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  Even giving him the key to the padlock, so he could bring over a few guns, TEC-9s, still at Simone's house.

  Louis hearing the familiar voice of his old buddy, certain now it wasn't Ordell trying to use him, it was Melanie.

  Ordell saying, "You appreciate this kind of situation, Louis. It can make you rich, yeah, but you see some fun in the idea too, huh? You see funny kind of things that happen nobody else sees. You know what I'm saying? You the only white guy I ever met understands what the fuck I'm ever talking about. Melanie don't. Melanie can say funny things without knowing it. But when she thinks she's funny, she ain't. Like we in the car coming home from Gerald's? You hear her? She says, 'You two guys are still a couple of fuckups.' See, she thinks she can say that after shooting the man. Like she's kidding and I'm not gonna say nothing."

  "You didn't," Louis said.

  "No, but I remember it. See, she disses you and thinks it's funny. I don't like to be dissed in a kidding way less it's somebody I respect."

  Louis said, "You trust her?"

  "I never have," Ordell said, "from the minute I first met her laying in the sun. I keep an eye on her, she can still surprise me, like having that gun. Little Walther .32-you believe how loud it was? She must've stole it off me and I didn't even know she had it. Where else she gonna get a pistol like that cost eight hundred? She ain't gonna buy it."

  Louis said, "I'd keep both eyes on her."

  Ordell's gaze moved from the road, Windsor Avenue, to Louis. "She trying to work you against me? . . . You don't have to say, I know the woman.

  She gonna look at every angle, make sure she lands ing house, Ordell saying, "You take those TEC-9s

  on her feet. She shot Big Guy five times, didn't she?" over to storage?"

  "Four," Louis said. "I'll do it tonight."

  "Okay, four. The piece holds seven loads. How Ordell saying, "You never told me, you bone that come if she wants me out of this, she didn't do it old woman or not?" when she had the chance? You know why? 'Cause she

  ain't sure you can take it all the way. You could've shot me and Big Guy at the same time, but you didn't do it. Melanie's thinking hey, shit, 'cause he don't have the nerve? She's the kind, wants to know who's gonna win 'fore she puts her money down."

  "Why do you keep her around?"

  Ordell grinned at him. "She's my fine big girl, man. Now I got you watching my back. . . ."

  "You take too many chances," Louis said. "You expose yourself. Too many people know what you're doing."

  "High profit," Ordell said, "high risk. I need the people till this's done. I know who I can trust and who I can't. The only one worries me right now is Cujo, I mentioned to you. They got him up at Gun Club. I called, they don't have a bond set on him yet. I'd like to get him out of there and send him on his way, only I'm afraid the bond's gonna be too high to get him one without the cash, and I don't have it right now. I don't think they'll get him to talk about me right away. He'll act tough for a while, and all I need is a couple more days. Get my ass out of here."

  They turned off Windsor onto 30th Street and pulled up in front of Simone's stucco Spanish-looking house, Ordell saying, "You take those TEC-9's over to storage?"

  "I'll do it tonight."

  Ordell saying, "You never told me, you bone that old woman or not?"

  Chapter 18

  Nicolet stopped in during prime time Tuesday evening, showed his ID, shook hands with Max, shook hands with Winston, and said, "Winston Willie Powell-I was a kid my dad used to take me to the fights at the Convention Center in Miami? I saw you beat up on Tommy Laglesia and a guy named Jesus Diaz, Hey-soos. I remember thinking, A name like that, he'll never make it. You won thirty-nine professional fights, lost only a couple on decisions?"

  "Something like that," Winston said.

  "It's a pleasure to shake your hand," Nicolet said and sat down next to Max's desk, his back to Winston. "It's a pleasure meeting you too," he said to Max. "All the stories I've heard about you, I mean when you were with PBSO, closing homicides in two, three days."

  "You better," Max said, "or you're in trouble."

  "I know what you mean," Nicolet said. "The longer a case sits there, nothing happening . . ." The phone rang and he paused until Winston picked it up. "I have kind of a problem I think you could help me with, Max. Having been in law enforcement, you know the airtight case we have to have to get a conviction."

