Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders (17 page)

He curled one side of his lips in a sneer. “There’s
plenty who got grudges against the fat man”

I pulled out a pen and note card. From the corner of
my eye, I saw Doreen do the same. “Such as?”

Romero pursed his lips. “Let’s see, there’s Clay Renfield. Getdown fired him from managing the place after
six years. Ticked Clay off something fierce. And then
there was old Rocket.”

Frowning across the table at Romero, I said. “Rocket?”

“Yeah. Ralph Sloane. Getdown Joe reneged on selling Rocket a piece of the action. Rocket talked to his mouthpiece about suing the fat man”

Doreen broke into the conversation. “Breach of
promise?”

Romero frowned at her. “Huh?”

“A contract. Was a contract broken?”

“Naw. Just talk between them, but I heard it. I heard
Getdown tell Rocket he’d sell for a hundred yards”

Doreen’s pen paused in mid-air. She looked up from
her notes. “Yard.”

“Thousand,” I explained. “A hundred thousand”

“Yeah,” Romero continued. “I figured the fat man
was nuts for backing off. He could have used the bread.”

“Oh?” I arched an eyebrow.

Romero nodded. “That’s what I said. Word on the
street was Joe was hurting. The hundred thou’ would
have pulled him out of the heat, at least for a couple
weeks.”

The revelation smacked me between the eyes. Before
I could stammer out my response, Doreen did it for us.
“But from what he said, the Hip-Hop was like the federal mint.”

With a soft chuckle, Romero nodded. “It is” He
paused and held up a finger over his head. “Yo! Timmy!”
He glanced at us. “Beer? Wine?”

I shook my head. “No. So, why did he need the cash?”

“The fat guy is a big spender, vacations, ski lodges,
all that sort of thing. He gets his kicks from rubbing shoulders with them high-profile rappers and actors.
From what I heard, he was trying to bankroll a nationwide concert tour for some of the big rap groups, and
he come up short”

For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine roly-poly Getdown Joe on skis-snow, or water. “If he needed cash
that much, why would he back out of a deal with
Sloane?” I shook my head and looked at Doreen. “That
doesn’t make sense.”

She remained silent, eyeing me coldly.

Now, I’ve had more than my share of problems with
the fairer gender, having been married and divorced
years back. Fortunately, we had no offspring, and the
divorce was amicable. I walked away with my clothing
and an aquarium of exotic fish, one named Oscar who
suffered brain damage when an old teaching buddy and
stand-up comic got drunk one night and mistook the
aquarium for the john.

So, from the chilly vibes emanating from her slender
body in every direction just like the spines on a porcupine, I knew something had put the proverbial burr under her saddle.

“That’s what I thought,” Romero replied as Big Tim
sat a can of Budweiser on the edge of the pool table. He
sipped the beer and dragged the back of his hand across
his lips. “Sure you won’t have one?”

“Positive. You think Sloane was ticked off enough to
torch the place?”

He pursed his lips a moment, then shook his head.
“Naw. He bought him another place out on South ThirtyFive a couple miles on the other side of Ben White
Boulevard. Probably not Renfield either. From what I
heard, he went to work for Buck Topper a couple doors
away”

“He the one covered with tattoos?”

Abe nodded. “Yeah. Know him?”

“Saw him. One more question. Why did you want to
buy the Hip-Hop?”

A sly smile played over his lips. He straightened the
knot of his pale-pink tie in the center of the light-blue
collar. “Truth is, I make my large by buying goods at
rock-bottom prices and selling high. I knew Joe was
hard up for cash, so I thought I take a flier. If I could
steal the Hip-Hop, I coulda turned a nice profit”

Pursing my lips, I nodded. “How much did you
offer?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “That’s kinda personal”

I chuckled. “I agree”

He shrugged. “What the heck. A hundred thousand.”

“The same as Sloane?” Doreen asked suspiciously.

“Why not? Joe might have been having second
thoughts. I’ve seen that happen dozens of times. Some
old boy turns down an offer, then cusses hisself later.” He
paused, grinned. “But, that wasn’t one of those times.”

Slipping my cards back in my pocket, I thanked him.
He’d given us more to chew on. I just hoped we would
find some substance in it.

After sliding into the passenger’s seat of the Jaguar
and buckling myself in, I looked at Doreen. “Okay.
What’s the problem?”

She glared at me. “Nothing, except you lied to me”

For a moment, I gaped at her, unable to believe I was
suddenly back into a world of eggshells. “What are you
talking about?”

She jabbed an unpainted fingernail at the Texas Star.
“Yesterday morning, you told me to find the address of
this place. You already knew it.” Her eyes narrowed.
“What’s going on here?”

My fevered brain raced, trying to make some sense of
what she was saying. Then I remembered when Marty
had called me into his office. Because I was ready to
spill my dislike and reservations about Doreen, I didn’t
want her with us, so I had indeed given her some busy
work, although I wouldn’t exactly call it a lie. A deception, okay; but, I’d like to beg off on calling it a lie.

I studied her a moment. Suppressing my own anger, I drew a deep breath. “All right. You want the truth, here
it is. After that first day, Monday, I didn’t want to work
with you. You were hostile and antagonistic. I get enough
of that from our clients. I don’t need that bull from
those I work with. I don’t have to put up with it,” I added
firmly. “And I won’t.”

