Low Pressure

“I told you.”

“What else?”

“Nothin’.”

“I know better, Ray. One thing you did, you beat up Dent Carter.”

He jutted out his lantern jaw. “What if I did?”

“Where?” Rupe asked only in order to compare Ray’s version to Dent’s. Ray’s mumbled account more or less correlated.

“But he didn’t recognize me. He didn’t say my name or nothin’.”

“Well, there you’re wrong. He told me himself that you had attacked him.”

Rupe could tell that worried him, but what Ray said was, “My word against his.”

“You’d better hope so. What did you do after you left the pancake house?”

“I got the hell out of there.” He told Rupe about tracking them, losing them, picking up their trail again at Dent’s place, at her house, until Rupe himself got confused. It was clear Ray couldn’t exactly remember the sequence.

“But he always goes back to that old landing strip sooner or later. They’ve took off from there several times the last coupla days.”

“In his airplane?”

“No. A bigger one. His is busted up. The old man was working—”

Suddenly Ray clamped his mouth shut and looked away from Rupe. He ran his large hand back and forth over that hideous tattoo on his left arm as though petting the snake.

Rupe tilted his head to one side. “ ‘The old man? Gall Halloway? He was working… .?” He ended on an implied question mark. “Ray? How do you know what he was doing?”

Ray remained silent. He looked around as though seeking the nearest way out.

Rupe sighed. Loath as he was to touch anything in the place, he propped himself against the counter, folded his arms, and crossed his ankles. “Just what have you been up to? And you’d fucking better not lie to me.”

Ray wrestled with indecision for several moments, but then he blurted out, “She’s got rich and famous. That’s not right.”

Then he talked for ten minutes, spraying bologna-flecked spit with every other word. Rupe listened without interrupting. He sifted out what he discerned were outright lies or half-truths, filled in what he guessed Ray was omitting, and began considering how he could turn Ray’s reckless actions to his advantage.

And when he determined a way, it was all he could do to keep from breaking into a wide smile. Instead, he pretended to be disappointed in his protege, angry over his independent actions, and deeply troubled by what the consequences of them might be.

As for Ray, over the course of his monologue he’d worked himself into a lather. He was perspiring profusely. Even his scalp was beaded with sweat, its sour stench contributing to his body odor. Reflexively he did curls with his left biceps and contracted and extended the fingers of that hand.

Through clenched teeth, he said, “She was only steps away from the closet. I could smell her. Then her phone rang.” He’d been pacing like a caged bear. Now he came to a sudden halt and slapped his palm several times against his forehead. “So close.”

Rupe made a tsking sound. “So close to getting justice for Allen.”

Ray swiped his bare arm across his sweaty forehead. “Damn straight. Eye for an eye.” He took another bottle of beer from the fridge, uncapped it with a hard twist, took a long drink, then faced Rupe and rolled his shoulders as though preparing for a fight. “Now you know what I’ve done, you gonna fire me? Kick me out of this place? Go ahead, see if I care.”

“I should. But the fact is, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Ray. I’m torn.”

“Torn?”

“Between duty and obligation. Between the law and justice.”

“I don’t get it.”

Rupe thoughtfully tugged on his lower lip. “Will you answer a few questions for me?”