Jackie Brown (19 page)

The slender young woman, dark and quite pretty, said, "Yes'm." She couldn't be more than twenty. Jackie said, "Put your bag on the floor, okay? Under the table. We might as well make it look good." She watched the young woman, who hadn't looked right at her since sitting down, bend sideways to glance under the table.

"Right next to mine. Then when I leave," Jackie said, "well, you know. What's your name?"

She did look up saying, "Sheronda?" and down again at her tray.

"Go ahead and start. I think I spoke to you on the phone one time," Jackie said, "when I was in jail and called Ordell. Wasn't that you?"

She said, "I think it was."

"I told you my name? Jackie?"

Sheronda said, "Yes'm," and sat waiting. "Really, start eating. I won't bother you anymore."

Jackie watched her begin, Sheronda hunching close to the tray. "I just want to ask you one question. Are you and Ordell married?"

"He say we like the same thing as married," Sheronda said, without raising her head.

"Did you drive here?"

"Yes'm, he got a car for me to use."

"You do live together," Jackie said.

Sheronda hesitated and Jackie didn't think she was going to answer. When she did, she said, "Most of the times," still not raising her head.

Jackie said, "Not every day?"

"Sometime every day, for a while."

"Then you don't see him for a few days."

"Yes'm."

"You know what's in the bag you're taking?"

"He say is a surprise."

Jackie stubbed out her cigarette. She said, "Well, it was nice talking to you," picked up Sheronda's bag, and left.

Max could see them from the Cappuccino Bar. He watched Jackie coming away from the table and told the girl behind the counter not to take his coffee, he'd be right back. Jackie didn't see him, heading out with a certain amount of purpose. Max's idea was to tag along, not catch up with her until they were well away from here. That plan changed as he saw the guy step out of Barnie's Coffee & Tea Company and Jackie stopped. Max did too. He watched the young guy in a sport coat and jeans, cowboy boots, take the Saks bag from her and reach into it, looking at her as he did. The guy would be Ray Nicolet, Max decided, making sure she wasn't walking off with the ten thousand. Max, the former cop, thinking for Nicolet: You can't trust anyone, can you? Especially a confidential informant. They talked for a minute. Not, it would seem, about anything too serious. Jackie nodded, listened to Nicolet, nodded again, turned and walked off. A few strides and she was around the corner, gone, and Nicolet was looking toward the seating area talking to himself now, or into a radio mike he had on him. Max returned to the Cappuccino Bar to finish his coffee.

He had recognized the young black woman with Jackie, the same one who lived in the house on 31st Street and he had spoken to Friday morning looking for Ordell. Still trying to find him, five days now with the fake Rolex that wasn't bad-looking, kept the right time, but still wasn't worth a thousand bucks. He'd had it appraised at a jewelry store and Winston was right, the watch sold for about two fifty.

The young woman was still working her way through that pile of Mexican food, not looking up. Now she did. Turning her head to a woman at the next table. An older black woman.

Max watched.

The older woman said something. Now the younger woman picked up the ashtray Jackie had used and handed it to the older woman. They exchanged a few words. Then didn't say anything for a minute or so, the older woman smoking a cigarette

now. Jackie had talked to the younger woman the whole time they were together, not at all sly about it, right out in front. The older woman had a cup of coffee in front of her, nothing to eat. Now she said something again to the younger woman, only this time without looking at her. The younger woman paused, then began eating again in a hurry.

Max's cappuccino was cold.

As he finished it the younger woman was getting up from the table. He watched her stoop to get the Saks shopping bag, straighten her slim body, look around, and come out of the seating area. He watched her walk past the Cafe Manet, past Barnie's Coffee & Tea, and turn the corner before the cowboy stepped out. He watched Nicolet allow the young woman to get some distance on him before he spoke to his radio mike and followed after her, around the corner. Max turned to see the older woman putting out her cigarette.

She sat there another couple of minutes before picking up-how about that-a Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag and walking away from the table, toward the cafe counters on the other side of the seating area.

This one was not in the scenario Jackie had described. It didn't matter. Even if she was carrying some other store's shopping bag Max would have still followed her: down the escalator and along the lower level of the mall to Burdine's, through the store, outside and down an aisle in the parking area to a Mercury sedan, a big tan one, an older model. He knew who the younger woman was and where she lived. But nothing about this one, getting in the car with her shopping bag and driving off.

