Ordell or Ray Nicolet about Friday, the clock reading 10:37, while she finished making their drinks. Max got a cigarette from the table on his side.
Five left in the pack he’d bought this morning before seeing the lawyer about filing, the lawyer suggesting he and Renee sell the house, divide their assets, and that should do it. Then in the kitchen before coming to bed Jackie saying, “This is all you have to do,” describing his part in making off with a half million or so. “Okay?”
Nothing to it. If changing your life was this simple, why was he ever concerned about the everyday stuff, writing fifteen thousand criminal offenders? He said to Jackie, “Okay,” and was committed, more certain of his part in this than hers. Until she stood close to him in the kitchen and he lifted the skirt up over her thighs, looking at this girl in a summer dress, fun in her eyes, and knew they were in it together. He did. And was sure of it when they made love, again looking at her eyes.
The times he had doubts, he was alone. Wondering if she was using him and he would never see her again once it was done.
It was 10:45.
He used to think that with the name Max Cherry he should be a character. Max the legendary bail bondsman who told wild stories about skip-tracing, collaring felons on the run, to the patrons of the Helen Wilkes bar. He did tell one—how he drove all the way to Van Horn, Texas, to return a defendant who’d skipped on a five-hundred-dollar bond—and they didn’t get it, failed to understand the street value of what that kind of dedication meant. He settled for being a man of his word instead of a character, and that could be why he was here.
Jackie came in with their drinks, the man’s dress shirt hanging open. “That was Faron.” She handed Max his glass and moved around to her side of the bed. It was 10:5 1.
“You have a nice chat?”
“Ray just got word they’re moving the guns, three guys, and left. So I called Ordell hoping to God he wasn’t one of them. We don’t want to lose him now, after all this.”
Max watched her place her drink on the night table and light a cigarette before slipping into bed, propping her pillows against the headboard.
“He must’ve been home,” Max said.
“At the apartment. I told him he was about to go out of business and he carried on for a while. That’s what took so long, getting him calmed down. I told him we’d better bring the money in tomorrow. He said Mr. Walker was in Islamorada, he’d have to get in touch with him. I said, drive down and get him. Take him to Miami and put him on a plane to Freeport, he has to be there to meet my flight. I told him if he wanted his money he’d better get it out of there quick. He said okay, Mr. Walker would take his cut and put exactly five hundred and fifty thousand in my bag. Now I have to get in touch with Ray before I leave in the morning.”
So calm about it. Max said, “Why?” “Tell him it’s tomorrow.” “If he’s not at the mall, so much the better.” “I
him search me and see I’m clean.” “You’re starting to sound like people I know.” Jackie said, “I’m going to tell Ray that Ordell
changed his mind. With what’s happened he’s afraid to bring in all of his money, but will need about fifty thousand for bail, in case he’s picked up.”
“He’ll need more than that.” “Don’t be so literal. This is what I tell Ray.” “But you show him the money at the airport.” “Well, you know I’m not going to show him
the whole amount. He’ll see fifty thousand.” “Where’s the rest of it?” “In the bag, underneath.” “What if he looks through it?” “He won’t. He’ll be expecting fifty thousand
and there it is, on top. He didn’t search my bag
the last time.” “You’re taking an awful chance.” “If he finds it, I say Mr. Walker put the money
in and I didn’t know it was there, like the coke.”
“Then you’re out, you get nothing.” “Right, but I tried and I’m not in jail.” “Keep it simple, huh?” “Exactly.” She said, “Oh,” thinking of some
thing else. “Is tomorrow okay?” He had to smile. “I’ll try to be there.” Jackie was quiet for several moments smok
ing her cigarette, staring off. “It’s pretty much the same plan. Your part
doesn’t change.” “You’re gonna have surveillance all over you.” “I know. That’s why you don’t make a move
till I come out of the fitting room.” “In a dress.” “Well, a suit, an Isani I’ve had my eye on. The
only thing I don’t like about it now,” Jackie said, “Simone’s disappeared, and guess who’s taking her place. Melanie.”
21
The three jackboys in the self-service storage unit, Sweatman, Snow, and Zulu wearing his black bandanna and sunglasses, had brought cardboard boxes to load the different weapons in, wrapping each piece in newspaper. The guns didn’t have to be packed too good going from here in the van to halfway down in the Keys and put on a boat. It got so hot with the door closed using flashlights, Zulu turned the van around, drove it partway in, and put on the headlights. There wasn’t anybody outside from here to Australian Avenue so what was the difference? When they finished packing the boxes he’d turn the van around again and they’d load it through the rear. When they heard the voice outside they thought it was somebody’s radio. When they stopped to listen and heard the voice again they knew what it was, shit, a bullhorn, police telling them, “Come out with your hands up!”
The voice said something about they were federal officers and to lay their guns down and come out one at a time with their hands in the air.
Sweatman said, “How they gonna shoot us, they down the street? They have to be right there in front to do it.”
Snow said, “Shit, we got all the guns we need.”
Zulu said, “Sweat, get in the van and take a look out the back. See where they at.”
He had pulled the van far enough into the unit that they could open the doors and get in without being seen. Zulu started looking through boxes, saying to Snow, “Where those throwaway rocket shooters we got out at Big Guy’s?”
Sweatman came back and said they had both ends of this street blocked with green and whites and were some of them up on the roof too, laying down up there right across the street. Zulu turned to him with an olive- colored LAW rocket launcher in his hands, a tube twenty-four inches long with a grip, a trigger, sights, and writing on it with pictographs. “How to fire the motherfucker,” Zulu said. “Each of us take one and get in the van.”
Snow said, “I want my AK.”
Zulu said, “We bringing AKs, but this the motherflicker gonna set us free. See, here the instructions.”
They all wore flak jackets with identifying letters on the back. Nicolet, ATF, huddled behind the radio cars with an agent from FDLE and an older guy named Boland who commanded the Sheriff’s Office TAC unit. They stared at the lighted street of garage doors on both sides to the back end of a van sticking out of one of the units. The surveillance team said there were three of them, young black guys. Two jumped out when the van arrived; the driver backed it in first, then turned it around. Beyond the van, at the opposite end of the street, sets of blue gum balls were flashing. There were about fifty law enforcement officers on the scene.
“If they’re all young guys,” Nicolet said, “the one I want isn’t there, so I’ll need to take prisoners. The only problem I see, they have about a hundred and fifty machine guns, a big M-60, grenades, and half a dozen rocket launchers. It could drag on. These guys have more firepower than we do.”
The TAC guy said, “But can they shoot?”
“I don’t want to find out,” Nicolet said. “Before they start firing rockets at us, I thought I’d go up there and toss in a flash-bang.”
“The van’s in the way,” the TAC guy said.
“It’s my cover,” Nicolet said. “Bounce it in there off the roof of the van. The concussion knocks them on their ass and we’d have about seven seconds to get the drop on them. I need those guys alive.”
Zulu had his sunglasses off to read the pictographs printed on the side of the LAW rocket launcher, holding the weapon in the van’s headlight beam. “ ‘Pull pin,’ ” Zulu said. “ ‘Re-move . . . rear . . . cov-er and . . .’”
“ ‘Strap,’ “ Snow said. “Say remove the rear cover and that strap there.”
Zulu said, “Yeah, this thing,” and began reading again. “Now. ‘Pull o-pen un-til . . .’ Shit.”
“Say to pull the motherfucker open,” Sweatman said.
