Raylan: A Novel (5 page)

Chapter Eight

COAL KEEPS THE LIGHTS ON.

Raylan read the signs, the coal company rubbing it in. You want coal to heat your house? You have to accept surface mining and the mess it makes; the film of coal dust on your car sitting in the yard. Raylan followed the signs on barns and billboards, finally turning at one reminding him that
JESUS SAVES
and a mile later came to Ed McCready’s property.

M
cCready lay in bed, his head propped up on a pillow so he could see Raylan, his gunshot wound cleansed and cauterized. He yanked aside the flannel cover to show Raylan his thigh bandaged all the way around. “Went in my leg,” Ed said, “turned south and went through the floor of the porch.”

“You’re positive,” Raylan said, “it was Bob Valdez.”

“No, it was some greaser,” Loretta said, “drove up in his little scooter and shot my dad. Course it was Bob, who else?”

“I remember you at the store,” Raylan said, “havin an RC Cola.”

Loretta said, “I remember you too, don’t worry. Bob walks up and shoots my dad with a .44 has a six-inch barrel. Soon as I find the bullet under the porch and give you the trap they put him on . . .” She said, “Daddy, show Raylan your foot.”

“He can see it, it’s right there.”

Swollen and bruised, ugly-looking.

“He shot my dad,” Loretta said, “cause we had a patch growin among the tomatoes. Bob said, ‘You try and grow any more’ ”—Loretta putting on his accent—“ ‘I deep you in a barrel of hot tar and set you afire.’ Threatenin to kill my dad.”

Raylan turned to Ed. “He set the trap on your foot before or after he shot you?”

“After. I’m layin there bleedin,” Ed said. “The other greaser pulls off my slipper. I’m sittin on the porch in my house slippers.”

“Before they showed,” Loretta said, “Bob phoned and said to tell my dad, ‘Valdez is coming.’ You ever hear of anything like that?”

“I might’ve,” Raylan said. “You sure took some award-winning pictures.”

“With my phone,” Loretta said, and pulled it out of her jeans to show Raylan. “I got some other pictures of Bob, he comes by on his scooter. He’d pull out the neck of my T-shirt and look inside. I won’t tell you what he said.”

“Has he ever, you know,” Raylan said, “touched any of your like private parts?”

“The greaser shot my dad,” Loretta said, “and you want to know if he felt me up?”

Raylan said, “Lemme give you some advice, okay?”

“Don’t call ’em greasers?”

“I mean, once you get serious about boys.”

“You kiddin? I already am.”

“All I hope you do,” Raylan said, “is try to be patient with them.”

H
e watched the camp from high ground, a view through the trees that showed a slice of the hardpack yard and the barn where the Mexican pickers slept in hammocks. Some of them were at the two picnic tables now outside the barn having their noon dinner, Bob Valdez at the end of the table away from the stove. Raylan watched Bob through his glasses: his straw on his eyes, his hand on the rump of a girl serving his beans and rice. Raylan raised the glasses to outbuildings painted white, dressed-up cowsheds off in the pasture.

Inside, the plywood walls painted a flat white, Pervis had his hydroponic gardens, tended with care to maintain air temperature, ventilation, the feeding of nutrients to the water, and a 400-watt lighting system on twenty-four hours a day during germination, and reduced to twelve hours on and twelve off during the growing period. Once harvested, each of Pervis’s hundred or so plants would yield an ounce of top-grade marijuana. It gave Pervis a cash crop every three to four months that grossed about fifty thousand dollars.

Raylan wondered if smoking it made you laugh at dumb things you’d think were funny.

Bob might have molested Loretta or he might not have. But he did shoot McCready in his bedroom slippers in front of his daughter, who took pictures with her cell phone Raylan could show Bob, if he needed to. Not down there with the help having their dinner, but off by those cowsheds. He was told Pervis put up signs that said
AUTHORIZED BY STATE LAW
.
KEEP OUT
. The way Pervis got around being robbed or arrested.
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED OR SHOT.

He’d drive down to the yard in the Audi . . . But did he want to confront Bob at the table? Give him a chance to show off, all the help watching him? Raylan could hear Bob: “Wha you talking about? I shot some old man was scaring me?” Bob playing to the crowd.

