“I’m gonna have to get busy,” Raylan said.
“How long you been married?”
“I’m divorced,” Raylan said. “You ever look for the Nazi lovers beat you up?”
“Two of ’em are gone, overdosed. The third guy,” Nichols said, “by the time I found him was a crackhead, his tats hard to read. I stood him against a brick wall, put on leather gloves while I’m lookin him in the eye. I hit him one-two, both sides of his jaw. He went down and I stood lookin at him.”
Raylan said, “He remember you?”
“I doubt it.”
“Something you had to do before you got too old,” Raylan said. “It’s a shame he wasn’t a wanted felon.”
“So I could shoot him he resisted.”
“I meant you’d have a reason to hunt him down.”
Nichols said, “You’ve shot and killed a man?”
“Yes, I have,” Raylan said.
“An armed fugitive?”
“More than one,” Raylan said.
“It doesn’t matter how many, does it?”
“Not a bit,” Raylan said. “Once or twice I might’ve been lucky.”
“You get to where you have to pull-”
“Knowing you better shoot to kill,” Raylan said.
Nichols gave Raylan a nod.
They knew each other.
They were in Nichols’s Crown Vic leaving a two-story frame house on Chestnut-the address on one of Cuba’s drivers licenses-that turned out to be a boardinghouse. Cuba Franks? Been more than a year anyone had seen him around.
The last address for him was out on Athens-Walnut Hill Road. Nichols knew it as Burgoyne Farms.
“Hasn’t changed his address,” Nichols said, “since he left. I have a brother, all he does is build fences for horse farms. Thirty-five thousand thoroughbreds born in the U.S. every year. Twenty make it to the Derby. One race you can’t buy.”
Raylan said, “You didn’t talk to Burgoyne, did you?”
“Couple of young marshals did,” Nichols said. “Mr. Burgoyne told them Cuba Franks walked out on him. He said, ‘It’s what they do, get tired of workin and walk out.’ He means African Americans,” Nichols said. “I’m finally getting use to saying it.”
“Burgoyne’s wife,” Raylan said, “thought Cuba got tired of putting on an African accent?”
Nichols said, “She thought it was funny. You get the k. Ys' feeling she knew Cuba better’n her old man did.”
“Cuba’s our lead,” Raylan said. “We get hold of him, he’ll give up the woman doctor.”
They were moving east on New Circle, coming up on Richmond Road, where they’d turn south. Nichols glanced at Raylan.
“You saw the list of doctors? Thirteen workin on transplants?”
Raylan shook his head. “I haven’t seen it yet. There only thirteen?”
Nichols turned on to Richmond and looked at Raylan again.
“They’re all guys. No women doctors doing transplants.”
Raylan did not want to give up the idea and said, “You sure?”
“I have the list in my case,” Nichols said. “All professors of surgery or associates.”
Raylan said, “She’s not an MD-”
“Least not at Chandler. It’s part of UK Medical.”
“But she knows how to do it,” Raylan said.
“She knows how to take kidneys out,” Nichols said. “She know how to put ’em in?”
Raylan had to think about it, looking at horse country cut with fences, thoroughbreds grazing, looking up to see their Crown Vic drive past, on Old Richmond now, on their way to Burgoyne Farms.
“She doesn’t have to put ’em in,” Raylan said, “does she?”
“That’s right,” Nichols said, “not if she’s takin out kidneys to sell ’em. But I don’t see an MD doin that.”
“I don’t either,” Raylan said. “But I’d like to find her working on transplants.”
Nichols said, “She watches doctors exchange organs three times a week, about a hundred and fifty a year. She mops the doctor’s brow under those lights and he likes her touch. They close up and he bangs her in the linen closet standing up.”
Raylan said, “Yeah…?”
“Life in the OR,” Nichols said. “He’s playin doctor with his good-lookin nurse.”
“You’re telling me,” Raylan said, “that’s the reason the good-lookin nurse is taking out kidneys in motel rooms?”
“I’m settin a scene,” Nichols said. “Does getting banged in the closet have anything to do with her stealin kidneys? She knows how to take ’em out and finds out how to sell ’em. Money is what moves her. She sees how being Mrs. Obama once a week could make her rich. Still, I like the idea of human sexual feelings involved. Doing it standin up is all right with me.”
They were on Athens-Walnut Hill now, closing in on Burgoyne Farms. They’d called ahead and made arrangements to stop by for a visit that had to do with a former employee, if they didn’t mind the intrusion?
Raylan said, “You take Harry and I’ll talk to Elizabeth. She gives her age as fifty-five, Harry’s wife sixteen years, a second marriage for each.”
“You take Harry,” Nichols said, “get him talking about African Americans and have some fun.”
“It’s my case,” Raylan said, “I’m going with Elizabeth.”
T he maid took Raylan from the front door and down a hall saying Ms. Burgoyne would see him in the sun parlor. They came to a room as high-end formal as the rest of the house and Raylan said, “Why’s it called a sun parlor? It doesn’t look like one.” He saw the maid in her yellow uniform look toward Elizabeth Burgoyne coming in from outside, her white cotton shirt hanging out of low-slung jeans.
“It’s been the sun parlor for eighty-five years,” Elizabeth said coming in, the way it was done in the movies. “Why call it somethin else?”
“It’s all right with me,” Raylan said and told her who he was.
She said, “You want to know about Cuba Franks. Why, what’s he done?”
“We think he’s stealing kidneys,” Raylan said. See what she’d do with that.
She said, “Really?” Paused a moment and asked, “What would you like, iced tea or a martini?”
“Whatever you’re having,” Raylan said and watched her hold up two fingers to the maid in her yellow maid’s outfit. He’d bet ten dollars they were having martinis.
She said, “I’d like your opinion about something, okay? All of my horse-country friends call me Beth. I think cause my mother does when she comes to visit. But my older friends-from a different life you might say-call me Liz. Which do you think I am, Beth or Liz?”
“You’re testing my power of observation,” Raylan said.
“Come on, which am I?”
“Liz,” Raylan said.
“Why?”
“Because you had more fun with your old buddies than the horsey set.” Fifty-five-she looked no more than forty. A lot of dark hair she stood twisting around her fingers. “You miss them,” Raylan said. “I wouldn’t mind hearing where you came from and how you met Harry-I bet it’s a good story. But I need to learn about Cuba. I think you got to know him better’n your husband did.”
“Harry,” Liz said, “has no idea how to get next to people. His personality holds them off, his expression seems nailed on. Though he’s not as stuffy when he’s drinking, not nearly as boring. I think he’d love to be a stallion and get it on with the mares all day.”
“What do you do,” Raylan said, “go to teas?”
She said, “Yeah, I love tea,” and turned to the maid coming into the sun parlor with a pitcher of martinis and
