Rum Punch

two years.”

Jackie said, “Why haven’t you gotten a divorce?”

“I’m seriously thinking about it.”

“I mean before this. If you don’t get along.”

“It always seemed like too much trouble.”

It didn’t now, driving home, putting up pictures of Jackie Burke in his mind. The ones where she had that gleam in her eyes, the look saying, We could have fun.

Unless she was appraising him with the look, making a judgment, and what it said was, I could use you.

Maybe.

Either way it was a turn-on.

Max pulled into the drive of the house he and Renee had bought twenty-two years ago, when she was coming out of her decoupage period and getting into macrame, or the other way around. The house was an old- Florida frame bungalow being eaten by termites and almost obscured from the street by cabbage palms and banana trees. Renee had moved to an apartment in Palm Beach Gardens, not far from where Jackie Burke lived—according to her Rough Arrest report. He’d leave the car in the drive while he went in the house, planning to go back to the office later. He was surprised his beeper hadn’t gone off while he was with Jackie. Prime time for a bail bondsman was six to nine.

He opened the glove box to get his .38 Airweight. Whenever it was out of his hands for a period of time he liked to check it; this evening, make sure it was his gun the guard at the Stockade had handed him. He felt inside, then leaned across the seat to take a look. The gun wasn’t there. No one had touched the car while they were in the hotel cocktail lounge or the alarm would have gone off. They came out, he opened the door for Jackie. She got in, he closed the door and walked around to the other side. . . .

Maybe the look said, I can take care of myself.

10

It was the kind of building had all outside doors on balconies and at night you’d see these orange lights on every floor up and across the front of the building. Jackie’s apartment was on the fourth level you got to by elevator, then into using the thin little tension tool and feeling around with the feeler pick until you heard the click. Nothing to it. Ordell had checked the kind of lock it was the first time he came here. . . .

Through a little hallway that went past the kitchen into the living room and dining-L. The bedroom and bath were to the left. He remembered she had it fixed up nice but kind of bare-looking, mostly white, drapes over the glass door to the balcony. Ordell pulled the drapes open and could see better, light coming from outside. He sat down on the sofa to wait. Sat there in the dark calculating how long it would take Max Cherry to drive out to the Stockade and bond her out, give her a ride home. . . . Unless she had to get her car.

He felt like smiling at the way Max Cherry had accepted the watch as his take for the bond. This place looked cold. Fixed nice, but like she could move out in about ten minutes. Not like a place you called home, with all kinds of shit laying around. He reached over and turned the lamp on.

No sense frightening the woman, come in and see a man sitting in the dark, maybe scream. Best to keep her calm, not expecting harm. See how she behaves first, if she was nervous talking to him. Man, who could you trust these days? Outside of Louis. See? Thinking of Louis right away coming to mind. Knowing him twenty years as a man would never tell nothing on you. Had that old-time pro sense of keeping his mouth shut. Even thinking of himself as a good guy basically, Louis would never snitch you out. Louis could be worth a cut of the score. Not a big cut, more like a nick.

Ordell waited.

Got tired of it and went to the kitchen, found the Scotch, and put some in a glass with ice from the refrigerator. Hardly any food in there, the woman getting by day to day. Orange juice, Perrier, half a loaf of bread. Some cheese turning green. Some of those little cups of nonfat yogurt with fruit in it, the woman watching her weight. He didn’t see she needed to worry about getting fat, she had a fine body on her. One he’d wanted to see but couldn’t ever get her in a mood to show to him. He’d touch her, tell her, man, she was fine and she’d look at him like . . . not stuck-up exactly, more like it was too much trouble to get it on and she had her laundry to do. Maybe tonight if she came in scared and saw she had to please him . . .

Yeah, it should be dark. Ordell turned the light out in the kitchen, took his drink to the living room to sit down on the sofa again, and switched off the lamp.

He waited.

Finished the drink and waited some more.

At least it was comfortable. He felt himself starting to doze off, eyelids getting heavy . . . eyes opening then, quick, Ordell full awake hearing her key in the lock, Jackie home at last. There she was now in the light coming through from the balcony, her bag hanging from her shoulders, trying to remember—look at her—if she had closed the drapes or left them open. Slipping her keys in the bag now . . .

Ordell said, “How you doing, Ms. Jackie?”

She didn’t move, so he got up and went over to her, seeing her face now, no color to it in this light. He came up close and put his hands on the round part of her arms below her shoulders.

“You looking fine this evening. You gonna thank

me?”

“For what?”

“Who you think got you out of jail?”

“The same guy who put me in. Thanks a lot.”

“Hey, you get caught with blow, that’s your business.”

“It wasn’t mine.”

Not sounding mean, looking straight in his eyes, like to say it was his fault. Ordell had to stop and think. He said, “Hey, shit, I bet it was the present Mr. Walker was sending Melanie. Yeaaah, he’s the one musta put it in there if you didn’t. Hey, I’m sorry that happened. I ’magine they asked you all kind of questions about it, huh? And about all that money? Want to know where you got it?”

She didn’t answer him.

“Who you giving it to? All that, huh?”

“They asked.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“I said I wanted a lawyer.”

“Didn’t let nothing slip?”

She said to his face, “You’re not asking the right question.”

Ordell’s hands moved up to rest on her shoulders. He said, “I’m not?” feeling her body there under her jacket and the strap of her bag, thin little bones he rubbed with his fingers.

She said to him, “Ask why I was picked up.”

“Dog didn’t sniff your bag?”

“They didn’t need a dog. They knew about the money, the exact amount.”

“They tell you how they found out?”

“They asked if I knew Mr. Walker.”

“Yeah? . . .”

“I didn’t tell them anything.”

“My name come up?”

He watched her head go side to side but didn’t feel the bones move. His thumbs brushed her collarbone, the tips of his fingers touched her neck, caressed the skin, Ordell seeing how lightly he could touch her, not wanting her to move, try to run, and maybe scream. Her eyes never blinked.

“Say they know about Mr. Walker. Who else?”

It made her hesitate before she said, “The Jamaican, Beaumont.”

“What’d they say about him?”

“They’d spoken to him in jail.”

Ordell nodded. He’d had that right. “You know what happen to him?”

“They told me.”