Jackie Brown Read online

  "Tell me," Max said.

  "Smiling. Acting pleasant."

  "Now you're talking about your job."

  ' 'Have a wonderful time in the Bahamas and thank you for flying Islands Air/ Or thank you for flying Delta, or TWA. 'Sir, would you like another cup of TWA coffee?''

  Max grinned at her, seeing it coming. An old one.

  " 'Or would you prefer TWAT?''

  "You like it though, don't you? Flying?"

  "Not anymore."

  "You get a lot of guys hitting on you?"

  "Enough."

  "How about when you were a young girl," Max said, "were the boys rough with you?"

  She looked at him over the coffee mug with that gleam of fun in her eyes.

  "How did you know?"

  Chapter 13

  Ray Nicolet called at four in the afternoon. By this time she had already tried to get hold of Tyler. The FDLE office told her he was on the street, and when she dialed his beeper number and waited there was no response.

  "I'd like you to drop whatever you're doing and come to Good Samaritan," Nicolet said, his voice quiet and, she felt, grim. Maybe putting it on. "If you want I'll send a car for you. What do you say?"

  "Why do you want me to come?"

  "See what one of Ordell's guys did to Faron. Then I want you to look at the guy and tell me if you know him."

  "Where are you?"

  He told her the third floor, east wing.

  And was standing by the nurse's station when she walked up to him less than forty minutes later, wearing a man's white shirt with her jeans now, tan bag hanging from her shoulder.

  "Thanks for coming," Nicolet said. It surprised her.

  He stared for a moment not saying a word, then walked off, and she trailed after him along the hallway to where two deputies in dark green stood by the open door to a room. The deputies stepped aside, looking her over as Nicolet gave them a nod and Jackie followed him in, past the first bed, empty, to a young black guy lying in the second bed, his eyes closed. There were tubes in his arms, one coming out of his nose, another from under the sheet to a catheter bag hooked to the side of the bed.

  "What happened to him?"

  "I shot him," Nicolet said, "after he shot Faron."

  Jackie turned from the young guy in the bed to the ATF agent. "How is he?"

  "Which one?"

  "Tyler. Is he all right?"

  "I want you to look at this guy first. You know him?"

  Jackie stepped closer. "No."

  "Have you ever seen him before?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Maybe one time with Ordell?"

  She shook her head. "No."

  "I wonder," Nicolet said, "if this is another one of those times you don't know him but he knows you. Like with Beaumont."

  "Is he Jamaican?"

  "No, this one's a homey," Nicolet said. "His street name, according to one of the deputies outside, is Cujo. And Cujo, I find out, is fairly well known in criminal court. His driver's license says he's Hulon Miller, Jr., but I doubt if there's anyone outside of his mother calls him Hulon." Nicolet put his hand on Cujo's shoulder and gave it a shake. "Isn't that right? Open your eyes, I want you to look at somebody here's come to visit you."

  Jackie watched the young guy scowl as Nicolet shook him again and his eyes opened.

  "The fuck you doing to me?"

  "You in pain, Cujo? I hope to Christ you are," Nicolet said. "I want you to look at this lady here, tell me who she is."

  She watched Cujo squint at her saying, "Man, how would I know? You the one brought her."

  Nicolet took a handful of Cujo's hair and yanked his head back, Cujo saying, "Hey, shit, lemme go," looking into Nicolet's face.

  Jackie watched them. Nicolet seemed calm. He said, "Somebody could come in here and rip your tubes out. Have you thought of that? People die in hospitals, man." He gave Cujo a pat on the head and turned to her with his deadpan cop expression. Time to leave. In the hallway, walking back toward the nurse's station, he took hold of her arm above the elbow.

  "I shot him in the groin area and it messed up his plumbing, but not too bad. He might need more surgery, they don't know yet, or he could be out in a couple of days. I have mixed feelings about it. I was hoping he'd die." Jackie glanced at him and he said, "But I want him alive too, so we can use him."

  "He works for Ordell?"

  "We're pretty sure. I know he sells him guns."

  "What if he won't tell you anything?"

