Thrill Kill

by Don Bruns

  The two of them stood at the exit, Bavely ready to walk to her car, Solange ready to walk to her home at the rear of her shop. The craziness was right outside the door, the late-afternoon crowd already drunk and revved up. And the craziness was right in front of them, staring in their faces. The voodoo lady hesitated.

  ‘It’s your choice, Kathy. Do what I suggest or don’t. In the morning what I suggest should be in the past. Either you did or you didn’t. I don’t want it to interfere with our relationship. Please. This is your decision but I’m asking you not to judge me for what I say or do, or ask you to do.’

  ‘Solange, damn girl, just tell me.’

  ‘Go home tonight and take a piece of paper. I want you to write in pencil because ink may run.’

  ‘Write what?’

  ‘Simply write Bad Vibrations.’

  ‘Oh, Solange, let’s stop right now. You’re making this awkward.’

  ‘Soak the paper in rum. Any rum will do.’

  ‘I can’t do that. Now you’re having fun at my expense, I know.’

  ‘Never. Never,’ the voodoo lady said. ‘I know this seems weird, but I never kid around about something like this. Put the paper in a bowl and light a match. Burn the message.’

  ‘Solange, please.’ Kathy was shaking her head wildly from side to side. ‘You know I feel really uncomfortable with all this.’

  ‘Sprinkle the ashes outside your entrance.’

  ‘You’re really serious. Jesus, you’re really serious. This is crazy. You are just plain crazy.’

  ‘Do this and no harm will come to you. I feel certain.’

  ‘Look, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow. Let’s pretend this never happened, OK? I mean I can’t do that.’

  ‘This has happened. And you’re right, it seems very strange telling you this. But it should never color our friendship. I care about you, Kathy. And by extension, care about those you are involved with.’

  Kathy took a deep breath, her cheeks red and her limbs trembling. ‘Thank you for that. I’m just very uncomfortable talking about these things. Like, religion or politics, I’d rather avoid the conversation. I hope you understand.’

  ‘I understand. I’ll say a prayer for you tonight, and we’ll talk in a couple of days. About something else.’

  A couple of days seemed a long way off. The afternoon sun threw haunting shadows across her path as Solange trudged down the streets in the Quarter, as familiar to her as the canvas map where she cast bones and told people’s fortunes, yet as foreign as an unfamiliar land she had never visited. Kathy Bavely was in the middle of some serious trouble. What kind of trouble Solange didn’t know, but serious trouble. And all Solange could do was offer advice. Strange as it may be, she was positive her solution would take care of her friend’s imminent danger. A message dipped in rum and burned in a bowl, then sprinkled where the spirits would enter. That should stop any threat. And she was certain there was a very serious threat.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Three patrol cars, blue and red lights flashing, lined up in front of the bushes and palms on Canal. Uniformed officers, guns drawn, surrounded one bush. They’d driven stakes into the ground and stretched yellow tape around the area. As Archer pulled up he wondered if this wasn’t overkill. No one except the killer was likely to traipse through bushes that were simply decorative landscaping. The murder had already happened. Now the officers were just watching over the spot where the killer may have dropped the weapon. Or urinated. Overkill. He smiled in spite of himself.

  Flashing his badge, he stepped over the tape and looked down into the dense foliage. Levy walked up and nodded at the bushes, which stood about three feet high.

  ‘That’s the bush, Q. Strange place to dump the weapon.’

  ‘If it’s in there.’

  Pulling on a latex glove and taking off his sport coat, Archer spread the tight branches. Levy pulled the branches from the other side until there was an opening that Archer could reach through. He lowered his hand and began gently feeling for an object. If the knife was there, it would be well covered.

  A crowd of tourists stood on the sidewalk across the street, straining to see what the commotion was about.

  ‘I’m looking for something on the ground, right?’

  Levy nodded. ‘I would think. He dropped it, and either it’s in the branches or on the ground.’

  ‘We can cut the damned thing down, but I would think I can find it like this.’

  Archer kept feeling.

  ‘Whoa.’

