Assassin Hunter

by August Palumbo

  “You’re safe. When it comes to taxes I can hardly figure out my own return. But, you’ve given me something to keep in mind in case you ever cross me.”

  The crowd in the club was quite diverse. Men in expensive suits mingled well with the horsemen in starched jeans. The fedoras, cowboy hats, Kangols, and baseball caps mixed easily. There were about fifteen women in the crowd of seventy-five or so, which grew by the minute. Strong whiffs of cigar smoke strengthened the already stale aroma of cigarettes. The occasional smell of marijuana drifted through the club. The bartenders were constantly busy, working the long bar and setting up drinks for the cocktail waitresses who scurried back and forth to the booths. One of the waitresses, a petite blonde with a pageboy haircut, passed behind us with a tray of drinks. As she did, T-Red wheeled around on his barstool and playfully pinched her on the cheek of her behind, which hung out of shorts so tight they looked painted on.

  “Hey, baby, stop back and talk to old Red when you get a minute.” She shoved his hand away, and he said in a voice loud enough for her to hear, “Not much tits but what an ass!” Her light-colored eyes scowled, half-ashamed but half-proud of T-Red’s crude remark. A closer look at her revealed a light complexion and blue eyes, visible even in the darkness of the room. Her outfit was black shorts and a white shirt tied at the waist, which exposed her midriff. She only paused long enough to brush off T-Red, then continued on to deliver drinks destined for the booths.

  “Is our man going to show tonight?” I asked T-Red, referring to Frank Duplessis.

  “Probably not, but in this place, who knows? Frank isn’t a regular in here, but he steps in once in a while for a drink with his horse owners. He trains for a lot of Texans who like to come in here after the races and make big asses of themselves.”

  It was just as well that he wouldn’t be there that night. I had a chance to break ground and meet a few characters. We ordered another round of drinks, and I reminded myself that I wasn’t much of a drinker so my system wasn’t tolerant of alcohol. I needed to be alert at all times while maintaining the role and didn’t want the booze to creep up on me. T-Red easily slaked down two more beers before I finished the second Bloody Mary. I listened intently as he pointed out several people in the club and gave me thumbnails on the ones he knew. He gave me some background on Cliff Dubroc, the owner, and said that Cliff was rarely around the place at night and handled paperwork and personnel matters during the day.

  “Cliff has a low profile,” T-Red began. “He runs whores and fences stolen property, and sometimes gets involved in narcotics. He usually stays out of here at night in case the cops turn the joint.”

  “Then who runs the place when it’s hopping?”

  “Ritmo. He’s probably in the office. He’s the head bartender and manages the place. He knows everybody that comes in here.”

  We were interrupted by a feminine voice from behind. “What the hell do you want, Red?” asked the petite blonde waitress he teased a few minutes ago.

  Red turned to her and said, “Some pussy.”

  “You better keep looking,” she replied in a matter-of-fact manner.

  T-Red introduced me the same way he had to Alton Comeaux, as Tony, his friend from New Orleans. “This is Cheri, my sweetheart,” he said.

  She scowled at him and said, “In your dreams.”

  “Baby, is he always a pain in the ass?” I asked.

  She was friendly and laughed, and we chatted for a few minutes until she said, “I gotta get back to work, it’s getting crazy in here. Come back, Tony.” She gave me a piercing look tempered with a smile, and walked away before I could reply.

  “Is she a hooker, Red?”

  “Nah. She’s a good kid, a civilian just trying to make a living.” We hung at the bar for another hour then he said, “Man, I’ve got to gallop a few nags in just a few hours. Let’s blow this joint.” I agreed we had done enough for the night, and as we left I took another good look around and made mental notes.

