in on the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police knowing he’d feel at home.
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, arenng us'’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 gn rp xml: langames 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 the bank.”
“I’ve heard of ones have to get ripped before they go in,” Raylan said. “These girls look like they just cashed their paychecks.”
“What do they get paid in,” Hicks said, “yen? Have to bring store bags to carry it?”
“I guess what I mean,” Raylan said, “we don’t see that many women stickin up banks. I think it’s maybe five or six out of a hundred. Here you’ve got three at once. Which one you think’s Jackie?”
“The one wearing the baseball cap,” Hicks said, “down on her eyes. Some of the other tapes you’ll come to, you see her lookin up.” He stood to watch Raylan go through the prints.
Lloyd said, “Buzz, you recall we had two girls doin banks at the same time?”
“Not around here,” Hicks said.
“Was down toward the state line,” Lloyd said, “seven, eight years ago. They’d hit a bank in some dinky town off sixty-four and cross over to Louisville. A guy with the girls was teachin ’em how to rob banks.”
Hicks said, “How you remember that?”
“It stuck in my mind,” Lloyd said. “I remember a confidential informant fingered them, but they were released for lack of evidence.”
Raylan said, “You remember what happened to the snitch?”
Lloyd was squinting, trying to recall before nodding his head. “A guy blew off his right arm with a shotgun.”
Raylan said, “Delroy Lewis?”
“ That’s the guy was questioned,” Lloyd said, “about the bank jobs.”
“You mind,” Hicks said, “if we settle on this job here?” and said to Raylan, “That one, where she’s lookin up. All of us but Lloyd said that’s Jackie Nevada or her twin.”
“It could be,” Raylan said. “I stopped by Butler and got a look at her picture. I can’t see the girl in the yearbook playing to a surveillance camera.”
“We like her motive,” Hicks said. “She needs dough.”
Raylan was shaking his head. “These two comin out, mugging right at the camera.”
“Doped up and thinks it’s a hoot. It’s your people in Lexington,” Hicks said, “sent us all the bank photos. They picked out Jackie and asked for our confirmation.”
“The three almost look alike,” Raylan said. “Young, the same size. Three girls having fun.”
Hicks said, “Robbin banks.”
“Your fugitive,” Raylan said, “I can see why you want her to be Jackie. I hope you’re right and I’m dead wrong. But I can’t see three girls wanting to rob banks. I can see some guy putting ’em up to it. Gives the girl’s some toot and drops ’em off. I don’t know for sure, but we’ll find out, won’t we?”
“We respect your opinion,” Buzz Hicks said, “but hope you’re wrong this time. We been followin you since you called out that Zip in Miami, Tommy Bucks? You gave him twenty-four hours to get out of town. He drew on you and you put him down.”
“And got demoted to Harlan County, Kentucky.”
“But then shot it out with that transplant nurse.”
“You’re havin fun with me, aren’t you?”
“Well,” Hicks said,? Hth me, are“ you’re doin a job the way we like to see it done.”
A ll the way to Reno’s betting office, Raylan thought of the Jackie he saw in the yearbook photo and had copied. She could be a Miss Nevada but would rather play poker.
Raylan came to the barbershop, a few blocks from Lucas Oil Stadium. Went in and walked past three empty chairs to a door that had to be Reno’s office. He knocked twice and said, “Raylan Givens. I called you about twenty minutes ago…?” The door buzzed open and he went in.
R aylan thought Reno looked Cuban, cell phones and a computer on his desk in lamplight, stacks of betting- sheet printouts and handwritten notes.
Lions and Niners 20 times reverse. Bears a nickel, New England ten.
Raylan said, “You have to speak the language to lay down a bet?”
