Jackie Brown Read Online Free PDF Page A

phone.

    Melanie, the magazine on her lap, said, "Tell me what?"

    "He's sending you a present. Be in the next delivery."

    "He's a sweetie. I'd love to see him again."

    "We could fly over sometime. Go out in his boat. Would you like that?"

    "No, thanks," Melanie said. She picked up her magazine.

    Ordell watched her. He said, "But you know the boat's always there."

    Two A.M., Ordell left the apartment and walked up to Ocean Mall, a bar named Casey's where people went to dance, a restaurant, Portofino, some stores, some fast-food places, not much else in this block-long strip facing the public beach. The parking lot was back of the mall, only a few cars left in the rows, all the places closed. He got in the black Olds Ninety-Eight, found the keys and a .38 snubby under the seat, fooled with the instruments to find the lights and the air, and drove out of there, over the humpback bridge to Riviera Beach, a two-minute trip.

    Ordell believed if you didn't know Beaumont's house you could ease down these dark streets off Blue Heron till you heard West Indian reggae filling the night, music to get high by, and follow the beat to the little stucco dump where Beaumont lived with a bunch of Jamaicans all packed in there. They'd keep the music on high volume while they maintained their crack binge-only this evening, peeking in, they appeared to be doing reefer, crowded in the room like happy refugees, having some sweet wine and dark rum with the weed. Go in there, start to breathe, and be stoned. It most always smelled of cooking too. A messy place-Ordell had wanted to use the bathroom one time, took one look, and went outside to relieve himself among trash barrels and bright clothes hanging on the line.

    From the doorway he caught Beaumont's eye, Beaumont the one with slicked-down almost regular hair among the beards and dreadlocks, and waved at him in the haze of smoke to step outside.

    Ordell said, "Dot ganja, mon, mek everyone smile to show their teet, uh?" bringing Beaumont out through wild fern and a tangle of shrubs to the big
    Olds parked in the street. "You the most relaxed people I ever met."

    Except now Beaumont was rubbing a hand over his jaw, looking at the car he knew wasn't Ordell's.

    "There's a man," Ordell said, "I never dealt with before, wants to buy some goods. I want to test him out. You understand?" Ordell unlocked the trunk. Raising the lid he said, "When I open this to show my wares, you gonna be inside pointing a gun at him."

    Beaumont frowned. "You want me to shoot him?"

    Beaumont was no jackboy. He was Ordell's front man on some deals, figuring prices in his head, and his backup man other times. Mr. Walker set up deliveries, received the payments, and arranged for getting the funds from Grand Bahama to West Palm Beach. Right now Beaumont was peering into the trunk, dark in there.

    "I have to be inside how long?"

    "We just going over to the beach, mon."

    Beaumont kept looking in the trunk, his hands flat in the tight pockets of his pants, no shirt, skinny shoulders hunched up some.

    "What's the matter?"

    "I don't like to be in there."

    "I put up ten thousand," Ordell said, "to get your skinny ass out of jail. Now you gonna take a stand on me? Man, I don't believe this shit." Sounding surprised, hurt. "Nothing's going to happen, it's just in case."

    Beaumont took his time to think about it, Ordell

    listening to the reggae beat coming from the house, moving just a little bit with it, till Beaumont said, "Okay, but I have to dress."

    "You look crisp, mon, you fine. We be right back."

    "What do I use?"

    "Look in there. See the trash bag?"

    He watched Beaumont hunch in to bring it out unwrapping the brown plastic from a 12-gauge, no stock, the barrel sawed off at the pump.

    "No, don't rack it, man, not yet. Not till we there and I open the trunk. Right then you can rack it, dig? Get the man's attention."

    Ordell drove back Blue Heron Boulevard to the bridge that humped over Lake Worth and