Jackie Brown (4 page)

From the doorway he caught Beaumont's eye, Beaumont the one with slicked-down almost regular hair among the beards and dreadlocks, and waved at him in the haze of smoke to step outside.

Ordell said, "Dot ganja, mon, mek everyone smile to show their teet, uh?" bringing Beaumont out through wild fern and a tangle of shrubs to the big

Olds parked in the street. "You the most relaxed people I ever met."

Except now Beaumont was rubbing a hand over his jaw, looking at the car he knew wasn't Ordell's.

"There's a man," Ordell said, "I never dealt with before, wants to buy some goods. I want to test him out. You understand?" Ordell unlocked the trunk. Raising the lid he said, "When I open this to show my wares, you gonna be inside pointing a gun at him."

Beaumont frowned. "You want me to shoot him?"

Beaumont was no jackboy. He was Ordell's front man on some deals, figuring prices in his head, and his backup man other times. Mr. Walker set up deliveries, received the payments, and arranged for getting the funds from Grand Bahama to West Palm Beach. Right now Beaumont was peering into the trunk, dark in there.

"I have to be inside how long?"

"We just going over to the beach, mon."

Beaumont kept looking in the trunk, his hands flat in the tight pockets of his pants, no shirt, skinny shoulders hunched up some.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't like to be in there."

"I put up ten thousand," Ordell said, "to get your skinny ass out of jail. Now you gonna take a stand on me? Man, I don't believe this shit." Sounding surprised, hurt. "Nothing's going to happen, it's just in case."

Beaumont took his time to think about it, Ordell

listening to the reggae beat coming from the house, moving just a little bit with it, till Beaumont said, "Okay, but I have to dress."

"You look crisp, mon, you fine. We be right back."

"What do I use?"

"Look in there. See the trash bag?"

He watched Beaumont hunch in to bring it out unwrapping the brown plastic from a 12-gauge, no stock, the barrel sawed off at the pump.

"No, don't rack it, man, not yet. Not till we there and I open the trunk. Right then you can rack it, dig? Get the man's attention."

Ordell drove back Blue Heron Boulevard to the bridge that humped over Lake Worth and followed the curve north past Ocean Mall, past hotels and high-priced condos with gates, until his headlights showed a solid wall of trees behind a wire fence on his side of the road, MacArthur State Park, and what looked more like jungle on the other side. Ordell picked a sandy place to pull off on the left, all mangrove along here and scraggly palm trees growing wild. No headlights showed in either direction. He got out and unlocked the trunk. A light went on inside as the lid came up, and there was Beaumont hunched on his side with the shotgun, ducking his head to see who was here.

Ordell said, "It's just me, babe." He said, "I was wondering did any federal people come visit you in jail and I should be watching my ass."

Beaumont bent his head some more to see out, frowning.

"You wouldn't tell me if they did, and I wouldn't blame you," Ordell said, unbuttoning his double-breasted sport jacket, the yellow one. He had a Targa on him that fired .22 longs, okay for this kind of close work. Or he could use the one Cujo left him-and decided, yeah, he would.

So now Beaumont was looking at the five-shot .38 snubby Ordell slipped from his waist. Beaumont quick racked the pump shotgun, pulled the trigger, and there was that click you get from an empty weapon. Beaumont had a pitiful look on his face racking the pump again, hard. Click. Racked it again, but didn't get to click it this time. Ordell shot him in his bare chest. Beaumont seemed to cave in like the air was let out of him and Ordell put one in his head. Loud. Man, but it was a nasty gun the way it jumped and felt like it stung your hand, Ordell wishing he had used the Targa now. He wiped the piece clean with his T-shirt pulled out of his pants, threw it in the trunk with Beaumont, and closed the lid.

The digital clock on the dash read 2:48 as he pulled into the parking lot behind the mall. He used napkins he found on the ground by a trash bin to wipe off the steering wheel, the door handle, trunk lid, any part of the car he might have touched. Walking home along the beach, dark out in the Atlantic Ocean, quiet, nobody around, he could hear the surf coming in and the wind blowing, that was all. It felt good on his face.

Ordell got home, all the lights were off in the apartment, Melanie asleep, girlish little snores coming from the bedroom. She was hard to wake up if you wanted anything. Simone snored louder, but would stop if you made any noise and say in her sleepy voice, "Come on in the bed, baby." Sheronda would hear him unlocking the door, turning off the alarm, and would come out of the bedroom with her big eyes asking what he wanted, wide awake.

