The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do (16 page)

There was a uniformed officer in front of room 446. Shade showed him his shield and was admitted to the room.

Suze was awake, propped up in bed. There were bandages on her shoulder, neck, and thigh. Her skin was pale as steam, and her hair was matted into a straggly clump.

“I’m Detective Shade, Miss Magruder. We need to talk.”

“Well,” she said, her voice made meek by painkillers, “I already talked to the fat guy.”

“This is different.”

Suze looked at Shade appraisingly, then sat up straighter in bed.

“Okey-dokey. But keep the fat guy away, will you?”

“I’ll try to. Why do you think this happened?”

“Is Jewel okay? Have you found him?”

“No.”

“He’s dead, ain’t he?”

“We don’t know that. I don’t believe he is.”

“He will be.”

“You’re sure they wanted to kill him? Not just scare him?”

Suze’s eyes widened.

“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “These was
real
sincere people. They’re gonna kill him.”

“What’s Jewel’s business up here? You and him, you’re not from around here.”

“No. No we ain’t from nowhere’s around here.” She spoke in a resigned tone. “We come up here for the better opportunities. Jewel’s got a cousin out in one of these buildings around here.”

“Is that right. What’s his cousin’s name?”

“Duncan.”

“Duncan Cobb?”

“Sure. That family is considered trash in other places just ’cause they’re rowdy.”

Shade sat at the foot of the bed and smiled.

“They get blamed for a lot of things?”

“Just about everything short of weather. They usually did it, too, but
you can’t just
know
they done it, you have to
prove
it on ’em. So they don’t stop. Real rowdy folks.”

“Look, I have a better chance of helping Jewel if I know what he’s involved in. What is he into?”

“Look, mister, I can’t say. Jewel, he never told me anything I wanted to know.” She was beginning to quaver but not out of control. “He’s not that sweet of a guy but I love him in that bulldog way, you know. Pup nips you, you still feed it. We had some fun, me and him. We used to smoke a joint and drink some beer—romp around the woods and stuff. Get naked in a pond when the days are that way. We might find a lost shoat once in a while and gig it with a spit over our campfire—but, shoot. That’s just livin’. Only Jewel said you have to get serious sometime. I reckon he did, too.”

“It looks like it,” Shade said. “Could you recognize the men who shot you?”

“I already told the fat guy that I couldn’t. I hardly even saw ’em. Alls I know is, they come in like the real thing, mister. There wasn’t nothin’ TV about it.”

After thanking Suze, and wishing her well, Shade left the hospital intent upon checking out this rowdy relative, Duncan Cobb.

It was four hot blocks to his own apartment. The light was still on downstairs and he could see that there was some straight pool education going on. He went up the back stairs to his apartment.

He opened his refrigerator and found a frigid can of Stag beer buried behind the wheat germ jar. He plopped on the couch and opened the brew, then reached for the telephone. He called How Blanchette at the station.

“Blanchette.”

“This is Shade. I followed this Cobb kid but I couldn’t find him. He’s got a cousin, though, and we ought to check him out, I think.”

“I know,” Blanchette said. “Duncan Cobb, twenty-nine, five-nine, one eighty. Two priors, both misdemeanors. Busted for assault seven years ago, and he got popped with fightin’ spurs at a raided cockfight about three months ago. Paid a fine.”

“Doesn’t sound like a desperado, exactly.”

“No, but he works for Micheaux Construction—find that interestin’?”

“Steve Roque.”

“Yes. And Pete Ledoux.”

“Pete Ledoux,” Shade said, verging on a revelatory quake. “I tell you what, I just saw Ledoux. I lost the kid but ran into Ledoux at the Catfish.”

“Ledoux’s one of those swampfrogs, lives out on Tecumseh Road, there, just before you sink into the Marais du Croche. Someone should go visitin’, I think.”

“I’m going to.”

“But be careful. Pete Ledoux’s the sort of guy who, if he saw a Mack truck comin’ in on him he’d just tuck his chin behind his shoulder and double up on his hooks, you know. Not your basic candy-ass, that guy.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“Also,” Blanchette’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “A Miss Webb called for you. Didn’t leave a message, and I’m no psychiatrist, but I
do
think I know what she wants.”

“Yeah, well save it for when you’re alone, your guesses about what she wants.”