  "All I know about Ordell Robbie," Max said, "is where he lives, and I'm not absolutely sure of that." Nicolet grinned. "How'd you know it was about him?"

  "I've been waiting for you to stop by."

  "It's about him indirectly," Nicolet said. "You know the guy that shot the FDLE agent, Tyler? We're convinced he works for Ordell."

  "Hulon Miller, Jr.," Max said. "I've written him several times going back to when he was sixteen years old."

  Nicolet said, "Is that right?" squinting at Max to show how interested he was, laying it on.

  This had to be a big favor the guy wanted. "Seventeen arrests, I think nine or ten convictions," Nicolet said, "this is a tough kid, knows the system intimately. We got him with a stolen gun, a stolen car. . . . We saw him at Ordell's house. In fact it was right after we saw you stop by there." "Last Friday," Max said. "You also have him for attempted murder, assaulting a federal officer, concealed weapon, discharging a firearm . . ." The phone rang. Max looked over as Winston picked it up again. "What else?"

  "He knows he's in deep shit," Nicolet said, "but now he's a star 'cause he shot a cop. I mean out at the jail. Limps around there-I put a nine through him that almost took his dick off, I wish it had. It was those fucking smoke-glass windows in the car, I had to fire at him blind."

  "So he won't talk to you," Max said.

  "He gives me dirty looks."

  "You have enough to threaten him with."

  "He knows all that. I try a different approach, I tell him, 'Cujo, my man, I could've killed you; you owe me one. Let's talk about Ordell Robbie.' He goes, 'Who?' 'Tell me what you know about him.' 'Who?' I go, 'Man, you sound like a fucking owl.' So he's in there, no bond . . . I get an idea, go see him. 'How about if I get you bonded out, man? Would you like that?' Now I've gotten his attention. I tell him, 'You only have to do one thing for me. No snitching, only this one thing. Introduce me to Ordell. Tell him I came to you before, weeks ago, looking for guns. That's all you have to do, I take it from there.' "

  Max waited. He said, "Yeah?"

  "That's it. I get next to Ordell, smile a lot, kiss his ass, and he shows me his machine guns."

  "You just said there's no bond."

  "That's right, but I can get the federal magistrate to set one."

  "How much?"

  "Twenty-five thousand. But, see, it's only if you'll write it, to help us out."

  "Who puts up the collateral?"

  "There isn't any. No money changes hands. That's why I say you'd be helping us out."

  Max smiled. He looked over at Winston, off the phone now. "You have to hear this. He wants us to write a twenty-five-thousand-dollar bond with no premium, no collateral, on a guy who's been arrested seventeen times and shot a cop."

  Now Winston was smiling.

  Nicolet glanced over his shoulder at him. "As a favor. What's wrong with that?"

  "You're talking about a guy," Max said, "who's the highest kind of risk that he'll take off, who's a threat to the community ... He shoots somebody, another cop, he runs and we're holding his paper."

  Nicolet was shaking his head. "Wait, okay? I guarantee the guy won't be out of my sight. But even if he does run, you won't be out the twenty-five, I promise. I got the magistrate's word on it. She knows exactly what we're doing, that it's not the ordinary kind of bond situation."

  "What if she dies, retires, gets transferred, hit by lightning-come on," Max said, "you think I'm crazy? I'm gonna sign my name to a promissory note for twenty-five grand on your word that it'll never be called for payment?" He looked over at Winston. "You ever hear
of anything like this?"

  "Yeah, I have. I know a bondsman in Miami done it," Winston said. "Was ten grand. The case got shifted to another court after the guy ran? The new judge says he'd never approve this kind of bullshit in the first place, made the bondsman pay up."

  "I'll get it in writing," Nicolet said.

  Winston shook his head.

  Max said, "Have the magistrate sign a statement saying it's a phony bond? It's hard enough getting them to sign warrants." Max paused. "Against my better judgment I'll go along with you partway. We won't charge the ten percent fee if you can get someone to put up the collateral. How about yourself? You have a house?"

