by Tony Dunbar
“What is it?” he whispered.
“I just felt very lonesome, and I wanted to be with you.”
“Oh,” Tubby said, but he didn’t tell her to leave.
“I don’t know what it’s like to trust a white man,” she said.
He sat up and put a pillow over his lap.
“That’s not so surprising,” he said.
“I was raised to treat everybody alike, but even when white people seem real friendly, I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“For their real selves to come out?”
“Yes.”
“It’s complicated,” he said.
She took his hands in hers.
He had never been in a bed with a black woman before, even though you couldn’t really say they were in bed together. He smelled the shampoo in her hair and felt the warm pressure of her thigh against his knees. He was helplessly aroused.
She bent down and kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “You’re a nice man.”
There was that misconception again.
Then she stood up and pulled her nightgown straight. She waved and whispered, “Good night.” And left.
Tubby sank back into the covers.
What the hell was that? he asked himself. A tease? But he didn’t think so. He wanted to believe she was the real thing. He thought about tiptoeing over to the guest bedroom and continuing the conversation, but he found he was struggling, too. Safety for the single always lies in inaction. He could try to get a grip on this in the light of day. He fell asleep.
In his dream, Tania lay down beside him and lightly touched his hair with her fingers. He stroked her back tentatively, and stared into deep eyes close to his own, asking questions. Her answer was to pull his mouth to hers. While they kissed, their hands began a gentle exploration of each other’s body under their nightclothes. He felt her soft breasts, nipples erect, and thought how smooth and warm she felt everywhere. He wished he hadn’t eaten three-fourths of a large pizza. She ran a hand down his back and on down to his hips. Suddenly Tubby was ravenous again. He rolled her on top of him and began seeking sweet places to feast. The moon’s glow from the window lit her neck and she moved with him.
Something he had read in the bar journal about having sex with clients flashed through his mind.
“I’m not your lawyer, of course,” he whispered hoarsely.
“No, no,” she moaned. “You’re whatever you want to be to me, baby.”
She rose, hands pressed on his shoulders, and slid herself up and down on him. Nothing but panting and rich feelings now. The bed creaked mightily.
CHAPTER 17
Tubby woke himself up shortly after four o’clock. He was alone.
“Goodness,” he muttered to himself.
A great deal of the motivation for taking Nicole Normande fishing had not-so-mysteriously vanished, but when a lady has agreed to be dressed and ready by five in the morning, only a real jerk calls in sick. Tubby also felt that escaping a morning-after scene with Tania was a good idea, though he couldn’t have explained why since all the best parts had been in his fertile brain.
He got up quietly, showered, and left a short note for her. He signed it “Nice Guy.” Dressed in funky khaki pants and a sweatshirt, he checked the boat for life jackets. Once he had hidden a bag of money in that same spot. He saw that his ice chest was relatively mold-free, and loaded up two full gas tanks. It didn’t take long to hitch the trailer to the car, even though it was pitch black. Tubby was an old hand at quick flights from the city.
By 5:15 he was double-parked in front of the Royal Street address Nicole had given him. When he tapped on her door she appeared, freshly scrubbed and very appealing in blue jeans and a couple of shirts. She didn’t ask him to hang around while she got her makeup on. She was ready.
In no time they were cruising through Chalmette on Judge Perez Highway, drinking coffee from the thermos Nicole had brought. Tubby’s mood had shifted dramatically, and he was now thinking what a great idea this excursion was. They passed the last traffic light at Paris Road, and presently the homes and schools gave way to farms and then cypress swamp.
Not much farther and they turned onto a smaller road and soon crossed over a narrow, wooden-railed drawbridge where they saw their first shrimp boats bobbing picturesquely at their moorings. Their way ran straight along the bayou with house trailers and rickety fishing camps to the left and tin boathouses and docks jutting into the water to the right. After a few minutes Tubby pulled up next to one of the camps, which he said belonged to an old man he knew named Nolan. Nicole got out and watched while he checked the fishing tackle again and unplugged the trailer lights. Then she yelled directions as he backed across the road and eased the boat down a rough concrete ramp into the bayou. She held the rope to keep their humble vessel from floating away while Tubby parked the car next to Nolan’s camp.
