L is for Lawless

18

Ray helped his mother to the bathroom. Soon after that, I heard the toilet flush and his murmured comfort and assurances as he tucked her into bed. While I waited for him to get her settled, I returned the contents of the junk drawer and slid the drawer back into its slot. I righted Ray's chair and then got down on my hands and knees to look for Gilbert's gun. Where had the damn thing gone? I raised up like a prairie dog and surveyed the spot where he'd stood, trying to figure out what the trajectory would have been when the gun flew off across the room. Picking my way carefully through the broken glass, I crawled to the nearest corner and worked my way along the baseboard. I finally spotted the gun, a.45-caliber Colt automatic with walnut stocks, wedged behind the Eastlake cabinet. I fished it out with a fork, trying not to smudge any latent prints. If the Louisville police ran a check on him, it was possible an outstanding warrant might pop up and give them a reason to arrest him – if they could find him, of course. I placed the gun on the kitchen table and tiptoed to the bedroom door. I tapped, and a moment later Ray opened the door a crack. "We need to call the cops," I said. I meant to slip on past, heading for the telephone, but he put his hand on my arm.

"Don't do that."

"Why not?" We were keeping our voices down in deference to his mother, who'd had enough upset for one day.

"Look, I'll be out in a minute, as soon as she's asleep. We need to talk." He began to close the door.

I put my hand on the door. "What's there to talk about? We need help."

"Please." He held a hand up, nodding to indicate that we'd discuss it momentarily. He closed the door in my face.

Reluctantly, I returned to the kitchen to wait for him. I found the broom and dustpan behind the door to the utility room, and I made a pass at the mess. Someone had tracked through the broken bowl of mashed yams. There were little yammy footprints, like dog doo, everywhere. I pulled the garbage can out from under the sink and cautiously began to pick up shards of broken glass and crockery. I used a dampened paper towel to scoop up the remaining goo.

The kitchen sink and the counter were both littered with broken glass where the window had been shattered by the shotgun blast. I couldn't believe the neighbors hadn't come running. Cold air was now blowing in, but there was nothing I could do about it. I hauled out the ancient canister vacuum cleaner and affixed the upholstery attachment to the hose. I flipped it on and spent several minutes huffing up all the glass in sight. Between chasing and being chased, all I'd done since I'd left home was dust and vacuum. I put my ear to the bedroom door at one point and could have sworn I heard Ray talking on the phone. Ah. Maybe he had paid attention to my advice after all.

Ray came back into the kitchen and closed the bedroom door behind him. He moved straight to the pantry and pulled out a bottle of bourbon, took down two small jelly glasses, and poured us both a stiff drink. He handed one glass to me and then tapped mine in a toast. While I eyed mine he tilted his head back and downed his portion. I took a deep breath and tossed mine down my throat, unprepared for the vile fire that assailed my esophagus. I could feel my face flush with heat as my stomach burst into flames. After that, I could feel all the tension drift away from me like smoke. I shook my head, shuddering, as a worm of revulsion wiggled down my frame. "Yuck. I hate that. I could never be a drunk. How can you do that, just toss it back that way?"

"Takes practice," he said. He poured himself another glass and tossed it after the first. "This is one thing I missed in prison."

He spotted the Colt where I'd laid it on the kitchen table, picked it up without comment, and tucked it in his waistband.

"Thanks, Ray. Now you've messed up any fingerprints."

"Nobody's going to run prints," he said.

"Really. What makes you say that?"

He ignored the question. He moved into the dining room and hustled up a cardboard carton, which he emptied, then flattened, and used to replace the broken window glass, securing it with Gilbert's duct tape. The outdoor light was diminished and the cold still seeped in, but at least birds and small UFOs would be prevented from flying in the gaping hole. While I looked on, he began to empty the sink of its mountain of pots and pans, stacking them neatly to one side in preparation for washing. I love watching guys help around the house.

"I heard you on the phone. Did you call 911?"

"I called Maria to see how she was. Gilbert punched her lights out. She says he broke her nose, but she doesn't want to press charges as long as he's got Laura."

"You could call 911," I said. Maybe he hadn't heard me right?

