Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 02 - City of Beads (23 page)

The neighborhood was not grand; it was nice. Big stucco-and-brick homes, backing up to the lake. Nice sidewalks, nice lawns, clean-cut kids cruising around in expensive Nissans, private security parked on every other tree-shaded corner. Tubby had had it as the lone wolf, and for this interview he brought backup with him, in the person of Cherrylynn. Her job was to watch the Spyder and let someone know if Tubby never returned. She had brought magazines. He guessed she was also well armed with Mace, the working girl’s friend. Cherrylynn believed in protection.

She stayed with the car, parked by the curb. He went to the big front door and clanked the knocker. A gray-haired woman let him in and told him to follow her. Moving slowly, she led the way down the Mexican-tiled hall, past attractively framed paintings, some of which Tubby recognized as the expensive work of local artists. He knew two of them.

He was shown into a spacious airy room at the rear of the house, with French doors opening onto a garden courtyard. Mr. Caponata was sitting in a wrought-iron chair at a round glass table. His face was an older version of the familiar one that had been in the newspapers over the years. A high brick wall, giving the appearance of great age, provided the patio with privacy. Epiphytic bromeliads, blushing and otherwise, and orchids living off the sultry air, were hung from old black nails driven into the mortar. Caponata was drinking a cup of coffee and reading the sports section.

He didn’t get up when Tubby stepped outside, but he politely put down his paper and pointed to a chair at the table. Tubby sat.

“Coffee, Mr. Dubonnet?”

Tubby said yes.

Caponata carefully poured a cup from a white china pot on the table. He pushed it slowly across the glass, then, by raising his eyebrows, offered cream and sugar from a silver set.

Tubby shook his head.

Caponata sighed. “Why are you here, Mr. Dubonnet?” He looked weary.

“I want to work things out with you.”

“What things, please? This is a time of sadness for me. I don’t need a lot of small talk.”

“I haven’t got much patience for small talk either, Mr. Caponata.” Tubby tried out his glare and plunged ahead. “People working for you killed a friend of mine. I’m pretty sure of that. You may or may not have known about it. His name was Potter Aucoin. He had a company down by the river, Export Products. Ever heard of it?”

Mr. Caponata didn’t respond. He merely stared at Tubby.

Tubby coughed, rubbed his jaw, and then continued.

“It troubled me. Why did he die? I thought I knew, but now I’m not sure. I know who ordered it. Leo Caspar. Have you heard from Caspar?”

Caponata looked wounded. He bowed his head, and a tear worked its way down his nose. Tubby was disconcerted.

“Leo is dead,” Caponata whispered.

Tubby relaxed.

“You know how it happened, I suppose?”

“Not yet, but I know the circumstances of his disappearance and that you were there.” He looked up, and there was a blaze of anger in his eyes. Tubby saw what the man must have looked like when he was young.

“You bet I was there, tied up and ready to be tossed in the river. You know that, too?”

Caponata shrugged. “You’re still around, aren’t you? Leo’s the one gone.”

“You’re mourning him?”

“Yes, but my grief is a private thing. It doesn’t concern you.”

“It concerns me very much. I’m entitled to see some suffering. I want to know that Potter Aucoin is a little bit paid for. I don’t expect justice. I don’t have much expectation that I could ever pin his death on you. I could try, of course,” Tubby suggested hopefully.

“You’re foolish if you think you could ever connect me with that, ’cause I never heard about it until you told me just now.” Mr. Caponata patted his lips, then raised his eyes to Tubby’s. They were gray like Leo’s.

“I doubt that’s true,” Tubby said, “but you may be right about connecting you to the murder. I’m sure you’ve covered your tracks well. Look, I’m no policeman. I’m not even a hardassed lawyer. But I would like to understand why Potter died. There are reasons I have to stay with this until I find out.” Tubby sounded almost apologetic.

“I’m sure you have your theories,” Caponata murmured. “Everybody does about me.”

“You’re right. I do. One of them is that you never cared about any river dumping, or anything Potter saw. You just wanted his property. You wanted his lease. Am I right?”

Caponata did not reply. He just stared with distaste at Tubby.

“I just need to know,” Tubby continued. “I’m not wired or anything like that.”

