Elmore Leonard - Raylan

Raylan said, “Delroy does porn?”

“Some. This one he did, you have to look at while you’re here. Cross your heart and promise you won’t take it with you. Promise?”

Raylan and Nichols both crossed their hearts without looking at each other.

“It’ll be on that flat screen,” Kenneth said, nodding to it above the bar, “for your viewing pleasure. Delroy said offer you whatever you want to drink, on the house.”

Raylan and Nichols still didn’t look at each other.

“You want, I can make popcorn,” Kenneth said, “in a jiffy.”

Raylan said, “Well, Ken, I could use a beer,” and Nichols said he’d have one too.

T he man on the screen was in sweats, a skinny six-six handling the ball with nice moves, going to the basket he stops and pops a jumper, brings the ball out and goes in and stuffs it. Now he was coming back to the camera, the ball under his arm. He raises the ball in front of him and spins it on the tip of his finger. He’s looking at the camera and says, “That’s how I see the world going around, like this basketball.”

Kenneth used his remote to pause on Delroy.

“He told me he wanted to sound ‘not mysterious, but like it.’ I said, ‘Profound but obscure?’ He said, ‘Yeah like that.’ He said we playin a game bein here. Playin it all the way to the edge and see how it comes out.”

“What he did,” Raylan said, “was shoot two girls while they’re taking a whiz.”

Kenneth clicked the remote to see Delroy on the screen on

“I gave him that,” Kenneth said.

“Girl musta tried to rob the bank,” Delroy said. “I did see her taken to the courthouse, the one on Barr Street? A while later I see you go in there.”

Delroy from another angle.

“Remember the time you came to arrest me and we facin each other? I’m holdin the shotgun at my leg. You told me let go of it or you’d draw and put me down. You not holdin a gun but you say that to me. Man, I had seven years to think about it. You bullshittin me or what? Bluffin? I realize while I’m in the slam you was takin it to the edge.”

Raylan said, “Cause you don’t know how far you can take it”-reciting it word for word with Delroy on the screen-“till you get there.”

Raylan said, “Hold it, Ken, while we take you up on your offer. You think you might stir up a couple of martinis? I like the show so far, even if Delroy’s fulla shit.”

T hey got back to Delroy saying, “That man I shot you put me away for? You know I wasn’t aimin at his arm. I fired and the gun jumped in my hands. See, I’d borrowed it and never fired the motherfucker till I shot the man’s arm off.”

“The guy’s arm was amputated at a hospital,” Raylan said. He took a sip and raised his glass to Kenneth.

On the screen Delroy was saying, “It wasn’t like I killed him. See, I hear this C.I. asshole snitch was gonna tell you people somethin he made up I done. So now I’m in a situation and borrow this shotgun to protect myself. I face him but missed. It’s the first time I’m usin the piece. I mighta blown his head off but I didn’t, did I? Now the snitch has a lawyer tell me he wants five million for makin him a one-arm man. I tell the lawyer I make ten cents an hour bangin out license plates, off Sundays, Christmas and when I’m sick. I spend some of my dimes on toothpaste and shave cream, buy some hooch, bet a few sports games. I come out of my incarceration with four dollars and twenty cents. How’m I suppose to pay this man?”

Delroy paused and said, “This girl Jane Jones? She mighta talked to you by now-you believe I ever associated with a chick name of Jane Jones. She hasn’t yet called you, I believe she’s gonna. Claims she knows me. Wants to tell you how she thinks I make a living. She calls, I wouldn’t waste my time talkin to her.”

“She already has,” Raylan said

Kenneth looked pleased. m, bpleeight="0emIt’s getting good, isn’t it?”

“You’re in it too,” Raylan said.

Kenneth paused the video. “I shoot his movies and tend his bar. I know nothing of his extra-curricular activities.”

“You know the girls.”

“Which ones? There always girls. But none committing felonies that I know of.”

He turned the sound on, Delroy saying:

“Raylan, I think me and you gonna have to meet sometime. I can’t say when right now. You gonna be lookin over your shoulder till I make the scene. Then we gonna take it to the edge.”

Delroy faded out, his face serious; the screen turned black and the credits in reverse said: A KENNY FLIX PRODUCTION PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY KENNETH

They finished their drinks and Raylan said, “Ken, will you get the tape for us?”

Nothing about crossing their hearts.

Kenneth said, “I suppose you want the original.”

“Everything you shot,” Raylan said.

K enneth dialed a cell and a voice said, “Kennet?”

“You were right, he came with a SWAT team. I served martinis and we watched your movie.”

“Man brought a SWAT team?”

“A carload of marshals. You’re a popular guy.”

“Kennet, I can’t find where the man’s stayin at. I don’t like tryin to catch him at the courthouse.”

“Why didn’t you ask? He’s staying at the Two Keys. I dropped in on Crazy Night and there he was. I told you that.”

“You go there?”

“Delroy, read my lips. He’s staying there,” and let that hang before saying, “He acts as bouncer and they give him a free room and tortillas.”

“That college bar?”

“It’s fun. I love it.”

Delroy took a few moments before saying, “Man, do it in a barroom.”

“He is wearing a cowboy hat.”

“Like the big scene in a western.”

“That’s what I just said.”

Delroy said, “Yeah…” nodding, seeing it in his mind.

“It’ll be crowded.”

Kenneth said, “I like spectators.”

I been sittin here waitin an hour,” Boyd said. “She calls I got to jump and go pick her up.”

Raylan said, “Where’s Nichols?”

They were in his office at the courthouse.

“He went to a meeting. Said I could wait for you long as I don’t take anything. You people know how to make visitors feel right at home, don’t you?”

“I should prob’ly be in that meeting,” Raylan said. He picked up the phone on the desk.

Boyd said, “I just want to tell you somethin so you’re clear in your mind about what happened to Otis. I did not shoot him.”

Raylan replaced the phone and sat down at the desk across from Boyd, staring at him. “You’re tellin me Carol shot Otis?”

“She’s the only female mine-company thug I ever met,” Boyd said. “I can’t work for her no more.”

“Now she’s a gun thug?”

“I’m sayin she’s thuggish for a woman,” Boyd said, “how she comports herself, talks the company line.”

“Boyd, if you’re sayin Carol shot Otis, say it.”

“Raylan, I never been a snitch in my life. I would cut out my tongue first. I’m tellin you I did not shoot Otis, and I’m leavin it at that.”

“If you and Carol were the only ones there-” Raylan stopped and said, “Did Otis fire his shotgun at you?”

Boyd hesitated.

“Or’d you pick it up once he’s dead and empty the gun in the air?”

“I’m not gettin into anything has to do with Carol.”

“But you set it up,” Raylan said, “to look like you shot him in self-defense.”

“Raylan, I swear on a holy Bible I did not shoot the man.”

“You and Carol are the only ones there, aren’t you?”

“Draw what conclusions you come to, I’m tellin you I didn’t shoot him.”

“But I can’t arrest her for Otis,” Raylan said, “without putting it on her, can I?”