by J. Paul Drew
“Well, I got to tithe, of course. And after that, I’m gon’ see me a lawyer, set up foundations for the kids’ education and everything. Maybe invest a little, buy Sara Sue a new weddin’ ring. She had to pawn her old one, you know.”
“That’s great, Clarence. Good luck to you.”
It should have been a very uplifting phone call, a real boost to the sagging spirit, a happy ending to a tawdry tale of human greed and degradation. Why did it have to remind me that some people are no damn good? I’ll tell you why: because some people are no damn good.
The End, Yours Truly Paul Mcdonald
Dedication
For Jon Carroll, Paul’s mentor
Acknowledgments
The author’s sincerest thanks to Bob Hirst and Michael Frank of the Bancroft Library, to Todd Axelrod of the American Museum of Historical Documents, and to my long-suffering Virginia City companions, Brian and Aliza Rood.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
HUCKLEBERRY FIEND was written in 1986 and first published a year later, a time of primitive phone communications. In those dark days, you had to ask people for their numbers, you had to use pay phones if you weren’t at home, you put up with all sorts of inconveniences you may have noticed in the book.
Also at that time, for all anyone knew, the original Huck Finn holograph— the part that wasn’t in the Buffalo library, was lost forever. I willed it into existence for my own purposes and also invented one other thing. Having no idea such a thing existed, I postulated for the book that Michelangelo might have made and worked from a small model for his statue of David that eventually fell into the hands of a collector of rare objects. Sure enough, that very object was found in 1986, giving me goose bumps.
But that was nothing compared to the frisson I experienced when the Huck Finn holograph was found!
When I wrote Huckleberry Fiend, the missing manuscript, unbeknownst to Twain scholars, was languishing in a trunk in someone’s attic— in other words lost in circumstances very much like the ones I imagined for the book.
My thought was that it would likely be in a piece of old Clemens furniture, but it turned out Clemens had actually sent the entire manuscript to the Buffalo library, whereupon a library benefactor, James Gluck, evidently took part of it home to read and possibly died before he returned it. Talk about slipping through the cracks! Once again life imitated art (or at least this book) when one of Gluck’s granddaughters found it in 1991 and gave it back to the library.
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The Paul Macdonald Series
TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE
HUCKLEBERRY FIEND
Also by BooksBnimble:
The Skip Langdon Series
(in order of publication)
NEW ORLEANS MOURNING
THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ
JAZZ FUNERAL
DEATH BEFORE FACEBOOK
(formerly NEW ORLEANS BEAT)
HOUSE OF BLUES
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
CRESCENT CITY CONNECTION
(formerly CRESCENT CITY KILL)
82 DESIRE
MEAN WOMAN BLUES
The Rebecca Schwartz Series
DEATH TURNS A TRICK
THE SOURDOUGH WARS
TOURIST TRAP
DEAD IN THE WATER
OTHER PEOPLE’S SKELETONS
The Talba Wallis Series
LOUISIANA HOTSHOT
LOUISIANA BIGSHOT
LOUISIANA LAMENT
P.I. ON A HOT TIN ROOF
As well as:
WRITING YOUR WAY: THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL TRACK
NEW ORLEANS NOIR (ed.)
And don’t miss ALWAYS OTHELLO, a Skip Langdon story, as well as the brand new short story, PRIVATE CHICK, which asks the question, “Is this country ready for a drag queen detective?” More info at www.booksbnimble.com.
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About the Author
J. Paul Drew is an itinerant righter-of-wrongs who began his post-graduate life as a smuggler of exotic birds in the jungles of Colombia. Because of his facility with languages, Harvard-trained erudition, and ability to think on his feet, he was recruited at an early age by the CIA, where he served his country heroically until a dust-up in Afghanistan permanently blew his cover.
After that, he played lead guitar in a rock band until he was able to amass a sufficient fortune to support his expansive lifestyle. He speaks seven languages, has unparalleled martial arts skills, is handy with a knife (or other weapon--it would be unwise to try anything), and is always on hand when there’s trouble, much like Jack Reacher, from whom he’s barely discernible, except for being blessedly free of neuroses about possessions. To the contrary, he owns many splendid domiciles, all hung with magnificent art collections, boasting fabled libraries, and stocked with fine foods and beverages. He is able to be on hand when he’s needed because he has a fabulous home practically everywhere.