I flipped the vacuum on again and sucked up glass slivers as they came to light. I kept waiting for him to pick up the subject, but he studiously avoided it. Finally, I turned the machine off and said, "So what's the deal? Why not call the cops? Laura's been kidnapped. I hope you don't think you're going to do this on your own."

"I told you. Maria's not interested. She thinks it's premature."

"I'm not talking about Maria. I'm talking about you."

"Let's look for the money first. Nothing turns up in a day, then we can bring the cops into it."

"Ray, you're crazy. You need help."

"I can handle it."

"That's bullshit. He's going to kill her."

"Not if I can find the money."

"How're you going to do that?"

"I don't know yet."

He tied an apron around his waist. He put the stopper in the drain and turned on the hot water. He picked up the liquid detergent and squirted a solid stream into the sink, holding his injured fingers away from the water. A mountain of white suds began to pile up, into which he tucked plates and silverware. "I learned to wash dishes when I was six," he said idly, picking up a long-handled brush. "Ma stood me up on a wooden milk crate and taught me how to do it right. It was my chore from then on. In prison, they use these big industrial machines, but the principle's the same. All us old cons know how to make ourselves useful, but these new punks coming in can't do a damn thing except fight. Dopers and gang-bangers. Scary bunch."

"Ray."

"Remind me of fighting cocks… all puffed up and aggressive. Don't give a shit about anything. Those are kids bred to die. They have no hope, no expectations. They got attitude. It's all attitude. Insist on respect without ever doing anything to earn it. Half of 'em don't even know how to read."

"Make your point," I said.

"There's no point. I changed the subject. The point is, I don't want to call the cops."

"Is there a problem?"

"I don't like cops."

"I'm not asking you to form any kind of lasting relationship," I said. I watched him. "What is it? There's something else."

He rinsed a dinner plate and placed it in the rack, avoiding my gaze. I picked up a dish towel and began to dry while he washed. "Ray?"

He put the second dinner plate in the rack. "I'm in violation."

I'm thinking, Violation? I said, "Of what?"

He shrugged slightly.

The penny dropped. "Parole? You violated parole?"

"Something like that."

"But what, exactly?"

"Well, actually, 'exactly' is I walked off."

"Escaped?"

"I wouldn't call it escape. It was a halfway house."

"But you weren't supposed to leave. You were still an inmate. Weren't you?"

"Hey, there wasn't any fence. It's not like we were locked in our cells at night. We didn't even have cells. We had rooms," he said. "So it's more like I'm away without leave. Yeah, like that. AWOL."

"Oh boy," I said. I let out a big breath and considered the implications. "How'd you get a driver's license?"

"I didn't. I don't have one."

"You've been driving without? How'd you manage to rent a car without a driver's license?"

"I didn't."

I closed my eyes, wishing I could lie down on the floor and take a nap. I opened my eyes again. "You stole the rental car?" I couldn't help it. I know my tone was accusatory, but this was largely because I was accusing him.

Ray's mouth pulled down. "I guess you'd say that. So here's the deal. We call the cops, they'll run a check on me and back I go. Big time."

"You'd risk your daughter's life just to avoid going back to jail?"

"It's not just that."

"Then what?"

He turned and looked at me, his hazel eyes as clear as water. "How'm I going to deal with Gilbert if I got a bunch of cops on the scene?"

"Ray, you gotta trust me. It's not worth it. You'll be locked up for the rest of your life."

"What rest? I'm sixty-five years old. How much time do I have?"

"Don't be dumb. You got years. Take a look at your mom. You're going to live to be a hundred. Don't blow this."

"Kinsey, listen up. Here's the truth," he said. "We call the cops, you know what's going to happen? We go down to the jail. We fill out paperwork. They ask us a bunch of questions I don't want to answer. Either they run a check on me or they don't. If they run a check, I'm history and that's the end of her. If they don't run a check, what difference does it make? We're still fucked. Hours are going to pass, and then what? It'll turn out the cops can't do shit. Oh, too bad. So now we're out on the street again and we still don't have a clue where the money's hid. Believe me. When Gilbert catches up with us, he don't want to hear excuses. And what are we going to say? 'Sorry we didn't find the money yet. We got tied up at the precinct and time got away from us.'"

I said, "Tell him you're working on it. Tell him you have the money and want to meet him somewhere. The cops can pick him up."

