Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 02 - City of Beads

by Tony Dunbar

  “Yes,” Tubby said.

  “So, old buddy, this conversation is real confidential, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Now it’s show-and-tell time. What has Leo asked you to do for us?”

  “Look at your alcohol permits for the sidewalk café. Nothing very controversial in that, is there?”

  Jake looked puzzled.

  “No, I can’t see anything odd in that, except I thought we had permits out the kazoo.”

  “It sure looks that way to me.”

  “The thing that seems strangest about it, though, is that it was Mr. Caspar who told me to use you as a lawyer.”

  That was a surprise.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Jake said. “It seemed like a good idea to me. I’ve known you for a long time, Tubby, but it’s not my position to decide what law firm to use, so nobody asked my opinion. And I don’t know why Leo wanted you.”

  “Neither do I,” Tubby said.

  “I bring it up because I’m trying to get the lay of the land here.”

  “You’ve got me real curious, too.”

  “There’s another thing. Maybe I ought not to tell you this, but I really think you should know.”

  “So what is it?” Tubby asked.

  “It’s what I needed to check out when we talked yesterday. This is also confidential. The company wants to float a riverboat. They’re looking at several locations to build the dock. All hush-hush, of course.”

  “They want to get the property before word gets out and prices skyrocket, right?”

  “Exactly. But I’m going to tell you because you’re our lawyer. One possible spot is St. Ann Street.”

  “Good location. Right in the French Quarter.”

  “Sure, but that area on the river is subject to about sixteen different leases that will take at least two centuries or an unbelievable amount of payoffs to unwind. And it’s in the domain of the Vieux Carré Commission—not exactly the gambler’s friend. The second is the Tuscany Street wharf.”

  “Up by the ferry landing?”

  “Way past, but that’s right. Better politics—the main thing you got to deal with is the Levee Board, and they’re in the bag but it’s incredibly dangerous. It’s like a magnet. Ships hit that wharf all the time. The Corps of Engineers have even studied it to figure out why. It’s some freak thing with the current. Imagine the work for lawyers when an oil tanker spears a convention full of three thousand gambling orthopedic surgeons and dumps them all into the river.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Tubby said, and smiled.

  “So, Mr. Caspar explains to me after the party is over, he thinks the company should reject those two. There’s a third site he wants me to help him promote. It’s one that some local investors have an interest in—like Joe Caponata, like Sheriff Mulé. You get the picture?”

  “Not yet, but that’s a mighty bad combination.”

  “Now you’re seeing the joke. This is the little secret Leo is letting me in on. If the company picks the third site, I’ll make out like a bandit. If we don’t, I’ll be in the shitter.”

  “Who makes the decision?”

  “Ultimately? The board of directors in New York. But they don’t know beignets from bagels. They just read consulting reports, and we hire the consultants. I’m surprised Mr. Caspar hasn’t hired you, for example.”

  “Well, he hasn’t. What’s the third site?”

  “It’s at the end of Napoleon Avenue, right near the big wharf. It’s got great parking, and the leases are under control.”

  Tubby put his drink down and leaned over the table. The picture was becoming clearer. “Where exactly on the riverfront is this, Jake?”

  “I got a map. You want to see it?”

  “Oh yes,” Tubby said.

  Jake took his briefcase from the chair beside him and unsnapped it. He extracted a file and a snap, which he unfolded on the tabletop so that Tubby could look.

  The area was the Napoleon Avenue wharf. As best as he could tell, the “Big Easy Promenade,” as the boat dock was called on the schematic, was right about where the Export Products shed was now located, and the “Acres of Free Parking” were what used to be the Bayou Disposal truck yard.

  “I noticed the curious connection when you mentioned Bayou Disposal to me,” Jake said.

  “Why is Leo involved with Bayou Disposal?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d say if he is, Joe Caponata is, too.”

  “Look, I’ll see you, Jake. Be careful.”

  “I’m the most careful man alive. Next to you, of course.”

  “Right,” Tubby said.

  It was almost like a mist, the way the world looked through Leo Caspar’s eyes. Coming through the mist were brown faces with square jaws and dark creases for eyes. They drifted in and out, and he had the sensation of being carried and dropped, more than once, but without pain.

  One face stood out. The nose was almost flat. The mouth was very small and the lips were cracked, guarding a little city of rotten and jagged teeth. But Caspar felt no fear. Even when the man stepped back and showed Caspar a hand without fingers, and he recognized it as his own. Even when the man held up an arm and tossed it off to one side, out of the picture, Leo only experienced a twinge of sadness at losing it, but the man was showing him a foot now, and Leo started to feel a little regret.

  Dawn was just breaking. The clouds in the east were glowing a faint pink, and a blue heron stood silently, one-legged, in the shallow pond. The peacefulness of the scene was enhanced by the two fishermen near the far bank quietly baiting their traps. The putt-putt of the trawling motor on their flat-bottomed boat could barely be heard. A smoky mist was rising off the water. The men didn’t speak. With stubs of burning cigarettes stuck in their chapped lips, they carefully went about their work—which was taking the raw chunks of meat and bone, cut up neatly by a band saw, out of a broken ice chest and putting the pieces, one at a time, into the crawfish traps.

