Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders (16 page)

“I don’t know for sure, but earlier, Mister Towers
mentioned that the owners of a similar skull turned
down a five million dollar offer.”

Towers’ face crumbled as Mrs. Bernie stared at me in
disbelief. Her eyes grew suspicious. “What is this,
some kind of joke?”

Doreen spoke up. “No, Mrs. Bernie. That’s what he
said.”

I took up where Doreen left off. “If that’s the case,
Mrs. Bernie, then you need to put that skull somewhere
safe, real safe”

The indifferent expression on her face told me she
didn’t believe me. She gestured to Max. “It’s safe here.”

“Think about it, Mrs. Bernie. These guys are serious. If
they’d known Max was here, he’d be dead now. Next time
they come back, they’ll take him out. Maybe you. They’ve
killed one already. Another won’t make any difference.”

A few knots of concern wrinkled her forehead. “You
think?”

Doreen stepped forward and laid her hand on the
older woman’s arm. “Yes”

The older woman turned back to me. “What should
I do?”

I glanced at J.C.Towers, and an idea hit me.

“Now, you can do what you want, Mrs. Bernie, but
Mister Towers is an expert plus his business has a safe
impossible to break into. He would probably be willing
to keep it in his safe for you until it defaults with the understanding that you two would be partners in whatever
arrangement he can make to sell the skull”

At first, Towers stared at me in disbelief, but then a
slow smile played over his lips as he understood the
terms of the arrangement. He knew he could never
solely possess the skull, so applying the common sense
approach to business that fifty percent of something is
better than a hundred percent of nothing, he agreed.

Mrs. Bernie eyed the diminutive man skeptically.
“What about it? If the skull is defaulted, can you find a
buyer for it?”

He rubbed his hands together. “Certainly, certainly.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Come with me” She turned
on her heel and led us from the storage room and stopped in front of the barred window that she sat behind. She turned to him. “Eighty-twenty is the only way
I’d go. Me with the eighty.”

The diminutive man stiffened, then studied her with
a calculating eye. “Madam,” he began in a haughty
tone, “I possess the contacts for the most advantageous
transaction. I would think at least a fifty-fifty agreement most appropriate.”

Mrs. Bernie hesitated a moment. “Seventy-thirty”

Towers pursed his lips. “Sixty-forty.”

She nodded abruptly and took the skull from him
and slipped it under her arm like a football. She retrieved a battered pack of Pall Mall cigarettes from her
sweater pocket and lit one as J.C.Towers looked on in
horror at her casual treatment of the skull. She inhaled
and blew the smoke into the air. As it drifted to the ceiling, she stuck her face in Towers’. “No hanky panky, no
rich guy moves to keep the skull? Otherwise, I’ll sic
Max on you. Okay?”

A flicker of irritation knit the small man’s brows, but
he quickly recovered. “My word, Madam.”

“These two here are our witnesses, Doreen Patterson
and Tony Boudreaux. Is that all right with you, Mister
Towers?”

He nodded. “Yes”

“And you are the J.C.Towers who owns Tower Jewelers?”

“Yes”

“Here in Austin, Texas?”

Towers frowned at me momentarily. I cut my eyes toward Doreen. She was just as puzzled as I was by Mrs.
Bernie’s behavior as well as her last few questions. A
ludicrous thought crossed my mind. Were we witnessing an early stage of senility in the old lady?

She studied him another moment. Without taking her
eyes off him, she said, “What do you think, Max?”

Max barked once.

J.C.Towers took a step back.

“Don’t worry, Mister Towers,” she said with a
chuckle. “Max thinks you’re okay” He started to smile
until she added. “I ain’t sure, but Max ain’t been fooled
in the last ten years” She pointed to a camera in the
ceiling. “I make it a habit to make a record of everyone
who comes to my window. Had to use it a few times.
Kind of expensive, but it’s tax deductible. Move around
to your left some, Mister Towers. I want the camera of
get a clear shot when I give you the skull.”

So much for senility.

Towers stammered but did as she asked.

