Riding the Rap

by Elmore Leonard

  Louis said, “Harry, what you see behind you, man, is your salvation. Me. I’m the only way you gonna get out of here alive. I want you to see what I look like ‘cause we partners now. Understand?”

  He watched Harry’s head nod up and down without much change in his eyes.

  “You gonna do whatever I tell you, huh?”

  Harry nodded.

  “We get out of here, you gonna take a trip to Freeport with me.” Harry waited and Louis said, “Aren’t you?”

  Harry nodded.

  “And since we partners, we get there you gonna move half your money from your bank account to my bank account.” Louis paused. “Go on, nod your head.”

  Harry nodded.

  Chip was back on his weed, moving like a man underwater to sit down on the sofa, stoned as far as you could go without losing it. He looked up at Louis fooling with the remote and said, “He killed him. Just like that.” As if Louis hadn’t been here to see it.

  “That’s Bobby’s way,” Louis said, “you fuck with him.”

  “He’s going to see Dawn tomorrow.”

  “That’s a bad idea,” Louis said.

  “I told him he didn’t have to, I’d call her. He said he wanted to talk to her anyway, get his fortune told.”

  “It’s still a bad idea,” Louis said.

  twenty-one

  Friday morning Raylan called Reverend Dawn from Miami, gave his name, told her he was there last Sunday for a reading, had stopped by yesterday and was anxious to talk to her again.

  She said, “I know.”

  Her voice calm, telling him—the way Raylan heard it—she knew who he was and what he wanted to talk to her about. She didn’t try to avoid him. When he asked if he could come by this morning, she said as long as he came an hour or so before noon; she’d be leaving then to go to the restaurant. So Raylan got in the Jaguar and headed up 95 in the traffic, the lanes both ways, north and south, strung with cars and pickups, vans, semis, motor homes . . . Otherwise it was a nice sunny day and Raylan felt ready for it. He had on his dark blue suit, the air-conditioning turned up high.

  Yesterday afternoon he had stopped by the Sheriffs Office to run Louis Lewis on FCIC, the state computer, and found he had spelled the name right. Lewis comma Louis. Also known as Ibrahim Abu Aziz. Date of birth—Louis three years younger than Raylan. A notation said: Born in Freeport, Grand Bahama. Black male, black hair, brown eyes. Six feet tall, 165 pounds—if they ever had a fistfight they’d be evenly matched. Scar, right arm, not specific. No FBI number. Early charges of importation of marijuana nolle prossed, temporarily dismissed for some reason and never brought up. Grand theft, auto, nolle prossed. Here we go:

  A 790.01, carrying a concealed weapon. A 790.16, discharging a machine gun in public, and a 790.19, shooting into or throwing deadly missiles into a dwelling. Which sounded like a drive-by. Convicted on all counts. His sentence wasn’t on the sheet—or all the hustles he got away with that Raylan read between the lines—but Louis must have done a few years’ state time.

  So Raylan’s three suspects were all felons: Warren Ganz, one-time homicide suspect convicted of bank fraud and placed on probation; Bobby Deo, suspected killer for hire, convicted of manslaughter; and Louis Lewis, minor felon until brought up on gun charges and convicted. The question that remained in Raylan’s mind: which one was in charge? It would appear to be Ganz. But could he handle two ex-cons? Raylan didn’t know enough about Louis Lewis to make a valid judgment, so he saw Bobby Deo as the one to look out for.

  Later on he picked up Joyce and they went to Joe’s Stone Crab for dinner. At the table he told her everything he knew to date and his theory that Harry could be in Ganz’s house—even though, he admitted, it didn’t make much sense.

  It did to Joyce. She jumped at the idea, wanting to believe Harry was alive and not buried in a swamp. Raylan had to tell her why he couldn’t go in to investigate without permission or a search warrant, and this was the part that didn’t make sense to her. If he had no trouble shooting a man seated at a table with him in a restaurant, why couldn’t he walk into someone’s house?

  He said to her, “Why don’t you take my word for it?” tired of trying to explain distinctions, the gray areas in what he did for a living.