He especially wants all female readers to know that in the clothing department he’s much more Bond than Reacher and would actually rather refight the Battle of Tora Bora than wear any item of clothing, especially underwear, more than one day. His only regret is that in a parallel universe he leads a pseudonymous life as a mystery novelist.
Praise for J. Paul Drew:
“If you haven't discovered J. Paul Drew yet, now is the time to do so… Move over, Sara Paretsky.”
—KPFA-FM (Berkeley, CA)
“...a very funny writer with a nice feel for the absurdities of urban life.”
— San Francisco Examiner
“...like jazz should—cool, complex, and penetrating right to the heart.”
-Val McDermid, best-selling author
of the Tony Hill series
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MONTEZUMA’S OTHER REVENGE:
A Mys
tery Short Story
BY
J. Paul Drew
“Mcdonald, meet me at Perry’s in an hour, okay?”
I stared at my computer, unable to imagine what was going to fill up the next three chapters of my current masterwork— I already had two chases and a brawl. And as my answering machine burbled on, I was also unable to imagine the arrogance of someone who expected me to drop this wildly important project at the snap of his larcenous fingers.
“I’ve got a job for you— same as last time, $55 an hour.”
Sixty, I thought, on account of the short notice.
“I’ve been burgled.”
Suddenly the disembodied voice had my full attention. This was like a man biting a dog. Or kidding a kidder, maybe. The speaker was Booker Kessler, my very good friend— the burglar from the right side of the tracks who planned to stop burgling as soon as his psychoanalysis started working out. Booker could probably have gotten into Fort Knox if he put his mind to it. He was the quintessential second story man, the pro of pros, the consummate criminal. If he’d been burgled, I could be at Perry’s in forty-five minutes. This was one story I wanted to hear.
And then of course there was the matter of the money. Though I am a mystery writer by trade, the popular acclaim I deserve continues to elude me and so, therefore, do the bucks I need.
Booker was already at Perry’s, sipping a Perrier. I bellied up, and said, “So who’d burgle a burglar?” followed by, “I’ll have a gin and tonic, please.”
“Well, actually, I just said that to get you interested.”
“You mean you weren’t burgled? I’m going to pick up my toys and go home.”
“Well, I think I was. Technically. I mean, I’m not sure. But it wasn’t breaking and entering. I let the thief in of my own free will, and spent the afternoon pleasing and delighting her beyond all human imagining.”
“Ungrateful wench.” I tried not to laugh, but apparently not hard enough. I ended up spewing gin all over the bar.
“I met her at the Billboard Cafe,” Booker said with dignity. He shrugged, as if to say, what’s a guy to do? “She just walked up to my table. I was with another woman too. She said she’d seen me around and always wanted to meet me and thought she’d introduce herself. So I asked her to join us. And then Kristi had to go back to work...”
“Hold it. She just walked up to your table? Weren’t you a tiny bit suspicious?”
He shrugged. “Hell, no. They do that all the time.”
I held my head. “Okay. She introduced herself. What’s her name?”
“CeeCee.”
“Um. Name-damaged. CeeCee what?”
Once again he shrugged, not succeeding even slightly in his pathetic effort to be the most nonchalant guy on Union Street. “I don’t know, Mcdonald. There wasn’t any reason to ask.”
“For your sake, Booker, I hope you practice safe sex.”
“Jealous?”
“Okay. So you and CeeCee ended up at your place—”
“Where she admired the artworks. One in particular— and after she left I realized it was missing.”
“Oh, no!” For the first time I was genuinely sympathetic. Booker has spent his ill-gotten gains on a truly fabulous art collection— mostly paintings, but some sculptures— of which he’s justly proud.
“Actually, it wasn’t anything that special. I mean, it’s a pretty good piece, but I’d only had it a day or two and hadn’t fallen in love yet.”
“What was it?”
“A sculpture— a ceramic piece, actually— by a Central American artist who signs his work ‘Miguel.’ He’s just starting to catch on in this country. I know this sounds weird, but he works in a sort of pre-Columbian style.”
“You’re right. It sounds weird.”
“Well, he doesn’t copy the pieces, but he’s inspired by them— he takes off from them, combines designs, sort of. The piece I lost was kind of a little squatting toad that also looked a little like a crocodile. About so high.” He held his hands six inches apart. “And CeeCee had one of those oversized purses.”
“What color?”
“Plain terra cotta.”
“And what does CeeCee look like?”
