Raylan: A Novel by Elmore Leonard Read Free Book Online Page B

said, “I think with relief. Remember?”
    “It was funny, ” Cuba said. “We laughin in our rubber masks cause it was funny. I always felt, you don’t have a good time doin crime, you may as well find a job.”
    Layla grinning at him till she said, “If I had any idea Angel knew the brothers—”
    “I told you he did. You thinkin we sell ’em back the same day for a hundred grand, your mind busy. Hmmmm, maybe this is how we do Mr. Harry. The man still botherin your mind.”
    “You’re right,” Layla said, “I was looking ahead. We know Harry can pay whatever we ask. Like a half mil for the pair?”
    “Sounds about right,” Cuba said.
    “But how do we collect,” Layla said, “without exposing ourselves?”
    “I was thinking,” Cuba said, “we could take the Crowe brothers’ kidneys.”
    He waited.
    “That’s not a bad idea,” Layla said. “The boys have to be good for some thing.”
    “Take out the kidneys,” Cuba said, “and forget about callin a hospital.”
    “You’re off the hook,” Layla said. “Letting a person die isn’t the same as killing him. Or is it?”
    “A course not,” Cuba said, “they two different things.”
    “It’s okay with me,” Layla said, “either way.”
    R aylan had to wait while Art was on the phone talking—Raylan believed—to Lexington, Art showing respect to whoever it was. “Yes, sir, we’re on that one. I was just now discussin the situation with Raylan . . . Raylan Givens . . . No sir, he’s doin his job. Okay, I’ll tell him.” Art hung up the phone and looked at Raylan across the desk.
    “What’re you doing?”
    “Lookin for Crowes. What’d they want to know?”
    “If you’d shot anybody this week.” Art picked up a photo from his desk, a color print, and handed it across to Raylan.
    “We have a detainer on Bob Valdez, works security for Pervis Crowe. Though Bob actually works for the Mexican Mafia.”
    “What they call themselves. I heard Pervis calls ’em the Taco Mafia,” Raylan said. “Tell me why we let ’em grow weed here in the U.S.”
    “I don’t know,” Art said. “Cause they’re good at it?”
    He watched Raylan study the color shot of a man named McCready, a laid-off miner.
    “He was growing a patch of weed out back of the house. Bob Valdez shot McCready through the leg—you see him pressing the towel to his thigh—and the other guy snapped a varmint trap to his bare foot. Ed took it off, but you can see where it cut him.”
    “Who shot the pictures?”
    “His little girl Loretta, fourteen. She’s been keeping house and going to school since her mama passed, Loretta ten at that time.” He handed Raylan a few more photos. “That’s Ed while they’re waitin for the doctor. See his foot? The doctor never made it, got tied up deliverin a baby. Loretta doesn’t have a license but can drive. So she took her dad to town.”
    “I met Loretta,” Raylan said, “at Pervis’s, she’s havin an RC Cola. She asked if I thought she was bold she inquired what I did for a living. She’s gonna have a hard time with boys, finding one good enough for her.”
    “Anyway,” Art said, “get the cops to ask Bob about his shootin McCready and bring him in to make his statement.”
    “If Loretta said he shot her dad and has pictures of it . . . Why don’t we arrest him? Get Loretta’s statement, not Bob’s. That girl comes right at you.”
    “Handle it,” Art said. “Meanwhile, two young men, both salesmen, woke up in hospitals without their kidneys. One in Lexington, the other Richmond, two days apart and the week before Angel lost his.”
    “I remember seein it on the news,” Raylan said, “but didn’t relate it to anything we’re doing—yeah, until we found Angel in the tub. I didn’t know right away he’d lost his kidneys. You’re the one tole me. No, it was Rachel, her mom had transplants. Then I wondered if the Crowes were in on the first ones, the salesmen. Their incisions were closed by a