  I dropped T-Red off at his pickup truck parked at the track, and went back to my room to make written notes of the night’s activities. The detailed notes included the names and physical descriptions of some of the people I met who might become important to the case, and to provide intelligence on them for future cases. I drew a sketch of The Gallop, inside and out, approximated the dimensions of the club, number of employees, tables, chairs, even where the rest rooms were located. I had been on many bar raids and knew this would be helpful if ATF had to raid the club or extricate me in an emergency. Before I fell asleep, the night’s activities swirled through my head. I thought about Bob’s Dream and wondered if the old horse's knees were still stinging from the race. I thought about T-Red and how to best use him in the next days and weeks. And I thought about Cheri, the pixie-like cocktail waitress, and for some reason felt glad about T-Red’s description of her as a civilian. I made no mention of her in the notes I would get to Lyle the next day.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 9

  For the next few weeks T-Red and I kept the same routine. We met at the track in the early evening where he introduced me to the local characters, then we hung out at The Gallop for more of the same, hoping to run into Frank Duplessis. Not to my surprise, by the time a week had gone by, T-Red had lost most of the money he’d won on old Comeaux’s horse and was borrowing drink money from me.

  Each morning I deposited my notes from the previous day in a designated garbage can in the rear service alley of the Plantation Inn. Lyle Melancon retrieved the notes daily from the can, and part of his job was to compile the notes and do whatever backup work was needed. On one of the notes I printed the name RITMO ANGELLE in large letters. He was the manager of The Gallop and I needed Lyle to get a full background check on him. On one of my nightly visits to the club, Ritmo was spending most of his time behind the bar mixing drinks. It was early in the week when the track was closed, and business was slow. The cocktail waitresses were off, and Ritmo worked the bar alone. T-Red and I were nursing a few drinks at the bar, which was particularly quiet because there was no band playing. After an hour or so T-Red made his usual introduction of me as Tony Parrino from New Orleans. Ritmo’s attention perked up when he heard this, which in turn made me curious. He had heard T-Red call me Tony many times but didn’t seem to pay notice until he heard my last name and that I was from New Orleans. Ritmo asked a pointed question through his bushy mustache. “What are you doing in Lafayette, Tony?”

  I stirred the Bloody Mary glass in front of me with my finger and replied, “Following the horses. Unfortunately, I’m following horses that follow other horses.”

  Ritmo grinned at the joke, which revealed a missing front tooth. He was in his late thirties, of average height, with a powerful, stocky build. His thick black hair and mustache gave the impression that they were painted onto his face and head. A gold earring adorned his left ear, not uncommon among the Cajun men. There was an odd look about him, as if he was a caricature, and it took a while for me to figure out that the look was caused by a bad toupee. I asked Ritmo about Cheri and mentioned that I hadn’t seen her in the bar for a few days.

  “She only works weekends, keeps a nine-to-five job in town during the week,” Ritmo said.

  T-Red interrupted. “My name is written on her ass Tony, so chill out.”

  Ritmo winked at me and said not to worry, as Cheri would be in the following weekend. I was laying the groundwork for having a reason to hang out at The Gallop by showing interest in Cheri, although my interest was genuine. T-Red and I continued with our drinks while Ritmo was busy at the far end of the bar. T-Red nudged me and pointed his glass at a woman seated in a booth across the floor from us. She wore fishnet stockings and a miniskirt, and sat facing us in a manner that we could see she wore nothing but the stockings under her skirt. She was in her mid-twenties with black hair and dark makeup except for the bright red lipstick. She played with her drink and smiled at us.

  A very tall man in his late twenties, clad in j
eans and a t-shirt, approached us. He pointed to the girl at the table and asked, “You guys want to party? My girlfriend is hot and it’ll only cost you a hundred apiece. One at a time or both together.”

  We glanced back at her and she winked at us. “Get lost,” I told him.

  He walked to the end of the bar near his companion, and banged a glass on the bar to get Ritmo’s attention. Ritmo had heard him proposition us, and told him to leave. “Take your whore with you. The only hookers in here are ours.”

  Unexpectedly, the man jumped up and reached across the bar, grabbing Ritmo by the vest with both hands, and shouted something unintelligible. Ritmo tried to break his grasp, but the big guy’s height gave him too much leverage. He quickly moved a hand off Ritmo’s vest and clutched him around the throat with it. His large, long fingers reached around the entire front of Ritmo’s neck. Ritmo tried to pry his fingers loose and at the same time tried to grab a baseball bat that he kept behind the bar. He stretched his hand out of his sleeve as far as he could toward the bat, but it was out of reach. Ritmo’s veins began to bulge in his neck and his eyes grew wide.