“Oh, about five-four, a hundred and five pounds. Last seen wearing a black leather mini. Hair black for the first couple of inches— at the roots that is— and white for the next eight or ten. Sticks out about a foot. Berry-colored lips. And a lot of black stuff on the eyes.”
“Every second female south of Market answers that description.”
“As it happens, I do know something about her. She works at the Clay Gallery— where I purchased the sculpture.”
And so at noon the next day— galleries never seem to open before lunchtime— I sauntered into the Clay Gallery (which wasn’t on Clay Street, but South of Market) and asked to see CeeCee, which is hard to say. CeeCee, it seemed, had taken the day off to pack.
“Pack?” said I, wondering if she were skipping town, and if she were, how many hours work I could get out of a cross-country chase.
“She got a one-woman show in L.A.”
“Ah. She’s an artist too.”
The person I was talking to could have been CeeCee herself except that her hair was blue instead of white and hung to her right shoulder, yet grew only half an inch long above her left ear, which was pierced six times and harbored six earrings. Dawn, her name was.
“She’s a ceramicist,” said Dawn, indicating a particolored amoeba-like object about half my height and at least my weight. And I am not considered a small man.
“That’s hers? I mean, she had a lot of those to pack?”
“She may take the whole week off,” said Dawn.
I leaned closer, aping a smitten collector. A tiny placard said the artist was Cynthia C. Hollander. It was a start.
There was a C.C. Hollander on a small Potrero Hill street, and I figured that had to be my woman— or close enough. If she wasn’t the right CeeCee, this one probably got enough of her calls to know where to find her. I headed over there.
Hers was a downstairs apartment, up a short flight of steps to a little porch. On the porch were some shards, as if a ceramicist, in her haste to get ready for her big one-woman show, had dropped a piece of her work. And yet these were plain terra cotta, not glazed as CeeCee’s other piece had been. There was mail in the mailbox. No one answered the bell. I couldn’t see in from the porch but there was a big uncurtained window that looked out on the street. So of course I climbed down, found a few bricks to stand on, held onto the windowsill, and risked arrest by hoisting myself up high enough to see in. The place had been tossed, and thoroughly. The kind of tossed where they rip the upholstery to shreds.
I tried the door, which didn’t open at first, but Booker had taught me the credit card trick. In ten minutes— Booker could have done it in 30 seconds— I had the door open. And by the stink I knew someone was dead.
CeeCee was under the sofa cushions, still wearing the black leather mini. Her throat had been slit.
In my reporting days I saw a lot of bodies, but I’d never seen this particular brand of mutilation and I felt my gorge rising in a manner unbecoming even to a part-time detective. That wasn’t all. Sweat broke out on my forehead and my head felt light and swimmy.
I’m not the sort who faints— the job description precludes it— but if I were I couldn’t have done it in peace because of the hideous noise that suddenly assailed my ears. I realized the burglar alarm had gone off with me standing over a body in a place which I had just broken into and entered. I heard sirens too. Or I thought I did until I shook my head once or twice to clear it.
At about that time, the telephone— which wasn’t a burglar alarm at all— stopped ringing and a voice that said it was CeeCee’s spoke to the caller. And then another female voice said, “Hi, CeeCee, it’s just Mom calling. Good news, I think. Dad double-checked and it turns out we could cash out a bond and lend you the money for the packing and shipping charges. At
least I think it’ll cover them. It might help anyway. Give me a call when you get in.”
As CeeCee’s mom talked to her ex-daughter, I took great gulps of air, not caring what it smelled like, just needing to get it into my lungs. On some weird kind of automatic pilot, not knowing why, I followed the voice to its origin, an answering machine in a bedroom in roughly the same condition as the living room.
I took a minute there to pull myself together and then I went over the whole place. Apparently, there was another occupant— a female roommate who had the second bedroom. Her room hadn’t been spared either. Nor had the bathroom and kitchen. And that was it— no studio, so I gathered CeeCee had one elsewhere.
I went back to her room to call the cops, and on a whim played back her messages. There were others from her mother, one from Dawn at the gallery, a couple from a wimpy-sounding guy named Jeremy, and two that caught my attention.
“It’s Rico, Baby,” said a whispery, nasty, smug, self-satisfied voice. “We’ve got Sabina. She’d make a real nice sacrifice and it just happens we could use one right now. Or maybe if you return my property we could find a cat or a chicken.”