The sun was just coming up when the motor obliged them by catching, and they puttered out over the water. White egrets and blue herons flew easily across the stream ahead, announcing their approach. The bayou was calm and flat, but for ripples here and there that showed the tide was pulling them out. A fish broke the surface in front of them, a promising sign.
Without talking much, Tubby and Nicole watched the fishing camps give way to marsh grass and wider and wider vistas. Soon there was nothing but clear blue sky and a broad channel of shining blue water, and grasses all shades of green running to the horizon. The white birds multiplied and sailed away on business of their own.
Their bayou emptied into a lake so wide that it could have been mistaken for open gulf. Tubby guided the boat to a point along the marsh shore and then cut the motor and pitched over the anchor. Two oil rigs were visible in the far distance, and scattered here and there were outposts of trees, little dots in a big saltwater lake. A morning breeze rocked the boat and tossed up sprinkles of cold salty water. Except for the waves slapping the wood and an occasional bird cry, the only sounds were ones Tubby and Nicole made.
“Let’s see what we got here,” Tubby said, getting out his tackle box and putting it between his feet. “The trout like cockahoes the best, but we’ll have to try a lure on them today.” Skillfully, he tied leader and lure on one of the lines and handed the rod to Nicole. While he repeated the process on his own rod, he watched her try to cast. The first time she got it out about a yard before the line stopped and the hook swung malevolently back at the boat. The second time she sailed a beauty out about fifty feet and dropped it near the grass just right.
“You’ve done this before,” Tubby commented dryly.
“I grew up fishing,” she said. “My mother and I used to go out on the lake all the time where we lived in Tennessee. We fished for bass.”
Finally I meet a woman who grew up fishing, and there’s a lady at home who believes I’m a nice guy, Tubby thought.
“What about your dad?” he asked.
She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “He wasn’t around much,” she said.
Tubby watched his pole. “If we’re lucky,” he said after a while, “we’ll hit a school of sacalait when they’re hungry. We might bring in thirty or forty fish in a matter of minutes.”
“Do you need a license for this?”
“Uh, yeah,” Tubby said. “I didn’t think to ask if you had one.”
“I don’t. Should I be worried?”
“Not you,” Tubby said. It would be his boat that would get impounded.
“What’s the name of this…” She gestured at the water.
“I think it’s part of Lake Petit. I’m not real sure anymore. See those trees out there?” He pointed at a stand of dying cypress poking from the water half a mile away.
“When I first started fishing out here, that used to be an island. It’s still on the charts as an island. I’ve walked on it—even hunted rabbits on it. In fact, there used to be several islands out here. Now we’re just about in the Gulf of Mexico.”
“What h
appened?”
“Erosion. Salt water from the Gulf coming into the marsh from all the canals the oil companies dredged killed the grass. The wake of ships in the ship channel and the Gulf Outlet washed away the soil. You hear lotsa theories. I can tell you a bunch of land has disappeared in a short time.”
“Unreal,” she said.
The morning progressed peacefully, that is, without too many fish. Tubby learned that Nicole was from around Memphis, that she had a brother who had done well for himself but who, she said vaguely, lived in a different world, that she had come to New Orleans to work for a tomato-packing company, and that the casino was a big step forward.
They pulled in lots of hardhead catfish—the kind that stab you, and you can either throw them back to catch a second time, keep them for crawfish bait, or shoot them, whichever seems like the least trouble. Crawfish rejoice over dead hardheads or just about any kind of rotting fish or meat.
Their biggest excitement was a strike on Nicole’s line that bent her rod, went around and under the boat, and had them both shouting advice to each other. She finally reeled it close enough to the surface for Tubby to recognize her catch as a stingray with three-foot wings. Then the game became trying to save the tackle. Eventually Nicole got the frightening creature to the side of the boat, and Tubby reached gingerly into what may have been its mouth with a pair of pliers and twisted out the hook. It slid into the water and with a flip was gone. But of trout or crappie, not a one.
