Elmore Leonard - Riding the Rap

“While you were in the Keys.”

“Yeah.”

“Were you going home from here?”

Chip shook his head. “No reason to.”

“Is Louis there?”

“I think he has Saturday off.”

Raylan said, “Who’s there, just Harry?”

He watched Chip frown now, giving it all he had.

“You think Harry’s at my house ?”

Frowning and then shaking his head.

Raylan said, “Where’re you parked?”

Chip hesitated. “On Summit. In one of those strip malls. Why?”

Raylan said, “Give me your car keys.”

“Why? What for?”

Raylan said, “You want to see my I.D.?”

“I just don’t understand why you want my keys.”

Raylan held out his hand.

Chip shrugged. He dug the keys out of his jeans and held them up, a finger in the key ring. “Okay, now what?”

“Take off the one for the car.”

Chip sighed now, going along, worked the key from the ring and handed it to Raylan. He said, “You know, this would appear to be a car-jacking, except you don’t seem the type that goes around boosting cars.” His expression turned deadpan, a stand-up comic now as he said, “Hey, but what do I know?” Then seemed to laugh without wanting to, ruining the effect.

Raylan thought Chip was doing the best he could, trying hard to seem innocent, good-humored, but the man was becoming giddy. Raylan doubted he’d be able to keep it together for long.

Handing the car key to Melinda, telling her, “It’s a tan Mercedes that needs bodywork,” came close to finishing Chip off.

He said, “Peanut?”

The poor guy, betrayed by this nice-looking young girl. She said to Chip, “It’s Melinda, just so you’ll know who set you up.”

“Summit’s that way,” Raylan said, pointing south.

Melinda nodded. “I’ll see you later,” and walked off across the grassy park.

Chip watched her with an expression Raylan thought of as forlorn, lost, no one to help him. But then said to Raylan, still with hope at this point, though not much, “How do I get my car back?”

“I don’t know,” Raylan said. “You don’t have Bobby to pick it up, do you?”

That seemed to finish Chip off, at least for the time being. He looked at Raylan with nothing to offer.

Raylan put his hand on Chip’s shoulder.

“Come on, I’ll take you home.”

Yesterday when Harry said he heard something that sounded like shots, coming from outside, Louis said, “Yeah, is that right?”

This morning when Louis went in the room and saw Harry pulling his bathing cap over his face, Louis said, “You don’t need that no more. The one you had to worry about’s gone.”

Harry said, “The guy that shot King?”

“I fired him,” Louis said.

“He left?”

“Gone. You never see him again.”

“We still going to Freeport?”

“We going today, so clean yourself up.”

“We gonna fly?”

“You see me taking you through Customs and Immigration? The man ask the purpose of your visit? We going by private yacht.”

“What time?”

“Be cool, Harry, I let you know.”

This afternoon Louis brought Harry his snack and Harry asked if they were going now.

“Pretty soon,” Louis said. “Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll take the plywood down off the window; you can look out, see the boat when it comes.”

“I could hear the ocean out there,” Harry said. “I like to just sit and look at the ocean sometimes.”

Porky little guy looking up at him.

“Me too,” Louis said.

“You know I don’t have any clothes,” Harry said. “I’m gonna look like a bum over there.”

The little guy worrying about his appearance.

“You be fine,” Louis said. “You don’t even need shoes. We gonna walk out in the ocean-walk in the water like Ramsey Lewis, no relation to me. Get in a rubber raft to take us to the yacht. My man was gonna pick us up in the Innercoastal, but he say he look at his charts and don’t like the way it becomes so narrow by here. He like it where if the Coast Guard’s coming you can see the motherfuckers before they down on you.”

Louis remembered Harry the first few days asking was anybody there and then yelling, saying he wasn’t gonna say nothing if they didn’t talk to him, so fuck you. Acting tough way past his prime. Now Harry was submissive, as Chip had said he’d become, but without it taking weeks. Louis felt, in a way, he had made a friend of Harry, had saved his life, kept Bobby from killing him; so there wasn’t anything wrong with letting Harry give him half his money. Like it wasn’t a crime kind of gig no more.

This waiting was a bitch, sitting around thinking. Having time to think, work out what he’d do, was good. It was while thinking about walking out in the ocean with Harry, and having Chip along too, Chip whining, bitching, Louis decided the best thing would be to put Chip in the swimming pool soon as he got home. Not wait to drop him in the ocean. Do it and don’t think no more about it. Having too much time to think wasn’t good. Then you began to think of different ways your plan could get fucked up and you’d change your mind.

As soon as they were driving out of the park Raylan had begun to break Chip down with consequences.

“Here’s how it is. For kidnapping, abduction, or unlawful restraint, you’re looking at fifty-one to sixty-three months in a federal prison, a real one, not some army base with tennis courts. Now if you demanded payment-and I don’t see you’d have a reason to hold him if you didn’t-you’re looking at ninety-seven to a hundred and twenty-one months. If Harry’s injured, sustained any kind of bodily injury, you’re looking at more time over and above the basic offense level. If a dangerous weapon was used you go up two levels. If Harry is released, allowed to walk out or turned over to law enforcement authorities within thirty days, you’ll save yourself a couple of years. I’m gonna assume you did not abduct Harry for any reason that would come under sexual exploitation. Am I right?”

Poor Chip. “How can I answer that?”

“With a simple yes or no.”

“If I say either one I’m admitting Harry was kidnapped.”

“All right, let me ask you,” Raylan said, “is Harry in your house at the present time?”

Chip didn’t answer.

“I’ll give you an easier one. Is Louis?”

He said, “I don’t know.”

“If he isn’t,” Raylan said, “I bet I know where he is, with Dawn.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You didn’t know he’s been pokin’ her? I thought maybe you’d handed her down, like an old pair of shoes.” Raylan glanced at the poor guy sitting there, helpless but agitated. “That Dawn,” Raylan said, “she’s something. She can touch you and tell what you had for breakfast. I guess she’s been touching Louis enough to know what’s going on. She’s sitting on the fence now waiting to see how it turns out. I told her, I said, ‘Honey, you’re liable to get your tail in a crack sitting there and go down with the boys.’ You and Louis. We don’t worry about Bobby no more, do we?”

No answer. Chip over there with his own thoughts.

“Since nobody’s home,” Raylan said, “you gonna invite me in your house?”

Chip said, “Why would I do that?”

“You don’t have to. You can tell me to go to hell or go get a warrant, one.” Raylan glanced at him again. “I haven’t threatened you in any way, have I?”

“You just finished saying I could go to prison for a hundred and twenty-one months.”

The high number sticking in his mind.

“It wasn’t a threat,” Raylan said, “it’s how the sentencing guidelines read for the crime you’re committing. It’s in black and white, partner, the letter of the law. So, are you giving me permission to enter your house?”