Raylan Read online

  “Lost his sense of rhythm,” Raylan said, “but he’s still cool.”

  “Knows he is,” Rachel said, “the do-rag matching the shirt. You notice the crease in the pants? Has to be careful putting ’em on, he don’t cut himself.”

  Raylan said, “What you suppose he’s doing for the boys?”

  “You mean besides drivin ’em around?”

  “Cuba comes along, the next thing, the boys are stealin kidneys.”

  Rachel took her time. “You want to know who’s working for who.”

  “I don’t want to miss anything,” Raylan said.

  He took the glasses again and watched this guy with the strange name lift a case of Budweiser out of the trunk and hold it in the fingers of one hand to hang down against his leg as he closed the trunk lid. Going toward the store he had the case in both hands again, kicked the bottom of the screen door for Pervis to come open it for him.

  Raylan lowered the glasses.

  “What’s in the beer case?”

  “I doubt any Bud,” Rachel said, “the way he was holdin it.”

  “I think it’s the old dad’s cut,” Raylan said. “We’ll get out of here and let Cuba run into us down the road.”

  It’s what they did, drove to where the Buckeye fork came out and waited in the narrow strip of road.

  Rachel said, “The Crowes’ve been drivin their own cars since they’re twelve years old. Like to drive fast.”

  “Yes, they do,” Raylan said.

  “Then why they sitting in the backseat now, telling their chauffeur where to go?”

  “Or is he telling them things,” Raylan said, “they never heard of before?”

  “About body parts?” Rachel said. “That what you mean?”

  “He’s coming,” Raylan said, watching dust rising into the trees, watching the Cadillac coming straight at them until it braked and rolled to a stop about thirty feet from the Audi’s front end.

  “Wants us to walk up there,” Raylan said. “Look us over.”

  “I’ve done it,” Rachel said and raised the binoculars. “Now he’s got his cell out making a call.”

  “Who you think he’s talking to?”

  “The brothers,” Rachel said. “I don’t mean the brothers, I mean Coover and Dickie.”

  They sat in the car waiting. Finally Cuba got out of the Cadillac and came toward them, taking his time.

  “Got the stroll down,” Rachel said.

  “Can feel he’s a dude,” Raylan said.

  “I might go for some of that,” Rachel said, “he didn’t boost cars.”

  “Turn your little recorder on,” Raylan said. “Gonna come up on your side.”

  Cuba did, giving Rachel a nice smile as he leaned in, his hands on the windowsill.

  “How you doin? Have some car trouble?”

  Rachel said, “Mr. Franks, we’d like to ask you a few questions and see your driver’s license.” She held up her star hanging from her neck on a chain.

  Cuba saw the badge as he straightened and looked at the sky before coming back to the window.

  “What’d I do? You people been all over me since I got my job.”

  “We’re marshals service,” Rachel said. “DEA’s the one botherin you.”

  “I still haven’t done nothin. I’m workin as a chauffeur.”

  Raylan leaned against the steering wheel to look at Cuba. “You got your chauffeur’s license?”

  “I’m getting it out,” Cuba said.

  “Driving the marijuana boys around?”

  “I don’t hear their business,” Cuba said. “I find out they into reefer, I’m gone.”

  He handed his license to Rachel.

  She looked at it and said, “How you work here and live in Memphis?”

  “It’s my home. I get time off, I go see my mama.”

  “I’d go to Memphis,” Raylan said, “for the ribs.”

  “Now you talkin,” Cuba said. “Best bar-b-que in the world’s at the Germantown rib joint.”

  “The Germantown Commissary,” Raylan said. “Corky’s is good.”

  “I love Corky’s,” Rachel said. “They serve that pulled pork shoulder. Best anyplace.”

  Raylan said to her, “You’re from Memphis?”

  “Tupelo, Mississippi,” Rachel said. “Lived across the tracks from Elvis’s house.”

  Raylan grinned. “You’d see him?”

  “He was gone by the time I was born. I got to cleanin houses and this white lady said I needed to go to college and paid my way, four years at Ole Miss.”

  “I believe Ole Miss,” Raylan said, “has the best-looking girls of any college in the country. Even Vanderbilt. Ole Miss, the girl’s an eight-plus, she doesn’t have to pass her SATs.”