Ray's expression was bored. "You been watching too much TV. Truth is, half the time when the cops get involved, they fuck it up. Perpetrator gets caught and the victim dies. You know what happens next? Big trial. Publicity. You get a hotshot lawyer talkin' about the kidnapper's troubled youth. How he's mentally ill and how the victim was abusing him and he only did the kidnap in self-defense. Thousands and thousands of dollars get poured down the drain. The jury ends up hung and the guy takes a walk. Meanwhile, Laura's dead and I'm back in jail again. So who wins? It ain't me and it's certainly not her."

I could feel my temper climb. I tossed the dish towel aside. "You know what? You can do anything you want. This is really not my problem. You don't want to call the cops. Fine. It's up to you. I'm out of here."

"Back to California?"

"If can manage it," I said. "Of course, now that Gilbert's got the eight grand, I'm assuming you won't pay my return ticket like you promised, but that's neither here nor there. I don't have enough money for a taxi to the airport, so I'd appreciate a ride. It's the least you can do."

His temper rose in response to mine. "Sure. No problem. Let me pull the kitchen together and we're on our way. Laura dies, it's on you. You could have helped. You said 'no.' You gotta live with that same as I do."

"Me? This is your doing. I can't believe you'd try to lay it off on me. You sound just like Gilbert."

He put a hand out and grabbed mine. "Hey. I need help." For a moment, we locked eyes. I broke off eye contact. His tone shifted. He tried coaxing. "Let's brainstorm. The two of us. That's all I'm asking. You got hours until flight time…"

"What flight? I've got reservations, but no ticket, and I'm flat broke."

"So how's it going to hurt you to hang out here and help?"

"Well, I'll tell you," I said. "It's two days until Thanksgiving. I'm in a wedding that day, so I have to get back. Two very dear friends are getting married and I'm a bridesmaid, okay? The airports will be jammed with all the holiday traffic. I can't just call the airlines and pick up any old flight. I was lucky to get this one."

"But you can't pay for it," Ray pointed out.

"I know that!"

He put a finger to his lips and looked significantly toward the bedroom where his mother was sleeping.

"I know I can't pay. I'm trying to figure that part out," I said in a hoarse whisper.

Ray took out his money clip. "How much?"

"Five hundred."

He put the clip back untouched. "I thought you had friends. Somebody willing to lend you the bucks."

"I do if I can get to the telephone. Your mother's asleep."

"She'll be up in a bit. She's old. She doesn't sleep much at night. She takes catnaps instead. Soon as she wakes up, you can put a call through to California. Maybe your friend can put your ticket on a credit card and you can catch that flight. Looka me. I'll peep in and see how she's doing. How's that?" He moved to the bedroom and made a big display of opening the door a crack. "She'll be out any second now. I promise. I can see her moving around."

"Oh, right."

He closed the door again. "Just help me figure out where the money's hid. Let's talk about it some. That's all I want."

He held a hand out, indicating a seat at the table.

I stared at him. Well, there it was, folks. Altruism and self-interest going head to head. Was I going to take the high road or the low? By now, did I even know which was which? So far, almost everything I'd done was illegal except the vacuuming – breaking into hotel rooms, aiding and abetting escaped felons. Probably even the vacuuming broke some union contract. Why bother to get prissy at this late date? "You are so full of shit," I said.

He pulled out a chair and I sat. I can't believe I did that. I should have walked to the corner market and found a pay phone, but what can I say? I was involved with this man, involved with his daughter and his aged, catnapping mother. As if on cue, she emerged from the bedroom, rheumy eyed and energetic. She'd hardly been down fifteen minutes and she was ready to go again. He pulled out a chair for her. "How you doing?"

"I'm fine. I feel much better," she said. "What's happening? What are we doing?"

"Trying to figure out where Johnny hid the money," Ray said. He had apparently confessed all to his mother because she didn't seem to question the subject matter or his relationship to it. At eighty-five, I guess she wasn't worried about going to jail. From somewhere, another pen and a pad of paper materialized. "We can make notes. Or I can," he said when he caught my look. "You probably want to use the phone first. It's in there."

