James Hall - Miami Noir

Jumpy didn’t pump up his past. Very understated, even flip. Guy considered that a form of extreme cool, like those muscle-bound bodybuilders who only wore loose clothes. Tight shirts were for showboat assholes.

Jumpy didn’t have to flaunt. There was a halo around him nobody could miss, a haze of androgen and pheromones that could turn a barroom edgy in a blink. Guy had seen nights when the bad boys lined up for a chance at Jumpy, pool cue in one hand, switchblade in the other, one by one coming at him like twigs into a wood chipper. Going in solid, coming out a spew of sawdust.

Trouble was, in Jumpy’s line of work, nuance might be a better strategy than overwhelming force. But try to tell that to Jumpy. Dialing back that guy’s throttle, even for Guy, a silver-tongued specialist, a man Jumpy respected, it could present a challenge. Not that Guy was morally opposed to violence. In the abstract, inflicting pain and drawing blood was fine. He’d written about it for years, described it in excruciating detail. But putting it into flesh-and-blood action, no, that wasn’t his instinctive first choice like it was with Jumpy.

“So we cool on this?” Guy said. “Do your deal and walk. No crazy-ass banter, no stare-downs. Right?”

Jumpy kept his lasers fixed on the two dreadlocks.

“I need some signal of agreement, Jumpy. A grunt is enough.”

Jumpy turned his head and blinked. That was all Guy was getting.

They got out and Guy tried to match Jumpy’s casual saunter over to the Olds.

The two gangstas insisted on patting Guy down, then after a moment’s indecision, they did a hurry-up job frisking Jumpy and stepped away like they’d burned their hands. The tall one went around to the trunk of the Olds and popped the lid.

Guy stayed a couple of steps behind Jumpy while the tall dude, wearing a black T-top and baggy shorts, showed off the Squad. His dreadlock buddy stood by the driver’s door watching. His right hand fiddling around his shirttail, ready to quick-draw if things went bad.

Dreadlock One was extolling the merits of the Squad Automatic Weapon, otherwise known as SAW. Eight hundred — meter range, lightweight, just over twenty pounds with the two hundred — round magazine. Talking straight English with a little Bahamian singsong, none of the hip-hop, we-badass bullshit.

When Dreadlock One paused, Guy said, “You want to hold it, Jumpy? Inspect it?”

Jumpy was silent.

“One of you should check that shit, man, we don’t want no pissing and moaning later on.”

“Let me know when the sales pitch is over,” Jumpy said. “I’ll get the cash.”

Dreadlock One shifted his angle, moving for a better view of Guy.

“What’re you looking at?”

“That’s what I’m asking myself,” he said.

“Do that again?” Guy said.

“Who’m I doing business with,” Dreadlock One asked, “man or woman? From across the way, you look like a dude; up close like this, you could be a bull-dyke bitch.”

Guy felt Jumpy shift closer to him.

“Happens all the time,” Guy said. “It’s the haircut.”

Guy had blond shoulder-length Jesus hair, slender hips, and sleek Scandinavian features. A man of long smooth planes. Not feminine so much as asexual. A floater. Hovering between the sexes. Some women found him sexy, and just about as many men.

“More than the freaking haircut. It’s your whole entire weird-ass self.”

Jumpy stepped between Guy and Dreadlock One and said, “Why don’t you reach down my partner’s pants and find out?”

The second dreadlock cackled, then grinned a big gold smile. “Yeah, Willie, do it, man, reach your hand in there and squeeze.”

“I was just curious,” Willie said. “It don’t matter. Forget it.”

“Don’t be shy,” said Jumpy. “Reach in, take a handful, make yourself happy. Guy’s cool with that, aren’t you, Guy?”

Willie stared at Guy’s face for a few ticks, then shook his dreads.

Jumpy took two quick steps and grabbed Willie’s hand, took a grip on Guy’s belt buckle, pulled it out, and jammed the dude’s spidery fingers down the front of Guy’s pants.

The other dread had his pistol out and was aiming at Jumpy, ordering him to step the fuck away from his partner, let him go, stop that shit.

Jumpy released Willie’s hand and the man yanked it out of Guy’s pants.

“So what am I?” Guy said.

Willie didn’t say anything. He turned and saw his partner with the pistol out.

“Put that shit away, man. Put it away.”

“So what I am?” Guy said. “Did your field trip enlighten you?”

“Two thousand for the SAW. Five hundred for the loaded magazine. Take it or leave it, no negotiating.”

“Two for the whole caboodle or I’m outta here. Starting now. Ten, nine, eight, seven...”

“Two’ll do,” Willie said.

“Hard bargainer,” Jumpy said. “Tough nut.”

Jumpy and Guy walked back over to the stolen Chevy, Jumpy getting into the passenger seat. Staying there for a minute, another minute with Guy standing back by the trunk waiting, watching, recording.

Jumpy’s door was swung wide open, the overhead light on.

The two dreadlocks were talking near their Olds Ciera, but after a while they started shooting looks over. Willie held the SAW in one hand.

Jumpy sat there and sat there and sat some more until finally the head dread came strolling. Dumbass carrying the SAW one-handed.

“You got the bread or you fucking with me?”

“It’s stuck,” Jumpy said. “Fucking glove box is stuck.”

“Stuck?”

Jumpy leaned back in the seat, gestured toward the glove compartment.

Willie leaned in the door, peered through the darkness.

“You got a screwdriver,” Jumpy said, “something that can pry it open?”

Willie craned another inch forward and Jumpy took a grip on the padded handle and slammed the door closed on the dreadlock’s neck. Opened it and slammed it again and then a third time. Then one more for good luck and pushed the dread out of the way and reached down to the gravel and took hold of the SAW and aimed it out the crook of the open door at Dreadlock Two, who was trotting over with a big-ass chrome .45 in his right hand.

Guy was frozen. It was a freaking movie streaming around him. Every outrageous, amazing second of it. Hand down the pants and all.

The SAW kicked against Jumpy’s shoulder. Jumpy fired again over Dreadlock Two’s head, yelling at him to drop his weapon. Which he did. Not giving it a second thought, just tossing it into the gravel.

The downed dread struggled to his feet. Jumpy aimed the SAW at his chest.

“So what’re we going to have here? Two dead assholes?”

“No, man. Don’t be doing that. Ain’t no need. We just get the fuck up and be gone.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jumpy said. He fired the SAW into the air and the two men sprinted off toward the neighborhood where lights were coming on in bedrooms.

Jumpy got out of the Chevy and walked over to the Oldsmobile. “We got about ten seconds. You coming? Or you want to stay here and get the police point of view on things?”

Guy trotted over to the Oldsmobile and got in.

Jumpy pitched the SAW onto the backseat. Guy could smell its oily warmth. Jumpy must’ve used nearly forty rounds. Which left one-sixty still in the magazine.

Guy started the car. Put the shifter into drive and made a U-turn.

“Can you use any of that?” Jumpy said when they were five blocks away, cruising down Douglas Road into the ritzy jungle shadows of Coconut Grove.

“Think I can,” Guy said. “Yes sir. I think I most certainly can.”

Guy dug the little Sony from his front pocket and found the record button and he started to speak into the miniature device. Jumpy smiled and took them south toward the condo parking lot where he’d left his old Civic.