Gumbo Limbo (17 page)
I woke to clumping footfalls in the corridor, smokers’ morning hacks and sneezes, out in the darkness a dozen pickup trucks starting, revving and slamming and departing—migratory roofing and construction crews off to a day’s work. I’d slept lightly, much as I might have napped aboard a bus.
Just before seven A.M. I reflected on another subliminal thorn that had kept me from solid sleep: Tazzy Gucci’s mention of
Omar Boudreau as his “former employee.” When had rat-faced Omar been Makksy’s employee? And when had his status shifted to “former”?
Omar Boudreau as his “former employee.” When had rat-faced Omar been Makksy’s employee? And when had his status shifted to “former”?
Was Tazzy Gucci’s invitation to “talk about it on the sidelines” a ploy to remove me from Key West? Or a ploy to remove me?
I should have left written instructions: I wanted a sax-trumpet combo to play at my funeral.
A
gray morning in New Orleans, a choppy landing into a south wind, dark, wet streets below, backed-up traffic. Reason for hope: a slim pocket of blue sky just west of Lake Pontchartrain. The commuter plane halted outside Gate D-4A. Fifteen of us puddledodged to the concourse access, the others pissed at not having been delivered to a telescoping chute. Key Westers have no such modern luxury, tough pioneers we are. Come on, people. A light breeze, misty rain. It’s eighty degrees out here. An executive-rype with his arm in a shoulder-to-thumb cast having no fun with his briefcase and umbrella. A woman who’d employed the spatula makeup method looked around sternly as if it were law: anyone tolerating the outdoors was socially deficient.
gray morning in New Orleans, a choppy landing into a south wind, dark, wet streets below, backed-up traffic. Reason for hope: a slim pocket of blue sky just west of Lake Pontchartrain. The commuter plane halted outside Gate D-4A. Fifteen of us puddledodged to the concourse access, the others pissed at not having been delivered to a telescoping chute. Key Westers have no such modern luxury, tough pioneers we are. Come on, people. A light breeze, misty rain. It’s eighty degrees out here. An executive-rype with his arm in a shoulder-to-thumb cast having no fun with his briefcase and umbrella. A woman who’d employed the spatula makeup method looked around sternly as if it were law: anyone tolerating the outdoors was socially deficient.
Inside, opposite the ticketing kiosk, a vendor’s cart, a seven-foot double hot dog on wheels, extra mustard, a tall yellow-and-red umbrella. The middle-aged concessionaire in a red hat talking to himself, unhappy with the conversation’s progress. Lucky Dogs, indeed. Only the lucky can afford a four-dollar-twenty-five-cent tube steak. No matter. I’d just finished ComAir’s condensed version of breakfast. I searched for a pay phone to call Tazzy Gucci, found one in an echo cavern, under the arched ceiling of the airport’s main hall. Gleeful jazz greats smiled down from a massive mural. So happy to play the blues.
Toddlers wailed as Tazzy—calling himself Ernie Makksy—barked at me with his new-sounding Louisiana accent.
Toddlers wailed as Tazzy—calling himself Ernie Makksy—barked at me with his new-sounding Louisiana accent.
“You shoulda called us leaving Orlando. We‘da picked yo’ ass up in a damn Town Car, partner.” He made it sound like “Town Caw, pawdno.”
“I don’t mind a taxi.”
“I got one thing I gotta do, down on the Quarter. Then we meet and eat. Tell your cabdriver you comin’ to Guy’s Po’-Boys, corner of Magazine and Valmont. That’s Uptown. He gonna come down Carrollton and Claiborne to Jefferson. You pass the college signs up St. Charles, past the Audubon Zoo, that man gone the wrong way. Make him U-turn, turn around, come back. You get to Napoleon, all them dentist office and churches and the Rite-Aid, you gone too far again. Don’t you know, that cabdriver can’t find shit. See you in thirty minutes.”
