The Lonely Silver Rain (16 page)

"Now it's quiet?"

"I hear it is quiet but it is tense. Big Ruffi got it for trying to put the lid on and not telling them where to find his kid."

"Why all the others?"

"Why not? All it ever was was a working arrangement. When it starts to come apart, then people get what maybe they asked for in other deals a while back. Maybe short weight or short money-just a suspicion, not enough to rock the boat for. Once it opens up you pay back old scores. And new ones."

"Anybody have any idea where Ruffi Junior is?"

"Nobody knows. Maybe he's in Toronto, or maybe he's in Tampa. Wherever he is, he's scared shitless. He's sending out for food, booze and broads."

"He wasn't at the Mass."

"So I heard. Nobody thought he'd be there, but they covered it anyway. You were there?"

"I kind of want him."

"Do yourself a favor. You get a line on him, don't dirty your hands. Call me and I'll get the word to the right place."

"It's a little more personal than that."

"Why should it be personal?"

"I got to the three people he killed before the law did."

He smiled and shook his head. "You are a nutcake like Ruffi Junior. Not the same kind, but just as nutty. What are you? The Spotless Avenger? Whyn't you go find work in a comic book? Ruffi is a sad sorry little creep who can't walk past a mirror without stopping and smiling at himself."

"Okay. Maybe, if I find him, maybe I'll call you."

There was a sudden twist of pain on his face, a spasm of one arm. He smiled again. "Don't take too long. Go get Briney."

I found her in the kitchen. She hurried to him. "A bad one, kid," he said. She trotted out of the room and came back with a hypo kit. She flipped his robe open, turned him to expose a wasted haunch and shot him, scrubbed the place with cotton dipped in alcohol.

Willy said apologetically, "It's spread to places where it hurts. Listen. McGee. You've got everything. Don't piss your life away because you got some kind of blues. Honest to God, I never started to live until I found out I was dying. You promise you'll come get Briney?" His voice was getting slurred. She was where he could not see her, bobbing her head violently at me, frowning.

"Who am I to turn down something like that?"

"Atta boy. That's using the old…" And the next inhalation was a snore.

She walked over to a chair and dropped into it, crossed her arms, lowered her chin to her chest. I saw one tear fall to her lap. She raised her head and gave me a sweet sad smile. She spoke softly. "He was really glad to see you. I'm glad you came. I hope you'll come back soon. Please. He is not all that glad to see some of the other people who visit him. Some of them are very weird. Some of them, I have to leave the room while they talk. Thanks for telling him you'd come after me."

"It's a pretty strange offer."

"He's a funny old guy. He thinks I'm some dumb little kid he has to find a foster home for. Stuff is an old buddy of his. Stuff heard he was very depressed and he'd have to have around-the-clock nursing or go into a nursing home to die. So he sent me like a present. Only what he did was give me round-trip airfare and ten thousand dollars to come cheer Willy up, make him feel part of life again. It took a little while but I nudged him out of it. He can accept dying now. We talk about it. He's beginning to think of it as some kind of an adventure. A trip. He hates the needle because it takes him out of it, takes away some of what he has left. He hates to sleep at night. He talks to me about the old days. He hasn't got anybody else in the world. That must really be hell on wheels, to have nobody at all. He says he wasted his whole life and if he gets another life to live, it'll be different."

"I've never heard of a better present."

She shrugged. "So you do what you can. I gave him Demerol, so he'll be out four hours. Do come back."

She took me to the door. I looked back at her and said, "People are always giving you presents and then taking them back."

She winked at me. "Ain't it hell?"

Millis said, "Trav? My God, I bet I've called you thirty times. A friend of mine is here and he would like you to talk to him."

"Put him on."

"No. He wants you to come here."

"Who is he?"

"He goes sailing in the mornings."

"Oh. Well, sure. Give me a half hour."

When she let me into the duplex, the sea through the great windows was a soft shade of gray and there were streaks of rose and pink in the eastern sky the afterglow of the unseen sunset behind us. They had not yet turned on the lights. Jornalero struggled up from a deep chair to shake my hand. He seemed to have lost the flavor of confidence and authority. His voice was softer, subdued. Millis brought drinks and turned on a low lamp on the table between our chairs. Our chairs were at right angles to each other. The light winked on the ice in his drink as he raised it to his lips. It left his face in shadow. Millis sat off to my left in darkness, sat yoga-fashion on a low square table surfaced in squares of ornamental tile. I had the feeling that she sat off to the side like that when Jornalero was keeping her, when he had asked men to come to the place he rented for her, to talk their business in safety.

"Was it what you hoped would happen?" he asked.

"I didn't know what would happen."

"A craziness," he said. "Madness. Hatred. I have lost valued friends. Friends of many years. I've sent my wife far away, just in case. There isn't any meaning to it anymore. Tit for tat. That's all it is. You kill my friend, I kill your friend, you kill me, my brother kills you. Did you know it would be like this, McGee, when you told me about Ruffino's boy?"

"I didn't. Browder did."

"Who is Browder?"

"An undercover agent with the DEA. He hoped it would be like this. He's dead."

