Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 08 - Death in the French Quarter (10 page)

The dark figure remained frozen for a moment, then
he spun and leaped onto the balcony and climbed over
the rail.

Before I could reach the balcony, the sound of splitting wood followed by a terrified shriek cut through the
darkness. A moment later, I heard a satisfying thump
and the shattering of underbrush.

I peered into the darkness below, barely able to discern a dark figure stumbling from the patio.

Back inside, I locked the French doors and jammed
the back of a chair under the knobs before I climbed
into bed where I lay awake, wondering if the rattling of
chains had been only in my dreams.

“Don’t let your imagination run away with you,
Tony,” I whispered to the darkness over my head.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts”

I rose early next morning, and as the sun eased over
the Mississippi River, I was enjoying a breakfast of
sugar-powdered beignets and coffee at the Cafe du
Monde. The morning was cool, and a north breeze
drifting down the narrow streets had dried the air, a
welcome respite from the thick humidity that usually
greeted early risers.

With only a few exceptions, the French Quarter
doesn’t rise with the sun, so traffic on the streets was
light. Delivery trucks backed up to the French Market
across the street, and a few staggering revelers who
greeted the sun stumbled along the sidewalks, most trying to remember the location of their hotels.

When Rigues’ opened, I took a seat next to one of the
windows overlooking Jackson Square so I could sip my
coffee and idly watch as the charlatans and other artists set up their stands for the day in the cool shade of the
spreading oaks.

Slowly, the restaurant began to fill, but no familiar
faces showed up.

I spent the next few hours playing the tourist, wandering around the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carre,
as it was originally called.

After a visit to Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop and
its ghosts, I headed back to Central Grocery on Decatur
Street for half of a world famous muffuletta. I had tried
a whole muffuletta once, but the pie pan-sized sandwich with a third of a pound of sliced salami, an equal
amount of ham or prosciutto, a third of a pound of
thinly sliced provolone, topped with green and black
olives on sourdough was too much for me. Half of a
muffuletta I could handle.

I had no sooner hopped up on a stool and ordered my
sandwich than Julie popped in and climbed up on the
stool beside me. He was wearing the same clothes from
the day before but with the addition of a New Orleans
Saints gimme cap. “Hi ya, Tony. How’s the wandering
tourist today?”

“Wandering,” I replied, noting that his pupils were
dilated, and he was licking his lips. “What have you
been up to?”

He ordered a Big Easy beer and a whole muffuletta.
“Nothing. Hey, you got anything going on tonight?”

My heart skipped a beat. “No. Just looking around?
Why?”

He leaned closer. Now, I’m not a particularly fastidi ous person but I do shower every day, and the days-old
stench of his unwashed body almost took my breath
away. “I talked to Punky about you. We’re having a little get-together in the back room of Rigues’ tonight.
You want to go?”

Did the fox want in the henhouse? You bet, but I
feigned indifference, playing hard to get. “Oh, I don’t
know. I’m not much of a party man.”

The clerk slid our muffulettas across the counter to us.

“Man, I’m starving,” Julie said, grabbing his sandwich. His fingers shook as he tore away the thin paper
and took a huge bite. Around a mouthful of bun and
meat and olives, he mumbled, “It ain’t a party like that,
just a bunch of guys getting together for a few beers
and laughs and few hands of bourre”

“Well, maybe I will. Just for the heck of it.” I took a
bite of my own sandwich. “What time?”

“Around ten or so.”

We ate silently for a few moments. I glanced at him
from the corner of my eyes. “You from New Orleans,
Julie?”

He took another huge bite from his sandwich.
“Naw,” he mumbled around a mouthful. “Shreveport.”

“Your folks still there?”

“Beats me” He gulped his beer and dragged the back
of his hands across his lips. “Never knew them. My old
lady left me with my grandma when I was about two.
Grandma did the best she could, but she was sick. Died
when I was ten.”

I grimaced. “Tough. Any family?”

