a bowl of anchovy olives.
T hey were both on the sofa now with the drinks, a cushion between them, the pitcher on the cocktail table, Liz still talking about Harry.
“He’d have a few and he and Cuba would do their Boss and Darky show. Harry scolds him for what he’s wearing, and Cuba says, ‘But, Boss, is your missus dresses me,’ and everyone in the Keeneland bar howls.”
“Why don’t you get the horse people,” Raylan said, “to call you Liz?”
She said, “It wouldn’t work. It would sound like Liz Taylor in Tin Roof. She had that Hollywood southern accent, like everybody’s from Virginia.”
“You like acting a little nuts,” Raylan said. “So does Cuba, the kind of action he gets into.”
“He was funny,” Liz said. “We had all day to talk, if we wanted, Harry at the stables. We didn’t meet to have sex, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He was, but shook his head.
“Cuba was funny.”
“I believe it,” Raylan said.
“I’ll be honest with you,” Liz said. “It did happen now and then, but not on a regular basis. It would just, you know, happen, begin fooling around, you’d be crazy to stop.”
Raylan said, “I’ve known that experience.”
“You understand,” Liz said, “Cuba’s a street guy, but very natural about it. I never had to ask what he was talking about. He told me what it was like in prison. He told me the difference between black chicks and white girls in bed”-Liz grinning till she said-“he told me about meeting someone, a girl.”
“A white girl,” Raylan said.
“He wouldn’t say but I knew she was. He’d say, ‘What difference is it I see this person once in a while. I’m not gonna marry her.’ He always called her ‘this person.’ We’d meet and I’d have martinis or daiquiris, or pack the shaker with ice and pour in bourbon, sprinkle some sugar… And he walked out on me. I couldn’t believe it.”
“I can’t either,” Raylan said. “This was about the time he left?”
“Disappeared.”
“I told you he’s selling kidneys?”
“I don’t believe that.”
“He sells them for ten thousand each.”
“Really?”
“He’s done it three times, with help.”
“You mean the girl?”
“I think she’s here at UK Medical.”
“A doctor?”
“A transplant nurse.”
Liz edged over the table to refill their glasses and drop in olives, saying, “This is getting good. You’re looking for the nurse, thinking he might’ve mentioned her to me, but he didn’t.” Liz handed Raylan his drink and sat back with her own, nodding. “I’ll bet she’s fat.” She sipped her drink and said, “Why are so many women who work in hospitals overweight?”
“I’ve noticed,” Raylan said. “Why are they?”
“He could have met her,” Liz said. “Cuba drove Harry to Chandler at least t ker alwice to have his kidneys checked. They still work, despite all he drinks. He’d bitch, order the nurses around. One of them wouldn’t give him his favorite dope and he tried to get her fired. I can’t remember her name.”
Raylan said, “I hope she’s still there.”
“It was Layla. Like the Eric Clapton number.”
Chapter Eleven
Raylan came off the elevator and crossed the hall to a waiting area, vinyl furniture and magazines, Nichols in there reading People. He closed the magazine and picked up a file folder next to him on the couch.
“You have lunch?”
“Ham and lima beans,” Raylan said, settling into the couch.
“The days we’re lookin at,” Nichols said, “two of the nurses from this floor were away on leave, deaths in their family. Gladys, thirty-five years a transplant nurse, now a coordinator, came back and put her dad’s death notice in the nurses’ room. The other one’s Layla.” Nichols brought a black-and-white head shot from the folder and handed it to Raylan.
“Thin face,” Raylan said, meaning she didn’t appear to be fat.
“Five-six, a hundred and twenty pounds,” Nichols said. “She’s thirty-seven.”
“She’s got great eyes,” Raylan said, “they hold on to you. Who died in her family?”
“Nobody. Layla took a two-week leave to nurse her old mom back from death’s door, coughing her lungs out, but didn’t die, she’s recovering, quit smoking.”
“Where’s the mom live?”
“New Orleans.”
“You check it out?”
“Soon as I finish reading about Harrison and Calista gettin married after eight years keeping house. Then catch up on why Jake Pavelka says Vienna cheated on him, whoever they are.”
“Layla,” Raylan said, “you notice her eyes. She makes you keep lookin at them.” Raylan squinted at the woman in the photo not quite smiling at him. He said, “I’d like to know what she’s thinking.”
Nichols turned his head to look at the photo. “She’s starin at the photographer thinking, You take one more I’m gonna get up and kick you in the nuts.”
“I don’t see her impatient,” Raylan said.
“No, she’s thinking it in a nice way.” Nichols looked at his watch. “She ought to be out of surgery by now. She’s helping Dr. Howard Goldman transplant a kidney. Like Layla doesn’t know how.”
Raylan said, “She’s our girl, huh?”
“I don’t see anyone else,” Nichols said.
They both got up from the couch: Raylan to stand in the opening to the hall, looking at the far end where they’d come out of surgery, Nichols to go check on Layla’s mom.
R aylan watched them come out, both in white lab coats, Layla holding the door for Dr. Goldman, the young doctor doing most of the talking, Layla using her hands to gesture, shaking her head, talking her way out of what he wanted to do. Like get laid. Raylan had stopped him earlier in the day to ask about nurses. Stopped him and committed his name to memory. Howard Goldman, that was it. The doctor had no time for him, waved his hand in front of his face and kept going. Now, down the hall, he was opening his hands to Layla, the hands he had used to restore someone’s life and it had given him a hard-on.
They were coming this way again.
Raylan walked up to Dr. Goldman-didn’t look at Layla-and said, “Excuse me, Doctor, but my sister’s suppose to be here, seein about having a kidney transplant?”
Layla said, “What’s her name?”
“Raejeanne Givens,” Raylan said, his younger sister’s name. “I don’t know why I don’t see any family. I came straight from the airport.”
Layla said, “Let’s check on Raejeanne,” laying her hand on Raylan’s arm and giving the doctor what Raylan saw as a kiss-off look with a shrug. Dr. Goldman walked past him without a word and on down the hall.
“I’ve been here an hour,” Raylan said, “trying to get information. You just come out of surgery, huh?” He held out his hand. “I’m Raylan Givens, deputy United States marshal. I’m sorry if I intruded on you and the doctor. I’m concerned about my sister.”
She said, “Hi, I’m Layla. The doctor just finished a kidney transplant and you say Raejeanne needs one? That’s funny, cause we don’t have a Raejeanne scheduled for anything, not even an exam.” Layla raising her eyebrows with kind of a smile.
