Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 02 - City of Beads

by Tony Dunbar

  “That was strange, wasn’t it?”

  Tubby just nodded.

  After Kronke left, Tubby closed his eyes and tried to relax. That didn’t work so he called Kathy Jeansonne at the paper. He talked it over again with her, but she did not tell who her source was, and she did not tell him anything else about the police investigation. Tubby got the impression she had more interesting things on her mind—that the news value of the man in the vat of oil was fading fast.

  As an afterthought he also asked her if she had ever heard of Bayou Disposal or Cargo Planners. No, she hadn’t. Gotta go.

  Nobody owns the land between the levee and the river. It is the property of all of the people. That’s the Napoleonic Code. You lease it from the people, represented by the Port Authority or the Levee Board. That’s the Municipal Code. Tubby got Cherrylynn to walk over to the Levee Board to see if she could get copies of the leases of each of the companies on Twink Beekman’s “bad guy” list. See what information you can pick up, he told her. And after that, if she got a chance, he asked her to review the Save Our River file to see what specific complaints had been made about the various shippers, grain elevators, warehouses, and manufacturers plying their rough and noisy trades there. It would be a challenge for her, he said, like a college research project.

  “Sure, no problem,” she said.

  Tubby was just checking. Cherrylynn’s resumé showed a degree from Walla Walla College, and he suspected she had just made it up. But Cherrylynn hadn’t even blinked.

  He told her he would be back later. It seemed Mr. Caspar wanted to speak with him.

  “It’s kind of important, Tubby,” Jake LaBreau had said, so Tubby agreed to come right over.

  He had not been shown any back ways to the management offices of Casino Mall Grande so he went in the front like the rest of the tourists. The same gay, electronic, noisy scene was still playing. The patrons sitting at their machines looked interchangeable – a lot of faces telling one story. Tubby suddenly realized it wasn’t Tijuana souvenir makers they reminded him of, it was rows of women in full dresses sitting astride sewing machines in a picture from the 1920s he had seen once upon a time. It was the same unnatural look of people mating with machines. Tubby pushed these disturbing thoughts aside, remembering the large check he had that morning deposited in his bank account. He tuned into the squeal of good fortune and the hilarity of free booze and smiled contentedly.

  He went upstairs with long strides and approached the guard by the door marked PRIVATE. The man made a call and pointed Tubby through. Nicole came out of Jake’s office to greet him. She looked tremendous.

  “Hello, lawyer man,” she said. “You’re meeting with Mr. Caspar today?”

  “That’s what I’m told,” Tubby said, pleased.

  “Maybe we could have a cup of coffee afterwards. I’ll take you to his office.”

  She took him around a corner and past a receptionist. She tapped lightly on the open door and showed Tubby into Caspar’s opulent purple-and-black suite. The manager arose from behind his shining desk and pointed Tubby to one of a pair of garish upholstered chairs.

  Nicole said, “I’ll see you later,” and winked and left, closing the door as she went out.

  Three squad cars raced by outside with sirens bleeping. Must be a movie star in town.

  Mr. Caspar looked friendly for a change. He came around his desk and settled down with Tubby in the matching chair, separated by a low butler’s table.

  “You did well the other night, am I right?”

  “Very well. It was unreal.” Tubby was beginning to suspect that there was more to his good fortune than pure luck.

  “Good. You wanna smoke?” Caspar lifted the lid of a silver box on the table and helped himself to a cigar. Tubby said no, thanks.

  “Let’s see if your luck still holds,” Caspar fanned a deck of Casino Mall Grande playing cards on the table’s surface.

  “Hundred dollars—cut you for high card,” Caspar said.

  “Okay,” Tubby said. This must be how gamblers did business.

  “You first,” Caspar directed.

  Tubby flipped a card. It was a jack.

  Caspar stared at Tubby, smiling his mirthless smile. Without looking down he turned over a ten.

  “You win,” he said.

  He pulled a roll from his pants pocket and peeled off a hundred-dollar bill.

  “Hey, that’s okay,” Tubby said.

