Crescent City Connection (29 page)

She touched him, and then withdrew her hand, knowing that he couldn’t be touched, which made him so ashamed he wanted to go in the bedroom and lie there till he died.

Oh, no! He couldn’t think about death. That one was back. “Life. Life,” he said to himself, so deliberately he moved his lips.

She said, “What? Did you say something?”

He shook his head.

“Isaac, I’m so sorry. But you don’t have to worry. I won’t say where you are, or anything about you. I’m meeting the cop at the Camellia Grill. She’ll never even know you exist.”

He wrote: “Are you kidding? They have dossiers on everybody. They’ll have them on me. They’ll know I exist. They’ll come here and get me.”

“What for?”

“For questioning, I guess. Who knows what for? Can you imagine what would happen to me if I had to go to the police station for questioning?”

“I think it’s pretty funny. I bet they’ve never questioned a man who’s taken a vow of silence.”

She meant to make him laugh, but he just couldn’t. He was thinking of how to get her to say what he needed her to say. He couldn’t stand it.

He wrote, “Lovelace, quick. Who’s the son of Mary and Joseph?”

“Jesus Christ?”

She had said it, but with a question mark. Was that good enough?

“Say it again.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Thanks. Do me a favor. Please don’t say my father’s name anymore.” And then he wrote “Jesus Christ,” to offset having written “my father.”

Lovelace frowned, evidently puzzled, but seemed willing to humor him.

It wasn’t good enough. He had used the possessive with “my father”. He wrote, “In Jesus Christ’s name,” but he couldn’t leave it at that—it made him look too crazy, so he kept on writing. “In Jesus Christ’s name, please don’t do this.”

“Well, what the hell’s the alternative? They’ll just find us and spray us with automatic gunfire.”

He wrote, “I have to get out of here.”

“No. I’ll go. It isn’t fair to put you in jeopardy this way.”

But they would find him. They were going to find him. And that was big trouble. Because he couldn’t be absolutely sure he wouldn’t kill someone.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. That’s back
.

That was a thought that had been gone for a while. Now, with this mention of the police, he knew the possibility existed. He might kill someone. There was simply no way in hell to be sure he wouldn’t. He might have done it already.

He wrote: “I can’t talk about this anymore. I have to meditate.”

“Okay.” She went back in the kitchen, and pretty soon he smelled garlic and onions and squash. She was probably making a vegetable pasta.

He sat there and thought:
I have to get out. I might hurt someone. Even now, I can’t be sure I haven’t killed anyone; I just can’t. There’s no way to be sure, is there? Absolutely no way. If there were, I’d know what it is.

And I can’t be sure I won’t do it again.

I can’t go to prison. I can’t control the contamination. There aren’t enough showers in the whole prison system of the whole country to control the contamination.

I have to leave.

STEVE WAS PULLING a roast chicken out of the oven when Skip got back.

“Hi. You hungry?”

“Starved. That looks great, but we’ve had a development—I’ve got to call Shellmire. Oops. My beeper just went off.” She recognized the number instantly—Shellmire’s. Eagerly, she dialed. “I was just about to call you. Guess what?”

“I give up.”

“The kid’s coming in out of the cold. We’re meeting tomorrow—at the Camellia Grill, of all places.”

“How do you know it isn’t a setup?” Shellmire asked.

“I don’t. We’re talking mega-backup. You want to be there?”

“It’s no setup. And yeah, I’d love to. Can’t though. Bigger fish to fry, as your pal says.”

“What could be bigger than this? And how do you know so much about it, anyway? Evidently she talked to Michelle. Do you have her line tapped?”

“Sure we do, we’re Big Brother. Our guys heard the conversation, but Lovelace called from a bar—we didn’t get her phone number. But here’s the big news—Michelle’s not the only one she talked to. Take a wild guess at who her other phone friend is.”

“Her dad.”

“You’re never gonna guess. I better tell you—her grandmother.”

It took a moment to figure out who he meant. “Rosemarie?”

“We’ve got a majorly interesting tape of those two ladies. Rosemarie told her her grandpa and her dad are The Jury.”

“No!”

“Sure did. Why, I’m not exactly sure. I don’t think she had in mind Lovelace calling you, but she could have.”

“Never mind why she did it—how does she know?”

