Authors: Elmore Leonard
Tags: #Men's Adventure, #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction
T
he 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 café, 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 the tub and call a hospital. But see then, we sell the kidneys to a body parts broker and he goes with the best offer he gets, sellin to people in the hospital. The sick person can’t come up with the money the parts broker wants, he crosses the name off.”
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.”
Coover said, “She ever talk about doin a woman? Get her in the tub nekked. One with big ninnies.”
“You see ’em floatin in the ice water,” Dickie said, “the nips stickin straight up.”
Cuba said, “I told her about the marshals stopping by. Comin back tomorrow with warrants.”
Dickie said, “We go and hide?”
“She say lay low for a while.”
“
Lay low
—” Dickie said. “Her name’s not Leela, it’s Laylo, ain’t it? Same as the song.”
Cuba went out to the hardpack yard and phoned her on his cell, looking up at trees, clouds hanging over the ridgeline.
“How you doin? You close to the next job?”
Her voice said, “I don’t want to use those guys again, they’re more baggage than porters.”
“You want to cut ’em loose?”
“They know who I am.”
“They still don’t have your name right.”
“Why don’t you find a way to dismiss them,” Layla said. “All right?”
M
onths ago, before hooking up with the Crowes, Cuba first set eyes on Layla the Dragon Lady.
It was in the Blue Grass Room at Keeneland, the thoroughbred racetrack on the outskirts of Lexington; his boss Mr. Harry Burgoyne telling him, “Go on wait at the bar till I motion you to come out on the floor.”
Meaning they’d be doing one of their Boss and Dumb African routines. Cuba watched Mr. Harry walk out to address tables of horse lovers applauding his winning the three-hundred-thousand-dollar Maker’s Mark Mile not an hour ago.
The girl next to Cuba at the bar, Weezie, her dad one of the trainers, finished sucking up her Collins and said, “Doesn’t it piss you off the horse is called Black Boy?”
“They had to call it Black Boy,” Cuba said. “What else you gonna call this stud’s got all the fillies flippin their tails at him.”
The girl went off grinning to tell what he said and Cuba was looking at Layla the Dragon Lady, facing him in her dark glasses and shiny black raincoat a few feet away.
“Excuse me,” Cuba said, “but can you tell me what is the time?” Giving the words that clipped African sound he got from cabdrivers in Atlanta.
He watched her slip off her sunglasses this overcast afternoon in April to show her brown eyes holding on him like bullets. She smiled and her eyes turned soft.
“That was funny, what you said to Weezie.”
Cuba checking her nice nose and mouth, that kind of lower lip on a woman he liked to bite.
“But,” she said, “you forgot your African accent.”
He did, talkin about that fuckin stud Black Boy and trying to sound cool. He could ask how she recognized the accent, but didn’t. Cuba took a moment and said, “East or West Africa?”
Giving it back to this woman wanted to play with him.
She said, “West, Nigeria. I spent an entire year in Lagos with a transplant team. Came back to my home base, UK Medical.”
Cuba said, “I drove Mr. Burgoyne there one time, his kidneys actin up.”
“His kidneys are still working,” Layla said. “It’s his liver needs a rest.”
“Man likes his booze. Has a few he turns into a human being,” Cuba said. “So you’re a nurse, huh?”
She said, “Why not an MD?”
“You wouldn’t be playin with me,” Cuba said.
She told him she was a transplant nurse and Cuba said, “You like foolin with people’s organs?”
“When I can fool with them,” Layla said. “It depends on who’s doing the surgery. I’ve been assisting as long as some of the older guys’ve been switching organs, going on eleven years. I’ve seen enough kidney transplants I can make the switch myself and close up. One of the young guys, all he wants me to do is slap instruments in his hands and go to bed with him.”
She waited.
Cuba said, “You go for the older guys, huh?”
“You’re missing the point. The young guy comes out of the OR thinking he’s God, he’s just saved a patient’s life and expects me to reward him.”
“Yeah . . . ?”
“I tell him I’m worn out. I’ve worked twelve hours, pre- and post-op besides surgery, I’m beat. He can’t believe I’m turning him down. We’ve had coffee a few times, he’s told me to call him Howie if I want. He goes, ‘Come on, I’ve got an empty room lined up. We can make it a quickie or do the other.’ ”
“You meet his desires?”
“Listen, will you? I can do the same surgery as Dr. Blow Job, who makes close to a million a year while I’m paid eighty-seven five. Does that mean I should go down on him?”
Cuba had to pay attention, quit thinking about biting her lip. She sounded pissed off, so he didn’t think she gave the doctor with the hard-on what he wanted. Now she switched to Cuba, asking him what he did in his previous life, before he became Mr. Harry’s boy. He told her he drove, raced dirt track, ran moonshine, dealt some reefer.
