Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [26]
They were coming this way again.
Raylan walked up to Dr. Goldman—didn’t look at Layla—and said, “Excuse me, Doctor, but my sister’s suppose to be here, seein about having a kidney transplant?”
Layla said, “What’s her name?”
“Raejeanne Givens,” Raylan said, his younger sister’s name. “I don’t know why I don’t see any family. I came straight from the airport.”
Layla said, “Let’s check on Raejeanne,” laying her hand on Raylan’s arm and giving the doctor what Raylan saw as a kiss-off look with a shrug. Dr. Goldman walked past him without a word and on down the hall.
“I’ve been here an hour,” Raylan said, “trying to get information. You just come out of surgery, huh?” He held out his hand. “I’m Raylan Givens, deputy United States marshal. I’m sorry if I intruded on you and the doctor. I’m concerned about my sister.”
She said, “Hi, I’m Layla. The doctor just finished a kidney transplant and you say Raejeanne needs one? That’s funny, cause we don’t have a Raejeanne scheduled for anything, not even an exam.” Layla raising her eyebrows with kind of a smile.
“It doesn’t matter,” Raylan said. “You didn’t look happy talking to Howard. I thought I may as well step in, see if I could free you. You seemed to pick up on it.”
She said, “You want to question me about something?”
“What I’m looking for,” Raylan said, “is a doctor takes out kidneys in motel rooms and sells them on the body-parts market.”
She was smiling now. “You’re crazy.”
“A doctor here can’t have a gambling problem? Goes broke out at Keeneland and gets in debt to a shylock?”
“They bet playing golf,” Layla said.
“I understand,” Raylan said, “to take out a kidney, you make your incision in the front.”
“How do you know that?”
“Talkin to guys. Two of ’em said it was a woman took their kidneys. I thought, Well, maybe the doctor had a woman’s mask on. You put the donated ones in the front too?”
“You put them anywhere you want,” Layla said. “What kind of mask was it?”
“Rubber, slips over your head. I think it was suppose to be Mrs. Obama.”
“Really.”
“Well, the other mask, I’m pretty sure, was the president.”
Layla said, “The other mask . . . ?”
“The one Cuba Franks was wearing.”
Raylan let that hang to see if Layla could handle it.
She took a moment to shake her head and shrug in her white transplant nurse outfit. Layla said, “I wish I could help you,” started to turn away and stopped. She said, “Why can’t the doctor be a woman?”
“I’m told all the MDs here are men.”
“She could be from another hospital.”
“You’re right, except Cuba knows this place. He’s been here once or twice with his boss. You know Cuba Franks?”
“I don’t think so,” Layla said. “I wish I could help you,” and started to walk away.
Raylan let her take a few steps before saying to her, “Layla, you’re not the one stealing kidneys, are you?”
He may as well get that said, thinking it would stop her and she’d turn around. Not Layla. She raised her hand over her head to give Raylan a lazy kind of wave, often seen in movies.
Again in the waiting room, with all its old magazines, he thought of what he’d say to her the next time. He wasn’t sure until Nichols came in saying, “She lied about nursing her mom back to health. The old lady’s been in a home with Alzheimer’s the past three years.”
Cuba was staying with Layla in her apartment on Virginia Avenue, the other side of South Limestone from the UK campus and hospitals; Cuba on the pull-out sofa, Layla with the bedroom to herself when they weren’t using it. She liked to come home and have a drink while she took off her whites and sat down to watch the news in a T-shirt and panties. It would turn Cuba on and they’d go in the bedroom so Cuba could satisfy himself; her too most of the time. He knew when a chick was faking, always overdoing it. Layla never said a word and he’d wait for the gasp, the groan, like all the air was being sucked out of her. They’d watch TV