Jackie drew on the cigarette. Beaumont—she had listened to him talking to Mr. Walker. He left and Mr. Walker told her Beaumont could do tricks with numbers, add columns of figures in his head.
Tyler’s voice said, “If you don’t want to talk to us, I guess we’ll have to hand you over to Customs.”
She stubbed out the cigarette, intent on it for several moments, staring at the black plastic ashtray before turning now to face Tyler.
She said, “Okay, let’s go.”
He stood by the other desk in the office, where they had placed her flight bag, an open file folder in his hands.
“Now you’re gonna get him mad,” Nicolet said. “You know Faron could bring you up on a RICO violation? That fifty grand suggesting you’re mixed up in some kind of racketeering activity. And if I know Faron he’ll file a Probable Cause affidavit and take it all the way to the wall.”
Tyler was staring at her. She watched him lay the folder on the desk and place his hand on the flight bag. He said, “I’d like your permission to open this again. Is that okay? So we’ll know exactly how much we’re talking about here.”
Jackie walked over to the desk and unzipped the bag. She brought out the manila envelope, dropped it on the desk, and said, “Help yourself.”
“While you’re at it,” Tyler said, “let’s see what else is in there. You mind?”
Jackie looked at him for a moment.
She brought out a leather kit. “My toothbrush and bathroom stuff.” Next, a plastic travel case. “My curlers. You want me to open it?”
“Let’s see what else’s in there first,” Tyler said.
Jackie picked up the flight bag with both hands, turned it upside down, and shook it. A white blouse, a skirt, underwear, a bra, and pantyhose fell to the desk on top of the manila envelope. She set the bag aside. Tyler picked up the envelope and she watched him open it and shake out the packets of currency.
She watched him look in the envelope and then at her and saw his look of surprise become a grin. His hand went into the envelope and he said, “Well, what have we here?”
Jackie said, “Now wait a minute,” as Tyler’s hand came out and she heard Nicolet’s boots hit the floor.
He approached them saying, “Is that Sweet’n Low or what I think it is?”
Tyler was holding a clear cellophane sandwich bag that showed a rounded half inch or so of white powder inside. He raised it toward the overhead light saying, “Is it to sell or get stoned with? That’s the question.”
“It’s not mine,” Jackie said.
It
“Listen, okay? Really . . .”
“It isn’t enough for trafficking,” Nicolet said. “How about possession with intent to distribute?”
“Considering all the cash,” Tyler said, “I think I could go with conspiracy to traffic.”
A couple of happy guys.
Jackie was shaking her head. She said, “I don’t believe this.”
Nicolet pulled the chair out from the desk. He said, “Why don’t we sit down and start over,” giving Jackie a nice smile. “What do you say.”
5
Louis Gara could sound like a decent guy, an excon with possibilities. It came through, Max thought, in the way Louis played down his career as a bank robber.
He said what he’d do was hand the teller a note that read:
How about that? Told in a quiet manner with what seemed a reasonable attitude, get caught for the crime, you do the time.
He said he worked in auto repair at Florida State Prison—referring to it as Starke or FSP—the food wasn’t too bad, and he got along with his cellmate, an older guy from Miami who had put away his wife. According to the cellmate his wife never shut up, was always nagging him about something until finally he had enough.
Max said, “How did he do it?” Renee had called earlier and he listened to her for twenty minutes before he could get off the phone.
Louis said the guy smothered her with a pillow. “He’d lift it off. ‘You gonna shut up?’ She’d start yapping at him and he’d push the pillow down over her face, hold it, lift it off. ‘You gonna shut up?’ No, she kept yapping until the last time he lifted it off she had shut up.”
Max believed it could happen, you lose control for a minute and it’s done. What bothered him about Louis, the guy was a repeat offender. Grand theft auto in Ohio, felonious assault in Texas, fraud and bank robbery here in Florida. Louis was forty-seven with a hard, weathered look to him, dark curly hair showing some gray; he had a pretty good build from working out with weights at FSP. The three falls had only taken seven years out of his life, which Louis said didn’t set him back too much. Actually six years and ten months. That sounded like a positive- thinking guy, didn’t it? Louis never complained or acted resentful.
It was his eyes that gave him away.
Max saw it. Those dull eyes that didn’t seem to have life in them but didn’t miss anything. Three falls, you don’t come out, put on a new suit of clothes, and become a normal person again. That life changed you. Max said to Winston, “Watch him.”
Winston said, “I know who he is.” Winston asked Louis had he ever boxed in the slam.
Louis said, a little; but would never put the
gloves on with Winston.
Max said, “He isn’t stupid.”
Winston said, “One round, I could bust him up good. We wouldn’t see him for a while.”
Max said, “But he’d get you if you did. Don’t you know how that works? Don’t you see that in his eyes?”
He had told Glades Mutual Casualty he didn’t need Louis or want him; a convicted felon, Louis would never be able to apply for a surety license. The guy at Glades Mutual told Max to “use him for heavy work,” like picking up guys that failed to appear. So Max had Louis helping out with some of the more violent FTAs, guys that were likely to give them trouble. Louis could carry a pair of cuffs, that’s all. They’d never let him pack a gun or even touch the ones they had in the office: revolvers and a nickel-plated Mossberg 500 12-gauge, a short-barreled shotgun with a pistol grip and a laser scope. They kept the guns locked in a cabinet in the meeting room. They didn’t give Louis even a key to the office.
Thursday, right after Max got back from lunch, he let Louis go with Winston to pick up Zorro, the Puerto Rican burglar with the swords and hyper women. The other day when Winston had gone to get him, Zorro wasn’t home.
Ten past three they were back.
Winston came in shaking his head at Max, Winston followed by Louis Gara and Ordell Robbie, Ordell with a grin saying, “I’m coming to see you, I run into Louis out front. Let me talk to my friend a minute, then I want to collect the money you owe and have you write me another bond.”
Max, sitting at his desk, didn’t say a word.
Neither did Louis Gara. He didn’t speak or look at Max as he picked up the coffee mug from Max’s desk. Louis motioned with a nod of his head and Ordell followed him into the meeting room, Ordell saying, “Man, I been calling
