Have You Seen Luis Velez?(14)

As she spoke, she continued to stroke the cat’s ears. And the cat—Louise—continued to purr.

“The fact that you worked to save her, Raymond,” she added, “this tells me so much about you.”

“Where did you grow up?”

Something dark crossed the old woman’s face then. Even the cat noticed, though not by looking. She just picked up the change in mood. She jumped down and slithered under the couch to hide.

“That doesn’t matter for now,” she said.

“That’s right. You’re right. I’m sorry. It doesn’t.”

“Try not to be so sorry, my young friend. Most of what you regret in this world is not of your own making.”

“Okay, I’ll try. I’m sorry.”

Then a second later he heard himself, as if on instant replay.

“Oops,” he said.

“You will practice,” she said. “I will remind you.”



“So do you think you’ll be okay alone with her?” he asked. “If I go now?”

It was at least an hour or two later. Raymond couldn’t see a clock from where he sat with them on the couch. But the sun outside the curtained window told him it was midday.

“We will keep our fingers crossed,” she said. “I will be very aware as I am crossing rooms. If I hear the bell I will stop until I know more. The one thing that could be a problem . . . well, let’s just hope she doesn’t do it. If she sleeps on the rug right in the middle of a room, that will be a danger. But probably she is too cautious for that. As she gets to know the place, and me, she might do it in one spot, over there by the window where the sun comes through the curtain and warms the rug. But I know that spot. I can avoid it. I hope now that it works out, Raymond, and not only for her sake and yours. I miss having cats. It will be nice to have another beating heart around.”

“I’ll come check on you more often until we see.”

“That would be good. Just come and rap on the door. If I’m fine, I’ll call to you. I’ll say, ‘I am fine, Raymond.’ But then if I should take a fall, I’ll know someone will be along shortly.”

He stood. Moved to the door.

“I don’t . . . I don’t know how to . . . I want to tell you . . .”

But the words dried up. Because he didn’t know how to say them. It should have been easy. Thank you. He had said it before. But never about something so intensely important. His gratitude seemed to swell up in his throat and choke him.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I know what this little animal means to you. I hear it in your voice when you talk about her. Go on. We will be fine.”

Raymond let himself out.

He pressed one ear to the door and listened as she crossed the rug to lock up after him. Just to be sure she made it okay.

“I’m right here,” he said as she did up the last lock.

“I knew you would be,” she said.

He waited until he was sure she must be sitting again. Then he trotted up the stairs to his own apartment.

Once there, he turned on his computer and searched for phone directory listings. The white pages online. Typed in “Luis Velez.” Then “New York, New York.” If he was right about the spelling of the first and last name, there were about twenty listings. If not, there were many more. Many variations.

Well, he thought. I’ll just have to start at the first one and keep going until I find him. Or find that he can’t be found.



In the middle of the night Raymond woke, nursing a bad thought. He booted up his computer and searched for Luis’s name and the word “Obituary.” Nothing useful came up.

He breathed a sigh of relief and put himself back to bed.

But before he could get back to sleep he remembered his step-grandmother. Ed’s mother. When she died, there had been no obituary, because the newspaper had wanted too much money to run one.

Still, there was nothing he could do about any of it. So he put it out of his head as best he could and tried to get some sleep.





Chapter Four




* * *





The Luis Project

“Where did he live?” Raymond asked on his next visit to Mildred and the cat.

“Who? Luis?”

“Yeah. Luis.”

His plan was to quietly work her for information. Little bits of it that might narrow down the list. Make his job easier. But he wouldn’t tell her straight out about the project. Because he might fail. He didn’t want to get her hopes up for nothing.

He watched her brow knit down. She began to wring her hands the way she did whenever she spoke of Luis’s disappearance.

“I don’t know, Raymond. That is one of the worst parts of the thing. I don’t know. He used to live within easy walking distance. Four blocks, he said. But I didn’t know four blocks in which direction, because he always came here. Then he moved. Farther away. I kept asking him, ‘Where do you live now?’ Because I was worried he was coming too far to help me. And he knew I was worried about that. So he never would say. Instead he would dismiss my worries by saying, ‘It’s just a subway ride, Millie. A simple little subway ride.’ He never said how long of one. I wish I knew more. He was such a good friend. But we were not the kind of friends where maybe I would go to his house sometimes. No, it was not like that. He always came here.”