When the Women Come Out to Dance: Stories

by Elmore Leonard

  This was the other night. She got up from the floor knowing he would never hit her again.

  The next day, Saturday, he walked in smelling of beer and gunfire, like nothing had happened the night before. She had his supper on the table, ham and yams, cream-style corn and leftover okra fixed with tomatoes, because she wanted him sitting down. Once he’d poured his Jim Beam and Diet Coke and took his place at the table, Ava went in the kitchen closet and came out with Bowman’s Winchester. He looked up and said with his mouth full of sweet potato what sounded like “The hell you doing with that?”

  Ava said, “I’m gonna shoot you, you dummy,” and she did, blew him out of the chair.

  When the prosecutor asked if she had loaded the rifle before firing it, she paused no more than a second before telling him Bowman always kept it loaded.

  Raylan was told Bowman himself couldn’t find his house when he was drunk. Go on up along the Clover Fork, or take the Gas Road out to the diversion tunnels and turn right down to a road bears east where a sign says JESUS SAVES, and it ain’t far; start looking for a red Dodge pickup in the yard.

  It was one-story with aluminum awnings set high among pines. Raylan got out of the Lincoln Town Car—one Art had taken off some convicted felon and given to Raylan to use—and crossed the yard past the Dodge pickup to the front door.

  It opened and he was looking at a woman in a soiled T-shirt worn over an old housedress that hung on her, her dark hair a mess. Ava was forty now, but he knew those eyes staring at him and she knew him, saying, “Oh my God—Raylan,” in kind of a prayerful tone.

  He stepped into a room with bare walls, worn carpeting, a sofa. “You remember me, huh?”

  Ava pushed the door closed. She said, “I never forgot you,” and went into his arms as he offered them, a girl he used to like now a woman who’d shot and killed her husband and wanted to be held. He could tell, he could feel her hands holding on to him. She raised her face to say, “I can’t believe you’re here.” He kissed her on the cheek. She kept staring at him with those eyes and he kissed her on the mouth. Now they kept looking at each other until Raylan took off his hat and sailed it over to the sofa. He saw her eyes close, her hands slipping around his neck, and this time it became a serious kiss, their mouths finding the right fit and holding till finally they had to breathe. Now he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know why he kissed her other than he wanted to. He could remember wanting to even when she was a teen.

  “I had a crush on you,” Ava said, “from the time I was twelve years old. I knew you liked me, but you didn’t want to show it.”

  “You were too young.”

  “I was sixteen when you left. I heard you got married. Are you still?”

  Raylan shook his head. “Turned out to be a mistake.”

  “You want to talk about mistakes . . . I told Bowman I wanted a divorce? He goes, ‘You file, you’ll never be seen again.’ Said I’d disappear from the face of the earth.”

  “I hear he used to beat you up.”

  “That last time—I’ve still got a knot where I fell and hit my head on the stove. You want to feel it?” She was touching her scalp, fingers probing into her wild-looking hair, and her expression changed. She said, “Oh my God, don’t look at me,” pulling the T-shirt over her head, the hem of the housedress rising to show her legs hurrying away from him. “Close your eyes, I don’t want you to see me like this.” But then she stopped before going in the bedroom and looked back at him.

  “Raylan, the minute you walked in I knew everything would be all right.”

  The bedroom door closed and he wanted to go knock on it before she started assuming too much. Show her he was a federal marshal and tell her why he was here. But then had to ask himself, Why are you? Art had said she didn’t want protection. He’d offer it anyway. No, he was here to get a lead on Boyd. Kissing her had confused his purpose there for a minute.

  Raylan walked over to the table where they said Bowman was sitting. He looked in the kitchen at a pile of dishes in the sink—Ava letting her housework go, letting herself go, not knowing what was to become of her. But she had all of a sudden pulled herself together, ashamed of the way she looked, and it sounded like she was expecting him to see her through this. And if she was, what was he supposed to do? For one thing they’d better quit kissing.

