Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [18]
Art said, “I wonder if she’s black.”
Raylan shook his head. “They both said she was white.”
Art said a couple times he wondered if she might be a doctor. Raylan said he did too, but couldn’t see a woman stealing kidneys in a motel room. Even one pissed off at having her license pulled. “I’m dyin to meet her.”
“Check on Bob Valdez first,” Art said, “it having been handed down from above. Then I want the Crowes brought in while I’m getting the warrants.”
“If you get the right judge.”
“I have ways,” Art said. “ ‘Your Honor, I just hope a law enforcement officer isn’t gunned down in the line of duty by some weedhead while waitin for warrants.’ ”
“And you get fined for being a smart-ass.”
Art said, “You can’t locate the Crowes, go see Pervis. This evening, no customers botherin him. You want,” Art said, “threaten to burn his fields he don’t give up his boys.”
Raylan was picking at a callous in the palm of his gun hand listening to Art. Raylan stopped picking. He raised his head to look at his boss with an expression of wonder.
“That’s where they are, at Pervis’s.”
“You threaten ’em,” Art said, “they run home to their daddy.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that,” Raylan said.
“You had,” Art said, “you wouldn’t of run out of gas.”
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.
McCready 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.”
He watched the camp from high ground, a view through the trees that showed a slice