have a pack of cigarettes you could let me have.”
He said, “I don’t smoke.”
She said, “I didn’t think so.”
8
Thursday night, Max waited at the admitting desk while deputies went to get Jackie Burke. He had read her Booking Card and Rough Arrest report and produced the forms required for her release, Appearance Bond and Power of Attorney. Now he was making small talk with the sergeant, a young guy named Terry Boland. Max had worked under his dad, Harry Boland, when Harry ran the Detective Bureau at the Sheriff’s office. He was a colonel now, head of the Tactical Unit, Max’s buddy and his source of information.
“I see they’ve finally started on the new dorms.”
Terry said yeah, and by the time they were finished they’d need a few more.
“It’s too bad,” Max said, “you can’t invest money in jails, like land development. It’s the one business that keeps growing.” Terry didn’t seem to know if he should agree with that or not, and Max said, “How’d Ms. Burke do? She get along okay?”
“She wasn’t any trouble.”
“You didn’t expect her to cause any, did you?”
“I mean she didn’t break down,” Terry said. “Some of them, you know, it’s a shock coming in here from the civilized world.”
“She’s done it before,” Max said. “That helps.”
What surprised him, reading the Booking Card, was Jackie Burke’s age. He had been picturing a fairly young airline stewardess. Now, the revised image was a forty-four-year-old woman who showed some wear and tear. But then, when the two deputies brought her in the front entrance, from outside dark into fluorescent light, Max saw he was still way off.
This was a good-looking woman. If he didn’t know her age he’d say she was somewhere in her mid-thirties. Nice figure in the uniform skirt, five five, one fifteen—he liked her type, the way she moved, scuffing the slides on the vinyl floor, the way she raised her hand to brush her hair from her face. . . . Max said, “Ms. Burke?” and handed her his business card as he introduced himself. She nodded, glancing at the card. There were women who sobbed with relief. Some men too. There were women who came up and kissed him. This one nodded. They brought out her personal property and inventoried it back to her. As she was signing for it Max said, “I can give you a lift home if you’d like.”
She looked up and nodded again saying, “Okay,” and then, “No, wait. My car’s at the airport.”
“I can drop you off there.”
She said, “Would you?” and seemed to look at him for the first time.
Right at him, not the least self-conscious, smiling a little with her eyes, a warm green that showed glints of light. He watched her step out of the slides and turn to press her hip against the wall, one and then the other, to slip her heels on. When she straightened, brushing her hair aside with the tips of her fingers, she smiled for the first time, a tired one, and seemed to shrug. Neither of them spoke again until they were outside and he asked if she was okay. Jackie Burke said, “I’m not sure,” in no hurry walking to the car. Usually they were anxious to get out of here.
Now they were in the car ready to go and he felt her staring at him.
She said, “Are you really a bail bondsman?”
He looked at her. “What do you think I am?”
She didn’t answer.
“I gave you my card in there.”
She said, “Can I see your ID?”
“You serious?”
She waited.
Max dug the case out of his pocket, handed it to her, and opened the door so the inside light would go on. He watched her read every word from SURETY AGENT LICENSED BY STATE OF FLORIDA down to his date of birth and the color of his eyes.
She handed it back to him saying, “Who put up my bond, Ordell?”
“In cash,” Max said, “the whole ten thousand.”
She turned to look straight ahead.
Now they were both silent until the car reached the front gate and Max lowered his window. A deputy came out of the gatehouse with Max’s .38 revolver, the cylinder open. Max handed the deputy his pass in exchange for the gun, thanked him, and snapped the cylinder closed before reaching over to put the revolver in the glove box. The gate opened. He said, “Ordinarily you have to go inside, but they know me. I’m out here a lot.” Leaving the Stockade he turned on his brights and headed in the direction of Southern Boulevard, telling Ms. Burke for something to say that no one entered with a weapon, not even the deputies; telling her the office trailer next to the gate-house was full of guns. He looked over as she flicked her lighter on and saw her face, cheeks drawn to inhale a thin cigarillo in the glow of the flame.
“You smoke cigars?”
“If I have to. Can we stop for cigarettes?”
He tried to picture a store out this way on Southern.
“The closest place I can think of,” Max said “would be the Polo Lounge. You ever been there?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s okay, it’s a cop hangout.”
“I’d just as soon wait.”
“I thought you might want a drink.”
“I’d love one, but not there.”
“We could stop at the Hilton.”
“Is it dark?”
“Yeah, it’s nice.”
“We need a lounge that’s dark.”
He glanced at her, surprised.
She said, “I look like I just got out of jail,” and blew a stream of cigar smoke at the windshield.
Dinner with a burglar, drinks with a flight attendant who did coke and delivered large sums of money. Cocktail piano in the background.
She looked different now, her eyes seemed more alive. Green eyes that moved and gleamed, reflecting the room’s rose-colored light. Max watched her open a pack of cigarettes and light one before taking a sip of Scotch and glancing toward the cocktail piano.
“He shouldn’t be allowed to do ‘Light My Fire.’ ”
“Not here,” Max said, “in a tux.”
“Not anywhere.” She pushed the pack toward him.
Max shook his head. “I quit three years ago.”
“You gain weight?”
“Ten pounds. I lose it and put it back on.”
“That’s why I don’t quit. One of the reasons. I was locked up yesterday with two cigarettes. And spent half the night getting advice from a cleaning woman named Ramona, who doesn’t smoke.”
Not sounding too upset.
“Ramona Williams,” Max said, “she dips snuff. I’ve written her a few times. She has a tendency, she gets mad when she’s drinking, to hit people with hammers, baseball bats. . . . You get along okay?”
“She offered to clean my apartment for forty dollars and do the windows on the inside.”
Sounding serious now.
Max shifted around in his chair. “She was advising you, huh? . . . To do what?”
“I don’t know—I guess what I need is a lawyer. Find out what my options are. So far, I can cooperate and get probation,
“You mean just, or accurate? I’d say if you’re tried and found guilty you won’t get more than a year and a
