Leonard, Elmore - Raylan Givens 03 (3 page)

She'd be fixing her face to go to work at Betty's Hair Salon, and Bowman would say, "Who you think you are, Ava Gardner? You don't look nothing like her."

Ava had quit trying to get it through his head no one ever said she did. The day she was born her daddy named her Ava on account of Ava Gardner saying she was a country girl at heart with a country girl's values. He had read it somewhere and believed it and would remind her as she was growing up, "See, even a good-looking woman don't have to put on airs."

She married Bowman a year out of high school because he was cute, because he was sure of himself and told her he'd never work in a goddamn coal mine. He'd wear the blue and white of the University of Kentucky and after that get drafted by a pro team; he wouldn't mind the Cowboys. But colleges either wouldn't accept his grades or didn't think he was good enough. He blamed her for their getting married and taking his mind off staying in shape so he could try out at some school as a walk-on. She said, "Honey, if your grade-point average sucks . . ." Uh-unh, that had nothing to do with it, it was her fault. Everything was. It was her fault he had to dig coal. Her own fault he hit her. If she didn't nag at him he wouldn't have to. Unless he slapped her for the way she was looking at him. He'd start drinking Jim Beam and Diet Coke—ate like a hog and drank diet soda—and she'd see it coming as his disposition turned from stupid to ugly and pretty soon he'd be slapping her, hard. She ran way to Corbin and got a job at the Holiday Inn waiting tables. Bowman found her and brought her back saying he missed her and would try to tolerate her acting up. It was her fault she miscarried after he'd beat her with his belt. Her fault he didn't have a son he could take hunting with him and his creepy brother. She told Bowman there were times he wasn't home Boyd would stop by wanting a drink, and if she gave him one he'd start getting funny, "your own brother." Bowman whipped her for telling him, kept after her with his belt till she fell and hit her head on the stove.

This was the other night. She got up from the floor knowing he would never hit her again.

The next day, Saturday, he walked in smelling of beer and gunfire, like nothing had happened the night before. She had his supper on the table, ham and yams, cream-style corn and leftover okra fixed with tomatoes, because she wanted him sitting down. Once he'd poured his Jim Beam and Diet Coke and took his place at the table, Ava went in the kitchen closet and came out with Bowman's Winchester. He looked up and said with his mouth full of sweet potato what sounded like "The hell you doing with that?"

Ava said, "I'm gonna shoot you, you dummy," and she did, blew him out of the chair.

When the prosecutor asked if she had loaded the rifle before firing it, she paused no more than a second before telling him Bowman always kept it loaded.

Raylan was told Bowman himself couldn't find
his house when he was drunk. Go on up along the Clover Fork, or take the Gas Road out to the diversion tunnels and turn right down to a road bears east where a sign says
JESUS SAVES
,
and it ain't far; start looking for a red Dodge pickup in the yard.

It was one-story with aluminum awnings set high among pines. Raylan got out of the Lincoln Town Car—one Art had taken off some convicted felon and given to Raylan to use— and crossed the yard past the Dodge pickup to the front door.

It opened and he was looking at a woman in a soiled T-shirt worn over an old housedress that hung on her, her dark hair a mess. Ava was forty now, but he knew those eyes staring at him and she knew him, saying, "Oh my God—Raylan," in kind of a prayerful tone.

He stepped into a room with bare walls, worn carpeting, a sofa. "You remember me, huh?"

Ava pushed the door closed. She said, "I never forgot you," and went into his arms as he offered them, a girl he used to like now a woman who'd shot and killed her husband and wanted to be held. He could tell, he could feel her hands holding on to him. She raised her face to say, "I can't believe you're here." He kissed her on the cheek. She kept staring at him with those eyes and he kissed her on the mouth. Now they kept looking at each other until Raylan took off his hat and sailed it over to the sofa. He saw her eyes close, her hands slipping around his neck, and this time it became a serious kiss, their mouths finding the right fit and holding till finally they had to breathe. Now he didn't know what to say. He didn't know why he kissed her other than he wanted to. He could remember wanting to even when she was a teen.

