by Sue Grafton
I put the phone book down, abandoning the notion of getting back on a plane. Maybe all was not lost. I picked up the duffel and moved forward, scanning the expanse of lobby within view. The five businessmen leaned toward each other, passing the pages of some report between them. As usual, in such a group, one fellow seemed to command the attention of the others. Behind me the door opened abruptly, and before I could turn around, I was snagged by the elbow and pulled into the stairwell.
Chapter 11
*
“Where the hell have you been?”
I turned, astonished. It was Ray, his badly bruised face about six inches from mine. He’d removed the tape from his nose, but it still looked like his nostrils were packed with cotton. His skin smelled medicinal, the sort of aftershave you’d sport in an emergency room, composed of equal parts rubbing alcohol, adhesive tape, and suturing material. He still clutched me with his injured hand, his splinted fingers held stiffly.
“Where have I been? Where have you been?” Our voices seemed to ricochet up the stairwell like a flock of shrieking birds. Both of us glanced upward and lowered our tones to rasping whispers. Ray urged me into the cul-de-sac formed by the final flight of steps where it dead-ended at the wall.
“Christ, those guys are on to you,” he hissed. “Some yo-yo with a walkie-talkie’s been giving me the third degree. I’m waiting by the house phone and he asks if I’d mind ‘stepping into the office.’ What was I supposed to do? He knows who you are and he wants to know what you’re doing here.”
“Why’d he ask you?”
“He’d been checking around. The waitress must have told him she’d seen us together. I wasn’t hard to spot. With a mug like this? I told him you were a private investigator working undercover on a case I wasn’t at liberty to discuss.”
“Who did he think you were, a cop?”
“I told him I was part of a witness protection program, being moved to another state. I had to talk like this was all very hush-hush, life-or-death stuff.”
“They couldn’t have believed you. How’d you get away?”
“They don’t give a shit who I am. They just want me out of here. I said I’d go up to the room and get my things. They escorted me to the elevator, and as soon as they left, I turned around and came down. Is that the duffel? Give it here.”
I jerked it out of his reach. “Listen, you piker. Do you swear on a stack of Bibles you’ve told me the truth? This is cash we’re looking for, not drugs or diamonds or stolen documents, right?”
“It’s money. I swear. You didn’t find it?”
“I didn’t find a thing. How much are we talking about?”
“Eight thousand dollars, maybe a little less by now.”
“That’s all?”
“Come on. It’s a lot when you don’t have a dime, which I don’t.”
“Somehow I got the impression it was more,” I said.
Our voices had started to reverberate again. He put a finger to his lips.
“Where’d the money come from?” I whispered hoarsely.
“I’ll tell you later. Let’s see if we can find a way out of here.”
“There’s a service corridor below this one, but you can’t access it from here,” I said.
“What about the floor above?”
“I don’t think so.” He started up the steps, but I grabbed his arm. “Wait a minute. Slow down. We need a plan.”
“We need the cash,” he corrected, “before hotel security catches up with us again. Maybe this Huckaby woman left the money with the manager.”
“She couldn’t. I was standing in the same line when she checked in. She didn’t deposit any valuables. I’d have seen her do that.”
“Then where is it? She’s not going to let the money out of her sight. If we figure out where she’s got it, you can snag it and run.”
“Oh, I can? That’s nice. What about you?”
“I’m speaking figuratively,” he said.
“Well, the cash isn’t in her room because I’ve searched.”
“Then she must have it with her.”
“She does not. I told you that. Ah!” I heard the sound an idea makes when your brain ignites, a tiny implosion, like spontaneous combustion at the base of your skull. “Wait a minute. I got it. I think I know where it is. Come with me.”
I knocked on Laura Huckaby’s door. There was a pause. She was probably checking through the spy hole to see who it was. Ray was standing against the wall to the left of the door, with a look of suffering on his face. “I know how Gilbert got my release date,” he said dully. “I didn’t want to tell you unless I had to.”
“Hush,” I said under my breath. I couldn’t figure out what his problem was, aside from the obvious. He’d been curiously reluctant to come up here with me, suggesting all kinds of reasons I should do it myself. I’d been adamant. For one thing, if we were caught, we could act like we were just leaving. For another, now that Chester was pissed off, I didn’t want to take sole responsibility. As before, Laura opened the door a crack, leaving the chain in place.
I held up the duffel. “Hi, it’s me. I’m off duty. I found this in the hall.”
“Is that mine?”
“I think so. Wasn’t this sitting in your closet last night?”
“How’d it get out there?”
“Beats me. I spotted it in passing and thought I’d knock,” I said. “It is yours, isn’t it?”
She studied it briefly. “Just a minute. I’ll check.” She left the door ajar, still secured by the chain, while she moved into the dressing area and opened the closet door. Ray and I exchanged a look. I knew she wasn’t going to find her duffel, but I waited dutifully, playing out the charade. She returned to the door, her expression perplexed. “I guess it is mine.” It was clear she didn’t want to trust me, but what could she do? From her point of view, she’d been subjected to inexplicable occurrences. A lost key, a missing package, now the wandering duffel.
“I can leave it out here. You want me to do that?”