  It wasn’t a minute later the front door banged open and a guy wearing alligator teeth walked in the house.

  Gator teeth, spiked hair dyed blond and a tattoo on his chest, part of it showing the way his shirt hung open. He stood there looking Raylan over before saying, “Who in the hell are you, the undertaker?”

  Raylan got his hat from the sofa and set it on his head the way he wore it. He said, “I might be undertaking a situation here. Lemme see what you have on your chest,” wanting this skinhead with hair to open his shirt.

  He did, held it apart to show Raylan his HEIL HITLER tattoo, no weapon stuck in his belt. Raylan decided not to mess with Adolf Hitler, saying now, “You buy that necklace or poach the gator and yank her teeth out?”

  It got the skin to squint at him but still wanting to tell, because he said, “I shot her and ate her tail.”

  Now Raylan squinted to show he was thinking. “That would put you in Florida, around Lake Okeechobee.”

  It got the skin to tell him, “Belle Glade.”

  “Is that right?” Raylan reached into his inside pocket for his ID case. “I sent a boy to Starke was from Belle Glade, fella name Dale Crowe Junior.” He flipped open the case to show his star. “I’m Raylan Givens, deputy United States marshal.” He flipped the case closed. “You mind telling me who you are?”

  The skin was staring now like he did mind and had to decide whether or not to tell. Raylan said, “You know your name, don’t you?”

  “It’s Dewey Crowe,” the skin said, putting some defiance into the sound of it. “Dale Junior’s my kin.”

  Raylan said, “Man, that’s some family you belong to. I know of four Crowes either shot dead or sent to prison. Tell me what you’re doing here.”

  Dewey said, “I come to take Ava someplace,” and started toward the bedroom.

  Raylan held up his hand and it stopped him.

  “Lemme tell you something, Mr. Crowe. You don’t walk in a person’s house ‘less you’re invited. What you better do, go on outside and knock on the door. If Ava wants to see you I’ll let you in. She doesn’t, you can be on your way.”

  Raylan watched him, curious as to how this boy wearing alligator teeth would take it—big, ugly teeth but no apparent weapon on him.

  What he said was, “All right.” Keeping it simple to show he was cool. He said, “I’m gonna go out.” Paused to set up the rest of it and said, “Then I’m coming back in.” He turned and went out the door, leaving it open.

  Raylan came over to stand in the doorway. He watched young Mr. Crowe hurrying toward his car standing in the road, an old rusting-out Cadillac, and watched him raise the trunk lid.

  Raylan took off his suitcoat and hooked it on the doorknob. He wore a blue shirt with a mostly dark-blue striped tie. He reset his hat on his head. Now his hand went to the grip of the revolver on his right hip, the .45-caliber Smith & Wesson, but did not clear it from the worn leather holster.

  He watched Dewey Crowe bring a pump shotgun out of the trunk and start back this way, all business now, his mind made up, his dumb pride taking him to a place it would be hard to back out of.

  Though he hadn’t racked the pump to put a shell in the breech.

  Still hadn’t as he slowed up seeing Raylan in his shirtsleeves, Dewey Crowe taking careful steps now, holding the shotgun out in front of him.

  Raylan said, “Mr. Crowe? Listen, you better hold on there while I tell you something.”

  It stopped him about fifty feet away, his shoulders hunched.

  “I want you to understand,” Raylan said, “I don’t pull my sidearm ‘less I’m gonna shoot to kill. That’s its purpose, huh, to kill. So it’s
how I use it.”

  Speaking hard words in a quiet tone of voice.

  “I want you to think about what I’m saying before you act and it’s too late.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Dewey said. “I got a fuckin’ scatter gun pointed right at you.”

  “But can you rack in a load,” Raylan said, “before I put a hole through you?”

  Raylan stepped out to the yard. He said, “Come on,” pushing the barrel of the shotgun aside to take Dewey by the arm and walk him out to the car, a piece of junk but still a Cadillac.

