ELMORE LEONARD - Unknown Man #89

“You seen him lately?”

She finished the wine and brought the glass down hard on the bar.

“Innkeeper!”

The bartender with the bony shoulders took his hand off his thigh and his foot down from something behind the bar and came toward them.

“Same way?”

Ryan nodded. He let the bartender take her glass and walk away before he said, “Lee… you’re not worried I might be a cop, are you?” Ryan waited as she got out a cigarette. He held a match for her. “Believe me, I’m not a cop… You want to know what I am?”

“I know what you are,” the girl said. “I don’t know who-hoo, hoo-but I know what you are. You’re a fucking pervert, aren’t you? You carry that raincoat-that’s how you tell-bright sunny day, you got a raincoat.”

“I didn’t know when I left home it was going to be nice.”

“Bullshit. You take your wang out and put the raincoat on, you see a little kid, little girl, you say, ‘Hi, honey’”-her voice turned oily-“‘want to see the big snake I got in here?’”

“Except on cold days,” Ryan said, “I describe myself.”

She turned and looked at him with sleepy eyes. “You want to show it to me? Go ahead, take it out. Nobody gives a shit, it’s a very friendly place. Art? You don’t care if he takes his wang out, do you?”

“If it makes him happy,” the bartender said. He put down the wine and can of Tab and took a dollar and a quarter from Ryan’s change on the bar.

“I’ll show it to you some other time,” Ryan said. “Okay? Right now I got to find this guy and I don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

“Hi, honey”-with the oily voice again-“you want to see my snake?”

“It’s sleeping, gone nigh’-nigh’.”

“Wake him up. Come on, I want to see what you’ve got.”

“How about Leary’s wife, Denise?” Ryan said. “You know her?”

The girl stopped, about to say something, and looked up at his face, staring at him.

“Do you know her?”

“Not very well.”

“Do you know where she lives?” He waited.

But the girl’s face turned away and she went back into herself. He watched her, after a moment, take another sip of wine.

“You want to get there, what’re you fooling around with wine for?”

She didn’t answer him.

“I used to drink mostly bourbon, over crushed ice, fill up a lowball glass. I also drank beer, wine, gin, vodka, Cuba Libres, Diet-Rite and scotch, and rye with red pop, but I preferred bourbon. Early Times. I knew a guy who drank only Fresca and chartreuse. I took a sip one time, I said to him, ‘Jesus, this is the worst drink I ever tasted in my life.’ He said, ‘I know it is. It’s so bad you can’t drink very many of them.’ A real alcoholic, though, can drink anything, right?… What time you start in the morning?”

Without looking at him the girl said, “Fuck off.”

There was a silence. He watched her raise the glass.

“Okay, then, how much you drink a day?”

“I don’t know,” the girl said. “What do you think would be about right?”

“If you’re not working, have the time, I’d say a gallon, gallon and a half. Depends what time you start.”

“Early,” the girl said.

“Right after you throw up?”

“Before,” the girl said, looking directly at him now. “Before I get out of bed. Then I might throw up or I might piss in the bed, whichever comes first. You want to come home with me? You’re so fucking interested, I’ll show you what I did this morning.”

“I’ve seen it,” Ryan said. “I’ve been there. And you know what? I don’t ever want to go back.”

The girl turned to her glass of wine, subdued. She stared at it for a while before saying, “I’m not ready for you yet.”

“Why put it off? Because you’re having so much fun?”

“I’m not ready .”

“You’re close enough,” Ryan said. “Every day you put it off you’re going to hit harder when you quit. Maybe you want to crash and burn first, end up in detox. It’s your choice, I’m not going to argue with you, try and convince you of anything. But listen”-he took one of his business cards out of his wallet and placed it on the bar next to her glass- “you’ve got to have a very good reason to want to kill yourself. Have you got one?”

The girl, staring at her glass, didn’t answer. Ryan got up from the bar and left.

The black guy in the maroon suit stroked the corners of his bandit mustache. He picked up a wide-brimmed, Stetson-looking hat from the bar and went down to where the girl was hunched over the glass of wine. The tall, good-looking black guy lifted a hip onto the stool next to her.

He said, “Hey, Lee, what’s happening?”

She looked at him sleepily, uninterested, and turned back to the bar.

“That man bothering you?”

“He wanted to show me his thing.”

“Hey, no shit. He do it?”

The girl didn’t answer him.

“He was looking for Bobby, wasn’t he?… Lee?”

“Hey, Virgil,” the girl said then. “You like sex?”

“What kind?”

“What?”

“I said what kind of sex you talking about? With a woman?”

“I don’t know,” the girl said. She seemed to have lost interest. “Forget it.”

“Where’s the key?” Rita said.

“In my coat pocket. Over there on the chair.”

“You sure you want Chinese?”

“That’s fine with me,” Ryan said. “You better get another bottle of wine, too. I think that’s about it.”

Her glass, half full of rosй, was on the footlocker coffee table.

“It’s not that I don’t like your cooking, Ryan. I’m just in the mood for Chinese.”

“You need some money? Here-”

“No, I’ve got it. Wait’ll you’re rich.” Rita got the car keys from his sport coat and went out.

That was one of the good things about her, he didn’t have to wait on her or always buy. She was used to working and knew what things cost. She’d run out and get the Chinese-eager to do it-because he was expecting a call and didn’t want to take a chance with the answering service, have to call back and find out Dick Speed had left. He was anxious to hear from him.

A lot was going on. But he also had to rest once in a while and get his mind somewhere else.

He looked at Rita’s glass on the footlocker and thought of the girl in the Good Times Bar. He’d picked Rita up at five, served a couple of writs, it was ten after seven now. They’d been here a half hour, Rita hadn’t finished the glass yet. The girl in the bar, Lee, she’d have knocked off two doubles and be reaching for the third. Rita didn’t have a problem. Maybe in twenty years, but she’d have to work at it, get into the morning routine. Vodka sitting on the toilet tank while you took a shower, something to hold you till the bars opened at seven. He couldn’t see Rita doing that.

She was all right. She tried a little too hard-like someone who didn’t have an ear or a sense of timing trying to be funny-but there was a lot of girl there in Rita.

He was a little horny, was what he was.

When Rita got back he’d pour her some more rosй and sit close to her on the fake-leather couch, not serious at first but saying funny things as he started to fool around. What he said wasn’t that funny, but Rita always laughed and let him do whatever he wanted. He told her she had centerfold breasts. Actually she had heavy white peasant breasts with big brown nipples. She had a round belly and the trace of a Florida tan line below the navel. He was horny all right. Her pubic hair grew wild and scraggly and reminded him of Che Guevara’s beard. She said, Why do you keep looking at it? He said, Why do you think little boys like pictures of bare-naked ladies? They were all the same, basically, and they were all different. That was amazing and what made them so interesting and fun to look at. They were all different. The phone rang.