by Tony Dunbar
“What you got?”
“Oh, a kid accused of stealing a motorcycle. He didn’t do it, but I can’t seem to get any consideration out of the district attorney.”
“They hear about innocent perpetrators all the time.”
“I know, but this kid is truly innocent.”
“Who’s your judge?”
“Calabrissi.”
“He’s running for reelection.”
“So what?”
“Think about it.” The judge patted his lips with his napkin.
“You’re probably right.” Tubby sighed.
“So how’s your love life?”
“Well, at least I have one,” Tubby said.
“Really? Tell me more.” The judge broke off a piece of French bread to mop up some melted butter.
“There’s a beautiful woman interested in me. She’s got all her teeth, a good job, everything a man could want.”
“Attaboy. She met your daughters yet?”
“No, we’re not exactly that far along.”
They ate in silence for a minute.
“Tubby, correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t seem to be as excited about this relationship as would seem to be appropriate for a man of your dubious attractiveness and advancing years.”
“You got that right. The thing is… well, this is a little bit of a delicate topic. There’s another lady I am also sort of interested in.”
“Aha,” the judge said encouragingly.
“The thing is, the other lady is black.”
“Oh, ho.” The judge laughed loudly enough to startle other diners in the vicinity. “You have tasted the famous…”
“Please don’t say brown sugar,” Tubby interrupted.
“I was going to say milk chocolate,” Hughes concluded benignly.
“This is serious, Al. It’s a new thing for me, and for her, too. And I haven’t tasted anything yet.”
“Tubby, why should it make the slightest difference what her race is?”
“It doesn’t, so far. But if we get to know each other better I just wonder if, I don’t know, certain biases might come out.”
“Son, the thing to do is to get those biases to march right out, if you got ’em, and then get rid of them. Don’t be a chicken about this.”
“What if it was your daughter?”
“To be honest, I’d rather she marry a black man because it would be easier all around. But the main thing is for her to marry a good man. You should try harder to be happy, Tubby. You worry too much. Follow your heart.”
“I hear you,” Tubby said.
“Also, I certainly understand your dilemma. Since so many of your people have moved out of town, there are not that many white girls around to pick from anymore.”
“Sad, but true,” Tubby said.
CHAPTER 24
Tubby called Cherrylynn to get his messages. There weren’t many. His client Adrian, also known as Monster Mudbug, had called. Also, one Bijan Botaswati had left a number.
“It’s pretty interesting about him, boss. I didn’t do too well at the Levee Board,” she reported tentatively.
“Why not? What happened?”
“Well, it took a long time to find someone to help me. Then I didn’t know the correct description of the property where any of the companies on the list were. They have some big maps, and one man helped me find the areas I was interested in. Did you know Bayou Disposal is close to Mr. Aucoin’s shop, Export Products?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Well, it is. Anyway, I ran out of time, and I have to go back, but he did help me figure out that there’s another company on Twink Beekman’s list that leases a place right next to Bayou Disposal.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s called Multitronica, and guess what.”
“What?”
“I just checked with the corporations division of the secretary of state, and the incorporator of Multitronica is also Bijan Botaswati.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah, and I found out that Cargo Planners has closed up shop. The man told me that Bayou Disposal is still in business, but it has moved somewhere. They are no longer there. They both assigned their leases to a company called Ship Ahoy.”
“Let me guess.”
“Yes, sir. Its incorporator is Mr. Botaswati. What does it mean?”
“It probably means he’s a nominee for other people who don’t want their names known.”
“Why would he let them use his name?”
“‘They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they have found no fault. They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt,’” Tubby said mildly. “Kipling.”
“Right, boss,” Cherrylynn said, and hung up.
Tubby called Twink Beekman and told him what little he had learned and the interesting coincidence that a French Quarter tavern keeper and souvenir purveyor seemed strangely involved with several possible river polluters. Twink found it all most suspicious and, hinting at dark conspiracies, said he would try to locate where the nefarious Bayou Disposal had disappeared to.
Nothing like a mystery to get the juices flowing. Tubby poked Bijan Botaswati’s number into the phone, and a female answered, “Orleans Records, Tapes, and T-Shirts, Julie speaking. May I help you?”
Tubby asked for Mr. Botaswati. Julie wanted to know who was calling, and he told her.
In a minute a thickly accented voice said, “Hello.”
“Mr. Botaswati?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Tubby Dubonnet, and I’m an attorney.” Tubby generally called himself a lawyer, like to regular people and juries, but to foreigners or someone from California he always said attorney. “I have an important proposition to discuss with you. I have clients in Lahore who have asked me to contact you.”
“Who are these clients?”
“I am afraid I cannot tell you that on the telephone, but I think you would find the proposition very intriguing. It involves a lot of money. I suggest that we meet.”
“Okay. I can meet with you. When?”
“The sooner the better.”
“You could come here to my shop right now There is a place we can talk.”
