Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [52]
“How much she gonna offer?”
“She starts, we’ll say, ‘You kiddin?’ We won’t tell her you own the mountain,” Pervis said. “See how high she wants to go.”
They watched a pickup now easing its way up the grade to stop behind the limo.
“Company woman,” Pervis said, “bringin some company people.” He looked at Rita. “You turn off the stove?”
She went out to the kitchen and Pervis watched two men step out of the truck. He recognized Billy the Kid as the skinny guy put on his hat, cocking it over one eye. The other one, standing there in kind of a lazy slump, Pervis believed went by the name of Wayne. He looked hungover.
“They’s another car,” Pervis said, “pullin in behind the company truck.”
Rita came from the kitchen smoothing her white shirttails over her shorts, saying, “How many’s that woman need?”
Pervis waited till he saw a sight for sore eyes step out of the Audi and said, “It’s Raylan, bless his heart.”
Rita said, “Yeah . . . ?” Watching Raylan with keen eyes and heard Pervis say:
“And Dewey. What in the world he bring Dewey for?”
Dewey hurried to catch up to Raylan while counting the people in the yard, Raylan turning to him.
“You gonna go up there and say anything?”
“Ask Pervis where my Hornet’s at.”
“I mean about the mountain.”
“I told you last night she guessed I’m gonna own it, and I let her think it. She makes a deal with the old man before he passes? I get a stretch limousine goes one-fifty full out. I figure ought to sixty—that’s a load to get off from standin still—but she’ll do it’n less’n ten seconds.”
Raylan was looking at the two thugs waiting for him, Carol and Boyd closer to the porch where Pervis stood calm as could be, his girl Rita right there close by.
Dewey said, “The company woman ever wants to offer a deal at a future date, I’ll get some tips from Casper, smartest man I ever met.”
Raylan said, “It’s four to four I count you on my side.”
“Me and you,” Dewey said, “Pervis and his colored girl?”
“That’s our team,” Raylan said. “You don’t have to say nothing you don’t feel like it, all right?”
“You come due to own a mountain,” Dewey said, “they’s all kind of people asking about it.”
He hung back now watching Raylan approach the two company thugs in the yard.
Kid,” Raylan said to the middle-aged guy, “tell me what you’re doing here.”
“Mine company business,” Billy the Kid said. “It sure ain’t none of yours.”
Raylan said, “You come armed?”
“One I’m licensed to pack. So’s Wayne here.”
Carol called to Raylan, “Leave them alone. They’re my security people.”
Raylan said, “You afraid of Pervis?”
She didn’t bother to answer. Raylan watched her turn and walk toward the house, Boyd still facing Raylan until she stopped and looked back at him.
“You coming?”
The company thugs turned and followed Boyd.
Pervis stood on the porch waiting, Rita close by, hands on her hips, slim brown legs coming out of her shirttails.
Carol, turning to Pervis said, “You going to invite me in?”
“What for?” Pervis said.
“Talk about mineral rights.”
“I’m not sellin none today.”
Billy the Kid was facing Raylan again. The Kid turned his head to say something to his partner and now Wayne, wearing dark sunglasses, was looking this way like he’d just now woke up. The Kid seemed alert but anxious, loosening the hat on his head, an old businessman’s Stetson, and setting the curled brim over his eye again.
Pervis said, “You want to talk business—” and stopped, the company woman looking at Raylan. Pervis said, “Miss, I’m talkin to you,” and waited for Carol to look up at him.
He said, “You come to talk about buyin my mountain, tell me why you bring these thugs along?”
Carol said in her nice tone of voice, “Mr. Crowe, I represent M-T Mining. I come to Harlan, I know full well I’m not gonna win any popularity contest.”
“You sure aren’t,” Pervis said, “puttin on that West Virginia voice. Case we forgot your dad mined.”
The Kid said, “Grampa sees how it is. Talks hard to us, huh, in front of his nigger puss.”
Raylan saw Rita’s hands ease down to her thighs.