"I had a crush on you," Ava said, "from the time I was twelve years old. I knew you liked me, but you didn't want to show it."

"You were too young."

"I was sixteen when you left. I heard you got married. Are you still?"

Raylan shook his head. "Turned out to be a mistake."

"You want to talk about mistakes... I told Bowman I wanted a divorce? He goes, 'You file, you'll never be seen again.' Said I'd disappear from the face of the earth."

"I hear he used to beat you up."

"That last time—I've still got a knot where I fell and hit my head on the stove. You want to feel it?" She was touching her scalp, fingers probing into her wild-looking hair, and her expression changed. She said, "Oh my God, don't look at me," pulling the T-shirt over her head, the hem of the housedress rising to show her legs hurrying away from him. "Close your eyes, I don't want you to see me like this." But then she stopped before going in the bedroom and looked back at him.

"Raylan, the minute you walked in I knew everything would be all right."

The bedroom door closed and he wanted to go knock on it before she started assuming too much. Show her he was a federal marshal and tell her why he was here. But then had to ask himself, Why are you? Art had said she didn't want protection. He'd offer it anyway. No, he was here to get a lead on Boyd. Kissing her had confused his purpose there for a minute.

Raylan walked over to the table where they said Bowman was sitting. He looked in the kitchen at a pile of dishes in the sink—Ava letting her housework go, letting herself go, not knowing what was to become of her. But she had all of a sudden pulled herself together, ashamed of the way she looked, and it sounded like she was expecting him to see her through this. And if she was, what was he supposed to do? For one thing they'd better quit kissing.

It wasn't a minute later the front door banged open and a guy wearing alligator teeth walked in the house.

V

Gator teeth, spiked hair dyed blond and a
tattoo on his chest, part of it showing the way his shirt hung open. He stood there looking Raylan over before saying, "Who in the hell are you, the undertaker?"

Raylan got his hat from the sofa and set it on his head the way he wore it. He said, "I might be undertaking a situation here. Lemme see what you have on your chest," wanting this skinhead with hair to open his shirt.

He did, held it apart to show Raylan his
heil
hitler
tattoo, no weapon stuck in his belt. Raylan decided not to mess with Adolf Hitler, saying now, "You buy that necklace or poach the gator and yank her teeth out?"

It got the skin to squint at him but still wanting to tell, because he said, "I shot her and ate her tail."

Now Raylan squinted to show he was thinking. "That would put you in Florida, around Lake Okeechobee."

It got the skin to tell him, "Belle Glade."

"Is that right?" Raylan reached into his inside pocket for his ID case. "I sent a boy to Starke was from Belle Glade, fella name Dale Crowe Junior." He flipped open the case to show his star. "I'm Raylan Givens, deputy United States marshal." He flipped the case closed. "You mind telling me who you are?"

The skin was staring now like he did mind and had to decide whether or not to tell. Raylan said, "You know your name, don't you?"

"It's Dewey Crowe," the skin said, putting some defiance into the sound of it. "Dale Junior's my kin."

Raylan said, "Man, that's some family you belong to. I know of four Crowes either shot dead or sent to prison. Tell me what you're doing here."

Dewey said, "I come to take Ava someplace," and started toward the bedroom.

Raylan held up his hand and it stopped him.

"Lemme tell you something, Mr. Crowe. You don't walk in a person's house 'less you're invited. What you better do, go on outside and knock on the door. If Ava wants to see you I'll let you in. She doesn't, you can be on your way."

Raylan watched him, curious as to how this boy wearing alligator teeth would take it—big, ugly teeth but no apparent weapon on him.

What he said was, "All right." Keeping it simple to show he was cool. He said, "I'm gonna go out.'' Paused to set up the rest of it and said, "Then I'm coming back in." He turned and went out the door, leaving it open.

Raylan came over to stand in the doorway. He watched young Mr. Crowe hurrying toward his car standing in the road, an old rusting-out Cadillac, and watched him raise the trunk lid.

