A Clean Kill (26 page)

And with that, Judge Savin pushed back from the table, lifted his girth out of the chair, and gave me a wink before exiting through Wagler’s private office.

Wagler paused until he heard the outside door of his office close behind the judge. “Tom, would you like some coffee or maybe a Coke? I think we have Frog water too, if you like that kind of thing.”

“No, thank you. I’m anxious to find out why you wanted to meet today.”

A big man, Wagler leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table. He had the thickly veined hands of a manual laborer, and he used them in a way that suggested he knew the strength in his hands was obvious to other men.

“Well the truth is, Tom, I need your help. Up until a few days ago, you were representing Sheri Baneberry in the wrongful death of her mother.”

I nodded.

“Well, Sheri thinks you’re a fine lawyer, Tom. And I sure as hell agree with her. From talking with Sheri, my partners and I feel like you’ve got a handle on the case, and we could use your help getting ready for trial. So, what we’d like is to bring you in as associate counsel.”

The man’s handsome face bore a light, artificial tan. And I noticed that the delineation between the white at his temples and his black mane of loose curls seemed a little too precise. Everything around me just then seemed too precise.

I leaned back in my seat, moving away from the mannered aggressor across the table. He wanted to dominate me. I decided it’d be smart to let him.

“Bill, my license to practice has been suspended by the bar. I don’t see how I can come in as any kind of counsel on this thing.”

Wagler pursed his lips and bobbed his head. “I understand that. But—and don’t quote me on this, Tom—I hear from some pretty good sources that your problems with the bar may go away.”

“Who says …”

He threw up his hands. “Don’t ask me, ’cause I can’t say. But I will tell you that I think we can work around the licensing problem until it’s resolved. How about if we say it’s worth, oh, ten percent of any eventual verdict to bring you in as something like an
adviser
on the case? Would that work for you?”

And there was the payoff.

I tried not to react. “I appreciate the offer, Bill. I really do. But I’ve had just about enough of the Baneberrys. So what I’d rather do is waive any interest in a potential judgment in return for a check for the fees and expenses I’ve got sunk in this case right now.” I leaned up to close the distance between us. “Is that anything you’d be willing to consider?”

Wagler actually reached up and stroked his chin like a bad actor who has been told to look like he’s thinking about something. “What’d you be looking for here? Say twenty thousand?”

I smiled. “Say twenty-five.”

“Done.”

Wagler reached across the table to shake hands. I’d been officially bought off.

The firm’s back office cut the check in five minutes flat, after which Wagler’s efficient assistant escorted me downstairs. I was three or four steps from the bottom when Loutie called out to me. “Sir? Mr. McInnes?”

“Yes?” I answered as I hooked my fingers around the finial at the end of the banister and pivoted toward Loutie’s desk.

She held up a pink message slip. “A call came in while you were with Mr. Wagler. I asked if it was an emergency, and the party said not to disturb you.”

I reached out and took the paper. On the top two lines, Loutie had simply written
Call home
on one line and my home number on the next. I assumed that was what would show up on the carbon in the message pad. But underneath, in the lined, “message” section of the slip, Loutie had written:

I looked up. “Thank you, Ms.…”

“Blue.”

“Thank you, Ms. Blue.”

She flashed a plastic smile and said, “Certainly.” Then she dropped her eyes and focused her attention on an article in the December
Cosmopolitan
, which she had spread out behind her telephone panel.

Turning to leave, I nearly plowed into Wagler’s assistant,
who had been quietly hovering. Twin furrows had formed between Cruella’s eyebrows.

“Is everything all right, Mr. McInnes?”

“To tell you the truth,” I said, “I’m not sure yet.”

Jumping inside the Safari, I fumbled for my cell phone and had tapped in six digits before intelligence overtook emotion. I scanned the parking lot and side street for Zybo, for anyone who might be equipped to listen in on a cell phone. There was no one who seemed remotely interested.

The key clashed with the ignition. The steering felt clumsy. Bumping out over a curb in reverse, I cut off a guy in a pickup and he flipped me the bird. I waved and dropped the gearshift into drive.