What Raylan did, he drove down to the yard following switchbacks until he came out in the open, angled toward the barn and the picnic tables—all the pickers watching him—raised his hand to Bob Valdez and kept going, drove around the barn and out to the pasture, the clean white cowsheds standing in the sun.

T
hey came out for him in a pickup, Bob driving, and pulled up near the Audi.

Raylan stood a distance from the car, the pasture behind him, about sixty feet from the two getting out of the pickup, approaching now, Bob Valdez with his .44 slung low; the other one, another Mexican in a straw hat, carrying a twelve-gauge under his arm like he was out here to shoot birds, relaxed, a step behind Bob. He looked tired. Or he was stoned.

Forty or so feet now Bob stopped and grinned at Raylan.

“I didn’t do it. Whatever it is you thinking.”

Raylan said, “I got snapshots of you shootin Ed McCready.” Raylan’s stare went to the other one. “I got you snappin the coon trap on Ed’s foot, Loretta takin the pictures with her phone. You ever hear of that? I got enough to put you in handcuffs and take you in.”

Bob said, “Yes . . . ? Tell me what you saying.”

“I’m busy. I got something else I have to do.”

“Oh,” Bob said, “more important than me, uh?”

“All I want to tell you,” Raylan said, “replant Ed’s patch, give him five hundred for the gunshot to his leg, his injured foot, so he won’t have to sell Loretta to white slavers. I’m telling you to keep your hands off her. You do all that, we’re square. You don’t, I’ll bust you for shootin him.”

“You kidding me?” Bob said. He sounded a little surprised. “They two of us here. You got a gun on you somewhere?”

“Look,” Raylan said, “I take it out I’ll shoot you through the heart before you clear your weapon. Your partner, I’ll wait for him to wake up. What’d you bring him for?” He saw Bob glance at the other guy. “He’s stoned,” Raylan said. “Tell me you’ll pay Ed so I can get back to work. I’m after a woman steals kidneys and sells ’em.”

Bob said, “Yeah? I heard of that, selling parts of the body. What’s a kidney bring?”

“About ten grand,” Raylan said, “the going rate.”

“I couldn’ do it,” Bob said, shaking his head and setting his straw again. “Man, cutting in to some guy’s body.”

“I couldn’t either,” Raylan said. “What kind of person would it take?”

He watched Bob shrug, maybe thinking he
could
do it.

Raylan said, “You can’t shoot a man, Bob, and tear up his patch. The man has to make a living.”

Chapter Nine

C
uba was trying to think of a way to get rid of the Crowe brothers without getting their daddy on him. The only trouble, they were staying with him now, moved into his house, Cuba believed, confident their daddy would protect them, keep them from going to prison. If they weren’t his blood Pervis would have fired them years ago. Once Cuba did the two fuckups, the old man ought to thank him for taking a load off his mind. Except Pervis would have to narrow his eyes and swear he’d get the one did it. Cuba thought he might offer the old man consolation after, tell him, “Least they won’t go to prison and get cornholed every day by Negroes.”

Wait.

Or shoot the daddy first? Not have to worry about him?

C
limbing the log steps to Pervis’s house Cuba had to stop three times to rest his thighs. He had tried the store hoping Pervis was still there and found the place shut for the day. Cuba had made up his mind to do all three Crowes in whatever order they came along. He hoped Pervis would be first. After the old man it didn’t matter.

Rita, the old man’s housekeeper? Cuba had never seen her but heard she was hot-looking. Do her too? He reached the house and could smell weed as soon as he stepped on the porch.

Dickie and Coover sat next to each other on the couch. It looked strange, the other chairs in the sitting room empty. Now he saw they were sharing a party bong, passing it back and forth: add weed, put a finger over the hole and take a hit. Coover looked up, saw Cuba at the screen door and waved at him to come in.

Both Crowes stoned, grinning at Cuba like they were glad to see him, the air in the room sweet with reefer.

Cuba said, “Man, you two are havin fun, huh? Where’s daddy, he home or out someplace?”

“Upstairs taking a bath,” Dickie said, holding up the bong. “Want a hit?”

“When I finish my business. Where’s Rita, soapin up the old man?”

“I don’t think it’s their day,” Dickie said. “Rita’s in the kitchen fixin us a treat.”

“Somethin for your sweet tooth?”

