Free Raylan: A Novel by Elmore Leonard Page B

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 twice 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
    R aylan 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