Quaint homes streamed by as cobblestones mixed with buckling pavement rumbled beneath my tires. Two rights and a left and I passed Loutie’s place. No one followed. I punched in my home number. Kai-Li answered.

I asked, “You okay?”

“I’m fine. I was afraid the message from Zybo would make you freak. I think it just means …”

I interrupted. Too much adrenaline pumping not to. “It means he wants to meet.”

“Yes, Thomas.” Kai-Li’s voice came out smooth and lilting, like a mother calming a child. “Are you ready?”

I sat at a red light, waiting. “I’m not sure. Let’s talk when I get there. I’m on the way.”

I think I hung up without saying goodbye. The light turned green, and I gunned the Safari back onto Government Street.

Zybo was rushing me.

I forced myself to wait an interminable ten minutes, to get calm and think. I was on I-10 and speeding across a thin strip of pavement stretched across saltwater flats when my self-imposed purgatory ended. I punched in Joey’s cell number.

“Tom.” He had Caller ID.

“Make the call.”

“What call? What are you talking about? Is this one of those ‘The cock crows at midnight’ things?”

Off the causeway to the right, two old men hunkered in a flat-bottom boat. One of them cast a spinner out next to a likely looking swirl of water. As the lure hit, I came even with them and they passed out of sight behind me.

I said, “Make the call to your friend at the ABI in Montgomery. The one we talked about. Zybo’s pushing for a meeting.”

“Oh, yeah. That call.”

“We up to speed now?”

Joey said, “Up to speed,” and hung up.

Twelve minutes later, as I exited the interstate, my phone beeped. I flipped it open and said hello.

Joey’s unmistakable voice, a comfortable mix of Southern and military accents, said, “The cock crows at four this afternoon.”

“Cute.” I glanced at my watch. “You sure?”

“Yeah. He’ll do it. Whether it’ll be enough to get the Mobile cops interested is up in the air, though.”

“So he’s calling thirty minutes from now.”

“You got it. Anything else?”

I said no, and he ended the connection.

That night and most of the next day passed without incident or interruption. In the early evening, I drove to the diner and parked on a graded lot paved with oyster shells and mixed gravel.

The front door hung from spring hinges and slammed shut too fast behind me, nipping the heel of my shoe. A couple of sixty-watt bulbs spread dingy light across the diner. Heated air blew gently from some unseen vent, carrying the heavy scents of burned tallow and Pine-Sol. The same waitress with the same dyed hair and dry cleavage looked up and then down again at what looked like the classified section draped over the counter.

Four small tables fronted the place. Each one rested beside a screened window with plastic sheeting duct-taped over the glass to keep out winter. Zybo sat at the back corner table. He met my eyes across the top of a clothbound book.

As I walked toward the table, he glanced at the page he’d been reading, memorizing the page number, and placed the closed volume on the yellow plastic tablecloth. In gold block printing, the cover read,

T
HE
C
ITADEL
BY
A
RCHIBALD
J
OSEPH
C
RONIN

  I remembered writing a book report on it in high school. Pointing, I said, “Good book.”

Zybo motioned for me to sit. “Yeah. Nice diner, too.”

I sat across from him with my back to the door. “Better than the barbecue pit in the alley.”

He leaned back, rolled his shoulders, and looked at a spot over my right ear. It’s an old trick that supposed to disconcert your listener. “Dis supposed to be an intimidatin’ place for me?”

“Nope. Just knew you’d know where it was. And I didn’t want to meet where we’d be seen.”

He nodded at the tip of my ear.

I leaned to the right to intercept his line of sight. “You afraid to look at me?”

Zybo met my eyes. Then he leaned forward until his nose was a foot from mine. His pupils dilated. “How’s dat?”

“Fine, if you’re planning to kiss me.”

He grinned and eased back a bit in his chair.

I asked, “Why’d you call?”

“You met Judge Savin again. Dis time at de woman doctor’s house.”

“That’s true.”

“Yesterday afternoon, you drove to de judge’s pet law firm for a meeting.”

“Also true. So far, so good, Zybo. What’s your question?”

“I wanna know what’s goin’ on.”

“If wishes were horses.”

“I could
make
you tell me.”

“That’s pretty much the same thing Billy Savin said at the Mandrake Club.” I tried to keep the nauseating fear that roiled inside from registering on my face. “Billy ended up on the floor.”