Melanie had slowed down some in thirteen years. Had become a blowhead and wasn't as spunky as she used to be. That was too bad. But she wasn't as apt to surprise you either. As close as Ordell was to realizing his dream of becoming a wealthy retiree, he didn't need any surprises.

What he needed was somebody to take Beaumont's place. Not a jackboy. Somebody smarter, but not too smart. Like Louis. He was the one. You could talk to Louis. You could kid around with him and act foolish if you wanted to. Man, they had laughed picking out masks to wear when they kidnapped the woman. He seemed more serious now. Looked meaner than he used to. He could use some more meanness. Maybe prison had done him some good. Louis said he didn't want any part of whatever it was. But Louis, you pin him down, he didn't know what he wanted.

Maybe a way to get him, put Melanie on him.

Then put her on Big Guy at the right time. The Nazi.

4

They watched Jackie Burke come off the Bahamas shuttle in her tan Islands Air uniform, then watched her walk through Customs and Immigration without opening her bag, a brown nylon case she pulled along behind her on wheels, the kind flight attendants used.

It didn't surprise either of the casual young guys who had Ms. Burke under surveillance: Ray Nicolet and Faron Tyler, in sport coats and neckties with their jeans this Wednesday afternoon at Palm Beach International. Jackie Burke came through here five days a week flying West Palm to Nassau, West Palm to Freeport and back.

"She's cool," Nicolet said. "You notice?"

"She ain't bad either," Tyler said, "for a woman her age. She's forty?"

"Forty-four," Nicolet said. "She's been flying nineteen years. Some other airlines before this one."

"Where you want to take her, here or outside?"

"When she gets in her car. It's upstairs."

They watched her from a glass-partitioned office in this remote wing of the terminal, Ray Nicolet commenting on Jackie Burke's legs, her neat rear end in the tan skirt, Faron Tyler saying she surely didn't look forty-four, at least not from here. They watched her bring a pair of sunglasses out of her shoulder bag and lay them in her hair that was dark blond, loose, not too long. It did surprise them when Jackie Burke took the escalator up to the main concourse. They watched her go into the Ladies' rest room, come out after about five minutes not looking any different, and pull her cart into the snack bar. Now they watched her sit down with a cup of coffee and light a cigarette. What was she doing? Ray Nicolet and Faron Tyler slipped into the souvenir shop, directly across the way, to stand among racks of pastel-colored Palm Beach T-shirts.

Tyler said, "You think she made us?"

Nicolet wondered the same thing without saying it.

"You don't come off a flight and have a cup of coffee, you go home," Tyler said. "She doesn't act nervous though."

"She's cool," Nicolet said.

"Who's here besides us?"

"Nobody. This one came up in a hurry." Nicolet fingered the material of a pink T-shirt that had green and white seagulls on it, then raised his gaze to the snack bar again. "You make the bust, okay?"

Tyler looked at him. "It's your case. I thought I was just helping out."

"I want to keep it simple. A state charge, she won't have as much trouble bonding out. I mean if we have to take it that far. You badge her, lay it on-you know. Then I'll ease into the conversation."

"Where, here?"

"How about your office? Mine," Nicolet said, "I don't have enough chairs. Your place is neater."

"But if all she's carrying is money ..."

"The guy said fifty grand this trip."

"Yeah, what's the charge? She didn't declare it? That's federal."

"You can use it if you want, hold Customs over her head. I'd still like it to be a state bust, some kind of trafficking. Otherwise, if I bring her up," Nicolet said, "and she has to bond out of federal court-man, they make it hard. I don't want her mad at me, I just want to see her sweat a little."

Tyler said, "If you know who she's taking it to . . ."

"I don't. I said we have an idea. The guy kept holding out, wouldn't give us the name. He was afraid it could fuck up his life worse than prison."

"I guess it did," Tyler said. "So how about if we follow her, see who she gives it to."

"If we had a few more people. We lose her," Nicolet said, "we have to come here and start all over. No, I think if we sit her down and give her dirty looks she'll tell us what we want to know. Whatever that is."

"She sure looks good for her age," Tyler said.

