Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [65]
He phoned the other chicks, Kim and Cassie, had to wake them up saying, “Collect your clothes and valuables, any dope, get all your shit together and be ready to leave when I get there in ten minutes. You listenin?” He said, “Jane got picked up and is gonna roll over on us. Jane, the chick you do banks with.” He’d have to go over there and slap ’em some, make sure they took everything they owned out of the house. Finally, they got in Delroy’s car and drove out to horse country.
Going past miles of white fences and thoroughbreds raising their heads to see Delroy’s Mercedes flying past.
They were approaching trees and some bushes now. Delroy slowed down and stopped on the side of the road.
“Come on out and we’ll relieve ourselves together, ladies. Won’t have another chance to pee-pee for a while.”
Kim said she couldn’t do it with him watching.
Delroy said, “Girl, I see you bare-ass naked every day. Get out the car.”
Once the girls were out looking for a good place to pee, Delroy took his PPK from inside his shirt and racked it. By the time he was in the trees, Cassie was pulling up her jeans. Kim was still squatting. He walked up and shot Cassie first. She fell without making a sound. But now Kim was screaming to bust a lung. Delroy shot her and she stopped. He made sure neither one had ID on her and dragged their bodies into the bushes.
A marshal brought Carol and Boyd to Nichols’s office, rapped on the glass door, stepped aside, and Boyd saw Raylan standing by the desk, Raylan coming around it now, looking right at them.
Boyd said, “You knew we were seein him.”
“I didn’t,” Carol said, “really. It was someone else who called, both times.”
“I’m not talkin to him,” Boyd said. “I got nothin to say on the matter hasn’t been written in reports. Far as I’m concerned the case is closed tight.”
Carol said, “Try to control yourself, all right?”
The door opened and she was saying to Ray1an, “Well, isn’t this a surprise, my old bodyguard.”
I’ve always enjoyed watching you,” Carol said. “Even when you were showing off and shot one of my employees . . . It wasn’t in the head but in the hair? I asked Boyd, ‘He’s so accurate he can do that?’ Boyd said, ‘He wanted ’em dead they be dead.’ ”
They took the two chairs facing the desk, Boyd gripping the arms of his, staring at Raylan sitting at the desk now holding forth. Boyd saw him waiting to try some new approach and said, “What’re you gonna pull on us this time?”
“Tell me if I have it straight,” Raylan said. “You shot Otis while he’s firing a twelve-gauge at you.”
Boyd took his time. Did he shoot Otis? No, goddamn it, but said, “Yes, I did.”
“You hit him and he fired in the air.”
“I believe so, yes.”
“How many times?”
“Did he shoot? I don’t know, a couple.”
“Racked the shotgun and tried twice, after you hit him in the chest from fairly close.”
Boyd paused, thinking of how he’d told it to the sheriff’s people. “See, Otis was firing before I shot him. After I hit him, I guess he only got off one more.”
“You thought he might hit you?”
“Jesus Christ,” Boyd said, “you ever been shot at? I give you the benefit of knowin you don’t stop and think, you’re returning fire.”
“You hit him,” Raylan said, “and he fired in the air. But you say he was shootin at you before you put him down.”
“Startin to,” Boyd said.
“But didn’t hit the trailer you’re standin in front of. Where you suppose his shot went?”
“I don’t know,” Boyd said. “We both shootin at each other . . . I try to see what happened now, man, it’s all gunfire . . .”
“You know what I think?