Nicolet, there was no chance of avoiding that.
Maybe see Ordell again, it was possible. And finally come to a decision about Max.
That would be a tough one, because they were alike, she felt good with him and knew he was doing this for her, not the money. She saw it in his eyes when she brought him along with her own eyes and could tell he knew she was playing with him, so it was okay. And yet he was his own person, a very decent guy, even if he was a bail bondsman—and had to smile thinking that, wondering if she sounded like his arty little wife. He was tender and he was rough too, in a good way that left her sore after. She said to him, “I don’t think I can walk,” and he said, “Then come back to bed.” She would have to decide in the next day or so and she hadn’t been that good at picking guys. When she told him, “Let’s see what happens,” she meant it. She liked him a lot. Maybe loved him. But didn’t want to run off with him and learn too late it was a mistake. But how else did you find out? She needed to have the money in her hands to make an honest decision. And at the moment Max had it. She hoped.
The living mannequin changed her pose: came around to stand with her back to Jackie, fringed boots planted wide, fists on her hips, head cocked to stare dull-eyed over her shoulder, defiant. Without moving her mouth she said, “Will you get out of here?”
The poor girl trying to make a living. There were all kinds of ways. Jackie said, “You can do better than this,” and walked away.
She didn’t get far.
A guy with a hand radio was coming along the concourse toward her, noticeable in his suit among vacation outfits, casual wear. Jackie saw two more suits now and a young woman in a skirt and jacket carrying a shoulder bag, the suits spreading out as they approached, and now she saw Nicolet coming with a radio. Jackie waited.
When he was close enough she said, “Try to find a cop when you need one,” and got ready for a rough time.
23
All Ordell wanted to know was, “Did you get it?”
No, Louis had to tell him how he’s driving up to the apartment and sees two guys sitting in a car on Atlantic he’s sure are watching the building and thinks they saw him go by. So he kept going around the block and now he was at Casey’s, calling from there.
Ordell believed having a few pops, too, for his nerves. He tried to be patient with the man, saying, “I felt they was watching me, Louis; that’s why I said to check. Now did you get it or didn’t you?”
“I got it,” Louis said. “Listen, there’s something else I have to tell you.”
“After I see the money,” Ordell said, and told Louis how they’d work it. He’d get in his Mercedes like he was going out for cigarettes or a six-pack, just in his shirt-sleeves, an old pair of pants. Drive up to Ocean Mall with the two guys following him. Park in back. Walk through Casey’s and Louis would be waiting in his car, in front. They’d go someplace. . . . Ordell said he’d think of where and let him know. He asked Louis, “You count the money?”
Louis said he hadn’t even looked at it yet; it was still in the shopping bag.
Ordell said, “Melanie must be dying to see it.”
There was a silence on the line.
Ordell said, “Louis?”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Louis said. “Melanie was giving me a hard time . . .”
“Not now,” Ordell said. “I’ll meet you in five minutes. Have your motor running.”
As soon as he was in the car, Ordell reached around and got the Macy’s bag from the back seat and held it on his lap with his arms around it, going “Hee hee hee,” like a kid. When they were still on the Riviera bridge he said, “Go on up to Northlake, where all the car dealers are? We gonna leave this heap in a parking lot and get us one the police don’t know about.” When they were turning north on Broadway he said, “Hey, where’s Melanie?” and looked around, like she might’ve been in back and he’d missed seeing her. “Where’s my big girl at?”
“She bugged me,” Louis said, “the whole time. Got nasty on me ’cause I wouldn’t let her carry the bag. Started mouthing off . . . I could-n’t remember right away when we came out where the car was parked, so then she got on me about that. ‘Is it in this aisle, Lou-is? Is it in that one?’ Man, she drove me fucking crazy the way she kept on.”
“So you left her there,” Ordell said.
“I shot her,” Louis said.
Ordell turned his head to look at him.
Louis could feel it. “I expect she’s dead.”
Ordell didn’t say anything.
It was quiet in the car going up Broadway, Louis looking at black people on the sidewalks hanging out. He didn’t know what Ordell was going to do.
“She wanted to split the money right there,” Louis said. “Each of us go our separate ways and never come back.”
Ordell didn’t say anything.
Louis kept quiet, letting him think about it. Everything he’d said was true and he wasn’t going to apologize for it. He had never shot anyone before and had thought about it all the way from The Gardens Mall down to Palm Beach Shores where he saw the two guys in the unmarked car. He would think of something else for a moment or so and then it would come into his mind all of a sudden—seeing her can in the tight skirt, seeing the look on her face, seeing her legs on the pavement—and for a second there he couldn’t believe he had done it; but he had. He knew guys at Starke who’d shot people during arguments over practically nothing. A guy looking at another guy’s girlfriend. Just looking. Maybe listening to their stories it had come to seem common to him. Being among bad influences.
He didn’t feel too good.
Ordell said, “You shot her?”
“Twice,” Louis said. “In the parking lot.”
“Couldn’t talk to her.”
“You know how she is.”
“You could’ve hit her.”
“I thought of that.”
Ordell was quiet for a minute.
“You expect she’s dead, huh?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Well, if you had to do it then you had to,” Ordell said. “What we don’t want is her surviving on us. Man, anybody else but that woman.”
They were on Northlake Boulevard now, a big busy street full of car dealers and strip malls. Ordell said, “Pull over at that Ford place. On the street, don’t drive in.” He wanted to look at the money without taking it out of the Macy’s bag.
Give Louis ten grand to get a good used car for the time being, nothing that would attract attention.
Louis asked what kind. He was acting strange. Like coming out of being in shock.
“Just get a regular car,” Ordell said. “You understand? Like the common folk drive. We have to do some slipping around here before we pull out tonight. I need my car. See if I can get a jackboy to pick it up and put a different plate on it. I left the keys. I want to see about getting some of my clothes too, at Sheronda’s. Send somebody over there. I should’ve dressed when I come, ’stead of running out. I might have to sell the car—I don’t know. But right now, my man, let’s see what we have here.”
Ordell pulled out a beach towel and threw it on the back seat. Pulled out another one saying, “They pretty, huh?” He threw it in back and looked in the bag. “All that money, it sure don’t take up much space.” Man, another towel inside. Ordell felt under it with his hand. Counted one, two, three packets with rubber bands, four, five . . . He ripped that next towel out of there, looked in the bag and felt his stomach drop, felt panic about to set in, and had to hold on tight and take a breath and let it out, telling himself to be cool, find out what was going on here, instead of taking Louis’s
head and putting it through the fucking windshield. He said, “Louis?” If Louis did the rip-off he’d be ready for this
moment, wouldn’t he? Louis said, “What?” “Where’s the rest of it?” Louis had a surprised look on his face now, or
