Elmore Leonard: Raylan

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?”

R achel 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 askiomel I’mng, 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.

T hey 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?”

“You don’t think so?”

“I have serious doubts.”

“They don’t come through,” Raylan said, “I’ll ask St. Christopher to find him for us.”

The Crowes were still on the porch, Cuba inside making a phone call, Dickie telling his brother, “All you had to do-Coover, goddamn it, I’m talkin to you. All you had to do was bend your arm, that’s all, pull the trigger and shoot him through the heart. Same with the Negress. Get Cuba to dig a hole, nobody ever sees ’em again.”

Coover looked up at his brother and said, “What…?”

“You’re smokin Daddy’s Own, aren’t you?” Dickie said. “Like smokin rocket fuel. Stick to Bitty’s, Pap named for Mama when she took sick. Member how he’d call her his Little Bitty? He was good to Mama, wasn’t he?”

“ ’Cept he’d come home from drinkin with lovin on his mind and Mama’d throw kerosene at him, set him afire.” Coover grinning. “Old Pap had to quit drinkin fore he stopped beatin her up. Hasn’t had any since, I know of.”

C oming out on the porch Cuba said, “Man, that kitchen’s a rat cafe, find all they can eat. You hear ’em, don’t you?”

“They mostly quiet as mice,” Coover said, and told Cuba, “I’ll give you a hunnert dollars you cook one and eat it.”

“How we did ’em in the ghet-to,” Cuba said to the fool, “was well done, burn off all that hair on his ass. I never cared for rat. You eat a sick one you go to bed with a touch of the bubonic plague.”

“They’re hardly any meat on him,” Coover said. “You can chew his tiny bones. Hell, you can chew him up you take the skin off, it’s the unhealthy part.”

“Get it crispy,” Cuba said, thinking: These hill folk gonna fuck up on the job. He said to the Crowes, “I talk to Miss just now.”

Coover said, “I keep forgettin her name. Lila?”

“Leela,” Dickie said. “Like the song.”

Both fools getting the name wrong. Cuba didn’t correct them. He said, “She wants this next one straight, no reefer business, no people we know givin us the kidneys.” Cuba said, “Listen to me now.” Meaning it. “These next gigs gonna be different. We leave the man in th›

Dickie said, “Leela must be sellin to the broker cheaper’n she could make sellin to the sick person.”

Like he just thought of it. Cuba said to Dickhead, “You use the broker so you don’t expose yourself sellin to the market. See, but you can do one a night, you want.”