“What, de la Villa? That’s your artsy name. You were David Ortega when I knew you. You copped to possession of stolen property and did about six months.”
David Ortega de la Villa turned, started walking away.
Max said after him, “You sell any of this shit?”
The busboy stopped and turned around.
“Now I see why she leave you.”
“You selling or not? I’d like to know how my wife’s doing, if anything.”
“Now I see why she don’t talk to you. Already she sell five in like two weeks.
“You’re kidding. What’s Renee get?”
“That’s her business, not yours.”
Max kept his mouth shut. Her business but his money going into it to pay the rent, the phone—at least he hadn’t paid for the olive jars, three-foot iron ashtrays it would take two guys to lift and empty. He wanted her to walk in right now with Da-veed’s lunch—he’d march her into the office and tell her that was it, no more, she was on her own. He was quitting the bail-bond business and filing for divorce.
He looked at the painting in front of him.
Maybe not spring the divorce on her just yet.
But definitely tell her he wasn’t paying any more of her bills.
Da-veed, the home-invading artist, said, “You see this one?” coming over to a canvas. “Look at it good. Tell me is someone in there you know.”
“I don’t see
“In this part, right here.”
Max stared and a figure began to appear. A boy? He moved closer, squinting. A boy’s short hair but a woman, dots to indicate her exposed breasts, a tiny dark smudge that might be her bush. A pale-green woman in the dark- green leaves pasted down and painted over.
“Is that supposed to be Renee?”
“Man, you don’t reco’nize your own wife? Yeah, she pose for me naked like that all the time.”
It was hard to imagine. Renee used to go in the closet to put her nightgown on. How could this little asshole get her to take her clothes off? But wait a minute . . . Max said, “What’s Renee doing in a cane field?”
“The field is a symbol of her oppression, what she desires to escape,” the busboy said. “Her years of bondage to you. No life of her own.”
Max said, “Bondage?”
And stopped. What was he going to do, rehash twenty-seven years of married life with this kid? He had a better idea and said, “Do me a favor, will you?”
The busboy said, “What?” suspicious.
“Put me in there, coming out of the cane.”
Ordell loved this mall, the biggest, jazziest one he’d ever been in, done all modern with trees, with fountains, skylight domes way up there, the best stores . . . They had Saks Fifth Avenue, where Ordell liked to buy his clothes; Macy’s; Bloomie’s; Burdine’s; Sears, where Louis should go. They had up on the second level all different ethnic cafe counters where you ordered your food and brought it out to an area where you could sit down if you could find a place. Crowded every day now in the season. Jackie said it might be the place to make the delivery. Maybe even make the switch
She was still at the table having some kind of Greek shit in that pita bread. He hadn’t seen anything he wanted to eat and they’d finished their business, so he was leaving—once he called the hospital, learn how Cujo was doing. The boy didn’t have a phone in his room, you had to ask about him and get somebody to tell you. The man that came on the phone yesterday kept wanting to know who this was calling; so he’d tried again last night and the nurse said Hulon was doing fine—who?—and going home, it looked like, in a few days. She said “home” but meant jail, or else didn’t know any better. In the paper it said Hulon Miller, Jr., had “gunned down” the FDLE officer before he was “shot and apprehended” by a federal agent. The time and location told Ordell they were on his ass and now he’d have another one could be telling stories on him, Cujo looking to cop. What he needed to do was speak to Cujo before they rode him out to Gun Club. Make a visit to the hospital.
Ordell had a mall guide with a map in it that showed telephones on the lower level, back in a corner by Burdine’s. He started across the big open area in the center of the mall, where you had a view of the fountain and the pools, headed for the down escalator, and stopped. Ordell turned around quick and crossed back to duck inside Barnie’s Coffee & Tea Company.
Who was that coming off the up escalator but the bail bondsman, Max Cherry, Max heading toward the food counters now.
Ordell, watching from Barnie’s, began to think: Wait now. Why had he ducked in here to hide from Max? It wasn’t until this moment, stopping to look at what he was doing, he thought of the Rolex watch—that was it—and the possibility Max had found out what it was worth. It was instinct had made him duck in here. Something watching over his ass while his head was someplace else. He said to himself, You see that? Man, you have a gift.
Max walked past the food counters lined with customers: Olympus, Cafe Manet, Nate’s Deli, China Town, the Italian Eatery, wondering which one would appeal to Renee, always a finicky eater. Didn’t like anything to touch on her plate, not even peas and mashed potatoes. Chick-fil-A, Gourmet Grill, Nacos Tacos . . . that could be it, something spicy for the busboy. But she wasn’t at Nacos Tacos or at Stuff ‘N Turkey, not at any of the counters. Max turned to the eating area in the semicircle of cafes: rings of tables around and beneath an eight-pillared gazebo the size of a house with a fountain in the center. Areas were sectioned off by dividers and planters; aisles seemed to go around in circles. He moved a few steps in and began looking at one section at a time, his gaze inching along, thinking it was too crowded to pick anyone out. . . .
And saw her within a few seconds.
Renee sitting by herself: that skullcap of dark hair, turquoise loop earrings, a dark blue dress off one shoulder, Renee picking at a salad, taking dainty bites, a carryout container on the table . . .
Close by, almost next to him, a woman’s voice said, “Max?” and he knew it was Jackie before he turned and saw her looking up at him, Jackie with her cigarette and a cup of coffee, finished with her lunch. She said, “What’re you up to?” with that kind of shy smile.
“I walked right past you.”
“I know,” Jackie said, “ignoring me. You were looking for someone.”
Not anymore. He did glance over as he sat down and moved plastic lunch dishes aside to lean over his arms on the table, Max out of Renee’s line of sight if she happened to look this way. He said, “You clean your plate,” and watched her raise her cigarette. “How’re you doing?”
“Not bad.”
Moving her shoulders in the light cotton sweater she wore without a blouse, the sleeves pushed up.
“What’re you, a bag lady?”
On the bench next to her she had what looked like an assortment of shopping bags folded and stuffed inside a black Saks Fifth Avenue bag.
She said, “I go back to work tomorrow,” as if that explained the bags.
It didn’t matter. He said, “You talked them into it.”
“They seem to like the idea.”
“Bring the money in and they follow it?”
“Yeah, but I’m going to dress it up. Put the money in a shopping bag and hand it to someone I meet here.”
“You don’t actually do it that way?”
“He always picked it up at my place,” Jackie said. “But now with ATF involved I want to stage it, you know, make it look more intriguing, like we know what we’re doing. Then it’s up to Ray to follow the shopping bag. Nicolet, the ATF guy.”
“Make the delivery,” Max said, “somewhere in the mall?”
“I think right around here.”