  “Excuse me,” Cuba said. “Y’all have things to discuss, I may as well be goin.”

  Raylan said, “Cuba, why don’t you get in the car so we can talk.”

  “It’s Cooba, how you say my name. But I haven’t done nothin, I’m clean, done my time.”

  Raylan said, “Cooba? Open the door and get in the car.”

  He did, and Raylan adjusted his mirror.

  “What’re you doing with the Crowes?”

  “I drive ’em around. I was in the racing business, same as their daddy. Quarter-mile dirt, slide through the turns, man. The Crowes thought they could drive—have a pickup with juice? I scared ’em to death showin what real drivin’s like. Throw it in reverse, hit the gas, pull the hand brake, and spin around.”

  “Hey, Cooba?” Raylan said. “Every boy in Harlan County knows how to do a reverse-one-eighty. Taught by their grampas. So why’d the Crowes hire you?”

  “I ’magine so they can sit back, take it easy.”

  Raylan said, looking at the mirror, “The boys hired you or you hired them? Couple of dumbbells, do the lifting for you.”

  “Yeah, I’m the boss,” Cuba said. “I wait in the car someplace they havin a good time, I’m listenin to Loretta Lynn.”

  “They call you ‘boy’?”

  “They do, I’m gone.”

  “It’s a good cover,” Raylan said, “working as their chauffeur. They don’t get arrested you don’t either. I bet you let the Crowes think they’re partners in the deal. But you still tell ’em what to do.”

  Cuba in the mirror stared, didn’t say a word.

  “How much of a cut they get for helping with Angel? Puttin him in the ice water? Once the doctor removed his kidneys.”

  Now he was frowning.

  “Like you don’t know what I’m talkin about,” Raylan said. “You wouldn’t have to’ve been there. Less you brought the doctor to the motel. That how it worked? I’m thinkin the doctor must’ve hired you. Caught you stealin his car and signed you up. You look around for some dumb white boys and hire the Crowes?”

  “You telling me,” Cuba said, “I got somethin goin with takin people’s kidneys and then sellin ’em?”

  “I see you as the middleman,” Raylan said, “between the doctor and the Crowes.”

  “You want to talk to Coover and Dickie? Ask ’em about stealin kidneys?” Cuba said. “I be anxious to see that.”

  Chapter Four

  Coover and Dickie Crowe were still boys in their forties. When they weren’t driving around looking for poon, they hung out at Dickie’s house the other side of the mountain watching porn. Coover’s house was a mess and smelled. Dickie’s was busy inside with his Elvis Presley memorabilia:

  Fifty-seven photographs of Elvis in the front room, posters in the hall and kitchen. There were Elvis bobble heads; a bong looking like Elvis; a jar of dirt from the garden at Graceland; a photo of a cloud formation that looked like Elvis that Dickie paid a hundred dollars for; and a pair of towels Elvis used to wipe his face while performing, now doilies on the backrests of Dickie’s La-Z-Boys.

  Coover said, “I thought you was getting rid of all this Elvis shit, tired of lookin at it.”

  “When I get around to it,” Dickie said.

&n
bsp; “Give it to the nigger, he can sell it.”

  “I said, when I get around to it.”

  Dickie had dismal hair he combed back and teased into a wave he sprayed to hold rigid. He wore starched white shirts with Hollywood collars that touched his earlobes, bought a dozen in Las Vegas for a bill apiece.

  Coover had hair growing wild he never combed. Girls told him, Jesus, it didn’t hurt to take a bath once in a while, clean his house, least use some soap powder on that pile of dishes. They told him he was gonna have rats nesting in his kitchen. Coover said, “They’s already some moved in.” He wore Ed Hardy T-shirts or the “Death and Glory” track jacket that had a skull and dagger on it.

  You’d never tell they were brothers. Dickie was picky and liked to scowl, his bony face sticking out of his Hollywood collars. Coover, stoned most days, did whatever he felt like. Dickie would say, “I’m telling you for the last time, clean yourself up, or I’ll shoot you in the ass while you’re sleepin.” Coover’d say, “Where you gettin the balls to do it?” They spoke like that to each other all the time.

  Dickie said, “You talk to Pap?”

