Rum Punch

“We know about Louis Gara,” Nicolet said, “he’s a bank robber. Late last night we put the house where he’s staying on Thirtieth Street, West Palm, under surveillance. This morning about five thirty he comes out, walks over to a house on Thirty-first where Sheronda lives, gets car keys from her, and takes off in a Toyota parked in the drive. The car’s registered to him. He’s followed to a self-service storage place off Australian Avenue in Riviera Beach. You’ve seen them, they look like rows of garages?” Nicolet looked at Tyler. “That must’ve been where Cujo was going.”

Tyler, nodding, said, “I know, to drop off the piece. And we thought it was the bump shop.”

That went by Jackie; she let it go.

“He opened one of the doors,” Nicolet said to her, “brought a cardboard box out of the trunk of his car, and put it inside. He comes out and returns to the house on Thirtieth. Three thirty this afternoon he drove to the apartment you mentioned in Palm Beach Shores.”

It surprised her. “Then you must’ve seen me go in.

“I wasn’t there,” Nicolet said. “I was at the storage place with a search warrant and a locksmith. We enter— it’s full of guns, all kinds, even military weapons. . . . Some of the stuff we know was taken from that farm out by Loxahatchee, where the triple homicide took place on Monday.”

“One of them,” Jackie said, “a white supremacist named Gerald something?”

“Yeah, it was on the news yesterday, front page of the paper. This morning too.”

“I didn’t see it,” Jackie said. “A woman named Melanie, Ordell’s girlfriend, told me she shot Gerald four times in the heart. Is that right?”

They were both staring at her. Nicolet said, “Four, yeah, but not in the heart.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“She told you she did it? When was this?”

“About an hour and a half ago at Casey’s, right after I left the apartment. That’s where she lives. She said some, quote, ‘crazy young black kids’ who work for Ordell killed the other two.”

Tyler and Nicolet looked at each other again and Nicolet said, “She tell you their names?”

Jackie shook her head, drawing on her cigarette. She said, “I don’t even know Melanie’s last name,” and saw Nicolet look at Tyler again.

“You know a Melanie?”

“I don’t think so,” Tyler said. “What’s she look like?”

Jackie said, “Well, she has very large tits. . . .”

Tyler said, “Yeah?”

“A lot of blond hair. She’s about thirty but looks much older.”

Nicolet said, “Why’d she tell you about it?”

“Because she’s pissed at Ordell. She shoots a guy who’s beating him up and he won’t let her sit in on the Pay Day meeting,” Jackie said. “Pay Day is what happens Friday. He likes to use code names. Rum Punch is his deal with the Colombians.”

Nicolet said, “We used that once, Rumpunch, one word, rounding up Jamaican posses. So we can put Ordell at the scene. What about Louis, was he there?”

“She didn’t say.”

Nicolet was quiet for a moment.

“If Melanie’s pissed off enough at Ordell . . .”

“She won’t leave,” Jackie said. “I’m sure of it.”

Nicolet looked at Tyler. “You know what they say, once they’ve had a black guy. . . . But I want him more than I bet she does. There’s gonna be a fistfight,” Nicolet said to Jackie, “over who gets him now, ATF or Faron’s people and the Sheriff’s office. You said there’s one more arms delivery coming up?”

Jackie nodded. “That’s what he told me.”

“They’ve got enough there, it could go down anytime. My beeper goes off, man, I’m out of here.”

Jackie said, “What if Ordell’s not with them?”

“I don’t care if he is or not, I know it’s his dump,” Nicolet said. “We can show weapons there were lifted from Gerald’s place and take Ordell on the homicides and the guns. It’s better than what we had going before, I love it. Get him sent to Marion, that would be beautiful. You’re in lockdown there twenty-two hours a day.”

Jackie put her beer can on the floor; got up, crossed to the lavatory, and dropped her cigarette in the toilet. She came out and stood by the door to the hall.

“When am I off the hook?”

“When it’s over,” Nicolet said.

She looked at Tyler. “I’m your case, not his.”

“That’s right,” Tyler said, “and I’m calling the state attorney tomorrow, get him to agree on a no-file.”

Jackie said, “An A-99?”

Tyler smiled at her. “Why don’t you stay a while? We’ll get rid of Ray . . .”

Louis turned off Windsor Avenue to Thirtieth Street and Ordell, riding with him, said, “Keep going. I don’t like that Chevy back there. Guy sitting in it.”

“I didn’t notice him,” Louis said, looking at his mirror. “Was he black or white?”

“How do I know he’s black or white in the dark?”

“It’s a black neighborhood,” Louis said.

“I know that. But they got brothers are cops too, if you never heard of it. Look, no lights on. Too early for her to be in bed. Go ’round the block.”

Louis turned on South Terrace and then on 29th and came around again to Simone’s street.

Now they came past the Chevy and Ordell looked back at it.

“Shit, I can’t tell. Go on to Sheronda’s, see what it looks like over there, Thirty-first Street.”

“I know where it is.”

“Man, they make it hard for you. No, forget going over there. Turn around up here at the corner and go back. Man, I have to find out right now. The house’s dark . . . Guy in the Chevy could be staking out anybody. Or it’s some man thinks his woman’s running around on him. The cops don’t know you, so how could they know you staying there?”

“Max Cherry knows.”

“Hey, fuck him. We going in the house.”

They parked in the drive and entered through the side door. “Not one light on in here. This ain’t like her,” Ordell said in the kitchen. “Well, we only have to look one place, where she keeps her Motown records. If they gone, she’s gone.”

Louis said from the living room in the dark, “They’re gone.”

Ordell said, “Shit. Well, let’s look for the money.” Louis said, “You know if she’s gone the money’s gone. It’s why she’s gone.”

“What? You saying nine thousand dollars gonna make her run off, leave her home? Man, that hurts me. I was gonna give her two for helping me out.”

“She left your watch,” Louis said.

“It has something to do with Max Cherry,” Ordell said. “Comes in her house, it scared her.”

“It scared me,” Louis said. “How’d he find out I was here?”

“Man, this shit works on my nerves,” Ordell said. “Tells me I should change the plans around. First thing, I have to find somebody to take Simone’s place.”

“Don’t look at me,” Louis said.

“I’m not looking at you, I’m thinking who I can use.”

“You’re looking at me,” Louis said in the dark.

“You could do it.”

“Walk in the women’s fitting room? How would I work that?”

“Shit,” Ordell said. “Lemme think.”

Max didn’t touch the phone: on the table with the lamp and digital clock, next to Jackie’s side of the queen- size bed. It rang while she was in the kitchen, three times and stopped. She would have picked it up standing by the counter in a man’s dress shirt she put on leaving the bedroom, nothing under it, lighting a cigarette now, talking to