoming. Everyone would profess ignorance of both package and policy. Sorry for the inconvenience. As soon as the package surfaced, it would be sent up.
Once she left the desk, on her way upstairs again, Rawson would call the room and let the phone ring once. That would be my cue to get out if I was still there. Since I knew exactly where the duffel was located, it shouldn’t take more than ten seconds to snag the contents. By the time Laura e
merged from the elevator on twelve, I’d be heading down the fire stairs to the eighth floor again. There I’d change into my street clothes and grab my shoulder bag. I would meet Rawson in the lobby, and before Laura even realized that she’d been ripped off, we’d be on our way to the airport, where we’d get the next flight out. I wasn’t at all bothered by the ethics of stealing money from thieves. It was the notion of getting caught made my heart go pitty-pat.
I positioned my cart two rooms away from Laura’s door and checked my watch. Rawson was waiting to make his call at 10:00, allowing me time to get myself set up. It was 9:58. I occupied myself with a load of towels, which I folded and refolded, wanting to be busily engaged when Laura Huckaby came out. The corridor was dead quiet, and the acoustics were such that I could hear the telephone begin to ring when he called her room. The phone was picked up after two rings and a tidy silence ensued. I could feel my stomach churning with anticipation. Mentally I rehearsed, picturing her trip down the hall, into the elevator, over to the desk. Chat with the clerk, the search for the package, frustration and assurances, and back she’d come. I’d have at least a five-minute window of opportunity, more than ample time for the task I’d assigned myself.
I checked my watch again: 10:08. What was taking her so long? I thought she’d be wildly curious about the arrival of a package, especially one that required her signature. Whatever the delay, it was 10:17 before she emerged. I kept my face averted, avoiding her gaze as I picked up my clipboard and made random marks. She closed the door behind her and then caught sight of me. “Oh, hi. Remember me?”
I looked up at her. “Yes, ma’am. How are you?” I said. I put the clipboard down and picked up a towel, which I folded in half.
“Did you come across my key when you serviced the room last night?” She wore the usual heavy makeup, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, tied with a scarf of bright green chiffon.
“No, ma’am, but if it’s missing, you can get a duplicate at the front desk.” I folded another towel and put it on the stack.