Elmore Leonard - City Primeval

“No, you’ve been too busy impressing yourself,” Raymond said. “Tell me what he did.”

“What’re you trying to do, analyze me? He felt me up, but we didn’t go all the way.” Now Raymond smiled and she said, “You think you have insights, is that it?”

“Maybe, if that’s the word. I don’t expect to see something and then look and say, uh-huh, there it is. I try to look without expecting and see what’s actually there. Is that insight?”

“You’re sly,” Carolyn said. “I think I have you down and you slip away.”

He said, “You have me down… where? It’s like filling out an Interrogation Record of an Information for Arraignment, you know what I mean? Sometimes the form isn’t big enough, or it doesn’t ask the right questions.”

“You think I presume too much,” Carolyn said, “see only what I expect to see. Is that it?”

“I don’t know, we can talk about it sometime.” He was tired and wasn’t sure if he should close his eyes.

“If I make presumptions,” Carolyn said, “what about you?”

“What about me?”

“We were making love and you said, ‘I know you… ‘ “

“I didn’t think you heard me.”

“What did you mean?”

“Well, it was like I saw you . Not what you do or who you believe you are, just you. Does that make sense?”

“I don’t know…”

“But you didn’t say anything, did you? I think you changed back after that and I didn’t know you anymore. You became the woman lawyer again who thinks she has to be a tough broad. But look what happens to tough broads.” Raymond was silent a moment. “Let me take care of him, Carolyn.”

When Hunter called Raymond was sitting on the couch with Carolyn’s legs across his lap, both tired of words, on safer ground now but still intimately aware of one another. Carolyn asked if he had always lived here, trying to picture him in another life, when he wasn’t a policeman. And Raymond said, “In Detroit? No, I was born in McAllen, Texas. We lived in San Antonio, Dallas. We came here when I was ten.” She asked, almost hesitantly, if his father was a farmer and Raymond looked at her and smiled. “You mean, was he a migrant? No, he was a barber. He was a dude, the way he dressed, wore pointed patent-leather shoes.” The phone rang then, Raymond waiting for it. He lifted Carolyn’s legs and got up. “My dad was fifty-seven when he died.”

Hunter said, “Mansell called back, just now. He wants Sweety to bring him the gun.”

“Where?”

“It got complicated. Sweety told him he was going to a family thing at his mother’s-trying to hurry Clement up, get it over with. Clement tells him to take the gun along with him. Sweety says he isn’t gonna touch it. If Clement wants the gun tonight he has to come in the next half hour.”

Raymond said, “What difference does it make? The key’s under the mat.”

“Yeah, he told Clement that,” Hunter said. “But what he did was confuse the issue with this going to see his mother and Clement says, okay, he’d just as soon get it tomorrow anyway, sometime in the afternoon.” Hunter waited. “You still there?”

“You’re gonna have to get Sweety out of there for a while,” Raymond said, “keep the story straight. Clement could check, he could still come tonight.”

“I don’t think he will. It’s something he has to do, but it’s the kind of thing you put off,” Hunter said. “Wendell get hold of you?”

“Not yet.”

“He talked to Toma. Toma says he’ll kill the guy if he sees him. In other words, fuck you. But he slipped and gave us one. Skender’s Cadillac’s missing and Toma thinks Mansell’s got it.”

“Where’re you?”

“In the bar.”

“He could go in there tonight. I don’t mean with the key. He could come in the alley, through the yard, go in a back window.”

“Is that right?” Hunter said, very patiently for Hunter. “It turns out the flat next to Sweety’s is vacant, so MCMU’s spending the night there. Is that close enough? What’s the matter, you got a guilty conscience-I’m out here working my ass off, you’re with a broad?”

When Raymond returned to the couch he stood looking down at her, uncertain, removed from where he had been only a few minutes before. He said, “My mother’s name was Mary Frances Connolly.”

He saw Carolyn’s face against a blue pillow, composed, looking up at him. She said, “Really?” a little surprised.

“You want to know what she did?”

“She was a schoolteacher,” Carolyn said.

“No, she was called Franny and operated a beauty shop in the Statler Hotel, when it was still there.”

Carolyn said, “Do you know what my mother did? Nothing. Why don’t you sit down?”

He lifted her legs and got under them, sitting low in the couch, his head against the cushion.

“You want to go to bed, I’ll get out of your way.”

“No, stay here. You’ve watched me, but I haven’t watched you,” Carolyn said. “You like your work, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do,” Raymond said.

“You don’t get tired of the same thing every day?”

“Well, nobody likes surveillance; but outside of that it’s usually, well, each one’s different.”

“There’s surveillance and there’s lying in wait,” Carolyn said quietly. “I think you’re setting Clement up.”

He was touching her bare toes, feeling them relaxed, pliable. “You’re not ticklish, huh?”

“A little.”

“That’s the way you are in court, very cool. All the pros make it look easy.”

“I said, I have a feeling you’re setting Clement up.”

“And I have a feeling he knows it,” Raymond said, “so it’s up to him, isn’t it?”

“But you seem fairly certain he’s going to come.”

“He’s gonna do some thing, I know that.”

“How do you know?”

“We looked each other in the eye,” Raymond said.

He smiled and Carolyn said, “My God, you haven’t grown up either.”

Raymond worked his head against the cushion, getting comfortable. “I was kidding.”

She saw him against lamplight, his eyes closed, simply himself now. She said, “No, you weren’t.”

AT EIGHT O’CLOCKthe next morning Raymond phoned Inspector Herzog to report on the surveillance. Herzog, he was told, had left a day early on his vacation. Raymond felt relief. Then tensed up again as he had the call transferred to Commander Lionel Hearn, who was a good police officer, quiet, reasonable, but did not smile easily and this bothered Raymond. Commander Hearn was black. Raymond told him about the surveillance of Sweety’s Lounge and residence and the purpose, without offering details. Commander Hearn said fine, and then asked Raymond where he had stationed himself.

Raymond said, “As a matter of fact I’m at Mansell’s lawyer’s place. It’s only about three or four minutes away.” Silence. “I want Ms. Wilder to be there if an arrest is made. I don’t want us thrown out of court on any surprise technicalities. We’re gonna do it absolutely straight.” Silence-while Raymond imagined Commander Hearn putting bits and pieces together in his mind and getting a picture of Raymond in his shirtsleeves, tie off but freshly shaved, a breakfast tray on the desk next to his holstered Colt automatic. The commander said he had never heard of this type of precaution before; was it necessary? Raymond said, “Well, actually Ms. Wilder’s not representing Mansell and won’t be if we bring him to trial. He hasn’t retained her and she’s willing to go along; so I think she could serve as a very valuable witness.” Silence again.

The commander said, “Well, if you think you know what you’re doing, good luck.”