When Old Men Die (24 page)

"I don't know kung-fu, and I didn't kill Ro-Jo.
 
I'm not going to kill you, either."

He looked as if he still didn't quite believe me and as if he would be really happy if some other customer would walk through the door so that he wouldn't be alone with me in the little shop.

"Look, Jody," I said, "this is all about Harry.
 
He saw something he wasn't meant to see, and now someone's hunting him.
 
Has anybody been in here asking about him?"

"Nobody '
cept
you."

"I have to find him.
 
I'm afraid that if I don't, he might wind up like Ro-Jo.
 
You wouldn't want that, would you?"

"Harry never hurt nobody."

"That doesn't help much," I said.
 
"Whoever killed Ro-Jo was trying to beat information out of him.
 
Maybe Ro-Jo told something before he died, if he knew anything to tell.
 
If he did, Harry is in danger."

I was pretty sure I would have told whatever I knew if someone were beating me the way Ro-Jo had been beaten.
 
Ro-Jo might have held out, and he might not even have known where Harry was hiding, but I couldn't count on that.

"I'd help Harry if I could," Jody said.
 
"But I don't know where he's at.
 
I'd help him if I could."

He was still acting skittish, as if I were a threat to him.
 
I'd always thought of myself as a relatively harmless-looking guy.
 
I wondered if I'd sprouted horns and a forked tail since I'd last checked the mirror.

"I believe you," I said.
 
"But maybe someone else knows.
 
Is there anyone you can think of who might have an idea where Harry is?
 
It doesn't even have to be a good idea.
 
Any old idea at all would help."

Jody's eyes slid away from me, and I was instantly certain that he did know something that he wasn't telling.

"Jody," I said.
 
"You've got to help me find Harry before someone else does.
 
I'm not going to hurt him.
 
You'd know that if you thought about it."

He turned back to me.
 
"OK," he said.
 
"There might be somebody who could help you."

G
alveston has a number of mixed neighborhoods, but a lot of the black population lives just off Broadway in housing projects that are just as depressing to look at as any similar project anywhere in the country -- drab brick apartments with clothes hanging on lines strung in the sterile yards.
 
Now and then there's some evidence of a happier kind of existence, a bright plastic scooter or doll house that show their scuffs and dirt only when you get close to them.

There are usually people standing in streets near the projects, talking or resting against the cars.
 
Youth gangs are a problem in Galveston, and some of the young men you see in the neighborhood have beepers on their belts.
 
Even some of the kids have them.

In the blocks near the projects there are houses and bars in varying degrees of repair.
 
I was looking for a house not far from the cemetery and just a block from the railroad yards.
 
There weren't a lot of white faces around.
 
In fact, except for mine there weren't
any
.
 
I felt a little conspicuous sitting in the uncovered Jeep.

I stopped in front of the house.
 
Sometime within the last year or so it had been about half painted a light blue, but for some reason the job had never been completed.
 
The rest of the house was a weathered gray.
 
There were rusted screens on the windows, but the yard looked good.
 
No dark green winter weeds sprouted in it.
 
Someone had taken care of the yard.

I could feel the eyes on me when I got out of the Jeep, and the only comforting thought I could muster was that if Alex Minor was following me, he was going to have a lot more trouble getting to the house than I was.
 
I was the wrong color, but at least I looked as if I belonged on the Island.
 
Minor looked more like he belonged in Houston, and on the Island, that's not a compliment.

I climbed the cement steps and knocked on the screen door.
 
It rattled in its frame.

I stood there for what seemed like a very long time.
 
It was as if everything on the street had frozen in position.
 
I looked around the neighborhood, but no eyes met mine.

Finally someone came to the door and pushed it open.
 
I had to step down to get out of the way, and I found my eyes on a level with those of a very old woman.
 
She might have been as old as Sally West.
 
She might have been older.

She was very short and very thin, and her mouth was sunken as if she didn't have a tooth in her head.
 
Her hair was white and pulled close to her head.
 
She looked at me as if waiting for me to say something.

So I did.
 
"Mrs. Williams?"

"
Tha's
me," she said.
 
"Who're you?"

"Truman Smith.
 
Did Jody phone you?"

"He phone me, say you comin'.
 
Didn
' say what you want, though.
 
You gonna tell me that?"

I was getting more and more uncomfortable standing there with eight or ten people watching me and pretending not to.

"Could I come inside and tell you?" I asked.

"I don' know you.
 
Don' know a thing about you.
 
I'm
jus
' a
he'pless
ole woman.
 
You
ain
' gonna come in my house to talk, no sir."

"All right," I said.
 
I didn't want to argue.
 
Someone might decide that Mrs. Williams needed protecting and come over.
 
"We can talk here.
 
It's about Harry.
 
Harry Mercer."

She looked at me for a long time.
 
Then she looked over my head and sort of nodded.
 