  "He will. He's twenty years old and has been arrested seventeen times. We can do business with a fella like that. His quality of life is based on how much time he can get out of doing."

  "What about Tyler," Jackie said, "am I going to see him?"

  "Right now. His wife's with him," Nicolet said. "We'll take a peek in there, see how he's doing. . . . Faron was hit twice. One in the thigh fractured the bone, the femur? The other one took a chip out of his ilium." Nicolet's hand slid down to touch her hip. "That bone right there. He's gonna be all right. The slugs went through the door of his car and were slowed down some. One hit his beeper and got deflected."

  "I tried to call him," Jackie said.

  "That's right, you want to talk to us."

  "I need my job."

  "We all need something," Nicolet said. "Let's wait'll we see Faron."

  He was in a private room. Nicolet approached the bed saying, "Hey, partner, you sleeping?" Jackie watched his eyes open. Head on the pillow, hair mussed, he seemed younger, barely out of his teens.

  "Where's Cheryl?"

  "I think she went to get some coffee."

  "They gave you some good dope, huh?"

  Tyler closed and opened his eyes, trying to smile.

  "Look who I brought to see you."

  Jackie moved closer to the bed. "How're you doing?"

  Now he was looking at her and managed to smile. "I'm okay."

  It gave her a strange feeling, that she was with friends. Nicolet got her seated and brought over another chair, both with plastic cushions and wooden arms. She kept watching Tyler, his face turned to them with a sleepy look, his right leg raised a few inches beneath the sheet, bare toes sticking out at the foot of the bed. An IV tube ran from his arm to a clear plastic bottle hanging from a stand.

  Nicolet leaned on the arm of his chair, close to her.

  "Where were we?"

  "I need my job."

  And a cigarette. She'd love one right now.

  "Well, you know what I want."

  "If I can work I can help you."

  "Or you could fly away."

  "It wouldn't be worth it. What am I looking at, a few months?"

  "A lot more'n that if I take you federal, which I can do."

  Maybe it was okay to smoke in a private room.

  "How does your working help me?"

  "You want Ordell Robbie, don't you?"

  "Oh, now you know him."

  "You never asked if I did or not."

  "We thought you'd want to surprise us."

  "I deliver money for him."

  "No kidding. Where's he get it?"

  "He sells guns."

  "He told you that or you've seen him do it?"

  "What I have to have," Jackie said, "if I'm going to help, is permission to leave the country, and immunity."

  "You don't want much."

  "Yes or no."

  "It's possible."

  "I show you how to get him and the dope charge is nolle pressed."

  "You've been talking to a lawyer."

  She got her cigarettes and lighter out of her bag.

  "Yes or no."

  "You haven't told me what / get."

  She lit a cigarette.

  "Him. You get Ordell."

  "You nervous?"

  "Of course I am."

  "I get him with guns?"

  "With money from the sale of guns."

  She didn't know what to use for an ashtray.

  Nicolet said, "Put it
on the floor," and said, "Where's my case? I'm not Customs, I don't give a shit about the money. I need him with guns. In possession of illegal weapons, stolen or unregistered firearms or selling without a license." He looked over at the bed. "Isn't that right, partner? We want us a gift-wrapped gun case."

  Tyler said, "Right," in a voice they could barely hear.

  "He's sailing on the dope they gave him," Nicolet said, looking at Jackie again. "I don't give a shit about the forty-two grams either. I can get you nolle pressed on that, but only if you get me Ordell Robbie with guns. You understand?"

  "All I can do is tell you what I know," Jackie said.

  "Like what?"

  She hesitated and drew on her cigarette.

  "He already has more than a half million dollars sitting in Freeport."

  "He does pretty good."

  "And more coming in, as soon as he makes another delivery."

  "He told you that?"

  "He trusts me."

  "That's good. It can keep you from getting shot."

  "He wants me to help him get the money here."

  "Doesn't he know you can't leave the country?"

  "I told him I could get permission."

  Nicolet said, "Jesus Christ," with a grin. "So if we let you, we'll be helping too, won't we?"

  "You follow the money."

  "I understand that. We'd mark it before you ever left the airport. Tag along and watch you hand it to him. But where's my gun case?"