She said, “How much prison time have you done?”
He saw it coming and told her, “It took some years from me.” He said, “You want my sheet? I’ll see I can get you one. Cars, what I did time for, expensive ones.” Pretty sure he was telling this Dragon Lady what she wanted to hear.
It was that chick in the funnies she reminded him of, the Dragon Lady, used to be in
Terry and the Pirates
. Terry the ofay kid with the hair never got mussed. If he wasn’t fucking the Dragon Lady Cuba believed he must go the other way.
Layla seemed calm now, staring at him with those brown bullets she could turn soft as he looked on.
Layla said, “Cuba?”
“Yeah . . . ?”
“I’m tired of hospitals. Tell me what you’re tired of.”
Cuba saw Mr. Harry waving at him and said, “You gonna see it in a minute.”
T
ime for the routine: Mr. Harry waving Cuba out to the tables of horse lovers, Mr. Harry holding a drink now. Good, ready to show his friends his idea of a regular guy. He watched Cuba coming around to the front of the room and Mr. Harry began to frown. This was part of the act, seeing Cuba in his black suit and black shirt, a bright lavender necktie popping out of the dark look.
Mr. Harry: “Who said you could wear my colors with your chauffeur’s uniform?”
Cuba telling himself to sound Ah-frican. A real African ever showed up at one of these he was fucked.
Cuba: “Was your missus, Boss.” He waited a couple of beats before saying, “It is your missus dresses me.”
This got a burst of laughs from the horse lovers.
Mr. Harry: “
Mrs
. Harry told you to wear my racing colors?”
Cuba: “Because when we out, you always have me racing to get you to a men’s room, so I wear your colors.”
Mr. Harry: “When did I tell you to do that?”
Cuba: “You never have, Boss, but I believe is what you thinking.”
Mr. Harry, to the room: “I explained to Cuba that calling my winner today Black Boy was never meant as a racial slur.”
Cuba: “Yes, sir.”
Mr. Harry: “Tell my friends what you think of the name Black Boy.”
Cuba: “I’m proud the horse was name for me since it wins all its fuckin races.”
Bursts of laughter.
Mr. Harry: “Cuba, we don’t use African words here in polite society.”
More laughter, but not as much.
L
ayla watched from the bar. She had told Cuba she was tired of hospitals; now he was showing her what he was tired of: playing the grateful darky, grinning with this asshole’s arm around his neck, Cuba reciting his lines on cue.
Mr. Harry was telling the Blue Grass Room it was unfortunate Old Tom got sick and passed away on him. Old Tom, bless his heart, had become fearful of traffic, always drove with his foot on the brake. “You weren’t patient,” Mr. Harry said, “it could make you irritable.” Mr. Harry paused for the Blue Grass crowd to laugh kindly at him. “But now Cuba,” Mr. Harry said, “he’d put his foot on the gas and leave it there. I asked him one time, ‘Cuba, you never stole cars by any chance, have you?’ What’d you tell me?”
Cuba saying, “I believe I tole you no, Boss, that is one thing the devil never made me do.”
Mr. Harry slapped Cuba’s shoulder, told him, “Get outta here,” the horse lovers laughing, and Mr. Harry joined a front table making room for him.
C
uba walked back to the bar raising his hand to people applauding, Cuba nodding, grinning until he reached the bar and Layla set her drink in front of him. Cuba picked it up and finished the vodka without looking around. He said, “You know how many times I been the grateful nigga?”
“Everyone believed you,” Layla said.
“What he said about Old Tom was bullshit. He hired me and fired the old man, why he took sick and died.”
“Watching your skit,” Layla said, “I couldn’t help thinking, one day you’re gonna turn around, take Harry by the throat and strangle him in front of his friends. They’ll think it’s part of the act.”
Cuba said, “Drivin him in the Rolls, I’ve thought of aimin the car to send it off a curve, top of the grade. I bail out and watch the man lose his ass. Car hits and blows up, like in the movies. Real life you don’t get that much explosion. I’m drivin Mr. Harry . . . the man already has to take a leak. I see in my brights a stretch of road comin up, the side droppin away steep . . . I say to him, ‘Mr. Harry, get out your dick, we almost there.’ ”
Layla’s eyes on him turned warm. She said, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“Try me out,” Cuba said, “it won’t hurt none.”
He watched her take a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the pocket of her raincoat—expensive-looking, a shiny black one—waited till she was smoking it before he said, “You know it ain’t allowed in here.”
“If they catch you,” Layla said.
“You like to cause a scene?”
“They say anything I take one more drag,” Layla said, “and put it out.” She moved closer. “Something I’ve wanted to tell you about Harry’s kidneys—”
“The time I brought him in?”
