Elmore Leonard - Riding the Rap

“Well, there’s one I can think of.”

Raylan paused and Reverend Dawn said right away, “That’s who it is, the first one who comes to mind.”

Raylan paused again. “I was responsible, you might say, for his death.”

This time Reverend Dawn said, “Oh,” and opened her eyes. They were green. “Your fault-you’re not talking about an accident, like a car wreck, something you caused.”

“Nothing like that,” Raylan said. “But see, the thing between us was settled. There isn’t anything left has to be done.”

She kept staring at him now as she said, “You’re positive of that?” Not sounding as psychic as she did before, telling him about earth planes and spirit guides. She said, “What about a relative?”

“My dad’s over there,” Raylan said. “Died of black lung before his time. I’d just as soon leave him rest in peace.”

“I mean a relative of the one you had something to do with his passing over,” Reverend Dawn said. “A person that might be holding a grudge against you.”

Raylan shook his head. “I doubt it.”

Reverend Dawn seemed to study him, thinking, making up her mind. Finally then she closed her eyes again and raised her face as though to stare off past him, a really nice-looking girl, while her figure remained a mystery beneath that loose T-shirt.

“The gray wolf is trying to tell me something.” She paused and said, “You’re a teacher, aren’t you?”

Raylan said, “You’re kidding,” and thought too late, Wait a minute. Before being assigned to Miami he was a firearms instructor at Glynco, a training center for federal agents. He let it go as not important, or not the kind of teacher she meant. With her eyes closed he could stare, look at her closely. She seemed to him too young and attractive to be stuck in this place telling fortunes.

She said, “You are in a profession. I want to say lawyer , even though I know that isn’t it.”

Raylan kept quiet.

She said, “Coming across the yard you had your hat off, but as you reached the door you put it on.”

“I guess I did, didn’t I?”

“You were being… I want to say official , and your hat’s like a badge of office. You like to set it forward a little, close over your eyes.”

“I’ve had that hat eight years,” Raylan said. “I never thought I wore it any special way, I just put it on my head.”

Reverend Dawn surprised him this time saying, “You’re from either West Virginia… No, you’re from Kentucky. You worked in coal mines at one time, but haven’t done that for a while now, it’s way in your past. You still think of yourself, though-not all the time but once in a while-as a coal miner. Don’t you?”

“It’s what all the men on both sides of my family did,” Raylan said. Today he was wearing a blue-and-white sport shirt with sailboats on it and jeans with his hat and cowboy boots, not wanting to give her any idea of what he did for a living.

Her hands moved on his, fingertips brushing his knuckles, it seemed needing only a light touch to read him. She said, “You’re looking for someone, a man.”

When she paused Raylan said, “If you mean on this earth plane, yes, I am.”

“The one you’re having this disagreement with.”

That wasn’t exactly true. He said, “We-”

And she cut him off. “It’s not an argument exactly, it’s just, there’s something about him that bothers you.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Well, that bothers me, too, a lot. I won’t allow myself to be an instrument in this matter if you intend to do him harm, or anyone else.”

“I’d never do him harm.”

“But he’s on your mind all the time?”

“Not him, no. Someone else is.”

She opened her eyes, stared at him and said, “Now you’re talking about a woman, aren’t you?”

Raylan nodded and she closed her eyes again to get back into it, her expression, he noticed, more at peace.

Reverend Dawn said, “Okay, there’s a woman…” and said, “Wait a minute, I see another woman. You have a situation here I didn’t sense right away, this man being on your mind. Okay, now there’re two women. You’re married…”

“I was.”

“I see children, a couple of little boys.”

“How are they?”

“They’re fine. Living with their mother…”

“Ricky and Randy. I wanted to call them Hank and George, after Hank Williams and Ole Possum, George Jones? But Winona got her way, as usual. Yeah, they’re with her up in Brunswick, Georgia.”

“She divorced you,” Reverend Dawn said, “to many a man she met.” She paused. “But he isn’t the one you’re looking for.”

“There was a time I almost went after him.”

“Because of your boys, not so much over his taking Winona from you.”

Raylan said, “That’s right,” even though he believed it was Winona’s idea to start something with the real estate man who’d sold their house, Gary Jones, and not a matter of her being stolen away.

Reverend Dawn was saying, “You met this other woman.”

“That’s right, in Miami Beach.”

“You and she are close,” Reverend Dawn said. “I’ll go so far as to say intimate.”

Raylan wasn’t sure that was still true. “You shared a frightening experience…”

She waited, but Raylan didn’t help her.

“That part isn’t too clear, but there’s someone else, a man. He stands in the way of you and this woman planning a life together.”

Raylan said, “That’s pretty good.”

“He’s an older man.”

Raylan waited.

“But not her father.”

“You don’t see him, huh?”

“Not too clearly.”

“I’m surprised,” Raylan said. “He was here just the other day, Friday afternoon.”

He waited for Reverend Dawn to open her eyes and look at him. When she did she stared without speaking and he was aware of how quiet it was in the house.

She said finally, “What’s his name?”

“Harry Arno.”

Raylan kept watching her thinking she’d close her eyes as she tried to recall Harry, but Reverend Dawn continued to stare at him, hard, and Raylan had to concentrate to stare back at her, not look away. He said, “Harry’s sixty-eight-no, sixty-nine-medium height, grayish hair, lives in Miami Beach. I imagine he told you all about himself. Harry loves to talk.”

Reverend Dawn kept staring at him even as she shook her head back and forth, twice.

Raylan frowned and then tried to smile. Was she kidding? He said, “You don’t remember him? Harry Arno?” He watched her shake her head again and said, “I wonder if Harry used another name for some reason. How about, did anyone who came here Friday ask you about going back to Italy? Whether he should or not?”

She said, “Oh…” this time nodding. “Parts his hair on the right side, which is kind of unusual, and touches it up to cover the gray. Drives a white Cadillac.”

“That’s Harry.” Now Raylan was nodding. “So you did talk to him.”

“For a few minutes,” Reverend Dawn said, “at a restaurant where I do readings.” Nodding again. “He did mention Italy. Has a house there?… But I didn’t give him a reading, here or at the restaurant. I offered to and he said some other time. He seemed-now that I think about it-in a hurry.”

There was a silence and Raylan felt her moving the tips of her fingers over his hands. Almost, he thought, like she was tickling him.

“I could let you know if I see him again,” Reverend Dawn said. “You have a business card?”

“I told her,” Raylan said to Joyce on the restaurant phone, back there again, “I didn’t have one. I just gave her my name.”

Joyce said, “But if she does hear from him…”