Jackie Brown Read Free

door to what looked like a meeting room, a long table in there, what looked like a refrigerator, a coffee maker.

    "Stay at your mom's till I come for you. You'll have to go back in. ... Overnight, that's all. Tomorrow you'll be out, I promise." Ordell watched Max hang up the phone saying, "He's home when I get there or I have a five-thousand-dollar problem. What's yours?"

    "I don't see an ashtray," Ordell said, holding up his cigarette. "The other thing, I need a bond for ten thousand."

    "What've you got for collateral?"

    "Gonna have to put up cash."

    "You have it with you?"

    "In my bag."

    "Use that coffee mug on the desk."

    Ordell moved around the desk, clean, nothing on it but his athletic bag, a telephone, and the coffee mug with still some in it. He flicked his ash and sat down in the swivel chair to face Max Cherry again, over behind his desk.

    "You have cash," Max said, "what do you need me for?"

    "Come on," Ordell said, "you know how they do. Want to know where you got it, then keep out a big chunk, say it's for court costs. Pull all kind of shit on you."

    "It'll cost you a thousand for the bond."

    "I know that."

    "Who's it for, a relative?"

    "Fella name Beaumont. They have him up at the Gun Club jail."

    Max Cherry kept staring from his desk, hunched over some. He had a computer there and a typewriter and a stack of file folders, one of them open.

    "Was sheriff deputies picked him up Saturday night," Ordell said. "It started out drunk driving, but they wrote it 'possession of a concealed weapon.' Had a pistol on him."

    "Ten thousand sounds high."

    "They ran his name and got a hit, saw he's been in before. Or they don't like it he's Jamaican. You know what I'm saying? They afraid he might take off."
    "If he does and I have to go to Jamaica after him, you cover the expenses."
    This was interesting. Ordell said, "You think you could pick him up down there? Put him on a plane, bring him back?"
    "I've done it. What's his full name?"
    "Beaumont. That's the only name I know."
    Max Cherry, getting papers out of his drawer, looked over this way again, the man no doubt thinking, You putting that kind of money up and you don't even know his name? Ordell got a kick out of people wondering about him, this man-look at him-holding back from asking the question. Ordell said, "I have people do favors for me don't even have names outside of like Zulu, Cujo, one they call Wa-wa. Street names. You know what they call me sometime? Whitebread, account of my shade. Or they say just 'Bread' for short. It's okay, they not disrespecting me." See what the man thought of that.
    He didn't say. He picked up his phone.

    Ordell smoked his cigarette, watching as the man punched numbers, and heard him ask for the Records Office, then ask somebody if they'd look up the Booking Card and Rough Arrest on a defendant named Beaumont, saying he believed it was the surname but wasn't sure, check the ones came in Saturday night. He had to wait before getting what he wanted, asking questions and filling out a form on his desk. When he was done and had hung up the phone he said, "Beaumont Livingston."
    "Livingston, huh?"
    "On his prior," Max Cherry said, "he did nine months and is working out four years probation. For possession of unregistered machine guns."

    "You don't tell me."

    "So he's violated his probation. He's looking at ten years plus the concealed weapon."

    "Man, he won't like that," Ordell said. He drew on his cigarette and dropped it in the coffee mug. "Beaumont don't have the disposition for doing time."

    Now Max Cherry was staring again before he said, "You ever been to prison?"

    "Long time ago in my youth I did a bit in Ohio. Wasn't anything, stealing cars."

    "I need your name too, and your address."

    Ordell told him it was Ordell Robbie, spelled it for him when the man asked, and said where he lived.

    "That a Jamaican name?"

    "Hey, do I sound like one of them? You hear them talking that island potwah to each other, it's