“He comes in once or twice a year.”
“The man takes a leak every twenty, thirty minutes. Set your watch by it.”
“That’s his prostate. His kidneys aren’t too bad. He has a pinched nerve in his lower back.”
“His sacroiliac fuckin with him,” Cuba said. “I had that. Kept me in bed till a chiropractor fixed me up.”
“Harry tells us to get donors with his blood type ready.”
“You need a kidney,” Cuba said, “I thought you had to wait in line.”
“Harry gives a million a year to the hospital fund. The donor gets a hundred grand the moment he shows up.”
“He wants a kidney so bad,” Cuba said, “give him one.”
“Or take the old one out,” Layla said, “and put it back in?”
Cuba grinned. “Come out the hospital a new man.”
He saw Mr. Harry getting up from the table as Layla said, “That’s kind of what I’m thinking.”
Cuba heard her but kept watching his boss shaking hands with people at the table. He said to Layla, “I expect to see you pretty soon now we lovers.”
She said, “How about tonight?”
Didn’t hesitate.
“Could be late, I get done haulin his ass around.”
“Come anytime. I’m in bed I’ll leave a light on.”
“Tell me where I’m going.”
She laid her hand on a cocktail napkin, folded, and brought it along the bar to Cuba. “It’s all here,” Layla said, “with a key to let you in.”
Cuba liked how her eyes turned soft looking at him. This was a cool woman with evil ways. The best kind. He said, “Why don’t you lift the kidneys offa Dr. Blow Job?” He said, “No, he’s too close. I think so’s Mr. Harry.”
“I have an idea how we’d do Harry.”
“You’re exposin your intentions,” Cuba said, “to a lover?”
“As soon as I heard you’re Ah-frican,” Layla said, “I knew you were my guy.”
Y
ou run out of gas,” Art Mullen said. “You’re on your way to Lexington and you run out of gas. This is after you stirred up the state cops, got ’em looking for the Crowes.”
They were in the Harlan marshal’s office, Art standing over Raylan sitting down, trapped in his seat.
“What told you they were taking off for Lexington?” Raylan’s boss said.
“It had to be where the doctor was.”
“How you know that?”
“It’s where they do transplants.”
“But why do they take off to see the doctor?”
“He runs the show, he’ll tell ’em what to do.”
“You thought about all that,” Art said, “and decided not to get warrants. But you didn’t look to see if you needed gas.”
“I thought I had at least one more gallon.”
“You know Rachel was against going to Lexington?”
“I don’t recall her telling me why.”
“Because you’re relying on St. Christopher to find the doctor for you, and there isn’t or ever was a St. Christopher. Somebody made him up.”
Raylan said, “Did you know that?”
“I think so,” Art said. “But I’ve never asked him to find anybody for me. You’re saying St. Christopher told you to go to Lexington?”
“I worked it out,” Raylan said, “before I heard anything definite. You know there’s a world-famous organ transplant hospital there? UK Medical. They transplant kidneys all day long, seventy miles away from where Angel’s were taken.”
“That’s what you’re goin on?”
“I had a hunch. You have ’em, don’t you?”
“How many hunches,” Art said, “ever come to pass?”
“All right, we know the Crowes are involved. We pick ’em up, talk to ’em, give ’em a deal on their sentence for the doctor.”
Art said, “If he’s a resident at the hospital, he’ll be there when we decide to look him up. We got something else coming up, a public meeting in Harlan County about a new mountaintop removal permit.”
Raylan said, “Like settin the top aside to get at the coal. And all the coal dust settles on the people below. I was a laid-off miner I’d ask the coal company, ‘You don’t have enough money? You got to blow up our mountains?’ ”
“You want,” Art said, “you can ask them yourself. They’re coming in a week or so, when Ms. Carol Conlan gets back from the Bahamas.”
“You’re kiddin, a woman?”
“She’s the voice of M-T Mining. Main office in Lexington.”
Raylan said, “She ready for Harlan?”
Art said, “Anything this lady wants, you pinch the brim of your cowboy hat and say, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ ”
“While I’m waitin around, you mind if I scare up the Crowes?”
“If you can bring ’em in. You shoot ’em, you’ll never find the doctor, will you?”
T
hey were in Layla’s motel room in Corbin, Layla packed, ready to return to UK Medical after two weeks off; Cuba here because he wanted to talk to her face-to-face.
“You tell me, dismiss the Crowe brothers,” Cuba said. “You mean take ’em out.”
They sat at the table in the motel room sipping brandy with the coffee Cuba got from the lobby.