  They picked at their crab claws pretty much in silence after that. He asked why she didn’t try the mustard sauce. Joyce said she preferred drawn butter. Would she like another beer? No, she was fine. How about a piece of key lime pie?

  He said to her, “We’re sure polite, aren’t we?”

  Joyce didn’t bother to answer.

  This morning Raylan stopped by the Sheriffs Office to listen to the tape Falco had mentioned, off the wire Dawn was wearing when she met Warren Ganz.

  Falco set it up in one of the squad room offices, saying the conversation had taken place right out there—Falco pointing through the glass wall of the office to a row of chairs—Ganz thinking he’d been brought in again for questioning. “You understand this was Dawn’s idea,” a way she could touch Ganz, their prime suspect in the murder of the woman in Boca, and find out if he did it or not.

  Falco started the tape and sat down with Raylan. This was what they heard:

  Ganz: You waiting to see the lieutenant?

  Dawn: They want to ask me about Mary Ann Demery, the lady who committed suicide? I’m Dawn, a friend of hers.

  Ganz: No, you’re not. I’m her friend, you’re her fortune-teller.

  Dawn: If you say so.

  Ganz: What’s going on?

  Dawn: What do you mean?

  Ganz: You sit down and shake my hand? What’re we gonna do, get cozy here? You read my mind and I confide in you?

  Dawn: I already know things about you.

  Ganz: Is that right? From Mary Ann or you look in a crystal ball?

  “Dawn doesn’t answer,” Falco said.

  Ganz: You read palms?

  Dawn: I can. I don’t usually.

  Ganz: Here, take a look. Tell me what you see and maybe I’ll confide in you.

  Dawn (following a long pause): You’re egotistical.

  Ganz: Where do you see that?

  Dawn: Your index finger’s longer than your ring finger. Most people, they’re the same length.

  Ganz: Amazing.

  Dawn: You have trouble paying bills.

  “You’ll notice he doesn’t deny it,” Falco said.

  Ganz: Which one’s my life line?

  Dawn: This one, curving down.

  Ganz: All the way to my wrist. That’s good, huh?

  Dawn: The length doesn’t mean much.

  Ganz: What do you see?

  Dawn: A lack of energy.

  Ganz: Don’t you see anything good?

  Dawn: Well, your fate line—you’re ambitious, you know what you want. The line’s a bit ragged though.

  Ganz: You want me to confide now?

  Dawn: If you like.

  Ganz: What if I tell you Mary Ann didn’t commit suicide, she was murdered?

  Dawn: How do you know?

  Ganz: It’s why we’re here, isn’t it? I’m a suspect and they want to know what you feel about me, or however you get your messages. If you’re any good you know I didn’t do it. But what if I tell you I know who did?

  “The guy isn’t dumb,” Falco said.

  Dawn: Do you?

  Ganz: Let’s say I know, but I can’t tell the people here. Let’s say for personal reasons I can’t afford to become implicated in any way, the idea I was close to a woman who was murdered. Okay?

  Dawn: You want me to tell them who did it.

  “She isn’t dumb either,” Falco said.

  Ganz: You go in there, you tell them you laid out your magic cards or you touched something Mary Ann gave you . . . Listen to me telling you how to do it. You’re the pro, you see things, right? You turned over a card and there he was. Or you closed your eyes, went into your clairvoyant mode and you actually saw what happened, the guy picking Mary Ann up and throwing her off the bal
cony. You hear her scream as she’s falling. The guy looks down, he turns, and that’s when, clairvoyantly speaking, you see his face. You describe the guy to the cops and they go looking for him. Overnight you’re famous, the clairvoyant who cracked a murder case.

  Dawn: Get my picture in the paper . . .

  Ganz: In the paper, in magazines, you’re on talk shows. Before you know it they’re lined up to get a reading. Will I ever meet Mr. Right? Is my husband fooling around on me? Pretty soon you have a syndicated column in newspapers. . . .

  Dawn: What if they find out the guy I describe didn’t do it?