  “Where’d you want to take Ava?”

  Dewey said, “Man, I don’t understand you.”

  “Boyd want to see her?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “You know Boyd and I were buddies? We dug coal and drank beer together.” Raylan opened the car door. “You see him, tell him I’m in Harlan.”

  Dewey didn’t say anything getting in the car. He had to turn the key a few times before it caught. Raylan reached through the open window and put his hand on his shoulder. “I was you, boy, I’d drop this Nazi bullshit and get back to poaching gators, it’s safer.”

  Dewey looked up at him. As he said, “The next time I see you . . .” only got that far before Raylan took a handful of his spiked hair and brought his head down hard on the windowsill. Raylan hunched over now to look into the face tightened with pain.

  “Listen to me. Tell Boyd his old buddy wants to see him, Raylan Givens.”

  VI.

  He went back in the house to find Ava in the kitchen pouring Jim Beam, Ava in a tank top and shorts, her hair wrapped in a towel that was like a white turban around her head. She said, “Who was that?” not sounding too interested. He told her and she said, “Oh, the one with Heil Hitler on his chest, he was one of Bowman’s buddies.”

  “He came to take you someplace.”

  “Most likely to see Boyd. You want something with yours? I’ve got Diet Co’Cola, RC Cola, Dr Pepper . . .”

  “Just ice, if you have some.”

  “I ever forget to fill the trays Bowman’d start slapping me. ‘What’s wrong with you? Don’t you know how to keep house?’”

  The towel covering her hair made the rest of her seem more exposed, white and kind of puffy, more to her, like she had gained a good twenty pounds since taking off the housedress that hung on her. He saw now it was that wild hair that had made her face appear drawn. He noticed bruises on her pale skin, on her arms and legs, that made her appear soiled, and, oh man, her behind filled out those shorts—Raylan watching her carrying their drinks to the table where she had shot her husband.

  “I cleaned it up good. Had to scrub the wall there with Lysol to get, you know, the stains off it. I think Lysol’s the best cleaning product you can buy.”

  Raylan sat down at the table with her. “You haven’t seen Boyd, have you? I mean since?”

  “No, but he’ll be after me, I know. He’s been after me.”

  “That’s why we want to keep an eye on you,” Raylan said. “You know I’m with the Marshals Service.”

  “I believe was your mother told me, before she passed.” Ava lit a cigarette from a pack lying on the table and blew a stream of smoke by him. “I made the mistake of telling Bowman about his brother coming around and he whipped me with his belt. Didn’t want to believe it.” She drew on the cigarette again. Smoke came out as she said, “Here’s a man was so jealous he’d stop by Betty’s to check on me.”

  “Betty’s?”

  “Hair Salon, where I work, or did. I trained under Betty washing hair, giving perms. I do hair now for special occasions, weddings, graduations I do a bunch of the girls. Yeah, Bowman’d stop by and look in. . . . He’d get on me for the least thing. Like if he found a hair in his baked possum? Or I didn’t get out all the scent glands? He’d have a fit, throw his supper at me, the plate, the whole mess.”

  Raylan listened, sipping his drink, wanting to get back to Boyd.

  “I wish I could move, go someplace and open my own hair salon. Where do you live?”

  “West Palm Beach.”

  “Is it nice?”

  “Palm trees and traffic, if you’re going anywhere.”

  Ava drew on her cigarette and started to grin. She turned it off exhaling the smoke and said, “I think Bowman’s problem, besides being stupid, he wasn’t raised properly. He had the worst table manners. Like he’d be sitting here, he’d lean over to one side and get a look like he was concentrating on some deep thought? Furrow his brow and let a fart. It didn’t matter he was having his supper. But the worst, oh my Lord, were the beer farts, the next morning when he was hungover? I’d have to leave the house.”

  Raylan managed to smile, nodding his head.

  “That’s the way he always was, either drunk or hungover, or gone. Off playing soldier with his brother.”