Max wrote the license number in his notebook and went back inside to find a pay phone. His old pal from the Sheriff's office, Harry Boland, head of the TAC unit, would be home now having a bourbon. They'd talk-Max would ask him to have someone call him at the office, later, with the name and address.

Ordell said, "It was like that monster in the movie Alien, the one ate people? He's looking at Sigourney Weaver in her underwear and it don't mean shit to him. You want to yell at him, 'That's Sigourney Weaver in her underwear, man. What's wrong with you?' "

Louis said, "Gerald reminded you of that?"

"The way he didn't take Melanie out and jump on her. They go in the kitchen, he fixes her a cup of coffee."

"It worked out," Louis said, committed now, no getting off.

"Yeah, old Melanie."

"Would you have shot him?"

"If I had to."

"If you had to-the guy's beating the shit out of you. . . . You mean if you got mad?"

Talking the way they used to a long time ago. Ordell grinning at him. In the Mercedes on the way to Simone's house, early Tuesday evening. Louis knowing why Ordell had him staying there now. Not to be entertained. The main reason, to keep an eye on the cash Simone was bringing home. Ordell getting him more and more involved in his business.

Monday night, late, Ordell had taken him to the self-service storage place off Australian Avenue in a warehouse district, rows of garage doors, one after another: Ordell careful, making sure they weren't followed and there was no one around who might see them. He removed the padlock, raised the door of the space he'd rented, and there they were in his flashlight beam: all kinds of assault weapons converted to full automatic, boxes of silencers that reminded Louis of parts in a factory bin, the M-60 machine gun and LAW rocket launchers they'd taken from Gerald's place that day. Ordell said tomorrow night or the next, all this shit would be packed, loaded in the van, and driven down to Islamorada in the Keys, put on Mr. Walker's boat and taken over to the Bahamas. Mr. Walker would make the delivery to the middleman who bought the stuff for the Colombian druggies and get paid. A good two hundred thousand worth of weapons here, less expenses, would bring his total up close to a million in the bank over there. Telling all this to Louis in the dark, confiding.

Even giving him the key to the padlock, so he could bring over a few guns, TEC-9s, still at Simone's house.

Louis hearing the familiar voice of his old buddy, certain now it wasn't Ordell trying to use him, it was Melanie.

Ordell saying, "You appreciate this kind of situation, Louis. It can make you rich, yeah, but you see some fun in the idea too, huh? You see funny kind of things that happen nobody else sees. You know what I'm saying? You the only white guy I ever met understands what the fuck I'm ever talking about. Melanie don't. Melanie can say funny things without knowing it. But when she thinks she's funny, she ain't. Like we in the car coming home from Gerald's? You hear her? She says, 'You two guys are still a couple of fuckups.' See, she thinks she can say that after shooting the man. Like she's kidding and I'm not gonna say nothing."

"You didn't," Louis said.

"No, but I remember it. See, she disses you and thinks it's funny. I don't like to be dissed in a kidding way less it's somebody I respect."

Louis said, "You trust her?"

"I never have," Ordell said, "from the minute I first met her laying in the sun. I keep an eye on her, she can still surprise me, like having that gun. Little Walther .32-you believe how loud it was? She must've stole it off me and I didn't even know she had it. Where else she gonna get a pistol like that cost eight hundred? She ain't gonna buy it."

Louis said, "I'd keep both eyes on her."

Ordell's gaze moved from the road, Windsor Avenue, to Louis. "She trying to work you against me? . . . You don't have to say, I know the woman.

She gonna look at every angle, make sure she lands       ing house, Ordell saying, "You take those TEC-9s

on her feet. She shot Big Guy five times, didn't she?"      over to storage?"

"Four," Louis said.        "I'll do it tonight."

"Okay, four. The piece holds seven loads. How Ordell saying, "You never told me, you bone that come if she wants me out of this, she didn't do it   old woman or not?" when she had the chance? You know why? 'Cause she

ain't sure you can take it all the way. You could've shot me and Big Guy at the same time, but you didn't do it. Melanie's thinking hey, shit, 'cause he don't have the nerve? She's the kind, wants to know who's gonna win 'fore she puts her money down."