  "My ex-wife's got it," Nicolet said.

  "It's just as well," Max said. "Another reason it won't work, everybody on the street will know Hulon cut a deal. He might as well wear a sign, 'I fink for ATF.' Most likely if he doesn't run, he's dead."

  Nicolet had that squinty look again. "I thought you'd go for this."

  "Why?" ?

  "You were a cop, you know what it's like. You'd see it as worth a try."

  "You have my sympathy," Max said. "How's that?" "I guess you have your problems too," Nicolet said. "Like you write a bond on a guy and he disappears? . . ."

  "We go get him," Max said.

  "But you can't find this one 'cause he's hidden away in the Federal Witness Security program? You have any high-bond defendants might disappear on you like that?"

  Max looked at Winston. "Now he's threatening us."

  "Ask him," Winston said, "he's ever had his head punched off his shoulders?"

  Nicolet looked around to give Winston a grin. "Hey, I was putting you on. We're on the same side, man."

  Winston said, "Long as you don't step over the line."

  Nicolet looked at Max and raised his eyebrows, innocent. "I was kidding, okay?"

  Max nodded. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. The guy was young, aggressive, dying to make a collar, put Ordell Robbie away. Max was all for that. He said, "Check out a guy named Louis Gara, released from Starke, I don't know, a couple of months ago. Check with Glades Mutual in Miami. Get next to him, I think he can take you to Ordell."

  They talked about Louis Gara for a few minutes and Nicolet left.

  Winston said, "One of the calls was for you. Gave me a name . . ." Winston looked at his notepad. "Simone Harrison, lives on 30th Street?"

  Max shook his head. "Never heard of her." "Drives a '85 Mercury?"

  Simone did Martha and the Vandellas doing "Heat Wave" and then "Quicksand" for Louis, Louis nodding his head almost in time, drinking rum this evening, her drink. He started clapping his hands and Simone had to tell him, "No, baby, like this," show him where the beat was. The rum helped loosen him. She did Mary Wells doing "My Guy." Did Mary Wells and Marvin Gaye doing "What's the Matter with You, Baby," and held her hands out for Louis to join her, do the Marvin Gaye part. Louis said he didn't know the words. Actually he didn't know shit but was a big fella with muscle on him, big hard bones, a lot of black hair on his white body. She said, "Listen to the words, sugar. It's how you learn them." Told him, "Here, do this," showing him how to hold his hands limp and move his hips sloooow, see? Simone giving him a dreamy look to quiet him down and quit watching his feet, saying, "It's up here, baby, in the center of you," hand on her tummy, "not down there on the floor."

  He took hold of her, still moving. "Let's go in the bedroom."

  "We can't dance in there, baby."

  When he started moving his hands over her and got one up underneath her skirt Simone said, "What you looking for in there?"

  "I found it."

  "Yeah, I think you have." "Let's go in the bedroom."

  "Baby, don't tear my underwear. They brand new today."

  "I could, easy."

  The new undies reminded her of the mall, meeting the girl she was supposed to meet, and she said, "We have to put the money away. Can't leave it sitting out."

  "I will."

  "Have to hide it."

  "I'm gonna hide the weenie."

  They said cute things like that, white boys did. Even big middle-age jailbirds.

  "You are, huh? You feeling good, baby? Yeaaaah . . . But don't tear my underwear, okay, sugar? You like to tear underwear, lemme put on an old pair for you."

  Max rang the bell and waited, hearing the faint sound of music he gradually identified as vintage Motown, the sound familiar, but couldn't name the vocal group or the number they were doing. He rang the bell and waited again, close to a minute, before a woman's voice said, "What you want?"

  "Ordell," Max said, staring at the peephole. Too dark for the woman to see him unless she turned the porch light on.

  "He ain't here."

  "I'm supposed to meet him."

  "Where?"

  "Here. He said nine o'clock." It was about ten to.

  "Wait a minute."

  He could hear children playing across the street, little black kids, Max thinking it was past their bedtime, they should be inside.