  ‘What, you found it?’

  ‘Feels like a stump where someone may have cut another …’

  ‘Another what? Bush? Branch?’

  ‘No.’ Archer grimly smiled. ‘He stuck the blade in the dirt. It’s the knife handle, I’m sure of it.’ The detective pulled the weapon from the ground, a four-and-a-half-inch-blade Elkridge sheath knife, and proudly displayed it to Levy and the other officers. Dirt covered the blade.

  ‘Gentlemen, may I present to you the knife that killed Trevor Parent.’

  There was a light round of applause.

  ‘And the city of New Orleans thanks you,’ Levy said, ‘for not destroying their lovely landscaping.’ He let the branches go back together and handed Archer a plastic bag. The detective dropped the knife into the bag and smiled at the uniformed men.

  ‘Thank you, officers. There’s nothing left to see. You can all go back to your regular assigned duties.’

  There were some chuckles and laughs and in sixty seconds the yellow crime tape was gone and the vehicles had dispersed. There was a multitude of crimes that needed tending to.

  ‘The lab is going to have their work cut out,’ Levy said.

  ‘The killer, scar-face, was hoping the dirt would destroy the evidence. Blood, fingerprints …’ Archer stripped the glove from his right hand.

  ‘We’ve got a pretty good lab.’ Levy looked at the knife. There may be blood still on that blade.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Archer said.

  Delroy Houston rubbed a quarter for luck. Normally he made his own luck, but he could use a little help this time. Getting rid of a rival gang was tricky business. Sitting at the bar, ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ by AC/DC rocking the room, he watched the stripper Mysty swirl on the pole, grinding her G-stringed crotch into the metal. Those brown deep penetrating eyes with their long lashes looked out from the stage and stared into his. Her tiny five-foot body coiled around the chrome phallic symbol like a snake and the nipples on her small breasts stood out like hard diamonds. Houston had a fondness for those nipples. They’d spent quite a bit of time in his mouth.

  The name Jeffy Arbaca definitely wasn’t a stripper’s name. Mysty was a much better choice. He’d suggested that she take that name. The large black man put a hand in his pocket, feeling the glassine bag of dark heroin. In a couple of hours she’d be chasing the dragon, and for that luxury Delroy would get his cock sucked and then have his choice of orifices.

  His cell phone buzzed and he checked the number. Case Blount.

  ‘I’m a little tied up at the moment, Case.’

  ‘So am I, Delroy. But there are two things we need to discuss.’

  The music was loud, lead singer Brian Johnson’s voice blasting through the large room, telling him the walls were shaking and the earth was quaking. He could almost feel it. And the last thing he wanted to deal with was Blount. The fucking employment counselor.

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘Word is, this afternoon police found a knife on Canal Street.’

  Houston ducked outside to get away from the loud music. He was hit with a blast of chilled air and the blare of a Dixieland band playing just up the street. He thought about Blount up in his cozy office, while he was down here on the street.

  ‘Why should that interest me?’

  ‘Good question. It seems it may be the knife used to murder Trevor Parent, the adoption attorney.’

  ‘You had Nasta Mafia placin’ some of those
unwed mothers of his, if I remember right.’

  ‘Delroy, we can go back and forth on this but you need to know. If that knife is identified, the blowback could be bad for both of us.’

  ‘What’s the second thing you want to discuss?’

  ‘I hear things, you know?’

  ‘From your ivory tower? What do you hear?’

  ‘Things,’ Blount said. Houston could detect Blount taking a long swallow of something. Must be that whiskey in his desk.

  ‘I gotta come through this phone, grab you by your chubby neck and choke it out of you, fat man?’

  ‘You’re taking the turf war to a new level.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Word on the street is you’re handing over Nasta Mafia to a reporter. Somebody from your organization set a little meeting up a couple of days ago and Warhead Solja is set to spill some secrets about our employment opportunities. We’ve been over this, Delroy. It’s not healthy to have your group talking.’

  ‘Real simple. Cut the mothahfuckahs out,’ Houston said. This lily-white bastard seemed to have a connection to everything.

