Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [34]
Marion, in her rocker holding her drink, coasting through clouds on oxy and shine, her back to the path of destruction, said to Otis, “What in the world was that?”
Otis said, “I’m gonna take you over to sister’s while I go up and see the mine company, all right? I come back, we may as well stay the night there.”
Marion watched Otis put on his worn-out suit coat over bib overalls and stuff the pockets with shotgun shells. In this moment her mind sounding clear, she said, “You finally had enough of mine companies, haven’t you?”
The M-T Mining office stood on a flat ridge shorn of trees and brush, carved away in the company’s hunger for coal. Boyd had been hosing the pond stink out of his SUV while Mr. Gracie told him what he wanted done.
“Lemme get this straight,” Boyd had said. “You want me to tip a boulder over the side and see if I can hit Otis’s house with it?”
“You can’t,” Mr. Gracie said, “I’ll get a man knows how.”
“Cause Otis shoved you in the muck,” Boyd said, “you want me to kill him?”
“I said bust up his house,” Mr. Gracie told him. “You don’t want to work Disagreements,” the most disagreeable man Boyd had ever known said, “you can hit the road.”
“I’m kidding with you,” Boyd said. “I don’t mind hearin people complain. They know they never gonna get what they want. They vent their ire, so to speak, and feel like they took it to the edge.”
Mr. Gracie had Boyd spread newspaper on the seat of his car, got in with his smell of muck and took off home.
Boyd said, “Pee-yew,” and went in the office trailer, a big double-wide all desks and drawing boards, no alcohol on the premises—half a pint of cheap vodka in a desk drawer, no naked girl on the calendar, nothing to make you want to work here.
This was before Otis came up the mountain.
First, headlights swept the trailer and a black stretch limo pulled up next to the office. Boyd watched a woman get out and he stepped to the door and opened it. He saw her talking to her driver, giving him a few words, and the limo took off. Now she turned to the trailer, in the light from the open door, and Boyd was looking at Carol Conlan, the one person everybody saw in the newspaper or on TV when the mine company had something to say. Jesus Christ, Carol Conlan coming in smiling at him, saying, “You’re Boyd, aren’t you? The one dropped the rock on the guy’s house.”
How’d she know that already? Boyd started to ask her, but Carol Conlan was talking on her cell now, telling somebody, “I’m not going to hear that, Bob. Start over and give me a report I’m sure to love, okay?” She said, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and set down her phone.
She said to Boyd, “Where is it?” Boyd pointed and watched her go in and raise her skirt as she sat down, leaving the door open. Man, Carol Conlan.
She said, “You did a job on that house.”
“Only took me the one boulder,” Boyd said. He picked up her cell from the desk and sniffed to see if it had her scent.
“I thought it was cool,” Carol said, “flip the bucket and take out the entire house. What’s the guy doing about it?”
“Otis? Nothin,” Boyd said, “he’s an old man.”
“That Mick fairy Gracie—you always call him mister?”
“It’s what he told me,” Boyd said.
“He took it much too far,” Carol said, “destroying the home when we have a public hearing coming up.”
Boyd heard the toilet flush and Carol came out straightening her skirt. She said, “Now we’re the bad guys. That pond sounded like it was nice before we fucked it up.” She said, “I never liked Gracie much. I’ll have your jobs switched around and make you the boss. We have anything to drink?”
“Half a pint of vodka and all kinds of water,” Boyd said and saw the good-looking company Disagreements woman make a face and pick up her phone.
“I’ll call Brian,