He laughed, but I had the feeling he was forcing it.
“Not really. I lived with different relatives a couple
years. Don’t know if they’re still alive or not. Anyway,
one day when I was thirteen, a neighborhood boy said he
was going to New Orleans. So, I hitched a ride and here
I am” He took another huge bite. “What about you?”

“Not much” I shrugged. “I’d like to set me up a little
business of some kind-you know, be my own boss.”

“Yeah,” Julie replied dreamily. “That’d be good. Not
have nobody telling you what to do” He shook his
head. “That’d sure be good”

I looked around at him. “Hey, maybe we ought to
find something together.”

“Really?” He arched an eyebrow in surprise.

“Yeah. Really.” I hated lying to the young man. I
liked him, and I felt sorry for him, but my primary focus had to remain on finding proof that Bones murdered Stewart and Leon-Paul Savoie. And at the
present, Julie was my only way into the small gang.

After the conversation with Julie, I decided I needed
a cover story for being in New Orleans. People just
don’t pop up out of nowhere. They have histories, and I
wanted to be sure my history was one that met Bones’
approval.

That afternoon from a pay phone at a Walgreen’s on
the corner of Royal and Iberville Streets, I called Marty
in Austin. After explaining what I had in mind, I gave
him my cover story.

“If anyone calls asking about me, you reported me to
the licensing board at the Security Commission for tak ing bribes, and the board suspended me until they investigated the allegations.” I paused. “That’s nice and
simple, and it’s the kind of story Bones would buy”

Marty warned me. “You know, Tony. Anyone can go
online to the Department of Public Safety and find out
your current status.”

I’d considered that possibility. “Yeah, but you know
the commission. They usually run two or three months
behind on updating their records. If someone is really
anxious to find out about me, they’ll end up calling you.
That’ll give me the time I need”

Marty concluded our conversation with drawn-out
sigh. “Maybe so. Anyway, you be careful, Tony. You
hear?”

I heard. But I remembered Stewart, and if there was
the slightest chance of nailing his killer to the wall, I
wanted to go for it.

Julie was waiting on the sidewalk in front of Rigues’
when I arrived. He had changed T-shirts for the occasion, but still wore the low-hanging hip-huggers and
sandals. “Come on in, Tony. Meet the guys”

We pushed through the rear door at Rigues’ and
stepped into a dark hall with several doors along one
side. I guessed the door at the end of the hall opened
into the courtyard I had spotted the day before. I looked
up and down the hall. “Where’s the ghost?”

Julie laughed. “You’ll see him. Don’t worry” He led
the way through the first door into a room filled with smoke that had the unmistakable smell of burning
grass. Two men looked around from where they were
standing by a keg of beer as four others sat around a
table playing bourre, a cutthroat game that, according
to one wag, most Cajuns learn the hard way, by holding
themselves upright in their bassinets. The game brings
big returns and big losses.

“Hi, guys,” Julie exclaimed. “Hey, this is Tony. Tony,
this is Pig, Ham, Mule, Ziggy, Hummer, and the old
man there is Gramps.”

“Hey,” I said, instantly recognizing Ham as the one
who had tailed me the night before. And if I hadn’t
been certain, the scratches on his bearded face he received when the trellis collapsed was more than enough
proof. I deliberately averted my eyes from the scowling
fat man.

Ziggy, whose black hair was spiked in every direction, grinned. “How about a beer?” He nodded to the
aluminum keg at his side and reached for a mug. “I’ll
draw you one.”

Gramps, who looked fifty or so, grinned up at me, revealing a mouthful of rotting teeth and a left eye that
gave the impression of peering to the right. “Hey” The
others just grunted and continued the game.

Not recognizing their indifference, Julie continued in
an animated voice. “Tony here helped me out of a bind
with that oink Rusk yesterday” He paused, waiting for
a response. When he received none, he added lamely,
“I’d probably be in the slammer if it hadn’t been for
Tony” He looked at me gratefully.