“Just tryin’ to help a buddy, buddy.”

“Give me Duncan Cobb’s address,” Shade said. “I think I’ll fire up my Nova and drop in on him, too.”

“You do that. He lives at 1205 Twelfth Street,” Blanchette said. “I got to go to the mayor’s office and explain why his town is explodin’. I think I’ll blame it on the weather.”

17

T
HE DARK
of the nighttime streets was carved by lights of many hues and varying constancies; the red from the Boy O Boy Chicken Shack was a quick flick of the wrist and the green from Johnny’s Shamrock a steady stab, while the rainbow in Irving’s Cleaners was a slight but constant scrape. Streetlights and porch lights helped to slice away at the blackness, but the night had heart and stood up under it all well.

Powers Jones sat in the back seat of his own red Thunderbird, for the Ford wagon had been abandoned. Benny, his too-cool-to-be-true driver, and Lewis Brown were in the front seat. Lewis had been given the start over young Thomas, who was holed up in a double-locked room trying to convince himself that the terrible shaking of his limbs was a result of his having skipped supper.

“This man the cousin,” Powers said as they circled the block. “Our voice on the cops says he works for Froghead Ledoux, too.
He
the one started this.”

“Don’t need to hear about it,” Lewis said, jabbing his chin upward. “I don’t remember nothin’ I never heard, you see.”

Lewis was a dreadlocked thirty-year-old with a vest of pudge and ganja-inspired eyes. Despite the flab and his short stature, he did not give an impression of softness.

“Cool,” Powers said. “You solid ice.”

On the next circuit Benny pulled over and parked near Johnny’s Shamrock.

The window of the bar was wriggling with the jocular hoistings of the hard-drinking patrons. Mugs of Guinness, Irish hats, and cigars bobbed in the haze of blue smoke and high-tenor bullshit.

“He’ll be in there,” Powers pointed out. “Gettin’ a bag on like they always do. They got to be lit to work. Me, I get lit after.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Lewis agreed. “They breed ’em too gentle for the life anymore.”

“That is true. Except for them Frogs.”

“You right. You are right about that. Why
is
that?”

Powers stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“They too stubby for sports and too lazy to work,” he said with some wistfulness. “But they need that prestige, so they
can
be rugged.”

“Everybody needs that,” Benny said, speaking for the first time in hours. Benny had been an assistant librarian at the Boonville Reformatory for one-to-three and had garnered some sophistication about the world. “Chinese, A-rabs, Texans—they all about the same when you come right down to it, far as that prestige thing goes.”

“That so?” Powers responded. “You know, you talkin’ too much, Benny. Why’n’t you eat another down, huh?”

“Downs,” Lewis said. “This boy on downs?”

“I can still drive,” Benny said. “I ain’t scared of nothin’.”

“On the road? Can you drive on the road?” Lewis asked. “That’s a myth, that gettin’ down. Drugs are for gettin’ high, man, not that down like you dead shit.”

Powers thumped his fist against the seat back, forcefully redirecting the conversation.

“Hey—that’s him. I seen him before around town. That is him for certain.”

Duncan Cobb was standing on the sidewalk in front of the Shamrock, making rude gestures into the window and laughing Gaelically. Several fingers responded with raps on the glass, bidding him carnal farewell. He laughed, then began to walk home with a Guinness lilt in his step.

“You get up ahead of the man,” Powers said to Lewis. “We can’t be messin’ up on this one, neither.”

In his yellow shirt and white pants, with the eye-catching roll to his walk, Duncan was suicidally luminescent. He paused to light a cigarette, but since he smoked only when he was drunk he found the process taxing his coordination. As he scratched a match he heard footsteps and looked up to see one of his pet peeves blocking the sidewalk.

“You seen my mama?” Lewis asked him gruffly.

“This is Twelfth Street, bro,” Duncan said. He dropped the cigarette and matches, then shifted his weight more or less into punching balance. “I ain’t even polite on Twelfth Street.”

Lewis backed up half a step and tried to look intrigued.

“I’m lookin’ for my mama ’cause I’m in a blue funk,” he said, then woefully wagged his dreadlocked head. “When I feel this a way, see, my mama, she lets me beat on her till
I
feel happy again.”

“I ain’t your Ubangi mama, bro.”