Raylan took off his suitcoat and hooked it on the doorknob. He wore a blue shirt with a mostly dark-blue striped tie. He reset his hat on his head. Now his hand went to the grip of the revolver on his right hip, the .45-caliber Smith & Wesson, but did not clear it from the worn leather holster.

He watched Dewey Crowe bring a pump shotgun out of the trunk and start back this way, all business now, his mind made up, his dumb pride taking him to a place it would be hard to back out of.

Though he hadn't racked the pump to put a shell in the breech.

Still hadn't as he slowed up seeing Raylan in his shirtsleeves, Dewey Crowe taking careful steps now, holding the shotgun out in front of him.

Raylan said, "Mr. Crowe? Listen, you better hold on there while I tell you something."

It stopped him about fifty feet away, his shoulders hunched.

"I want you to understand," Raylan said, "I don't pull my sidearm 'less I'm gonna shoot to kill. That's its purpose, huh, to kill. So it's how I use it."

Speaking hard words in a quiet tone of voice.

"I want you to think about what I'm saying before you act and it's too late."

"Jesus Christ," Dewey said. "I got a fuckin' scatter gun pointed right at you."

"But can you rack in a load," Raylan said, "before I put a hole through you?"

Raylan stepped out to the yard. He said,

"Come on," pushing the barrel of the shotgun aside to take Dewey by the arm and walk him out to the car, a piece of junk but still a Cadillac.

"Where'd you want to take Ava?" Dewey said, "Man, I don't understand you."

"Boyd want to see her?"

"It's none of your business."

"You know Boyd and I were buddies? We dug coal and drank beer together." Raylan opened the car door. "You see him, tell him I'm in Harlan."

Dewey didn't say anything getting in the car. He had to turn the key a few times before it caught. Raylan reached through the open window and put his hand on his shoulder. "I was you, boy, I'd drop this Nazi bullshit and get back to poaching gators, it's safer."

Dewey looked up at him. As he said, "The next time I see you . . ." only got that far before Raylan took a handful of his spiked hair and brought his head down hard on the windowsill. Raylan hunched over now to look into the face tightened with pain.

"Listen to me. Tell Boyd his old buddy wants to see him, Raylan Givens."

VI.

He went back in the house to find Ava in the kitchen pouring Jim Beam, Ava in a tank top and shorts, her hair wrapped in a towel that was like a white turban around her head. She said, "Who was that?" not sounding too interested. He told her and she said, "Oh, the one with Heil Hitler on his chest, he was one of Bowman's buddies."

"He came to take you someplace."

"Most likely to see Boyd. You want something with yours? I've got Diet Co'Cola, RC Cola, Dr Pepper... "

"Just ice, if you have some."

"I ever forget to fill the trays Bowman'd start slapping me. 'What's wrong with you? Don't you know how to keep house?' "

The towel covering her hair made the rest of her seem more exposed, white and kind of puffy, more to her, like she had gained a good twenty pounds since taking off the housedress that hung on her. He saw now it was that wild hair that had made her face appear drawn. He noticed bruises on her pale skin, on her arms and legs, that made her appear soiled, and, oh man, her behind filled out those shorts—Raylan watching her carrying their drinks to the table where she had shot her husband.

"I cleaned it up good. Had to scrub the wall there with Lysol to get, you know, the stains off it. I think Lysol's the best cleaning product you can buy."

Raylan sat down at the table with her. "You haven't seen Boyd, have you? I mean since?"

"No, but he'll be after me, I know. He's
been
after me."

"That's why we want to keep an eye on you," Raylan said. "You know I'm with the Marshals Service."

"I believe was your mother told me, before she passed." Ava lit a cigarette from a pack lying on the table and blew a stream of smoke by him. "I made the mistake of telling Bowman about his brother coming around and he whipped me with his belt. Didn't want to believe it." She drew on the cigarette again. Smoke came out as she said, "Here's a man was so jealous he'd stop by Betty's to check on me."

"Betty's?"

"Hair Salon, where I work, or did. I trained under Betty washing hair, giving perms. I do hair now for special occasions, weddings, graduations I do a bunch of the girls. Yeah,