“Strawberry shortcake,” Dickie said.

“How’s Rita, she sweet?”

“Coover tried to jump her one time—”

“Years ago,” Coover said.

“Daddy caught him and whipped Coove with a stick, a green one, like a whip.”

“Hurt like hell,” Coover said.

“Lettin you know she’s daddy’s girl,” Cuba said. “Man, how long she been here?”

“About three years,” Dickie said in that weed voice, holding his breath.

“That long? Why’s she stay?”

“The old man pays a lot,” Coover said, “for his nookie.”

“Coove’s been tryin to find her money,” Dickie said, “but she’s hid it good.”

“It’s in the house somewhere? What’s he pay her?”

“Hunnert a day,” Dickie said.

“Jesus Christ,” Cuba said, “and you can’t find it?” He thought of sticking his head in the kitchen, have a look at this Rita, but said, “How y’all like hidin out?”

“Nobody’s lookin for us,” Dickie said.

“Your daddy’s got friends,” Cuba said.

“Or that marshal can’t get a warrant.”

“That’s what I mean. It’s good to have friends can do you favors.”

Cuba asked himself, You through being sociable?

He reached behind him, hands going under his limp cotton jacket to pull the 9 mm Sig Sauer from the small of his back, both the weedheads staring at it with dreamy eyes, Coover saying, “What you got there, boy?”

Cuba put the Sig on the two from halfway across the room and shot both Crowes in the chest, Coover first,
bam,
exploding the bong he was holding, then Dickie,
bam,
as Dickie was screaming what sounded like “No!” Cuba waited for the gunshots to fade and listened for sounds in the house. He approached the two sprawled on the sofa, then walked over to the front door, opened the screen and banged it closed. Now he turned his attention to the stairs, Cuba thinking the old man would be careful, look out a front window to see who left.

Un-uh, there he was creeping down the stairs naked, holding a big, must be a .44 revolver out in front of him. The man had a belly, the rest of him ribs and skinny white legs, his bald head shining, Cuba seeing Pervis for the first time without his toupee, said, “Hey, old man,” got him looking this way and
bam,
shot him off the stairs, watched him drop the revolver grabbing for the handrail and fall nine steps to the floor. Cuba waited for the naked body to move, the man lying on his belly, staining the rag carpet with his blood, his right arm bent funny, looking broke. Cuba waited a few moments, turned to the hall that went to the kitchen and called out, “Rita . . . ?” Waited again and called, “Where you at, girl?”

S
he came in from the kitchen drying her hands on a dishtowel. Cuba watched her look at the brothers flopped on the couch; watched her stand over the old man, Cuba’s gaze holding on her ass in the white slip she was wearing against her black skin. Had that saucy type of ass slim black chicks would arch their backs to show it to you. Cuba watched her stoop down to place the dishtowel over the old man’s profile on the floor, and told himself to shoot her, get it done. But he said, wanting to say something, “I believe he broke his arm.”

“Oh, is
that
all,” Rita said. “I would have swore you shot Mister and the boys. One each—that’s pretty good. I don’t know why you shot the old man, less somebody paid you good money. You coulda done the boys you happen to be feelin out of sorts.” She said, “Quit aimin that thing at me. Put it away. I don’t know you and you don’t know me, all right?”

Cuba said, “I don’t know you won’t call the law,” and felt dumb saying it; he did. Like a straightman.

“I call and say I want to report some homicides? The man wants to know who this is. I tell him I’m the one’s been scoring dope out of your drugstores, with scripts a doctor writes for pussy.

“I tell the man go look at my picture you got on your wall.” She said, “Honey, Mister was my savior, but he’s dead and me and him are square.”

“You have to love him?”

“Only once a week, when he gets it up. Listen to him gruntin, like he’s pushin his car stuck in the mud.”

“But worth it,” Cuba said. “I understand the old man paid you a hunnert a day, pussy or no pussy. Three years, what’s that come to?”

Rita said, “You can slam a car door on my hand, I won’t tell you where it’s at. All you got left is to cap me. You still won’t know. I don’t have my money, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you do.”

Cuba said, “Hey, we friends, we believe each other, what we say. I already got somethin goin with a fine woman. But I won’t say you don’t tempt me.”

“She’s your girl?”

“We close.”

