Elmore Leonard - City Primeval

As Carolyn watched, Raymond began to smile.

Toma left the apartment door open; he sat reading one of the books he would bring Skender, a book about the cultivation and care of house plants. When Raymond Cruz and a woman and Hunter appeared in the doorway Toma said, “Well, how are you?”

Raymond said, “Toma Sinistaj, Carolyn Wilder. Ms. Wilder does criminal work, she’s one of the best defense attorneys in town. I mention it in case you want to retain her right now and get that out of the way.”

Toma said, “You don’t want to talk to me alone?”

“I want you to tell me where he is. Right here’s fine.”

“I’m giving you something, Raymond; but you don’t want all your people watching. I could have killed him. You understand that? I came very close. Then I said no.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see. Or you won’t; it’s up to you. But I think you better get rid of your people.”

A door closed down the hall.

It was quiet in the building now. Toma took them to the basement where he turned on fluorescent lights and let them stand looking around for a moment, preparing his audience.

“He had a gun,” Toma said. “This one,” opening his suitcoat and drawing an automatic from his waistband. “You see it? It’s a Browning. It belongs to this family and has killed no one.”

“Where is he?” Raymond said.

Toma nodded. “Watch the wall there.” He walked over to the furnace, where Raymond was standing, Raymond stepping out of his way, reached up, stretching to his tiptoes, and pulled the switch down.

With the humming sound the wall began to come apart, the three-foot section of cement blocks opening toward them, gradually revealing the room, the record player, the safe… Clement Mansell seated in a canvas chair with his legs crossed.

He said, “Hey, shit, what is going on? I come down here to put back something Sandy give me she says her friend Skender loaned her for protection and this undertaker sticks a pistol in my back, locks me in here.”

“He had the wall already open,” Toma said, “waiting in there for you to find him.”

“With the Browning?” Raymond said.

Toma nodded. “He wants you to believe he got it from the blond girl with the hair.”

“You searched him good?”

“Of course.”

“What about in the room?”

“I made sure.” Toma hefted the Browning. “This is the only gun he had. There were some in there, but I took them out yesterday.”

Clement said, “Are you looking for a gun, it’s got P .38 stamped on the side and some other numbers and kinda looks like a German Luger?… I haven’t seen it.”

Pull him out, Raymond thought. No, go in there with him. Tell Toma to close the wall.

“We got Sandy,” Hunter was saying to Clement. “Saw her hand you the gun and you hand it back, thinking you’re foxing somebody.”

“Hey, bullshit,” Clement said. “You had Sandy you wouldn’t be standing there with that egg smeared all over your face.”

Raymond wanted to pull him up out of the chair-where he sat low with one knee sticking out at an angle, his boot resting on the other knee, elbows on the chair arms, hands clasped in front of him-and hit Clement as hard as he could.

The man’s eyes danced from Hunter to Raymond, then to Carolyn. He said, “How you doing, lady?” Frowning then. “Jesus, what’d you do to your face, run into something?” His gaze moved back to Raymond. “What the undertaker says, that’s my story. I come down here to return a weapon Sandy was given or swiped off her boyfriend. If you think you saw something different or you don’t like what you see now, tough titty, I’m sticking to it. There ain’t any way in the world you’re gonna lay the judge on me, partner, or anybody else. And I’ll tell you something, you never will.” His gaze moved to Carolyn and he winked. “Have I got ’em by the gonads, counselor, or haven’t I? I want to thank you very much for that loan.” He patted his jacket pocket. “I got the check right here. Gonna cash her as I leave here for Tampa, Florida, never to return. Which I bet chokes you all up some.” With his half-grin he looked at Raymond again. “What do you say, partner, you give up?”

Raymond said nothing. He reached up with his right hand, felt the switch mounted on the wall and flicked it on.

As the wall began to close Clement said, “Hey-” He didn’t move right away, he said, “My lawyer’s standing right there, shithead.” They saw him rise out of the chair now, saying, “Hey, come on, goddamn-it-” They could see his fingers in the opening before he pulled them in. They could see a line of light inside and hear him scream, “Goddamn-it, open this goddamn-” And that was all.

Raymond reached up again. The humming motor sound stopped. There was a silence. Carolyn turned, started for the stairs, and Raymond looked over.

“Carolyn?”

She didn’t pause or look back. “I’ll be in the car.”

He watched her go up the stairs-no objections from her, no emotion-and again there was silence. Hunter approached the cinderblock wall almost cautiously and ran his hand over it. He looked at Raymond and said, straightfaced, “Where’d he go?”

Toma said to Raymond, “You see why I didn’t kill him. This way satisfies both of us. For me, it’s like Skender doing it to him, which is much better. For you, it seems the only way you’re going to get this man who kills people.”

Hunter said, “You sure he can’t open it?”

“He broke the switch himself when he was here before,” Toma said.

Raymond listened as they spoke in low tones, almost reverently, Toma saying, “He prepared his own tomb. There’s water, a little food for his last meals, a toilet. He could last-I don’t know-fifty, sixty days maybe. But eventually he dies.” Hunter saying now, “We had the place covered, but somehow he slipped out. I don’t see any problem, do you? Man disappeared.” Toma saying, “It’s also soundproof.” Then Hunter wondering if after a while there might be an odor and Toma saying, “One of the tenants complains we open the wall and say, ‘Oh, so that’s where he was hiding. Oh, that’s too bad.’ ”

It’s done, Raymond thought. Walk away.

THEY HAD SEVERAL DRINKSat the Athens Bar, quiet drinks, Raymond and Hunter alone at a table, with little to talk about until Hunter leaned in to tell what worried him. Like Carolyn Wilder. Would she blow it or not? Raymond said he didn’t think so. She had walked out (her car was gone when they left the apartment building) and it was like saying to them, do what you want. Without saying it. He believed she could handle it. Carolyn had learned to be realistic about Clement: she could send him away for assault and robbery, but knew he would come back if she did.

Hunter said, “You want to know exactly what it’s like? It’s like the first time I ever went to a whorehouse. I was sixteen years old, these guys took me to a place corner of Seward and Second. After, you’re all clutched up, you don’t know whether to feel proud of yourself or guilty. You know what I mean? And after a while you don’t think of it either way; it’s something you did.” Hunter went home to bed.

Raymond walked back to 1300 Beaubien. The snack counter in the lobby was closed and he looked at his watch: 5:40. The squadroom was locked, empty. He went in and sat at his desk beneath the window. It was dismal outside, a gray cast to the sky; somber, semidark inside, but he didn’t bother to turn on lights.

He had felt relief as the wall closed and Mansell disappeared; but the relief was an absence of pressure, not something in itself. He tried to analyze what he was feeling now. He didn’t feel good, he didn’t feel bad. He called Carolyn. She said, “Are you worried I’m going to tell on you?” He said, “No.” She said, “Then why talk about it. I’m awfully tired. Why don’t you call me tomorrow, maybe go out to dinner, get a little high? How does that sound?”