When Old Men Die (12 page)

The house hadn't been kept up any better than the trees.
 
The porch columns were nearly bare of paint, and what few flakes remained on the house were faded almost colorless.
 
I had been a house painter only recently, but I couldn't even begin to estimate how many gallons of paint would be required to cover the Lytle mansion again, or how many hours it would take to get the job done.
 
I was just very glad that I wasn't going to have to paint it.

As Lytle had promised, the gate was open.
 
I drove through, the branches of an oak brushing my head as I passed under it.
 
Either Lytle didn't get many visitors, or those he had didn't mind having their cars scraped by oak limbs.

I got out of the Jeep and walked to the porch.
 
It was a little like walking through the jungle.
 
The grass hadn't been trimmed back from the sidewalk in quite a while, and only about half its width was visible.

The porch roof rose up two stories above my head, and I wondered how many people it would take to encircle the columns with their arms.
 
Three?
 
Four?

There was no doorbell, but there was a large brass knocker covered with greenish corrosion.
 
I used it to give a few discreet taps.

I didn't hear any footsteps in the hallway, but the door swung open.
 
There was a young man standing there, about twenty-five, maybe a year or two older.
 
He was good looking in an outdoorsy sort of way, and he was wearing rubber-soled hiking boots, which is why I hadn't heard him in the hall.

"Truman Smith?" he asked.
 
He didn't look especially happy to see me.

"That's me," I said.
 
I would have given him a card, but I don't have any cards.

"Come on in," he said, and I did.

I gave my surroundings the once-over so I could report to Nancy, who was going to be disappointed if she thought the house was filled with magnificent treasures.
 
The hallway was completely bare, from its tile floor to its high ceiling.
 
The wallpaper was peeling away, and in places it was completely missing.
 
I could see something that looked like canvas on the walls.

"He's back in his room," the young man said, and turned down the hall.
 
"You can follow me."

I tagged along obediently, and we entered what must have been the living room at one time.
 
Or maybe it would have been called the parlor.
 
It was nearly as bare as the hallway, and the little furniture it contained was covered with dusty cloths that swept down to the floor.
 
The chandelier was nice, however.

We went through that room and down another hall, where the young man stopped and knocked on a door.
 
Without waiting for an answer from inside the room, he swung the door open.

"Here's Mr. Smith," he said, motioning for me to enter.

I walked past him and into a room right out of the nineteenth century.
 
It held a canopy bed, an armoire with mirrored doors, a writing desk, a washstand with a basin and pitcher sitting on it, and a spindly-legged wooden chair with an embroidered cushion.

There were only two modern things in the room.
 
One was a 13-inch TV set that sat on a small table.
 
The other was a La-Z-Boy recliner in which a white-haired man was sitting with a blanket over his legs.
 
There was a smell of mustiness and medication in the air, as if the window hadn't been opened in years, which it probably hadn't.

"Thank you, Paul," the man said.
 
It was the same voice I'd heard on the phone.
 
"You may leave us now."

There was no reply, but I heard the door close behind me.

"I am Patrick Lytle," the white-haired man said.

I guessed his age at about eighty.
 
His arms were thin and his eyes were watery, but he had the clear skin of a man of thirty.
 
I wondered what his secret was.

"You'll excuse me if I remain seated."
 
He gestured to the blanket.
 
"I no longer have the use of my legs."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Don't be.
 
It happened a long time ago, and I'm quite used to it now.
 
It's really no great loss.
 
I find that staying at home is preferable in many ways to leaving it.
 
Paul keeps me well supplied with whatever small needs I might have."

"Paul is you son?"
 
There seemed to be a family resemblance.

"My grandson.
 
I have no surviving children, Mr. Smith.
 
But I'm forgetting my manners.
 
Please have a seat."

I wasn't sure the spindly chair would hold me, but it did.
 
I didn't bother trying to get comfortable.
 
In that chair, comfort would have been impossible.

"Are you a private investigator, Mr. Smith?" Lytle asked.

"I have a license.
 
I don't practice often."

"I've seen private investigators on television," he said.
 
"Magnum.
 
Cannon.
 
Names like that."

"Smith sounds kind of dull in that company," I said.
 
"Maybe I should change it to something ballistic."

"The name isn't important.
 
The man is.
 
I remember you from your glory days."
 
He was no doubt talking about football, though I didn't know whether he meant my high school career or the abbreviated one I'd had in college.
 
"Have you changed since then?"

In more ways than you'd ever understand
, I thought.
 
What I said was, "Some."

"I'm sure you have.
 
You must be more prudent now, less inclined to take chances."

I didn't know what he was getting at, but I thought I might as well listen.
 
Maybe eventually he'd tell me.

"There was a time," he said, "when the Island meant something to people, when the people who lived here were willing to take risks to make it better.
 
Have you looked at it lately, Mr. Smith?
 
Really looked at it?"

"Yes," I said.
 
"Have you?"

