Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [6]
Art said, “Or we get the state cops to lean on ’em till they give up the doctor.”
“I don’t know,” Raylan said, “I’m starting to think it might be the doctor running the show. Calls the Crowes when he needs heavy lifting done.”
Pervis drove out to the camp in his Ford V8, a blower sticking out of the hood, and watched Bob Valdez approach from the barn. It was home to field hands who’d come to plant and return in ninety days to prune and trim Pervis’s marijuana, the crops in this part of Knox County.
The day Pervis hired him he said, “Bob, you keep what you make off your patch. You catch anybody growing weed on their own without my say, snap a varmint trap to their foot and fire ’em.”
Bob Valdez cocked a willow root straw close on his eyes in the afternoon sun. He wore a .44 revolver holstered on his hip and liked to stand around the yard with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt and make remarks to girls in the crew. He liked that hot-lookin black girl, Pervis’s housemaid, and would stop by there when he knew Pervis was at his store. Rita would tell him, “Mister ain’t here.” Told him every time he pulled up in his ATV making a racket. A few days ago she said, “Bob, you want to fuck me, huh? Mister finds out you come by, he can have your ass deported.”
“Hell you talkin about?” Bob said. “I’m as American as Daniel Boone, born here in Kaintuck.”
“You gonna die here he finds out you messing with his maid.”
“You kiddin me?” Bob said. “Mister’s not once ever tried yellin at me. He knows better.”
“He never raises his voice to anybody,” Rita said, “cause he don’t have to.”
This time Pervis came by to tell Bob, “I want you to do something for me.”
“I’m your man,” Bob said.
“A U.S. marshal come to see me name of Raylan Givens. You know which one I mean?”
“I’m pretty sure. Yeah, he was pointed out, wears a good-lookin hat.”
“I want you to keep him away from my boys.”
Bob said, “Oh?” He said, “Is this guy a pervert?” Bob tryin hard to look serious. He said, “You want me to become like a babysitter for Coover and Dickie?”
Pervis stared at him.
Pervis said, “In this part of the United States of America, I got enormous pull. Way more’n your Taco Mafia. I got judges doin favors for me and state troopers among my best friends. I call ’em down on you, you’re in jail inside an hour. Bob, you get smart with me again, that’s how we’ll play it.”
Bob said, “Hey, come on,” managing a grin. “I was jus kiddin around with you.”
Pervis said, “Keep this marshal away from my boys or I’ll hire somebody knows how.”
He got in his blown Ford V8 and blew away.
Chapter Three
Coming out of the Huddle House Art said, “Medical schools use ten thousand cadavers a year. All over the world there’s a need for body parts.”
“Then why’d these guys,” Raylan said, “only take Angel’s kidneys? Turn around and sell ’em back to him the same day. Maybe this is a new way to work it. They don’t have to store the body and wait for buyers.”
“That takes a lot of planning, pickin out the victims,” Art said. “I don’t see these jitterbugs have the patience. Angel’s ready to make a deal, he’ll come up with the money. You come along and tell him he doesn’t have to.”
“What else am I gonna promise him? But what do these dumbbells know about the business of selling kidneys?”
“It’s in the news,” Art said. “The guy in New Jersey sold off parts from a thousand cadavers.”
Raylan said, “I don’t see the Crowes reading the paper less they’re in it.”
“A hundred pounds of marijuana,” Art said, “should gross you three hundred thousand—once you grow and cultivate it and get it to