  "If he's planning a delivery, you know he has guns."

  "Where?"

  "Right here."

  "If I let them go-otherwise he doesn't get paid- we have some more money, but my evidence is gone."

  Jackie said, "Excuse me a minute," holding up what was left of her cigarette. "I have to get rid of this." She crossed the room to the lavatory and dropped the cigarette in the toilet. It gave her less than a minute. She was back in the chair before asking, "What if you let him ship out most of the guns, but kept enough to have a case. Would that work?"

  "He doesn't make the delivery himself?"

  "He hasn't been to Freeport in months."

  Nicolet said, "Well, some more money would come in-"

  Jackie cut him off. "It's not your main interest, I know. But why let the Bahamian government have it? As soon as he's arrested, won't they confiscate his funds?"

  "If they know where they are."

  "Your getting the money would be like a bonus," Jackie said. She gave him a weak smile. "I'll admit I'm trying to make it sound as attractive as I can. . . ."

  Nicolet smiled back at her. "You aren't doing bad either."

  "I just don't want you to think, you know, all that money and no one to claim it, I'm trying to buy you off. . . ."

  "Not for a minute," Nicolet said.

  "To get you to drop the charge against me."

  "I want to," Nicolet said, "honest. But where're the guns? I hate to keep coming back to that."

  She thought of having another cigarette, picked up her bag from the floor, then decided to wait.

  "Don't you guys ever work undercover?"

  "All the time."

  "What if you approached him as a buyer, looking for some kind of gun you can't buy in a shop?"

  Nicolet glanced at Tyler. "Hey, partner, you hear that?" He said to Jackie, "We've been playing with the same idea, only work the sting the other way. Offer him military hardware, something exotic."

  She said, "How do you do that? Just walk up to him?"

  "You have to be introduced. And till now we haven't been able to get next to anybody who knows him."

  She said, "You don't mean me, do you?"

  Nicolet shook his head.

  But smiling, she noticed, just a little. Secretive about it. Something in mind that he wasn't going to tell her.

  "It's your business," Jackie said. "What do I know."

  Chapter 14

  Saturday morning, lying in the sun in her cutoffs and a stringy bra top, Melanie was thinking that for the past seventeen years she had been lying in the

  sun just about full time, making a living at it as the tan blond California girl. She was thinking that not many of the guys she stayed with spent time lying in the sun. Frank, the one from Detroit she was with when she met Ordell in the Bahamas, almost fourteen years ago, did. He was an asshole but loved the

  sun. Film-production guys never did. Or Japanese industrialists or Mideast types on Greek islands. She read about movie stars and beautiful people while lying in the sun, about all these young girls no one had ever heard of suddenly making it. But never read anything about what happened to girls who made a living lying in the sun once the sun had fucking ruined their skin and they were down to living with a colored guy who saw no point in ever lying in the sun. This is where Melanie was at thirty-four, in a lounge chair stained with tanning lotion, out on the balcony. She didn't hear them come in.

  She didn't know they were in the living room until Ordell said, "Girl? Look who's here."

  She turned her head to see Ordell and a guy in a light-blue sport coat and yellow shirt holding a fat

  shopping bag from Burdine's. Kind of a rough-looking guy, his jacket new, right off the rack. She didn't recognize him until Ordell said, "It's Louis, baby." That got her off the lounge and into the living room, Melanie pinching the sides of the bra top between her fingers to keep it from slipping off her nips.

  Ordell saying, "She still a fine big girl?"

  "Holy shit, it's true," Melanie said, "you're really here. Louis, the last time I saw you . . ."

  "He knows," Ordell said. "Louis don't want to talk about that time."

  Melanie said, "I can understand why." She released the bra top, let it slip if it wanted to, going up

  to Louis to give him a kiss on the mouth and didn't back away after.

  "At the time, I thought you two guys were the biggest fuckups I'd ever met."

  "I just told you," Ordell said, "he don't want to talk about it."

  She kept looking at Louis. "You were having fun though, weren't you? With your box of masks? You would've kidnapped me, if you thought anyone'd pay

  the ransom."