I called the pulse of my life. Beverly, from Dr. Thurman’s office, had left a message chiding me for missing yesterday’s teeth-cleaning session. Would I care to reschedule? And Liska said: “We need your negatives to match the Chloe Tucker murder to an artist’s rendition of the cemetery murder scene. They’re checking out footprints and cigarette stubs. They’ll probably bring in some Montana trackers to look for grizzly dung piles. Call me ASAP.”
No mention of the Omar case, but Liska’s laugh, for a moment, reinstated. It would not please him to learn that I was out of the state, unable to deliver negs ASAP, or even tomorrow morning. I realized I’d forgotten to order a set of Chloe prints for Sheriff Tucker.
I wove past Baggage Claim to get a taxi, almost suffocated on fumes in the Ground Transportation tunnel. First in line was an older cab, duct tape across the dashboard and the steering wheel hub, Four-Forty brand climate control. Four windows down at forty miles per hour. The rear seat upholstery was in good shape for a veteran hack. The owner must have pulled a
fresh seat base out of a junkyard sedan. Billboards alongside the airport exit road announced happening Crescent City attractions: the House of Blues; Champs Collision Center; the Bubba Gump Restaurant in the French Quarter; three gambling boats. The storm had departed, but swollen bayou air blew in the cab’s windows, dampened the seat next to me. My shirt looked like I’d showered in it.
fresh seat base out of a junkyard sedan. Billboards alongside the airport exit road announced happening Crescent City attractions: the House of Blues; Champs Collision Center; the Bubba Gump Restaurant in the French Quarter; three gambling boats. The storm had departed, but swollen bayou air blew in the cab’s windows, dampened the seat next to me. My shirt looked like I’d showered in it.
I impressed the driver by recognizing the Neville Brothers on the radio. We shared trivia, compared the Nevilles and the Heters. A WWOZ announcer, a sweet-sounding energy source named Brown Sugar, told us: “I made a deal with my conscience. If my conscience wouldn’t bother me, I wouldn’t bother my conscience.”
I needed to subscribe.
I had been to New Orleans years before, to visit an old friend. We’d driven around town in the guy’s ancient Chevy station wagon. The man had painted it military olive drab, called it his Urban Assault Vehicle. Great in traffic: pick a path, any path, other cars kept their distance, veered away at the sight of it. My cabbie employed similar tactics, but neglected to turn left onto Claiborne. We followed the long green tunnel of overhanging live oaks down St. Charles, past old-fashioned street lamp posts, people on bicycles, iron grillwork on balconies, part of the way behind a garbage truck and fumes of three-day-old oyster shells.
Not as much Spanish moss hanging from oaks, this time around. Streetcar 945 passed in the boulevard median, heading west. Intense joggers resumed their mechanical loping, then cleared track center as 900 went by. The streetcars painted that same olive drab as my friend Carter’s station wagon. Open windows, not crowded, ten, twelve people, elbows, out, purple and white shirt sleeves in the wind. I drifted away for a moment, wondering again about Tazzy Gucci’s intentions. A new WWOZ announcer began talking about a new compilation CD. He kept pronouncing the word “copulation.”
“Got that CD for the wife, she like that,” said the cabbie. “She come out and dances in the Quarters, twiced a week. I sit back where I stay. She got more life left in her, she does have that, not me.”
A ridiculously long white limo was parked under trees in the block next to Guy’s Po-Boys. The place sported a painted glass front door, a black-and-white checkered linoleum floor. I recognized one of two men at a small table by the front window. Twenty-five extra pounds above the waist, a graying crew cut, a well-starched tuxedo shirt with an open collar, a thin gold chain.
“Makksy?”
“All right, Rutledge.” He tilted his head toward the small dark-haired man next to him. “Son-in-law, Ray Best.”
Makksy reached to shake. If he wasn’t going to stand, I’d match him. I sat before I shook his hand. Ray Best didn’t offer his. Ray Best wore a Saints ball cap, a frayed, inexpensive polo-style shirt, a thicker gold chain. He looked tightly wound. Not stupid, but intent on appearing that way.
