Have You Seen Luis Velez?(36)

It wasn’t until they were seated in a small, mostly deserted café, their coffee and tea on the table in front of them, that Luis Velez opened his mouth to speak.

They had said nothing to each other on the walk. Not even simple introductions. Just a heavy silence.

If Raymond had been someone else entirely, he might have dragged it out of them on the way over. Screamed at them to spit out what they knew. But Raymond was only who he had always been. And besides, he was no more anxious to hear the details than this couple seemed anxious to tell them.

“It was in the paper just yesterday morning,” Luis said.

“Luis reads the Sunday Times like nobody I ever met before,” the woman said. “I’m not going to say he reads every word on every page, because I think that might take weeks. Do you get the Sunday Times? It’s huge.”

Luis seemed to notice that she was pushing the conversation off track. He pushed it back again.

“It was a story that was kind of buried,” he said. “I think that’s what Kate is trying to say. Somebody might get the Sunday Times and not even see this. It was in the city section, but way back. I don’t remember what page. I remember it kind of pissed me off that they buried it back there, because it seemed like a big deal to me. But maybe that’s because his name was Luis M. Velez. That’s me. Luis M. Velez. It hit me like a baseball bat. Like I was reading my own obituary. Except it wasn’t an obituary, it was a story. You know. An article. But he was Luis Miguel Velez, and I’m Luis Manuel Velez. But at the beginning of the article it just said Luis M. Velez. It was pretty shocking, to read your name that way. And the more I read what happened to him, the more I realized . . . that could so happen to me. That could have been me. I haven’t really stopped thinking about it since. And then today you show up at my door looking for this guy. It’s all just really weird.”

A silence fell. Raymond waited. Surely Luis knew that when he threw around terms like “what happened,” he was talking to someone who did not know what had happened. So Raymond waited. He could have asked. But he was dreading the information and wasn’t sure if he wanted to hurry it along.

“So, did you know him well?” Kate asked.

“I didn’t know him at all. I never met him. But my friend Millie . . . they were close. Oh my God. I’m going to have to tell her!”

Another awkward silence. It was almost as though they planned to leave Raymond on his own with this. Force him to find a leftover Sunday paper and figure it out for himself.

“So . . . ,” Raymond said. “I guess . . .” He felt as though he were walking on partially thawed ice over deep water. Inviting a shocking fall. Knowing it could be any minute. Any step. “Maybe go ahead and tell me what happened?”

“It’s bad,” Luis said. “It’s really bad, what happened. And it could have been me. It could have been you, too. When you hear this, you’ll be thinking to yourself, Jeez, that could have been me. Except your name is not Luis M. Velez. That’s what was so shocking about it. The name thing.”

Raymond threw him a desperate look, and he caught it.

“Right. Sorry. Get this over with. Okay. So, originally, this woman who shot him—”

Raymond’s mind left the table for a flash of a moment. Levitated to somewhere near the ceiling of the café. It had never occurred to him that Luis had been shot. He had been thinking in terms of a terrible accident. Well . . . it may have occurred to him. But it hadn’t been a thought he’d long entertained.

But Luis was still talking.

“—told the police he was trying to rob her. She even lied and tried to prove it by using the fact that he was holding her wallet when she shot him. She tried to use that as proof that it was a robbery. But there was a witness. At the time there was only one witness. And the witness said no, Luis already had the wallet in his hand before he ever approached her. He was running down the street after her, holding up this wallet. He kept saying, ‘Ma’am! Ma’am!’ The witness didn’t know if the lady dropped it on the street, or maybe she’d left it somewhere, but she said it was real clear that he was trying to give it back.

“But then another witness came forward, much later. I don’t know why. Conscience bothering him, maybe. And this guy said the woman who shot Luis, she was digging around in her purse already, for that gun. Luis was walking behind her, and it was dusk. Almost nightfall. And already she was going for that gun. Like maybe just in case, you know. But just in case what? Luis hadn’t said a word to her. Hadn’t come anywhere near her. But he was this great big guy, and he was walking down the street behind her. You know. Walking While Latino. And she was already going for the gun. And while she was rummaging around in there, in her purse, she dropped her wallet on the street. And I guess she never saw it. She just kept walking. Luis picked it up and tried to give it back to her. But she didn’t hear him. It said in the article she wears hearing aids. Not a really old lady. Fifty-six, I think the paper said. But she wears hearing aids. She said she turns them off on the street because of all the background noise. You know. Traffic and all. I guess it sort of echoes or something. Irritates her. So he’s following her, yelling to her, and the witnesses can hear Luis, but she can’t. So finally he catches up to her and puts a hand on her shoulder, you know? To try to turn her around. Well, she turned around, all right. She turned around and fired six rounds into this poor guy’s chest. For trying to give her back something she dropped on the street. And now this guy is gone. Gone. Forever. A wife and three kids. That’s what he left. An eleven-year-old and a seven-year-old, and the wife is pregnant with their third kid. Can you imagine anything more tragic than that? What a waste of a life.”