King of Swords

'I'll think about it,' the cop said. He went over to the tarot-card stand in the middle of the store and slowly rotated it. 'These take me back.'

'Do you read?'

'Not me, no. An ex-girlfriend of mine did,' he said, looking at the decks. 'She used this weird deck though. Not common. French name.'

'Marseilles?'

'No … it was the - the . . .' He flicked his fingers, searching the air for an answer. 'The de Villeneuve deck. You sell that one?'

'Not here,' Sam said. He could feel his heart beating real fast now, and the tips of his fingers had gone cold. What the hell was this guy doing here? He thought Solomon had all the cops in his pocket. 'They're expensive and hard to come by.'

'My ex was real rich — and connected.' The cop laughed and carried on looking around the store. 'Well, thanks for your time,' he said, finally.

'You don't want the beans?'

'Sorry. My pockets ain't that deep.'

Then the back door opened a crack. Sam turned, thinking he'd see Lulu there, but it was Carmine, quickly peering through a gap before suddenly disappearing.

The cop had noticed. He stared at the door, then back at Sam. He nodded to him and left the store.

Moments later Carmine came out, looking scared.

'That guy's a cop! He's the same fucker beat me up in April. Took the beans offa me too — remember?'

Sam picked his telephone up off the floor and started dialling.

'Who you callin'?'

'Your mother.'

'He make you?' Joe asked when Max got back in the car, parked four blocks up from the store.

'Yeah,' Max said as he flipped out his notebook and started scribbling. 'He looked real worried.'

'What you get?'

Max showed him.

'Eva Desamours,' Joe read out.

'Only fortune teller he had up on his noticeboard. Otherwise it was all exorcisms, healings, spell-makings, spellbreakings and so on. Eva Desamour's on my list of fortune tellers who use the de Villeneuve cards. In fact, she's the only reader in Miami who does. My list didn't have a contact number. Now I got one.'

'What about Ismael?' Joe started the car.

'He ain't our guy, but he works for him,' Max said.

'Ismael's the front man. He owns most of Lemon City.

After Preval Lacour killed the Cuestas, he took over the redevelopment contracts. Ismael supplied the calabar beans and tarot cards that ended up in Assad and Lacour's stomachs. We're gonna need to take a closer look inside the store. It's got a basement'

'How you gonna get a warrant?'

Max looked at Joe and saw he was joking.

'Congratulations! You've won!' Sandra said, handing Max a silver envelope. She'd invited him to dinner at Joe's Stone Crabs in Washington Avenue. Despite living in the neighbourhood, Max had never eaten there because the place was always full; it was one of Miami's oldest restaurants and featured prominently in every tourist guide. They didn't do reservations, but Sandra's firm handled their accounts, so she got a table.

'Won what?'

'Take a look!'

Max opened the envelope and burst out laughing. It was six Casino Dance lessons at a studio off Flagler.

'That's real sweet and thoughtful of you,' he said sarcastically.

'This is so I don't embarrass you out in Calle Ocho?'

'You don't embarrass me,' she replied. 'The studio's just around the corner from your building. We can go after your ten to six shift.'

'My colleagues found out I was takin' dancin' lessons, I'd never live it down.' Max laughed.

'You'll be going with me,' she said.

'Won't make a difference.'

'Then don't tell anyone.'

'Won't make a difference either, Sandra. Cops find out everything eventually — especially when it's about one of their own.'

'You are coming,' she repeated. “Cause I'm not going alone.'

'You don't need to learn. You move like an angel.'

'Angels don't dance.'

35°

I 'But if they did, they'd move like you,' Max said.

They looked each other in the eyes for a moment and everything around them seemed to stop.

'It's good to see you,' he said, breaking the spell.

'And you too.'

They leant across the table and kissed.

'Does that mean you'll do it?' she asked.

'God, you're impossible!' He laughed. 'Just let me clear this case I'm workin' on first, all right? Then, yeah, I'll do it.'

'You'll love it.'

'I doubt it.'

'You'll learn to like it.'

'That's what my trainer said when I got my ribs separated in the ring one time.'

'And you carried on, right?'

'I sure did,' Max said.

'There you go.'

Their food arrived. They had ten jumbo crab claws, served with mustard-mayo sauce and melted butter, which gave the vaguely sweet but generally mild-tasting white meat an added kick. They also had a large plate of fried green tomatoes and the biggest hash browns Max had ever seen — the size of a loaf of bread and served in slices.

After dinner they went to the cinema on Lincoln Road to see Fort Apache, the Bronx. Sandra had picked the film.

Max would've opted for something else, like going to a bar, because the last thing he wanted to do was sit through a cop film, especially one which had been praised for 'gritty authenticity'; it would mean adding another two more hours to his working day. But he'd got more interested when Sandra had told him Pam Grier was in it. He'd seen all her seventies films, which were, without exception, terrible — especially the ones where she kept her clothes on, but, luckily for him, she'd made very few of those.

35'

The cinema was next to empty. They sat towards the front with their Cokes.

The film starred Paul Newman as a middle-aged, by-the book cop working in one of the worst, most run-down parts of the south Bronx. There were plenty of lingering shots of urban wasteland, which, had they upped the temperature, added sunshine and palm trees, could have been half of Miami.

Fifteen minutes in Max was bored stiff. The plot was meandering and Pam was nowhere in sight. He needed a cigarette and a drink. Paul Newman and his partner tried to talk a transvestite out of throwing himself off a roof.

Paul Newman - in his fifties and looking it — started an affair with a young Latina junkie. He yawned and looked at Sandra, who was engrossed. He didn't know why. Maybe he was missing something deep. He remembered the liquor store close to the cinema. He thought of going out to get himself a quart of bourbon and have a smoke. Then Pam appeared and he briefly forgot about his needs. She looked rough in this, because she was playing a psycho junkie hooker who kills two of Paul Newman's corrupt colleagues. He'd never paid attention to her acting talent before, but he had to admit she was pretty scary, killing people with razor blades hidden in her mouth (she'd used the razor blade in mouth trick in Foxy Brown, but that was to free herself), and oozing cold-eyed menace. She killed a couple of corrupt cops and disappeared. He waited for her to come back for a good while, but realized she probably wouldn't be taking her clothes off and decided to slip out.