  “No, take it,” Caspar insisted. “A bet’s a bet.”

  Tubby took the money. He was starting to like this job.

  “They call you Tubby?” Caspar asked, inhaling his cigarette.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s that from?”

  “It’s just a nickname I picked up in high school. I was pretty big. I wrestled and played some ball.”

  “It’s a funny name.” The way Caspar said it, it didn’t sound funny.

  “Yeah.”

  Caspar smoked.

  “We got an important job for you, Dubonnet. We’re opening up a sidewalk café outside, and we want to sell beer, wine, and mixed drinks, of course. We’d like you to research that for us. See what we have to do to get our liquor license in place. Do you think you could handle that?”

  “That’s all?”

  “What do you mean, that’s all? Liquor is a big deal. I want you to spend some time on it. Do it right.”

  “Why, sure,” Tubby said. This could be a couple of $2,000 days.

  “We expect you to be reliable and dependable.”

  Tubby nodded.

  “One of the family. Like you said, client satisfaction comes first.”

  Tubby nodded.

  “Okay, enjoy the casino. You’ll like what we got going. Go see Nicole. She knows all about our alcohol permits. She’ll get you started.”

  “I gotcha,” Tubby said.

  Caspar stood up. There were no toujours amours in parting. Passing the office receptionist, Tubby found his own way out.

  He located Nicole in a conference room. Papers and blueprints were spread out on a long table. She was reading something, wearing glasses—which was news to Tubby. She folded up what she was working on and looked up at him.

  “Ready to go to work?” she asked.

  “Let’s see what you got,” he replied, and sat beside her.

  She handed Tubby a folder. “Here are copies of all of our liquor permits. Take it with you. I think you’re supposed to figure out if they cover a sidewalk café or if we need to go back to the Alcohol and Beverage Control Board.”

  “Easy enough,” Tubby said. He put the folder in his briefcase and got up to leave. Nicole blew him a kiss and waved goodbye. She must have forgotten about the coffee.

  CHAPTER 22

  Pastor Green had preached at St. Mary’s American Baptist Church for only two years, and he didn’t yet feel completely in charge of his small congregation. He knew that in the eyes of several of his older members he could probably never fill the shoes of Pastor Jefferson, who had spent over twenty years in the very same pulpit. And because he was barely thirty years old himself he was sometimes a little unsure of the counsel he offered when people came to him with troublesome problems about which he admittedly had no practical experience. It was the younger members of the congregation he felt were on his wave length, and to whom he looked for support in the many difficult tasks of building a church.

  He was especially pleased, therefore, when one of his most active young women, Tania Thompson, presented herself in the church office. After saying a polite hello she asked if he could spare a few minutes to talk.

  “Why yes, sister. Please sit down.” He bumped painfully against the corner of his desk in his haste to offer her a chair. “You don’t have to ask. I’m never too busy to see you. “Tell me,” he said, returning to his side of the desk, but still standing in case she needed something. Water perhaps. A comforting word. “What brings you here today? No trouble in the choir, I hope.”

  Tania s
ang with the St. Mary’s Heavenly Harmonettes, the church’s renowned gospel messengers. Keeping its members from feuding was a constant and worrisome challenge for Pastor Green.

  He was relieved when she said no.

  “Something… personal… then?” he asked, dropping his voice and assuming a more serious expression.

  “Yes, Pastor. Very personal. I have committed a great sin, and I need to feel right with the Lord.”

  “Please tell me what has happened,” Pastor Green implored anxiously.

  So Tania told him the astonishing story of how she had stalked Charlie Van Dyne and finally shot him down. As the tale unwound, Pastor Green’s face underwent dramatic changes. From nods of benign understanding it transformed into genuine horror. By the end it had reshaped into something composed and somber, and, yes, pastoral.

  “What possessed you, sister, to take this into your own hands?” he asked.

  “I wanted justice to be done for once.” Tania was crying. “I was sick and tired of seeing them get away with taking life, anybody’s life they want to. I prayed about it hard, Pastor, and I thought it was right. But now I see that it was just revenge, not justice, I was after. And that makes it a sin, Pastor, doesn’t it?”