She held out the skull. He reached for it, but she held
tightly. “One more thing,” she said.

“Whatever you say, Madam,” Towers croaked.

“I want to watch you put it in your safe.”

He nodded eagerly. “As you say, Mrs. Bernie. As you
say.”

But, that was to prove a problem. While Mrs. Bernie
secured the fortress-like walls of the business, she informed us that she did not drive. “Mister Bernie drove me everywhere. I never learned to drive. Red Cap Taxi
picks me up and drops me off.” She paused before locking the door to the storeroom. “Don’t worry, Max. I’ll
be back in thirty minutes.”

She peered out the window. “The pickup yours?”

“Yeah.”

She grinned. “Crowded, but it’ll work.”

Towers sputtered. “You mean, we-” He gestured to
us. “The four of us are going to ride in that?”

Mrs. Bernie laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Sure Mister Towers. No trouble. Mister Bernie
and me have musta rode four or five in a pickup a thousand times.”

“But, but-”

She eyed his slender frame and then her substantial
build. “I was going to say I’d sit in your lap, but I think
you best sit on mine.”

As we pulled out of the parking lot onto Congress
Avenue, I glanced in the side mirror and spotted a yellow Jeep with black fenders and three black lightning
bolts on the side exit a parking lot on the opposite side
of the street and fall in behind by several car lengths. I
didn’t think too much about it until I looked back again
and spotted it still behind us.

I kept my speed below the limit, so naturally vehicles swept past us on the left and right. All except the
Jeep.

We must have been a curious sight heading across
the Congress Avenue Bridge all scrunched in the cab of my Silverado. Mister Towers had to hunker over just to
see out the front window.

The trip didn’t take any longer than five minutes.
While waiting to turn left into Towers’ Jewels from the
turning lane, I noticed the Jeep take a right into downtown. I grinned to myself. My imagination had been
working overtime.

I couldn’t help grinning at just how stunned Towers’
upscale customers were when they spotted us piling out
of the pickup and pushing through the door of the jewelry store. More than just a few eyes grew wide and a
few mouths dropped open as the diminutive man scurried across the carpeted floor to his office, followed by
an anomalous group including a ponderous woman
wearing a purple print dress and tattered sweater and
dangling a half-smoked Pall Mall from her lips; a tall
woman wearing little makeup and a brown business
suit; and a PI in washed-out jeans, tweed jacket, and
wearing a sappy grin on his face.

Five minutes later, the three of us climbed back in
my pickup. I looked over at Mrs. Bernie. “Satisfied?”

She grinned warmly. “Ain’t you?”

Doreen laughed. “Yes.”

I started the engine and backed out. At that moment, a yellow-and-black Jeep with three black lightning bolts on the side drove past, heading south back
across the Congress Avenue Bridge. I arched an eyebrow. Maybe my imagination wasn’t working overtime
after all.

After we dropped Mrs. Bernie at her shop, we
stopped in a local deli for a light lunch. We must have
looked like overage college kids sitting there, scribbling out our notes between bites of chicken salad and
gulps of tea.

Glancing under my eyebrows at Doreen, I had to admit that despite that first day or so, we were beginning
to work together. I don’t know if it were that little talk
we had the second day or what. All I know is that life is
so much less complicated when people try to get along
with those around them.

Next thing I knew, my head was bobbing and someone was shaking my shoulder. “Wake up”

“Huh!” I jerked awake.

Doreen was grinning at me. “Tell you what. After lunch, let’s pick up my car. You can nap on the way out
to Texas Star in Elgin.”

For a moment, I stared at her. “Texas Star?” Somewhere in my weary and fuzzy brain, the words struck a
familiar chord, but for the life of me, I couldn’t place
the tune.

“Abe Romero! Remember him?”

I closed my eyes and leaned back. “Sorry. I guess
I’m more tired than I thought” I pushed to my feet. “Be
right back”

In the Men’s Room, I splashed water on my face and
dried it with a paper towel. The effort helped, but not
enough for me to refuse her offer to drive us.

