Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 06 - Lucky Man (8 page)

He crested a small rise and could glimpse, across a meadow overgrown with grass, blue water and white clouds.

“It’s pretty out here,” Tubby admitted to himself.

Almost blocking his path was a crooked billboard announcing that a Bayside Golf Community and Resort would one day occupy this acreage.

Tubby rolled down the windows and looked around, trying to imagine homes and streets rising from the woods and brambles. He couldn’t.

The road snaked through what once might have been a pecan orchard, and then the bay suddenly appeared again across a wide marsh. The road turned to follow the shoreline and stopped at a ramshackle two-story farmhouse hugging a high spot of ground. A few old cars and a new van were scattered around the farmhouse yard.

Tubby parked in tall grass beside an old red Chevrolet with a sticker on its rusted bumper advising the world to DRINK NAKED.

Birds twittered in the branches of the cherry laurel tree by the front porch. Somewhere rock and roll music was playing, a door slammed, and there was distant laughter.

Tubby mounted the wooden steps.

He could see the narrow hallway dimly through the screen door. Tacked to the frame was a mezuzah and below that a cheap plastic plaque with the message JESUS WILL LIGHT OUR WAY. For some reason, Tubby explored them both with his fingertips before he pressed the buzzer.

“Someone’s up front!” a woman upstairs shouted.

“I’ll get it,” someone replied, and presently a young man popped into the hallway and peered at Tubby through the screen. He had bright blue eyes, a fuzzy chin, and a T-shirt that said I’D RATHER BE MASTURBATING. Tubby thought that was funny.

“Where’d you get your shirt?” he asked.

“In Florida. My girlfriend gave it to me,” the boy answered suspiciously.

“Really? Is Buddy Holly here?”

“He went to town.” No move to open the door.

“What about Faye, uh, Ms. Sylvester? Is she around?”

“Uh-huh. Who should I say is calling?”

Surprised at the politeness, Tubby gave his name and sat down on the porch steps to wait. The boy slipped away into the interior.

“Hello.” Her voice made him jump.

“Oh, hi,” Tubby said, getting up and brushing the dust from his behind. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“That’s nice,” she said. “Did Buddy forget you were coming?”

“No. I didn’t know myself.” Tubby was losing himself in her eyes. They were green. “I mean, I didn’t call ahead. I’m just dropping in.”

“I’m happy you did. Would you like to look around?”

“Oh, sure. Buddy said to come over anytime. I was down the road at the casino. Not gambling, of course. I don’t want to interrupt anything. Am I?” He gave her his most hopeful expression.

Something about it struck her as funny.

“Come on in,” she said, laughing. “I’ll give you the cook’s tour. After all, I’m the cook.”

With appreciation for the way she moved in blue jeans, he followed her into the hall.

“This is our formal dining room.” She pointed through a plaster archway at a vast table. “That used to be in the boardroom of a bank that went out of business. We eat supper together every night. Right now there are twelve kids staying here, so with the staff we’re feeding fifteen or sixteen.”

“Where is everybody?” Tubby asked.

“School, work, shopping. We try to keep them busy.”

“Oh, excuse me.” A vacant-eyed youngster said, barging into the hall and almost colliding with Faye. “I’m just going outside to smoke.” She slipped quickly away and let the screen door slam behind her.

“Of course, not everybody is ready for the real world yet,” Faye said wryly.

“Is this a church, a nuthouse, what?” Tubby asked.

“A little of everything,” she said. “Buddy can explain the religious side of things. He holds services every day. Some of the kids go. Some don’t.”

“But what’s the main point, I guess I’m asking.”

“Oh, you don’t know that? These are all basically runaways. Buddy picks them up on Highway Ninety, hopefully, before the police do or before they get too hooked on drugs.”

“What can you do for them?”

“Free room and board and a chance to chill out. You know, clean air, clean living.”

Same thing I’m after, Tubby thought.

She asked him about his children, and he made some general comments— about them, about the divorce from his wife.

“Do you still see her?” she asked.

“Mattie? No. We get along better from a distance. She’s got her own life and she’s happy enough with it.”

