“Yeah, well, I’ll catch him sometime.” Ordell picked up his bag and started for the door. He stopped and looked back. “I got one other question. What if, I was just thinking, what if before the court date gets here Beaumont gets hit by a car or something and dies? I get the money back, don’t I?”
What he was saying was, he
He turned away from the front window, went back to his office to type up bail forms.
The first one, the Power of Attorney. Max rolled it into his typewriter and paused, looking at his problem. It would hit him in the eye every time he filled out a form that had GLADES MUTUAL CASUALTY COMPANY printed across the top.
The Power of Attorney verified Max Cherry as the insurance company’s licensed surety-bond representative, here, in the matter of Beaumont Livingston. The way it worked, the insurance company would get one third of the ten percent premium and put a third of it into a buildup fund to cover forfeitures.
If Max wrote fifty thousand dollars’ worth of bail bonds a week, he’d clear five grand less expenses and the one third that went to Glades Mutual in Miami. It was a grind, but good money if you put in the hours.
The problem was that after representing Glades for the past nineteen years, no complaints either way, the company was now under new management, taken over by guys with organized crime connections. Max was sure of it. They’d even placed an excon in his office, Ordell Robbie’s friend Louis Gara. “To help out,” this thug from Glades Mutual said, a guy who didn’t know shit about the business. “Go after some of those big drug-trafficking bonds.”
“What those people do,” Max told the guy, “is skip as soon as they’re bonded.”
The guy said, “So what? We got the premium.”
“I don’t write people who I know are gonna forfeit.”
The guy said, “If they don’t want to show up in court, that’s their business.”
“And it’s my business who I write,” Max told him. The guy from Glades said, “You got an attitude problem,” and gave him Louis to hang around the office, a convicted bank robber just out of prison.
Winston came in while Max was preparing the forms. Winston Willie Powell, a licensed bondsman following a 39 and 10 record as a middleweight. He was light heavy in retirement, short and thick, with a bearded black face so dark it was hard to make out his features. Max watched him, at the other desk now, unlock the right-hand drawer and take out a snub-nosed .38 before he looked over.
“Have to pick up that little Puerto Rican housebreaker thinks he’s Zorro. Has the swords on his wall? Man lies to his probation officer, she violates him, we bond him, and then he don’t show up for his hearing. I called Delray PD, said I might need some backup, depending how it goes. They say to me, ‘He’s your problem, man.’ They don’t want to mess with those women live there. Touch Zorro, they try to scratch your eyes out.”
“You want help? Get Louis.”
Winston said, “I rather do it myself,” shoving the .38 into his waistband and smoothing his ribbed knit T-shirt over it. “Who you writing?”
“Concealed weapon. Ten thousand.”
“That’s high.”
“Not for Beaumont Livingston. They caught him one time with machine guns.”
“Beaumont—he’s Jamaican he’s gone.”
“This African-American gent who put up cash says no.”
“We know him?”
“Ordell Robbie,” Max said and waited. Winston shook his head. “Where’s he live?” “On Thirty-first right off Greenwood. You know that neighborhood? It’s kept up. People have bars on their windows.”
“You want, I’ll check him out.”
“He knows Louis. They’re old buddies.”
“Then you know the man’s dirty,” Winston said. “Where’s Beaumont live?”
“Riviera Beach. He’s hired help but worth ten grand to Mr. Robbie.”
“Wants his man sprung ’fore he gets squeezed and cops to a deal. I can bring him out when I take Zorro.”
“I’m going up anyway. I have to deliver Reggie.”
“Missed his hearing again? They beauties, aren’t they?”
“He says it was his mother’s birthday, he forgot.”
“And you believe that shit. I swear, there times you act like these people are no different than anybody else.”
“I’m glad we’re having this talk,” Max said.
“Yeah, well, I’m enough irritated the way you act,” Winston said, “you better not get smart with me. Like nothing bothers you. Like not even Mr. Louis Gara, the way you let him waste your time. Let him smoke his cigarettes in here.”
“No, Louis bothers me,” Max said.
“Then throw his ass out and lock the door. Then call that crooked insurance company and tell them you’re through. You don’t, they gonna eat you up or get you in trouble with the state commission, and you know it.”
“Right,” Max said. He turned to his typewriter.
“Listen to me. All you got to do is stop writing their bonds.”
“You mean quit the business.”
“For a while. What’s wrong with that?”
“If you haven’t looked at the books lately,” Max said, “we’ve got close to a million bucks out there.”
“It don’t mean you have to work. Ride it out. See, then when it’s all off the books you start over.”
“I got bills to pay, like everybody else.”
“Yeah, but you could do it if you wanted; there ways. What I think is, you tired of the business.”
“You’re right again,” Max said, tired of talking about it.
“But you don’t see a way to get out, so you act like nothing bothers you.”
Max didn’t argue. Nine years together, Winston knew him. It was quiet and then Winston said, “How’s Renee doing?” Coming at him from another direction. “She making it yet?”
“You want to know if I’m still paying her bills?”
“Don’t tell me what you don’t want to.”
“Okay, the latest,” Max said. He turned from his typewriter. “I walk in, I just got back from seeing the judge about Reggie, she calls.”
He paused as Winston sat down and hunched over the desk on his arms, Winston staring at him now, waiting.
“She’s at the mall. Something she ordered, three olive pots, arrived COD and she needs eight twenty right away. That’s eight hundred and twenty.”
“What’s a olive pot?”
“How should I know? What she wanted was for me to drop whatever I was doing and bring her a check.”
Winston sat there staring at him, his head down in those heavy shoulders. “For these olive pots.”
“I said, ‘Renee, I’m working. I’m trying to save a young man from doing ten years and I’m waiting for him to call.’ I try to explain it to her in a nice way. You know what she said? She said, ‘Well, I’m working too.’ ”
Winston seemed to smile. It was hard to tell. He said, “I was out there one time. Renee act like she didn’t see me and I’m the only person in there.”
“That’s what I mean,” Max said. “She says she’s working—doing what? You never see anybody unless she’s got the wine and cheese out. You know what I mean? For a show. Then you have all the freeloaders. You see these guys, they look like they live in cardboard boxes under the freeway, they’re eating everything, drinking the wine . . . You know who they are? The artists and their crowd. I’ve even recognized guys I’ve written. Renee’s playing like she’s Peter Pan, has her hair cut real short, and all these assholes are the Lost Boys. The place clears out, she hasn’t sold one flicking painting.”
“So what you’re telling me,” Winston said, “you’re still supporting her habit.”