"Why would anybody hope for this? Fathers and sons. Husbands."

"He said that if you shake the tree, the ripe fruit falls out. He told me the law can't touch you, Mr. Jornalero. He said you might possibly be indicted for violating laws about foreign currency exchange, but probably never convicted in any way that would stick."

"Then he is the one who told you about the mules?"

"That's right."

"I wondered. That was a long time ago. I am three and four times removed from any of that. I am a legitimate businessman."

"But you launder the cash."

He didn't answer directly. He seemed to be looking off into the distance, into the final fading streak of rose. "Sometimes it comes in cardboard boxes," he said. "Thirty and forty at a time. Supermarket boxes. Lux soap. Shredded wheat. Grapefruit juice. Sealed with silver duct tape. Fives, tens, twenties, fifties, hundreds. Just thrown in and packed down and they had no idea how much was there. They take my word. My word is always good. I've got two girls who do nothing but sort it, count it and band it. They won't have much to do, for a while. Not for very long, though. Then it will start flowing again. It has to come somewhere. It has to come to a safe place."

"Three percent?" I asked.

He sighed. "Three to some. Four to others." He turned toward me and his tone changed. "My damned fool countrymen did a number on Tom Beccali last night."

"Who is he?"

"A prominent area businessman. Like me. Like Ruffino. I told them enough was enough. It's over. Forget it. But they thought the scales were out of balance. He won't be missed for some time. He travels a great deal. He is at the bottom of the ocean. The police don't know that, and the news people don't know it, but they know it. And I'm the logical response. Millis said I have to have your permission."

"For what?"

"He wants to be my house guest for a few days, maybe longer."

"I have no say in the matter. It's up to you."

"It was the only place I could think of," he said.

"Why my permission?" I asked Millis.

"Arturo used the wrong word," she said. "I meant more like advice. Could it be a bad idea?"

"Who knows you're here?" I asked him.

"No one outside this room. And two men downstairs."

"But there are people who know you two used to be friends?"

"Yes. Quite a few."

She broke in. "But the security here is good. I can tell anybody I'm alone here. He'll stay out of sight. What do you think, Travis?"

"It's up to you. But don't the security people downstairs know his name?"

"I used a different name."

She stirred uneasily. "Fortez," she said. "One hell of a shock."

He leaned toward me, putting his empty glass down. "Mr. McGee, even if I had known it would all go this far, I still would have had to pass along your information about young Ruffi. There were some doubts about it for a time. But not after his friend Bobby Dermon was… interrogated. They flew down to the Keys in a float plane Ruffi borrowed from a friend. They both boarded that boat. The man who'd made the buy had hidden the money and the product and he tried to negotiate a better deal. They tied him up and questioned him. Dermon kept the women from trying to leave. Once they found the money and the shipment, they raped the women. Ruffi killed both the women. Dermon suffocated the man by jamming the money into his mouth. Her uncle in Lima now has the full story. I wanted to talk to you to tell you nobody wants you dead, not anymore."

"How about Ruffi?"

"He will be found. Sooner or later. There is a reward. A big one. And so the interest is high. He is the rabbit in the forest with ten thousand wolves."

"Nothing that happens is going to resurrect Billy Ingraham," I said.

"Or many, many others," Jornalero said.

"But Billy was an innocent bystander," I told him.

"Innocent people and guilty people are killed every day Stray bullets in small wars. Fog on the Interstates. If innocence could keep us alive, my friend, we'd all be saints."

"I'm sure Billy would be very comforted to hear that, Jornalero, especially from the lips of a man who's made it big in the world's dirtiest business, an unctuous, well-dressed, high-living son of a bitch who may have even convinced himself he isn't doing anything rotten. All you do is make all the rest of it possible by keeping it profitable."

"Trav!" Millis said sharply.

"I do a lot of good in the world," Arturo said. "The rest of it is a small favor for old friends."

I grinned at him. "I know. Somebody has to do it. Right? Now your hide is at risk too, Artie. I hope they find you."

"Goddamn it!" Millis said. "Who are you to get so Christly? From stuff Billy told me about you…"

"I never told you I was perfect. Have a happy reunion, kids."

After I was back aboard my refuge, drinking by a single low light, with Edye singing along with the Tres Panchos in the background, I mourned the sappiness of my exit lines. I had used old Arturo to get myself off the hook, and then took some swings at him. Somewhere there are in telligent and highly skilled design engineers working the bugs out of ever more deadly weapons-lasers to blind armies, multiple multiple warheads, flames that stick to flesh and can't be extinguished, heat beams to fry the crews inside their tanks. And they pack up the printouts and turn off the computers and have a knock with the guys on the way home to the kiddies. Somebody has to do it. Right?

Night and gin and music-the right setting for peeling off the thin clinging layers of bullshit and finding one's way down closer to the essential self. I had let loose on Jornalero because I had been disturbed by the feeling of the relationship between him and Millis. A residual fondness, a product of years shared. And that of course could be peeled back to reveal a dissatisfaction with myself for having sought out sex with her. That first time was by her invitation. From then on by my design. The proceedings had been very skillful, orgasms noteworthy, pleasure intense. But I had not gotten one millimeter past the surface gloss of those tilted green eyes. Though our actions had elicited a wide range of sounds and responses from her, from little yelps to earthy groans, she was just about as real to me as would have been one of those blowup pneumatic ladies Japanese sailors tote aboard for the long freighter trips and stow in little satchels under the bunk until needed. They now make them with microprocessors, little motors, long-life batteries and voice boxes: Crever people.