“No, that’s all right.” She closed the door and slipped the chain off its track. She opened the door again just wide enough for the duffel, holding her hand out as if to take it from me. I put a hand around the edge of the door, effectively preventing her from closing it.
She seemed startled by the gesture and said, “Hey!” irritably.
I hoped my smile was reassuring. “Mind if I come in? We need to talk.” I pushed the door inward.
“Get away,” she said, pushing back.
We grappled with the door, but Ray had moved into the picture by then, and after a mute struggle on her part, she relinquished control. She’d begun to realize that something was dreadfully wrong.
“I’m Kinsey Millhone,” I said as we stepped into the room. “This is my friend Ray.”
She backed up a step, taking in Ray’s bruised and swollen face. “What is this?”
“We called a meeting about the money,” I said. “Just between you, me, and him.”
She pivoted, moving rapidly toward the bed table, where she snatched up the receiver. Ray intercepted her and banged down the button before she could press “0.”
“Take it easy. We just want to talk to you,” he said. He removed the receiver from her hand and dropped it in the cradle.
“Who are you? What is this, some kind of shakedown?”
“Not at all,” I said. “We followed you from California. Your friend Gilbert stole some money, and Ray, here, wants it back.”
Her eyes fixed on me and then jumped to him, comprehension dawning. “You’re Ray Rawson.”
“That’s right.”
She raised a hand rapidly as if to slap him in the face. Ray blocked the move and caught the blow on his arm. He grabbed her wrist with his good hand. “Don’t do that,” he said.
“Get your fuckin’ hands off me!”
“Just give us the money and we’ll leave you alone.”
“It isn’t yours. It belongs to Gilbert.”
Ray shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Money belongs to me and a guy named Johnny Lee. Johnny died four months ago, so I’m passing his share along to his son and grandson. Gilbert tried to rip us off.”
“You goddamn shit. That’s not true! The money’s his and you know it. You’re the one who blew the whistle. His brother died because of you.”
“That’s bullshit. Is that what he said?”
“Well, yes. He told me it was some kind of sting and it was all set up. You tipped off the cops and Donnie was killed in the shoot-out,” she said.
“Wait a minute, gang. What’s going on?” I said.
Ray seemed unruffled, ignoring me altogether in his focus on her. “He lied to you, baby. Gilbert sold you a bill of goods. He probably had to do that to get you to participate, right? Because if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t help. I hope.”
“You asshole. He told me you’d try to do this, twist the truth until it suited your purposes.”
“You want the truth? I’ll tell you. You want to hear what went down?”
She put her hands to her ears, as if to shut him out. “I don’t have to hear it from you. Gilbert told me what happened.”
I raised my hand. “Would one of you stop and tell me what this is about? Do you two know each other?”
“Not exactly,” Ray said. He turned to look at her, and the two of them locked eyes. Ray’s gaze flicked back to mine. “This is my daughter. I haven’t seen her in years.”
She flung herself at him, banging with her fists on his chest. “You are such a fuck,” she said, and promptly burst into tears.
I looked from one to the other. My mouth did not really fall open, but that’s what it felt like.
Ray gathered her into his arms. “I know, baby, I know,” he murmured, patting at her. “I feel so bad about everything.”
It probably took another five or six minutes for Laura’s tears to taper off. Her face was mashed against his shoulder, her bulky belly making the embrace seem awkward. Ray rested his battered cheek against her tangled hair, most of which had come loose now, hanging down in dark auburn clumps. Ray was nearly humming with unhappiness at the sound of her misery, which she managed to express with a childlike lack of inhibition. Neither was accustomed to the physical contact, and my suspicion was that the fleeting connection by no means represented resolution. If their estrangement was lifelong, it would take more than a Hallmark moment to set it right. In the meantime, I blocked any thought of my cousin Tasha and my estrangement from Grand.
I went to the window and looked out at the barren stretch of Texas countryside. I felt about as arid. Here, as in California, the liberal application of imported water was the only means by which the land was being reclaimed from the desert. At least I understood now why he hadn’t wanted to come up here. He must have dreaded the moment when the two of them would meet, especially once he understood how Gilbert Hays had used her. Why is it that life’s most touching moments are so often the most depressing?
Behind me, finally, the weeping seemed to be diminishing. There was some murmuring between them that I politely tuned out. When I turned back, the two were seated side by side on one of the double beds. Laura’s tears had streaked through the many layers of makeup, bringing ancient bruises to the surface. It was clear she’d recently suffered a black eye. Her jaw was tinted a drab green, washing out to yellow around the edges, colors repeated in the riper bruises of her father’s face. Odd to think the same man had beaten both. He studied her face, and the effect wasn’t lost on him. A look of pain filled his eyes. “He do that to you? Because if he did, I’ll kill him, I swear to God.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she said.
“It wasn’t like that. Bullshit.”
Her eyes flooded again. I moved into the dressing area and grabbed some tissues from the dispenser. When I returned to the bed, Ray took the wad and passed them over to her. She blew her nose and then looked at me with resentment. “You’re not really the maid,” she said resentfully. “You didn’t even do the sheet corners right.”