"I know where the phone is. I'll be right back," I said. I used my credit card to put another call through to Henry. As luck would have it, he was still out. I left a second message on his machine, indicating that my return flight was in question because of cash shortages on my end. I repeated Helen's phone number, urging him to call me to see if he could work out some way for me to get on the plane as scheduled. While I was at it, I tried the number at Rosie's, but all that netted me was a busy signal. I went back to the kitchen.

"How'd you do?" Ray asked blandly.

"I left a message for Henry. I'm hoping he'll call back in the next hour or so."

"Too bad you didn't get through to him. I guess there's no point in going out to the airport until you talk to him."

I sat down at the table, ignoring his commiseration, which was patently insincere. I said, "Let's start with the keys."

Ray made a note on the pad. The note said "keys." He drew a circle around it, squinting thoughtfully. "What difference does it make about the keys as long as Gilbert's got 'em?"

"Because they're just about the only tangible clue we have. Let's just write down what we remember."

"Which is what? I don't remember nothing."

"Well, one was iron. About six inches long, an old-fashioned skeleton key, a Lawless. The other was a Master…"

"Wait a minute. How'd you know that?"

"Because I looked," I said. I turned to Helen. "You have a telephone book? I didn't see one in there, and we're probably going to need one."

"It's in the dresser drawer. Hold on a second. I'll get it," Ray said, and got up. He disappeared into the bedroom.

I called after him, "Have you ever heard of Lawless? I thought it might be local." I looked over at Helen. "Does that ring a bell with you?" She shook her head. "Never heard of it." Ray came back with two books in hand, the Louisville residential listings and the Yellow Pages. "What makes you think it's local?"

I took the Yellow Pages. "I'm an optimist," I said. "In my business, I always start with the obvious." He put the residential listings on an empty chair seat. I leafed through the pages until I found the listings for locksmiths. There was no "Lawless" in evidence, but Louisville Locksmith Company looked like a promising possibility. The big display ad indicated they'd been in business since 1910. "We might want to try the public library, too. The phone books from the early forties might be informative."

"She's a private investigator," Ray said to his mother. "That's how she got into this."

"Well, I wondered who she was."

I set the phone book on the table, open to the pages where all the locksmiths were listed. I tapped the Louisville Locksmith display ad. "We'll give this place a call in a minute," I said. "Now where were we?" I glanced at his notes. "Oh yeah, the other key was a Master. I think they only make padlocks, but again, we can ask when we talk to the guy. So here's the question. Are we looking for a big door and then a smaller one? Or a door and then a cabinet or storage unit, something like that?"

Ray shrugged. "Probably the first. Back in the forties, they didn't have those self-storage places like the ones they have now. Wherever Johnny put the money, he had to be sure it wasn't going to be disturbed. Couldn't be a safe-deposit box because the key didn't look right to me. And besides, the guy hated banks. That's what got him into trouble in the first place. He's hardly going to walk into a bank with the proceeds from a bank heist, right?"

"Yeah, right. Plus, banks get torn down or remodeled or turned into other businesses. What about some other kind of public building? City Hall or the courthouse? The Board of Education, a museum?"

Ray wagged his head, not liking the idea much. "Same thing, don't you think? Some developer comes along and sees it as a prime piece of real estate. Doesn't matter what's on it."

"What about some other places around town? Historical landmarks. Wouldn't they be protected?"

"Let me think about that."

"A church," Helen said suddenly.

"That's possible," Ray said.

She pointed to the pad. "Write it down."

Ray made a note about churches. "There's the water works by the river. School buildings. Churchill Downs. They're not going to tear that place down."

"What about a big estate somewhere?"

"That's an idea. There used to be plenty around. I been gone for years, though, so I don't know what's left."

"If he was running from the cops, he had to have a place that was easily accessible," I said. "And it had to be relatively free from intrusion."

Ray wrinkled his forehead. "How could he guarantee nobody else would find it? That's a hell of a risk. Leave big canvas bags of money somewhere. How do you know a kid won't stumble across it playing stickball?"

"Kids don't play stickball anymore. They play video games," I said.

"A construction worker, then, or a nosy neighbor? The place had to be to be dry, don't you think?"

"Probably," I said. "At least, the two keys would suggest the money isn't buried."

"I'm sorry Gilbert got his hands on those keys. Gives him the edge if we identify the place."

"Don't worry about that. I've got a set of key picks I dutifully tote with me everywhere. If we find the right locks, we're in business."