“Okay, okay, don’t rub it in. Guess you were right. There’s probably a reason the hubby turned up dead. We got her in custody in Dallas—I was calling to ask if you want to fly over and get in on the interrogation.”

“Good God, yes. But I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

“At the Camellia Grill, along with the burgers.”

“Turner, do you realize what this means? I’ve got to call Cappello. And Joe.”

She hung up.

“Steve! The FBI’s got evidence pointing to Jacomine.”

“Hey, congratulations—hometown girl makes good.”

“It’s not over till it’s over. But, man, this is hot. Maybe they’ll finally give me some help. We’re this close—” she held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “We’re gonna get the bastard.”

The Camellia Grill, which never closes, did at five
A.M.
the next day, while staff and customers were replaced with policemen.

By six, the transition was complete. By six forty-five, Skip was sitting at the counter, sipping coffee. At seven, she began to feel restless. She kept fighting the urge to look over her shoulder, or even at the door. She was well covered. She stared at her coffee.

A man came in and sat next to her, a man in coat and tie, looking as if he were on his way to work. “Morning,” she said.

He grunted and ordered coffee. The place was starting to hum. A woman in a miniskirted power suit flipped in and got something to go—a woman too old to be Lovelace.

Two other customers took counter stools. One—apparently a regular—asked where the usual staff was. The wait-cop shrugged. “Out, I guess.”

Skip thought,
That should cover it
. She looked at her watch.

Seven-ten. Still in the ballgame.

Her coffee cup was empty.

She got a refill and tried to focus on breathing. In, out, in, out—people were staring. She smiled at the man in the suit, the grunting nonspeaker. “Yoga breathing.”

He frowned back.

She thought,
Maybe Lovelace doesn’t know what this place is like at this hour. Maybe she thought it’d be deserted.

There were plainclothes cops outside who’d seen Lovelace’s picture. If anyone came near who looked anything like her, they’d follow; and they’d say what they were doing on their radios.

Maybe she’s not coming.

She didn’t let the thought solidify until seven-twenty. By seven-thirty, Abasolo’s imitation of a fry cook was wearing thin. The real customers were getting testy. The place smelled as if there’d been a forest fire. Skip was sweating.

At seven-forty, the owner got pissed and insisted on replacing Abasolo, which, at that point, was fine—the place was full of civilians, anyway.

At seven-fifty, Skip’s clothes were soaking wet with flop-sweat. The policemen outside were on their radios more often than not, making progress reports—who they were ought to be obvious to anyone on the block. But Skip had a feeling it didn’t matter. Lovelace wasn’t coming.

They made it official at eight.

Skip killed an hour or two at Headquarters, doing paperwork and returning phone calls, waiting for the business day to start at Rough Trade, The Monk’s gallery. Any idea of sending Abasolo to try a kid-gloves approach now seemed absurd—it could take days, and she was overloaded on adrenaline.

She got in her car, drove to the French Quarter, and found a parking place. Jittery with coffee nerves and fury, she blew into the gallery like a hurricane.

The door slammed behind her. “Dahveed! Dahveed, come out here! Skip Langdon, NOPD—get your cute butt here in two seconds.”

He seemed shaken when he arrived, about half a second ahead of her deadline. “Uh—what is it? Can I help you?” He looked undecided, and she knew he was trying to get up the nerve to ask her to lower her voice.

“I want you to let me walk through your gallery.”

“Walk through my… what is this?” He actually burst into tears. It was quite a spectacle—she’d never seen a grown man do that. A drop or two on the cheeks maybe, but not a full-fledged tantrum straight from Queen Central.

Dahveed pleaded as if beset by Mongol hordes. “You can’t do this. Please don’t do this. I promise you I don’t have any phone numbers. I swear to you. Please, please, please, please, don’t rip apart my place of business. I’m begging you—please. If you have any human feeling.”

“Hey, take it easy.” She knew she’d come on a little strong, but she must have yelled louder than she thought—or maybe she was just giving off a very nasty vibe.

Revelas came in from the courtyard. “What you doin’ to Dahveed? He don’t know nothin’.”

“Look, I don’t want to hurt Dahveed. But I need to find The Monk. Is he here? Is that what’s going on?”

“Naw. He ain’t here. But I just remembered somethin’ I know about The Monk. Maybe it could help you.”