My Cajun tormentor broke eye contact. He leaned back in his chair and paused a few seconds before saying, “Not to be too confrontational, Tommy Boy. But actually
I
could.” His accent was slipping. He paused again. “But what good would it do?”

I thought about that. “Some.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Some. But some ain’t good enough. I tink I’m bein’ set up.”

“I know the feeling.”

Zion Thibbodeaux, ex-con and psychological warrior, smiled. “Yeah, Tommy Boy. I guess you do.” He held his hands in the air. “Question is, what is it we gonna do ’bout dat?”

“You’ve been cut off, haven’t you? Nobody’s returning your phone calls. Nobody’s asking about trials that need fixing. No people who need poisoning.”

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t speak.

“Everybody’s hunkering down, Zybo. And you’re the only one left standing out there like a Day-Glo
^®
golf ball—all teed up and ready for somebody to take a whack at.”

His eyes wandered the diner wall over my shoulder.

“Speaking of which, I need to know something.” I asked, “Did you pay a visit to my house the night I had dinner with Judge Savin and Dr. Adderson?”

“No way.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“Prob’ly not.”

“Windows open, lights on, Cajun music blasting on the stereo?”

Zybo’s color darkened, and thin cords of muscle worked against the skin at the hollows of his temples.

“I filed a police report this time. You can’t take a whack at the back window of my Land Rover with a woman inside, Zybo. That’s too much.”

He leaned in, his fingers laced together on the tabletop. Dark skin around his nails turned white from the pressure of his grip. “You tink I did dat?”

“Be kind of stupid, wouldn’t it?”

He nodded. “Anyting else?”

“Hearing some rumors out of Montgomery about a Louisiana hit man hired by Chris Galerina.”

He nodded.

I said, “You heard the same thing, didn’t you?”

He shrugged his shoulders forward a little. “Dead men dey don’ testify.”

“That’s right. Neither one of you.”

He paused and rolled his shoulders in full circles. Then he leaned forward again. “Your investigator, he de one been messin’ in my business.”

I reached inside my coat pocket and took out two envelopes. One was a manila routing envelope with a series of scratched-out names on one side. “Take a look.”

Zybo picked up the envelope and tilted the names toward the light. When he had examined each name in turn, he unwound the string holding the envelope closed and pulled out his arrest and prison records. This time, they were in the right order. He leafed through the records, holding them lightly by the edges, just as I’d hoped he would.

When he was done, he said, “Your investigator, he come up with dis?”

I shook my head.

He nodded. “I tink I’m gonna keep it.”

“Keep the report. Not the envelope. They’ll know it came from me.”

He shook his head. “Nobody’s gonna see it. And I ain’t askin’ for it. I’m takin’ it.”

Now I leaned forward. “You try to hold on to that”—I pointed at the envelope in his hand—“and you and I are going to go at it again right now. And I’m done telling you anything.”

He shrugged. “So why you showin’ dis stuff, anyhow? I figure you hate my fuggin gut by now.”

“You figure right. But I want my life
and
my law practice back. And I don’t want to have to be Judge Savin’s punk to get them.”

Zybo just sat there, thinking. Finally, he asked, “How do I know you not workin’ with dem to set me up for de Baneberry woman’s death?”

“Did you kill her?”

“No way.”

“Would you have murdered that woman if they’d paid you enough?”

He shrugged. “Dat ain’t what happened.”

I leaned back. “Why should I believe you?”

“Why should I be believin’ you’re not already Judge Savin’s punk?”

I lifted the flap on the second envelope I’d taken out of my coat pocket and placed a check for $25,000 on the table.

Zybo stared, but didn’t touch. “I guess dey bought you, Tommy.”

“They tried.”

“You gonna cash it?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Den why’d you take it?”

“So I could show later they
tried
to buy me.” I held up my hands. “Look, I pretty much stumbled onto their operation. I didn’t land hard enough to send everybody to jail, but just hard enough to make them stop what they were doing for a while. Maybe enough to kick off some kind of ethics investigation. I don’t know. But the judge’s got a good thing going. So he makes plans to cut my legs out from under me before I can get started.”