Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders (6 page)

The manager blurted out. “That won’t be necessary.
Please come with me. All thefts are reported to Housekeeping, which then sends me copies of the reports. I
have them in my office.”

In his office, he led the way to a bank of file cabinets,
and slid out a drawer. “Here, Mister Boudreaux. I don’t
remember if there were any reports or not, but you can
see for yourself. They’re filed by date”

To my surprise, there were very few theft reports,
and nothing for two or three days on either side of the
sixteenth and seventeenth.

I closed the drawer and turned to the manager. “See
how simple that was. I appreciate your cooperation.”

His smile became condescending. “We always try to
help the law, Mister Boudreaux.”

Back in my pickup, I tried to rethink what I had
learned. Rosey had found something. Whatever it was, it
had value, obviously much more than the fifty bucks
Goofyfoot claimed. Pawn brokers are not known for their
generosity and warm fuzzies. If they loaned fifty bucks
on an item, it had to be worth several times that much. Whatever the value, it was enough to get Rosey killed. So
if it were that valuable, why wasn’t the theft reported?

Unless-I nodded. Why didn’t I think of that before?

One reason some missing valuables are not reported
is the same reason a drug lord wouldn’t report a missing suitcase of money. The items were stolen or illegal.

On impulse, I climbed out of my pickup and walked
down the recently washed-down alley where the Blackhawk Towers kept its Dumpsters. I stood there studying
the four of them lined up along the rear wall of the hotel.

Suppose whoever lost the item had never been at the
Blackhawk? Suppose he was just looking for a place to
dump it so he could later retrieve it?

Then Rosey stumbled onto it.

I looked up and down the alley. All a person driving
past had to do was open the window and toss the item
into the Dumpster. But, if that were the case, how
would he know Rosey was the one who found the item?
The old wino seldom ventured more than half-a-dozen
blocks from Sixth Street. That meant whoever killed
Rosey might possibly be a street regular who picked up
word of Rosey’s windfall from someone on the street.

Scratching my jaw, I tried to remember some of
Rosey’s back-alley cohorts. Goofyfoot and Downtown
came to mind instantly. Try as I could, I couldn’t recollect the others.

Avoiding puddles of water and staying next to the
hotel wall so I would be out of any alley traffic, I headed back to my pickup, still pondering my newest theory
that the killer was from Sixth Street.

Suddenly, the squeal of tires jerked me back to the
present. At the end of the alley, the bigger-than-life grill
of a massive Lincoln Town Car snarled at me as the
heavy car scraped along the hotel wall, sparks flying as it
bore down on me. The engine erupted from a roar to a
howling scream, and the massive vehicle leaped forward.

I glimpsed a face covered by a ski mask behind the
wheel just as I spun and raced for the Dumpsters thirty
feet away. I dared not glance over my shoulder. I could
hear the tires splashing through the puddles of water. I
ran harder. My heart pounded against my chest.

Clenching my teeth, I kept my eyes on the ten-foot
space between the first two Dumpsters. That was my
closest sanctuary.

The last five or six steps, I expected the impact of the
massive grill. I leaped into the gap, landing on my
shoulder and rolling over, but I didn’t have time to relax.

Tires bit into the alley, squealing on the dry spots as
the Lincoln shot backward. The engine roared again,
followed by the deafening clangor of metal as the Lincoln slammed into the Dumpster, knocking it several
feet toward me. I leaped back, bouncing off the second
Dumpster, and then came the high-pitched shriek of
metal against metal as the first Dumpster started moving inexorably toward me again. Without hesitation, I
darted from my would-be sanctuary and dashed down
the alley.

I’ve always been kind to animals, so that, and not my
dashing good looks or charming manner, must have
been why the good Lord at that moment sent a delivery
truck into the alley from the opposite end of the block.

As I raced past the delivery truck, I remembered the
other winos who hung with Goofyfoot and DowntownSpryo and Pookie.

