Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders (2 page)

He grinned up at me. “Tony. Meet Doreen Patterson.
She’s coming over to us from Texas State Investigations. Doreen, this is Tony Boudreaux”

Doreen rose and faced me somberly. She offered her
hand and with a tone as grim as the expression on her
face, said, “Mister Boudreaux”

A chill ran down my spine. Level with mine, her black
eyes, made even larger by black eyelashes, seemed lifeless. She wore little makeup, and her dark-red lipstick
covered about half of her full lips. I took her hand and
nodded. “Miss Patterson” Her flesh was cool. I glanced
at Marty, wondering what he was up to. Surely, he
hadn’t invited me in just to meet Miss Congeniality.

She promptly corrected me with a sharp tone reminiscent of the nuns back in elementary school. “Ms.
Patterson, if you don’t mind.”

My ears burned. I glanced sidelong at Marty who
was wearing an insipid grin I would have loved to wipe
off his face. “Excuse me, Ms. Patterson”

Marty continued. “Sit down, both of you. Tony, I
called you in for two reasons. First, you remember that
guy whose bar burned down on Sixth Street last week?
You know, the one who was sent to us by that woman in
Lafayette”

“Yeah. Getdown Joe Sillery. Hip-Hop Bar and Grill.
Fawn Williams sent him to us. What about him?”

A sly grin curled his fat lips. “He offered a fat fee for
us to find who torched his place”

I frowned. “What about the cops? That’s their job”

Marty’s grin grew wider. “They already figured the
old wino they found dead was the one who set it.”

I stiffened. I knew many of the moochers who ran
the streets in downtown Austin. Despite my inexperience, early in my PI career, I recognized Sixth Street
as the birthplace of devious dodges, unscrupulous
schemes, and crooked conspiracies. Once the winos,
invisible denizens of the seamy underside of Sixth
Street, learned I would pay for legitimate tips, I developed my own little network of undesirables who often
came up with desirable information. “Wino? I didn’t
read about that”

He waved his hand and smiled in what he considered
his most charming manner at his new hire. “It wasn’t
mentioned. You know the media.”

I felt Ms. Doreen Patterson watching me, but I ignored
her. A fist of anxiety knotted in my stomach as I wondered if the dead man might be one of my old homeless
bums who called the alleys and dumpsters of Sixth Street
home-sweet-home. “They know who he was?”

“Naw.” Marty shook his head. “Just another drunken
wino.”

Marty’s compassion never ceased to amaze me. Personally, I felt a kindred relationship to those poor slobs; for more than once, I’d run across my old man down on
Sixth Street bumming for loose change.

Where he was now, I had no idea except that one day,
if he didn’t fall under one of the trains he was hopping,
he’d be back. “So, if the cops think the old man torched
it, why is Getdown paying us?”

“He doesn’t believe the wino did it. According to
him, he’d turned down a few offers from some important
people”

“And he thinks this might be their way of suggesting
he rethink his decision, huh?”

“Yeah, that’s what he figures”

“So, what kind of fee is he paying?”

“A big one. Five thousand retainer. Another five if
we find who torched the place. You should be able to
take care of it in a week or so. What do you think?”

I glanced at Doreen whose expression was still as
dour as when I met her. I was beginning to wonder if
she might be suffering from some kind of genetic or
psychosomatic facial paralysis. “Yeah, I’d say so. A
week. Interview Getdown. See what he thinks, then
contact the others, but you know,” I added. “If it was
torched, any names he gives us will have alibis tighter
than a fat woman’s girdle.” I grimaced as soon as the
words burst from my overloaded mouth. My ears burned.
“Sorry, Ms. Patterson. I-”

She looked at me coolly, her black eyes cold and
hard. A wry grin twisted her lips. “Never mind.”

I rose from my chair. “Okay, Marty. I’ll get right on it.” I nodded to Doreen Patterson and told my first lie of
the day. “It was nice to meet you, Ms. Patterson, and
please excuse my bad manners.”

Marty stopped me. “Hold on, Tony. I’m not finished.”

I looked around at him, puzzled. “What now?”

“Doreen. What with you being an ex-schoolteacher, I
figured you’d be the one on the staff best qualified to
mentor Doreen for the first few weeks. You know, sort of
break her in to our way of doing business.” He paused
and turned to Doreen. “What do you know about arson?”

“Not much, Marty, but I learn fast, very fast. You won’t
have to worry about that” She looked around at me.

Marty grinned. I frowned. The two of them were on
a first name basis, but she insisted I call her Ms. Patterson. Why the difference, or had I missed something?

When I had climbed out of bed that morning and retrieved the paper from the porch, I reveled in the nip
of the early morning air. Behind me, a cat meowed. I
glanced around as A.B. paused in the open door. “Looks
like it’s going to be a beautiful day, little fella.”

I drew a lungful of cool air into my lungs. A couple
days earlier, autumn greeted us with the first cool front
of the season, a welcome respite from the blazing Texas
sun. The cool air hung around. I squatted and scratched
the back of A.B.‘s neck. “Like they say, all’s right with
the world, huh?”

The little guy couldn’t argue. All had been right
with his world ever since that day I plucked him
from the grasp of two swamp Neanderthals who were
planning on sticking him on a hook and using him for alligator bait. That’s how he came up with his
moniker, A.B.

And now, three hours later as I walked back to my
desk with Doreen Patterson tailing me, I couldn’t believe just how a beautiful day that had started off so
well could have gone south so fast.

