Elmore Leonard - Riding the Rap

The desk clerk tapped some more keys and then looked at the computer screen to see how he was doing.

“You might recall I was with a group,” Raylan said. “Bunch of fellas had DEA written big on the back of their jackets?”

He had the desk clerk’s attention now, the guy looking right at him.

“We had search warrants, but you didn’t want to let us in any the rooms. You recall that? So we busted down some doors, found who we wanted and took you with us when we left. Remember that time? You give me any shit, partner, I’ll run you in again, handcuffed and shackled. What I want is Mr. Deogracias’s room number.”

The clerk hesitated.

Raylan let him.

The clerk said, “Four oh eight.”

“Is he in?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I called, some guy answered the phone.”

“That would be Santo.”

Raylan said, “Much obliged.”

A girl wearing a green Harley-Davidson T-shirt and short white shorts opened the door, barefoot. Cute, but needing to comb her hair and maybe take a bath.

“I called a while ago,” Raylan said, “asked for Bobby Deo and some guy said he didn’t speak English and hung up on me.”

The girl turned her head and yelled, “Hey, Santo!” Looking back at Raylan she leaned her shoulder against the door frame, one bare foot on top of the other, and it reminded him for some reason of high school girls back home. She said, “I like your hat,” and even sounded like those girls, this one acting coy, giving him a look.

A man’s voice said, “Who is it?” and a young Hispanic guy wearing sunglasses appeared out of the bedroom where a radio was playing Latin riffs, a little guy about five-six with his pants open, sticking in his shirttails.

The girl turned her head again. “He’s looking for Bobby.”

“What’s he want him for?”

Raylan saw the guy as one of those tough little banty-rooster types as the girl was saying, “What am I, your fucking interpreter? Ask him yourself.” She moved away from the door in time to the music coming from the bedroom. Raylan took a step inside, glanced around to see a mess of clothes thrown on chairs, towels, newspapers, beer cans on the coffee table. He looked at Santo.

“I want to ask Bobby if he did a job the other day for Harry Arno. Is he around?”

Santo zipped up his pants, pulled his belt tight around his waist and buckled it, taking his time.

“Who is this Harry Arno?”

“How come,” Raylan said, “you can’t answer a question without asking one?”

“It’s the way they are,” the girl said. “They think you can’t trust anybody that isn’t like them. Where’re you from anyway?”

“Right here,” Raylan said, getting his I.D. out and showing his star, “with the United States Marshals Service. I’m not looking to give anybody a hard time. Okay?”

Santo said, “Bullshit,” to the girl. Or it might’ve been some word in Spanish, Raylan wasn’t sure. There wasn’t any doubt about the guy’s manner, though, turning his back, walking out to the balcony to stand looking off. Some pose.

“These guys work at being a pain in the ass,” the girl said. “I told you, it’s the way they are. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

Raylan said, “I was gonna ask.”

“They become sociable when it gets dark, they dance like crazy.” She began moving in a kind of mambo shuffle to the radio. “We go to clubs in Hialeah.”

Santo, on the balcony, stood hunched over the metal rail leaning on his arms. Raylan walked out there to stand next to him, thinking all he’d have to do was lift the guy up by his belt and ask again where Bobby Deo was.

Instead, his gaze settled on Ocean Drive and the strip of art deco hotels in their pastel colors that looked to Raylan like big ice-cream parlors. Hotels with cafés fronting on the street where the trendies stayed in season and girls with string bikinis stuck in their bums came cruising by on Rollerblades; young guys hotdogged on skateboards and photographers posed skinny models out on the beach, their outfits taking weird shapes in the wind. Except that right now it was between the hurricane season and the tourist season and the crowd roaming South Beach were locals and bush-league trendies. It was still a show.

He heard the girl behind him and said, “It isn’t anything like back home, is it? Wherever that might be.”

She said, “It sure ain’t, it’s fun.”

“Santo here your boyfriend?”

The banty rooster stirred as the girl said, “God, no, I’m with Bobby, when he’s here.”

“Where can I find him?”

Santo, turning his head, said, “Melinda, you don’t have to tell him nothing. You hear me?”

She said, “Hey, fuck off. Okay?”

Raylan turned to her standing in the doorway. “I only want to ask him about this friend of mine, if he’s seen him.”

Santo said, “Yeah? What do you show your badge for?”

Raylan said, “Why don’t you stay out of it, partner?” and looked at the girl again, Melinda. “You know where he is?”

“He’s working. He won’t be back for, I don’t know, a while.”

“I don’t have to see him in person, if you have a phone number where I can reach him.”

He waited.

She said, “I might have it someplace.”

“I’d really appreciate it. This friend of mine, Harry Arno? I’m hoping Bobby knows where he is.”

“Bobby was working for him?”

“Yeah, they’re friends.”

Santo, turning his head again, said, “I never heard of no Harry Arno.”

Raylan said, “How far’s it down there to the pavement, forty, fifty feet? Keep looking at it.”

He turned to see Melinda going into the living room and put his hand on Santo’s shoulder.

“Nice talking to you.”

She was bent over the desk now looking at notes, scraps of paper by the phone. Raylan came up next to her. “Will he give you any trouble?”

“Who, Santo? He touches me Bobby’ll kill him.” She straightened saying, “Here it is. He called me once and gave me the number. You want me to write it down for you?”

Friendly because they had something in common, their accents and, maybe, because there were moments when she was homesick and he reminded her of some farm town or coal camp way off the interstate.

“I’d appreciate it.”

He watched her write the area code, 407, but couldn’t make out the rest of the numbers.

“You say Bobby’s working. What’s he do?”

The girl looked up at him, maybe a little surprised.

“He’s a gardener.”

Raylan said, “Oh.” And said, “He is, huh.”

“A master gardener. Bobby learned grounds beautification when he was up at Starke.”

Raylan took the piece of notepaper she handed him, folded it without looking at the number and thanked her.

She said, “I sure like that hat.”

At the door he touched the brim to her. He would think about this girl, remind himself to check on her in a week or so, see how she was doing. In the hall he stopped to unfold the notepaper the way a poker player might look at his hole card the first time, sneaking a peak and hoping.

And there it was. The same number Joyce had given him for Warren Ganz.

He used the pay phone in the lobby to call Torres.

“It’s a small world,” Raylan said. “I’ve already spoken to Bobby Deo without knowing who he was.” And had to explain that. “Now I’ll have to have another talk with him. What about Harry’s car?”

“Hasn’t shown up.”

“You get a chance to check on Dawn Navarro?”

“Nothing in the computer. Who is she anyway?”

“Certified medium and spiritualist, she’s a psychic, hangs out at a restaurant in Delray, the place where Harry was supposed to meet Bobby Deo.”