Rum Punch

“Yeah, somebody musta been mad at Beaumont, or got worried about him facing time. You understand what I’m saying? Somebody knowing what he might tell not to get sent away. I suppose they give you all kind of shit then about what they know. Get you think

ing you may as well tell what you know, huh?”

Her head went just a little bit side to side.

He brought his thumbs from her collarbone up to her throat and her shoulder with the strap on it moved like she meant to twist away from him, but he held on to her and felt the shoulder ease back. He liked the way she was trying to act cool, staring at him. He liked the way she looked too, her face pure white in the dark, whiter than Melanie’s face or any white face he had been this close to, thinking he could put her down on the floor, or he could take her in the bedroom, and after they were done put the pillow over her face and aim the pistol he had with him into the pillow. . . . Man, it was a shame to have to do it. . . . He said, “You scared of me?”

Her head went side to side without her eyes leaving his.

He knew she was scared, man, she had to be, but wasn’t acting like she was and it made him press his thumbs into her soft skin and tighten up on his fingers, wanting to know what she’d told them and knowing he’d have to take her close to the edge to find out. He said, “Baby, you got a reason to be nervous with me?” He saw her eyes close and open. . . .

And felt what must be her hand down there touch his thigh, brush across it, and move on up and had to admire her using a female way of getting to him, liking it, yeaaah, till something else besides a hand, something hard, dug into him.

She said, “You feel it.”

Ordell said, “Yes, I do,” wanting to grin, let her know he wasn’t serious and she shouldn’t be either. He said, “I believe that’s a gun pressing against my bone.”

Jackie said, “You’re right. You want to lose it or let go of me?”

If either Max or Winston phoned the other from the office and said, “Get dressed,” it meant come right away, armed.

This time it was Max who phoned and Winston arrived while the sheriff’s people were still there, blue lights turning on their radio cars. Somebody had shattered the glass in the front door and reached in through the bars to unlock it. Max, in the office with the two uniforms taking notes, looked up at Winston. He said, “These guys were here inside of two minutes from the time the alarm started to blow.” Max seemed impressed.

Winston said, “They get him?” Knowing they hadn’t. He saw Max motion with his head to the meeting room and went in there to see the gun cabinet broken into, two pieces missing, three still hanging on pegs. Now he watched from the doorway to the office while the uniforms finished their report, left, and Max came over.

“What’d I get dressed for,” Winston said, “if he’s gone?”

“ ‘Cause we know who did it,” Max said, moving past him to the gun cabinet.

“We talking about Louis?”

Watching as Max chose the Browning 380 auto, took it from its peg, and checked the slide.

“How you know it’s him?”

“He wouldn’t have time to break in,” Max said, “come in here, bust into the cabinet—all the time the alarm’s making a racket. You know how loud it is? He doesn’t clean us out, he takes only the Python and the Mossberg, and does it all inside of two minutes. I think he broke the glass on the way out, make it look like a B and E.”

“Then how’d he get in?”

“Lifted a spare key out of my drawer, had one made, and put it back. Planning something like this. That’s why I think it’s Louis.”

“You don’t know for sure.”

“Let’s go ask him. Your arm okay?” Max reached out as if to touch Winston’s sleeve.

“It’s all right; they put in some stitches. What’s that you got, a new watch?”

“Rolex,” Max said, turning his arm to let the gold catch the light, the way Ordell had shown it to him. “I took it on a bond till I get the premium.”

Winston said, “Lemme see,” putting his hand under Max’s arm to look at the watch up close. He said, “I hate to tell you, but it ain’t a Rolex. I know, ’cause I have a real one at home. This decoration here don’t look right.”

Max took his arm back. “This’s a different model.”

“I’m talking about this one. How much was the premium it’s for?”

“Don’t worry about it, okay?”

“Was gonna say, if it’s over two-fifty . . .”

Max said, “Let’s get outta here,” sticking the Browning in the waist of his pants. He picked up his jacket from a chair and Winston followed after him.

“How come you’re taking the Browning? Don’t you have that little Airweight in your car?”

Max stopped dead at the busted front door and turned around. He said, “I forgot, one of us has to stay here,” still with that short tone of voice, edgy. “I called a guy, he’s gonna come nail up a sheet of plywood. You wait for him, all right?”

Asking, but actually telling.

Winston said, “That’s my punishment, huh, for saying it ain’t a Rolex?”

* * *

The pistol Ordell had on him was the little Targa .22 he used for close work. Jackie found it in the side pocket of his coat. Felt him all over with her free hand, the other hand holding the gun pressed against his bone, before she stepped back, shrugged, and let the shoulder bag slip off and drop on the floor. He said, “It looks like we have a misunderstanding here.” Not moving, believing she would shoot him with either hand, this two-gun woman he had somehow misjudged.

“You were about to strangle me,” Jackie said. “I understood that part.”

“Baby, I was playing with you. You on the team. Didn’t I get you out of jail?”

She said, “You got Beaumont out too.”

Ordell gave her a pained look. “That hurts, what I think you mean to imply there, I could be wrong. . . . Baby, you aren’t wearing a wire, are you?” She didn’t answer on that one.

“Listen, I didn’t have nothing to do with that dope you brought in, but I’ll get you a lawyer, a good one. I had that fifty gees I’d get you F. Lee Bailey himself.”

She said, “But you don’t have it.”

“That’s why we should sit down and talk,” Ordell said. “Work something out here. Put the lights on, maybe have a drink. . . .” He cocked his head to study this woman, kind of mussed but still looking fine. He had to smile. A two-gun woman turning him on. “Baby, you want to talk or shoot me?” And when she didn’t answer right away he said, “Hey now, I don’t want to give you ideas. I’m gonna pay you the five hundred too. Even if you didn’t deliver. But if we gonna talk about it, girl, you have to show you trust me.”

Jackie raised both the guns, putting them dead on him, saying, “I trust you.”

He had to smile, appreciating her.

“You felt me,” Ordell said. “Now let me feel you and put my mind at ease. See if you might have a wire running around that fine body.”

“I’m not wired,” Jackie said. “I haven’t talked to them yet. If I trust you, you have to trust me.”

“Yeah, but you said something there I did-n’t especially like the sound of. Like you threatening me, saying you haven’t talked to them yet.”

She gave him an easy shrug with her shoulders he liked.

“Sooner or later,” Jackie said, “they’ll get around to offering me a plea deal if I talk to them. You know that. They might even let me walk. The only thing you and I have to talk about, really, is what you’re willing to do for me.”

“I told you, baby, I’m gonna get you a lawyer.”

Now she was shaking her head at him, still cool, saying, “I don’t think that’s going to do it. Let’s say if I tell on you, I get off. And if I don’t, I go to jail.”

“Yeah? . . .”

“What’s it worth to you if I don’t say a word?”

Max opened the trunk of his car, parked down the street from the house where Louis was staying, the place