"Why do you keep her around?"

Ordell grinned at him. "She's my fine big girl, man. Now I got you watching my back. . . ."

"You take too many chances," Louis said. "You expose yourself. Too many people know what you're doing."

"High profit," Ordell said, "high risk. I need the people till this's done. I know who I can trust and who I can't. The only one worries me right now is Cujo, I mentioned to you. They got him up at Gun Club. I called, they don't have a bond set on him yet. I'd like to get him out of there and send him on his way, only I'm afraid the bond's gonna be too high to get him one without the cash, and I don't have it right now. I don't think they'll get him to talk about me right away. He'll act tough for a while, and all I need is a couple more days. Get my ass out of here."

They turned off Windsor onto 30th Street and pulled up in front of Simone's stucco Spanish-looking house, Ordell saying, "You take those TEC-9's over to storage?"

"I'll do it tonight."

Ordell saying, "You never told me, you bone that old woman or not?"

18

Nicolet stopped in during prime time Tuesday evening, showed his ID, shook hands with Max, shook hands with Winston, and said, "Winston Willie Powell-I was a kid my dad used to take me to the fights at the Convention Center in Miami? I saw you beat up on Tommy Laglesia and a guy named Jesus Diaz, Hey-soos. I remember thinking, A name like that, he'll never make it. You won thirty-nine professional fights, lost only a couple on decisions?"

"Something like that," Winston said.

"It's a pleasure to shake your hand," Nicolet said and sat down next to Max's desk, his back to Winston. "It's a pleasure meeting you too," he said to Max. "All the stories I've heard about you, I mean when you were with PBSO, closing homicides in two, three days."

"You better," Max said, "or you're in trouble."

"I know what you mean," Nicolet said. "The longer a case sits there, nothing happening . . ." The phone rang and he paused until Winston picked it up. "I have kind of a problem I think you could help me with, Max. Having been in law enforcement, you know the airtight case we have to have to get a conviction."

"All I know about Ordell Robbie," Max said, "is where he lives, and I'm not absolutely sure of that." Nicolet grinned. "How'd you know it was about him?"

"I've been waiting for you to stop by."

"It's about him indirectly," Nicolet said. "You know the guy that shot the FDLE agent, Tyler? We're convinced he works for Ordell."

"Hulon Miller, Jr.," Max said. "I've written him several times going back to when he was sixteen years old."

Nicolet said, "Is that right?" squinting at Max to show how interested he was, laying it on.

This had to be a big favor the guy wanted. "Seventeen arrests, I think nine or ten convictions," Nicolet said, "this is a tough kid, knows the system intimately. We got him with a stolen gun, a stolen car. . . . We saw him at Ordell's house. In fact it was right after we saw you stop by there." "Last Friday," Max said. "You also have him for attempted murder, assaulting a federal officer, concealed weapon, discharging a firearm . . ." The phone rang. Max looked over as Winston picked it up again. "What else?"

"He knows he's in deep shit," Nicolet said, "but now he's a star 'cause he shot a cop. I mean out at the jail. Limps around there-I put a nine through him that almost took his dick off, I wish it had. It was those fucking smoke-glass windows in the car, I had to fire at him blind."

"So he won't talk to you," Max said.

"He gives me dirty looks."

"You have enough to threaten him with."

"He knows all that. I try a different approach, I tell him, 'Cujo, my man, I could've killed you; you owe me one. Let's talk about Ordell Robbie.' He goes, 'Who?' 'Tell me what you know about him.' 'Who?' I go, 'Man, you sound like a fucking owl.' So he's in there, no bond . . . I get an idea, go see him. 'How about if I get you bonded out, man? Would you like that?' Now I've gotten his attention. I tell him, 'You only have to do one thing for me. No snitching, only this one thing. Introduce me to Ordell. Tell him I came to you before, weeks ago, looking for guns. That's all you have to do, I take it from there.' "

Max waited. He said, "Yeah?"

"That's it. I get next to Ordell, smile a lot, kiss his ass, and he shows me his machine guns."

"You just said there's no bond."

"That's right, but I can get the federal magistrate to set one."