  I ran up behind the guy choking Ritmo and grabbed his elbows together behind his back, which loosened the grip around Ritmo’s neck. I swung him around away from the bar and pushed him to the ground face down, then set my knee in his back while keeping his elbows pinned behind him. Ritmo jumped over the bar and slammed his leather boot into the man’s neck, letting up only long enough to stomp on it several times, until blood gushed from his ear, which was split from being battered against the floor. He grunted each time his head hit the floor and began shouting “Okay! Okay!” Then, as if we had choreographed timing, Ritmo and I each grabbed an elbow and in a quick-step walked him to the front door, and threw him to the ground outside. Ritmo stared at him and growled, “Don’t come back, you motherfucker.”

  We brushed ourselves off and straightened our clothes as we made our way back to the bar. Ritmo saw me bend over and pick up the snub-nosed revolver, which had fallen out of my waistband during the scuffle. He took his position behind the bar and calmly poured me a fresh Bloody Mary.

  “Extra hit of Tabasco, right, Tony? Drinks on me." Then he mumbled to himself, "Goddamn hustlers."

  The entire scuffle had happened within a couple of minutes, and took T-Red by total surprise. Obviously shaken by what had happened so quickly, he asked, “Where did you learn how to do that, Tony?”

  “In the New Orleans public schools,” I answered in a dry humor. We laughed, and Ritmo wasn’t aware that I was laughing at his toupee, which had been knocked loose in the fight and was now sitting crooked on his head. What started out as a slow, unproductive night on the case turned out to be quite important, not for the events themselves, but for the friendship I had now forged with Ritmo.

  The next morning Lyle woke me up with a telephone call. “Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

  “Hey, Lyle, what time is it?”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “Damn it Lyle, it’s the middle of the night for me. What do you want?”

  “I’ve got the info on your boy Ritmo. Thought you’d like to know he’s a killer. He was convicted of a stabbing death on an offshore oil rig ten years ago. He did a few years in the can, then was paroled and pardoned by the governor. We’re trying to find out who his angel was on getting the pardon. He’s also keen on stolen property, buying and selling, has a few arrests for it. Is he one of your new pals?”

  “This guy might be important, I’ll explain why later. Anything else on him?”

  “I’ll get what I can.”

  “One other thing, Lyle. I haven’t been able to use a cool phone to call home. Call Gina for me and tell her I’m okay. Find out if she got the cash I sent for Nick’s birthday.”

  “Consider it done. Go back to sleep, I know you’ve got another hard day at the track tonight,” He said with a chuckle.

  “Hey, Lyle. . .”

  “Yeah, Tony?”

  “Screw you.”

  I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but despite my efforts to darken the room, sunlight crashed through the curtains and created a beam of light directly into my eyes. I decided to get up and make the most of the daylight hours. I drove to downtown Lafayette for breakfast. The car radio announced that the pack of Democratic candidates for president was beginning to thin out after defeats in recent primaries. I turned the volume up to see if Mo Udall had thrown in the towel, but he was still running. I thought of Ernie Chinn and the protection detail I had left, and wondered if they were still freezing in some remote northern city on the campaign trail, while I was in the relative warmth of bayou country.

  Around noon I headed for The Gallop. The place was usually quiet during the day and this was no exception. Soft music from the jukebox replaced the loud band. There was only one old geezer sipping a beer at the far end of the bar, and to my surprise Ritmo was working. The place was dark as usual, and the smell of stale, dried alcohol seemed more intense during the daytime. I had experienced this phenomenon many times while checking the bars on Bourbon Street during my days with the New Orleans Police Department. Perhaps the strong smell was due to the fact that heating and air condition units were working at their maximum for the crowds at night but were shut off during the day, or perhaps the liveliness of the crowds themselves lessened the smell. Limited air circulation didn't help. In any case, the remnants of hundreds or thousands of spills, large and small, take their toll after seeping into flooring and furniture. I could tell that The Gallop had its fair share of spills.

