Elmore Leonard - Raylan

Raylan shook his head. “I haven’t seen it yet. There only thirteen?”

Nichols turned on to Richmond and looked at Raylan again.

“They’re all guys. No women doctors doing transplants.”

Raylan did not want to give up the idea and said, “You sure?”

“I have the list in my case,” Nichols said. “All professors of surgery or associates.”

Raylan said, “She’s not an MD-”

“Least not at Chandler. It’s part of UK Medical.”

“But she knows how to do it,” Raylan said.

“She knows how to take kidneys out,” Nichols said. “She know how to put ’em in?”

Raylan had to think about it, looking at horse country cut with fences, thoroughbreds grazing, looking up to see their Crown Vic drive past, on Old Richmond now, on their way to Burgoyne Farms.

“She doesn’t have to put ’em in,” Raylan said, “does she?”

“That’s right,” Nichols said, “not if she’s takin out kidneys to sell ’em. But I don’t see an MD doin that.”

“I don’t either,” Raylan said. “But I’d like to find her working on transplants.”

Nichols said, “She watches doctors exchange organs three times a week, about a hundred and fifty a year. She mops the doctor’s brow under those lights and he likes her touch. They close up and he bangs her in the linen closet standing up.”

Raylan said, “Yeah…?”

“Life in the OR,” Nichols said. “He’s playin doctor with his good-lookin nurse.”

“You’re telling me,” Raylan said, “that’s the reason the good-lookin nurse is taking out kidneys in motel rooms?”

“I’m settin a scene,” Nichols said. “Does getting banged in the closet have anything to do with her stealin kidneys? She knows how to take ’em out and finds out how to sell ’em. Money is what moves her. She sees how being Mrs. Obama once a week could make her rich. Still, I like the idea of human sexual feelings involved. Doing it standin up is all right with me.”

They were on Athens-Walnut Hill now, closing in on Burgoyne Farms. They’d called ahead and made arrangements to stop by for a visit that had to do with a former employee, if they didn’t mind the intrusion?

Raylan said, “You take Harry and I’ll talk to Elizabeth. She gives her age as fifty-five, Harry’s wife sixteen years, a second marriage for each.”

“You take Harry,” Nichols said, “get him talking about African Americans and have some fun.”

“It’s my case,” Raylan said, “I’m going with Elizabeth.”

T he maid took Raylan from the front door and down a hall saying Ms. Burgoyne would see him in the sun parlor. They came to a room as high-end formal as the rest of the house and Raylan said, “Why’s it called a sun parlor? It doesn’t look like one.” He saw the maid in her yellow uniform look toward Elizabeth Burgoyne coming in from outside, her white cotton shirt hanging out of low-slung jeans.

“It’s been the sun parlor for eighty-five years,” Elizabeth said coming in, the way it was done in the movies. “Why call it somethin else?”

“It’s all right with me,” Raylan said and told her who he was.

She said, “You want to know about Cuba Franks. Why, what’s he done?”

“We think he’s stealing kidneys,” Raylan said. See what she’d do with that.

She said, “Really?” Paused a moment and asked, “What would you like, iced tea or a martini?”

“Whatever you’re having,” Raylan said and watched her hold up two fingers to the maid in her yellow maid’s outfit. He’d bet ten dollars they were having martinis.

She said, “I’d like your opinion about something, okay? All of my horse-country friends call me Beth. I think cause my mother does when she comes to visit. But my older friends-from a different life you might say-call me Liz. Which do you think I am, Beth or Liz?”

“You’re testing my power of observation,” Raylan said.

“Come on, which am I?”

“Liz,” Raylan said.

“Why?”

“Because you had more fun with your old buddies than the horsey set.” Fifty-five-she looked no more than forty. A lot of dark hair she stood twisting around her fingers. “You miss them,” Raylan said. “I wouldn’t mind hearing where you came from and how you met Harry-I bet it’s a good story. But I need to learn about Cuba. I think you got to know him better’n your husband did.”

“Harry,” Liz said, “has no idea how to get next to people. His personality holds them off, his expression seems nailed on. Though he’s not as stuffy when he’s drinking, not nearly as boring. I think he’d love to be a stallion and get it on with the mares all day.”

“What do you do,” Raylan said, “go to teas?”

She said, “Yeah, I love tea,” and turned to the maid coming into the sun parlor with a pitcher of martinis and a bowl of anchovy olives.

T hey were both on the sofa now with the drinks, a cushion between them, the pitcher on the cocktail table, Liz still talking about Harry.

“He’d have a few and he and Cuba would do their Boss and Darky show. Harry scolds him for what he’s wearing, and Cuba says, ‘But, Boss, is your missus dresses me,’ and everyone in the Keeneland bar howls.”

“Why don’t you get the horse people,” Raylan said, “to call you Liz?”

She said, “It wouldn’t work. It would sound like Liz Taylor in Tin Roof. She had that Hollywood southern accent, like everybody’s from Virginia.”

“You like acting a little nuts,” Raylan said. “So does Cuba, the kind of action he gets into.”

“He was funny,” Liz said. “We had all day to talk, if we wanted, Harry at the stables. We didn’t meet to have sex, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He was, but shook his head.

“Cuba was funny.”

“I believe it,” Raylan said.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Liz said. “It did happen now and then, but not on a regular basis. It would just, you know, happen, begin fooling around, you’d be crazy to stop.”

Raylan said, “I’ve known that experience.”

“You understand,” Liz said, “Cuba’s a street guy, but very natural about it. I never had to ask what he was talking about. He told me what it was like in prison. He told me the difference between black chicks and white girls in bed”-Liz grinning till she said-“he told me about meeting someone, a girl.”

“A white girl,” Raylan said.

“He wouldn’t say but I knew she was. He’d say, ‘What difference is it I see this person once in a while. I’m not gonna marry her.’ He always called her ‘this person.’ We’d meet and I’d have martinis or daiquiris, or pack the shaker with ice and pour in bourbon, sprinkle some sugar… And he walked out on me. I couldn’t believe it.”

“I can’t either,” Raylan said. “This was about the time he left?”

“Disappeared.”

“I told you he’s selling kidneys?”

“I don’t believe that.”

“He sells them for ten thousand each.”

“Really?”

“He’s done it three times, with help.”

“You mean the girl?”

“I think she’s here at UK Medical.”

“A doctor?”

“A transplant nurse.”

Liz edged over the table to refill their glasses and drop in olives, saying, “This is getting good. You’re looking for the nurse, thinking he might’ve mentioned her to me, but he didn’t.” Liz handed Raylan his drink and sat back with her own, nodding. “I’ll bet she’s fat.” She sipped her drink and said, “Why are so many women who work in hospitals overweight?”

“I’ve noticed,” Raylan said. “Why are they?”

“He could have met her,” Liz said. “Cuba drove Harry to Chandler at least t ker alwice to have his kidneys checked. They still work, despite all he drinks. He’d bitch, order the nurses around. One of them wouldn’t give him his favorite dope and he tried to get her fired. I can’t remember her name.”