She started to reply, and I held up my hand. In a calm,
and what I hoped was unthreatening tone, I continued,
“Let me finish, and then you can say what you want. I
had spoken with Texas Investigations on Monday-I told
you about that. Well, I was going to insist Marty assign
you to someone else, and the truth is, I didn’t have the
guts to tell him that in front of you. I asked him why you
were so hostile, and that’s when he told me about some
of your-” I hesitated. “Well, you know, problems with
your ex-husband and all” I paused. “So, I figured why
not give it another chance? Obviously, I was wrong.”

She studied me several moments without saying a
word.

“So,” I said, “there you have it. The last couple days,
we’ve done a good job together, but it’s your call. And
if you don’t want to keep working on this case with me,
then just tell your brother-in-law. I’m quite sure your
sister will help him find you another spot” I cringed at
my last remark, which was hitting below the belt.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “That isn’t
fair,” she said.

I shook my head at my own insensitiveness. “I know,
and I’m sorry about the sister crack” I drew a deep breath and unbuckled my seat belt. I opened the door.
“I’ll get a cab back”

When I started to climb out, she whispered, “No. I’ll
drive us back to the office”

After I closed the door, Doreen sat motionless, her
fingers gripping the wheel, her eyes fixed forward.
“Look. I overreacted” She looked around at me. “Sure,
I know I can be a shrew. Over the years, it was just easier being that way than laying open my feelings only to
have them kicked around.”

She started the engine and pulled out of the parking
lot. “I’ll ask Marty to find another spot for me”

I wanted to shout with glee, but suddenly, I felt as if
I’d done something very wrong, and I couldn’t figure
out just what it was.

We rode in silence for several minutes, a sense of guilt
building in me. Okay, so the first day was a disaster, but
the last day and a half we had worked well together, and
she was a quick study, for on a couple occasions she had
come up with a perceptive observation or question that
had evaded me. And who could blame her for thinking I
had lied. Call it anything you want, but a deception is a
deception and a deception is still a lie.

When or how I made up my mind, I don’t know. All I
know is that just before we reached the cutoff to 1-35, I
glanced at her. “Where are you taking us?”

Without looking at me, she removed one finger from
the wheel and pointed down the road. “To the office”

A crooked grin played over my face. “Well, before we do that, why don’t we stop by Neon Larry’s on Sixth
Street? See what S.S. knows about Bull Abdo”

Doreen looked around in disbelief.

I arched an eyebrow. “If you want”

A grin popped on her face, and she slashed across
three lanes of traffic to hit 1-35 South to downtown.

As usual, Interstate traffic was horrible, slowing us to
little more than a crawl.

While we crawled along, I called Danny. He was still
out. That left S.S.

We got lucky and found a parking spot half a block
down from Neon Larry’s. Our luck soured in Larry’s for
S.S. had the night off, and finding him on his night off
was like chasing the proverbial will-of-the-wisp of the
Louisiana swamps or the blue flame of Transylvania.

Over the years, I’ve always observed that there is
one inevitable, one certainty, one absolute about luck.
Simply, it always changes, and as Doreen and I
headed back to her Jag, once again that postulation
proved true for we ran across Goofyfoot and Pookie
squatting in the darkened doorway of a closed bar like
two bundles of grungy clothes thrown out for the
garbage truck.

Naturally I gave them five bucks each, and to my surprise, Doreen handed each another five. Those two old
men must have figured they had somehow stumbled
through the Pearly Gates while St. Peter had his back
turned.

From them we learned that Bull Abdo had been frequenting the street, spending money with abandon.

“Just last night, he set up drinks for the house over to
Garcia’s,” Pookie said.

Goofyfoot nodded agreement. “He’s been spending
like that the last week. Why, just a couple days ago, he
bought one of them fancy foreign cars like that red one
down there” He pointed to Doreen’s Jag. “I suppose
he’s got hisself a good job”

Pookie snorted. “Naw, he’s got to be dealing or
something. Ain’t no job pays like that.”

Doreen and I exchanged hopeful looks. “That’s interesting,” I replied. “Seen him around today?”

“Nope,” mumbled Goofyfoot, carefully folding the
two fivers over and over into a tiny packet about an inch
square then depositing it somewhere in that voluminous bundle of mismatched clothing draped over his
thin frame.

“What does he look like?”

Pookie looked up at me blankly, but I knew that expression was simply a mask.

I nodded to his heavy coat. “You got ten bucks. No
more”

A grin broke across his grimy face. “Can’t blame a
guy for trying.”

“So?”

“Couple inches taller than you. Hair in a ponytail,
and he’s got a busted nose”

Doreen grinned at me.

“Yeah,” Goofyfoot put in. “Story is he was in the
ring. That’s where he picked up the busted bazoo”

Doreen leaned toward me. “It’s after three. You want
to wait for Abdo to get off work at the laundry?”

The idea had not occurred to me. I shrugged. Why not?

We picked up a couple bottles of water and parked
across in the shade of some live oaks across the street
from the laundry parking lot a few minutes before five.
A red Miata roadster, five or six years old, sat on one
side of the lot.

“That must be Abdo’s,” I muttered.

Doreen put the top down. The day was one of those
perfect autumn days, a brittle blue sky, an almost imperceptible nip in the air that gives you the feeling that
all is right with the world.

But it wasn’t.

A few minutes before 5:30, the evening shift arrived.
Five minutes later, the day shift began its exodus, but
Carlos “the Bull” Abdo failed to appear.