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week.”
    “I can hardly wait.”
    He said, “I like the way you wear your scarves. You’ve got style, kiddo.”
    “For an old broad? You should see me in a blond wig.”
    “A woman can get away with a good one. But you see a rug on a guy, every hair in place? You can always tell.”
    “That’s why you don’t comb your hair?” Again with the straight face. He shook his head.
    “I made a decision,” Vincent said. “No chemo, no surgery. Why bother? I’m eighty years old. You hang around too long, you end up with Alzheimer’s, like Howard. You know Howard? He puts on a suit and tie every day and calls on the ladies. Has no idea where he is.”
    “Howard’s been here. But now I think he and Pauline are going steady. Pauline’s the one with all the Barbie dolls.” Natalie paused and said, “I’ll be eighty-two next month.”
    “You sure don’t look it.”
    “Not a day over, what, seventy-five?”
    “I’ll tell you something,” Vincent said. “You’re the best-looking woman here, and that’s counting the maids and the ones that pass for nurses. Some are okay, butthey all have big butts. You notice that? Hospitals, the same thing. I’ve made a study: The majority of women who work in health care are seriously overweight.”
    The Westerns
    The Bounty Hunters (1953, the first Elmore Leonard novel)
    The old Apache renegade Soldado Viejo is hiding out in Mexico, and the Arizona Department Adjutant has selected two men to hunt him down. One — Dave Flynn — knows war, the land, and the nature of his prey. The other is a kid lieutenant named Bowers. But there’s a different kind of war happening in Soyopa. And if Flynn and his young associate choose the wrong allies — and the wrong enemy — they won’t be getting out alive.
    The Independent (London): “One of the most successful Western writers of his day . . . Leonard’s career as a novelist began with The Bounty Hunters .”
    From the novel:
    Rellis’s lip curled, grinning. “Mostly when I see a piss-ant I just step on him.”
    “Rellis — “ It came unexpectedly, with the sound of the screen door closing.
    As Rellis turned his head sharply, the grin died on his face.
    Flynn stood in from the doorway. He came on a few strides and stopped, his eyes on Rellis, his right hand unbuttoning his coat.
    Rellis wasn’t loose now. “I . . . was just asking where you were, Flynn.”
    “I heard you asking.”
    “Listen, I didn’t have any part in killing your friend.”
    “Rellis,” Flynn said quietly, “you’re a liar.”
    “You got no cause to say that.”
    Flynn moved toward Rellis. “It’s said.” He paused, watching Rellis’ eyes. “I’m going outside. I’ll expect to see you within the next few minutes . . . with your gun in your hand.”
    The Law at Randado (1954)
    Phil Sundeen thinks Deputy Sheriff Kirby Frye is just a green local kid with a tin badge. And when the wealthy cattle baron’s men drag two prisonersfrom Frye’s jail and hang them from a high tree, there’s nothing the untried young lawman can do about it. But Kirby’s got more grit than Sundeen and his hired muscles bargained for. They can beat the boy and humiliate him, but they can’t make him forget the job he has sworn to do. The cattleman has money, fear, and guns on his side, but Kirby Frye’s the law in this godforsaken corner of the Arizona Territories. And he’ll drag Sundeen and his killers straight to hell himself to prove it.
    USA Today : “Leonard has penned some of the best Western fiction ever.”
    From the novel:
    Frye felt the anger hot on his face. “Doesn’t killing two men mean anything to you?”
    “You picked yourself a beauty,” Sundeen said to no one in particular. “Why does he pack that gun if he’s so against killin’?”
    Jordan said, “Maybe it makes him feel important.”
    “Now if it was me,” Sundeen said, “I wouldn’t pick a deputy that whined like a woman.”
    Jordan was looking at Frye. “Maybe that’s