18
Ray helped his mother to the bathroom. Soon after that, I heard the toilet flush and his murmured comfort and assurances as he tucked her into bed. While I waited for him to get her settled, I returned the contents of the junk drawer and slid the drawer back into its slot. I righted Ray’s chair and then got down on my hands and knees to look for Gilbert’s gun. Where had the damn thing gone? I raised up like a prairie dog and surveyed the spot where he’d stood, trying to figure out what the trajectory would have been when the gun flew off across the room. Picking my way carefully through the broken glass, I crawled to the nearest corner and worked my way along the baseboard. I finally spotted the gun, a .45-caliber Colt automatic with walnut stocks, wedged behind the Eastlake cabinet. I fished it out with a fork, trying not to smudge any latent prints. If the Louisville police ran a check on him, it was possible an outstanding warrant might pop up and give them a reason to arrest him — if they could find him, of course. I placed the gun on the kitchen table and tiptoed to the bedroom door. I tapped, and a moment later Ray opened the door a crack. “We need to call the cops,” I said. I meant to slip on past, heading for the telephone, but he put his hand on my arm.
“Don’t do that.”
“Why not?” We were keeping our voices down in deference to his mother, who’d had enough upset for one day.
“Look, I’ll be out in a minute, as soon as she’s asleep. We need to talk.” He began to close the door.
I put my hand on the door. “What’s there to talk about? We need help.”
“Please.” He held a hand up, nodding to indicate that we’d discuss it momentarily. He closed the door in my face.
Reluctantly, I returned to the kitchen to wait for him. I found the broom and dustpan behind the door to the utility room, and I made a pass at the mess. Someone had tracked through the broken bowl of mashed yams. There were little yammy footprints, like dog doo, everywhere. I pulled the garbage can out from under the sink and cautiously began to pick up shards of broken glass and crockery. I used a dampened paper towel to scoop up the remaining goo.
The kitchen sink and the counter were both littered with broken glass where the window had been shattered by the shotgun blast. I couldn’t believe the neighbors hadn’t come running. Cold air was now blowing in, but there was nothing I could do about it. I hauled out the ancient canister vacuum cleaner and affixed the upholstery attachment to the hose. I flipped it on and spent several minutes huffing up all the glass in sight. Between chasing and being chased, all I’d done since I’d left home was dust and vacuum. I put my ear to the bedroom door at one point and could have sworn I heard Ray talking on the phone. Ah. Maybe he had paid attention to my advice after all.
Ray came back into the kitchen and closed the bedroom door behind him. He moved straight to the pantry and pulled out a bottle of bourbon, took down two small jelly glasses, and poured us both a stiff drink. He handed one glass to me and then tapped mine in a toast. While I eyed mine he tilted his head back and downed his portion. I took a deep breath and tossed mine down my throat, unprepared for the vile fire that assailed my esophagus. I could feel my face flush with heat as my stomach burst into flames. After that, I could feel all the tension drift away from me like smoke. I shook my head, shuddering, as a worm of revulsion wiggled down my frame. “Yuck. I hate that. I could never be a drunk. How can you do that, just toss it back that way?”
“Takes practice,” he said. He poured himself another glass and tossed it after the first. “This is one thing I missed in prison.”
He spotted the Colt where I’d laid it on the kitchen table, picked it up without comment, and tucked it in his waistband.
“Thanks, Ray. Now you’ve messed up any fingerprints.”
“Nobody’s going to run prints,” he said.
“Really. What makes you say that?”
He ignored the question. He moved into the dining room and hustled up a cardboard carton, which he emptied, then flattened, and used to replace the broken window glass, securing it with Gilbert’s duct tape. The outdoor light was diminished and the cold still seeped in, but at least birds and small UFOs would be prevented from flying in the gaping hole. While I looked on, he began to empty the sink of its mountain of pots and pans, stacking them neatly to one side in preparation for washing. I love watching guys help around the house.
“I heard you on the phone. Did you call 911?”
“I called Maria to see how she was. Gilbert punched her lights out. She says he broke her nose, but she doesn’t want to press charges as long as he’s got Laura.”
“You could call 911,” I said. Maybe he hadn’t heard me right?
I flipped the vacuum on again and sucked up glass slivers as they came to light. I kept waiting for him to pick up the subject, but he studiously avoided it. Finally, I turned the machine off and said, “So what’s the deal? Why not call the cops? Laura’s been kidnapped. I hope you don’t think you’re going to do this on your own.”
“I told you. Maria’s not interested. She thinks it’s premature.”
“I’m not talking about Maria. I’m talking about you.”
“Let’s look for the money first. Nothing turns up in a day, then we can bring the cops into it.”
“Ray, you’re crazy. You need help.”
“I can handle it.”
“That’s bullshit. He’s going to kill her.”
“Not if I can find the money.”
“How’re you going to do that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He tied an apron around his waist. He put the stopper in the drain and turned on the hot water. He picked up the liquid detergent and squirted a solid stream into the sink, holding his injured fingers away from the water. A mountain of white suds began to pile up, into which he tucked plates and silverware. “I learned to wash dishes when I was six,” he said idly, picking up a long-handled brush. “Ma stood me up on a wooden milk crate and taught me how to do it right. It was my chore from then on. In prison, they use these big industrial machines, but the principle’s the same. All us old cons know how to make ourselves useful, but these new punks coming in can’t do a damn thing except fight. Dopers and gang-bangers. Scary bunch.”
“Ray.”
“Remind me of fighting cocks … all puffed up and aggressive. Don’t give a shit about anything. Those are kids bred to die. They have no hope, no expectations. They got attitude. It’s all attitude. Insist on respect without ever doing anything to earn it. Half of ’em don’t even know how to read.”
“Make your point,” I said.
“There’s no point. I changed the subject. The point is, I don’t want to call the cops.”
“Is there a problem?”
“I don’t like cops.”
“I’m not asking you to form any kind of lasting relationship,” I said. I watched him. “What is it? There’s something else.”
He rinsed a dinner plate and placed it in the rack, avoiding my gaze. I picked up a dish towel and began to dry while he washed. “Ray?”
He put the second dinner plate in the rack. “I’m in violation.”
I’m thinking, Violation? I said, “Of what?”
He shrugged slightly.
The penny dropped. “Parole? You violated parole?”
“Something like that.”
“But what, exactly?”
“Well, actually, ‘exactly’ is I walked off.”
“Escaped?”
“I wouldn’t call it escape. It was a halfway house.”
“But you weren’t supposed to leave. You were still an inmate. Weren’t you?”
“Hey, there wasn’t any fence. It’s not like we were locked in our cells at night. We didn’t even have cells. We had rooms,” he said. “So it’s more like I’m away without leave. Yeah, like that. AWOL.”
“Oh boy,” I said. I let out a big breath and considered the implications. “How’d you get a driver’s license?”
“I didn’t. I don’t have one.”
“You’ve been driving without? How’d you manage to rent a car without a driver’s license?”
“I didn’t.”
I closed my eyes, wishing I could lie down on the floor and take a nap. I opened my eyes again. “You stole the rental car?” I couldn’t help it. I know my tone was accusatory, but this was largely because I was accusing him.