Rum Punch

by Elmore Leonard

  “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.”

  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-bada, 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 Americ
an crime.’ No lie, they actually say that.”

  The phone rang again.

  “I know they love it down in Medellín.”

  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.

  That shut him up. Ordell went over to the phone.

  She said to Louis, “Can I get you anything?”

  He raised his empty glass.

  She said, “It’s not too early?”

  “I’m not working,” Louis said.

  “So you went shopping.” She felt the lapel of his jacket between her fingers. Part rayon and something else. “Who picked this out, Ordell?”

  “We don’t have the same taste,” Louis said.

  “In clothes.”

  “Yeah, in clothes.”

  She went into the kitchen with his glass. Ordell, a few feet away, was saying into the phone, “They might be watching your place. Lemme think a minute. . . . Yeah, go to the public beach. . . . The one over the Blue Heron bridge. Walk up toward Howard Johnson and I’ll see you around there. . . . Right now if you want. Get in your car.” He hung up and looked across the counter at Melanie.

  “I have to go out for a while. Will you be nice to my friend? Try not to assault him? Tear his clothes off? They brand new.”

  “I wouldn’t mind sitting out on the balcony,” Louis said. “I could use some sun.”

  Melanie said, “You aren’t kidding.”

  “You’re nice and brown.”

  She said, “You want to see my tan lines?” and sat up straight on the sofa with her back arched, hooked the bra top with her thumbs, and pushed it down from her breasts.

  “You’re tan, all right,” Louis said. “You don’t ever let them out in the sun, huh?”

  “I used to. I think they look better natural, though, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right.” They were big ones. He kept staring at them, seeing little blue veins like rivers on a map. When he raised his glass to take a sip he found there was only ice left.

  Melanie said, “Let me fix you up.”

  Looking him right in the face rather than at the glass. When she did take it from his hand and went to the kitchen, Louis got up and walked out on the balcony.

  The building was kind of tacky, faded light-green paint peeling from the concrete, but had all the view you needed of the Atlantic Ocean, right there out the back door, and a white sandy beach that went clear up to Jacksonville. Tiny people down there. Not too many till he looked toward the public beach, to the left, and saw rows of blue wind shelters, or whatever they were called, more people out of them than in. It was a perfect kind of day, enough wind to raise the surf and blow in a cloud every once in a while to relieve the sun heat. Melanie, next to him now at the concrete rail, said, “Keep watching over that way. You’ll see Ordell walking out to the beach.”

  “He’s meeting a woman?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I mean if you’re living with him.”

  “He doesn’t live here, he stops in. You know Ordell, he does whatever he wants.”

  It seemed Melanie did too, still exposing herself handing him the fresh drink.

  “You don’t want to burn those babies.”

  “I’ll keep my back to the sun,” Melanie said. “Why don’t you stretch out on the lounge, take your shirt off. Your pants too, if you want.”

  She held the drink while he got out of the shirt, folded it, laid it on a low metal table, and sat down in the lounge. Melanie saying, “Boy, you really need sun. Where’ve you been?”

  “In jail. Two months shy of four years.”

  It seemed to brighten her eyes, talking to a convict.

  “Really? He didn’t tell me that. What did you do?”

  “I robbed a bank.”

  That got her moving, throwing her head to the side to get her blond hair out of her face. She had an awful lot of hair. She said, “I’ve thought about you a lot, wondering what you’ve been doing. . . .”

  “We only met that one time. Thirteen years ago?”

  “Almost fourteen. I know, and when I saw you come in I couldn’t believe it. I recognized you right away.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the public beach.

  He said to her, “What’ve you been up to?”

  Now she was looking at him again, the sun hitting him from directly above her head. He had to squint.

  “I lie in the sun.”

  “That’s all?”

  “I read.”

  “You get bored?”

  “A lot. You want to fuck?”

