Elmore Leonard - Raylan

“She looked at me,” Jackie said, “I think she saw herself, well, at a much earlier age. The guys were okay. They smoked and talked about buying horses and running them at Keeneland.”

“Hell, that’s Lexington,” Harry said. “I won the Maker’s Mark with a horse name of Black Boy and my colored chauffeur quit on me. Got in some funny business with a nurse stealing kidneys and was shot dead. I bet I know the fellas you played with. What were their names?”

“The only one I remember was Lou. He said, ‘I’m Lou, sweetheart.’ But they didn’t talk much while we were playing.”

Harry said, “The driver I had that got shot was called Cuba but said he was from Africa. I thought he was a hardworkin boy till he quit on me and I hired Avery.”

Jackie saw Avery watching them in his mirror and met his serious eyes for a moment. She said, “I played like a girl who’d memorized what hole cards you’d look at and fold. I’m playing no-limit with five gentlemen smoking cigars, staring at me, and threw away twenty grand, every dollar I had except three hundred in my sneakers.”

“You let ’em psyche you out.”

“It pissed me off and I knew better. Don’t ever play when you’re mad or upset.”

“That’s right, walk away.”

“I wanted to say, ‘Oh, is it my turn?’ Something girlish to throw them off. But I never felt I had it together.”

“They scared you.”

“One hand I had an ace-five and bailed out.”

“That’s what you do playing hold ’em,” Harry said. “You get out, you don’t let that lone ace vamp you.”

“Yeah, but the ace turned into a pair with the river card and a king-jack took the pot.”

“That’ll happen,” Harry said.

“But if I stayed I’d of won twelve grand. I’d get the feeling I can take these no-limit guys, get down and play to win. It was one of the very few times I didn’t go with my ace.”

“How many times you win with an ace in the hole?”

“How often are you dealt one?”

“You’re telling me you’re lucky,” Harry said. “But you don’t win at poker bankin on luck.”

“I win because I know the game,” Jackie said. “If I don’t have a feeling about my hole cards I throw them in.”

“You left Elaine’s with three hundred?”

“In my sneakers. I forgot to tell you, the police came by.”

“Elaine was raided?”

“She said it happens every once in a while. Part of doing business.”

“They throw you in jail?”

“I was booked, but walked out when nobody was looking. I still have enough to start at a five-ten table. Work my way up to ten-twenty.”

Harry said, “Honey, you’re a fugitive. They’re gonna be after you.”

“I’ll wear dark glasses,” Jackie said.

They were both quiet now riding in the Rolls.

Maybe for ten seconds before Harry said, “If I didn’t know your plight…” paused, and Jackie said:

“One night I was waiting for a bus with a half dozen ad layouts, mounted, trying to hold them together, and I dropped them in the street. A man stopped by as I was gathering them up. He said, ‘I couldn’t help but observe your plight.’ ”

Harry said, “Is that right?”

“That was only the second time I’ve heard anyone use the word.”

Now he was frowning.

“You said, ‘If I didn’t know your plight… What? You don’t think the dark glasses would work?”

She could tell she had him interested.

Harry said, “I was thinking, What if I staked you?” Jackie took a moment. “For how much?”

“Whatever you’d need to make a run. Ten grand?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Honey, I raise thoroughbreds, run ’em at tracks all over the country. I don’t have to kid about money. I pay a million bucks for a filly and love her like she’s my own.”

“Till she runs,” Jackie said.

“Well, if she doesn’t win enough times.”

“You fall for another filly.”

She could see him grinning now.

“That’s right, but the amount of affection I show the girl can make her a winner.”

“How would that work with me,” Jackie said, “your being affectionate?”

“Honey, I’m seventy-five years old. We’ll have drinks and I’ll make you laugh and give you a kiss on the cheek. You keep everything you win. I’ll be a happy dog havin you pet me once in a while.”

“What if I’m in a game but low on chips?”

“I see you can win, I’ll help you out.”

“And if I lose my stake…?”

“It comes to that,” Harry said, “I’ll drop you off anywhere you want.”

Jackie leaned over to kiss his old man’s cheek and tell him, “Harry, you just made me the happiest girl in the world.”

I t took her four hours and ten minutes to win eighteen thousand at two different no-limit tables that afternoon in Shelbyville; Jackie playing against people who hired truck drivers, people who bet on grain futures produced by farmers they didn’t know or care to. Jackie was having a bottle of beer now, Harry Burgoyne a double scotch.

She said, “All they did was try to bluff.”

“And you could tell.”

“They weren’t good at it.”

“Fellas I play with at Keeneland, I think they’re always tryin to bluff me. I know it, so I stay in too long, call their raise, but every time I do, one of ’em beats me.”

“I’d have to watch your game,” Jackie said, “see what you could do.”

“That’s what I been thinking,” Harry said. “Or get these boys to play hold ’em with you. They’re breeders, have almost the money I do. I tell them you’re my niece visitin from college. Loves poker and thinks she’s pretty darn good. I say, ‘You fellas want to play Jackie if I stake her?’ You bet they do. They win they see it as takin my money.”

Harry, sipping his drink, said, “Keeneland, I use to do a skit for the bar crowd with a driver I had, the African colored guy. I’d chide him for the way he’s dressed in my racing colors. He’d say, ‘But, Boss, is your wife dresses me.’ Watchin you play I was thinkin how I could use you in a humorous exchange, a skit we’d make up.”

Jackie said, “You’re kidding, right?”

A former convict named Delroy Lewis ran the show: hired Floy, an eighteen-year-old street kid who stole cars he sold to chop-shops-good-looking expensive ones, Mercedes and BMW Floy’s favorites-picked up mostly from big shopping mall lots using tools took him twenty seconds to jimmy the door, a half minute to start her up. Sometimes he’d settle for a Chrysler or Buick, the big Honda lately, a roomy car that gave the girls space to relax and smoke a doobie on their way to work.

Floy parked on the street and went in the apartment house had a fire escape going this way and the other down the front of the building and pushed a number.

Cassie came on saying, “What kind a car?”

“Gray Beamer. Had it washed for y’all.”

Cassie said, “Be down in five minutes.”

Delroy had told Floy, “They not down in a half hour, leave. I’ll give them a talkin to.”

They finally got done dressing and came out to the car looking like fashion-conscious bag ladies in their outfits they got from Goodwill, hip-huggers under their raincoats, sporty little beach hats, brims turned down, Janie wearing a Detroit Tigers baseball cap; the three carrying shiny bags from ladies’ stores.

They got in the car, Kim saying to Cassie, “You know you’re wearing your fuck-me heels?”

Cassie said, “They sound cool on marble floors.”

Kim said, “What if we have to run for the car?”

“I could have on sneakers,” Cassie said, “we’re still fucked. You think Floy’s gonna wait for us?”