  “Before we go any further with this, Sister Thompson, we’re going to pray about it. Come on, down on your knees with me.” He came to her side, and together they knelt on the worn carpet of his study.

  “Lord, You have heard this confession that Sister Thompson has made, and now we are kneeling before You, in Your holy house, to pray for forgiveness. Terrible deeds have been done and blood has been spilled. This innocent child has done the spilling. We know, Lord, that You are a jealous God, that vengeance is Yours, and not for us. Maybe, just maybe, You selected Sister Thompson as Your angel of vengeance. Verily we hope that is the case. If it was not your wish that she did what she did, then, she is repenting, oh Lord, and asking Your forgiveness. Say you are repenting, Sister Thompson.”

  “I am repenting, dear God. Please forgive me.”

  “And Lord, if she was Your intended instrument of Holy justice and Vengeance, then we hope and pray that You will lay your hand upon Sister Thompson and let her feel the healing balm of Your mercy so that she may know peace and wake up in the morning glad that she has done Your bidding. We pray for Your sweet mercy, dear Lord.”

  “I pray for your mercy, Lord.”

  “Forgiveness or mercy, either one, dear God, so that the child may be freed from her torment. Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  Tania gave the pastor a hug and then reached into her purse for a tissue to dry her eyes. Pastor Green helped her up.

  “The Lord never leaves you, sister,” he said, guiding her back to her chair.

  “Thank you so much, Pastor. I feel a great deal better than when I came in.”

  “Well, sister, that’s why I am here.” Pastor Green looked serious, but inside he was bursting with power and joy.

  “There is something else I need to tell you,” Tania said.

  “You might as well go ahead and tell it all.”

  “Some men have tried to hurt me. They came into my home and tried to kill me. I got away, but they tore up my place something awful.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “I suppose so, Pastor, but that’s not what I need your advice with.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “A man helped me. He was a stranger, but he took me in and hid me. He even let me stay at his house until I was ready to go back home. I think maybe I fell in love with him a little.”

  “That’s understandable, sister,” the pastor said, though he was greatly disappointed.

  “Thing is,” Tania said, “he’s white. That runs against my principles.”

  The pastor, too, was disturbed, and he hemmed and hawed a minute to get his emotions in line and his thoughts organized.

  “This is not something we would normally approve of,” he said slowly. His voice had gotten deeper. “It makes for great difficulties. Many a white man has mistreated the black woman. On the other hand, where people truly care about each other there is no black or white.”

  “He’s a lawyer,” Tania said mournfully.

  “More serious than I had feared. This may be very, very hard for the Lord to understand and forgive,” the pastor said solemnly. “You need to be very careful, very careful indeed. Pray about this one, sister. Don’t ever forget to pray.”

  “I won’t ever forget that, Pastor.”

  “And as long as he’s a lawyer, get some help from him. You’re probably going to need some help to stay out of serious trouble over this whole mess.”

  “He’s already done a lot.”

  “Well, let him help you some more. If he doesn’t, we’ve got some good African-American lawyers, too. You got to use these people sometimes. Even though they may work for Caesar. Sometimes God’s children need a lawyer’s help so they can stay free to do the Lord’s work.”

  CHAPTER 23

  You should never be in a hurry at Antoine’s. Let the waiters hurry. There are enough of them. Tubby’s choice was Joe Arnado. He always called Joe ahead of time to make a reservation, and he always liked the table be got. The other thing he liked about Joe was his utter unpretentiousness. While the menu offered “Huitres,” from Joe you got:

  “The oysters are nice today, Mr. Dubonnet. You can get them raw, fried, or some Rockefeller. Any way you like. And the crabmeat is a good starter. We got it lump or with a little etouffée sauce, or we can make it up in a crab cake. However you like it.”

