Raylan_ A Novel - Elmore Leonard [64]
“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?”
Raylan 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 ‘please’ 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.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
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 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.
This was a time before Delroy went down for shootin the snitch, the idea of Chicks Who Rob Banks came to him.
He owned a cocktail lounge on New Center Road called the Cooz Club that featured chicks writhing bare-naked on a pole