A wind picked up while their battle with the stingray was raging, and the boat began to bounce around in an unhealthy way. Little whitecaps came rolling across the lake.
“Maybe we better go back in,” Tubby said. Nicole was hanging on with both hands.
The ride back up the bayou was rocky but they enjoyed flying with the wind behind them. Even though the sun stayed bright, they were both cold, shaken up, and wet by the time they made it back to the boat launch.
“Great fun,” Nicole said, as she clambered out of the boat, shivering.
“Yeah, but I kinda wish we’d caught a fish,” Tubby said grumpily.
They stopped off at a restaurant named Ivanho’s on the way back, and had a hearty meal of grilled redfish and pompano from the kitchen. The hush puppies were the fluffiest he had ever had. Tubby told her a little about the Save Our River case. She seemed to be interested in a lot of the same things he was. A couple of beers apiece, and they were both feeling cheerfully tired by the time Tubby navigated back to Royal Street and Nicole’s front door.
“Would you like to come up and see the place?” she asked.
The opportunity of a lifetime, but Tubby’s brain was hopelessly confused. Two superlative women at once was an awful lot to grasp.
Nicole laid her hand on his. “I had a wonderful time. Would you like to come in for a beer?”
“I’ve really got to go,” Tubby said gruffly. “I have to get the boat put away. I had a good time, too. I’ll call you. We’ll do it again.”
“Okay.” She withdrew her hand, collected her purse, and got out of the car.
“Bye,” she said succinctly, and ran up the steps to her building. Tubby watched her unlock the door and disappear inside.
“Bye,” he said.
Tubby got the boat back home and unhitched. He stowed the gear, and then he went to the house.
“Tania,” he called when he opened the door. “It’s Tubby.” No answer.
On the kitchen table there was a note.
Dear Tubby,
Thank you for everything. You were a big help.
Tania
Deflated, Tubby walked distractedly around the downstairs of his home. He sat at the kitchen table and thought. Then he gave it up and phoned Cherrylynn for his messages. She reported that Raisin was on his way in from Mississippi.
CHAPTER 18
Raisin delivered Jerome Rasheed Cook up to the forty-third floor. Cherrylynn announced them, victory making the pitch of her voice rise to a new high, and Raisin rolled Jerome through the door like a new car he’d just won on a quiz show.
Jerome was a short fellow, dressed in oversized blue jeans and a T-shirt, probably the same clothes he’d been arrested in more than six months before. He looked around the room slowly and uncertainly, dazed by the sudden transition into freedom.
Tubby came around the desk to shake his hand. Jerome’s grip was a little weak, but his eyes said he was ready to be happy.
“Sit down, man,” Tubby offered. “Let’s hear your story.”
Cherrylynn brought coffee.
Jerome didn’t mind talking. He had been waiting a long time.
“I sold some stuff,” he said. “It was only the one time. Really. But it was bad, and the people I sold it to turned me in. It wasn’t my fault it was bad. The man I got it from set me up. He’s the one that ought to pay.”
He had told that to a sheriff’s investigator at the Orleans Parish jail. He had named the man he bought drugs from. The investigator suggested maybe they would just let Jerome go, but Jerome said that, when they did, he was going after his supplier. That had been a mistake. Next, he was handcuffed in the backseat of a police car headed out of town. They had been met by a Mississippi sheriff at the Pearl River turnaround, and he was transferred to the sheriff’s car. For the past six months he had been sitting around in the Poplarville jail.
“Who was your supplier?” Tubby asked.
“A guy they called Charlie Van Dyne,” Jerome said, “and he deserves whatever he gets.”
“I never heard of him,” Tubby said.
“I ain’t going to bother about him,” Jerome said. “If he leaves me alone, I’ll leave him alone. How’d you find me?”
Tubby told him about the praline lady’s vigil outside the jail at Tulane and Broad, and Jerome covered his face with his hands and cried like a baby.
“She’s the sweetest lady,” he finally said, “She loved me all my life.”