When I woke up staring at the front of the Texas
Star, head throbbing, mouth dry, and my eyes burning, I
felt worse than when I went to sleep. I groaned.

Doreen chirped. “Feel better?”

“No” I grunted, blinking against the bright sunlight
and still groggy with sleep. I fumbled to open the door,
but I couldn’t find the handle.

Doreen leaned over and opened the door. “Here.”

I don’t think I could ever own a sports car, primarily
because I couldn’t get use to looking between my knees
every time I swung my legs around and planted my feet
on the ground to get out of the vehicle.

Cavernous as a competition-sized gym, the dimly illumined interior of Texas Star was a welcome respite to
the glare of the September sun. The portly bartender grinned when he spotted me. “Hey, Tony. How’s the
man? Where you been keeping yourself?”

Doreen glanced at me curiously, but I paid her no attention. “Hey, Big Tim.” I slid up on a stool at the bar.
Doreen did the same. “Give me a cup of coffee, Timmy.
I’m dragging.” I glanced at Doreen. “You want anything?”

Her face a mask of ice, she snapped, “No. Nothing.”

I frowned at the chill in her voice for a moment, then
dismissed it, too tired to worry about her change in
mood.

“Here you go, Tony” Wearing his perpetual grin, Big
Tim slid a steaming mug of coffee in front of me.
“What’s up? Slumming?”

I gulped the hot black liquid and suppressed a grimace at its lack of strength. Of course, I’d rather have
had a beer, but then I would have had a guilty conscience. Oh yeah, I backslid from time to time, but despite my transgressions in the time I’d been with AA, I
felt fairly well-satisfied with the curb I’d put on my
drinking.

I introduced Doreen. “We’re looking for a guy
named Abe Romero. Danny said he’d been hanging out
around here.”

Big Tim’s grin grew wider. “Abe? Sure. He’s the dude
in the fancy duds over there shooting pool. So, how’s
Danny? I ain’t seen him in couple months.”

“Danny’s good. We had dinner with him Monday
night.”

“Yeah,” Big Tim exclaimed. “And I bet I can tell you
where. County Line Barbecue” He grinned at Doreen
and in an effort to be friendly, said, “Right, Doreen?”

Her face remained frozen. “Right,” was all she said.

I glanced at her, puzzled by her sudden hostility.

For a moment, the grin on Big Tim’s lips flickered and
he turned back to me, the expression in his eyes and on
his face asking me what was wrong with her. He forced
a laugh. “Yep. That’s always where he goes. When they
plant that one, they’ll have to put a plate of barbecue in
the coffin with him.”

I slid off the stool and headed for the pool tables in
the rear of the cavernous room. “Take it easy, Big Tim,”
I said.

“Yeah. You too, Tony.” He hesitated, then added,
“Doreen”

Abe Romero was about three inches taller than me,
and a third again as wide. I guessed his weight at about
two-thirty or two-forty. He looked in good shape and
the expensive suit he wore fit him perfectly. I had feeling it was custom made.

We stopped several feet from the table while his opponent lined up the cue ball on a stripe and missed.
Romero laughed and promptly sank the last two solids
and then the eight ball. He straightened and laid his cue
stick on the green felt. “That’s another one, Mule. Two
fifty”

I stepped forward. “Romero? Abe Romero?”

He looked around at us with a frown. “Yeah? You
want a game?”

“No. My name is Tony Boudreaux, and this is Doreen
Patterson. We’re investigating the fire of a business you
wanted to buy down on Sixth Street.”

His frown deepened a moment, then he nodded. “You
talking `bout the Hip-Hop?”

“Yeah. Got a minute?”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You cops?”

“No. Private Investigators working for Getdown Joe
Sillery. You know Joe”

“Yeah. I know Joe. So why talk to me? I didn’t have
nothing to do with the fire. Hey, I wanted to buy the
place”

“That’s what Getdown told us. We’re just talking to
everyone who was connected to the place. You know,
see if you had any idea who might have had a grudge
against Getdown”