Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [59]
They met in a squad room, the detectives getting to know Raylan, asking about the transplant nurse who stole kidneys and tried to kill him. He told them about the mine-company woman who’d had a man shot in cold blood, Raylan saying he was still thinking about her. “I was to work here, her name would be up there on your board, Carol Conlan, not yet crossed out.” He told the detectives down a long table he wished he could stay here through the month, get to see Peyton Manning and the Colts at home. He might forget about this bookmaker he was looking for. “Reno Nevada?”
Buzz Hicks, the senior detective in the room, said, “Now we’re getting to it, aren’t we? You’re lookin for Reno’s little girl, aren’t you? Jackie Nevada.”
Raylan said, “Isn’t Reno her stepdad?”
“That’s right,” Hicks said. “The name on her birth certificate’s Rachel Nevada, but Reno started callin her Jackie when she was a kid.”
One of the detectives down the table said, “Her mom was called Jackie. She got knocked up by some loser passin through and took up with Reno. She has the child and acts like a mother till she got tired of home life and hit the road. Was Reno named her Rachel, after his own mother, but started callin her Jackie before too long. Had a soft spot for the broad walked out on him.”
Hicks said, “Lloyd, how’d you come up with all that?”
“Talkin to her,” Lloyd said, “while we had her in custody.”
“So now,” Hicks said, “she’s raised by Reno, this suspected colored guy passin as Latino and runnin a sports book.”
“They musta got along,” Raylan said.
“Well, they lived in the same house,” Hicks said, “till she went to Butler. Listen to this, and paid her way through college playin poker at night. The only girl livin in a house with seven guys, all students. You know what they called her? ‘Mother.’ She had a poker table, cards and racks of chips. You wanted to play you had to bring your own chair or borrow one. We went over there and talked to ’em. They said you oughta see her shuffle cards.”
“I understand,” Raylan said, “she won twenty grand betting Duke over her school.”
“That’s right, but Reno says he covered her for ten, in case Butler managed to pull off a win. We asked Jackie”—Hicks turning to look down the table—“Lloyd, what’d she tell us?”
“That game,” Lloyd said, “Reno put up nada. He was too busy losin on the spread. Jackie said the students laid down twenty and that’s what she picked up.”
“You look into it?” Raylan said.
Hicks said, “What are we, the gaming commission? It was Duke minus seven, the spread BetUs Sportsbook was offerin online and Reno took a bath.”
“How’d Jackie take gettin busted?”
“Didn’t make a fuss. I guess thinkin about the hole she was in, broke. This A student who plays poker you might say for a living. I asked the woman runs poker games we busted. Elaine? I said, ‘You musta known those guys’d eat her alive.’ Elaine said, ‘She lost her cool. But you could tell the girl’s a player.’ We set Jackie aside while we’re arm-wrestlin these high-priced lawyers and she walks out.”
“Didn’t show up in court,” Raylan said.
“Took off on us,” Hicks said. “Reno swears he hasn’t heard from her. What do you think this girl’s doin now?”
Raylan said, “Well, I hear she’s sticking up banks to get back on her feet. You got tape on her?”
“Jackie and two other girls,” Hicks said. “We have ’em in different banks in Lexington. Now take a look at what she’s doing.” Hicks glanced down the table. One of the detectives—it was Lloyd—slid the stack of surveillance prints to him and Hicks passed them on to Raylan, telling him, “We showed Reno. He said his little girl don’t rob banks. These are some girls lost their way. He said, ‘But they’re mellow, riding some kind of high.’ He said, ‘My little girl don’t do drugs either. She keeps her mind on poker.’ ”
Raylan went through the tapes, seeing the girls with shopping bags at separate tellers.
Hicks said, “Watch ’em come away, the two looking back at the one still at a window. They’re stoned. Had to get fixed to rob