“So, where do we start?” she asked as she slipped
into the chair in front of my desk. She eyed the clutter
on my desk distastefully, and I knew instantly she was
one of those super-organized people who deemed it
their mission in life that not a hair, not a slip of paper,
or not even a thought should be out of place.

“First, some preliminary legwork.” I reached for the
phone and punched in number for Bob Ray Burrus, an
old friend who worked the evidence room at the downtown police station.

He answered on the third ring. After we exchanged
greetings and swore in blood that we would get together soon, I asked if the dead man outside the HipHop had been ID’ed.

“You mean the old wino?”

“Yeah.”

“Naw, not as far as I know. From what I picked up
around here, he got whopped on the head and hemorrhaged” I grimaced, and he continued. “What’s going
on? I thought the fire was pretty well wrapped up”

“The owner isn’t convinced the old man torched the
place. Is the department looking into the old guy’s
death?”

“Got to, but-you know how it goes. Wino, no one
knows who he was or where he was from. Not really a
priority.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“Well, if you find out who he was, let us know, okay?”

I played innocent. “How could I find out?”

“Come on, Tony. You know that bunch of derelicts
down there better than anyone. After all, your old man-”
He hesitated, then apologetically muttered. “Well, you
know what I mean”

I laughed. “Hey, no problem. I’ll always appreciate
you calling me that time he got booked down there”

“Anytime. Take care”

Replacing the receiver, I thumbed through the directory for Getdown Joe Sillery’s number but came up
empty. “That’s about what I expected,” I muttered, hanging up and pushing back from my desk. I shook my
head and grinned at Doreen who was watching me with
an expressionless face. “Sometimes I wish I’d taken up
bull-fighting instead of PI work. Not nearly the hassle.
Let’s go”

She rose smoothly and headed for the door. “Not me.
This is the kind of job I was born for.”

I had expected a little lighthearted bantering, but all I
got in return was a somber response. I shrugged it off.
If she wanted it all to be business, that was fine with
me.

Neither of us spoke as we rode the elevator down to the first floor. Outside, I headed to my Chevrolet Silverado pickup, a gift with all the frills from Jack Edney for
making him a multimillionaire when I uncovered the
family member who murdered his father. “Hop in,” I
said. “We’re going downtown.”

She jerked to a halt and stared at me as if I were a
first cousin to the Cyclops. “In this?” Her tone was
filled with disbelief. “A pickup?”

I paused with my hand on the door handle and stared
across the hood at her.

She eyed me defiantly. “I don’t ride in pickups. I hate
pickups.”

All I could do was shake my head in wonder. A
Texas woman who didn’t like pickups! I said to myself,
Marty, you dumb tub of lard, what have you gotten us
into with this woman? I shrugged and opened the door.
“Your choice. Ride or walk”

A smug smile played over her lips. She pointed to a
cherry red Jaguar XK roadster. “I’ll follow you,” she
said, turning on her heel.

& ‘Hey Hey.

She stopped and looked around, her brow knit, probably in surprise that I had the effrontery to shout at her.

Nodding to her Jag, I said, “You might not want to
take a car like that down where we’re going.”

A smug smile played over her lips. “Don’t worry
about me. I know what I’m doing.”

I shook my head and glanced up at the office window. Marty was watching. I held my hands out to the side as if to say now what? He shook his head, and I
climbed in my pickup. I tried to warn her.

Our office on Lamar was only a few blocks from
Sixth Street. Normally I drive too fast, but I took it easy
so she could stay with me, although I was tempted to
take a route through some of the higher density traffic
areas just to make her sweat. But the old Southern
chivalry in me prevailed.

At ten-thirty in the morning, Sixth Street is struggling to awaken itself from the previous night’s celebrations. Gone is the raucous, rowdy, and riotous revelry
that animated the street only hours earlier.

Sixth Street was opening its eyes to its daily
hangover-subdued, contrite, and penitent. Like bleary
eyes slowly opening against the bright light of morning,
doors swung open up and down the street, signaling to
the early morning boozers the shops were once again
open for business.

As I turned onto Sixth, I began searching the almost
empty sidewalks for my local winos, hoping the dead
man was not one of them. Yet, I reminded myself, I
knew them all. Who else could it be?

S.S.Thibeaux, a rail-thin black man from Vernon
Parish on the Sabine River, shuffled out of Neon Larry’s
Bar and Grill as we passed. He waved. I waved back.

Moments later, I pulled in at the curb down the street
from the Hip-Hop, which was now only charred brick
walls standing guard over mounds of sodden charcoal. In the rear there were the blackened remains of a hallway
across which ran outdated steam pipes about five feet
above the ground. Jimmy’s Bistro next door was closed
down, having been damaged by the fire and water.

Doreen pulled in behind my pickup.

I climbed out and shut the door.

She came to stand beside me. With a curl to her lip,
she stared at the hulk that was once a hangout for
wannabe hip-hoppers. “It’s a mess,” she observed.

With a crooked grin, I quipped. “You should have
seen it before the fire”

She looked up at me wearily, obviously not impressed
by my levity.

Two doors down, Buck Topper threw open the door of
the Red Rabbit and paused in the middle of the sidewalk,
looking up and down the street. He was one of those
bony sorts whose chest sagged into his belly. Although I
had known Buck for a few years, and he was always amiable, I was still uncomfortable around him. Maybe it was
because he considered himself a ladies’ man or maybe
because he had shifty eyes or maybe because he never
brushed his teeth. I would have sworn the life forms
growing between his teeth were first cousins to what I
sometimes found growing in the back of my refrigerator.