I felt sorry for him. “Hey, glad I could help.”

Ziggy handed me a beer. I sipped from the mug. Julie
continued. “Bones will be here in a minute. He owns
part of this place”

At that moment, the door opened and Punky, wearing his trademark sleeveless T-shirt and torn jeans,
sauntered in, followed by a tall, lanky man with high
cheekbones and a complexion like a new penny, two
characteristics of the Melungeon.

Bones!

The action around the bourre table came to a halt as
all eyes focused on the two men. Bones wore leather
pants and a leather vest over a bare chest. His long,
black hair was straight as a board.

Only in New Orleans, I told myself.

The tall man’s eyes focused on me. His eyes narrowed. “Who’s that?”

Julie stepped forward. “This is Tony, Bones. I told
Punky about him. He kept me from getting busted over
that job in the French Market”

Bones’ eyes blazed. “You talk too much, Julie.”

Chagrinned, Julie took a step back and lowered his
eyes.

From the side of his mouth, Bones told Punky, “Get
him out of here.”

I hid my disappointment. With a shrug, I set my beer
on a table. “Hey, no problem. You don’t want me, I’m
outta here.” I glanced at Julie. “Thanks anyway” Ignoring the others, I brushed past Bones, who towered over
me by a good four or five inches.

The only explanation I have for what happened next
was that I must have been living right. As I was weaving through the tables for the front doors of Rigues’,
four police cruisers squealed to a halt and armed uniforms exploded from them.

Recognizing my chance to insinuate myself into
Bones’ good graces, I spun on my heel and raced to the
rear door. When I slammed through the door, I spotted
the tall Redbone standing in the open door at the end of
the hall.

He looked at me in surprise.

“Cops! Get out of here,” I shouted, shoving him
through the door and slamming it behind him.

In the next second, the restaurant door burst open
and a harsh voice shouted, “Police, freeze!”

We were rousted from the restaurant, shoved into
paddy wagons, and bounced into cells.

New Orleans police are not known for their gentle
nature; nor are they overly sensitive about bruising a
person’s self-esteem; nor are their holding cells applauded in Southern Living magazine for gracious appointments and tasteful decorations.

Metal bunks were fastened to three of the graffiticovered walls. A stainless steel commode sat in one
corner in full view of the whole world, and a sheen of
water covered the concrete floor. Despite the heat outside, down in the cellar, a clinging dampness penetrated my bones.

Julie sidled up to me in the corner of the holding cell.
“How’d they get you, Tony?”

With a sheepish grin, I replied, “I was coming back
to warn you. I just didn’t move fast enough”

He nodded. “Don’t worry. The cops do this regular
like. Bones’ fixer is on the way down now. We’ll be out
first thing in the morning.”

“Fixer?” I frowned.

“Yeah, you know, his lawyer.”

“Oh” I glanced around. The others were sitting on
the metal bunks or staring through the bars, all except
Ham who was glaring at me. “So what’s the routine?”

Julie grunted. “Nothing much. Something goes
down, the cops bust someone. If it ain’t us, it’s Jojo’s
bunch” He shrugged. “Or one of the other bunches.
They always ask the same questions.”

“Such as?”

He laughed. “Makes no difference. We don’t know
no answers anyway”

“I see your point.” I arched an eyebrow.

The cell door squeaked open and a uniformed jailer,
whose bulk filled the open door, stepped forward.
“Zachariah Drayton”

Everyone looked at each other.

Searching the blank faces, the jailer barked impatiently. “Let’s go, Drayton”

Suddenly Gramps snorted. “Drayton? Hey, that’s
you, Mule.”

A brute of a man looked around, puzzled. “Huh?”

“Yeah, Mule,” Punky laughed. “That’s your name.
Zachariah Drayton. Get on in there.”

Mule stared down at Punky for several seconds, letting the words soak in. Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah, yeah,
that’s right.” He laughed and lumbered from the holding cell.