“Very good,” Tubby said. He got the address on Decatur Street and hung up the phone. What did he think he was doing? Tubby asked himself—why go around meddling in the affairs of a local businessman who was, no doubt, entitled to his little secrets? Because, at that moment, a walk to the French Quarter struck him as much more interesting than looking into the alcoholic beverage permits of Casino Mall Grande.
He noticed the strand of glass beads where he had tossed them on his desk. Idly, he draped them over the shade of his lamp. They came alive and sent blue flashes around the room, so he left them there.
Julie the clerk was waiting on a crew of customers when Tubby walked in, big people in short pants buying New Orleans T-shirts for Mary and Ted and Aunt Rena back home in Ohio. He waited politely while she rang up her sale and got momentarily engrossed in a rack of postcards of semi-naked men and women in outrageous March Gras masks posing on wrought-iron balconies and under famous French Quarter street signs.
“May I help you?” Julie asked brightly.
‘I talked to you earlier. I’m Mr. Dubonnet, and I’m here to see Mr. Botaswati.”
She told him to wait a moment please, and she relayed the message on a telephone.
“He’ll be right here. Can I show you anything while you wait?”
He stared at a glass case full of rubber sex toys, joke condoms, a baseball cap with a foam alligator on top, a whole wall of ceramic clown faces.
“No, I think I’ll just browse. Does Mr. Botaswati own many shops?”
“Oh, yes sir. He owns another T-shirt shop on Canal Street, and a bar called The Hard Rider on Burgundy, and…”
A tall, very erect, dark-skinned man entered through the plastic strips that took the place of a door. He had a plentiful mustach
e and very intense eyebrows and gave the impression of a senior military officer in a colonial horse cavalry.
“Yes, and you are Mr. Dubonnet?” he asked.
“Mr. Botaswati.” Tubby extended his hand, and Mr. Botaswati gave it a limp shake.
“This way, please.” He led the way around the curtain to the back of the store. “You will watch the front?” he asked Julie, and she said she would.
The office was functional. More room was given to racks of clothes and cardboard boxes of merchandise than to the desk where Tubby and Botaswati talked.
“You said you had a proposition for me,” the host began.
“Are you the same Bijan Botaswati who owns Bayou Disposal?” Tubby asked.
Botaswati looked confused. “I have many interests,” he said. “I could not tell you if that is one or not.”
“I believe it is one.”
“So what?” Botaswati asked, and shrugged.
“I have been asked to bring a lawsuit to have Bayou Disposal stop dumping chemicals into the river.”
“What are you talking about?” Botaswati was growing agitated. “What does this have to do with clients of yours in Lahore?”
“Nothing,” Tubby said, “I made them up. I wanted to meet the man responsible for these companies that are possibly polluting the river.”
“You made them up? Fantastic. You should come in my store with such a trick. Responsible? I am responsible for nothing. This disposal company is somebody else’s concern. It does not even have a lease anymore on the river. It is gone. And I want you gone from my store.”
“It is your concern if it has violated any laws. If someone else truly owns the company, you should tell me and protect yourself.”
“I will tell you nothing. These are big people. Very much bigger than you. Now you get out of my shop.” He stood up and gestured for Tubby to do the same.
He clucked and fretted until Tubby was outside on the sidewalk. Julie smiled and waved goodbye. She started to tell him to Have a Nice Day, but her boss growled at her and she shut up.
CHAPTER 25
Broussard looked at his big hands, or out of the window, or at the painting on the wall behind Tubby’s head. Everywhere but at Tubby. He had on baggy jeans, rough leather work boots, and he kept nervously rolling and unrolling the sleeves of his blue work shirt, exposing a tattoo of a coiled dragon. He had his hair pulled back in a ponytail, though he looked close to Tubby’s age. He had come to Tubby’s office at Edith Aucoin’s request, bringing with him copies of the last contracts of Export Products. Tubby was trying to find out the status of each job, and when it would be over with, but it was slow going.
“You were Mr. Aucoin’s foreman, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Broussard said to the painting, in careful, Cajun-spiced American.
“Are you still keeping a full crew working?”
“No. Down to two.”
“Are you going to be able to finish up each of these jobs?”
“Oh sure. It’s hard, but we’re gon’ do it.”
“Okay, like this one—‘Shipment fifty thousand gallons, f.o.b. San Salvador.’ When will that be finished?”
“Monday or Tuesday, latest.”
“Who is picking up the barge?”
“Towboat.”
“What company?”
“Could be any company.”
“How do you know which one?”
“Whichever shows up.”
“How do you know they’re entitled to take the oil?”
“Why else would dey want it?”
It took Tubby about an hour to realize that he really did not care how the business operated because it would be wrapped up in a week or so and Broussard had it under control. He sent the foreman on his way.
Fifteen minutes later, while he was organizing the papers on his desk, Cherrylynn told him the security man downstairs wanted to speak with him urgently. He picked up the phone.
“Mr. Dubonnet?”
“Yes, Carl. What is it?”
“There was some kind of workman asking where your office was earlier. Did he come to see you?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you ought to know he’s been shot right here in the elevator.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir. Shot dead. We got the elevators blocked down here. The police are on the way over.”