They were a couple of South Florida boys, both thirty-one, buddies since meeting at FSU. They liked guns, beer, cowboy boots, air boats, hunting in the Everglades, and chasing bad guys. They'd spent a few years with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office before splitting up: Ray Nicolet going to ATF, the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; Faron Tyler to FDLE, The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Division of Criminal Investigation. Every once in a while they got a chance to work together. Right now the ATF office was busy working a sting operation out of a pawnshop they'd taken over, buying a lot of hot guns on camera. So Nicolet had called FDLE and got his buddy to help out on an investigation. One they believed had to do with the illegal sale of firearms.

"She's leaving," Tyler said.

One of the two guys Jackie Burke first noticed in the Customs office got on the elevator with her, the dark-haired one. He asked what floor she wanted. Jackie said, "I'm going all the way."

He grinned saying, "Me too," pushed the button, and then touched his hair. The kind of guy who was used to women coming on to him. Almost a hunk, but not quite. Jackie was pretty sure if she asked if his partner was already on the top level he wouldn't act too surprised. Maybe grin at her again. Both were young, but with that lazy confidence of pro athletes or guys who carried badges and guns. She hoped she was wrong, felt the urge to light a cigarette, and thought of leaving her flight bag on the elevator.

The door opened. The dark-haired one said, "After you," and Jackie walked off pulling her wheels into the dim parking structure. She moved past rows of cars expecting the other one, more boyish-looking, short brown hair down on his forehead, to step out in front of her. He didn't though. She had the trunk of her gray Honda open and was lifting the aluminum frame to put it inside before she heard him and looked over her shoulder. He came holding open his ID case.

"Hi, I'm Special Agent Faron Tyler, Florida Department of Law Enforcement?"

Not sounding too sure about it. The case held a badge and an ID that had FDLE printed on it in bold letters.

Jackie said, "Fiddle? I've never heard of it."

"Yeah, but there it is," Tyler said. "Can I ask what you have in that bag?"

Giving her that official deadpan delivery. His voice soft, though, kind of Southern. Jackie had a good idea what was going to happen, but wanted to be absolutely sure and said, "The usual things, clothes, hair curlers. I'm a flight attendant with Islands Air."

Tyler said, "And your name's Jackie Burke?"

It was going to happen.

She felt the urge again to have a cigarette and lowered the frame to rest on its wheels. The dark-haired one appeared behind Tyler, coming out of the row of cars, as she was getting her cigarettes from her shoulder bag.

The dark-haired one said, "Excuse me, I couldn't help but observe your plight. Can I be of assistance?"

Jackie said, "Gimme a break," and held her Bic lighter to a cigarette.

Now Tyler, the FDLE guy, was introducing him. "This is Special Agent Ray Nicolet, with Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Would you mind if we looked in that bag?"

"Would I mind? Do I have a choice?"

"You can say no," Tyler said, "and wait here with him while I go get a warrant. Or we can take you in on suspicion."

"Of what?"

"All he wants to do is peek in your bag," Nicolet said. "I'll watch he doesn't take anything."

"It's just a routine spot check," Tyler said. "Okay?"

Jackie drew on the cigarette, let her breath out, shrugged. "Go ahead."

She watched Tyler hunch down to unhook the elastic straps and lay the flight bag on the pavement. Nicolet lifted the cart out of the way, placed it in her trunk. Tyler had the bag open now and was feeling through her things, a soiled blouse, uniform skirt, bringing out a manila envelope, a fat one, nine by twelve. Jackie watched him straighten the clasp, open it, and look inside. Nicolet stepped closer as Tyler pulled out several packets of one-hundred-dollar bills secured with rubber bands, and Nicolet whistled, a sound that was like a sigh. Tyler looked up at her.

"I'd say there's, oh, fifty thousand dollars in here. What would you say?"

Jackie wasn't saying anything at the moment. They knew how much was in the envelope. Without counting it.

Tyler said, "This is your money?"

Jackie said, "If I were to tell you, no, it isn't . . ."

She saw Tyler start to grin.

"That I was supposed to wait in the cafeteria and a man I don't know would come by and pick it up . . ." Without looking at the other one she knew he was grinning too. It made her mad. "And I saw you cowboys looking at T-shirts and thought one of you might be the person . . . Listen, if it's yours, take it." She glanced at Nicolet.