4 Shelter From The Storm (15 page)

“Looking for something, dude?” the man demanded sternly.

“No, and take your hands off that woman,” Tubby croaked.

The man seemed to find that funny. Keeping one meaty hand clamped on Marguerite’s small bicep, which Tubby knew to be soft and freckled, and without taking a step the man jammed the barrel of a large handgun into the lawyer’s stomach. Tubby was caught so suddenly he nearly doubled over. He also stumbled backwards, and kept backing up until he tripped over some stone steps and sat down on them hard.

Monk rapped on the green shutters with his pistol without loosening his grip on the girl. The door opened, and Big Top stuck his head out.

“Look who was following you,” Monk jeered, prodding the woman and gesturing with his pistol at Tubby.

Big Top wiped the chicken grease off his chin.

Then he was pushed aside by LaRue, who needed only one quick look at the trio outside to comprehend the situation.

“Bring ’em in quick,” he said. “And keep that gun out of sight.”

Tubby lunged for the legs of the man holding Marguerite and was rewarded with a solid thunk on the side of his head with the butt of the pistol.

A hand grabbed his hair, another hooked under his arms, and he was agonizingly dragged into the apartment and slammed onto the floor.

Some thinly clad girls in a seaweed-draped funny car driven by a man dressed like a crawfish waved at them, but, getting no response, kept on going.

* * *

“So what do we have here?” LaRue inquired, after he had frisked Tubby thoroughly, relieved him of his Gold Master Card, and made him sit on the muddy floor.

Marguerite had also been pushed roughly to the rug near the couch at the other side of the room, and Monk and Big Top were swaggering around her. Tubby rubbed the side of his head where the blow from the pistol had raised a tender egg.

“It says on the credit card ‘Attorney at Law’,” Rue continued. “That you?” He hunkered down to be at eye level with Tubby.

Tubby nodded.

LaRue toyed with the trainman’s watch he had lifted from Tubby’s pants. He stuck it in his pocket with a malicious grin.

“You’re dressed kind of cute for a lawyer,” he said, dissing Tubby’s red pants.

His victim was too embarrassed to respond.

“And you, young lady. What about you?” LaRue refocused his lizard-like eyes.

“I’m an executive assistant,” she said. “From Chicago.”

“Executive assistant, huh?” LaRue asked conversationally. “What are you doing here?”

Marguerite sat up and leaned against the couch. “I’m just visiting town for Mardi Gras.”

“Why were you following my friend?”

“I wasn’t.”

LaRue pulled on one pink ear and nodded, as if he understood.

“We’ve met before,” he said, turning to the attorney at law.

He furrowed his brow. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Yeah we have. And you do think so.” LaRue stood up. “Monk, use the rest of that cord I cut off our cook and let’s tie these two up until we decide what to do with them.”

“Bullshit!” Tubby roared, rising off the floor.

Rue smacked him on the forehead again with the side of the pistol, this time so hard that Tubby blacked out for an instant, crashed against the wall, and fell to his knees seeing stars. He wanted to die but couldn’t.

When Big Top started tying knots he didn’t offer much resistance.

“Now you young lady. What’s your story?”

“Honest, I’m just a tourist. I just met this man. We were taking a walk together.”

LaRue stood over her shaking his head. Then he reached down, put his hand around her throat, and slowly lifted her up. She was too frightened to react.

Switching his grip to the back of her neck, LaRue forced her toward the bedroom.

“I think we can get to the truth,” he said.

“Hey, Rue,” Monk said from where he was helping to truss Tubby up.

“What?” LaRue looked back, keeping his hand fastened on the woman.

“If you mess with the girl, I’m out of here.” Monk stood up.

“What the fuck are you giving me?” LaRue growled.

“I ain’t in this to mess with no women. I wasn’t raised that way.”

Rue let go of Marguerite and swung around to face Monk.

“You weren’t fuckin’ raised that way. Who the fuck do you think you are, jailbait?”

Monk didn’t back up, but he was trembling a little.

“I ain’t telling you what to do, Rue. I just didn’t sign up for no rape. That girl didn’t do nothing to us. You do anything to her, I’m gone.”

LaRue bared his teeth like a rat getting ready to bite. Then he made a horrible grin out of it.

He reached behind him without looking and grabbed a piece of Marguerite, then threw her across the room at Monk, sending both of them sprawling into a chair.