  A man's voice said, "What do you want?"

  "I already told the lady, I'm meeting Ordell." There was a silence.

  "Are you a cop?"

  "I'm a bail bondsman. Turn the porch light on, I'll show you my ID."

  The man's voice said, "I thought it was you." Sounding confident now.

  The door opened. Max saw Louis Gara standing there in a pair of pants, no shirt, fingering the thick mat of hair on his chest. Max took a moment to make the connection: both friends of Ordell's, it could explain Louis being here but not what he was doing with the woman.

  Louis said, "You aren't meeting Ordell. He would've told me."

  "So you're working for him," Max said. "Well, I'm looking for both of you, so it's not like I'm wasting my time."

  He walked in brushing Louis with a shoulder that turned him off balance to hit the door, banging it against the wall. Max glanced at him.

  "You okay?"

  The woman said, "I don't want no rough stuff." She stood holding her housecoat closed, barefoot but wearing makeup, her face highlighted blue and red, her hair done up for a party. What was going on here? Both of them half undressed, Puerto Rican rum and Coke bottles on the coffee table but no glasses, the Motown sound filling the room. Max said, "Ms. Harrison, what group is that?"

  The Marvelettes," Simone said, "'Too Many Fish in the Sea.' Like it's getting in here." She walked over to the stereo and turned it off.

  Max watched her. "Does this guy live here?" Louis was standing by the coffee table now. The woman walked past him, touching his bare arm, to sit down in a deep-cushioned rocker and cross her legs, showing Max some thigh. She said, "You want to know anything about Louis, why don't you ask him? He standing right there."

  "I'm sorry to bother you," Max said. "He and I can step outside to talk."

  "No, it's all right." Simone leaned over to pick up a Coca-Cola bottle, some left in it. "Long as you behave yourselves."

  This woman was going to watch.

  It was hard to tell her age with all that makeup and the way her hair was piled on her head and what looked like a strand of pearls running through the hairdo.

  "Louis used to work for me."

  The woman said, "Oh, is that right?"

  "When he left he busted the front door of my office and took a couple of guns."

  Louis said, "What ones?" with a straight face. "You mean the Mossberg and the Python?"

  Max saw four years of state prison in Louis's pose, hands on his hips showing his muscle. What he didn't see was the dead stare, that convict look in Louis's eyes, more glazed now than threatening, Louis too drunk to pull it off.

  Max said, "Louis, you're never gonna make it." The guy didn't know what he was doing. "Where're the guns?"

  Louis shrugged his shoulders, or flexed them.

  "In your car?"

  "He loan it to somebody," Simone said. "His car ain't here, or any guns. You gonna search my house, see if I'm lying?"

  "He can'
t," Louis said.

  Max turned to him. "You want to call the cops?" "You try looking around, I'll stop you," Louis said. Max wished he had his stun gun with him. He brought the Browning auto out of his jacket, the inside pocket, and put it on Louis. "Sit down, okay? If you come at me, I'll shoot you. It won't kill you but it'll hurt like hell and you'll limp for the rest of your life." He glanced at the woman. "It might even save his life."

  She nodded, sitting in her rocker. "It might." "Guy gets out of prison, he does everything he can to go back."

  "He can't help it," Simone said. "You know the story, the scorpion ast the turtle could he ride on him acrost a stream?"

  "I don't think so."

  "This scorpion ast a turtle could he ride on him acrost a stream. The turtle says, 'No way, and let you sting me?' The scorpion says, 'I do that we both'd drown. You think I want to kill myself?' Turtle says okay. They get out in the middle of the stream? The scorpion stings him. Now they drowning and the turtle says, 'You crazy? Why'd you do that?' The scorpion says, 'I can't help it, man, it's my nature. It's the way I am.'"

  Max nodded. "That's a good story."

  "Scorpion says, 'It's the way I am,'" Simone said.

  "It's the way he is too, and every one of them I ever met that come out. They can't wait to go back." "I'm going to look around your house," Max said. "You ain't asking, are you?"