“Sit down, leave the bag under the table?”
“Something like that.”
“Will Ordell go for it?”
“I’m helping him bring his money in,” Jackie said. “He loves the idea.”
With that gleam. Serious business but having fun. It was strange, both of them smiling a little, treating it lightly until Max said, “I heard about Tyler,” and her expression changed. “I saw it in the paper and called a guy I know in the State Attorney’s Office. He said he’s gonna be okay.”
“Yeah, Tyler’s not a bad guy, I like him,” Jackie said. “Only now I’m dealing strictly with Nicolet. He likes the idea of picking up the money, but says he has to get Ordell with guns.”
“I won’t say I told you,” Max said.
“He says he doesn’t care about the money, but I think he likes it more than he lets on—if you know what I mean.”
He watched Jackie draw on her cigarette and let out a slow stream of smoke. As she raised her coffee cup Max leaned back to check on Renee—still there, nibbling—and came forward again to the table.
Jackie was watching him.
“You’re meeting someone.”
Max shook his head. “My wife’s sitting over there.”
“You were looking for her.”
“Yeah, but I hadn’t made plans to meet her.”
Jackie leaned back against the bench, looking that way.
“Where is she?”
“Three tables over, in the blue dress.”
He watched Jackie looking at his wife.
“She’s quite petite.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Don’t you want to talk to her?”
“It can wait.” Jackie was looking at him again and he said, “I called you last night.”
“I know, I got your message. Ray wanted to have dinner, to talk about the sting we’re plotting. That’s what he calls it, a sting. He’s being nice to me,” Jackie said, leaning in now to rest her arms on the table. “I can’t help wondering if he’s interested in the money for himself.”
“Because he’s nice to you?”
“Setting me up to make a proposition.”
“Has he hinted around?”
“Not really.”
“Then why do you think he might want it?”
“I knew a narcotics cop one time,” Jackie said. “He told me that in a raid, ‘the whole package never gets back to the station.’ His exact words.”
“You know some interesting people,” Max said.
“I believe him, because later on he was suspended and forced to retire.”
“Has Nicolet told you any stories like that?”
She shook her head. “He tries to act cool.”
“There’s no harm in that. He’s a young guy, having fun being a cop. He might cut a few corners to get a conviction—from what I’ve heard about him—but I can’t see him walking off with that kind of money, it’s evidence.”
She said, “What about you, Max, if you had the chance?”
“If I was in Nicolet’s place?”
She might’ve meant that and changed her mind, shaking her head. “No, I mean
“If I saw a way to walk off with a shopping bag full of money, would I take it?”
She said, “You know where it came from. It’s not like it’s someone’s life savings. It wouldn’t even be missed.”
Watching him, waiting for an answer.
She was serious.
“I might be tempted,” Max said. “Especially now, since I’m getting out of the bail-bond business.”
That stopped her, no question about it.
“I have to stand behind all my active bonds, but I’m not writing any new ones.”
She eased back against the bench. “Why?”
“I’m tired of doing it. . . . I’m in a bad situation with the insurance company I represent. The only way to get out of it is quit the business.”
“When did you decide?”
“It’s been coming. I finally made up my mind—I guess it was Thursday.”
“The day you got me out of jail.”
“That night I went to pick up a guy. Sat there in the dark with a stun gun, the place smelling of mildew . . .”
“After we were together,” Jackie said.
Max paused. “Yeah . . . I thought, What am I doing here? Nineteen years of this. I made up my mind to quit the business. And while I was at it, file for divorce.”
She was staring at him but didn’t seem surprised now.
“All of a sudden, after twenty-seven years?”
“You look back,” Max said, “you can’t believe that much time went by. You look ahead and you think, shit, if it goes that fast I better do something with it.”
“Have you told Renee?”
“That’s why I came here.”
Jackie looked over that way. “She’s leaving.”
“I’ll get to it,” Max said. He saw Renee in her off-one-shoulder dark blue gown that reached almost to the floor standing by the table, picking up her bag and the carryout container for the busboy.
“She looks good,” Jackie said. “How old is she?”
“Fifty-three.”
“Stays in shape.”
“She’s her main concern,” Max said.
“Seems very confident. The way she walks, holds her head.”
“Is she gone?”
Jackie turned to him again, nodding. “You’re afraid of her, aren’t you?”
“I think it’s more, I never really got to know her. We didn’t talk much, all those years. You know when you’re with someone and you have to try and think of something to say?” Jackie was nodding. “That’s how it was. What she’s doing now, age fifty-three, Renee poses nude for a Cuban busboy who paints cane fields and she sells them for thirty-five hundred a copy. So she’s all set.”
“Which bothers you more,” Jackie said, “her posing nude or making money?”
“The guy bothers me, the painter,” Max said. “He irritates the hell out of me, but so what? I outweigh him fifty pounds, I hit him it’s assault with intent, a three-thousand-dollar bond. Renee, what she’s doing I think is great. She’s finally got something going and I don’t have to feel guilty trying to understand her.”
“You don’t have to support her either,” Jackie said.
“There’s that too. She’s working and I’m not.”
“Then why don’t you sound happy about it?”
“Right now I’m relieved, that’s enough.”
Jackie lit a cigarette before she looked at him again. “I’m not sure you answered my question.”
“Which one?”
“If you had the chance, unemployed now, to walk off with a half million plus, would you do it?”
“I said I’d be tempted.” She kept staring at him and he said, “You know I was kidding.”
