Elmore Leonard - Raylan

“If you get the right judge.”

“I have ways,” Art said. “ ‘Your Honor, I just hope a law enforcement officer isn’t gunned down in the line of duty by some weedhead while waitin for warrants.’ he w Sntsope

“And you get fined for being a smart-ass.”

Art said, “You can’t locate the Crowes, go see Pervis. This evening, no customers botherin him. You want,” Art said, “threaten to burn his fields he don’t give up his boys.”

Raylan was picking at a callous in the palm of his gun hand listening to Art. Raylan stopped picking. He raised his head to look at his boss with an expression of wonder.

“That’s where they are, at Pervis’s.”

“You threaten ’em,” Art said, “they run home to their daddy.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that,” Raylan said.

“You had,” Art said, “you wouldn’t of run out of gas.”

COAL KEEPS THE LIGHTS ON.

Raylan read the signs, the coal company rubbing it in. You want coal to heat your house? You have to accept surface mining and the mess it makes; the film of coal dust on your car sitting in the yard. Raylan followed the signs on barns and billboards, finally turning at one reminding him that JESUS SAVES and a mile later came to Ed McCready’s property.

M cCready lay in bed, his head propped up on a pillow so he could see Raylan, his gunshot wound cleansed and cauterized. He yanked aside the flannel cover to show Raylan his thigh bandaged all the way around. “Went in my leg,” Ed said, “turned south and went through the floor of the porch.”

“You’re positive,” Raylan said, “it was Bob Valdez.”

“No, it was some greaser,” Loretta said, “drove up in his little scooter and shot my dad. Course it was Bob, who else?”

“I remember you at the store,” Raylan said, “havin an RC Cola.”

Loretta said, “I remember you too, don’t worry. Bob walks up and shoots my dad with a. 44 has a six-inch barrel. Soon as I find the bullet under the porch and give you the trap they put him on…” She said, “Daddy, show Raylan your foot.”

“He can see it, it’s right there.”

Swollen and bruised, ugly-looking.

“He shot my dad,” Loretta said, “cause we had a patch growin among the tomatoes. Bob said, ‘You try and grow any more’ ”-Loretta putting on his accent-“ ‘I deep you in a barrel of hot tar and set you afire.’ Threatenin to kill my dad.”

Raylan turned to Ed. “He set the trap on your foot before or after he shot you?”

“After. I’m layin there bleedin,” Ed said. “The other greaser pulls off my slipper. I’m sittin on the porch in my house slippers.”

“Before they showed,” Loretta said, “Bob phoned and said to tell my dad, ‘Valdez is coming.’ You ever hear of anything like that?”

“I might’ve,” Raylan said. “You sure took some award-winning pictures.”

“With my phone,” Loretta said, and pulled it out of her jeans to show Raylan. “I got some other pictures of Bob, he comes by on his scooter. He’d pull out the neck of my T-shirt and look inside. I won’t tell you what he said.”

“Has he ever, you know,” Raylan said, “touched any of your like private parts?”

“The greaser shot my dad,” Loretta said, “and you want to know if he felt me up?”

Raylan said, “Lemme give you some advice, okay?”

“Don’t call ’em greasers?”

“I mean, once you get serious about boys.”

“You kiddin? I already am.”

“All I hope you do,” Raylan said, “is try to be patient with them.”

H e watched the camp from high ground, a view through the trees that showed a slice of the hardpack yard and the barn where the Mexican pickers slept in hammocks. Some of them were at the two picnic tables now outside the barn having their noon dinner, Bob Valdez at the end of the table away from the stove. Raylan watched Bob through his glasses: his straw on his eyes, his hand on the rump of a girl serving his beans and rice. Raylan raised the glasses to outbuildings painted white, dressed-up cowsheds off in the pasture.

Inside, the plywood walls painted a flat white, Pervis had his hydroponic gardens, tended with care to maintain air temperature, ventilation, the feeding of nutrients to the water, and a 400-watt lighting system on twenty-four [n tain hours a day during germination, and reduced to twelve hours on and twelve off during the growing period. Once harvested, each of Pervis’s hundred or so plants would yield an ounce of top-grade marijuana. It gave Pervis a cash crop every three to four months that grossed about fifty thousand dollars.

Raylan wondered if smoking it made you laugh at dumb things you’d think were funny.

Bob might have molested Loretta or he might not have. But he did shoot McCready in his bedroom slippers in front of his daughter, who took pictures with her cell phone Raylan could show Bob, if he needed to. Not down there with the help having their dinner, but off by those cowsheds. He was told Pervis put up signs that said AUTHORIZED BY STATE LAW. KEEP OUT. The way Pervis got around being robbed or arrested. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED OR SHOT.

He’d drive down to the yard in the Audi… But did he want to confront Bob at the table? Give him a chance to show off, all the help watching him? Raylan could hear Bob: “Wha you talking about? I shot some old man was scaring me?” Bob playing to the crowd.

What Raylan did, he drove down to the yard following switchbacks until he came out in the open, angled toward the barn and the picnic tables-all the pickers watching him-raised his hand to Bob Valdez and kept going, drove around the barn and out to the pasture, the clean white cowsheds standing in the sun.

They came out for him in a pickup, Bob driving, and pulled up near the Audi.

Raylan stood a distance from the car, the pasture behind him, about sixty feet from the two getting out of the pickup, approaching now, Bob Valdez with his. 44 slung low; the other one, another Mexican in a straw hat, carrying a twelve-gauge under his arm like he was out here to shoot birds, relaxed, a step behind Bob. He looked tired. Or he was stoned.

Forty or so feet now Bob stopped and grinned at Raylan.

“I didn’t do it. Whatever it is you thinking.”

Raylan said, “I got snapshots of you shootin Ed McCready.” Raylan’s stare went to the other one. “I got you snappin the coon trap on Ed’s foot, Loretta takin the pictures with her phone. You ever hear of that? I got enough to put you in handcuffs and take you in.”

Bob said, “Yes…? Tell me what you saying.”

“I’m busy. I got something else I have to do.”

“Oh,” Bob said, “more important than me, uh?”

“All I want to tell you,” Raylan said, “replant Ed’s patch, give him five hundred for the gunshot to his leg, his injured foot, so he won’t have to sell Loretta to white slavers. I’m telling you to keep your hands off her. You do all that, we’re square. You don’t, I’ll bust you for shootin him.”

“You kidding me?” Bob said. He sounded a little surprised. “They two of us here. You got a gun on you somewhere?”

“Look,” Raylan said, “I take it out I’ll shoot you through the heart before you clear your weapon. Your partner, I’ll wait for him to wake up. What’d you bring him for?” He saw Bob glance at the other guy. “He’s stoned,” Raylan said. “Tell me you’ll pay Ed so I can get back to work. I’m after a woman steals kidneys and sells ’em.”

Bob said, “Yeah? I heard of that, selling parts of the body. What’s a kidney bring?”

“About ten grand,” Raylan said, “the going rate.”

“I couldn’ do it,” Bob said, shaking his head and setting his straw again. “Man, cutting in to some guy’s body.”