He was glad he’d brought the Sig Sauer, his own gun he was used to and knew the feel, and not the Browning. He slipped it out of the sack, racked the slide, cocked it and slipped it back in, careful not to tear the brown paper. Okay, he thought, are you gonna do it? Yes, he was ready now. Then get out of the fucking car and do it. Bobby got out of the car with a smile to greet the cowboy.
“Man, every time I turn around…”
The cowboy stood there.
“You not talking today?”
It didn’t look like it.
Bobby came away from the car. “You know this lady, uh? Gonna get your fortune told?” On the front walk now, he held up the paper sack in his right hand. “I got something I want to give her.”
“She isn’t home,” Raylan said.
Bobby nodded toward the red Toyota in the drive.
“Her car’s there.”
“She still isn’t home,” Raylan said.
“Maybe she’s asleep, or she’s taking a shower.”
“When I say she isn’t home,” Raylan said, “it means she isn’t home.”
With that cop way of talking.
He had his thumbs in his belt, the same way he had posed before. Bobby could see his shirt, his dark tie, but couldn’t see his gun back in there on his hip. The distance to the cowboy, Bobby believed, was about twenty meters. He wanted to get closer, but not too close.
“I think she’s home and you don’t want me to see her,” Bobby said, taking a step, then another; one more and now he was where he wanted to be. He held up the sack. “Man, I just want to give her this.”
“What is it?”
“A gift-what do you think?”
“If it’s money, she doesn’t want it.”
Bobby was holding the sack in his left hand now, underneath. All he had to do was unfold the top-take one second-and slip his hand in.
He said, “Money? What do I want to give her money for? I don’t owe her no money.”
He believed he was ready.
But now the cowboy was coming down the walk toward him, saying, “I’ll tell you what. You can give it to me and I’ll see she gets it.”
This was the moment, right now. But Bobby hesitated, because this wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen, the guy so close, standing only a few feet away now. He had shot guys as close as you can get, but not standing up facing like this. He had never seen it done in the movies this close. It wasn’t the way to do it. If the cowboy knew what was going to happen he would’ve stayed by the door, giving them some room-but he didn’t know. He’d know when he saw the gun come out of the sack and he’d try for his-that was the idea, how it was supposed to work-but he didn’t know that yet.
Saying now, close, “What’s in there?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“I’ll tell you what you do,” Raylan said. “Keep it. She doesn’t want any surprises and I don’t either. You aren’t to come around here anymore or phone Reverend Dawn or bother her in any way. Tell your friends Louis and Chip they’re to leave her alone.”
With the cop way of talking, but calling her Reverend. Was he serious?
Bobby looked at the eyes in the dark of the hat brim looking back at him and thought, Yes, he’s serious; and wondered if maybe this guy did know what he was doing and had done it before, even this close, even with his gun on his hip, or wherever he had it today.
“Was there something else?” Raylan said.
Bobby’s fingers were on the folded opening of the sack.
“You gonna show me what you have…” Raylan said.
Bobby hesitated.
“Or back off and get out of here?”
The guy knew.
Bobby was sure of it. He hesitated again, wanting so bad to do it, but the moment passed and he knew it and let his breath out, giving the cowboy a shrug. He said, “You don’t want her to have this gift, okay, forget it.”
At his car, opening the door, Bobby looked back wanting to say something, but knew it was too late. Raylan the Cowboy hadn’t moved. He stood there watching like all the fucking cops who’d ever told him to go on, get moving, had stood watching until he was gone.
Raylan closed the door and turned to Dawn, still at the window. He said, “Are you having a vision?” Her expression-she looked like she was off somewhere, maybe doing some astral traveling.
“When you die,” Dawn said, “you see your whole life all at once, like in a flash.”
“I’ve heard that,” Raylan said.
“Did you know he had a gun?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“In the paper bag.” She sounded amazed, awed. “He was gonna kill me.”
Or scare you, Raylan thought. But he liked this frame of mind she was in and said, “It seemed his intention. They haven’t paid you yet, have they?” When she hesitated, he said, “Just say yes or no without giving me a reading, okay?”
“They haven’t paid me anything.” She seemed to be still in her mind, or someone else’s, until she looked at Raylan and said, “He could’ve shot you dead.”
“He’d have had to pull his weapon to do it,” Raylan said.
“He had it in his hands.”
“Yeah, but you need your mind set on it, too, pull on a man you know is armed. I doubt Bobby’s ever done that. What I’d like to know,” Raylan said, “is why they had Harry come here. They could’ve picked him up off the street. What’d they want you to do, get him relaxed and talking? Harry’s a talker, he’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“All they told me to do,” Dawn said, taking her time, “was find out a few personal things about him.”
“Like how much money he has? See if he’s worth taking?”
“I wasn’t in any position to ask why they wanted to know. I had no choice.”
“Harry tell you where his money is?”
“A bank in the Bahamas.”
“What else?”
“That’s all really.”
“Where did they take him?”
“I don’t know. They left, I was in the bedroom.”
“But you know where he is,” Raylan said. “If you know anything reading minds you know that.”
“They said if I told anyone about this I’d be sorry. I was put in the bedroom with the door closed and when I came out they were gone.” Sounding now like she was reciting.
“You’re waiting to see how it turns out,” Raylan said, “before you say too much. But what about Harry? Chip told you nothing would happen to him. Isn’t that right? They’d work some kind of scheme to get Harry’s money and then let him go.”
She looked out the window again, not saying anything.
“You believe Chip so you won’t have Harry on your conscience,” Raylan said. “Or you believe him because he can turn on the charm when he wants to. Remember telling him that?”
It got her looking at him again.
“You told Chip he could talk people into doing things they’d rather not. You said, at least some people.”
She was staring at him now, her eyes holding tight to his. Raylan imagined her trying to look into his mind, see what else was in there.
“So you had a drink with Chip, got to know each other; you thought he had a lot of money. It looked like a pretty nice connection, so you helped him duck a murder conviction.”
Dawn said, “Oh, I did? If you know anything about it at all you’d know I helped the detectives, not Chip.”
“I know about the bookends, the brass bulls,” Raylan said. “I know you saw only one on the shelf in the woman’s apartment, where there should’ve been two. You decided, nothing to lose, the missing one must be the murder weapon.”
She said, “How did I know there were two?”
“You saw them, when you were up there before.”
“But the only time I was in Mary Ann’s apartment,” Dawn said, “was with the detectives.”
“Whether that’s true or not, you know bookends come in pairs,” Raylan said. “You say about people who’re alike, they’re a couple of bookends. You guessed, not taking much of a chance, and you were right. Chip saw why you were doing it and told you, to get your picture in the paper, become a famous psychic.”