  Tubby was especially fond of Antoine’s appetizers. He loved the Oysters Foch, oysters large and plump covered in a rich brown gravy laced with wine. And he liked the crisp shrimp fritters. He liked the desserts. If he had the time and the appetite, the baked Alaska, its crisp meringue melting with the ice cream, was the stuff of dreams. But best of all was the service. There always seemed to be approximately as many vintage Italian attendants for each guest as there were pieces of silverware beside his plate.

  Judge Hughes was Tubby’s guest today. Their friendship went back to law school. When Alvin Hughes decided to become one of the first blacks to run for a judgeship on the Civil District Court, Tubby had been one of his campaign advisors in what became a locally historic election. Now the roles were reversed, and Tubby banked on the advice the judge so freely gave. For example:

  “I suggest you get the flounder,” the judge advised. “I had it last week and it was very, very good.”

  “I was thinking about the soft-shell crabs, but maybe I’ll go with the flounder.”

  Arnado appeared at the table, trailing servants with water pitchers. He was a big man and had to stoop to take orders. He had put two kids through Loyola on Antoine’s tips.

  “You gentlemen know what entrées you want yet?”

  “Flounder for me, Joe, and could you bring some more of these potato crisps while we wait?”

  “Surely. And you, judge?”

  “Soft-shell crabs, lightly grilled, and pick us out some pretty good wine, please. Mr. Dubonnet is paying.”

  “Okay. The crabs are real big, real fresh today. How about some Pouilly-Fuissé, Mr. Dubonnet?”

  The judge grinned, Tubby nodded, and Joe was gone.

  “You don’t have to rush back, do you?” Tubby asked.

  “Oh, no. I’m done for the day. I had, I think, sixty-three rules on my docket this morning. That’s it for me. Anybody else comes in Mrs. Dobbs will direct to the duty judge.”

  “I don’t see how you keep up with all your cases.”

  “Keeping up with the cases is the lawyer’s job. I just decide them. And I’ve got good clerks. They research everything and tell me what to do. I could handle the job drunk.” That was baloney, Tubby knew. Judge Hughes got reversed less on appeal than just about any other judge in the city.

  “You had any interesting cases lately?” Tubby asked.

  “I had one last week where the lawyer was stru
ck dumb. I’m not kidding. You know Morey Goldfine?”

  “Sure I do. He’s a royal pain in the ass. Good litigator, I guess, if you like obnoxious. He sort of got the better of me in a case by going behind my back to Judge Coker. At least I think he did.”

  “Then you’ll like this. You know how excited he gets?”

  “He’s always excited. He’s full of hot air.” Tubby was down on Morey Goldfine.

  “Yeah, right. So he’s before me with a summary judgment motion, and Ralph Pettus is on the other side. Every time Pettus speaks, Morey is on his feet interrupting. I mean he’s not even objecting, he’s just being rude. I told him to stop it maybe three times, but he can’t quit. He’s building up steam, his face gets all red and his cheeks are pooching out.”

  Judge Hughes tried to do an imitation, and Tubby started laughing.

  “Pettus is just laying out his argument,” the judge resumed, “but I’m watching Morey get ready to explode. Finally he can’t take it no more. He jumps up, scattering his notes everywhere, and he turns around to look at me with his arms spread out like he’s gonna sing and his big mouth wide open. Then he sees I got my hand out like this.” Judge Hughes held up his palm like a cop stopping traffic. “He tries to stop himself, and his face, like, convulses. I tell him to sit down, but he starts pounding himself on the chest. I think he gave himself a heart attack or something. I had to recess court and let him go sit in my chambers for a few minutes. Mrs. Dobbs called a doctor for him. When Morey came out he literally couldn’t talk. He’d locked up his larynx.”

  “Well deserved,” Tubby said. “So what did you do?”

  “I ruled against him and called the next case.”

  Tubby laughed some more.

  “I hear he’s okay now,” the judge added.

  They were surrounded by waiters bringing food and wine. The crew departed as quickly as it had arrived, and fine dining commenced.

  “I haven’t seen you around the courthouse lately,” the judge observed, before he put away a steamy bite of crab, sautéed in garlic butter.

  “I haven’t had to go. I’ve been down to Criminal Court though.”