ELMORE LEONARD: Unknown Man #89

“The whole thing is,” Denise said, “you look at money differently than I do. You’d push somebody out a window to get it. And if you said you were going to push me out, I’d give it to you. Because I honest and truly, whether you believe me or not, don’t care about the money.”

“Then why don’t you sign the agreement with me?” Mr. Perez said.

“Because it’s up to Ryan,” Denise said, “and for some reason he thinks you’re a tinhorn asshole. But let’s keep in touch, okay?”

It shouldn’t be this difficult, Mr. Perez thought then and at times later on. Why is it? How did it get out of hand?

The process server. Ryan.

It was the first time in Mr. Perez’s career he had misjudged anyone to the degree that it might cost him money. (Even on the New Orleans deal, the woman with the Jew lawyer, he had kept in touch with her while he was in Angola and got her to sign an agreement.) When the feeling gnawed at his insides, he took Gelusil tablets and blamed it on northern cooking. He would not admit his misjudgment as long as Mrs. Leary ate her fries with ketchup in the corner of her mouth and didn’t care about the money. He had to fool with her some more, stroke her, treat her kindly. If that failed, all right, then open the window. He was playing with children, was the trouble. They were unpredictable and threw him off his game.

He said, “If you insist on Mr. Ryan advising you, that’s fine. But why don’t the three of us sit down, forget anything was said before that might’ve made somebody mad, and get this thing worked out. What do you say?”

“If it’s all right with Ryan.”

“Can you call him?”

“He’s supposed to call me later.”

“Where is he, out serving paper?”

“No, he’s doing something with the police.” Denise cut into her hamburger patty. “Mine’s a little well done. How’s yours?”

“The local police, here?”

“The Detroit police,” Denise said, taking a bite of the hamburger patty but watching Mr. Perez. “I mentioned, I thought you’d be busy today.”

Mr. Perez saw it coming. Her delivery wasn’t bad at all, good timing, playing it dumb, but with the glint of awareness in her eyes if he wanted to notice it. Nice touch with the hamburger being well done. Well done-it was a piece of shit, but served as a nice piece of business.

He said, “Where was it I’m supposed to be busy today?” And she says:

“Buying a suitcase.”

He had to smile at that. She was good. “Tell me something,” Mr. Perez said. “Why should I pay to get my own property back?”

“I don’t think you’re gonna get it back,” Denise said.

“Why not? It’s mine.”

“Because Ryan’ll be there and you won’t.”

“How can he claim it if it isn’t his?”

“I’m not saying he will,” Denise said. “What he’ll do is identify the man who tried to kill him. Your friend Raymond.”

“Now we’re talking about something I don’t know anything about,” Mr. Perez said. “What’s it got to do with me, or the suitcase?”

“You better finish your Rancher,” Denise said. “They pick you up, you might not get anything to eat for a while.”

Mr. Perez smiled at her again, watching her dab a couple of fries in the ketchup on her plate.

“Honey, you’re pretty good, you know that? But I’ll make you a bet I have my suitcase back before the day’s over.”

“How much?”

“A dollar,” Mr. Perez said.

Ryan didn’t know if he was supposed to stay or leave. Nobody told him anything. He hung around, looking in the squad room offices that were crowded with old desks. Seeing guys in their shirtsleeves with sidearms drinking coffee. Looking at mug shots of black guys on the wall. Watching a fairly attractive black girl operate a Xerox machine. Dick Speed would pass him without a word, very busy, coming in and out of his office, going into Olsen’s office a couple of times where the suitcase was open on a table. Ryan watched them through the glass picking up papers, looking at them. After about a half hour of being quiet and polite, letting them play their grade school game with him, Ryan left.

The place reminded him of a grade school he’d gone to in Detroit-the principal’s office, waiting, looking up at the picture of George Washington, the high windows that reached to the ceiling, the solemn gray sky outside. He wasn’t a little boy anymore and didn’t have to say please and thank you and kiss ass if he didn’t want to. He left.

He didn’t go far, though. He went to a coffee house across from the Athens Bar on Monroe, a block from police headquarters, ordered a cup of Turkish, and shot bumper pool. Shit, he was still waiting around.

He phoned Denise and told her what had happened and what was going on. She told him about having lunch with Mr. Perez and he felt good again. He didn’t have to be down. If he was down it was because he chose to be down, and that was dumb.

Denise said, “If they don’t want to talk to you, what’re you hanging around for? We’ve got better things to do.”

“Right,” Ryan said. “But what exactly did you have in mind?”

Denise said, “Go home and pack your bag, and when you pick me up I’ll tell you.”

That’s what he did. In fact, he got out most of his summer clothes, his jeans, lightweight stuff, and packed them in the twenty-nine-dollar Sears footlocker, reactivating it, no longer a coffee table, something to put his feet on. It was a good feeling.

But then he sat down and got up and walked around the silent apartment and looked out the window. It was after seven, nearly dark outside.

He phoned Dick Speed.

And Speed, with a tone of mild surprise, said, “Where’d you go? I look around, you’re not here.”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to wait.”

“Did I say it was okay for you to go?” Still playing the game, punishing the bad boy.

“You want me to come down and wait some more?”

“You’re too late,” Dick Speed said. “You waited, you’d have seen your friend Mr. Perez.”

“You picked him up?”

“No, he walked in by himself. Had a very interesting discussion-not with me so much, with Olsen. Left a few minutes ago.”

“Can I ask you,” Ryan said, trying hard to sound calm, “did you give him the suitcase?”

“Let’s talk about it in the morning,” Dick Speed said. “I’m about to piss on the fire and head for the ranch.”

“Dick, come on, for Christ’s sake, just tell me, will you?”

“There’re a few things I want to sit down and talk to you about, as I’m sure you know, you rascal. Long as you’re not gonna leave town, there’s no rush.”

A good sign, the light side of the cop beginning to shine through again.

Be calm and show him a little humility. “Dick, if I can ask you to wait just fifteen minutes, okay? Please.”

“Well,” the son of a bitch said, “all right, I’ll be here. But don’t putz around.”

“I’m leaving now.”

“And, Jackie?” Dick Speed said. “Bring the papers you took out of the suitcase.”

It was quiet in the squad rooms this time. The offices that Ryan could see, with their worn, cluttered desks butted against each other, were empty. He didn’t like offices at night with fluorescent lights on. Offices were depressing enough with people in them. He didn’t like waiting in offices either, sitting in a straight chair by the desk; he felt at a disadvantage. “Sit down,” Dick Speed had said, and walked out. Ryan sat with the papers he’d taken from the suitcase, Mr. Perez’s letters and the hotel stationery, in a manila envelope on his lap. He didn’t know where Dick Speed had gone-until he got up, dropped the manila envelope on the desk, and walked out, not to leave, to move around. There was more room in the squad rooms’ outer office where he had waited this afternoon, but there wasn’t anything to look at he hadn’t seen before: the mug shots on the wall, a calendar, the Xerox machine, the coffee maker.