“You’re a dumb fuck, Monk,” he said, “but I ain’t ready to lose you yet.”

LaRue took one quick step and kicked Tubby under the belt. It made him feel better.

* * *

Nick had no trouble finding Dan at the Royal Montpelier.

“Dude work here named Dan Haywood?” he asked the first hotel employee he encountered. He was directed toward a bearlike man overflowing a bellhop’s uniform, who at the moment was gesturing wildly to a tall black woman wearing a purple scarf tied around her hair, a tight sleeveless white top, and khaki slacks who looked like she was ready to go for a stroll down the boardwalk in Bimini.

Nick rushed over and tugged the big man’s sleeve.

“Look, you’re a friend of Tubby Dubonnet’s?” he asked through the stub of his cigar.

“I am,” Dan admitted.

“He asked me to come and get you. He’s following this guy shot somebody,” Nick said excitedly with the free side of his mouth.

“Which way did he go?” the lady asked, as if it were her business.

“Who’re you?” Nick wanted to know.

“I’m a…” Detective Fox Lane began.

“She’s a friend of Tubby’s,” Dan interjected. “Where did he go?”

“He and this good-lookin’ woman in an ernge shirt went down the street that way not three minutes ago. They was following this carrottop carrying a bag of Popeye’s.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“That’s the whole story.” Nick looked at the big bellman like he was a side of meat. “He said the guy he was chasing shot somebody and to come get you.”

“Let’s go after him,” Fox said. She didn’t wait for a reply, but started jogging down the now crowded street. They noticed she was wearing sneakers.

“Hey, wait!” Dan yelled and went lumbering after her.

“He’s got these red pants on,” Nick called. “I’m at the newsstand. Tell me what happens,” he said to himself.

Bellman Dan and Detective Lane were discovering that searching Royal Street for a man and a woman who were there just a few minutes ago can be a frustrating undertaking. The policewoman moved rapidly through two blocks of puddles and people before pausing to quiz some of the locals mopping up their floors. They tried to remember but shook their heads. Then, in front of an antique shop, a mud-smeared woman said yes, she had seen a man dressed just like a bullfighter and a pretty young Yankee woman edging along the sidewalk and acting peculiar. When Dan staggered up to her, she was pointing down the street in the direction the peculiar pair had gone.

The trail grew cold after that, however, and Fox and Dan circled one block, then another, without result. A sudden downpour cleared the streets and sent the search party scurrying for the shelter of an ornate iron balcony. The shower was over just as suddenly and, like leprechauns popping out from beneath their mushrooms, the flood survivors and merrymakers retook the street.

Fox and Dan made a nuisance of themselves, asking one lit person after another if any had seen an oddly dressed lawyer and a clean-cut companion. Time passed.

“Any ideas?” Fox asked.

“Not really,” Dan said. He was out of his element making like a cop and quizzing strangers. His forte was clandestine intelligence gathering, not interrogating the public. Tubby had appointed Dan to be his rescuer, and he must have had a good reason, but Dan was out of gas.

“I suppose I could go back to the hotel in case he calls.” He and the policewoman had slowed to a walk. They were outside a restaurant with a po-boy menu screwed to the wall. The place was locked, but there was a Miller sign glowing in the window.

“We found the body he was talking about, I think,” Lane said. “A middle-aged female with a gunshot wound in the head drifted up around Blue Plate Mayonnaise. Some kids found her.” Little children were watching them from a second-floor window, their eyes distorted by the wavy glass.

“He was real upset about it,” Dan commented, apropos of nothing.

“He was crazy to go off looking for the perps by himself.”

“Well, he did have Miss Patino with him.”

“You know her?”

“Sure. I introduced them.” Just like I introduced Tubby to Mrs. Lostus, he thought. “She’s a tourist from up north, where it’s cold.”

“Oh, great. And suppose she gets hurt. That kind of news the city doesn’t need.” It disgusted Fox that that was the kind of news the city kept getting.

“How’s he know you?” Dan inquired, ready to sit down.

“We were in law school together.” Fox kept walking, looking in windows, through gates.

“Really?” Dan said in shock. “I guess you kind of do look like a lawyer, though. You’ve got a gun stuck in the back of your pants.”

“You can see it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m a cop more than a lawyer, but I do pay my bar association dues.”

“I usually stay away from cops,” Dan mentioned.