  “He started on me about kidneys,” Coover said. “I’m like, ‘What’re you sayin I done? You gone crazy?’ ”

  “I give him a hurt look,” Dickie said. “Ask him, ‘You believe me and Coove’d do somethin like that?’ ”

  “I ast was he drinkin again.”

  “He don’t want to hear we cut into a body,” Dickie said, “but he don’t see nothin wrong with sellin the kidneys. He said, ‘You realize they’s hundreds of people need kidneys?’ And did I know they’d pay to get ’em? Pap said thousands of dollars. You know what he’s tellin us, don’t you?”

  “Sayin he don’t mind us bein in the kidney business,” Coover said, “long as he gets his money.”

  Dickie still had a grin on his face.

  “You can’t help but love old Pap, can you?”

  Coover had let Cuba Franks take his car to deliver ten grand to Pervis, their old man’s cut of what they’d scored off Angel. It meant Dickie had to drive over to Coover’s this morning, sit in the smelly house and talk about what they were into now, like this kidney business. Dickie wasn’t sure he liked it.

  Coover came in the front room from the kitchen to tell him, “God damn rats are lickin the dirty dishes again.” He pulled out the top drawer of an old chiffarobe.

  “What’re you lookin for?”

  “My Smith, goddamn it.”

  “I been wantin to ask you,” Dickie said, “did it bother you any puttin Angel in the bathtub?”

  “Did it bother me?”

  “All the blood.”

  “It wasn’t ourn, was it?” Coover brought a chromed Smith & Wesson .44 out of the top drawer. He said, “I had to close him up and I did. I don’t want to hear no more about it.”

  “We didn’t do one thing fast enough,” Dickie said. “Even strippin him.”

  “What’d I say? ‘You want him nekked, whyn’t you bring shears?’ But you know what I’m thinkin,” Coover said. “We watch a few more times, shit, we’ll know how to snip out a kidney. Me and you’ll split the hunnert thou.”

  “What if the guy dies on us?” Dickie said.

  “The first time, yeah, we might cut somethin we shouldn’t of, but we still got the kidneys. Keep the fucker alive and sell him back his own set, that’s the ticket.”

  “I’d just as soon,” Dickie said, “not be in so big a goddamn hurry.”

  “Look at it like learnin a trade,” Coover said, spinning the cylinder of his revolver to check the loads.

  Dickie stepped to the door and opened it to let some air come in the house. He looked out and said, “Cuba’s back,” watching the Cadillac turn into the yard trailing dust. “Hey, and another car’s comin behind.”

  Coover was going in the kitchen with his Smith, not looking around.

  They were out of the trees now, driving into the yard, Raylan creeping behind the Cadillac, and the sound of gunfire—two shots fired, that flat, hard sound, and two more—got Raylan to swerve around the Cadillac, Rachel calling out, “Where is he?” Raylan braking, rolling up to the porch.

  “He wasn’t shooting at us,” Raylan said.

  Cuba Franks brought the Cadillac alongside and got out saying the same thing. “Coover’s cleanin his house is all, with his six-gun.”

  Raylan was on the porch now, Rachel out of the car watching his back. She saw Cuba Franks step up on the porch with his cool stride but anxious now, she could tell. Her eyes were on Raylan and saw Dickie come out on the porch in his Hollywood shirt, Dickie looking like his pictures. She heard him say to Raylan:

  “I’d swear you were drivin a Beamer.”

  Rachel saw the way his long fingers lay against his thighs, then moved into the slit pockets of his Levi’s.

  Now Coover was coming out, bright-metal revolver in one hand, at his leg, a dead rat in the other, Coover holding it up by the tail.

  “All the shootin,” Dickie said, “that’s what you got?”

  Coover’s gaze went to Raylan, giving the marshal his mean look. He said, “Another one of the fuckers is still in the kitchen. You like to try for it?”

  “I shot rats when I was a kid,” Raylan said. “Chase ’em out of the shithouses.” He said to Coover, “All you have to do is go out’n the kitchen, huh?”

  Coover squinted at him. “Where I know you?”

  “They’re marshals,” Dickie said, “him and the Negress.”

  Coover looked toward Cuba. “Set up those lawn chairs—they someplace—we can sit down and talk.” He said to Raylan, “You can ask am I growin reefer and I’ll tell you no. But first I ask you any God damn thing I want. How’s that sound?”