  Some of the pieces were juicy. Others looked oddly like fragments of a skull and had hardly any meat on them at all. The men worked slowly down one row and back up the next. Then the ice chest was empty, except for a gory slime on the bottom that would wash away with a hose, and they puttered off toward the dock. The sun was just breaking the horizon. Happy, happy crawfish.

  Nick Nicarro, the Newsman, called Tubby and said he wanted to see him right away. Tubby couldn’t remember Nick ever saying that. Trying to keep his paranoia in check he took himself to the French Quarter and stood in front of Nick’s Royal Street shop.

  Nick waved him in and climbed off his stool behind the counter. He motioned Tubby to follow him back to the corner where all the porno magazines were displayed in plastic wrap so the two could have a private talk, though the only other person in the store was a black gentleman wearing a blue pin-striped suit who was reading the day’s Racing Form.

  “You been in some kind of trouble, or what?” Nick demanded in a hoarse whisper.

  “What do you mean?” Tubby whispered back.

  “There are some guys asking about you. Word’s out you’re gonna get hurt.”

  “What guys?”

  “Fuck if I now. I didn’t see ’em. Mob guys.”

  Tubby looked worried. He was worried.

  “You’ve helped me out of some jams, Tubby, is why I called you. Did you do something to cross Sheriff Mulé?”

  “Huh?”

  “First you ask me about this guy Charlie Van Dyne, who was the sheriff’s boy until he got bumped off. Now people are asking about you.”

  “I thought you said the mob, like Joe Caponata.”

  “In my book, Tubby, Frank Mulé and Joe Caponata are like this.” He clenched his fists together and shook them in front of Tubby’s nose. “You gotta watch ’em both. They’re snakes.”

  “What should I do, Nick?”

  The Newsman’s red-and-green eyes widened in distress. “You’re the lawyer,” he said, as if that meant powerful medicine. “Man, if you don’t
have some bright idea, you’d better leave town.”

  “Okay, well, thanks for the tip, Nick.”

  “Yeah, see you,” Nick whispered, and it seemed like he was now anxious for Tubby to leave the store.

  On the sidewalk outside, Tubby’s fair city seemed scary, just like the Newsman always said it was.

  CHAPTER 35

  Tubby retired to make a plan. He stayed at home for two more days and tried to keep from jumping every time a car passed or a tree limb tapped against the window while he considered the problem. His best move was that he talked Debbie into attending a conference on wilderness preservation in Austin and gave her his credit card number to pay for the trip. Marcos was traveling with her. Tubby studied the newspapers, but there was nothing in them about the events at The Hard Rider. That didn’t mean the wheels weren’t turning. He was afraid for his life. He was afraid for Debbie’s safety. Sitting around was giving him chest pains.

  On Wednesday morning he cut himself shaving, and his frustration got the better of him. He threw his razor down and forced his mind to engage. It boiled down to two choices. With Leo missing, either he could confront the arrogant, bristling sheriff who had already kicked him out of his office, or he could try to make peace with the evil Mafia boss whom he knew only from the newspapers.

  The idea of calling Detective Kronke and placing the whole mess in the hands of the police crossed his mind fleetingly, but, he asked himself, what cop was going to lay a hand on Mulé? They don’t have the push, he told the face in the mirror. Squaring his jaw and summoning an angry glare to reassure himself, he chose Caponata.

  Mr. Mike said he knew where Caponata lived, but he asked questions that Tubby didn’t want to answer. He possibly could have set up a meeting, but it would have looked all wrong. Caponata would think he was doing a big favor, and he would remember Mike for all the wrong things when he heard what Tubby had to say. Tubby didn’t want to tarnish Mr. Mike’s golden years with a pissed-off Joe Caponata.

  So he called Jake again. His friend’s voice on the phone had a quiver to it that was new. The ad man’s glowing hello was missing a few kilowatts.

  The sands were shifting rapidly, Jake said. The hounds were after fresh meat, know what I mean? The butt slicer was working overtime.

  “Heard anything from Mr. Caspar?” Tubby asked innocently.

  “Not a peepster. He’s gone, slick as grease, sight unseen, transferred out west, they say. No farewell party, his desk is cleaned out, new man’s coming in tomorrow. It’s party time here, Tub.”

  “And Nicole?”

  “Nicole had a car accident, busted her nose, slight concussion, her face is all blue. She’ll be out awhile. And me, Tubby, ol’ Jake is doing fine. It’s the white-knuckle express at the old casino.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Jake.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you into my happy family, Tubby. Nobody’s been too happy lately.”

  “Not to worry. I would have had to meet the family anyway, sometime.”

  “Well, if anything strange should happen to me, I give you my pool, my wife, my mortgage, and my kids. You’ll take care of them, won’t you? See that the kids finish Jesuit? You can call them all Dubonnets.”

  “I’ll try to make Beth a good husband. Look, Jake, have you got a phone number for Joe Caponata?”

  “Jesus, Tubby, you’re the suicidal one, aren’t you? When did I meet you? Can we pretend we don’t know each other?”

  “Hey, man. Stress is fun, remember? That’s what you used to tell me. You got a number?”

  He did. And Tubby called it. Caponata wouldn’t come to the phone, but after Tubby uttered some fairly direct passwords to the woman who answered, the old man invited Tubby to drop by the house that afternoon, say three o’clock.

  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.r />
  “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.”