Lane looked him over and lifted an eyebrow.

“And why is that,” she asked, suspicious.

Dan shrugged. “I do some union work. I guess I can say that because you New Orleans cops have a union.”

“Is that what you call it? I’m not that involved.” Fox’s tone was angry. “What so-called union do you work for?”

“We can talk about that sometime,” Dan said evasively. “Is your real name Fox?”

“Short for Foxelle,” she said. “C’mon, let’s do something.”

She had to raise her voice because of the racket coming from a strange vehicle rounding the corner topped with nearly nude dancing girls.

* * *

Helplessly lassoed on the floor and slightly groggy, Tubby watched the three robbers make preparations for their exit.

First they ate all the fried chicken. Then the ones who responded to “Big Top” and “Monk” sat at the dining room table and played cards with Marguerite and the two men who evidently lived here. The crooks tried to explain the game of bourré, and the civilians tried to teach everybody bridge. Marguerite eventually got them all playing hearts. The one called “Roux” had disappeared into the bedroom. Tubby felt left out.

“Damn, I got the bad Queen,” Monk complained.

“He’s trying to shoot the moon,” Marguerite warned.

“Cut the table talk, please,” Edward said.

“How come I’m the only one tied up?” Tubby asked. He was ignored.

“It’s your lead, Big Top,” Wendell prompted.

“Hello,” Tubby said. “Maybe I could at least have something to eat.”

“There’s a leftover biscuit,” Monk said. “Why don’t you give it to him?” He pointed at Wendell.

Marguerite was not dealing with the problem at all. She was, in fact, giggling while sorting out her hand.

“I don’t think you’d want to eat that, would you?” Wendell asked, picking through his cards and ebulliently slapping down a red Jack.

“Hell yes,” Tubby said. “I haven’t eaten all day.”

Reluctantly Wendell got up and lifted a cold biscuit out of the crumpled greasy paper bag with two fingertips. He bent over Tubby to poke it in his mouth.

“That phone over there,” Tubby whispered, pointing with his chin. “Call nine-one-one and tell them we’ve been kidnapped by murderers. They can trace the call to this address.”

Wendell looked worried. He shook his head. “I’m afraid of what they’ll do,” he said in a low voice.

“Man, I think they’re going to kill us anyway.”

Wendell shook his head again, rejecting that information. “Eat your biscuit,” he said.

Tubby closed his eyes and opened his mouth.

Wendell got tired of waiting for Tubby to swallow, so he left the rest of the biscuit on Tubby’s leg and went back to the game.

* * *

“It’s the Monster,” Fox Lane said.

“What is,” Dan asked, startled.

“The guy in the funny car. It’s Monster Mudbug.”

“I wasn’t looking at the guy.”

The strange car with gyrating sea clams and naked mermaids on top, a backfiring gas generator, and speakers blaring “Shake Your Booty,” was being badly driven by a man dressed as a shiny boiled crawfish.

“He knows Tubby, too,” Fox muttered. “That lawyer has a whole zoo full of friends.”

The car came closer, sucking people onto their balconies and through the doors of cozy barrooms. A crowd of volunteer belly dancers had formed around the open-topped vehicle and was moving slowly down the narrow street gyrating to the music.

“Those are some pretty good exotic dancers,” Dan said.

“It takes a real diehard to be thinking about Mardi Gras after a flood like this,” Fox said.

“Well, I heard on TV that The Moss Man was out in some kind of a special speedboat on Broadway,” Dan reported. “You can’t keep those serious Mardi Gras people down.”

The rolling fiesta was threatening to cram Dan and Fox onto the sidewalk and against the wall of an antique store, but the agile policewoman used something authoritative in her voice to slide up to the float and get apace with the driver.

She knocked on the Monster’s red plastic carapace and finally got his attention.

“Have you seen Tubby Dubonnet?” she yelled.

The Monster fought to orient himself in space and time and forgot about steering.

“Mr. Tubby?” he shouted, trying to see who he was talking to.

“That’s right. I’m Officer Lane. I’ve heard about you from Tubby. It’s important.”

“Sure,” Monster Mudbug nodded inside his shell. “Where did I see him? It’s kind of hard to know exactly what street you’re on in here.”

His front fenders were grazing the rear of a fat naked man, and Fox Lane pushed the steering wheel a couple of inches to the left.