Riding the Rap Read Free

eye for the first time and nodded.
    The one in the crocheted skullcap walked up to the driver’s side of the Cadillac. The one with cornrows said to Raylan, “We gonna trade, let you have a pickup truck for this here. You see a problem with that?”
    Raylan shook his head.
    The one in the crocheted skullcap glanced back this way as he said, “Come here look at this.”
    The moment the one with the cornrows turned and moved away Raylan raised the trunk lid. He brought out his Remington 12-gauge, then had to wait for a car to pass before stepping away from the trunk. Raylan put the shotgun on the two guys looking at Dale Junior handcuffed to the steering wheel and did something every lawman knew guaranteed attention and respect. He racked the pump on the shotgun, back and forward, and that hard metallic sound, better than blowing a whistle, brought the two guys around to see they were out of business.
    â€œLet go of the pistol,” Raylan said. “Being dumb don’t mean you want to get shot.”
    He used two pairs of cuffs from the trunk to link the car-jackers together—had them do it left wrist to left wrist and right wrist to right wrist side by side—and had them slide into the front seat next to Dale Junior.
    Â 
    Would he have shot them? Dale Junior kept quiet wondering about it. One of the cops back in Ocala had told him he’d better behave while in this marshal’s care, but he hadn’t thought about it until now. He could feel the shoulder of the car-jacker sitting next to him, the one with cornrows, pressing against his arm. Now the marshal, back there in the dark with his shotgun, was saying, “Fellas, this is Dale Crowe Junior, another one believes it’s the system’s fault he’s ill-tempered and feels it’s okay to assault people.”
    Saying then, after a minute, “I know a fella sixty-seven years old, got rich off our economic system running a sports book, has more money’n he can ever spend. But this man, with all his advantages, doesn’t know what to do with himself. Mopes around, drinks too much, gets everybody upset and worried so they’ll feel sorry for him.”
    The car-jacker next to Dale Junior said, “You was to lemme go, I’ll see the man don’t bother you no more.”
    Dale Junior thought the marshal would tell him to keep his mouth shut, maybe poke him with the shotgun. But nothing happened like that and there was a silence, no sound from back there in the dark until the marshal said, “You miss the point. This friend of mine—his name’s Harry—he isn’t bothering me any, he’s his own problem. Same as you fellas. I don’t take what you did personally. You understand? Want to lean on you. Or wish you any more state time’n you deserve. What you’ll have to do now is ride the rap, as they say. It’s all anybody has to do.”

two
    H arry hired a Puerto Rican bounty hunter to go after the sixteen five this guy Warren “Chip” Ganz owed him. Warren Ganz III, living up in Manalapan, Palm Beach County.
    â€œThose homes up there on the ocean,” Harry said to the collector, “with the boat docks across the road, on the Intracoastal? They have to go for a few mil, so you know he’s got it. The guy phoned in his bets, NFL the entire season, some college basketball, NC double-A and NBA play-offs . . . You know I’m out of business. So my sheet writers are closing the books, checking the slow pays, Ifind out this Warren Ganz was using three different names. He’d call up to place a bet and say, ‘This is Warren.’ Once in a while he’d say, ‘This is Cal.’ Most of the time, though, he used Chip. Call up and say, ‘This is Chip.’ One of my rules, forty years in the business—going back to the syndicate days—twenty years running my own book, you have to always know who you’re doing