She could have screamed.
Just remembered! Goddammit, where were you yesterday?

She spoke as politely as she could. “What’s that, Revelas?”

“Before he started helpin’ out aroun’ here, The Monk had a gig. Little somethin’ to help him get through, you know? Support his paintin’ habit.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, look, it wadn’t like this.” He swept an arm to indicate the gallery. “Dahveed’s like a artist hissef. No records, no nothin’. You a artist, you get ya money, that the end of the story. This was a regular bi’ness, you know? Like with records and stuff. Maybe that dude have his address.”

It couldn’t have been that regular, she thought. The Monk doesn’t even have a Social Security number.

She said, “What kind of business?”

“Juice bar. You know—one them carrot-mashin’ places; make your yogurt shakes, shit like that.”

“Uh-huh. You know which one?”

“Well, I been thinkin’ ’bout that. See, mostly I talk to The Monk. He don’t talk to me—he don’t talk at all, you know about that?”

“Revelas, you know something or not?”

He was suddenly belligerent. “Yeah. I know somethin’. You want it or you jus’ want to tear Dahveed place apart? Dahveed jus’ a innocent bystander—other brother might have what you want.”

Skip suddenly got a tight feeling in her stomach, as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice. If she took a wrong step, she might go flying. Unless she’d misunderstood, he’d already told her something—that meant this was more than smoke.

“Did you say ‘brother’? He worked for a black man?”

“Yeah. He work for a brother.”

“You remember his name?”

“Don’t know his name. He told me, went in one ear, out the other. What I do remember, I remember the name of the sto’.”

Skip waited. But the man was obviously pissed off and in a mood to make her work. Finally she said, “Well, what was it, Revelas?”

“Well, now, you ask me nice.”

“Oh, forget it. I’ve got work to do.”

But Dahveed shouted, “For God’s sake, tell her if you know!”

“All right, bro’. Okay, awrite. I’ll tell her for you.”

Again she waited.

Revelas pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Finally he said, “It was Juicy’s.”

“Juicy’s?”

“Juicy’s Juice. How you gon’ forget a name like that? Motherfucker say he name it after his girlfriend. Bet she love that. Juicy! Huh.”

“Now, how would you know a thing like that when The Monk didn’t talk?”

“Oh.
Now
you be interested in that.”

“That’s right. Now I be interested.”

“Well, we was gettin’ to be friends, see. And he tol’ me all his friends was brothers.”

“I thought he didn’t talk.”

“Sometimes, if he thought somethin’ was real important, he write it down. We pass notes like—you know?”

Skip nodded.

“I said somethin’ like, ‘You the whitest man I ever seen. Not enough to have white skin, you even dress white.’ And that kind of hurt his feelin’s. So he wrote me about workin’ for this brother who own Juicy’s Juice. I laughed, man, I laughed—that just tickle my funny bone. Juicy’s Juice. Who in hell would name a bi’ness somethin’ like that? And whose girlfriend would let ’em?”

“But he didn’t give you the name of the owner?”

“I tol’ you already. He tell me, I jus’ don’t remember—Juicy’s Juice the funny part.”

“What city was it in?”

“What you mean what city? Racheer. Racheer in New Orleans.”

“Not Metairie or Kenner? Or Algiers? New Orleans—you sure about that?”

“Sho’ I’m sho’.”

She doubted he was, but it was something, anyway. “You know what location?”

He shook his head. “He never did tell me that.”

It was all she could do not to dash for the phone book. She already knew there was no Juicy’s Juice in the Yellow Pages— she’d been to every juice bar that was there—but it might be in the white ones.

It didn’t matter anyway. There was a way to look it up. She could find out who’d been issued the business license.

She wondered if she should stay and watch the shop for a while. Dahveed had seemed unduly upset about her being there. On the other hand, she was eager to look up the business license for Juicy’s.

She stuck around about fifteen minutes. Nobody came in or went out.

* * *

Lovelace felt someone kick at the old tarp that covered her. “Come out, dammit.”

“Okay, okay. That was a cop, wasn’t it?”

“Oh yes, indeed, that was a cop. What exactly is going on with you and your newly bald uncle, who are about to put me out of business between the two of you?”

“Listen, thanks for not ratting me out.”

“I should have, you know that? I truly should have. But because your uncle is such a fine artist—”