ELMORE LEONARD - Unknown Man #89

In five years of arrests, convictions, plea bargaining, and insanity judgments, shuttling between Jackson and several different state hospitals, Leary spent only a few months at a time in prison. Psychiatrists from Valley Forge General, Jackson, Ionia, Northville, Battle Creek, and the forensic center came to Leary’s trials and hearings during the five-year period and testified repeatedly, unequivocally, that Robert Leary was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, an essentially incurable mental illness. Finally, making his most recent appeal from the forensic center, Leary insisted he had lied to the psychiatrists in an attempt to make them believe he was insane. He then made a statement that he was, as of now, sane and, in a probate hearing, demanded his release. The jury believed Robert Leary and he was allowed to return to the street. That had been two months ago.

“Mmmm, that’s not so good, is it?” Mr. Perez said. “Sounds like a mean bugger, doesn’t he? Hard to talk to.”

“I’ll tell you something else that’s not so good,” Ryan said. “Somebody’s looking for him besides me. I put an ad in the personals. Robert Leary, Jr., urgent, and a number, phone number. Two different guys called, both saying they’re Robert Leary, Jr., and what do I want to see him about. One of them says he’ll meet me at the Greyhound station nine o’clock. Nobody showed up. At least that I know of. Maybe he did, whoever it is, and got a look at me, my car, and now I’m being watched. I don’t know. One, let’s say, is the real Robert Leary. The other one, I’ve got a feeling he’s looking for Robert Leary, too, and he thinks maybe I can help him.”

“How about his parole officer? You talk to him?”

“Leary, Bobby Lear, isn’t out on parole, he was released, clean.”

“So the assignment, you might say, has taken on a different complexion. Might be a little more difficult than it looked at first, uh?”

“It isn’t that it’s more difficult so much as I’m getting mixed up with people who shoot each other,” Ryan said, “and it’s a little different than what I’m used to.”

“Well, maybe if you had more of an incentive,” Mr. Perez said, in his quiet tone. “I don’t want you to feel I’m pushing you or talking you into continuing, you understand. It’s entirely up to you. I can understand why you might be apprehensive, the fact he’s killed people.” Mr. Perez paused, and for a moment his mouth showed the trace of a smile. “He does sound like a mean son of a bitch, doesn’t he? Bobby Lear.” He took a drink before looking at Ryan again. “But I don’t see why it would be necessary for you to confront him or have any conversation with him. All I’d like you to do is locate him for me. Get on his trail and follow it, anywhere he might have gone.”

Ryan waited for him to finish. “You mentioned something about more of an incentive.”

“Yeah… I was thinking maybe a percentage rather than an hourly rate or a per diem,” Mr. Perez said. “That is, if you locate him and I’m able to make a deal. Say, oh… ten percent?”

“Ten percent of what, the stock?”

“Yeah, the whole thing.”

“The stock’s only worth a buck a share, isn’t it?”

“In 1941 it was,” Mr. Perez said. “Its cash value now, I’d say, would be around a hundred and fifty thousand. We’d have to look into the accumulated dividends, so it could be several thousand more.”

Ryan saw the figure in his mind, fifteen grand, a clean round figure. But he wanted to be sure. “I get ten percent of a hundred and fifty thousand?”

“If you find him and if I make a deal, get him to agree.”

“Ten percent of the hundred and fifty,” Ryan said, still wanting to be sure. “Not ten percent of what you get.”

“Say fifteen thousand minimum,” Mr. Perez said. “I’ll draw up an agreement, give it to you in writing.”

“What do you think the chances are? I mean of you getting him to go along with it?”

“Four to one. I sign eighty percent of the people I locate,” Mr. Perez said. “Ah, but locating them, that’s the bugger. It comes down to a question of how much time to allow in relation to the potential gain. I can afford to put a little more time in on this one. I can afford to hire you and sit here and discuss a proposition. Otherwise, Mr. Ryan, I doubt we’d have sufficient reason to be talking to each other about anything.”

Mr. Perez spoke and revealed little glimpses of himself, what the real Mr. Perez thought and felt. That was fine with Ryan. It was a business deal. They weren’t going to the ball game together.

“So now I’ll ask you,” Mr. Perez said, “what you think your chances are of locating him.”

Ryan thought a moment. He almost told the truth and said he didn’t know, that maybe he wouldn’t even come close. But he didn’t.

He said, “I usually hit about ninety percent. As you say, time’s a factor. If I wasn’t concerned with that, I’d probably do better.” Ryan picked up his raincoat from his lap and draped it over one arm. He seemed about to get up, then sank back into the chair again.

“I almost forgot. You said something about a written agreement, didn’t you?”

Mr. Perez picked up the phone to call room service for his noon dinner, then changed his mind and placed a person-to-person call to Mr. Raymond Gidre in New Iberia, Louisiana. He took the phone over to the deep chair and sank down comfortably.

After a moment he said, “Raymond, how you doing, boy? I bet you got a big plate of crawfish in front of you and a glass of cold beer… What?” Mr. Perez laughed. “That’s just as good. You can’t get nothing like that up here… Uh-huh. Listen, Raymond? How’d you like to come to Detroit for a few days?… No, this one’s a little different. Man turns out, he likes to shoot people… I’m telling you the truth.” Mr. Perez listened, then began to grin. “Now you’re talking. We got one here, Raymond, I believe we can go all the way… You bet. You get ready and I’ll call you back, tell you when exactly I need you…. Fine, Raymond. Be good now, I’ll see you.”

Mr. Perez picked up the phone again and asked for room service.

“How you doing?” Mr. Perez said. “You got any crawfish?… No, I don’t want crayfish, I want craw fish… I didn’t think so. How about boiled shrimp?… With the shells on. You peel ’em, dip ’em in hot sauce… What? All right, I’ll call you back.”

Mr. Perez went over to the desk and shuffled through the papers and file folders. He opened the drawer then. There it was. Mr. Perez took the room-service menu back to his chair, looking at it.

Bunch of shit.

About all he could do was get this deal done and hope it didn’t take too long.

“THE THING THATbothers me about him,” Ryan said, “here’s this businessman, investment consultant-he’s staying in this suite at the Pontch has got to cost him a hundred bucks a day-I tell him about Robert Leary, about the people he’s killed, and he grins and says, ‘Sounds like a mean bugger, doesn’t he?’”

“Maybe he was being cool,” Dick Speed said. “Trying to impress you.”

Dick Speed was driving an unmarked Ford sedan, turning off Saint Antoine now and heading out Gratiot Avenue, creeping along about twenty-five.

“I don’t think so,” Ryan said. “It was real, the way he sounded. See, it bothered me that it didn’t bother him, the idea of doing business with a homicidal maniac. Christ, a guy like that out on the street.”

“Maybe he is, we don’t know.”

“You don’t care, is what you mean,” Ryan said. “You only care about him if he kills somebody else.”

“Like you maybe, messing around with him.”