  Ganz: Then you’re fucked. You were gonna go in there and put it on me, and if it turns out I did it, you’re a star. You want to work this mental telepathy shit to make a name for yourself. Okay, go ahead, try it. Only I’m clean, I wasn’t anywhere near Mary Ann’s place that night. As I said before, if you’re any good, if you know what you’re doing . . .

  Dawn: You said Mary Ann screamed as she was falling.

  Ganz: Wouldn’t you?

  Dawn: She was already dead.

  Ganz: They told you that?

  Dawn: I told them.

  Ganz (after a pause): Are you always right?

  Dawn: Often enough. You want a quick reading? I won’t charge you.

  Ganz: Sure, go ahead.

  Dawn: Give me your hand. (long pause) You make a good first impression, you can turn on the charm when you want to, and can talk people into doing things they’d rather not. At least some people. You could make a lot of money in sales, but you’d have to work and that’s out of the question. So you live by your wits and a high opinion of yourself, for what it’s worth, and so far it hasn’t proved to be worth much at all.

  “She’s got him down cold,” Falco said.

  Ganz: But I know what I want and I’m ambitious. You saw that in my palm, right? When we’re through here, what do you say we have a drink?

  “I think they had that drink,” Raylan said, watching Falco reach over to push the rewind button, “and got to be pretty good friends. She tell you right away it wasn’t Ganz?”

  “She said she didn’t think so, but wanted to meditate on it. A couple days later she said she was positive he didn’t do it.”

  “After they got to know each other,” Raylan said.

  Falco was nodding. “That was taken into consideration. We know she thought the guy had a lot of money, living in Manalapan.”

  “Anyone tell her he didn’t?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Why was Ganz your main suspect?”

  “We didn’t like anything about him, the guy’s shifty. We know he’d borrowed money from the victim, we see cancelled checks in the amount of two grand, twenty-five hundred, that add up to over twelve thousand. He says he paid her back in cash, if you want to believe that, this born fucking loser—we know he owed bookies in Miami. The theory was, he’s in deep, he asks Mary Ann for another loan and she turns him down. The guy’s desperate, frustrated, they get in a violent argument and he creams her with the bookend, this brass modernistic bull.”

  “The one Dawn identified as the murder weapon,” Raylan said, “without having seen it.”

  “Right, it was being held as evidence. She did see the other bookend on the shelf; there were two of them. We said, ‘You mean that one?’ She goes, ‘No, the one that was used has blood on it.’”

  “Wasn’t it wiped clean?”

  “No prints, no, but minute traces of blood around the base, this wood block the bull’s standing on.”

  “What about Ganz’s prints?”

  “All over the apartment. Listen to this, even on Mary Ann’s checkbook. The only other prints belonged to the cleaning woman. That’s another reason we leaned toward Ganz; there wasn’t anyone else, unless some guy walked in off the street.”

  “None of Dawn’s prints around?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Wasn’t she ever a suspect?”

  “We checked her out. There was no reason to think she had a motive.”

  Raylan gave that some thought before saying, “The two guys that robbed the grocery store, you haven’t picked them up, have you?”

  “Not that I’ve heard, no.”

  “I think I know who they are.”

  “Like you happen to know Ganz’s mom?”

  “In a way, yeah,” Raylan said. “I want to take them federal. If I don’t, they’re yours.”

  twenty-two

  Dawn Navarro was wearing a skirt today, a white one that ended a few inches above her knees, and a pale green sleeveless blouse. Raylan, on the mohair sofa, liked the skirt a lot. He thought she’d bring the card table over as she did the last time. Not yet, anyway. She stood in the middle of the floor, about ten feet away and said, “Well now. What can I do for you?”

  The skirt showed her figure; she wasn’t as slim as Raylan had been picturing her. He said, “Just out of curiosity, do you have to have a license?”

  “First,” Dawn said—making that move, tossing her head and brushing her hair aside with the tips of her fingers—“you should know I’m a Sagittarian, born with a Grand Trine in the center of my natal chart. You have that, it almost demands the life I’ve taken up.”

