Rum Punch

and calling you . . .” Winston followed them to the door and slammed it closed.

He turned to Max saying, “What’d you send him with me for?”

Max said, “What?” preoccupied, trying to make sense of Louis taking his coffee mug, not asking if it was okay. He said to Winston, “They just happen to run into each other outside?”

Now Winston had to shift gears in his head. “Who? You mean those two? I guess so.”

Max said, “It was Louis’s idea to go with you.”

“Well, he ain’t ever again.”

“He’s a different guy today,” Max said.

Winston stood close to the desk. He touched his face saying, “Lookit here. You see these scratches?” He held his arm out to show the sleeve of his sport shirt torn and bloodstained. “You see this?”

Max straightened in his chair. “Jesus, what happened?”

“I told Louis I’d do the talking, he was along to back me up was all. I reminded him how you never ever try to handcuff a Cuban, a Puerto Rican, any those Latin people, in front of their women. They won’t allow it, their manhood won’t, have women see them submit like that. You have to bring the man outside first, get him by the car. I asked Louis, you understand that? Yeah, he knows, says he does. We get to the house, Zorro lets us in. The man knows he’s going in but has to wave his arms around first, make a speech how somebody snitched him out and it ain’t his fault, the situation he’s in. Louis is standing there—you say you think he’s different? He looks at me, says, ‘Fuck this,’and takes Zorro by the arm, goes to cuff him. Zorro’s woman, his two sisters, they all come at us hitting and scratching, screaming their heads off. His mother come out of the kitchen with a butcher knife. . . . Lookit here.” Winston pushed up his torn sleeve to show a bloody handkerchief wrapped around his forearm. “You know how Zorro’s got the swords on the wall? He tries to get one and Louis hits him with his fist, hard, kept hitting him while I’m defending myself from this old woman with the butcher knife. We get outside I say to Louis, ‘You pretty good with a little PR stoned on acid. How ‘bout trying me?’I mean I was mad how he fucked it up. Louis gives me that sleepy look, says he’ll think about it and let me know. The first time he ever said anything like that, like he might put on the gloves with me. You think the man’s different, I think it could be his real self coming out.”

Max watched Winston unwrap the handkerchief to look at his wound. “Zorro’s still home?”

“I saw I wasn’t gonna take him without killing somebody. Yeah, so we left.”

“I’ll get him,” Max said. “You take care of your arm.”

“It’ll be all right, I get some stitches.” Winston raised his arm to his face and sniffed. “I think that old woman was chopping onions.”

* * *

“I got another one for you,” Ordell said to Max, “friend of mine, she’s an airline stewardess. Got caught coming back from Freeport with some blow. See, I’m thinking what you could do is use the ten you owe me left over from Beaumont. It’s what they set the stew’s bond at this afternoon, ten thousand, for possession. They say Jackie had forty-two grams on her. Not even two ounces. Shit.”

“The bond for possession’s only a thousand,” Max said.

“They calling it possession with intent.”

“It’s still high.”

“She had, I believe it was, fifty grand on her too,” Ordell said. “There was a cop at the hearing, young guy with FDLE, wanted the bond set at twenty-five saying there was risk of flight here, Jackie could get on a airplane and take off anytime she wanted. Being, you understand, a stewardess.”

They were alone in the office. Winston had gone to Good Samaritan; Louis had told Ordell he’d see him later and left, not saying where he was going. Ordell, sitting against Winston’s desk, wore that same yellow sport jacket with a silky rust-colored shirt today. Max noticed he didn’t have his Dolphins athletic bag with him, his money sack. He said, “Let’s get Beaumont out of the way first,” and saw Ordell’s expression change to almost a grin.

“Somebody already did. Police came to see me about it. Must’ve found out was me put up his bond. They speak to you?”

Max shook his head. “What police?”

“Riv’era Beach, some detectives, look like they got dressed from the Salvation Army. They scared my woman, Sheronda. She thought they was gonna take me away. I told them I didn’t even know Beaumont’s last name till the other day. They want to know then why did I pay his bail? I told them his mama use to take care of my mama when I brought her down here to live? Took care of her till she passed on. Nice woman name Rosemary, Beaumont’s mama. You know it’s funny, I never knew Rosemary’s last name either. She went back to Jamaica, I think lives in the country. So now, you keep the money you owe me and use it to get Jackie out of the Stockade. Jackie Burke’s her name, fine-looking woman, has kinda blond hair.”

Max said, “What did her mother do for you?”

Ordell let his grin come this time. “Man, Jackie’s a friend of mine, met her flying. My friends get in trouble, I like to help them out.”

“Didn’t Beaumont work for you?”

Ordell shook his head. “That’s what the police thought. I told them I’m unemployed, how could I have anybody working for me? Now I bail out Jackie, I’m liable to have the police on me again, huh? Wanting to know was she doing things for me, was she bringing me that money . . .”

Max said, “Was she?”

Ordell looked one way and then the other, a gesture. He said, “Is this, me and you, like a lawyer-client relationship? The lawyer can’t tell nothing he hears?”

Max shook his head. “You’re not my client until you get busted and I bond you out.”

“You sound like you think it could happen.”

Max gave him a shrug.

“If there’s no—what do you call it—confidentiality between us? Why would I tell you anything?”

“Because you want me to know what a slick guy you are,” Max said, “have a stewardess bringing you fifty grand.”

“Why would she?”

“Now you want me to speculate on what you do. I’d say you’re in the drug business, Ordell, except the money’s moving in the wrong direction. I could call the Sheriff’s office, have you checked out . . .”

“Go ahead. They look me up on the computer they won’t find nothing but that bust in Ohio I mentioned to you and that was a long time ago, man. It might not even still be on the screen.”

Max said, “Ordell, you’re a shifty guy. You must be getting away with whatever you’re into. Okay, you want another bond and you want to move the ten thousand you put down on Beaumont over to the stewardess. That means paperwork. I have to get a death certificate, present it to the court, fill out a Receipt for Return of Bond Collateral, then type up another application, an Indemnity Agreement . . .”

“You know it’s there,” Ordell said. “You have my cash.”

“I’m telling you what I have to do,” Max said.

“What you have to do, in case you forgot, is come up with the premium, a thousand bucks.”

“Yeah, well, I won’t have that for a couple of days,” Ordell said, “but you can go ahead, write the bond.”

Max sat back in his chair. “Couple of days? I can wait.”

“Man, you know I’m good for it.”

“Something happens to you before you pay me . . .”

“Ain’t nothing could happen. Man, I lead a clean life.”

“You could get shot. Beaumont did.”

Ordell was shaking his head. “I got money. I don’t have any with me’s all. Thousand bucks is nothing.”

“You’re right there, if I don’t see it in front of me.”

“Look,” Ordell said, coming over to plant his hands on the desk, putting himself square in Max’s face. “This fine-looking woman is out at the Stockade among all those bitches they have in there. Jackie spent the night with ’em and was at First Appearance this afternoon, that courtroom by the Gun Club jail? She didn’t see me, had her head down—I was in the back. But, man, she looked bad. Couple more days, it could kill her.”

“If she can’t hack the Stockade,” Max said to the face close in front of him, “how’s she going to do state time?”