Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [17]
Raylan had to wait while Art was on the phone talking—Raylan believed—to Lexington, Art showing respect to whoever it was. “Yes, sir, we’re on that one. I was just now discussin the situation with Raylan . . . Raylan Givens . . . No sir, he’s doin his job. Okay, I’ll tell him.” Art hung up the phone and looked at Raylan across the desk.
“What’re you doing?”
“Lookin for Crowes. What’d they want to know?”
“If you’d shot anybody this week.” Art picked up a photo from his desk, a color print, and handed it across to Raylan.
“We have a detainer on Bob Valdez, works security for Pervis Crowe. Though Bob actually works for the Mexican Mafia.”
“What they call themselves. I heard Pervis calls ’em the Taco Mafia,” Raylan said. “Tell me why we let ’em grow weed here in the U.S.”
“I don’t know,” Art said. “Cause they’re good at it?”
He watched Raylan study the color shot of a man named McCready, a laid-off miner.
“He was growing a patch of weed out back of the house. Bob Valdez shot McCready through the leg—you see him pressing the towel to his thigh—and the other guy snapped a varmint trap to his bare foot. Ed took it off, but you can see where it cut him.”
“Who shot the pictures?”
“His little girl Loretta, fourteen. She’s been keeping house and going to school since her mama passed, Loretta ten at that time.” He handed Raylan a few more photos. “That’s Ed while they’re waitin for the doctor. See his foot? The doctor never made it, got tied up deliverin a baby. Loretta doesn’t have a license but can drive. So she took her dad to town.”
“I met Loretta,” Raylan said, “at Pervis’s, she’s havin an RC Cola. She asked if I thought she was bold she inquired what I did for a living. She’s gonna have a hard time with boys, finding one good enough for her.”
“Anyway,” Art said, “get the cops to ask Bob about his shootin McCready and bring him in to make his statement.”
“If Loretta said he shot her dad and has pictures of it . . . Why don’t we arrest him? Get Loretta’s statement, not Bob’s. That girl comes right at you.”
“Handle it,” Art said. “Meanwhile, two young men, both salesmen, woke up in hospitals without their kidneys. One in Lexington, the other Richmond, two days apart and the week before Angel lost his.”
“I remember seein it on the news,” Raylan said, “but didn’t relate it to anything we’re doing—yeah, until we found Angel in the tub. I didn’t know right away he’d lost his kidneys. You’re the one tole me. No, it was Rachel, her mom had transplants. Then I wondered if the Crowes were in on the first ones, the salesmen. Their incisions were closed by a doctor. Angel’s, somebody made a mess with the staples. Right away I think of the Crowes, Coover. Why didn’t the doctor close Angel? He could’ve got tired of putting up with the brothers and walked out.”
Art said, “Where you getting that?”
“It’s what I would’ve done,” Raylan said, “knowin those dumbbells. A doctor working under pressure in a motel room, he’s had enough of the brothers, leaves them to close up. But why’d he hire them to begin with?”
“To heft bodies,” Art said.
“Cuba Frank’s there.”
“One thing we know for sure,” Art said, “it wasn’t the Crowes wearing the rubber masks. Both fellas said a man and a woman.”
“The president and Mrs. Obama out havin fun,” Raylan said. “Making about twenty grand every time they put on their masks.” He said, “Imagine you open the door and there the Obamas calling on you? They come in the motel room talking.” He said to Art, “Who’s playing Michelle?”
Art said, “I guess the doctor brought . . . a nurse?”
“Who did . . . ? Cuba Franks?”
It stopped Art. Now he was shaking his head.
“What’s wrong with me—Michelle Obama’s the doctor.”
“It can’t be anybody else, can it?” Raylan said. “Don’t we have tapes of their statements? What the two guys remember?”
“If you want to believe it,” Art said.
“It sounded good to me,” Raylan said. “Michelle walks up and kisses the guy on the mouth.”
“They both said pretty much the same thing. How she approached, got real close—”
“She lifts her mask from under her chin,”