“I’m not worried about your being wired, Mr. Dubonnet,” Caponata chuckled. He gestured in the direction of the roof, where it extended over the patio. There was something round and electronic mounted there that Tubby would have taken for a small satellite dish for TV, if he had noticed it at all.

“I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Dubonnet,” Caponata said after a pause. “It was at my suggestion that you were retained by Casino Mall Grande. I was curious why a lawyer with a reputation as a loner, a man who keeps his head down, would want to be interested in the death of a nobody working down by the docks. I thought it would be a good idea to explore your motives a little bit. Maybe you were just trying to drum up a little business for yourself. That’s okay. I understand lawyers who do that. Maybe you were trying to get into my real estate deal. That’s not so okay. When I learned that you were giving my friend Botaswati a hard time, I said, yeah, he’s trying to crash into my deal. But I tell Caspar, there’s plenty here for everybody. Lawyers are sometimes good to have around. Invite Mr. Dubonnet to the party. Show him how sweet the gambler’s life can be.”

“It was real sweet for me. But not for Potter. That’s the problem. He was my friend.” Tubby shrugged. “As I see it, you want the casino to tie its riverboat up right where Export Products is located, and you want to put a parking lot right where Bayou Disposal’s yard used to be. You had the parking lot lease all sewed up. Only Potter wouldn’t vacate like a good boy. He wouldn’t give you his lease, would he?”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Caponata said. “He was extremely uncooperative. It seemed no price would satisfy him.”

“That doesn’t sound like Potter.”

“Well, no reasonable price would satisfy him. Your friend was a difficult man. He threatened, not to me, of course, but he threatened to report the discharge of chemicals, or whatever he claimed to have seen, to some kind of government outfit. But not out of any love for the fishies, Mr. Dubonnet. It was just a bargaining chip for him. If we had raised our offer enough, he would have withdrawn any statement he made. Do you doubt that?”

Tubby didn’t really doubt that, though he liked to think well of the dead. Potter had been a good buddy, but Tubby had always thought the last bandwagon Potter would have jumped on would have been a campaign to get lots of government inspectors nosing around the docks.

“Then what was the problem?” Tubby asked.

“I’ll tell you, and then I’ll tell you why I’m telling you. Your friend screwed up. But, hey, I screwed up, too. We had this nice lease, on this nice land, right by the river. A good parking lot, lots of access. We’ll plant trees, landscape it. Fantastic place for a gambling boat. Great location. We can sell this idea to the casino board of directors. But naturally we want to keep this quiet till all the pieces fall into place, so we look for a company to put on the land, just to hold it. Could have been any company. I got a lot of companies. But Leo picks the disposal company. Sounds okay, just a truck parking lot, really. And Leo was going to see that everything ran smooth. But these lazy asshole truck drivers were just pouring the crap right out on the ground. They probably poured it into the river when they got worried about walking around in all the puddles of muck they were making. That’s the sad truth. But your friend got way out of line. He thought he could just nudge us a little, but he put his fucking finger right up my ass. That’s when Leo maybe tried to put on some pressure of his own. What happened after that I can’t say. I have no idea how your man Potter died. It wasn’t intentional.”

“No offense, Mr. Caponata, but that’s bullshit. You know how he died and who did it. I might be able to put you in jail for this.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“Bijan Botaswati can tie you to Bayou Disposal.”

“You will find that Mr. Botaswati, who I never heard of, has gone for an extended trip to Pakistan. He will be difficult to locate. But why would you want to put me in jail anyway, Mr. Dubonnet? I’m as sad about this as you are.”

“For much different reasons.”

“You think so? What do you think I’m made of? Marble? You don’t think I cry when people get hurt?”

“That’s not your reputation.”

“And what do you say my reputation is?”

“That you were the Mafia don of New Orleans. That you ran all the rackets here.”

“I never could understand why people thought that. You want some more coffee?”

“No, thanks,” Tubby said.

“How long have you lived in New Orleans, Mr. Dubonnet?”

“I came here for college and stayed.”

“So, a long time. You see any big rackets? You see people walking around in fear of the mob? Of course not. This is a very easygoing place. The only racket we got around here is politics. And you ain’t never seen no Caponata run for office.”

“I imagine you’ve got your finger in quite a few pies.”