Faye showed him the grounds, and they took a walk along the sandy shore. She seemed a lot more relaxed out here than she had been in New Orleans. He learned that she had been married before, but she did not offer any details. She made some disparaging remarks about the Big Easy in general, with which he automatically agreed.

“It’s so dirty, you couldn’t clean it with Tide,” she said. He thought she was talking about the litter but later wondered if maybe what she meant was the politics.

“It’s so much better here,” she said, “where you can breathe fresh air and smell the dew in the morning.”

“Sure, that’s nice,” he agreed. “I’ve been thinking about moving out of New Orleans myself. You know, to the Northshore.”

“That’s not far enough, if you ask me. Louisiana just seems like such a hopeless mess. Mississippi is the place to be.”

“Yeah?” He would have to pass a new bar exam to make a living here. Looking at the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled, he almost could believe it would be worth it.

“What are your plans for Thanksgiving?” she asked him.

“I don’t know. It’s kind of funny, with the kids all gone and all.”

“We do a big meal here. You’d be welcome to come, of course.”

“Yeah? Thanks. We’ll see what happens.”

“Country living is not so bad,” she said, nudging his foot with hers.

He wanted to think that it was so, but with the moisture of the marsh creeping through his leather soles and the sun beginning to set behind violently crimson clouds he inexplicably had a cold sense of being out of place in this serene spot. The youngsters and their guardians were bonded together in ways that did not include him.

She invited him to stay for a communal supper of white beans and cheese toast, but to her surprise, he said he needed to get back to town. He made up something about a meeting. They shook hands smiling, said see you again, I hope, and Tubby drove away.

It had ended very awkwardly. Apparently he was not quite ready to be happy.

Cherrylynn dreamed up a plan, and then she made the bold decision to put it into effect. As soon as she got to the office on Monday, she picked up the telephone and called
Gambit
, the artsy newspaper.

“I’d like to place a personals ad, please.

“Yes. It should read, ‘SWF, attractive redhead twenty-five (about), knows what she wants and ready for fun, loves parties, meeting new people, likes dinner and dancing— seeking good-looking man with dimples (like Mel Gibson?) Don’t wait. Call me now.”

“I know it’s long,” she told the operator, “but I’m in a hurry.”

She blushed.

***

It was exactly seventeen days before Tubby saw Faye Sylvester again. On the Monday morning after the Judge Hughes victory celebration, the first thing Tubby did when he got to his office was fix himself a cup of coffee and chicory and pour in a little cream. Then he got comfortable at the cypress desk that had once belonged to a North Louisiana undertaker. From his perch on the forty-third floor of the Place Palais Building, he could survey the slate roofs of the French Quarter and watch oceangoing vessels power through the hairpin turn of the Mississippi River at Algiers Point. His mind could wander the world.

While it wandered, he opened mail from his clients and gazed at the steamboat
Natchez
working its way lazily toward its berth by the Moon Walk, its decks covered with tiny tourists. He could even hear snatches of the music from the boat’s calliope— one of the tricks played by the wind.

Suddenly he exclaimed, “She’s coming today!”

***

Dear Tubby,

I’m coming to the big city next Monday for a conference you might be interested in. I know it isn’t considered polite for a lady to ask a man for a date, but I felt we did not really have a chance to talk when you were here. Want to resume?

Call me if you like. I hope you get this letter in time.

From a peaceful place,

Faye

“She’s coming today,” he said again.

He picked up the phone.

He caught her going out the door.

“Of course it would be great to get together,” he assured her. “What’s the occasion?”

“Buddy asked me to attend a conference today and tomorrow at Loyola on counseling drug abusers through love. Would you like to join me?”

“Gee, that sounds fascinating,” Tubby said, making a face. “Unfortunately, I’m really tied up this afternoon. Would they let you get away for dinner?”

“Sure, I guess so. I’ll have to see what the schedule is, but, sure.”

“We could do something special. I could cook.”

That would be special, she said, and he told her how to find his house.

***

Flowers reported that afternoon that there was indeed a bug in Judge Hughes’s chambers.

He was seated in Tubby’s office dressed easy in khaki slacks and a madras shirt. As always, he looked tan and fit. He was also tall, dark, and handsome, and he liked classical music. Tubby knew that because he had ridden in Flowers’ car. What the detective did at home was a mystery. Tubby had never been invited for a visit.