  “I only have one question,” Raylan said. “How’d you and your brother get in the kidney business?”

  Rachel stood by the Audi watching Raylan, Raylan the show. Watched him facing Coover holding the bright-metal piece at his leg. Watched Coover swing the rat by the tail and let it go and saw it coming at her to land on the hood of the Audi. Rachel didn’t move. Raylan didn’t either, didn’t glance around.

  But said, “Coover, you throw a dead rat at my car. What’re you trying to tell me?”

  Rachel unsnapped the holster riding on her hip.

  Coover said, “Take it any way you want, long as you know I’m serious.”

  “You’re telling me you’re a mean son of a bitch,” Raylan said to his face. “You know how many wanted felons have given me that look? I say a thousand I know I’m low. Some turn ugly as I snap on the cuffs; they’re too late. Some others, I swear, even try to draw down on me. All I’m asking, how’d you come to take Angel’s kidneys?”

  Dickie looked at Cuba and Raylan said, “I asked him the same thing. He told me talk to you.”

  Cuba said, “You see what the man’s doin? I told him I have nothin to do with kidneys ’cept eat ’em.”

  Coover was squinting at him now. “I want to know what you told him.”

  “Listen to you,” Cuba said. “You ask me that? Get it in your stone head, I have nothin to say to this man.”

  Raylan hearing a new Cuba Franks, one he hadn’t met.

  He said, “Cuba, I got you on tape telling me talk to the Crowes.”

  “You the one say you want to talk to ’em. I told you go ahead, I’m not stoppin you.”

  “I know you were at the motel,” Raylan said, “but you didn’t show yourself to Angel, like these mutts. All I want is the doctor’s name. Coover can get back to shooting rats, you can do what you want, till tomorrow.”

  “You come in a man’s home,” Dickie said, “don’t even have a warrant and talk like that?”

  “I’m making it easy,” Raylan said. “You want, I’ll put you before a grand jury. Give us the doctor or do time.”

  Dickie said, “Coove, you hear him? He’s threatenin us.”

  “He’s got a piece under his coat,” Coover said.

  Dickie said, “
You got one in your hand, for Christ sake.”

  Raylan turned enough to look at Rachel.

  “You hear these bozos?”

  “I sure do.”

  “Coover raises his piece, shoot him.”

  “If you’ll move a step either way,” Rachel said.

  He did, saying, “I’ll tend to Dickie.”

  “Hey, come on,” Dickie said, raising his hands. “I ain’t even packin.”

  “Here’s my offer,” Raylan said. “Give me the doctor or I’m back tomorrow with the warrants you want. You and your brother, once the court sees how dumb you are, might draw only forty months. Cuba’s done time but still up to no good. He’s looking at two hundred months on top the forty.”

  Cuba said, “You want to tell me what I done?”

  Raylan said, “It’ll be on the warrant,” and looked at Coover. “What’s the rat killer want to do? I bet the weed’s telling you things, huh? If you can believe weed.” Raylan turned to look at Dickie again. “So we’ll see y’all tomorrow?”

  Rachel had her Glock in both hands, covering the scene.

  Raylan, coming out to the Audi, kept his eyes on her. She let him get in and start the car before she opened the door.

  “You tried to give him the idea,” Rachel said, “short of kickin him in the crotch.”

  “He wasn’t up to it,” Raylan said. “Stoned, what he’ll tell his brother.”

  “But what if he raised his piece?”

  “You’d of shot him,” Raylan said.

  They drove out of the yard Raylan saying, “They’re gonna run and hide.” He paused. “Or get in touch with the doctor. The Crowes, Coover’s a chronic stoner. Dickie—”

  “He don’t want to get his hands dirty,” Rachel said.

  “Dickie’s the one to watch,” Raylan said, “he’s a sneak. Cuba . . . he’s makin up his mind right now if he wants to be seen with these boneheads.”

  Rachel said, “Art’s gonna want to know what we’re up to.”

  “We’ll tell him we’re in pursuit. We’ll call again if we need help.”

  “We not gonna try for warrants?”

  “I never gave it a thought. We’ll get state troopers on ’em instead. Find out where they go.”

  Rachel said, “Raylan . . . You expect they gonna take us to the doctor?”