“I’ve done okay, but I ain’t no don. I’m admitting that to you. Sometimes it helped that people thought I was, I won’t deny. But look—who’s the don now, since I retired?”

Tubby thought about it.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“That’s my point. You can’t be a real don if nobody wants your job when you retire.”

“All I can say is it’s because of you Potter Aucoin is dead. And justice hasn’t been satisfied. You see that, don’t you?”

“No. I’m very sorry if my business dealings resulted in a death. But you can’t put it on me. I don’t even go out anymore, except maybe if some friends ask me out for a meal. I’m a lonely old man. And now my son is dead, too. It’s been a very hard month.” And with that he bowed his head and wept.

Tubby didn’t know what to say. He waited until Caponata had composed himself and had dried his eyes with a napkin.

“Leo Caspar meant a lot to me,” Caponata continued. “I won’t tell you the whole story because it’s none of your business. Leo had a hard time. His father was no fucking good. He cared nothing for his children. He died in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.”

Caponata closed his eyes in satisfaction when he said that. “So I took them in like I was their father. We were as close as pizza and pie.”

Neither man spoke for a moment.

Caponata sipped his coffee.

“So too bad about your friend,” the old man said quietly, setting his cup deliberately on its saucer. “But the score is settled.”

The rush of relief Tubby experienced was almost overpowering. Caponata apparently was willing to forget all about the Dubonnets, young and old. His brain said get up and leave, but some other, uninvited internal voice insisted he stay and finish the job.

“It’s more tied than settled,” he said. “Something more is owed.”

“Now you’re pushing me,” Caponata growled. “Why should I do anything for you?”

“Because if the law can’t get you for murder, I guess I can still kill your deal. The public might like to know that the Mafia runs New Orleans gambling, just like everybody thought.”

“Nuts,” Caponata exploded. “I’m not into gambling. I’m into real estate. The only Italian thing about the guys who operate casinos is their suits. They want nothing to do with men like me. I’m bad for profits.”

“Okay, well, real estate then,” Tubby said. “I bet the ground out there is saturated with the kind of stuff that melts concrete. What would an environmental Phase Two tell us about your grand casino parking lot? Don’t you think that might raise some eyebrows during your licensing process?”

“It might cause some delay,” Caponata conceded. “But inspectors are a dime a dozen. And lawyers ain’t much more,” he added menacingly.

Tubby took a wild shot. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But what about Nicole Normande? You’ve kept her a secret, haven’t you? You don’t want her being known as the mob boss’s adopted daughter. Why, she’d lose her job at the casino. Her whole career would be shot. She’d be dragged down in the hole with you.”

Caponata’s face had gone white, like a boiled potato.

“How did you find that out?”

“You just told me,” Tubby said. “The biggest worry I’d have if I were you,” he continued, “is that whoever killed Leo might find out that you have another weak spot. If the police get involved, I’m sure her relationship to you won’t escape their attention.”

“Mr. Dubonnet,” Caponata broke in, “what would it take to make you go back to your nice office with a view and leave an old man to grieve in peace?”

“Bayou Disposal off the map. Gone. All shut up. A total cleanup of whatever it has managed to do in a month down in Plaquemines Parish. Make those crawfish well. And also a nice contribution to Save Our River, which is an environmental group you may not have heard of. Think about an endowment for environmental research to the Louisiana university of your choice, funded by the casino. What great public relations. I don’t guess there’s anything you can do about the five hundred years of crap on the levee that’s any better than paving it over for a parking lot, so I’d say go ahead and build the damn thing.”

“All of a sudden you don’t seem too concerned about your client, Casino Mall Grande.”

“Of course I’m concerned. But Napoleon Avenue is the best of the three available sites according to you.”

“Actually, it really is.”

“I’ve told Jake LaBreau what I know about the place, and, thanks to Leo, he knows who is behind the project. His board of directors will do what they want with the information. I’m not allowed to sic the government on my own client. I might like to, but the rules of my profession won’t permit it.”

“Oh. I’m always surprised to meet someone who cares about the rules. Is that all?”

“No. Clear the name of the dead for me. Potter wasn’t using drugs. Someone planted cocaine in his shop just to send the police sniffing in the wrong direction, right?”