So, how did the guy die? Did he fall down a set of stairs? Had a car wreck? A plane crash? Ate a poisoned apple? Or severe organ complications from the bullet? If it were complications from the bullet, then he died from being shot no matter how long ago, imo.
We aren’t told precisely but I’m sure Elmore Leonard was on the side of the guy who got shot. The cop makes an outraged comment to someone that the guy was a quadriplegic when he died (he got hit in the spine from the front), as if that makes it not the cop’s fault.
This character is hilarious. One of Leonard’s rib-busting unconscious comics. I am laughing all over again with these books. They’re even funnier the second time.