  I asked Ritmo what he was doing in the bar so early. I saw that his toupee was propped quite squarely on his head as he answered me.

  “I was getting ready to ask you the same thing, Tony. I didn’t know you drank before sundown.”

  “Drink? Hell, I’m usually not even up before sundown.”

  Ritmo appreciated the humor and poured me a drink. I noticed he was drinking coffee behind the bar and yearned for a cup myself. Instead, I was stuck in my role and reluctantly swirled the Bloody Mary with my finger.

  A light glowed in the office behind the bar. I wanted to meet Cliff Dubroc and hoped he was in there. After several minutes he came out of the office and stood in the doorway between his office and the bar, only long enough to nod Ritmo inside. He was a short, thin man about fifty years old, well-dressed in expensive slacks and a starched white shirt. He wore thin, wire-rimmed glasses and had wavy, steel gray hair. His physical appearance made him look more like a librarian or chemistry teacher than the pimp and fence that he was. When Ritmo returned to the bar, I pretended to be uninterested in the man in the office.

  “Goddamn Cliff is always on my ass,” he mumbled as he walked to draw another beer for the old man at the far end.

  “Does Cliff take care of you for all the shit you put up with in this place?”

  “Fuck no. I do okay, but he rakes it in. I make a few hustles for myself to keep the wolf away from my door. But I’m not bitching. Cliff paid his dues years ago.”

  I concealed my interest in Ritmo’s boss but listened intently to his account of Cliff. By design, Cliff limited his time at The Gallop and my chances to learn more about his activities and to meet him were limited. I didn’t know at the time that Cliff Dubroc was equally interested in me.

  I looked down at my drink glass and flinched when I tossed down what was left in it. I hated drinking this early in the day and it was a part of the undercover life I had never gotten used to. I knew that a small thing like not drinking the booze I supposedly came in to get could arouse suspicion and put me in question. Constant awareness of making a small slip like this adds stress to the entire equation of an investigation. I got up to leave as Ritmo answered the phone behind the bar and handed it to me.

  “It’s T-Red, for you.”

  “How did you track me down, Red?” were my opening words.

  “Where else would you be? The track is closed.”

  “What the hell d
o you want?”

  “I’m helping somebody run a horse in the first race tonight so I won’t be in the grandstand until later. We have somewhere to go early tomorrow morning, so in case I don’t see you tonight, skip the club and get some sleep.”

  “So what’s the play? You got a hot horse tonight?”

  “Hot my French ass. We couldn’t cash a bet on this old mare if it was a one horse race. I’m just making a few extra bucks taking her to the paddock for a friend.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re making at least a few dollars on the square.”

  “Why are you busting my balls, Tony?”

  “Okay, okay. If we don’t hook up at the track, call me tonight and fill me in.”

  Ritmo could easily hear everything I said, and although I was anxious to find out what Red had lined up for the next morning, I was careful to give Ritmo as little information as possible. I gave him a goodbye wink and walked out into the bright sunlight. As I approached my car I saw a small Toyota that had seen better days parked next to it. The car had body damage and rust spots in most places, and one headlight was smashed. A diminutive blonde, wearing a smart maroon dress, was seated behind the steering wheel. Her face was buried in her hands and she was crying. I walked up beside the door and asked, “Are you all right?”

  She looked up, straight ahead, for a moment. I realized it was Cheri. She didn’t answer me and put her head down in her hands.

  “Cheri, are you okay?”

  She looked up again at recognizing my voice, and remained silent except for the sobbing. Her expression turned to one of embarrassment and shame. I looked into the car and noticed an empty baby seat strapped to the back seat. A few toys were scattered on the floorboard and a carryall bag sat on the back seat. They were reminders of my boy back home.

  “Why are you all dolled-up today?” I asked, trying to get her distracted from the crying.