Raylan

Chapter Twenty-eight

Nichols got hold of Raylan and they responded to the scene in horse country: thoroughbreds grazing the pastures while the bodies of two girls shot to death lay in a thicket of trees.

“A guy driving past,” Nichols said, “saw crows swarming into the trees. He knew something was dead, stopped to look and got in touch with police. They had it posted: look for Kim and Cassie, who’d skipped when we went to pick ’em up. That fast, while Jane’s safe in custody.”

They were looking at the bodies now-cops standing around-looking at clothes torn from parts of their bodies and their faces pecked to the bone by a murder of crows. “They still have their teeth,” Nichols said, “but no eyes. You notice? I bet they were dark. No ID on either one.”

An evidence tech watching them said, “We’re lucky we got here before the coyotes. Be nothing left but bones.”

Raylan stooped over one of the girls and the evidence tech told him not to touch their clothes. “That blood can give you HIV positive, you get it on you.” Raylan picked up the girl’s hand, a phone number in black marker witten on the palm, before it was smudged with blood.

He said to Nichols, “She did have your phone number.”

“She hung up on us,” Nichols said. “I’m surprised she wrote it down.”

“But no second thoughts about calling you,” Raylan said. “She had, she might still be alive.” He stood up and thanked the con="judth="1em" ps standing around for securing the scene and told them the two girls were Kim and Cassie. “I don’t know their last names. You might have them on file for prostitution. I believe they were exotic dancers before they became bank robbers. I thank you for helping us out.”

One of the officers said, “Detectives are coming out from downtown. You guys beat ’em to it. You want to wait and talk to the guys? They’ll be working this one.”

“I think we ought to pick up the shooter, you understand, before he knows we’re on to him?”

The cop said, “You know who it is?”

Raylan said, “Yes, we do,” and told them, “Delroy Lewis.”

The cop said, “You can’t identify the bodies, but you know who they are and who killed them.”

“We’ve got another one of his bank robber girls. She told us about him,” Raylan said. “Thanks, fellas, I’ll be in touch,” and walked away with Nichols.

“What if it isn’t Delroy,” Nichols said, “but some other mutt?”

“It’s Delroy,” Raylan said. “I can see him running a gang of girl bank robbers. Making money, maybe surprised it works. Surprises everybody.”

“What’s his buddy say-he happens to have one-‘The girls go down, you go with them’?”

“Delroy says, ‘What girls? I don’t have no girls. Man, I stay far afield. Maybe get the girls a limo for the bank job.’ ”

“He’s showin off.”

“Showin how cool he is. That’s the guy. A limo, everybody knows is his. He takes a few risks,” Raylan said, “but I can’t see him cutting lines in the car. That’s Jane making it sound hip. I bet he doesn’t go near those girls till it’s dark out.”

“One of his girls gets arrested, why wouldn’t she tell on him?”

“Jane did, and he blew it, pretending to be white instead of soothing her. ‘Don’t worry, baby, I’m gettin you a lawyer gonna have your case thrown outta court.’ He moves someplace else and gets three more girls, gives ’em pills, tells them anything he wants and they believe him. He doesn’t beat on the girls, he gives them a slap and then sweet-talks them. They get picked up, he says, ‘Kim and Cassie? I believe I remember those girls, my exotic dancers at the club. What is it they doin now?’ We’ll start looking for him,” Raylan said, “at the Cooz Club, with backup.”

“I doubt he’ll be there,” Nichols said.

“I know,” Raylan said, “but we might find out a few things. He’s a show-off. Maybe things he’d like us to know.”

“We got him for a double homicide. What else you want?”

“I won’t know till we look around.”

T he manager of the club, Kenneth, middle-aged in a blond hairpiece, heard car doors slam and said to Bobby, the kid at the bar sipping a glass of white wine, “Well, finally.”

Bobby went to the store window that wore coats of pink paint on the outside, spelled out in blue neon was COOZ CLUB. Under it, smaller in red neon, it said, THIS IS THE PLACE! The kid looked through scratches in the paint and said:

“A Crown Vic and a Chevy. Guys are coming out of the cop car and the two guys from the Chevy are holding them up talking to the guys-they have U.S. MARSHALS on their jackets- Hey, you were right. It looks like just the two guys, the suits, are gonna come in.”

“Finish your wine, Bobby,” Kenneth said, “and get out of here the moment they ask for Delroy.”

R aylan came in, Nichols behind him, saw the manager standing by the bar, a teenage boy finishing his drink… Raylan said, “Kenny?” The guy bowed his blond hairpiece saying he was, and Raylan said, “How long you been a Kenny?”

“Well, since it’s sort of my name, all my life. Have friends who’ll only call me Kenneth. Oh, and Delroy, do you know what he calls me? Kennet, without the diphthong. You want to know if he’s here? He isn’t. I haven’t seen him since, anyways, yesterday. You don’t believe me, call the boys in and search the joint.”

The kid got up from the bar saying, “This doesn’t sound like any of my business.”

They let him walk out.

Raylan looked at this pink strip club going to seed, the bar with the pole up behind it. Raylan saw bare-naked girls using the pole to aim their assholes at the assholes lining the bar. Sit down at one of those tables over there and get a lap dance with moans.

Kenneth said, “Oh,” as if he’d just remembered something.

“Delroy left you a movie he’s starring in. Actually, he’s the only one in it. nlyrday. You ”

Raylan said, “He wants me to see it?”

“If you’re Raylan.”

“It’s all Delroy?”

“Don’t worry, it isn’t too long. He manages to get to the point after, well, sort of an introduction.”

Raylan said, “Who shot it?”

“I did. I shoot all his flicks. Most of the ones where he’s by himself are rather boring. His X-rated stuff I think is better than most.”

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.”