“Go see her right now and promise her you won’t sell drugs anymore.”
“I sure will,” Jerome said. “I’ll never forget her, or you.”
“After you say your hellos, I want you to come back and see me, Jerome. You’ve got a lawsuit against the sheriff I want to talk to you about.”
“Yes, sir. What do I owe you now?”
“That’s what the lawsuit is for.”
Raisin said he would run Jerome up to Tulane and Broad. “I don’t guess he remembers how to ride the bus,” he said, to explain his kindness.
CHAPTER 19
On a Saturday morning Tubby went shopping in the French Market for a few of the things he liked to buy there: some nice big garlic, loaves of fresh seeded bread, a can of virgin olive oil, and some red peppers from the Progress Grocery. The market smelled like New Orleans should, a mixture concocted of crates of garden produce, coffee brewing, beignets coming out of the cooker, and the river rolling on just a few arpents away.
He felt “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” as his father used to say, and he realized that he had Jerome Rasheed Cook to thank for that. It was just amazing what a win could do. He was interested in being a lawyer again.
The enthusiasm was so strong that Tubby thought he might check in on the mysterious Bijan Botaswati, incorporator of Bayou Disposal and Cargo Planners, as long as he was already in the Quarter and legally parked.
The address on Burgundy was a bar called The Hard Rider. The neighborhood here was mostly residential, a lot of gays, a lot of medical students, a lot of time-shares, and a lot of shuttered courtyards that told you nothing, just as intended. The bar was open, but not hopping. Tubby made out two fellas yinning and yanging at the dark end. There were a couple of Foosball tables in the center and some hanging ferns for decor. It smelled like smoke.
Tubby took one of the tall chairs and ordered a Dixie beer, just to be sociable. The bartender was a small Vietnamese woman wearing black pants with suspenders over a frilly white shirt.
“No Dixie,” she said, mopping up in front o
f him with a towel.
“Make it a Bud then.” The whole world served your basic Bud.
She brought him a bottle and a glass.
“Two dollars,” she said, and he handed her a five.
When she came back with the change he asked, “Is Mr. Botaswati here?”
“Not here. Three, four, five.” She counted out his change.
“Can you tell me where I might find him?”
“Not here. He’s got many businesses.”
“Do you think he might be in today?”
“Sometime he comes by,” she said with a shrug. “Sometime no.”
“It’s very important that I talk to him. If he is the same Bijan Botaswati I think he is, there are some people in Pakistan who want to do business with him. There could be a lot of money in it. Will you tell him?”
“Yeah, sure. If I see him I tell him.”
“Here’s my card.” Tubby took one from his wallet and wrote on the back, “Important proposition.”
“Tell him he must call me soon.”
“Okay,” she said, taking the card and moving away toward her two other customers.
Tubby drank his beer and looked around the place. New Orleans prints on the wall. Wineglasses hanging from the ceiling on a wooden rack. How would this atmosphere work in Mike’s Bar? He flinched. The old-timers would curse and shun him. He left the three dollars on the bar in hopes that she would remember to deliver his card and walked out.
Tubby recalled that he had not had any lunch. A beer in the middle of the day was not routine for him, and it put him in a mind to stroll around the Quarter and forget life’s troubles. Surely there would be no harm in detouring up Bourbon Street to take in the sights.
He walked around the corner on St. Ann, sidestepping a curvaceous woman wearing hot pants who cast him an alluring eye. Was she nothing but misfortune and trouble, or was she a lonesome tourist from Germany, anxious to find Pat O’Brien’s? Always hard to tell.
He passed her by with a polite smile. In the curbside litter he saw the sparkle of a strand of beads. In New Orleans you see beads on the street all the time, and you don’t know until you stop and pick them up whether they’re extremely valuable, like pearls a movie star might have dropped, or funky Mardi Gras beads from Taiwan. Tubby bent over. These were sort of neat, a string of multicolored glass and clay. There was something he liked about them, so he absently slipped them into his pocket and walked on. He was just about to Bourbon Street when he heard a familiar voice calling his name.