“I’m a private investigator.”
“I knew this hotel wouldn’t have turn-down service. I should have trusted my instincts.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I said. I sat down on the other bed. “Now would one of you fill me in?”
Ray turned to me with an expectant look. “Wait a minute. What’s the deal?”
“The deal?”
“I don’t know where the money is. I thought it was up here someplace.”
“Ah, the money. Why don’t you ask her?”
“Me? I don’t have it. What are you talking about?”
“Yes, you do.” I reached over to Laura’s belly and knocked on the mound. The thudding noise was not what you’d expect of warm maternal flesh. She smacked my hand away, incensed. “Stop that!”
Ray stared. “It’s in her stomach? Like, up her butt?”
“Not quite. The belly’s phony.”
“How’d you figure that?”
“She has tampons in the duffel. If she were pregnant, she wouldn’t need ‘em. It’s a girl thing,” I replied.
“I am pregnant. What’s the matter with you? The baby’s due in January. The sixteenth, to be exact.”
“In that case, pull your dress up so we can watch it kick.”
“I don’t have to do that. I can’t believe you suggested it.”
“Ray, I’m telling you, she’s got the money in some kind of harness. That’s how she got it on the plane without it’s showing up on security. Eight thousand in a duffel, they might have asked too many questions.”
“That’s ridiculous. There’s no law that says you can’t transport cash across state lines.”
“There is when the money’s stolen,” I said in my best nanny-nanny-boo-boo tone. Really, the two of us were like sisters, squabbling over everything.
“Come on, ladies. Please.”
I doubled up my fist. “You want me to punch her in the stomach? It’d be a good test.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! This is none of your business.”
“Yes, it is. Chester hired me to find the money, and I’ve done just that.”
“I-do-not-have-the-money,” she said, enunciating every-single-word.
I pulled my fist back.
“All right! Goddamn it. It’s in a canvas vest that hooks on in front. I hope you’re satisfied.”
I loved the indignation, like I was the one who’d been lying to her. “Well, that’s great. So let’s see it. I’m curious what it looks like.”
“Ray, would you tell her to get away from me?”
Ray looked at me. “Just drop it. This is silly. I thought you said you wanted to hear the story.”
“I do.”
“Then cut the nonsense and let’s get on with it.” He looked back at his daughter. “You start. I’d like to hear Gilbert’s version. He’s saying, what, that I betrayed the others?”
“Let me wash my face first. I feel awful,” she said. Her nose was red, her eyes puffy with emotion. She got up and went into the dressing area, where she ran water in the sink.
“Your daughter? You could have told me,” I said.
Ray avoided my gaze like a dog that’s done potty on the good rug.
When Laura returned, he let her sit on the bed while he fetched the desk chair and pulled it over closer. Her complexion, free of makeup, showed all the splotchy imperfections you’d expect. She glanced once at Ray, her expression faltering. She picked up a twist of tissue, which she wrapped around her index finger. Given center stage, she seemed oddly reluctant. “Gilbert says there was a bank robbery back in 1941.”
“That’s right.”
I flashed a look at him. “It is?”
“There were five of you altogether. You, Gilbert, his brother Donnie, the guy you mentioned…”
“Johnny Lee,” Ray supplied.
“Right. Him and a man named McDermid.”
“Actually, there were six
of us. Two McDermids, Frank and Darrell,” Ray amended.
She shrugged, accepting the correction, which apparently didn’t affect her understanding of the incident. “Gilbert says you tipped off the cops and they showed up in the middle of the robbery. There was a shoot-out and his brother Donnie was killed. So was McDermid and a policeman. The money vanished, but Gilbert was convinced you and Johnny knew where it was hidden. Johnny was in prison for two years, and when he got out, he disappeared. Gilbert had no way to trace him, so he waited ‘til you got out and followed you, and sure enough, there it was. All Gilbert took was his share. Well, I guess his brother’s share, too. He figures you and Johnny had the use of it for years, so whatever was left belongs to him by rights.”
“Could I just clarify one thing?” I said to Laura.
“Sure.”
“I take it your mother was the one who told you when Ray was getting out of prison?”
She nodded. “She mentioned it to me. Gilbert had already told me what happened, and I was furious. I mean, it was bad enough my father had been in prison all his life, but to find out he’d betrayed all his friends? That was the lowest of the low.”
“Baby, I have to say this. I don’t know what your relationship is with Gilbert, but hasn’t it occurred to you he only got close to you so he could get to me?”
“No. Absolutely not. You don’t know that,” she said.
“Look at the facts. I mean, it only stands to reason,” he said. “Didn’t he ask about me early on? Maybe not by name, but just the family situation, blah, blah, blah, your dad and stepdad, things like that?”
“So what if he did? Everybody asks things like that early on.”
“Well, doesn’t it strike you as odd? Here, just ‘coincidentally,’ it turns out the two of us pulled a job together forty-some-odd years back?”
“Not really. Gilbert knew Paul from work… he’s my stepdad,” she said in an aside to me. “I guess Paul must have mentioned the name ‘Rawson’ in some context.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Ray said with acid. “Like your stepfather sits around and bullshits about me with the guys at work.”