A man answered.
He was huge, but not really tall. In fact, Raymond was a couple of inches taller. But the man was stocky and strong looking, wearing only jeans and a white short-sleeved tee, showing off bulging chest and arm muscles. His feet were bare. He had pockmarks on his face, as if pitted by teenage acne, or some disease that scars the skin. He looked to be about forty.
“Luis Velez?” Raymond asked, his voice too high with fright.
“Who wants to know?”
The man spoke with just a trace of a Spanish accent. Raymond shifted on his feet and pressed the dictionary against his thigh so the man could not read its cover. He was embarrassed now that he had carried it here.
“Just me. I mean, I’m not . . . I don’t mean any . . . I’m just . . .” He took a deep breath and started over, forcing himself to focus. “My name is Raymond. Raymond Jaffe. And I’m looking for a Luis Velez, but you might not be the right one. I’m looking for the one who used to help an old woman named Mildred. Millie. She’s blind, and he used to come help her get to the market and the bank.”
Silence. As if this Luis Velez expected him to say more. As if the man needed more information before he could decide if he were the right Luis Velez or not.
Behind this big man, in his apartment, Raymond watched two boys of about ten or twelve chase each other through the living room, the bigger one trying to get the smaller one in a headlock. The TV was on, the volume up loud, and Raymond could hear cartoons blaring.
“Nah,” the guy said. “That ain’t me.”
“Okay. Sorry to bother you, then.”
Raymond turned back toward the stairs and hurried away. When he reached them, he hurried down them two at a time, feeling as though he couldn’t get back to the subway fast enough.
He should have just kept calling. That’s what he was thinking. He’d come all this way because he thought he’d do better in person, holding his English-Spanish dictionary. But this Luis Velez had turned out to speak English. And it was a long way to come for a thirty-second conversation.
For nothing.
Then he remembered that if he was going to go back to using the phone, he’d have to know what was a local call and what was not. And he’d better not make a mistake with it.
Just as he hit the lobby and set out moving along the flat hardwood toward the door, he heard the man calling out to him.
“Hey. You.”
Raymond stopped. Turned around. Watched the man run down the two flights of stairs and up to where Raymond stood with one hand on his dictionary and the other on the door handle. The man, Luis, had put on shoes. Heavy work boots that laced up. Raymond could not imagine how he had put them on so fast.
“I forgot your name,” the man said.
“Raymond.”
“Right. Raymond. I’m Luis. Oh. You knew that.”
Raymond smiled. He could feel it. It felt odd, under the circumstances.
“At least let me walk you to the subway,” Luis said. “You took the subway here, right? It’s not the best neighborhood.”
“Thanks,” Raymond said. And breathed. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. But he was keenly aware of the oxygen deficit now.
“Sorry about the smell down here,” Luis said. “My downstairs neighbors like to mix up amyl nitrate and sell it.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You know. ‘Poppers,’ they call ’em on the street?”
“Oh,” Raymond said. But he still didn’t know. “Gives me a headache.”
“I tell them to cut it out, and then I tell the landlord. And then the landlord makes ’em stop. And then it all dies down and they’re back to mixing again.”
They stepped out of the building together and down the stairs to the street.
For the first short block they walked side by side in silence. Luis was still wearing only a sleeveless tee. Raymond thought he must be cold. But, if so, he never let on.
“I think about doing stuff like that,” the man said.
“Stuff like what?”
Raymond thought he might mean stuff like mixing up amyl nitrate and selling it on the street. But he hoped not.
“Like with that blind lady.”
“Oh. Right. That.”
“I think about . . . you know. Volunteering. That kind of thing. But it’s hard, you know? I have four kids. And I work full time. Sometimes sixty hours a week. I bet this Luis Velez you’re looking for . . . maybe he’s got no kids. But I shouldn’t say, because I never met the man. Does he? Have kids?”
“I don’t know,” Raymond said. “I never thought to ask.”
They passed a young man on the corner, possibly selling. Maybe waiting for a buyer, but Raymond was only guessing. He was younger than Raymond. Fifteen or sixteen, maybe. Raymond could feel the kid’s gaze burning into him. Inviting him to look. Waiting to see if Raymond was a customer? Or something else?
Raymond’s eyes automatically came up to the young man’s face.
“Don’t make eye contact,” Luis said.
Raymond looked down at the filthy sidewalk again, and they passed without incident.
“’Cause if he had kids,” Luis said, still firmly stuck on the same topic, “then I just don’t know how he did it.”
“Not sure,” Raymond said.
They walked in silence for a block more. Raymond could see the subway stairs at the end of the next block. They looked like salvation. Like the end of all trouble and fear.
“How do you know this old blind lady?” Luis asked.
“She lives in my building.”
“And are you helping her get to the bank and the store? Until you can find this right Luis Velez?”
“Yeah. I am. I mean . . . somebody has to. So I am.”
“Good,” he said. “You’re a good boy. I don’t mean ‘boy’ like . . . I didn’t mean it in the bad way. You know. Just . . . I don’t know. Maybe you’re eighteen and you’re a man. Are you?”
“No. I’ll be seventeen next month.”
“You’re tall, though. That’s why I guessed older.”
“Yeah. I’m tall.”
“Well, you’re a good young man, then.”