“That mile-long vehicle out there, just outa repair, we got to get it back on the clock.” Makksy was a burned-out version of his younger self, his cheeks flabby-perhaps from not having smiled lately—the old glow in his eyes now an intermittent flicker. “We need to do our meeting in my office privacy, you with me on that?”
“So far.” I put my carry-on bag on the floor between my feet. I noticed Makksy’s shoes. Sure as hell, Gucci loafers. Identical to Omar Boudreau’s.
“We ordered for you. A Number Two and an Orange Crush.”
The blackboard said I would get the red-beans-and-rice lunch plate with smoked sausage and a salad. Only twenty cents more than a Lucky Dog. Not counting air fare and the nine-dollar cab ride, I said, “Perfect.”
“Thought so,” drawled Makksy, proud of his resourcefulness.
“I didn’t guess you’d eat in a place with pictures of food on the menu.
“I didn’t guess you’d eat in a place with pictures of food on the menu.
Ray Best loudly vacuumed the last drops of iced tea through his straw. A harried waitress rushed to refill the glass.
Twenty minutes later we were in Makksy’s eight-year-old stretch Lincoln, going back out Carrollton toward Imperial Limo and Vending. Makksy and I sat comfortably on the rear bench seat with after-lunch beers in hand. Some crooner, probably Harry Connick, mellow in stereo. Ray Best drove too fast for traffic, pushy, like a New York cabbie. All biz behind the wheel, focused, competitive. This road is
mine.
He’d removed the Saints ball cap he’d worn in the restaurant.
mine.
He’d removed the Saints ball cap he’d worn in the restaurant.
“I’ve wondered for twenty years how I got snookered into smuggling pot.” Makksy sipped his beer and kept his eyes on the passing scenery. “Back in prison, bunch of us came up with a theory. We were, most of us, in college, barely out of high school. We went and rode those boats to impress girls. Not just with profits, but the fact that we did it, we went out on the big ocean and risked our necks to bring harmless marijuana into the States. The girls loved that bit. And we had good tans.”
“I recall, twenty years ago, none of the scam-boat boys had trouble in the romance department.”
“Well, that was true. We were layin’ pipe like we were born to the calling. They were choice ladies, not dogs. There was pirate appeal, the risk factor, and you’ve always got volunteers who want to help spend profits. It was our moral duty not to squander free poontang. But, soon enough, the cute ladies figured they could hold out till the cocaine got served. The ante went up bigtime. The scene also went around the bend. I never knew a man who did toot because he liked the drug, not at first. He bought dust so he could use it for bait, draw women like a lamp draws a moth. He’d put it up his nose to be sociable, and not be suspected of working for the other team. Next thing you know, he’s blitzed, calling some dealer at three A.M. for a quarter-ounce of
stepped-on trash, getting too messed up to get it up. By morning the girl had split, the dude’s in a vicious circle of waking up in time for cocktail hour, and the only way to clean up is to go back out on a southbound boat, never believing for a minute he’d ever get caught …”
stepped-on trash, getting too messed up to get it up. By morning the girl had split, the dude’s in a vicious circle of waking up in time for cocktail hour, and the only way to clean up is to go back out on a southbound boat, never believing for a minute he’d ever get caught …”
I said, “Free poontang?”
“Good point, partner. In the end, very expensive poontang.”
Ray Best wedged the limo left in a sweeping curve, seventy in a thirty-five zone, high on a two-lane I-10 bridge. No vehicle in sight doing under seventy. Ernest Makksy, aka Tazzy Gucci, probably didn’t realize that he’d lost his nasal New Orleans twang about the time we left the New Orleans city limits. He reverted to the Carolina low-country drawl I remembered him having years ago.
“You know, on the beach,” he said, “me, Scotty Auguie, Buzzy Burch, we all sort of went our separate ways. But on the sailboats, the three or four trips we took together, we clicked. You go to sleep at night, you need to trust the man at the helm. In a storm, or loading the boat with gun-happy Colombians standing around, drinking piss-rot beer, you depend on the others to make right moves, cover your butt, not be stupid. Me, Buzzy, Scotty, we were good. Total trust. A hang-together team.”
