Louis was thinking he should not drink rum. Or he should find a glass and have another one. “Rum and Coca-Cola,” the Andrew Sisters. He had started this afternoon in the bar at Ocean Mall, Casey’s, hiding out from Melanie, thinking of her as a female cannibal. Bourbon this afternoon, rum this evening, nothing to eat in between . . . You had to be in shape for this, the same as you had to be at Starke to get through each day. It took a lot of effort.
Simone came in the living room holding a wad of bills in one hand and a gold wristwatch in the other.
She said, “That man works? Has a job?”
Louis watched her sit down at the coffee table and begin counting hundred-dollar bills.
“He’s a bail bondsman.”
“I wondered,” Simone said, “ ‘cause he don’t know shit about robbing people.”
19
“You brought me a present.”
That was the first thing Jackie said, looking at the shopping bag: taking a guess but not too happy about it, no gleam of fun in those green eyes. Max shook his head, holding the bag out to her.
“Take it.”
She wouldn’t, she slipped her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and he had to smile.
“It’s yours. The same one you gave the young girl and she turned around and gave to a woman, I bet anything, wasn’t part of your plan. It turns out she’s a friend of a guy named Louis Gara, an ex-con who used to work for me and now, it looks like, works for Ordell. You going to ask me in for a drink or not?”
He watched her stare at the Saks bag another few moments, trying to figure it out for herself, then turned and went into the kitchen. Max closed the door and followed her; he set the shopping bag on the kitchen table. She didn’t ask him one question getting ice from the refrigerator, making drinks, so he started telling her about it: how he got the woman’s name and address and went there, ran into Louis Gara, who had stolen guns from the office. . . . Jackie handed him his drink. She listened, but didn’t look that interested. He took a sip and told her about searching the woman’s house for his guns and finding the Saks bag in the bedroom closet, ten thousand dollars in it. Jackie was watching him now. He reached into the bag, brought out ten one hundred-dollar bills, and spread them on the table saying all of them were marked, right there.
Now she was interested.
“You took his money.”
That was the second thing Jackie said.
Max said, “He owed it to me,” and explained that part of it, the thousand representing the premium on her bond, as a matter of fact, and how he left the watch and the rest of the money, nine thousand, with the woman.
“But you took a thousand.”
“I knew it was his. . . .”
“Was it easy?”
“You mean did they give me any trouble?”
She motioned, tilting her head to the side, and he followed her white T-shirt, her hips moving in the jeans, through the living room in lamplight and out onto the balcony to stand in the dark by the metal rail.
“I mean, was it easy to pick up his money and walk out with it?”
“I took what he owed me, that’s all.”
“You’re sure it’s his money.”
“I know it’s what you delivered, it’s marked.”
“So it was okay to take it from the woman’s house.”
Jackie quietly playing with him three floors above dark shapes down in the yard, trees, shrubs, dots of orange light lining a walk, high enough for Max to feel alone with her in the night. He knew what she was doing.
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t.”
“This was different.”
“Considering the kind of guy he is.”
“And how he came by the money?”
“Not so much that.”
“You know he won’t call the police.”
“That occurred to me.”
“It made it easier.”
“In a way.”
“So it didn’t bother you, to take it.”
She was close enough to touch. He said, “There’s a difference.” She waited and he said, “I don’t see what I did anything at all like walking off with a half million.”
“You could if you tried,” Jackie said. “We know he won’t call the police. . . .”
“No, he’ll come after you himself.”
“He’ll be in jail.”
Max watched her raise her glass and then glance into the living room and saw light reflected in her eyes for a moment. He wanted to touch her face.
She said, “Think of it as money that shouldn’t even be here, the way it was made. I mean, does anyone have a legal right to it?”
“The feds,” Max said, “it’s evidence.”
“It may be evidence if they get their hands on it,” Jackie said, “but right now it’s just money. They want Ordell. They’re not interested in the money, because they don’t need it to convict him. They’ll look for it— it’s gone, misplaced? . . . What is it they say, the whole package never gets to the station?”
“You’re rationalizing.”
“It’s what you do, Max, to go through with it once you start. Not have any lingering doubts that might trip you up. You’re looking for work, aren’t you?” In her quiet tone. “I know you’re looking for something you don’t seem to have.”
He touched her face. Saw her expression, waiting.
He kissed her, moving his hand over her hair, and had to look at her face again, pale in the dark, her eyes not leaving his as she reached out and dropped her glass over the rail. There was no sound. He felt her hands slip inside his jacket and around him, her fingers on his body. Now Max reached out over the rail and let his glass fall.
* * *
In the moment she looked at him and said, “You took his money,” he knew they would be in this bed before too long and that his life was about to change.
They made love in the dark, on the sheets with the spread pulled down. Took off their clothes and made love. She left and returned still naked with cigarettes and drinks. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, but she was quiet now, so he was quiet. He would tell her later to give them Louis Gara; it would get her points. She reached over and put her hand on him.
They made love again with the lamp on and this time he knew his life had already changed.
She said, “We’re alike. We weren’t before, you were holding back, but now we are. You and I.” She said, “Could you pass out complimentary tropical punch in little plastic cups? That’s my alternative and it’s unacceptable.”
He looked at her lying naked against the headboard with her drink and a cigarette.
“So the money’s a way out.”
She looked at him with that gleam in her eyes.
“I’m not saying it wouldn’t be fun to have.”
He thought about it and said, “Or, we’re taking it so the bad guys won’t get it.”
“If you like that one,” Jackie said, “use it.”
He nodded, giving it some more thought.
“Hold on to the money and see what happens. It’s not worth going to prison over. But if the feds, as you say, don’t care about it . . . I mean if it’s not there and they don’t see it as that big a deal . . . Or they don’t have time to count it at the airport, when you come in, and they get some of it . . .”
“But not the whole package,” Jackie said. Those eyes smiling at him as she drew on her cigarette and he
