Low Pressure

“Even if he didn’t do nothin’?”

Rupe sighed. “Moody couldn’t make the charges stick with Denton Carter. He didn’t have anybody else to nail that crime on, so…”

He made a helpless gesture and left the thought unfinished. Ray’s beetled brow indicated that his pea-sized brain was trying to process it. Eventually he reached the conclusion that Rupe had hoped he would. “It’s Moody’s fault Allen got killed.”

Rupe protested, but gently. “I must take partial responsibility. That’s why I’m here. I can’t bring your brother back, but I can make your life easier. Otherwise, I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

Ray accepted the arrangement. He would work for Rupe, live in a rented duplex paid for by Rupe, drive a new pickup every two or three years, and tell absolutely no one about his benefactor.

“I want to remain anonymous. Do you know what that means, Ray?” After explaining the concept of anonymity, he said, “That means I’ll be like an invisible friend. No one can know about our friendship. Just us.”

“Why don’t you want anybody to know?”

“Because charity isn’t true charity if it’s advertised.”

If Ray had thought it through, he might then have wondered why Rupe was often photographed handing over checks in sizeable amounts to local charities. The funds came from his employees, who were encouraged, even browbeaten, to contribute. Not a penny came from Rupe’s private pocket, but he took credit for the generosity of Collier Motors.

Ray did as Rupe ordered and got a post office box, so that nothing was mailed to him at the duplex. He used a cell phone, no land line. Rupe’s comptroller paid all his utility bills, and the relatively insignificant sums were so well hidden in the books of corporate entities and limited liability companies that an auditor would never find the link between the two men.

The only thing Rupe had Ray personally register to himself was the pickup truck.

“If you break the law while driving this truck, I don’t want them coming after me.” Rupe had said it with a smile, a wink, and a slap on the back, which had made Ray think that they were buddies.

They weren’t. While the arrangement was indisputably beneficial to Ray, it served to keep him on a short leash, which Rupe held in a tight grip. It also provided Rupe with a facilitator who was as dumb as he was strong, and both traits had proved useful many times over. In a dispute, Rupe had often relied on Ray’s violent streak to bring the other party around to his way of thinking.

Ray was dull-witted, obedient, uncurious, and malleable. For as long as their arrangement had been in place, he’d never once questioned Rupe’s instructions or balked when told to do something.

Until this week. Which was why Rupe was now standing in a filthy kitchen, watching with disgust as Ray folded a slice of cold bologna into his mouth. Chewing it, he asked, “What happened to your face?”

“We’ll get to that. First I want to know where you’ve been and why you’ve ignored my calls.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Not at work. Your foreman tells me you haven’t shown up for several days.”

“I’ve been following Bellamy Price. I thought you’d want

me to keep doing that.”

“Do me a favor, Ray. Don’t do my thinking for me, all right?”

Her publicity blitzkrieg had annoyed and concerned Rupe. By happy circumstance, one of his most reliable repo men had an acquaintance, who had a cousin in Brooklyn, who knew of a guy, who, for a nifty fee, could send “messages with impact.” Rupe had contacted him by telephone, and, after being given a menu of options, he’d selected the rat trick, which had actually sent chills down his own spine.

Soon after that, when he learned that Bellamy Price had returned to Austin, he feared that she hadn’t been scared silent, only scared into moving her media carnival right into his backyard. That was when he’d instructed Ray to follow her for a few days and see what she was up to.

Apparently nothing. She’d spent time with her parents in their mansion, then she’d rented her own place, but she’d kept a low profile. No interviews, no lectures, no book-signing events. Relieved, he’d called Ray off. But Ray must have developed ideas of his own.

“It’s a good thing I kept following her. You want to know why? Guess who she’s hanging out with?”

“Denton Carter. And the reason I know that is because they came calling at my house around sundown tonight.”

“Huh?”

“That’s right.”

The wind had been taken out of Ray’s sails, but he retaliated with querulousness and a transparent indifference. “So what’d they want?”

“No, I get to go first with the questions. Tell me what you’ve been doing the last several days.”