Raylan

Chapter Nine

Cuba was trying to think of a way to get rid of the Crowe brothers without getting their daddy on him. The only trouble, they were staying with him now, moved into his house, Cuba believed, confident their daddy would protect them, keep them from going to prison. If they weren’t his blood Pervis would have fired them years ago. Once Cuba did the two fuckups, the old man ought to thank him for taking a load off his mind. Except Pervis would have to narrow his eyes and swear he’d get the one did it. Cuba thought he might offer the old man consolation after, tell him, “Least they won’t go to prison and get cornholed every day by Negroes.”

Wait.

Or shoot the daddy first? Not have to worry about him?

C limbing the log steps to Pervis’s house Cuba had to stop three times to rest his thighs. He had tried the store hoping Pervis was still there and found the place shut for the day. Cuba had made up his mind to do all t ^riehree Crowes in whatever order they came along. He hoped Pervis would be first. After the old man it didn’t matter.

Rita, the old man’s housekeeper? Cuba had never seen her but heard she was hot-looking. Do her too? He reached the house and could smell weed as soon as he stepped on the porch.

Dickie and Coover sat next to each other on the couch. It looked strange, the other chairs in the sitting room empty. Now he saw they were sharing a party bong, passing it back and forth: add weed, put a finger over the hole and take a hit. Coover looked up, saw Cuba at the screen door and waved at him to come in.

Both Crowes stoned, grinning at Cuba like they were glad to see him, the air in the room sweet with reefer.

Cuba said, “Man, you two are havin fun, huh? Where’s daddy, he home or out someplace?”

“Upstairs taking a bath,” Dickie said, holding up the bong. “Want a hit?”

“When I finish my business. Where’s Rita, soapin up the old man?”

“I don’t think it’s their day,” Dickie said. “Rita’s in the kitchen fixin us a treat.”

“Somethin for your sweet tooth?”

“Strawberry shortcake,” Dickie said.

“How’s Rita, she sweet?”

“Coover tried to jump her one time-”

“Years ago,” Coover said.

“Daddy caught him and whipped Coove with a stick, a green one, like a whip.”

“Hurt like hell,” Coover said.

“Lettin you know she’s daddy’s girl,” Cuba said. “Man, how long she been here?”

“About three years,” Dickie said in that weed voice, holding his breath.

“That long? Why’s she stay?”

“The old man pays a lot,” Coover said, “for his nookie.”

“Coove’s been tryin to find her money,” Dickie said, “but she’s hid it good.”

“It’s in the house somewhere? What’s he pay her?”

“Hunnert a day,” Dickie said.

“Jesus Christ,” Cuba said, “and you can’t find it?” He thought of sticking his head in the kitchen, have a look at this Rita, but said, “How y’all like hidin out?”

“Nobody’s lookin for us,” Dickie said.

“Your daddy’s got friends,” Cuba said.

“Or that marshal can’t get a warrant.”

“That’s what I mean. It’s good to have friends can do you favors.”

Cuba asked himself, You through being sociable?

He reached behind him, hands going under his limp cotton jacket to pull the 9 mm Sig Sauer from the small of his back, both the weedheads staring at it with dreamy eyes, Coover saying, “What you got there, boy?”

Cuba put the Sig on the two from halfway across the room and shot both Crowes in the chest, Coover first, bam, exploding the bong he was holding, then Dickie, bam, as Dickie was screaming what sounded like “No!” Cuba waited for the gunshots to fade and listened for sounds in the house. He approached the two sprawled on the sofa, then walked over to the front door, opened the screen and banged it closed. Now he turned his attention to the stairs, Cuba thinking the old man would be careful, look out a front window to see who left.

Un-uh, there he was creeping down the stairs naked, holding a big, must be a. 44 revolver out in front of him. The man had a belly, the rest of him ribs and skinny white legs, his bald head shining, Cuba seeing Pervis for the first time without his toupee, said, “Hey, old man,” got him looking this way and bam, shot him off the stairs, watched him drop the revolver grabbing for the handrail and fall nine steps to the floor. Cuba waited for the naked body to move, the man lying on his belly, staining the rag carpet with his blood, his right arm bent funny, looking broke. Cuba waited a few moments, turned to the hall that went to the kitchen and called out, “Rita…?” Waited again and called, “Where you at, girl?”

S he came in from the kitchen drying her hands on a dishtowel. Cuba watched her look at the brothers flopped on the couch; watched her stand over the old man, Cuba’s gaze holding on her ass in the white slip she was wearing against her black skin. Had that saucy type of ass slim black chicks would arch their backs to show it to you. Cuba watched her stoop down to place the dishtowel over the old man’s profile on the floor, and told himself to shoot her, get it done. But he said, wanting to say something, “I believe he broke his arm.” on the g="en-us" height="0em" width="1em" align="justify"›“Oh, is that all,” Rita said. “I would have swore you shot Mister and the boys. One each-that’s pretty good. I don’t know why you shot the old man, less somebody paid you good money. You coulda done the boys you happen to be feelin out of sorts.” She said, “Quit aimin that thing at me. Put it away. I don’t know you and you don’t know me, all right?”

