“I mean, how far along is she? Does she work? Or does she sit home and hide bottles around the house?”
“I don’t think she works. No, she couldn’t. But it’s not that kind of a setup either, hiding bottles. They’re right there on the sink.”
“See,” Mr. Perez said, “a white woman marries somebody like Robert Leary, what we’ve learned about him, she’s pretty hard up, scraping bottom. A woman like that, her nose stuck in the bottle, no income, she’s going to take anything she can get.”
Ryan kept quiet. He’d listen and let the man tell him about alcoholics, what they were like.
“We make an offer, this kind of deal, the alcoholic woman isn’t going to see money, unh-unh. She’s going to see visions of gin bottles dancing in her head. She’ll sign the agreement in blood if she has to.”
“She’s a wine drinker,” Ryan said.
“Cheap dago red, huh?”
“Chilled Sauterne.”
He could see the dirty glass on the bar and the empty half-gallon jugs in her kitchen. He realized he was trying to upgrade her and he didn’t know why.
“The other thing, or one more to add to it,” Ryan said, “the police are looking for her, too.”
Mr. Perez raised his eyebrows. “They suspect she might’ve killed him?”
“Well, they’ll question her, there’s no doubt about that,” Ryan said. “As my friend was saying, it’s a homicide and they’ll give it the full treatment. It doesn’t matter, the fact they’re glad the guy’s dead. Somebody killed him and it’s their job to find out who.”
“You have any ideas about that? You seemed to’ve been getting in there pretty close,” Mr. Perez said.
“Well, I ran into a guy, yes, and I know he found out where Leary was staying. The same night it happened, in fact. This guy, I don’t know what his name is, knows Leary’s wife. I told the police about it already, gave them a half-assed description of the guy-his clothes, his hat, you know-but I don’t know what’s going to come of that. What I started to say-they’re looking for his wife, yes, but mainly so she can claim the body, get it out of the way.”
“And you say they don’t know where she is.”
“No, but I think it’s only a matter of time,” Ryan said. “They go looking for somebody, the cops, they find them. They’ve already checked the hospitals. She hasn’t been admitted anywhere.”
“Checked the hospitals?” Mr. Perez said. “Check the bars, you say she’s an alcoholic.”
“Well, see, she’s in pretty bad shape.”
Ryan heard the toilet flush and paused. He looked over at the closed door that led to the bedroom. Mr. Perez waited, not offering an explanation.
A woman, Ryan thought. He wondered if she’d come out. He said, “I think his wife might’ve finally realized she was in trouble and it could kill her if she kept drinking. Her calling me like that was a good sign.”
“So maybe she’ll call you again,” Mr. Perez said. “Save you some work.”
“That’d be fine. But now I’ve got a feeling she’s still drinking. She had a couple this morning to straighten her out and they went down so good she kept going. So then she might’ve gotten another room somewhere. She could call me, sometime, but I’ll probably have to wait till she bottoms out again.” Ryan shook his head. “It’s very tough, trying to quit like that.”
He saw Mr. Perez’s gaze move past him. Ryan glanced over at the doorway to the bedroom.
A stringy, heavy-boned farmer-looking guy had opened the door and was coming out, his head down, buckling his belt.
Ryan looked back at Mr. Perez, who was watching the man with a relaxed, pleasant expression. Mr. Perez said, “I hope you had a good one, Raymond. You were in there a half hour.”
“Traveling,” the man said. “It throws me off my schedule. I sure don’t like to go on the airplane.”
“Raymond Gidre,” Mr. Perez said. “Shake hands with Mr. Ryan, fella I was telling you about.”
“Yes-sir, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Raymond Gidre smiled cordially, reaching for Ryan’s hand as he rose. The man seemed eager, flashing perfect dentures in a weathered face that had been recently shaved and bore traces of talcum powder. His curly black hair, combed back severely, plastered down, glistened with tonic that Ryan could smell and recalled from barbershops years before. Lucky Tiger. The man had a small-town-barbershop look about him. Like he’d just come out of one. He wore a short-sleeved sport shirt. Ryan noticed the tattoo on his right forearm-something black and red-but didn’t want to stare at it. He shook Raymond Gidre’s hand and nodded and said he was glad to meet him, held for a moment by the dentures and the pale eyes smiling. Just a good-natured back-country boy-stringy and hard after a half-dozen years on a Louisiana prison farm.
“Raymond here’s visiting from a place near New Iberia, Louisiana,” Mr. Perez said. “Avery Island, huh, Raymond? Where the hot sauce comes from.”
“Home of Tabasco,” Raymond said. “Yes-sir,” walking over to the room-service table. He poked through the napkins and silver lids, found a hard roll, and bit into it, still poking around. “You didn’t eat your snapbeans.”
“Finish ’em up,” Mr. Perez said, and looked at Ryan again. “Raymond works for me on and off in special capacities, you might say. For instance, if we see you need some help, Raymond’s the boy for it.”
Ryan nodded as though he knew what Mr. Perez was talking about, then decided he might as well ask.
“What kind of help?”
“Well, if you were to need protection of one kind or another, somebody to see you don’t get hurt. I wouldn’t want that to happen.”
“I wouldn’t either,” Ryan said. “But what would I need protection from? I’m looking for the wife now. The bad guy’s dead.”
“That’s true,” Mr. Perez said, “but somebody killed the bad guy, didn’t he? Somebody, you said yourself, found out where he was staying. By the way, this man you talked to last night, was he colored?”
Ryan nodded.
Mr. Perez looked past him, across the room. “Got a colored boy, Raymond, might want to give us trouble.”
“It’s all the same to me,” Raymond said, eating from a plate of green beans, “I’m not prejudice.”
What the hell was going on? Ryan felt himself starting to get a little worked up. Perez talked to him very seriously, then would say something to his hired hand and almost break out in a giggle.
“I don’t understand something,” Ryan said. “We don’t know who the guy is, the black guy I met. We don’t know if he was the one that killed Leary. I mean, we can’t even begin to assume something like that. Or, okay, let’s say even if he did, what’s it got to do with me? That I’d need protection? I’m looking for the wife.”
“You said you put a notice in the paper-”
“I also put another one in,” Ryan said, “that’s due to run tomorrow.”
“Let me finish,” Mr. Perez said. “All right?” He waited a moment, staring at Ryan with his solemn expression. “You put a notice in the paper and two people called you up. Is that correct?”
Now he was standing on the carpet, in the principal’s office. “That’s right,” Ryan said.
“You thought one of the two might have been Leary, but not both of them.”
“That’s right,” Ryan said.
“You suspected somebody was looking for him.”
“I knew that. And it’s obvious somebody found him. The guy’s dead.” Ryan paused a moment. Mr. Perez’s tone might be a little pissy, but maybe he was sincere, at least meant well. “I see,” Ryan said. “You think if it was the guy I met in the apartment, he might be afraid I’ll identify him.”
“That type of thing,” Mr. Perez said. “I didn’t have anything that specific in mind, of course, when I telephoned Raymond and asked him if he’d like to visit the Motor City. I felt we were mixing with ugly people, getting ready to do business with one of them; so it wouldn’t hurt to have some protection. Mr. Leary’s dead, but there are still some ugly people around, aren’t there?”
“You might be right,” Ryan said.