Jackie Brown Read Online Free PDF Page B

neckties with their jeans this Wednesday afternoon at Palm Beach International. Jackie Burke came through here five days a week flying West Palm to Nassau, West Palm to Freeport and back.

    "She's cool," Nicolet said. "You notice?"

    "She ain't bad either," Tyler said, "for a woman her age. She's forty?"

    "Forty-four," Nicolet said. "She's been flying nineteen years. Some other airlines before this one."

    "Where you want to take her, here or outside?"

    "When she gets in her car. It's upstairs."

    They watched her from a glass-partitioned office in this remote wing of the terminal, Ray Nicolet commenting on Jackie Burke's legs, her neat rear end in the tan skirt, Faron Tyler saying she surely didn't look forty-four, at least not from here. They watched her bring a pair of sunglasses out of her shoulder bag and lay them in her hair that was dark blond, loose, not too long. It did surprise them when Jackie Burke took the escalator up to the main concourse. They watched her go into the Ladies' rest room, come out after about five minutes not looking any different, and pull her cart into the snack bar. Now they watched her sit down with a cup of coffee and light a cigarette. What was she doing? Ray Nicolet and Faron Tyler slipped into the souvenir shop, directly across the way, to stand among racks of pastel-colored Palm Beach T-shirts.

    Tyler said, "You think she made us?"

    Nicolet wondered the same thing without saying it.

    "You don't come off a flight and have a cup of coffee, you go home," Tyler said. "She doesn't act nervous though."

    "She's cool," Nicolet said.

    "Who's here besides us?"

    "Nobody. This one came up in a hurry." Nicolet fingered the material of a pink T-shirt that had green and white seagulls on it, then raised his gaze to the snack bar again. "You make the bust, okay?"

    Tyler looked at him. "It's your case. I thought I was just helping out."

    "I want to keep it simple. A state charge, she won't have as much trouble bonding out. I mean if we have to take it that far. You badge her, lay it on-you know. Then I'll ease into the conversation."

    "Where, here?"

    "How about your office? Mine," Nicolet said, "I don't have enough chairs. Your place is neater."

    "But if all she's carrying is money ..."

    "The guy said fifty grand this trip."

    "Yeah, what's the charge? She didn't declare it? That's federal."

    "You can use it if you want, hold Customs over her head. I'd still like it to be a state bust, some kind of trafficking. Otherwise, if I bring her up," Nicolet said, "and she has to bond out of federal court-man, they make it hard. I don't want her mad at me, I just want to see her sweat a little."

    Tyler said, "If you know who she's taking it to . . ."

    "I don't. I said we have an idea. The guy kept holding out, wouldn't give us the name. He was afraid it could fuck up his life worse than prison."

    "I guess it did," Tyler said. "So how about if we follow her, see who she gives it to."

    "If we had a few more people. We lose her," Nicolet said, "we have to come here and start all over. No, I think if we sit her down and give her dirty looks she'll tell us what we want to know. Whatever that is."

    "She sure looks good for her age," Tyler said.

    They were a couple of South Florida boys, both thirty-one, buddies since meeting at FSU. They liked guns, beer, cowboy boots, air boats, hunting in the Everglades, and chasing bad guys. They'd spent a few years with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office before splitting up: Ray Nicolet going to ATF, the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; Faron Tyler to FDLE, The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Division of Criminal Investigation. Every once in a while they got a chance to work together. Right now the ATF office was busy working a sting operation out of a pawnshop they'd taken over, buying a lot of hot guns on camera. So Nicolet had called FDLE and got his buddy to help out on an investigation. One they believed had to do