“How old is she?”
“You’re testing me,” Dawn said. “I already told you, she’s too old to have babies, something you want, what you miss, having those two boys you hardly ever see.” She paused, looking at her hand, and said, “You’re not hung up on material things, financial security.”
“What about you?”
“I get by. I always have.”
“You’d like to move,” Raylan said.
“That’s true, I would.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“How much did Chip pay you?”
She kept staring at their hands.
“For setting Harry up.” Raylan could feel her fingers moving. “For getting him to come here.” He reached over to touch her face, raising it, and she was looking at him again.
“He hasn’t paid me anything.”
“He still owes you?”
“You’re trying to find out things without threatening me,” Dawn said, sounding a little surprised.
“You know where you stand. You’re right in the middle, poised between good and evil,” Raylan said, hearing himself starting to sound like her and knowing he would never have said it to anyone else. “One misstep either way could get you in a lot of trouble.”
She said, “Now you’re threatening me.”
“Uh-unh, I’m pointing out what you already know. What I have in mind-you could tell me what you know, using your gift for seeing things, that you haven’t actually seen or been told.”
“You’re saying, so I won’t be a snitch,” Dawn said. “I understand. Like, do I know if Harry’s dead or alive.”
Raylan waited.
“He’s alive.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m positive.”
“Is he okay?”
She nodded. “That’s all I’ll say about him. What else? Chip. You want to know where you might run into him when he isn’t home or down in the Keys.”
“You’re a mind reader,” Raylan said. “Turn your psychic powers on that one, if you would.”
“It sounds like you’re putting me on,” Dawn said, “except I know you’re not.”
Raylan watched her look away to stare off and then close her eyes.
“He’s in a park, walking across the grass to where the Huggers are having one of their gatherings. It’s tomorrow, Saturday. It’s always Saturday or Sunday; he goes just about every week. A sign on a tree says WELCOME HOME. They’re giving each other peace signs, hugging, saying they love each other. Chip’s hugging, even though he hates to. He holds his breath when he hugs, so he won’t smell the person. He goes over to where the heads are hanging out at the dope tree. Chip’s looking to score either pot or acid he’ll use on some poor, unsuspecting teenage girl.”
Dawn paused again. This time she opened her eyes and looked down and he felt her fingers moving on his.
She said, “The first time I touched your hand, this one, I knew it had held a gun and you’d killed a man with it. I can feel your hand holding it again.”
“Am I aiming at somebody?”
“You have your back to me. There’s another person there…”
“You see who it is?”
“It’s not real clear. First I see your back, then another person’s back. It could be two different times I’m seeing at once ‘cause they’re the same kind of situation.”
“When is this happening?”
“I don’t know. It’s not clear at all.”
Raylan waited. He watched her frown and then shake her head. He said, “You see Chip with the Huggers, trying to score either pot or acid to use on some poor teenage girl…”
Dawn looked off again, closing her eyes. “Some little girl who’s run away from home. They come to gatherings all the time, runaways. Chip will talk to her, kid around; he’ll get her to toke or trip and find out all about her-where’s she from, why she doesn’t get along with her folks… Then he’ll call them and say he’s found their little girl, and if they’ll pay him a certain amount for his trouble, he’ll tell where she is. It’s like one out of four will wire the money to him, under a different name he uses.”
“What is it?”
“Cal. I don’t know the last name. I’ve never seen him go to Western Union to pick up the money. He uses a fake I.D.”
“Why do the parents believe him?”
“He tells them things he could’ve only learned from their little girl.”
“How does he get Harry to pay?”
Dawn said, “You’re sneaky, aren’t you? I don’t know anything about that, or if there’s anything to know. Believe me, I don’t.”
Raylan watched her look down at their hands.
“Because you don’t want to know? You can shut it out?”
She seemed to be concentrating and didn’t answer.
Raylan said, “You want to hear what I think I know? You can nod your head if I’m right.”
Dawn said, “I see the person in your relationship, she’s standing with her back to you, looking out at the ocean. I see you touch her. You want her to turn around.”
Raylan was staring at Dawn’s profile: head slightly lowered, her dark hair, soft-looking and with a nice scent, falling past her shoulder, bare in the sleeveless blouse.
Dawn saying, “You’re looking at me now wondering… You want to know something about what I’m wearing, or not wearing, but you don’t think it would be right to ask.”
He watched her head begin to raise.
Dawn saying, “Someone else I’m thinking of…” and paused and said, “Someone I’m thinking of because he’s coming… No, because he’s already here.”
Dawn turned to him, so close she was all eyes and it startled Raylan-he didn’t hear anything, not a sound. She was out of the sofa now, going to the door by the time he’d turned half-around to look toward the window and through the palmetto leaves, see what was out there:
In the street, a car parked nose to nose with his, a black Cadillac sedan.
Bobby knew the dark green Jaguar. Seeing it as he approached the fortune-teller’s house he had to make up his mind in a few seconds: keep going and come back later or stop.
He stopped. Because he knew from the way the feeling came over him all of a sudden and keyed him up, this was the time. Better than if he’d planned it. His chance to meet the cowboy face-to-face and see what it was like.
When he was getting ready to leave the house he had told Chip, who didn’t want him to come here, “You like me to scare her? Okay, that’s what I’m gonna do.” Chip asked if he was going to hurt her and he said, “Why would I do that?” Chip asked why was he bringing a gun. In a brown paper sack some food they bought for Harry had come in, a small sack. Bobby demonstrated. “I hold it up, she thinks the money you owe is in here. I say to her, ‘You want it?’ She says yes. I bring out the gun instead of money and she sees, man, she can get paid one way or the other, so she better not talk to nobody. Is like a surprise, so it scares her more than if I hit her a few times and she thinks about it later, when she’s alone, and gets mad. You got to watch out for women that get mad at you.” Louis said yes, that was right, and wanted Chip to tell about the woman who had cut off her husband’s dick while he was sleeping; but Bobby wasn’t going to stand there listening to stories. He folded over the top of the sack telling them, “This is the way to do it, surprise her.”
The sack with the gun was next to him on the seat.
Bobby watched the door of the fortune-teller’s house open. Now the United States cowboy marshal, Raylan, appeared. There he was, like it was planned: wearing his suit, his hat, the boots Louis liked-they were okay-and with his coat open. He’s not leaving, Bobby thought, and waited a few moments.
He’s not coming to you, either. He’s going to stand outside the door like a fucking bodyguard. Meaning the fortune-teller had talked to him, so now he was protecting her. If it was true it gave Bobby another reason to get out of the car and do it. Or he could shoot him from here, not even get out. But it wouldn’t be face-to-face the way the cowboys did it and he wanted to see what it was like.