  Raylan watched her sway just a little from side to side, moving from one foot to the other in flat white slippers that looked sort of like the kind toe-dancers wore. He noticed the way her hips moved.

  Dawn saying, “When I was two years old I knew my dad wasn’t my real dad; I wouldn’t let him pick me up and everybody thought that was bizarre. I had dreams about things that came true, premonitions; I even experienced astral travel. One time when I was seven, a few days after my grandmother died, I saw her sitting in the living room. She was wearing a housedress and a white wool bed jacket over it. I went to the kitchen and told my mother. She didn’t believe me till I described the bed jacket, white wool with little pink ribbons and the store tags still on it. My mother turned white as a sheet. She brought a box from her closet and took out the exact same bed jacket my grandmother was wearing. It was a birthday present, but she died just before. She would’ve been sixty-three. My mother had never shown the bed jacket to anyone and knew I hadn’t seen it. Yet I described it, even the store tags still on it.”

  Raylan said, “What’s astral travel?”

  “Leaving your body. Finding yourself somewhere else.”

  He believed he should let astral travel go and said, “Did your grandmother say anything to you?”

  “Yeah, she did. She said let’s keep in touch. I talk to her every once in a while. She used to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day.”

  “You always made a living as a psychic?”

  “I did nails and hair studying to be a beautician, but I hated it. I used to run around and get a little crazy sometimes. That was my Sagittarius rising, with Mars on aspect. I’m thinking seriously now of becoming an acupuncturist; it’s a wide-open field. You want a cold drink?”

  “Not right now, thanks.”

  “You asked me a question before,” Dawn said. “Yes, I’m a licensed psychic, clairvoyant, astrologer, spirit medium and character reader. The license fee is two hundred and twenty-five dollars, while so-called faith healers and exorcists don’t have to pay a dime. I’m also an ordained minister. After studying with several distinguished teachers and ministers—Marlene Locklear you might’ve heard of?—I was ordained into the Spiritualist Assembly of Waco, Texas.”

  Sounding to Raylan like she was reciting from memory.

  “And I do aura readings. Yours doesn’t look too bad—a nice blue tone, just a faint red showing around the edge. How do you feel?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Can you imagine having harmony in your life? Between yourself and others you don’t always get along with?”

  “I get along with most everybody.”

  “Even the ones you arrest?”

  Raylan smiled, just a little. “I don’t worry about them; t
hey have to get along with themselves.” He crossed his legs, getting comfortable on the sprung, stove-in sofa, his right hand touching the brim of his hat lying next to him.

  “That’s a protective move,” Dawn said, “crossing your legs. It closes off energy points in your body. You have to share your energy with me, your vibrations. I can’t tell you anything about yourself that you don’t want me to know.”

  He kept his legs crossed and she came over, moved his hat to the round arm of the sofa and sat down next to him.

  “You don’t want the table this time; you feel you sit too low and have to look up at me. Put your hand on your knee. Are you right-handed?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Good.”

  She put her hand over his. He saw the nails bitten down and felt the tips of her fingers brushing his knuckles. He kept watching her hand.

  “Have you seen Warren Ganz lately?”

  Her fingers continued to move on his.

  She said, “While I was standing there, you were trying to picture me without my clothes on.”

  Raylan said, “I was?”

  She turned her head to him and smiled. Then looked at her hand again, no longer smiling, moving her fingers over his. “You have feelings, emotions, about a personal relationship you’re trying to let go of, so you can allow something new in your life.” She turned to him again. “I haven’t seen Chip in months.”

  “Have you ever been to his house?”

  “A few times.” She said, “The feelings you have are almost gone, but still on your mind, because the relationship seems like a good idea to you.”

  “You haven’t seen Chip, but you’ve spoken to him.”

  She nodded.

  “About Harry Arno.”

  “You work very hard,” Dawn said, “and you’re open and optimistic, the way a child is, and that’s a good way to be. You think everything you do will turn out just fine, and it usually does.”

  “Harry was here, wasn’t he?”