“The way to ask it,” Cuba said, “did I ever shoot a dude look like he meant to take somethin belong to me, like my car or my life? See, that’s different than askin me to go shoot somebody. Know what I’m sayin? You join a young boys gang, they tell you go on out and gun this dude from some other gang. Prove you got the
cojones
. There boys groove on it till they get taken out theirselves. I never was in a gang. I avoid any bloodshed isn’t necessary to my state of being. The only time I used a gun—this nine-mil Sig I have—two dudes try to jack the Mercedes I just got done jackin. Big crackhead young niggas come with baseball bats, tell me they gonna bang on the car less I get out. I shoulda sat there. It come to me later, they ain’t gonna jack a car the windows broke out. But at the same time I thought I better defend myself. I pulled the Sig and shot both the motherfuckers they standin there waving the bats. Left ’em lyin in the street.”
“I can see it,” Layla said in her easy way. “You left them for dead?”
“I never heard they made it or passed.”
She reached across the table to lay her hand on his.
“But if you don’t do the Crowes they’ll tell on us.” She said, “Starting a new practice things always happen you didn’t plan on.” She said, “Once the Crowes are caught they’ll give us up. You know that.”
“I suppose,” Cuba said. “Only I never walked up to a man I’ve done business with and shot him. Or got into any kind of gig I ain’t positive it’s gonna pay off.”
“It’s like learning a new procedure,” Layla said. “Once you have it down . . . Our first week we scored both times, no surprises, four kidneys at ten each. I’m glad I found a good body broker. We can deal with some at the hospital, but you have to get the right ones when you’re freelancing. If we do just one a week for a year, extract both kidneys, you know what we make? A million bucks. While Dr. Blow Job’s working his ass off five days a week.”
“Your idea of usin masks,” Cuba said, “made it a scene. The guy in the motel room opens the door, tired, just come off the road. Sees these faces lookin at him—”
“They had to be the right ones,” Layla said.
“Man can’t believe what’s goin on. Starts to grin as I’m shakin his hand. You jab the needle in the man and I catch him as he goes down.”
“We started laughing,” Layla 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 doctor. Angel’s, somebody made a mess with the staples. Right away I think of the Crowes, Coover. Why didn’t the doctor close Angel? He could’ve got tired of putting up with the brothers and walked out.”
Art said, “Where you getting that?”
“It’s what I would’ve done,” Raylan said, “knowin those dumbbells. A doctor working under pressure in a motel room, he’s had enough of the brothers, leaves them to close up. But why’d he hire them to begin with?”
“To heft bodies,” Art said.
“Cuba Frank’s there.”
“One thing we know for sure,” Art said, “it wasn’t the Crowes wearing the rubber masks. Both fellas said a man and a woman.”
“The president and Mrs. Obama out havin fun,” Raylan said. “Making about twenty grand every time they put on their masks.” He said, “Imagine you open the door and there the Obamas calling on you? They come in the motel room talking.” He said to Art, “Who’s playing Michelle?”
Art said, “I guess the doctor brought . . . a nurse?”
“Who did . . . ? Cuba Franks?”
It stopped Art. Now he was shaking his head.
“What’s wrong with me—Michelle Obama’s the doctor.”
“It can’t be anybody else, can it?” Raylan said. “Don’t we have tapes of their statements? What the two guys remember?”
“If you want to believe it,” Art said.
“It sounded good to me,” Raylan said. “Michelle walks up and kisses the guy on the mouth.”
“They both said pretty much the same thing. How she approached, got real close—”
“She lifts her mask from under her chin,” Raylan said, “to free her mouth and presses it into his. The last thing he remembers is getting turned on. As they come apart she hits him with the needle. He dreams of the First Lady tonguing him while she’s taking out his kidneys.”
Art said, “I wonder if she’s black.”
Raylan shook his head. “They both said she was white.”
A
rt said a couple times he wondered if she might be a doctor. Raylan said he did too, but couldn’t see a woman stealing kidneys in a motel room. Even one pissed off at having her license pulled. “I’m dyin to meet her.”
“Check on Bob Valdez first,” Art said, “it having been handed down from above. Then I want the Crowes brought in while I’m getting the warrants.”
“If you get the right judge.”
“I have ways,” Art said. “ ‘Your Honor, I just hope a law enforcement officer isn’t gunned down in the line of duty by some weedhead while waitin for warrants.’ ”
“And you get fined for being a smart-ass.”
Art said, “You can’t locate the Crowes, go see Pervis. This evening, no customers botherin him. You want,” Art said, “threaten to burn his fields he don’t give up his boys.”
Raylan was picking at a callous in the palm of his gun hand listening to Art. Raylan stopped picking. He raised his head to look at his boss with an expression of wonder.
“That’s where they are, at Pervis’s.”
“You threaten ’em,” Art said, “they run home to their daddy.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of that,” Raylan said.
“You had,” Art said, “you wouldn’t of run out of gas.”