  “You have any idea where he is?”

  Ava looked at him funny. “I imagine he’s in Hell. Where else would he be?”

  “I mean Boyd.”

  “Boyd’s on his way there. You gonna arrest him?”

  “We have to catch him in the act first. Robbing a bank, blowing up a church . . . making an attempt on your life . . .”

  “Mine?”

  “You said yourself he’ll be coming after you.”

  “’Cause he likes me. Boyd don’t want to shoot me, Raylan, he wants to”—she shrugged in a cute way—”go to bed with me.” Ava stubbed out her cigarette, her eyes warm as she looked at him and put her hand on his. “You want me to help you catch him?”

  Raylan sipped his drink. “How about if you get him to talk to me?”

  “I could do that.”

  Ava got up and Raylan’s gaze followed her into the kitchen. He said, “I hear he has a place up by Sukey Ridge.” Then had to wait for Ava to come back to the table with the Jim Beam and a bowl of ice.

  “It’s his church,” Ava said, freshening their drinks. “He’s only there when he gets his skinheads together. There’s a fun bunch. They sit around drinking beer and listening to black-hater bands, different ones like the Midtown Boot Boys, Dying Breed, all bopping their bald heads. They are so creepy.”

  “Boyd doesn’t stay there?”

  “Bowman said he has places around nobody knows about, not even all the skins.” Ava took a drink and said, “’Cept I know of one,” giving Raylan a sly look with those brown eyes he remembered. “Was Boyd, not Bowman, told me where he stays most of the time.”

  Raylan took a drink. “You want to tell me where it is?”

  Ava said, “What do I get if I do?”

  VII.

  It was Devil Ellis saw the car headlights out the window, moving up the grade, and told Boyd somebody was coming. Boyd folded the map full of arrows and circles they were looking at and shoved it into the table drawer.

  Devil, at the window now, peering out from under his black hat, said, “Who do you know drives a Town Car?”

  Walking to the door Boyd said, “Why don’t we find out,” each being cool in front of the other.

  Devil said, “Ain’t anyone I’ve seen before.”

  Boyd opened the door and watched the man in the cocked Stetson approach out of the dark. Boyd, grinning now because he was glad to see him, said, “It’s my old buddy, Raylan Givens.”

  Raylan had to smile seeing the way Boyd was waiting for him, holding out his arms now, Boyd saying, “God damn, look at you, a suit and necktie, all dressed up to look like a lawman.” He gave Raylan a hug, patting his back, Raylan letting him for old times’ sake. As they stepped apart Boyd looked over at Devil. “Here’s how you wear a hat, casual, not down on your goddamn ears.”

  Raylan looked him over, recalling a Devil Ellis on Art Mullen’s skinhead list. This one was giving Raylan a dead-eyed look, showing he wasn’t impressed, as Boyd was saying, “I hear you called on Ava. Boy name Dewey Crowe said he ran you off.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Not if you say it ain’t so. A
va’s the one told you I was here?”

  “I talked her into it. Told her I wouldn’t tell anybody.”

  “How do you know she didn’t send you to me?” Boyd winked. “So I could decide what to do with you.”

  “I’ll take care of him,” Devil said, wanting in on what was going on.

  Raylan didn’t bother with him. He said to Boyd, “I doubt she even knows this is the house was foreclosed on. Pretty slick, move back in figuring nobody would look for you here.” Raylan saying it as he began to look around at the front room of this farmhouse that was spare of furnishing—a table and a few straight chairs on the linoleum floor—but looked like a gallery with all the white supremacy symbols framed on the wall. There were emblems representing the KKK, Aryan Nations, the Hammerskins, SS thunderbolts, RAHOWA with a death’s head that stood for Racial Holy War, swastikas on an Iron Cross, over an eagle, Nazi Party flag with swastika . . . Raylan said, “You all sure like swastikas,” and looked over at Boyd. “What’s the spiderweb?”