I had no idea what I had stumbled into, but by the time
I jumped in my pickup and pulled back into the traffic, I
knew that obviously, someone did not want anyone
nosing into the affair I had blundered upon. And they
were serious enough not to stop with a single murder. I
glanced at my coat and muttered a curse. When I landed
on my shoulder between the Dumpsters, I’d ripped a
shoulder seam.

As soon as I parked outside our office, I called
Danny O’Banion. A polite description of him is a local
entrepreneur with his fingers and toes in every pot in
Travis County. Actually, he’s Austin’s resident mobster.
Of course, no one calls him that to his face, but the best
I can figure is he’s about half a step below the family
concierge. Perhaps, a better explanation is that he’s the concierge for the concierges, a sort of liaison between
those at the top and the soldiers at the bottom.

I set up a meeting with him for 6:00 that afternoon.

After punching off, I called Jerry Blue at Texas Investigations. We’d known each other for five years, and
when I asked about Doreen Patterson, he groaned. “I’m
glad you got her instead of us. She was a pain in the
neck”

“How so?”

“She likes to work by herself. Only trouble is, she
don’t want to dig too deep. You know, go the limit to
top off a case. And she don’t care for men. We ended up
having her do skips and traces”

“What happened? Why’d she leave?”

“She didn’t. I let her go. Too stinking hard to work
with.”

When I walked into the office, I spotted Doreen at
my desk, using my computer. When she saw me, she
nodded to the computer monitor. “Here’s your report,”
she said woodenly. “I didn’t know what format you preferred, so I did the best I could. I gave Marty a copy.
We can make any changes you want”

Bending over her shoulder, I read the day’s report on
the monitor. While she was thorough, she showed little
perception. It was a bland report, holding no theories
up for inspection. The product, I told myself, of someone who was super-organized and worked strictly out of
the left side of the brain, refusing to recognize questions raised by the right side.

“Did you find anything else after I left?” She eyed
the ripped seam on my jacket.

Before I could answer, Marty came out of his office
with a copy of her report. He waddled over to my desk.

His cheeks were rosy and the veins in his bulbous
nose stood out. He’d been hitting the vodka, which was
no surprise. He hit it everyday. He waved the report and
in an effort to be humorous, said, “Looks like you two
had a good time today. You manage to get any work in?”

In all honesty, I knew he was trying in his inimitable
way to be funny, but I was already ticked off at him,
and the tone in his voice pushed me over the edge. “Not
by a long sight, Marty,” I snapped. I jabbed a finger in
the ripped seam on my shoulder. “It just so happened
that someone tried to make me a hood ornament for a
Lincoln, someone connected with the fire. Is that
enough work for you or do you want more? Maybe a
busted leg or a broken arm?”

My tirade set him back on his heels. “Hold on, Tony,
hold on. All I meant was-” He held out the report. “I
mean, after I read this, I-”

“You weren’t supposed to read it until I got back, and
we put the whole thing together.”

“Okay, okay” His tone grew patronizing. “So, where
do we stand?”

For the next twenty minutes, I explained all that had
happened, making it a point to stress the questions
raised by various events throughout the day.

“So, the way I see it right now,” I added, “whoever
killed Rosey torched the club as a cover up”

“Any ideas?”

I pointed to the report in his hand. “The names on
there: Patsy Fusco, Mossy Eisen, and some guy named
Abe Romero. And maybe a couple more on the street.
I’ll know more the next couple days”

Marty knit his brows. “Understand, Tony. I’m more
concerned about nailing the joker who torched the
place than I am an old wino’s killer.”

Suppressing the burst of anger coursing through my
veins, I replied in a strained voice, “I’ll find the torch
man, Marty, but I am going to find Rosey’s killer. I owe
the old man that much”

For several moments, we stared at each other until he
shrugged. “As long as we get the torch man”

“We will. I’ve got a meeting with Danny O’Banion
this evening. He ought to be able to give me some help
with those three names”

Doreen frowned. “O’Banion? The mobster? How
can he help?”