He shook his head.
 
"I know quite enough without having to see it.
 
The deserted downtown, half the buildings boarded up, the fried-chicken franchises, the houses that are practically falling down.
 
Galveston's time has passed, Mr. Smith."

That wasn't the whole truth, and I had a feeling that he knew it.
 
There was a lot going on in Galveston, what with the restoration of so many of the old buildings in the area of The Strand, the Mardi Gras celebration every year, the condos that seemed to be popping up like mushrooms, Moody Gardens, the steadily improving tourist trade.

I mentioned a few of those things.

"They amount to very little," he said.
 
"What the Island needs is a massive injection of capital, not these piddling stop-gap measures.
 
It needs men of vision, men of purpose."

I started to ask him if he were one of those men, but I thought better of it.
 
Anyone taking a look at his house, which seemed to represent the very decay he was worried about, would know he wasn't the kind of man he thought the town needed.

"Some are going to say that the answer to our problems is gambling," he went on.
 
"Gambling is an evil, Mr. Smith.
 
It must not be permitted to return to the Island."

A lot of people felt that way, and probably a lot of them were members of families like Lytle's, families that went back to the days when Galveston was the jewel of the Gulf Coast.
 
But I couldn't figure out at all what any of this had to do with Outside Harry.

I would have asked Lytle, but he was already going along his own path, and I didn't want to interrupt.

"Someone killed
Braddy
Macklin last night," he said, looking at his TV set.
 
"It was on the news."

I'm sure it was, but I seldom watch the news on television.
 
It always begins with the latest car wreck, murder, or child abuse case, and the more blood they can show, the better.
 
Stories like that are generally buried on the second or third page of one of the inside sections of a newspaper, which is one reason I prefer to get my news from them.

"Macklin," Lytle said, "was a scourge on this city.
 
He was scum.
 
He was a reminder of all that was bad about Galveston."

"Gambling brought a lot of people here," I said.
 
"It gave a lot of people work.
 
I don't remember much about crime in those days, but it seems to me we have a lot more now."

I don't know why I was defending gambling.
 
Maybe because Dino was my friend and his uncles had run the gambling.
 
Or maybe it was because of Cathy Macklin's blue eyes.
 
Neither was much of a reason, I have to admit.

Lytle waved a hand as if brushing away a bothersome fly.
 
"Gambling is itself a crime.
 
They try to soften it these days, call it 'gaming,' but that doesn't change it.
 
We can't allow its return."

I didn't ask who he meant by
we
.
 
The conversation was getting stranger and stranger.

"I'm not sure what this has to do with Harry Mercer," I said.

Lytle twitched a little, as if I'd surprised him by my rudeness in changing the subject.

"Harry Mercer," he said, "is this Island's past.
 
He is the opposite of criminals like
Braddy
Macklin.
 
Whoever shot him did the city a favor, let me assure you."

Maybe he was right about Macklin.
 
Even his daughter didn't seem to have liked him very much.
 
But I didn't see his point about Harry.

"Harry isn't exactly a pillar of the community," I said.

"Perhaps not.
 
But he is self-sufficient.
 
He goes back to a time when the Island was more than just a place for tourists and sightseers.
 
He is an important part of our history.
 
He is widely known and liked.
 
He is a friend to everyone, children and adults alike.
 
I want you to find him and bring him to me.
 
I want to help him establish a permanent place to live."

I thought that Lytle was guilty of romanticizing the past, just as I'd done when I spoke out in favor of gambling.
 
Harry was an old man who ate dog food sandwiches.
 
A nice enough guy, sure, but not the key to Galveston's future.
 
Still, if Lytle wanted to offer him a home, I wasn't going to stand in the way.
 
That is, I wasn't if I could even find Harry and if he wanted a home after I found him.

"I can't promise to bring him to you," I said.
 
"He might not want to come.
 
All I want to do is find him and be sure that he's all right."

"I have servants' quarters," Lytle said.
 
"Just behind the house.
 
Not that I intend for Harry to become my servant.
 
Far from it.
 
He'll be provided with whatever he needs, and I'll never disturb him."

I wondered if he had even heard a word I'd said.

"I can't bring Harry here if he doesn't want to come," I told him, speaking a little louder than necessary.

"He'll come, I'm sure of that.
 
Just tell him what I have to offer.
 
That's all I ask."

I could promise that without any trouble.
 
I did, and then I stood up to go.

"I hope you can find him, Mr. Smith," Lytle said.
 
"My grandson will see you out."

Almost as he finished speaking the door swung open and Paul Lytle was standing there.

"One moment," his grandfather said.
 
"I forgot to ask you, Mr. Smith.
 
What are your rates?"

"I already have a client," I said.
 
"It wouldn't be ethical for me to take your money too."

"And who is your client?"

I started to tell him, but then I changed my mind.
 
It wasn't any of his business.
 
And he might not have liked the answer.

"That's privileged information," I said.