  ‘Can we have a powwow?’

  ‘Powwow? You gotta bring race into it?’

  ‘I didn’t know you had Indian in your blood,’ Blount said.

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’

  ‘A face-to-face talk. Talk about what’s fair. Talk about how we might divide some of the responsibilities.’

  ‘I don’t like it, Case.’ Houston looked back at Woody’s, picturing the former Jeffy Arbaca straddling some poor sucker’s lap and grinding her pussy on his crotch. When she’d notice an erection, she would jump up sticking her hand out, and with a heavy Spanish accent she’d say, ‘Job well done, eh?’ More often than not she got an extra ten or twenty. Bien hecho.

  ‘What if we negotiated your role in this business. What if we moved you and your lieutenants up to management level?’

  Houston shivered as a gust of wind caught his jacket.

  ‘So, Nasta would work for me?’

  ‘I said we could discuss it. You’d get a cut of their dealings and we’d have peace. No more murders, no more talking to reporters.’

  ‘Let me think about it, Blount. It might be worth discussing.’

  ‘Great. Let’s just hope the knife doesn’t lead to anything.’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, man.’

  ‘One more thing. I think you need to pull your guy as that reporter’s contact. Stop the story until we have a chance to talk to Nasta Mafia. If one of your guys spills too much and we have to shut down operations, we’re all out of a job, Delroy.’

  Houston held the phone to his ear with his shoulder while he lit a cigarette. Point well taken. If he was going to be management, then he’d have to start acting like management. He took a deep lung-full of smoke.

  ‘I’ll pull him off, and we’ll make sure the reporter doesn’t go anywhere with the story, OK?’

  ‘Thanks, Delroy. Whatever it takes. I mean, within reason.’

  ‘Now, when do you want to have this powwow? The one where we have some authority and we start getting a cut?’

  ‘I’ll be back to you. By tomorrow, latest. And, Delroy, we’re just negotiating. I can’t make promises before we have that meeting, understand?’

  ‘Better than you can imagine, cracker.’

  Houston walked inside but Mysty had disappeared. Maybe she was in a private room, giving a tourist the tour he’d come for, or maybe she was in the dressing room getting ready for her next performance.

  The blonde with long extensions and an ass to die for walked by and he reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder.

  ‘Alexia Chantel, right? Sexy Lexy.’

  She removed his hand from her body, squinting, looking him straight in the eyes.

  ‘Asshole who touched me without my permission, right?’

  ‘Hey, bitch, be respectful.’

  ‘Why? Everybody else here pays for the privilege. What makes you so fucking important?’

  Cocky little bitch. He’d be happy to teach her how to be a little more mellow. She could use some toning down.

  ‘I can hook you up with some top-grade H, little girl. Smooth you out a little bit. You could use some smoothing out.’

  ‘I can point to some of the girls you’ve smoothed out,’ the stripper said. ‘I don’t think there’s much future in that.’

  ‘I think we need to work together, little girl. You see I can make things easy for you, or I can make things rough. Do you really want to go there?’

  The girl gritted her teeth. ‘I’m a stripper on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Not the most glamorous job in this city. I dance for assholes like you and give lap dances to married johns from Hoboken, New Jersey, for forty or fifty bucks a pop. If they pop, maybe more. They try to force oral and they tend to get a little rough. One even burned me with a cigarette.’ She shot fire from her eyes. ‘This is my present and my future, you bastard. It’s what I’ve got to look forward to. So tell me, how are you going to make things rougher for me? What the hell are you going to do?’

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘Oh, I know who you are. I know what you do to your customers, your little girls. I’m not one of them, Mr Houston.’

  He smiled. She did know who he was. As confident as she sounded he detected a little tremor in her voice. He’d like bending her over a table and …

  ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.’ She motioned toward the stage. ‘And, don’t touch me again unless you’re willing to pay the going—on second thought, Mr Houston, don’t ever touch me again.’

  ‘Sweetheart, you’re fuckin’ with the wrong man.’