  Louis said, “Sure,” and put his drink on the floor. She was the kind who liked to be on top. She would moan and say Oh God throwing her head back and rubbing her hands in the hair on his chest like it was a washboard, back and forth, or a surface she was scrubbing clean. She had long red nails that scratched him but felt good too. He wanted to get on top and do it right, but the sun got brighter against his closed eyes, red-hot, and it was over before he could get around to it. She hopped off and got into her cutoffs, not wearing any underwear. Louis pulled his pants up, got his drink off the floor, and estimated maybe five minutes had passed.

  Melanie said, “Whew, I feel a lot better. How about you?”

  Louis nodded. “Yeah, that hit the spot.”

  “We can relax now,” she said, “and get caught up.

  Ordell said to Jackie, “I can’t hear what you’re saying. Come up here and talk to me.”

  She was facing away from him, standing on wet sand, and letting the surf wash up over her bare feet, the wind blowing her hair. Irritating, this woman could bug you; but still fine to look at this morning in her T-shirt, her long brown legs coming out of those white shorts.

  She said over her shoulder at him, “Take your shoes off.”

  “What do I do with them?” Four-hundred-dollar oxblood-colored alligator loafers with tassels. “I put my shoes down, somebody gonna walk off with them.” He had sand inside his shoes and should’ve known better than to say meet him here. Every time he walked out on the beach he got sand in his shoes. Ordell would never go barefoot, though, like Melanie and Sheronda. He didn’t have a reason other than something in his head telling him to keep his shoes on except when he went to bed. He didn’t swim, never went in the water. . . . He said, “Girl, you want to be drug over by the hair?”

  Look at her. Wasn’t mad, wasn’t nervous being here. Coming over to him now, hair blowing in her face. Bathers walked by looking at the ground for seashells.

  “You think anybody followed you?”

  “I don’t know,” Jackie said, “I don’t do this too often.”

  Smelling of some kind of powder. Clean and healthy.

  “You act like it, you cool.”

  “I don’t think it matters if they followed me or not. They know what we’re doing.”

  Ordell said, “How’s that again?”

  “I told them we’d be meeting.”

  “Wait a minute. You told them it’s me?”

  “They already know that. They know more about you than I do. The ATF guy kept talking about guns. I said I can’t help you there. . . .”

  “But you’d see what you could find out?”

  She moved right up on him saying, “Look, the only way I can get permission to fly is if I agree to help them. I have to give them something. Or appear to. But it has to be something they can check, otherwise I could be blowing smoke. So the first thing I give them is wh
at they already know. Do you understand that?”

  “What was the next thing?”

  “I told them you have money in Freeport and you want me to bring it here. A half million put away and more coming in.”

  “You told them all that?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Is it true or not?”

  “I said around that amount.”

  “They know I was delivering for you,” Jackie said. “I mentioned the half million—they’re not that interested in the money, they want you with guns. I said, well, if you want proof he’s getting paid for selling them, let me bring the money in. I’ll make two deliveries, the first one with ten thousand, like a dry run. I said, you watch, see how it works. Then you set up for the next delivery, when I bring in the half million plus.”

  “How it works,” Ordell said. “I come by your place and pick it up.”

  “I told them you’re very careful. You send someone to meet me, and I never know who it is.”

  Ordell said, “That’s an idea. You know it?”

  “If you’ll listen,” Jackie said, “you’ll see it’s the whole idea. The first time I do it they’re lurking about, they see me hand the ten thousand to someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, one of your friends.”

  “A woman?”

  “If you want.”

  “Yeah, I think a woman.”

  “The next trip, when I come with all the money, it’ll look like I hand it to the same one I did before. . . .”

  “But you don’t.”

  “No, I give it to someone else, first.”

  “And they follow the wrong one,” Ordell said, “thinking she’s bringing it to me, huh?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “So we need two people, two women.” Jackie nodded, looking as though she was thinking about it, or remembering what else she’d told them. The woman was cool.

  “Where does this happen?”

  “I don’t know yet.”