For several moments I studied her, puzzling over
how little she seemed to be aware of the mechanics of
our business. Even with only a year’s experience, she
should have been more cognizant of the sundry sources
of information on which our line of work had to draw.

“He can,” was my only reply.

She shrugged. “What time do we see him?”

While Danny would have welcomed any of my
friends, I’d had my fill of Ms. Doreen Patterson for the
day, so I glibly lied. “Just me. Danny doesn’t like newcomers”

She glanced hopefully at Marty. He grinned sheepishly at her. “Why don’t you give it a try, Tony? After
all, the more people she meets, the better it will be for
her, and the better it is for her, the better off our company is.”

I shook my head and told another lie. “I’m not going
to put any pressure on Danny, Marty. He’s helped us
out of more than one bad spot. You’ve always let me
handle Danny. Don’t change anything now.”

He ran his thick fingers over his sweaty forehead
uncomfortably. “Look, you and O’Banion go back to
high school together. Won’t that mean something to
him?”

“It might, but I don’t want to take a chance.” I looked
at Doreen. “Sorry, but this is one relationship I don’t
want to jeopardize.” I felt guilty about lying to her, but
not enough to take her with me. I pointed to my ripped
jacket. “I’m going to put on a change of clothes before
I see him.” I started for the door. “I’ll see you two tomorrow.”

Marty called out. “Wait up, Tony. I’ll walk you to the
elevator. I have another case to talk to you about.”

“Huh?” I turned to face him. Marty never walked
anybody anywhere. He was up to something.

He winked and repeated. “I’ll walk you to the elevator.”

When the office door closed behind us, Marty began
to plead. “Look, Tony. I’m in a bind. Doreen in there is
my wife’s little sister. She’s been divorced for five
years, bounced around through a half-dozen relationships. Thank the Lord, there weren’t no kids. She don’t
like them. Anyway, last week, she got canned over at
Texas Investigations, and Dora hounded me until I
hired her.”

I glared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me this right off
the bat? I was miserable out there today with her. At
least, I would have known what was going on. She’s no
help, just trouble. I’d rather put up with a dozen
Louisiana alligators. That’s why I sent her back to do
that fake report. Just to get her out of my hair.”

He chuckled. “I wondered what prompted you to do
one. Anyway, I’m sorry, but I figured you being pretty
much laid back and an ex-schoolteacher, you could put
up with her easier than the other guys. I’m afraid Al
would punch her out, that temper of his. Besides, I
don’t look for her to stay. I figure after a couple weeks,
she’ll bail out. If she does it on her own, then Dora
can’t get on my back. You know what I mean?”

I knew exactly what he meant. While I had never
met his wife socially, I had, on more than one occasion, witnessed her storming in and literally kicking
off World War III in Marty’s office. The USS Blevins was the unbecoming nickname pasted on her by the
guys in the office.

“I don’t know, Marty.”

“Come on, Tony. Next time you need a favor, all you
got to do is ask. I really need some help here.”

My determination began to crumble. “How many
weeks?”

“Two. I promise. Two”

I figured I would regret helping him. “No more than
two. If she’s still here, you promise you’ll put her with
someone else. Right?”

He gave me a hearty slap on the shoulder. “A promise in blood, Tony. I swear.”

“You don’t have blood, Marty. You have vodka”

He grinned. “Okay, in vodka.”

I had the feeling I just taken my first step into a watery bed of quicksand. “All right. Have her meet me out
in the parking lot at five-thirty.”

On the way to my apartment on Payton Gin Road, I
remembered Marty’s remark about expecting Doreen
to bail out of the job. Now, I wouldn’t be honest if I
didn’t admit considering various means to encourage
her to move on, but I knew if I did something underhanded, my Catholic conscience and my mother’s face
would nag at me forever. And that would be more uncomfortable than tolerating Doreen for the next two
weeks. Nope, I was better off just doing my job and leting nature take its course.