“No way—he’s into guns big-time. Got Beaumont out as fast as he could and popped him, or had it done. Riviera Beach said they questioned Ordell. Yeah, but they didn’t know what to ask. That was the problem there. Same thing with Jackie Burke, he got her out right away. . . . You better call her again.”
Tyler picked up the phone and punched her number.
Nicolet saying, “Try and scare her a little.”
Tyler waited and then said, “Ms. Burke, how you doing? This is Faron Tyler. . . . Oh, I’m sorry. I was just checking to see if you’re okay. We have a man outside your building. . . . Well, just in case. You never know. You have my number. . . .” He listened for several moments and said, “Oh?” And said, “We can do that any time you want, your place or ours. . . . Okay, sounds good. We’ll call later and you tell us. So long.” He replaced the phone saying to Nicolet, “She wants to talk.”
“One night all alone,” Nicolet said, “can do that. When?”
“Later sometime today. I woke her up again.”
“Man, I like that type,” Nicolet said. “Can’t get ’em out of bed. They give you that sleepy look, a little puffy, hair all mussed up. Like the broad in that beer ad on TV. She works in this joint out in the desert? You’ve seen it. The guy comes in, right away she’s interested, but you don’t see him. You never see him. He asks for the kind of beer they’re advertising, I forgot what it is, and she says, ‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ like he’s her kind of guy. She even looks a little sweaty but, man, you know she’s ready. That type. Jackie Burke reminds me of her a little.”
Tyler said, “So you’re gonna look into that?”
“I might, if I can get her to flip, and it sounds like she’s ready, huh? Otherwise, no,
Ray Nicolet was divorced; he went after women assuming they would be attracted to him and enough of them were to keep him happy. Faron Tyler was married to a girl named Cheryl he met at FSU; they had two little boys, four and six. Faron only fooled around once in a while, if he was with Ray and couldn’t get out of it. Like if during deer season they were out and happened to run into a couple of friendly girls in a bar. Once Ray started making the moves on the one he wanted, Faron always felt he had to move on the other one so she wouldn’t be hurt, feel rejected.
Right now Nicolet was watching a white Cadillac Seville turn onto 31st Street from Greenwood. It crept along like the driver was looking at house numbers, stopped, backed up, and pulled into Ordell Robbie’s driveway. Nicolet said, “Well, who have we here?” taking the glasses from Tyler to put them on the guy getting out of the car, a big guy in a short-sleeved shirt. “You want to call it in?”
Tyler said, “Gimme the number,” picking up the phone.
Nicolet read it to him off the plate. The guy was at the front door now. Nicolet saw him as a white male in a mostly black neighborhood, mid to late fifties, a little over six foot, and about one eighty. The door opened for a moment and closed. The guy stood there. The door opened again and now the guy was talking to the woman.
Tyler said, “Thanks,” and said to Nicolet, “I know him, that’s Max Cherry, he’s a bail bondsman. You see him eating lunch at Helen Wilkes.”
“He must’ve written them,” Nicolet said. “But what’s he doing here?”
Tyler took the glasses from him. “Yeah, that’s Max. It could be Ordell put his house up as collateral and Max is checking it out. They do that.”
“He’s still talking to her,” Nicolet said. “Now
“No, he’s leaving,” Tyler said.
The woman stood in the doorway as Max got in his car. Now she was closing the door, but not all the way, not until the Cadillac backed into the street. It came up to Greenwood and turned south, going away from them.
“That was business,” Tyler said. “Max is one of the good ones. He was with the Sheriff’s office before we got there. You remember some of the older guys would mention him? Max Cherry?”
“Vaguely,” Nicolet said.
“He was in Crimes Persons and worked mostly homicides. One time at Helen Wilkes—Max knew the state attorney I was having lunch with and joined us. We happened to be talking about drive-by shootings, gang stuff, jackboys. . . . I remember Max said, ‘Get to know the friends of the victim, talk to them. It could be one of them did the guy and it only looks like a drive-by.’ I asked him questions . . .”
Tyler stopped talking. A car shining hot in the sunlight was coming toward them on Greenwood, turned onto 31st Street: a bright red Firebird with dark-tinted windows and chrome duals sticking out of its rear end. It eased to a stop in front of Ordell’s house, engine grumbling in idle. Tyler got the plate number and handed over the glasses.
“Trans Am GTA, the expensive one,” Nicolet said. Tyler was on the phone now. Through the glasses Nicolet watched a young black male, eighteen to twenty, five ten, slim build, not much more than one forty, wearing an Atlanta Braves warm-up jacket and clean white pump-up basketball shoes that looked too big for him, walk up the drive to Ordell’s garage and look in the window. Nicolet said, “Tell me where this kid got twenty-five grand to buy a car like that?” thinking he knew the answer, drugs. He expected the kid to cross now to the front of the house. No, he was coming back down the drive. .
As Tyler replaced the phone saying, “It’s not his, it’s stolen. The plate was lifted off a Dodge last night in Boca.” He took the glasses, wanting to get a look at the guy.
Nicolet said, “You boost a car like that, park it in your fucking neighborhood and nobody’s suppose to notice.”
“He doesn’t give a shit who sees him,” Tyler said, lowering the glasses and turning the key to start the Chevy. “He’s living dangerously.”
Nicolet held up his hand. “Wait. What’s he doing?”
“Nothing. He’s standing there.”
On the sidewalk in front of the house. But looking the other way, staring. Tyler raised the glasses to see the car coming up 31st toward the house.
Nicolet said, “Tell me it’s a black Mercedes.”
“It sure is,” Tyler said. “I believe this’s our guy. Mercedes convertible . . .”
The top up, slowing down now, coming past the Firebird and turning into the drive. Now the kid in the Atlanta Braves jacket was approaching the Mercedes, taking his time, as Mr. Ordell Robbie got out and was seen by Tyler and Nicolet for the first time: black male, mid to late forties, six foot maybe, about one seventy, sunglasses, patterned tan silk shirt and tan slacks. Stylish and fairly dressed up, compared to the two law enforcement officers in their Sears sport shirts and Levi’s this morning, Nicolet in his cowboy boots, Tyler wearing gray-and-blue jogging shoes. They kept quiet now watching Ordell and the kid standing by the rear deck of the Mercedes talking, couple of cool guys, except for Ordell’s gaze moving up and down the street now and again. Tyler took a look through the glasses, saw four, five kids at the far end of the block, all black kids, like they might be waiting for a school bus.
“He just showed him something,” Nicolet said. “You see that? Under his jacket.”
“I missed it,” Tyler said.
“Held the jacket open to give him a peek.”
“You think a gun?”
“I’d like to believe it is,” Nicolet said. “Felon with a firearm, he’s my kind of guy.” Ordell was talking now. The kid laughed, shuffling around, and Nicolet said, “Rapping. They love that rap shit. Now they high-five each other. Have these rituals they have to go through.”
They watched Ordell walk toward the house, saying something else to the kid who nodded a few times and gave him a lazy wave. The front door opened and they caught a glimpse of the woman. Ordell was inside, the door closed again, by the time the kid reached the Firebird and got in.
“Let’s take him,” Nicolet said, reaching around to get his attache case off the back seat. “But I want to see where he goes first.”
Tyler had the Chevy in drive. “What for? We got him with the car.”
“He’s into more than boosting cars. He came here to sell a gun.”
“You don’t know what he showed him.”