“She’s white, huh? You one of those think you special get a white chick to fuck you?”

“Blow me,” Cuba said and they both started laughing.

“She’s fine, she’s cool—”

“Has money?”

“That’s what we into, makin it.”

“Drugs?”

“People’s kidneys,” Cuba said to shut her up.

But Rita said, “Far-out,” serious, thoughtful. “You take their kidneys and let ’em die?”

“We sell ’em back the next day.”

“Cool. For how much?”

Cuba said, “Time for me to leave, get far away from here. You better too, you say they lookin for you.”

“I don’t know,” Rita said. “I’ll think of something. Send me a postcard, tell me what you doin, all right?” She kissed him and it wasn’t bad. She knew how.

Rita closed the door after him and locked it, hurried over to Mister, got her face down close to his and heard him breathe. She
knew
it. You don’t kill this dog with one shot. Rita said to him, “Honey, don’t move. I’m on get you to the hospital.”

K
nox County Hospital called the state police and they got on Pervis’s case, called the marshals service to let Raylan know the two guys he had them looking for were homicide victims. Raylan visited the scene, saw Coover and Dickie dead on the couch and the bloodstained carpet where Pervis had been lying. The hospital said a black girl dropped off Pervis and must have left. They didn’t know her name and Pervis refused to identify the girl or the one shot him.

He did tell Raylan, sitting at his bedside, “He left me for dead. Shot me with a round that splintered a rib and messed me up inside.” Pervis raised the arm in a cast. “I broke it fallin down the stairs.”

“While you’re laid up,” Raylan said, “why don’t we see what I can do? It was Cuba Franks, wasn’t it, the shooter? Through using your boys for his felonies? Shot you, you happen to be there. But was Rita brought you here, wasn’t it? Why’d she take off?”

Pervis said, “Why you grillin me when you think you know everything?”

Raylan said, “Remember I told you they’re taking kidneys from people while they’re alive?”

Pervis kept his mouth shut.

“You’re a hard-ass old man,” Raylan said, “but I can respect how you feel. What I don’t want is you goin to prison for taking out Cuba.”

Pervis said, “It’s time I did somethin for my boys.”

H
e shot the brothers,” Raylan told Art Mullen—the two standing in Art’s office—“while they’re suckin on a bong. Coover’s turn, he’s popped and the glass shatters, got his shirt wet.”

“You noticed that,” Art said.

“His blood turned it pinkish. What’s that remind you of?”

“Angel’s bath,” Art said. “Three kidney jobs in the last few weeks.”

“But only Angel’s offered for sale. I told him, ‘Pray to St. Christopher you get ’em back’ and he came through.”

Art said, “What you’re saying, St. Christopher got Dickie and Coover whacked so Angel wouldn’t have to pay for his kidneys.”

“More or less.”

Art said, “We’re lookin for Cuba Franks, what he’s been doing since his convictions. A year ago he chauffeured for a rich guy owns horses. Cuba Franks, says he’s from Nigeria. Had the job for nine months and quit.”

“Wasn’t making enough?”

“Got tired of putting on his African accent. That’s what Mrs. Burgoyne told us. Harry Burgoyne said, ‘That’s what they do, they walk out on you. Only one African American I’d give high marks to and that’s Old Tom. He died on me.’ ”

“I know why Cuba quit,” Raylan said.

“Our office up there’s still lookin for him. Nine months, he must know his way around.”

“Has friends there,” Raylan said. “You don’t suppose—”

Art said, “Do I suppose he has a friend, a doctor at the transplant center, a woman?”

“Do you?” Raylan said.

L
ayla’s voice said, “Where are you?”

“I’m about to leave the hills for the four-lane,” Cuba said. “The Crowe brothers left for heaven this afternoon, less they got rules against weedheads. I had to do the old man, since he was in the house.”

“You told me he has a cute maid.”

“Only what I heard. I was never up to the house before.”

“Was she cute?”

“She was too young for that old man.”

“She was cute, huh?”

“I let her go.”

Now silence on the phone.

Cuba said, “She don’t know me and I don’t know her, how we left it.”

“You realize,” Layla said, “if I’d been with you and we could’ve worked it? We’d have six more kidneys in one swoop. Eight,” Layla said, “we throw in Rita. What do you think? Eighty grand.”