gone.
He lay there with Cuba on him thinking, You didn’t shoot her.
Why didn’t you? She’s standing right there.
L ike that, she was in trouble.
She should have given him another shot before putting on her makeup. Cuba said the first two times were funny, kissing the Willie Lomans while they were still alive, not knowing shit what was happening. But lovin up a man drugged out of his head was creepy. Like kissing the dead.
It was in her mind to run, get out of here. Someone would have heard the shots and called the police.
Or, stay and make up a story.
Officer, I’m a transplant nurse at UK Medical. We save lives, we don’t shoot people.
Get rid of Cuba’s clothes all over the place and the surgical kit.
Officer, I came home after putting in fourteen hours… stopped to have a bite to eat… I knew someone was in the apartment
… and found these two shot to death. I did check their vital signs, not having any idea what they were doing here. I think the naked one’s in law enforcement. He could have followed the other one, the African American, here. Tell them that. But why my apartment?
Don’t think about it now. She had Raylan’s Glock and had fired how many rounds, seven? If someone did hear the shots, one more wouldn’t matter, would it?
Do it and get out. Think later.
I t was work to free himself of Cuba, the man not helping any. Raylan lifted his body enough to push it aside and pull himself out of the tub. He checked the Sig, racked the slide to make sure it was loaded and stepped to the doorway.
Layla was on the other side of the bed with his Glock. She looked up and had the gun pointed at him in the same motion. Raylan didn’t move, standing there naked in his cowboy boots holding the Sig at his leg.
She seemed at ease in her kimono asking him, “How are you feeling?”
“Groggy,” Raylan said. “Like I’ve had too many.”
She said, “What’s that, Cuba’s gun? I hate to tell you, before you try to use it-”
“I checked,” Raylan said, “it’s loaded.” He said, “I don’t want to shoot you. Okay?”
She said, “I thought you wanted to arrest me,” sounding surprised.
“It’s up to you,” Raylan said.
“Well, I don’t see us shooting it out,” Layla said, raising both arms over her head, the kimono coming open enough to show her bare-naked under it.
She said, “Would you like to pat me down?”
This was a first for Raylan: a girl with a gun in her hand exposing herself to him.
Get him horny and shoot him? igntify'›It’s what she tried.
Swung the Glock down to aim eye-level at him and Raylan raised the Sig past his hip and shot her dead center, inches below the heart, the round punching her off her feet to go down grabbing at the bedspread. Raylan circled in his cowboy boots, picking up his suitcoat, put it on and took it off to stand in front of her naked. He stood looking down at her surprised expression, her eyes not yet losing focus, turning to glass. Layla said, “I can’t believe you shot me.”
Raylan said, “I can’t either.”
Chapter Fourteen
You don’t think of your manners and let the woman go first,” Art Mullen said, “not when she’s pointing a gun at you.”
They were having breakfast at A Touch of Country in downtown Cumberland. Raylan back from Lexington poking at his bowl of grits, burying the pieces of bacon.
“You keep looking at it,” Art said, “asking yourself were you too quick. The woman jabbed a hypo in you and took your gun. Finally you come to a showdown. She’s aiming at you and you’re still drugged out. You wonder if you might’ve been too quick on the trigger?”
“She was surprised I shot her,” Raylan said.
“Why? She thought you were a gentleman? Tell me what else you could’ve done.”
“I was surprised too,” Raylan said, “I did it.”
“Cause you never shot a woman before?”
“I guess.”
“Why you think you had a choice?” Art said, trying to get Raylan settled in his mind about shooting the transplant nurse, Layla.
“She was standing by her things on the bed. I could see her okay but I was wobbly. She’d made up her face, put lipstick on, did her eyes…”
Art said, “I don’t see that makes any difference.”
“She’s gonna take out my kidneys and-I don’t know-wanted to look her best? I woke up naked, in the bathtub.”
“You crawled out,” Art said, prompting him.
“I hignti Aad to move Cuba Franks off me. I still don’t know why she shot Cuba.”
“She’s trying to hit you, ” Art said. “Police have the rounds she fired from your piece.”
“See, but once we’re in the bedroom, I don’t remember if she shot at me.”
“You had Cuba’s piece now, the Sig.”
“I did. I got him off me and went in the bedroom. I see her holding my Glock. She’s in her kimona.”
“You remember that,” Art said.
“I may never forget it,” Raylan said, “the kimona hangin open.”
“You told the police she had your piece in both hands, holding it up above her head, and asked, you said, in a flirty way, ‘Would you like to pat me down?’ ”
“She did,” Raylan said, “and I’m thinkin she’s having fun with me.”
“Till she put the gun on you, your gun,” Art said, “and you shot her right here”-Art touchin the center of his chest-“in the solar plexus.”
Raylan shook his head. “I didn’t think I was aimin.”
“You reacted,” Art said, “like they taught you at Glynco. Shoot first, some dink’s ready to put you down.”
“I’m still not sure what I think of Layla,” Raylan said, “except I wouldn’t call her a dink.”
Art said, “She look like fun to you?”
“If I didn’t already know her game. Yeah, I could have hung out with her.”
“You ever did,” Art said, “I believe I told you, you’d be lying somewhere without your kidneys.”
“Even knowing who she was,” Raylan said, “I came close to losing ’em. I go to arrest her and end up in a bathtub out cold. I was lucky to wake up, you know it?”
“But you aren’t surprised,” Art said. “You’re the law, you expect what you say goes. You’re like an old-time marshal, tells some guy he doesn’t like to get out of Dodge by sundown.”
Raylan was grinning. “You’re talking about that mob guy, the Zip.”
“You think that situation was funny?”
“See, I was to tell him, get out of Miami Beach by sundown? It isn’t like saying get out of Dodge. I gave the Zip twenty-four hours,” Raylan said, “to pack up and hit the road. The next day he’s at the Cardozo havin crab cakes, only a few minutes left of his time, so I know he’s armed. It’s what the man does for a living, brought here from Sicily to shoot some guy and stayed. Bought himself a double-breasted p instriped suit like Joe Columbo’s… Did you know that?”
“He went for the gun,” Art said, “you took it on yourself to shoot him, and got sent to your old Kentucky home most likely for life.”
“Yeah, but I went up two grades,” Raylan said, “after being stuck for seven years. I think somebody upstairs liked me closin the Zip’s file.”