The neighborhood unfroze.
 
I could see movement out of the corner of my eyes, and I could hear voices.

"Maybe you better come in after all," Mrs. Williams said.

T
he little sitting room was as neat as the yard.
 
There were even doilies on the end tables.
 
There was a smoky smell in the air, but it wasn't the smell of cigarettes; it was a little like the smell of a fireplace or wood-burning stove, though I had seen neither in the house as I walked to the sitting room.

Mrs. Williams took a seat in a straight-backed wooden rocker that Sally West might have admired.
 
I sat in a ladder-backed chair with a straw bottom.

"What you
askin
' 'bout Harry for?" Mrs. Williams wanted to know when we were seated.

I told her about Dino.
 
Like everyone else on the Island, she'd heard of him, and also like nearly everyone else, she'd never seen him.

"Why he want to find Harry?" she asked.

"Harry's his friend.
 
Dino likes things that remind him of the old days, and Harry has been around longer than anybody."

"Huh.
 
Not no longer than me."

"Maybe not.
 
But Dino thinks something may have happened to Harry, so he asked me to find him."

"
Ain
'
nothin
' happen to Harry."

"Do you know where he is?"

"
Nosir
, I don' know.
 
Where Harry is,
tha's
his business."

"Jody said you were Harry's friend."

"I guess you could say that.
 
I been
knowin
' Harry Mercer since we was kids.
 
But that don' mean he tell me
ever'thing
he knows."

"I'm worried about him," I said.
 
"I'm afraid someone's going to hurt him if I don't find him first."

"If you can't find him, how you think anybody else gonna do it?"

"They might get lucky," I said.

"They might not, though.
 
I know Harry is off the streets.
 
I heard 'bout that.
 
But I don' know why, and it
ain
' none of my business, no
more'n
it's yours.
 
Why don' you jus' leave Harry alone?"

I told her again that I was afraid of what might happen and asked her if she'd heard about Ro-Jo.

"I heard.
 
I hear a lot of things.
 
You think the man got Ro-Jo's after Harry?"

"I'm pretty sure of it."

"Well, we
jus
' have to hope that he don' get lucky, 'cause I
ain
' able to
he'p
you."

"One other thing," I said.
 
"Did Harry ever have a sister?"

That got a smile, and I could see that I was right about her teeth.
 
She didn't have any.

"Harry had a brother," she said.
 
"Fine
lookin
' boy, he was.
 
I remember him very well."
 
She stopped smiling.
 
"But he died right after the war.
 
Harry never had no sister.
 
Why you want to know that?"

I told her about Alex Minor.

"He sound like a bad man," she said.

"He is," I agreed.
 
"And he's looking for Harry."

"He the one got Ro-Jo?"

"I don't know.
 
He might be."

"Even if he is, don' matter.
 
I still can't
he'p
you."

She leaned back in her chair and started to rock.
 
I knew that the discussion was over, so I got up to leave.

"Mr. Smith?" she said as I started out of the room.

I turned around.

"If I fin' out anything, I get in touch with Jody.
 
I don' want Harry to get hurt."

I'd hoped for more, but I'd settle for what I could get.
 
I thanked her and went outside.
 
There were still people in the street and in the yards, but no one watched me as I got in the Jeep and drove away.

I
told Dino that it was much too early for lunch, but he insisted on fixing chicken pot pies, which he heated in a convection oven he'd ordered by calling an 800-number after watching an infomercial on cable.

"This thing is great," he said as the fan in the top of the oven whirred away.
 
"Cooks a lot faster than a conventional oven, and it warms the pies all the way through.
 
You don't have to take them out of the little aluminum pans, either.
 
You
oughta
get you one, Tru."

"I hope you're not going to start watching those infomercials instead of the talk shows."

He didn't exactly blush, but he had the grace to look a little ashamed.

"They just come on late at night and on Sundays," he said.
 
"You can get some neat stuff."

"Right.
 
Like hair paint for your bald spot."

"OK, maybe everything's not so great, but what about that
Flowbee
?"

I told him that I didn't know what a
Flowbee
was.

"It's a machine to cut hair.
 
You hook it up to your vacuum cleaner."

I held up a hand.
 
"I don't want to hear this," I said.

He would have told me anyway, but a there was a little
ding
from the oven that meant the chicken pot pies were ready.
 
He set them in a couple of plates he'd already placed on the table and we sat down to eat.

The pies were hot, all right, but there was one drawback.
 
They tasted like chicken pot pies.
 
I was sorry I hadn't insisted that we go out.
 
Even worse, Dino had run out of Big Red for me to wash the pie down with.

"You'll have to bring a couple in the next time you come," he said.

I told him not to worry, that I'd be sure to do it.
 
He tried to talk me into drinking a glass of Diet Coke, but I wouldn't go for it.
 
I drank water instead.