"We can always hack through the locks," Ray suggested. "I learned that in prison, among other things."

"You got quite an education."

"I'm a good student," he said modestly.

The three of us were silent for a moment, trying to get our imaginations to work.

I spoke up again. "You know, the locksmith who first saw the big key thought it might fit a gate. So how's this for a guess? Maybe Johnny had access to an old estate. The big key fit the gate and the smaller key fit the padlock on the front door."

Ray didn't seem that happy. "How'd he know the place wouldn't be sold or torn down?"

"Maybe it was a historical landmark. Protected by historical preservationists."

"Suppose they decided to restore the place and charge an entrance fee? Then everybody and his brother could walk around the place."

"Right," I said. "Anyway, once they got in, they couldn't find the money sitting out in plain sight. It'd have to be concealed."

"Which puts us right back where we were," he said.

We were silent again.

Ray said, "What gets me is we're talking big. Seven, eight big canvas bags loaded down with cash and jewelry. Those suckers were heavy. We were big strappin' guys in those days, all of us young. You should have seen us grunting and groaning, trying to get 'em stashed in the trunk of the car."

I looked at him with interest. "What was the original plan? Suppose the cops hadn't showed up when they did? What did Johnny mean to do with the money in that case?"

"Same thing, I guess. He always said the reason bank robbers got tripped up was they went out and spent the money way too fast. Started fencing silver and jewels while the cops were circulating information about what was in the heist. Made it all easy to trace."

"So whatever the plan was, he'd set it up well in advance," I said.

"He had to."

I thought about that. "Where was he caught?"

"I forget now. Outside town. On the highway, heading out in that direction somewhere."

"Ballardsville Road," Helen said. "Don't know why, but that sticks in my mind. Don't you remember?"

Ray flushed with pleasure. "She's right," he said. "How'd you remember that?"

"I heard it on the radio," she said. "I was so frightened. I thought you were with him. I didn't know the two of you had separated, and I was convinced you'd been caught."

"I was. I just happened to be somewhere else," he said.

"How soon after the robbery was Johnny picked up?"

Ray's eyes rested on mine. "You're thinking he stashed the goods somewhere between the bank downtown and the place he was caught?"

"Unless he had time to go to some other town and come back," I said. "It's like saying you always find something the last place you look. I mean, it's self-evident. Once you find what you're looking for, you don't look any place else. The last you saw him, he had the sacks full of cash. By the time he was arrested, they were gone.

Therefore, the money had to have been hidden some time in that period. By the way, you never said how long it was."

"Half a day."

"So he probably didn't have time to get far."

"Yeah, that's true. I always pictured the money around town somewhere. It never occurred to me he might have left and come back. Shoot. I guess it could be anywhere in a hundred-mile radius."

"I think we should operate on the assumption that it's here in Louisville. I don't want to take on all of western Kentucky."

Ray glanced down at his notes. "So what else do we have? This don't look like much."

"Wait a minute. Try this. The little key had a number on it. I just remembered that," I said. "M550. It's close to my birthday, which is May fifth."

"What good does that do us?"

"We could go to the locksmith and have him grind one."

"To use where?"

"Well, I don't know, but at least we'll have one key in our possession. Maybe the locksmith will have some other ideas."

Ray said, "This feels lame to me. We're really grasping at straws."

"Ray, come on. You work with what you've got," I said. "Believe me, I've started with less and still pulled it off."

"All right," he said skeptically. He made a note of the locksmith's address. He reached for his jacket hanging over the chair.

I rose when he did and buttoned my blazer for warmth. "What about your mother? I don't think she should be left here alone."

She was startled by the mere suggestion. "Oh, no. I won't stay here by myself," she said emphatically. "Not with that fella on the loose. What if he come back?"

"Fine. We'll take you with us. You can wait in the car while we go about our business."

"And just set there?"

"Why not?"

"Well, I might set, but not unarmed."

"Ma, I'm not going to let you sit in the car with a loaded shotgun. Cops would come by and think we're robbing the place."

"I have a baseball bat. That was Freida's idea. She bought a Louisville Slugger and hid it under my bed."

"Jesus, this Freida's a regular artilleryman."

"Artilleryperson," his mother corrected smartly.

"Get your coat," he said.