So, as Edye sings of her corazуn, peel back another leaf. I had wanted the curiously impersonal relationship with Millis because I did not want to set up any new emotional debts or obligations. I wanted no involvement in any significant dimensions. I wanted Millis as a receptacle.

So, recharge the glass with more ice and Boodles, change the tape and go back and peer under the next leaf. Why no emotional involvement? Because there was nothing left in the inventory. Nothing left to give. I had said "forever" too many times to too many people. I had spent my stock. I was bankrupt.

With the next leaf pulled back I discovered that the bankruptcy was what was souring the look of my world. That led me back to Willy Nucci's concern and advice.

But, for God's sake, you can't suddenly spring up and clap your hands and say, "Hey, what a wonderful world!" Piss and vinegar can't be summoned on command. The muted colors of a muted life will not suddenly brighten because you think it a good idea they should. What could I look forward to otherwise? To a winding down? To becoming a sour, peevish old bastard, too stubborn to admit loneliness. Long ago I had been unable to commit myself totally when I should have. And later, when I wanted to, the timing was tragic. But as Jornalero had pointed out, the bad things happen to the innocent and to the guilty without reference to their desires or merit.

The answer, of course, would be under the next leaf. So I peeled it back and there it was. Nothing! Just a little hole in the middle, protected by all the folded leaves of self-deception. McGee, the empty vessel. The orifice had at one time been packed full of juice and dreams. Promises. Now there was a little dust at the bottom of it. Some webs across it. It is to moan, beat the breast, tear the hair. I had no smart retort, nothing witty to say to myself. I was ten thousand times better off than Willy Nucci physically. But in spirit, he was laps ahead.

So I pulled myself away from the dubious pleasures of introspection and self-analysis. Think about Ruffino Marino the Second. A smart-ass. Vain. Tricky. Violent. What would he be thinking now? I could assume he had sense enough to be terrified. They had gotten into the old man's fortress and slit his fat throat in bed as he slept. He had awakened, dying, unable to make a sound, able to thrash a little but not enough to awaken his wife.

He would probably know Bobby Dermon was gone too. To run and to hide takes the motivation of terror. To run and hide well takes money. Lots of it. Assume he was able to grab it before he started running.

Okay, even though he couldn't act, he probably thought of himself as an actor. Out of his vanity he would think his face would be recognized anywhere. I got out the publicity shot of him and studied it. Take off most of that glossy black hair, down to a boot camp cut. Dye it pale blonde. Dye the brows too. Pad out those flat cheeks with some cotton behind the side teeth. Glasses with gold rims. New ID, Nordic name, fake address, a history easy to memorize. To trace somebody, you have to know their habits, their tastes. In time they slip up. A man cannot change himself into somebody else. When there is no great urge to find a man, he can stay lost. No problem there. The countryside is full of men with new identities.

I decided it would be stupid romanticism to believe for an instant that I could find him. I believed also that young Marino did not have the discipline or control to get lost and stay lost. He couldn't let himself fade into the woodwork. Too much ego. Too much restlessness and recklessness.

I was startled by the bong of someone stepping on the mat on the aft deck next to the small gangplank. When there was no knock at my door, I took the little Airweight from its temporary resting place in the back of the yellow couch, wedged into the springs and padding behind an inconspicuous slit in the fabric, and went to the door, staying well off to one side as I flicked the switch for the outside light. I looked out cautiously and saw nothing.

After five minutes of listening and waiting, I went forward, up into the bow, released the hatch, lifted it a few inches and listened, then folded it back silently, eeled out and squatted in half darkness. Nothing. Nothing on the side decks or up on the sun deck. Nothing on the bow or stern.

I went down through the bow hatch, dogged it from below and went back through the lounge to turn out the aft deck light. Then it occurred to me that maybe someone had left a note.

It was not exactly a note. It was three more pipe-cleaner cats arranged in a row at the edge of the mat. A black one, a white one and a gray one. If it was some kind of kid trick, the point eluded me. Now I had five of the beasts. Again there was the tiny tug at memory. It was like trying to remember the name of a place you had visited long ago. All I knew was that if I could retrieve the memory, it would be saddening somehow. I had not liked that place.

I picked them up to flip them into the trash tin, then changed my mind and brought them in. I locked the door, turned out the light and put the cats with their prior visitors-the two colorful ones-on a shelf with a raised lip near my bed. I put them in the order of delivery. The red one shortly after New Year's Day, the blue one a week later. And now, on the thirtieth, in order-black, gray, white. A code of some kind? R-B-B-G-W. Someone was trying to tell me something, but the message wasn't clear. Cat, kitten, feline, tomcat, puss, pussycat. Nothing there to remind me of anything except a woman I had known once, who died long ago.