“It’s not what I’d call a sophisticated device,” Flowers explained. “Just a simple audio pickup right under his chair.”

“You decommissioned it?”

“The judge told me not to. He said it was in the right place for the message he wanted to deliver.”

“Nothing in the phone?”

“There’s really no way to tell. The set itself was clean.”

“What have you got for me on Marcus Dementhe?”

“It’s well known that he’s rich and lives off the fortune his father made building subdivisions in Kenner. Harvard undergraduate and a law degree from California Christian. His radio talk show,
Righteous Anger
, led the ratings for three years. His campaign literature said divorced, no children. He grew up in Lakeview. If you remember his ads, he promised to clean up the city. That’s a toned-down version of what he used to say on the radio. I tuned him in sometimes when I was working late, and to me he sounded like a Nazi, but that’s just a personal opinion. He pays his bills. He was arrested once when he was on spring break from college, but his record was expunged.”

“Can’t you find any dirt?”

“I’m doing my best, but he seems to be your basic nasty zealot.”

“I wonder what caused him to be so aimlessly hurtful?”

“I’m not a shrink. Possibly he wants to be paid to go away.”

“You’ve lived in Louisiana too long.”

“I’ve got to admit I don’t understand a man like Dementhe,” Flowers said. “There’s a million murderers and rapists out there for a district attorney to prosecute. Why doesn’t he worry about them?”

“You’re not going to charge me for these observations, are you?”

“I wouldn’t pay for them, if I were you.”

“I guess that’s it, then. How’s the rest of your business these days?”

“I’ve got a full plate, but I always give you first priority, you know that. Your jobs are always… ”

“Always what?”

“Strange?”

“That’s me. Anyway, I can’t think of anything else for you to do right now.”

“Call me if you do,” Flowers said.

***

Raisin and Sapphire were having a late afternoon sandwich at Johnny’s Po-Boys on St. Ann Street. Raisin was trying not to notice things like the part in her hair, the way her long fingers held her sandwich, and the line of her jaw as she chewed, because he knew from long experience what his fascination with the little things meant. He was getting hooked, and he knew his heart was about to soften up again. It had happened before, with almost all of his women. He had to fight constantly to stay free.

“I guess you’re hungry,” he said, watching her crunch down a large dill pickle.

“You’re a doll to say that,” she said, obviously in fantasyland too.

“Mustard on my chin?” she asked.

“No. Is your band playing tonight?”

“I’m off tonight, don’t you remember? It’s my last Monday off until two weeks from now when the Hot Rocks from Mobile are coming through town.”

“Maybe I’ll catch your show tomorrow.”

“Oh, would you?” she asked happily. “That would be sweet.”

“You know, they don’t pay you enough for the hours you have to put in.”

“At least they pay us something. The dancers actually have to pay the club to work there.”

“You’re kidding.”

“You didn’t know that?” She raised a surprised eyebrow. “Mr. Bakustan charges each girl thirty dollars a night to work at the club, and they don’t even get free drinks. They’re not even supposed to eat anything from the buffet, but if he likes you he doesn’t say anything.”

“Do you mean all their money comes from tips?”

“You got it. That’s why they dream up these scams like the ‘Super Orgy’ or the ‘Cat Walk’ so they can make some dough.”

“The ‘Super Orgy’ sounds interesting.”

“That’s the way it’s supposed to sound, but it’s a racket. They say to the guy, ‘Do you want to come in the back room with me for an orgy?’ and he thinks, gee, that sounds good. She says, ‘It’s fifty bucks, pay in advance.’ They get the money and take the guys in the back and do some special dances, which are, I am sure, pretty dirty, and they say that’s it. That’s the orgy. The guy is pissed, but by then they’ve already got the money.”

“Don’t they even, you know, give the customer a hand job or something?”

“Not that I know of. You’ve got to go to the massage parlors for that.”

“Or I could take a taxi ride with you.”

“In your dreams. Oh, there’s Twila.” Sapphire leaned over the table, collecting bread crumbs with her ample bosom, and tapped on the glass. She caught the attention of the freckle-faced loiterer.