Another speech about teammates.
He said, “Deep down, I think we all wanted to be Jamaicans. We went to see
The Harder They Come
about once a week, and we listened to Jimmy Cliff singing ‘You Can Get It If You Really Want,’ which was our theme song, and ‘Sittin’ in Limbo,’ which defined our lifestyle. Sitting around, smoking that super weed we brought in, we were in deep limbo, waiting for the next thing to happen.” He glanced around at the inside of the limousine. “I’m not much different now, doing the same thing in a different place, the land of gumbo. Problem is, these days the women are married or they got their ears covered by Walkman earphones. And I’m not smoking pot, not breaking the law.”
The Harder They Come
about once a week, and we listened to Jimmy Cliff singing ‘You Can Get It If You Really Want,’ which was our theme song, and ‘Sittin’ in Limbo,’ which defined our lifestyle. Sitting around, smoking that super weed we brought in, we were in deep limbo, waiting for the next thing to happen.” He glanced around at the inside of the limousine. “I’m not much different now, doing the same thing in a different place, the land of gumbo. Problem is, these days the women are married or they got their ears covered by Walkman earphones. And I’m not smoking pot, not breaking the law.”
“You’re hangin’ in gumbo limbo.”
He looked over at me. “Waiting for the next thing to happen. You ever wonder why you never got asked to crew a scam boat?”
I shook my head. “I never went out tryin’ to get a ride. Nobody invited me to join in. I’m glad now that I didn’t. But I never thought about it.”
“Pure discrimination. Where you from, Rutledge?”
“Originally? Ohio.”
“You weren’t one of us, friend. We were carrying on Southern tradition.”
“Which one?”
“Blockade running. We all had family, going back generations, in the War Between the States, in Prohibition, some other enterprises, using the coastline to dodge the federal government. We carried on our patriotic duty. We just took it too far, is all.”
Tazzy Gucci had been a fine soldier. He’d carried out his moral duty not to squander free sex, and his patriotic duty to smuggle pot.
“This limo thing,” I said. “Sounds like you’ve built yourself a future.”
He raspberried, spraying beer foam onto his lap. I realized how poorly I’d timed my attempt at placation. In Makksy’s hopes, any business would compare poorly to Zack Cahill’s retirement fund.
He let it slide. “I’m a lucky fucker, anyway. When I hit the prison door, my first bright idea was to open a bar in Panama City. I wanted to call the place ‘Something 4 Everyone,’ numeral ‘four.’ I would give them mud-wrestling, mechanical bull riding, karaoke, and line dancing. My concept was hip as shit. Thank God the bastards in the bank told me to get on out.”
“Where’re you from?” I said.
“Between Savannah and Beaufort. Daddy was a South Carolina politician, so things eventually came to him. But we grew up with a ‘53 Ford in our front yard. My parents got an indoor
shitter the same year they had me. They let me know they were happier about the shitter.”
shitter the same year they had me. They let me know they were happier about the shitter.”
“So you did prison time for carrying on tradition.”
Makksy looked back out the window. “No, sir. I went to prison for chasing pussy with a brown glass vial full of expensive Bolivian aphrodisiacs, and for keeping my trap shut in nine dif ferent federal depositions. And, indirectly, for importing seventy-five tons of weed.”
Bright sunshine, air-conditioning coming out a dozen vents in the back of Tazzy Gucci’s mock luxury, his deep-pile rolling paradise. My legs stretched, my feet on a jump-seat cushion. Carefree, for the moment, at least, and out of Key West. An ironic contrast to my arrival on that crowded commuter plane, eating fat-free peanuts for breakfast, forcing myself from the two-thirds-sized seat, stooping to walk the center aisle, running through misty weather to the gate entrance with the scornful woman and the man with the cast on his arm.
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