  He smiled, finally.

  "Yeah, it was an idea."

  "He told me you were here, I couldn't wait to see you.

  Ordell said, "What Louis wants to see is my gun movie."

  Melanie made them a vodka tonic and sat down to watch Louis while Ordell showed his movie on TV, a video he'd bought at a gun show, Ordell talking on

  top of the voice in the movie.

  "He gives you mostly a lot of technical shit. Yeah, the Beretta-I think he said PM-12S. It don't matter, I don't see too many of those. Listen to it though. Tat-tat-tat-tat. Huh?

  "Here the dude is shooting a M-16. You understand you buy these weapons semiautomatic, anybody can.

  Then I have them converted to full auto and you have a submachine gun. Nothing to it, but costs me a C-note a gun, 'cause it's the man's ass he gets caught.

  Like the man use to make my suppressors? . . .

  "Here, you see one on the MAC-10. Same thing as a silencer. Bup-bup-bup-bup, spittin' 'em out. The man was caught with eighty-seven of 'em in his van, the suppressors. He's looking at thirty years, no bail. I got another guy in Lantana makes 'em for me now. Next trip I deliver an even hundred for thirty grand,

  my man, three bills apiece." He said, "Baby, I could use some more ice.

  Melanie picked up his glass and went into the kitchen.

  "MAC-10's the one you see in all the movies. Here, this's the famous Uzi, beautiful weapon. I can get fifteen hundred apiece for the real thing. Jews over in Israel make them.

  "Styer AUG, one of the best. Listen to it. Man, that's doing the job. Very expensive, comes from Austria. My customers don't know shit about it so there's no demand."

  Melanie came back with his drink as Ordell was going "Bop-bop-bop" and swung into "Ou-bop-ba-da, ba-diddly-a," from guns to the Diz. He did it every time he
showed the movie, working his ass off being cool. Louis hadn't said a word since it started. She liked his type, his rough-cut bony features, big hands. . . . Big hands, big schlong.

  "AK-47 the best there is. This's the Chinese one. I pay eight fifty and double my money. Comes with three banana clips and a bayonet, man, for stickin'."

  The phone rang and Ordell said, "Get that for me, will you, baby?"

  Melanie said, "You know it's for you."

  Ordell stared at her because she always got up and did what she was told. She might take her time or kid around sounding grouchy, but never gave it to him straight. This was a first.

  He said, "What? I didn't catch that."

  Louis kept staring at the screen.

  Melanie got up, went to the counter that separated the living room from the kitchen, and picked up the phone. She said hello, put the phone down, and said, "It's for you." Ordell stared at her a moment before stopping the video and getting up. Melanie sat down on the sofa with Louis.

  "It's boring, isn't it?"

  "I can sit through it once," Louis said.

  "He thinks he knows what he's talking about."

  Louis said, "Where's he keep all these guns?"

  "He has a place . . ." She stopped.

  Ordell came back saying, "Man in New York wants a Bren-10. Gun's a piece of shit, but it's the one

  Sonny Crockett used and that makes it worth twelve fifty. Big piece of iron, ten millimeter."

  Louis said, "You have one?"

  "Not yet. I make one phone call and have it the next day, give the boy two hundred." Ordell pushed a button on his remote box. "Man's firing a TEC-9 here, cheap spray gun made in South Miami. Cost three eighty retail. I get them for two hundred and sell them for eight. Louis, you adding up these numbers? . . . This TEC-9? They advertise it as being 'as tough as your toughest customer.' Say it's the 'most popular gun in American crime.' No lie, they actually say that."

  The phone rang again.

  "I know they love it down in Medellin."

  Melanie looked at Ordell as he stopped the tape and they stared at each other a few moments before

  she got up and went over to the phone. She said hello, put the phone down, and said, "It's for you."

  Ordell was telling Louis how he'd bought all kinds of military shit a man had picked up after the war in Panama and brought over to the Keys in his boat.

  Ordell saying it was where he got the M-60 machine guns he's told Louis about. Saying it was like a garage sale with hand grenades and rockets and shit. "It's a woman," Melanie said.