“I’ll be right down.”
Sirens were going off in the elevator hall, and it took a minute to ascertain that everything but the freight elevator had been shut off. It finally answered Tubby’s insistent summons, and he descended to the first floor. When he stepped out he found that he was within the area cordoned off by the building’s security people, who were holding back a growing crowd of secretaries, lawyers, and accountants all trying to get to their offices.
The doors of all the cars gaped open, and the computer voice in each one repeated mindlessly, over and over, “Do not be alarmed. Service is temporarily interrupted. It will be restored shortly. Do not be alarmed….”
Carl, the guard he said hello to each morning, was standing in front of one of the cars. He stepped aside to give Tubby a look.
Broussard was sitting against the polished walnut back wall of the car with his legs spread out in front of him. There was a small red hole in his left temple, and his eyes stared at the ceiling as if still avoiding human contact. The blood on his shoulder and here and there around the elevator still glistened.
“Jesus,” Tubby said.
“The first lady who saw him fainted,” Carl said. “She’s in the office. The elevator went up and down a couple more times before we stopped it. We got reports from every floor in the building. I think there’s quite a few people upstairs who are gonna be afraid to ride the elevator again.”
“Stand back.” He, heard behind him the first policemen coming onto the scene. He spotted Kathy Jeansonne trying to get through the security crew. He could see Detective Kronke bringing up the rear.
Here we go again, he thought.
CHAPTER 26
It was late when Tubby got back to the office. Just to get it over with, and to make Detective Kronke happy, he had gone down to the police station and had recounted, in numbing detail, everything Broussard had said during his visit to the office. Kronke had thought it all quite peculiar, but he had treated Tubby with respect.
He was glad, however, that he had decided against going straight home, because Tania called. Cherrylynn asked her to wait while she saw if he was in, but he immediately picked up the phone. She said she wanted to talk to him in person. He said not at the office, and after they tossed some ideas back and forth they settled on Mike’s Bar.
As he was saying goodbye to Cherrylynn, Twink Beekman also checked in. When Tubby’s daughters were little and asked him what he did for a living, Tubby said, “I just talk on the phone.” This was one of those days when he wished it were true.
“I’ve tracked down Bayou Disposal, Mr. D. They’ve set up shop on Highway 39 way out past Chalmette. I think it’s all the way into Plaquemines Parish.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“I just picked up the phone and called their number in the phone book.”
“Oh, good thinking.”
“I’m going to drive down there myself. Maybe take Debbie. We’ll check it out.”
“Just the two of you?”
“Sure, Mr. D. Listen, I have a fiancée and everything. I’ll be on good behavior.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that, Twink. I was thinking it might be a little dangerous. You know, out in the parish people don’t like investigators snooping around.”
“Have no fear. I’ll take care of everything.”
“I’m sure you can, Twink. Still, I’d like to send one of my associates along with you. I’d feel better.”
“That’s fine, too. You’re the lawyer.”
And the father, you dipstick, Tubby thought to himself.
Tania arrived at Mike’s B
ar before Tubby did and she was greeted warmly by Mr. Mike. He didn’t actually get up from his chair, but he made his nephew get up and give her his seat at Mike’s table, where a couple of sportsmen were cutting for high card.
“Look who’s here,” he said. “Little Orphan Annie in from the cold again.”
“I brought back your wife’s coat,” she said. “I had it cleaned.”
“You should have kept it. It looks a lot better on you. So who’s chasing you this time?”
“Nobody, I hope. I’m supposed to meet Mr. Dubonnet here.”
“Tubby’s coming over? Good, ’cause I need to speak to him. How about a drink? You want something to drink?”
She said no, but finally settled on a rum and Coke because it was a special occasion, Mr. Mike said.
Tubby got buzzed in and got a loud reception from Mr. Mike, too. He was served the same drink, and an earful from Mr. Mike. It seems Ernie had been found, hiding out in a “cabana,” Mr. Mike said, in the Atchafalaya swamp. And guess what! The whole $55,000 had gone into video poker. Who would think it was possible to lose that much. The cousins were putting Ernie to work to pay Mike back, but that would take years. What a family.
Finally Tubby was permitted to adjourn with Tania to a table in the corner where they could talk.
“It’s nice to see you again,” Tubby said, sipping his fizzy drink. He put his elbows on the table and leaned a little closer to her. He did not feel like telling her about the shooting in his building.
“Yes, it’s nice to see you,” she said.
“You left my house in rather a hurry.”
“I had to get back to work, and I knew eventually I had to face up to my own house again.”
“Have you got things straightened up?”
“Pretty much. There were some important things I had to throw away. You mustn’t get too attached to things.”
“There hasn’t been any further trouble? No threats?”
“No, but I did think a car was following me yesterday when I drove home from work.”
“What do you have that these guys want?”
She took her time. “You said once you were not my lawyer, but I wonder if I can hire you to help me.”
“I suppose so,” Tubby said. “Why don’t you tell me what the trouble is.”
