Elmore Leonard - Raylan

Nichols was telling Raylan back in the Lexington marshals office again, Jackie Nevada was no longer a bank suspect.

Raylan said, “She never was.”

“But could’ve been. Start with her droppin twenty grand in a poker game.”

“That’s her motive? You lose money, you rob a bank?”

“The Indy cops said she was acting desperate.”

“Wait,” Raylan said. “ Who was acting desperate?”

“Why’re we arguing?” Nichols said. “We’re holding a twenty-five-year-old white girl walked out of a bank on West Main-it was this morning-with a little over two grand and a dye pack among the take. It goes off as she pushes open the door and colors her red for guilty.”

Raylan said, “She’s one of the girls in the surveillance tape?”

“The one Indy police swore was Jackie Nevada. She sent word from the cage she’s ready to talk to us. Like she’s changed her mind, gonna put the stuff on this guy has her robbin banks.”

“You know who the guy is?”

“We’re gonna find out, aren’t we?”

“What’s her name?”

“Jane Jones on her driver’s license.”

“You look her up?”

“Couple of falls for prostitution,” Nichols said. “Jane Jones both times. Her occupation’s listed as exotic dancer.”

“A stripper,” Raylan said, “when she’s not robbin banks.”

“Good-lookin young girl,” Nichols said, iv hht. banks. blond. I wouldn’t mind seein her act.”

J ane was brought in and seated facing Nichols at his desk, Raylan in the chair next to her. He said, “Jane…?” She turned to him with not much of an expression, tired out. “You look good for gettin hit with a dye pack. Your face is just a little pink. No color on your jeans or your T-shirt.”

She said, “You should see my raincoat. You may as well throw it in the trash. I wanted to brush out my hair, but you don’t have a brush you loan out.”

Raylan asked where she was from and she said Kentucky.

“But not from around here,” Raylan said. “I think I hear Letcher or maybe Perry County in your voice. Am I right?”

“Born and lived in Hazard till I worked up my nerve to leave.”

Raylan, grinning at her, said, “Get out. You know where I’m from? Harlan County. Worked my way out and I’m back there again with the marshals.”

Now Jane was sort of smiling. “It’s hard to escape. You have to make up your mind, you gonna go? Then get the hell goin.”

“Your daddy,” Raylan said, “dug coal, didn’t he?”

“Till a mine blew up on him.”

“The one in ’96”-Raylan shaking his head-“when you were a little girl. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

“It’s all right,” Jane said. “I came away from Hazard to better myself, I end up dancin naked and robbin banks.”

Raylan smiled.

Jane said, “It isn’t funny.” But now she was grinning.

“The way you tell it it is,” Raylan said, “like ten years from now you’ll have people laughin out loud.”

She said, “That’s how long I’ll be in prison?”

“This fella made you rob the bank,” Raylan said, “didn’t he get you high and you’d think it was fun? I believe you have a case against this man. What’s his name?”

“The reason I didn’t tell it before,” Jane said, “I’m scared to death of him.”

“He’d beat you up?”

“He’d slap me I argue or don’t answer right away. Then says in his soft tone a voice, ‘Baby, you know I don’t like to hit you.’ Always this, ‘Please, baby, don’t make me do it.’ He told us we had to get five thousand each or don’t come home. So we go in a bank it’s what we ask for. Three times with the girls and once alone, when the fucking dye pack went off.”

“How much you get to keep of the take?”

“Couple hundred.”

“Did you know the other girls before?”

“Stripped with ’em for a while. Couple of Barbie dolls on drugs. Kim and Cassie.”

“He fixed you up?”

“He’d give us a hit, tell us, ‘You get done, ladies, come straight home, hear?’ This young guy would drive us to the bank and pick us up, but I bet anything Delroy was watchin.”

“Delroy,” Raylan said, “got you the jobs?”

“I said his name, didn’t I? It just come out.” Jane was squinting at Raylan now. “You know about Delroy Lewis?”

R aylan remembered having to wait for Delroy to let go of the shotgun and put up his hands. “I arrested him one time. We didn’t say much to each other.”

“In Florida,” Nichols said. “Tall skinny guy? Convicted of assault meaning to do great bodily harm. He took a man’s arm off firing a shotgun at him as the guy’s pullin his gun.”

“Tryin to get it out of his pants,” Raylan said. “The guy wanted a million bucks for the loss of his arm. The only snitch I ever heard of packin a gun. Delroy drew seven to ten for tryin to kill him.”

“What’d he make off you girls,” Nichols said to Jane, “around forty, fifty thousand? We get him this time for bank robbery from a distance.”

“I talked to him,” Jane said, “on the phone.”

Raylan said, “You called him from here?” Wanting St. Christopher to stop her from telling Delroy she was being held.

“I told him I’d been picked up,” Jane said, “covered with red dye. You know what he said? No mellow tone a voice this time. He said, ‘Who is this, please?’ Trying to sound innocent. First time he ever said ‘pleas saaid. e’ in his life. He knows cops are gonna be playin my call later. I’m like, ‘Come on, don’t fuck around, I’m in jail.’ Delroy says in a white tone a voice, ‘Who is this, please?’ I screamed at him, ‘It’s Janie. I got picked up.’ His white voice comes on the phone again, ‘I don’t happen to know anybody name of Jane,’ and shuts off his cell. I robbed banks for the son of a bitch. Now he don’t even know me.”

Raylan saw he’d better move this along.

Nichols’s phone rang.

He picked up and listened and said, “Tell Miss Conlan we’ll see her in just a couple minutes,” and hung up.

Jane said, “Delroy made porno movies too, in the back of his van. Kim and Cassie were in them. I wouldn’t do any.”

Nichols said, “I’ll take Miss Jones and get things started while you interview Miss Conlan.”

Raylan said, “And Boyd?”

“And Boyd.”

“I appreciate it.”

“I told the chief why you think Boyd shot Otis.”

I know he did.”

“The chief said he wishes you’d go back to Harlan County.”

“What was his tone a voice? You don’t know when he’s kidding with you? He let you set it up, didn’t he?”

“You’re gonna owe me for this.”

“I get Boyd to shoot off his mouth,” Raylan said, “I’ll buy you a three-dollar martini.”

“Delroy’d get us in a nod,” Jane said. “I’ll have a case, won’t I? Forced to rob banks? You have to arrest him for sure now, right?” She said, “Oh my God, I just thought of somethin. The girls don’t know I’m in jail. You think I could call them? If I’m in jail they’ll know I gave him up. Somebody oughta tell them.”

Delroy Lewis was a member of a biker club one time called Spades, all black guys, least fifty of ’em in black leather, the ace of spades painted on their yellow helmets. Once a month the Spades took a ride to said Spa some sleepy town in the country and fucked with people on the street. Delroy rode with the gang four times, got filthy dirty riding in the ass-end of the pack and quit the Spades.

He wore sport shirts with high collars to shorten his neck, the man long all over his six-foot-six-inch frame, 178 pounds wet, a skinny body on toothpick legs. He wore a white scarf loose around his neck and sunglasses in his hair.