As swift as a gnat in the eye, a pistol appeared at Duncan’s side with Powers Jones backing it up. Duncan turned to face down the barrel.

“But you’ll do, motherfucker,” Lewis said, then professionally punted him in the balls.

The grit on the floorboards had begun to rub Duncan’s face raw. There was a boot on his head and nausea in his gut. He was confused and bruised and full of wonder.

“This is uncalled for,” he said, the blare of the car radio overriding his words. Someone turned the sound up and an old Jackson Five tune about young love blasted in the air.

The car careened and swayed through a mystery of streets, then came to a halt. Duncan had no idea where he was. His arms were grasped and he was rudely extracted from the car. Once outside he saw that they were in Frechette Park, going up the walkway to the Boys Club. They used the rear, unlighted entrance.

“I don’t know what this is,” Duncan said. “I really don’t. I certainly don’t. It’s uncalled for. You got the wrong man.”

“You ain’t no man. You a shitpile with feet.”

The heavy metal door was held open by a blurred figure in the
shadows. Duncan was shoved inside. The blur handed a wad of keys to Powers and told him to drop them by later.

The corridor was dark but Duncan was pushed along at an unkind pace, his body moving uncertainly, awkwardly tensing for a blind collision at any moment. If he’d known his way around he might have tried running, but he didn’t and knew it, and they did. He knew that, too.

Soon they came to a door. There was a blade of light coming from the bottom gap.

“Open it,” Lewis said.

Duncan turned to the voice. There seemed to be three of them: the plugged-in one with the charged hair and the understanding mama; the bearded one with the gun; and one who breathed real loud.

He hesitated at the door and received a jolt in the kidney.

“Now, motherfucker!”

He opened the door and entered the bright room. There were thick quiltlike pads on the floor. Parallel bars and a pommel horse were in the center of the room.

Sitting on the horse was a smorgasbord portion of bad, bad luck, eyeballing him.

The no-blarney menace stood and clasped his hands politely.

“My name is Sundown Phillips—you’ve heard of me?”

“Well,” Duncan said, “I think maybe I have. This is, this is uncalled for, man.”

“We’ll see.” Sundown motioned to a chair near the horse. “Have yourself a rest.”

Duncan sat and looked up at his host who sort of thunderclouded over him.

“I been around the block many a time, Mr. Cobb, and I’ve gained a certain
regard
from the people on the street.”

“I’ve heard that,” Duncan said. “I’ve heard folks, many people, say things of you, you know, man, with a high regard. High regard.”

Sundown flared his lips and beamed toothily.

“That’s nice. I like to hear that. I know lots of folks consider me to be kind of sinister, but I just think I been lucky.”

Duncan agreed.

“I never knew nothin’ bad about you, man.”

After a smiley pause Sundown hunkered down to Duncan’s level. He nodded and put a fracas-gnarled hand on Duncan’s knee. He then wagged a finger in his face.

“There’s a lot of things goin’ on here,” Sundown said, the smooth con disappearing from his voice and a tone that suggested razor fights and happiness
about
razor fights replacing it. “And you could fill me in on it.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Like your blood, Jewel, who been goin’ around town dealin’ out brothers.”

“Oh.”

Benny, who’d been doing a circular nod-walk inspecting things, suddenly began to kick at a locked door. His red platform shoes went skidding across the buffed floor, but he kept up the attack with a naked heel. The booms rattled in the room but the door stood firm.

Powers moved toward him.

“Benny, what the fuck you doin’?”

Benny turned, a look of stoned perseverance on his face. His speech was slow.

“That’s where they keep the Ping-Pong balls,” he said. “You got to post a quarter bond to use one. Every time. I always wanted to bust in there. This my chance.”

With a look of nervous consternation on his face, Lewis said, “I ain’t ever workin’ with that boy again. Make sure he forgets all about me, hear?”

“Benny, go outside,” Sundown said evenly. He watched Benny leave, then patted Duncan’s knee and wagged the finger again. “I think you can tell me just about all I want to know, Cobb. And, just for fun”—he smiled widely—“let’s us
pretend
that your
life
depends on it.”

A look of timid shrewdness came into Duncan’s eyes, as if he knew in advance that his lies would be inadequate, but he had to take the chance of telling them. He looked from face to face in the room and found little comfort in the various expressions.