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“How’s the houseguest doing?”
Chip said, “Turn it down, will you?” Sounding like he was irritated about something. The man picked lint off his clothes, something always bothering him. Louis would have some hip-hop going on the CD player, Digable Planets, and the man would come in saying, “Turn that goddamn racket off. Jesus.” He liked Neil Diamond and such. Old Sammy Davis Junior CDs, the candyman can, that kind of shit.
“Harry hears the faintest sound,” Chip said, “he goes, ‘Is somebody there?’”
So the man wasn’t irritated especially, he just wasn’t Oprah-minded. Louis said, “I know what you mean. Four days the man’s been saying it. ‘Somebody there?’ His voice getting to sound pitiful.”
“That’s the idea,” Chip said, “get him to the point he’s dying to hear a human voice.” Chip paused, his gaze on the TV, on Oprah and her sad-looking white women guests. “What’s this about?”
“I believe they go
The Chipper, not too interested, said, “The time comes I do speak to him, Harry will be more than receptive, agreeable to whatever I tell him.”
“He won’t have much choice but agree,” Louis said, watching Oprah listening to a woman talking about her implanted ni
“I’m not worried about that,” Chip said. “Harry’s a manipulator, it’s one of the reasons we picked him. Anyone who can scam the wiseguys and get away with it… He’s a co
Louis let the man talk, the sound of his voice laid in among the TV voices, until Louis heard words that sounded familiar and he said, “What?”
“I said it’s time we picked up Ben King.” Talking about the crooked S&L man now. “He’s sitting there waiting, can’t go anywhere, can’t leave town…”
“Not suppose to anyway,” Louis said, “with that bond set on him.”
“It has to look like he took off,” Chip said.
“We keeping that in mind.”
“Not like he was abducted.”
“No need to worry your head.”
“So when’re you go
“Pretty soon.”
“They bring him to trial he’s going away. Then it’s too late.”
“What that S&L man done with money don’t belong to him,” Louis said, “they be in court a month shuffling papers around.”
“Why can’t you just tell me when you think you’ll do it?”
“I said soon, didn’t I?”
Man could drive you crazy. Louis had to ease up in his mind so as not to take the man by his neck and shake him. He said, “Me and Bobby been dry-ru
Quiet for a minute, then saying, “Why don’t you go help Bobby?”
Listen to the man.
“It’s your house, why don’t you? I’m watching your property.” Louis used the remote to switch the video from Harry to Bobby, pruning away, to the front drive, what you could see of it. Louis thinking if the man had anything going for him, any kind of grit to him, he wouldn’t say why don’t you go help Bobby, he’d say get your ass out there. Bobby was right asking did they need the man. They needed the man’s house more than they needed the man. He’d gone out yesterday looking for runaway children to scam the parents and came back with reefer. So the man smoked while they tended to the houseguest asking was somebody there.
Louis saw the car the same time the man did, Chip saying, “Jesus Christ!”
The car showing in all that shrubbery choking the drive, approaching Bobby Deo’s car parked in the foreground of the picture. The man saying, “Get Bobby,” and Louis jumped. Punched his thumb on the remote to take Oprah off and put the car on the screen big, what looked like a Jaguar. Chip had the chest open now to get out the shotgun, saying, “For Christ sake, go!”
Louis stood there not moving on purpose, watching the man looking at him. He said, “Be cool,” and it seemed to take off some of the man’s edge. Louis turned then, walked out of the study.
Raylan almost passed the driveway looking at the PRIVATE DRIVE sign, KEEP OUT, the words spray-painted on a board. He saw the house number on the mailbox just in time, braked hard and turned into the drive:
Like a road through a tropical forest, cracked pavement full of weeds, the roof line of the house showing back in there, red tile against the sky; sea grape on both sides brushing the car, different kinds of palm growth he didn’t know the names of. Until coming to Florida, Raylan thought he knew trees and plants, but tropical growth was something else and there was so much of it. He came to a stop at the front end of a Cadillac parked in the drive facing out, and thought of Harry’s as he saw the grille, but this car was black.
Raylan got out and walked past the Cadillac toward the house, seeing more of its white shape through the trees. Then, right in front of him, seeing a guy step out of the growth to stand waiting. A guy with no shirt on holding a machete.
Raylan walked toward him through sunlight and touched his hat brim to set it lower on his eyes. He said, “You got your work cut out for you,” looking around at the vegetation. “You cleaning up this whole place?”
The guy didn’t move, standing there with his machete.
He said, “It needs to be cut back and start over.”
A Cuban or P.R. accent. No shirt, but wearing what looked to be his good pants and came to work in a Cadillac. Raylan loosened his hat and set it again, looking around at the growth. “There plants here I’m not too familiar with. Is that some kind of palmetto there?”
“Yucca. Over there, that’s saw palmetto.”
Wearing his good shoes, too. Snake or lizard under the film of dust.
“I recognize the oleander and hibiscus. Is this periwinkle?”
“Yeah, what they call it here.”
“What’s that tree growing all over the place?”
“Gumbo-limbo. It has to be taken out.”
“You’re busy, I don’t want to hold you up,” Raylan said. “I’m looking for Mr. Ganz. Is he in the house?”
“Mr. Ganz?”
The guy frowning at him now, shaking his head.
“I don’t know any Mr. Ganz.”
“He doesn’t live here?”
“I never saw him.”
Shaking his head again.
“His name’s on the mailbox out front. Isn’t this the Ganz place?”
“Yeah, Ganz, sure. I work for Ms. Ganz.”
“That his wife?”
The guy shook his head. “His mother.”
“Well, is she home?”
“She don’t live here. She’s in a place in West Palm Beach, staying there, you know, so somebody can take care of her.”
“She’s in a nursing home?”
“Yeah, that’s what it is, for old people. I go see her to pay me, but she don’t know who I am. You understand? She’s old, has something wrong with her head, like she forgets who you are. So when she don’t know me this time, she don’t pay me and I have to go back.”
“You see her every day?”
“Two times, I just start to work here. You looking to buy this place?”
“Why, is it for sale?”
“I don’t know that.”
“What’s the name of the nursing home?”
“I forget.”
“But you go there.”
“Yeah, it’s by the hospital, that street there.”
“Flagler?”
“Yeah, I think that’s it. Listen, I got all this work to do, okay?”
Raylan watched the guy turn and walk away, a pair of pruners on his belt at the hip, the same place Raylan carried his gun.