Raylan: A Novel Read Free Page B

bothering him.
    T hey had breakfast in Harlan at the Huddle House, Art noticing the way Raylan broke up a strip of bacon in his grits, a pat of butter melting in it, and added salt, Art asking Raylan if he’d tried the jar Pervis gave him.
    “It was good. The peach didn’t mess it up any. I had a couple of pulls and gave it to an old coot on the street. It brought tears to his eyes.”
    Art said, “You know marijuana’s now the biggest cash crop in the state?”
    “Makes you proud,” Raylan said. “We right on California’s tail, and I guess Maui Wowee’s. It shows we’re resourceful. Seventy thousand coal miners out of work, a bunch of ’em become planters. Last night on TV this news reader with the hair said marijuana was getting out of hand. He said you come across any patches, be sure to report it to the police. You believe it? The only people get worked up over reefer are ones never tried it.”
    Art said, “You haven’t seen Pervis’s boys.”
    “Not yet.”
    “You know he’s called them by now,” Art said. “You can kiss your BMW good-bye, they’ll know it. DEA has a Mer cedes they might let you have.”
    Raylan liked the way this breakfast was going.
    He said, “The one I want is the doctor, and the only way I have of getting to him is through the Crowes, to tell me about him. Was the doctor working for a cut, so to speak? Or’d they grab one off the street. The doctor at the hospital said he was a pro. Used the latest method of extracting kidneys, the right spots in the belly, but didn’t close up after. That was left to whoever used the staples. One of the Crowes? I want to ask ’em about it in a public place, so I don’t get shot or beat up.”
    Art said, “Or we get the state cops to lean on ’em till they give up the doctor.”
    “I don’t know,” Raylan said, “I’m starting to think it might be the doctor running the show. Calls the Crowes when he needs heavy lifting done.”
    P ervis drove out to the camp in his Ford V8, a blower sticking out of the hood, and watched Bob Valdez approach from the barn. It was home to field hands who’d come to plant and return in ninety days to prune and trim Pervis’s marijuana, the crops in this part of Knox County.
    The day Pervis hired him he said, “Bob, you keep what you make off your patch. You catch anybody growing weed on their own without my say, snap a varmint trap to their foot and fire ’em.”
    Bob Valdez cocked a willow root straw close on his eyes in the afternoon sun. He wore a .44 revolver holstered on his hip and liked to stand around the yard with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt and make remarks to girls in the crew. He liked that hot-lookin black girl, Pervis’s housemaid, and would stop by there when he knew Pervis was at his store. Rita would tell him, “Mister ain’t here.” Told him every time he pulled up in his ATV making a racket. A few days ago she said, “Bob, you want to fuck me, huh? Mister finds out you come by, he can have your ass deported.”
    “Hell you talkin about?” Bob said. “I’m as American as Daniel Boone, born here in Kaintuck.”
    “You gonna die here he finds out you messing with his maid.”
    “You kiddin me?” Bob said. “Mister’s not once ever tried yellin at me. He knows better.”
    “He never raises his voice to anybody,” Rita said, “cause he don’t have to.”
    T his time Pervis came by to tell Bob, “I want you to do something for me.”
    “I’m your man,” Bob said.
    “A U.S. marshal come to see me name of Raylan Givens. You know which one I mean?”
    “I’m pretty sure. Yeah, he was pointed out, wears a good-lookin hat.”
    “I want you to keep him away from my boys.”
    Bob said, “Oh?” He said, “Is this guy a pervert?” Bob tryin hard to look serious. He said, “You want me to become like a babysitter for Coover and Dickie?”
    Pervis stared at him.
    Pervis said, “In this part of the United States of America, I got enormous pull. Way more’n