  ‘No, that’s one thing I won’t be doing.’

  ‘There are things I can do, little lady. There are some real bad things I can do. Trust me, bitch. Trust me.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  His phone rang at two a.m. Like someone who knew he spent sleepless nights and would probably be awake, tossing and turning. They were correct. So if they knew him that well, he might as well take the call.

  ‘Archer.’

  ‘Q, it’s Tom Lyons.’

  ‘Two a.m. Tom?’

  ‘It’s three a.m. here. It’s Detroit, amigo. Time difference, remember?’

  ‘Oh, three a.m. Well, you’re already at work then, right?’

  ‘Funny, Archer. Listen. Sometimes it’s easier to call when the rest of the world is fast asleep, you know?’

  ‘I get that, Tom.’

  ‘We’ve got Mercer on a cell phone talking to Jim Lasick, a drug cop.’

  ‘You’ve got him? What does that mean?’

  ‘Lasick has just been arrested. An hour ago. Two a.m. my time. He’s a drug cop gone rogue. We set him up and made the bust square and fair. Jim Lasick offered coke to an undercover. He’s been stealing from the evidence room. So, anyway, we’ve got his phone and there’s a call – well, several calls – that tie him to Bobby Mercer. One of the calls was recorded. Mercer says … wait, let me read it verbatim. Mercer says, “Lasick. Archer has been ratting out blue. Now I don’t know if Archer implicated you or not, but we’re sending him a very strong message. Trust me, the son of a bitch won’t be pushing his agenda much longer. Archer’s wife won’t know what hit her.”’

  Archer was quiet, hearing exactly what he’d suspected and understanding it meant absolutely nothing. He knew what hit her. A car driven by Bobby Mercer, and it robbed him of the most precious thing in his life. The message told it all, and yet it said nothing. The comment wasn’t enough to bring charges, he was sure of that. No matter how damning it might sound.

  ‘You heard me, Quentin?’

  ‘Hey, Tom. Thanks. Damn, it’s not easy to hear. But … maybe that and about twenty other pieces of evidence might clinch the case.’

  ‘Buddy, we’ve got a prosecutor on our side. She wants to nail this guy as much as I do. She thinks this, added to other pieces,
might cement the case.’

  ‘I hope so, Tom. Damn, I hope so.’

  ‘So you’re still free to come up here, bring your phone and talk to our prosecutor? I think we’re going to be calling you in the very near future.’

  Cases piled on cases. The thrill kill murders possibly partially solved. More work than he’d ever had in Detroit.

  ‘You need me, yes. Of course I’ll be there. Denise is number one priority. You guys are great.’

  ‘Lots of shit in the Crescent City?’

  ‘I could use you and your entire crew. Things are really rough.’

  ‘You working on the thrill kills?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, the murders with the cans of gas?’

  ‘You know about that? Yeah, I’m lead.’

  ‘Oh, shit, it’s been in the Free Press for a week. You’re national, my friend.’

  ‘Not the first time.’ National news about the Detroit cop who turned on his fellow officers and his family. That had not been fun.

  ‘Detective Lyons, I can’t tell you what your support means. You and your crew. You knew Denise, you …’

  ‘I did, Q. Of course. I thought the world of her. And you think I’d work this for just you? You are delusional, Quentin. I work it in the memory of your lovely wife, buddy.’ He chuckled then was silent. Finally, ‘I love you both. you know that.’

  Archer felt tears welling up. He was silent. Maybe for too long.

  ‘Q?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He took a slow breath. ‘You’re something else, Lyons. You tell the guys … well, you tell ’em, OK?’

  ‘I will.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  It was early in the morning when Delroy Houston met up with Dushane White. They coordinated their rendezvous, hooking up at Krystal Burger on Bourbon Street across from the Hustler Club. Neon signs and cheap food. Choosing a corner table on the second of three floors, Houston poured cheap Kentucky bourbon from a silver flask into the two cups of black coffee in front of them. They each ordered four tiny burgers, juicy and the perfect meal for a long night on the street.