Cuba said, “I don’t know you won’t call the law,” and felt dumb saying it; he did. Like a straightman.

“I call and say I want to report some homicides? The man wants to know who this is. I tell him I’m the one’s been scoring dope out of your drugstores, with scripts a doctor writes for pussy.

“I tell the man go look at my picture you got on your wall.” She said, “Honey, Mister was my savior, but he’s dead and me and him are square.”

“You have to love him?”

“Only once a week, when he gets it up. Listen to him gruntin, like he’s pushin his car stuck in the mud.”

“But worth it,” Cuba said. “I understand the old man paid you a hunnert a day, pussy or no pussy. Three years, what’s that come to?”

Rita said, “You can slam a car door on my hand, I won’t tell you where it’s at. All you got left is to cap me. You still won’t know. I don’t have my money, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you do.”

Cuba said, “Hey, we friends, we believe each other, what we say. I already got somethin goin with a fine woman. But I won’t say you don’t tempt me.”

“She’s your girl?”

“We close.”

“She’s white, huh? You one of those think you special get a white chick to fuck you?”

“Blow me,” Cuba said and they both started laughing.

“She’s fine, she’s cool-”

“Has money?”

“That’s what we into, makin it.”

“Drugs?”

“People’s kidneys,” Cuba said to shut her up.

But Rita cT1)

“We sell ’em back the next day.”

“Cool. For how much?”

Cuba said, “Time for me to leave, get far away from here. You better too, you say they lookin for you.”

“I don’t know,” Rita said. “I’ll think of something. Send me a postcard, tell me what you doin, all right?” She kissed him and it wasn’t bad. She knew how.

Rita closed the door after him and locked it, hurried over to Mister, got her face down close to his and heard him breathe. She knew it. You don’t kill this dog with one shot. Rita said to him, “Honey, don’t move. I’m on get you to the hospital.”

K nox County Hospital called the state police and they got on Pervis’s case, called the marshals service to let Raylan know the two guys he had them looking for were homicide victims. Raylan visited the scene, saw Coover and Dickie dead on the couch and the bloodstained carpet where Pervis had been lying. The hospital said a black girl dropped off Pervis and must have left. They didn’t know her name and Pervis refused to identify the girl or the one shot him.

He did tell Raylan, sitting at his bedside, “He left me for dead. Shot me with a round that splintered a rib and messed me up inside.” Pervis raised the arm in a cast. “I broke it fallin down the stairs.”

“While you’re laid up,” Raylan said, “why don’t we see what I can do? It was Cuba Franks, wasn’t it, the shooter? Through using your boys for his felonies? Shot you, you happen to be there. But was Rita brought you here, wasn’t it? Why’d she take off?”

Pervis said, “Why you grillin me when you think you know everything?”

Raylan said, “Remember I told you they’re taking kidneys from people while they’re alive?”

Pervis kept his mouth shut.

“You’re a hard-ass old man,” Raylan said, “but I can respect how you feel. What I don’t want is you goin to prison for taking out Cuba.”

Pervis said, “It’s time I did somethin for my boys.”

H e shot the brothers,” Raylan told Art Mullen-the two standing in Art’s office-“while they’re suckin on a bong. Coover’s turn, he’s popped and the glass shatters, got his shirt wet.”

“You noticed that,” Art said.

“His blood turned it pinkish. What’s that remind you of?”

“Angel’s bath,” Art said. “Three kidney jobs in the last few weeks.”

“But only Angel’s offered for sale. I told him, ‘Pray to St. Christopher you get ’em back’ and he came through.”

Art said, “What you’re saying, St. Christopher got Dickie and Coover whacked so Angel wouldn’t have to pay for his kidneys.”

“More or less.”

Art said, “We’re lookin for Cuba Franks, what he’s been doing since his convictions. A year ago he chauffeured for a rich guy owns horses. Cuba Franks, says he’s from Nigeria. Had the job for nine months and quit.”

“Wasn’t making enough?”

“Got tired of putting on his African accent. That’s what Mrs. Burgoyne told us. Harry Burgoyne said, ‘That’s what they do, they walk out on you. Only one African American I’d give high marks to and that’s Old Tom. He died on me.’ ”

“I know why Cuba quit,” Raylan said.

“Our office up there’s still lookin for him. Nine months, he must know his way around.”

“Has friends there,” Raylan said. “You don’t suppose-”

Art said, “Do I suppose he has a friend, a doctor at the transplant center, a woman?”

“Do you?” Raylan said.

L ayla’s voice said, “Where are you?”

“I’m about to leave the hills for the four-lane,” Cuba said. “The Crowe brothers left for heaven this afternoon, less they got rules against weedheads. I had to do the old man, since he was in the house.”

“You told me he has a cute maid.”

“Only what I heard. I was never up to the house before.”

“Was she cute?”

“ cmesfonShe was too young for that old man.”

“She was cute, huh?”

“I let her go.”

Now silence on the phone.

Cuba said, “She don’t know me and I don’t know her, how we left it.”

“You realize,” Layla said, “if I’d been with you and we could’ve worked it? We’d have six more kidneys in one swoop. Eight,” Layla said, “we throw in Rita. What do you think? Eighty grand.”