Elmore Leonard: Raylan

Bob Valdez, the name he was going by at this time, was loaned to Pervis by the Mexican Mafia-what they called themselves-to act as security, watch over the patches and see they got their cut. Pervis would put up with it for the time being. This Bob Valdez had been a gun thug for mine owners during strikes. He had his own patch and drove a four-door Mercedes, a black one. He also had a tricked-out ATV, that little all-terrain number that climbed up the sides of mountains. Bob wasbetins. Bo a born American, but preferred acting Mexican in his ways. Today Pervis would tell Bob about this marshal bothering him.

T hey had breakfast in Harlan at the Huddle House, Art noticing the way Raylan broke up a strip of bacon in his grits, a pat of butter melting in it, and added salt, Art asking Raylan if he’d tried the jar Pervis gave him.

“It was good. The peach didn’t mess it up any. I had a couple of pulls and gave it to an old coot on the street. It brought tears to his eyes.”

Art said, “You know marijuana’s now the biggest cash crop in the state?”

“Makes you proud,” Raylan said. “We right on California’s tail, and I guess Maui Wowee’s. It shows we’re resourceful. Seventy thousand coal miners out of work, a bunch of ’em become planters. Last night on TV this news reader with the hair said marijuana was getting out of hand. He said you come across any patches, be sure to report it to the police. You believe it? The only people get worked up over reefer are ones never tried it.”

Art said, “You haven’t seen Pervis’s boys.”

“Not yet.”

“You know he’s called them by now,” Art said. “You can kiss your BMW good-bye, they’ll know it. DEA has a Mer cedes they might let you have.”

Raylan liked the way this breakfast was going.

He said, “The one I want is the doctor, and the only way I have of getting to him is through the Crowes, to tell me about him. Was the doctor working for a cut, so to speak? Or’d they grab one off the street. The doctor at the hospital said he was a pro. Used the latest method of extracting kidneys, the right spots in the belly, but didn’t close up after. That was left to whoever used the staples. One of the Crowes? I want to ask ’em about it in a public place, so I don’t get shot or beat up.”

Art said, “Or we get the state cops to lean on ’em till they give up the doctor.”

“I don’t know,” Raylan said, “I’m starting to think it might be the doctor running the show. Calls the Crowes when he needs heavy lifting done.”

Pervis drove out to the camp in his Ford V8, a blower sticking out of the hood, and watched Bob Valdez approach from the barn. It was home to field hands who’d come to plant and return in ninety days to prune and trim Pervis’s marijuana, the crops in this part of Knox County.

The day Pervis hired him he said, “Bob, you keep what you maas what yke off your patch. You catch anybody growing weed on their own without my say, snap a varmint trap to their foot and fire ’em.”

Bob Valdez cocked a willow root straw close on his eyes in the afternoon sun. He wore a. 44 revolver holstered on his hip and liked to stand around the yard with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt and make remarks to girls in the crew. He liked that hot-lookin black girl, Pervis’s housemaid, and would stop by there when he knew Pervis was at his store. Rita would tell him, “Mister ain’t here.” Told him every time he pulled up in his ATV making a racket. A few days ago she said, “Bob, you want to fuck me, huh? Mister finds out you come by, he can have your ass deported.”

“Hell you talkin about?” Bob said. “I’m as American as Daniel Boone, born here in Kaintuck.”

“You gonna die here he finds out you messing with his maid.”

“You kiddin me?” Bob said. “Mister’s not once ever tried yellin at me. He knows better.”

“He never raises his voice to anybody,” Rita said, “cause he don’t have to.”

T his time Pervis came by to tell Bob, “I want you to do something for me.”

“I’m your man,” Bob said.

“A U.S. marshal come to see me name of Raylan Givens. You know which one I mean?”

“I’m pretty sure. Yeah, he was pointed out, wears a good-lookin hat.”

“I want you to keep him away from my boys.”

Bob said, “Oh?” He said, “Is this guy a pervert?” Bob tryin hard to look serious. He said, “You want me to become like a babysitter for Coover and Dickie?”

Pervis stared at him.

Pervis said, “In this part of the United States of America, I got enormous pull. Way more’n your Taco Mafia. I got judges doin favors for me and state troopers among my best friends. I call ’em down on you, you’re in jail inside an hour. Bob, you get smart with me again, that’s how we’ll play it.”

Bob said, “Hey, come on,” managing a grin. “I was jus kiddin around with you.”

Pervis said, “Keep this marshal away from my boys or I’ll hire somebody knows how.”

He got in his blown Ford V8 and blew awan-uand bley.

Coming out of the Huddle House Art said, “Medical schools use ten thousand cadavers a year. All over the world there’s a need for body parts.”

“Then why’d these guys,” Raylan said, “only take Angel’s kidneys? Turn around and sell ’em back to him the same day. Maybe this is a new way to work it. They don’t have to store the body and wait for buyers.”

“That takes a lot of planning, pickin out the victims,” Art said. “I don’t see these jitterbugs have the patience. Angel’s ready to make a deal, he’ll come up with the money. You come along and tell him he doesn’t have to.”

“What else am I gonna promise him? But what do these dumbbells know about the business of selling kidneys?”

“It’s in the news,” Art said. “The guy in New Jersey sold off parts from a thousand cadavers.”

Raylan said, “I don’t see the Crowes reading the paper less they’re in it.”

“A hundred pounds of marijuana,” Art said, “should gross you three hundred thousand-once you grow and cultivate it and get it to market. A human body with all its parts sold separate, the kidneys, the heart, other organs, the liver, the eyes… bone, tendons, the skin sold by the square inch, can get you up to a quarter million.”

Raylan said, “The guy in New Jersey with the crematorium.”

“The funeral director,” Art said. “He finishes the service and calls in his cutters. An hour later they’ve harvested all the guy’s parts worth taking and shoved what’s left in the incinerator.”

“That’s different’n what we’re lookin at,” Raylan said. “Ours sounds more like a mom-and-pop operation. But, man, they can make the dough.”

“Say a doctor loses his license and is sellin dope scrips out the back door,” Art said. “He’s known the Crowes since whoopin cough and the measles.”

“Treated ’em for a dose or two once they reached puberty,” Raylan said. “The boys live in different hollers and trade girls back and forth. DEA says once girls go up there they run home screamin.”

“This doctor drugs Angel,” Art said, “but needs somebody to put him in the tub.”

“And before you know it,” Raylan said, “the Crowes are in the body business. That make sense?”

“Does to me,” Art said. “I meant to tell you, I brought Rachel back to watch over you.”

R aylan was driving an Audi Quattro, loaned to him off the DEA lot in Harlan. He said to Rachel Brooks next to him, “I had this car one time before. I liked it, except the hood rattled at one-forty.”

“On these roads?” Rachel doubtful.

“Zero to sixty in five seconds,” Raylan said, “we ever let her out.”