“Wire. A spool of the same kind of wire that was used to tie the boy up. It wasn’t even hidden, either.”
I breathed out. “Is that all?”
“Isn’t it enough? It can send Autry to the chair.”
“What about books, films, the usual porno crap that child molesters keep?”
“Well, there were some girlie books in his shop. Pretty hardcore stuff.”
“Grown-up females?”
“From what I saw. Men, too, doing their thing with the girls.”
“Doesn’t sound like child molesting to me.”
“Shit, Micha, you know as well as I do that doesn’t prove anything. He might’ve gotten rid of any kiddie porn. Or he might never have bought any, because it would force him to admit what he is. It’s the wire that counts.”
“Maybe so,” I said. “What about those names I gave you yesterday? Frazier, Guidry, and DeNova?”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” There was a silence, and I figured he was fishing out his notes. “Let’s see. Morris Frazier. Used to be a wrestler, twenty years ago. Got thrown out for being even crookeder than professional wrestling will put up with. Has a bust for brawling. Nothing big; paid a fine. Guidry is superclean, unless you count traffic warrants, but everybody’s got those. He’s a big backer of city hall, so nobody’s likely to bust him for a few speeding tickets. He practices criminal law; right now he’s defending a yuk named Sawyer who tried to take over a Central American country.”
“I hope he gets his fee,” I said wryly.
“And that just leaves this DeNova. But the only Sam DeNova I could turn was a bookie seventy-eight years old. I don’t think that’s your man.”
“No,” I said, and thanked him.
I sat silently thinking about it. Mancuso was right, of course: finding the wrong kind of porn wasn’t evidence in anybody’s court, and the wire was what really counted. But for the first time I felt a faint, irrational flicker of hope.
I returned the call from the insurance man.
The man who answered sounded black and had a deep voice with a hint of a Caribbean accent, and I realized it wasn’t the man who had left the message.
“I was asked to call a man named Burris,” I said.
“Mr. Burris isn’t available,” the voice said, “but I can handle the matter. We’d like to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss something of mutual interest.”
“I don’t need any insurance,” I said.
“No, of course not.” The man chuckled. “This is something different. We would like you to undertake an investigation for us.”
“I see. May I know who recommended me?”
He gave Sandy’s name. “She said you were very good.”
I mentally ran through the things I could do for Cal and decided that at this point there weren’t many.
“Where would you like to meet?” I asked. “At my office?”
“There’s a church on Thalia, near Erato. It’s called the Church of the Deliverance.”
“I know the place.”
“Knock on the front door, at one o’clock. Ask for the pastor.”
I started to ask for details but the line went dead.
I tried Sandy’s place, to ask her what she knew about the Church of the Deliverance, but I got only her answering machine. It was Thursday, her morning to be in class at UNO. She was taking an art course, just why I hadn’t figured out, except that she had eclectic tastes, and I’d seen her use even a small amount of outré knowledge to pass herself off as an expert.
There was nearly an hour and a half before my meeting, not time enough to do anything much, beside which I felt dragged out from my late night with Cal. I took out my notebook and made a little list of things to do: Talk to Cal’s son; Check with the agency in Oklahoma City; Put Sandy onto Frazier and Guidry.
And it might be worth my while to pay a visit to my downstairs neighbor, Henri LaVelle.
His real name was David Erickson, though he hated to be reminded of it. He’d set up shop to fleece tourists, but these days the tourists were fewer in number, driven away by the crime that infested the Quarter. His thing was voodoo, but I doubted he’d recognize it if somebody dropped him in Haiti.
When I came down the front stairs and passed through the hanging beads into his shop, I almost sneezed from the mixture of incense and exotic herbs in the air. He got up from behind his counter and put aside an issue of Sports Illustrated.
“Well, why am I so honored? Or did you run out of cooking oil again?”
“If I did I wouldn’t ask. That last stuff you gave me said Corpse Oil on it.”
He shrugged. “Poetic license. It was Wesson oil, and it worked, didn’t it?”
“Well enough.” I took a seat on a nearby stool. “Tell me something, David—”
“Henri, damn it.”
“Henri. What do you know about kiddie porn?”
His dark brows arched up in pretended amazement.
“You tired of women finally?”
“Right. If you wanted to get some, where would you go?”
He snickered. “Anywhere. They clamped down on it a few years ago, but that just means it isn’t openly advertised. What kind you want? You can tell me. I’m discreet.”
“Good man. What about rings, groups of child molesters?”
“Ah. Pedophiles, you mean. They exist. Even in New Orleans, with its active DA and Neighborhood Watch.”
“Imagine that. Is it likely somebody who engaged in that kind of behavior would be known to others?”
LaVelle’s lips curled cynically. “Of course. One does not practice it alone. At a minimum there is the victim, who may be victimized by other adults. And since victims often talk, that means that even if person A and person B have never met, they may know of each other’s habits.”
“And I guess preferences come in all shapes and sizes?”
“Absolutely. Ages, builds, colors. You’d be amazed how some of these people have specialized.” He squinted at me. “But you’re asking all this for a reason. You’re working on a case.”
“More or less. If I was interested in black boys, where would I make the connection?”
He pursed his lips. “Micah, there are things I have done in my time that do not fill me with pride. But pedophilia is several light-years from my experience. What I know I’ve picked up second- or thirdhand from people who, well, rub elbows with the slimebags in question. Anything I know is strictly hearsay, and I do not wish to be connected with it.”
“Understood.”
“It has to be more than understood. I seem to remember giving you the name of a certain immigration lawyer, and you ended up shooting him.”
“I felt real bad about that,” I said.
LaVelle rolled his eyes. “I can tell. Look, some of these people are very well connected. We’re not just talking about a blue-collar sport. If you make them angry with you, you’ll wish you hadn’t gotten involved in this.”
“I’ll try not to make anybody mad,” I promised.
“Sure.” He leaned toward me. “I hear the person to see is the Spiderwoman.”
“Who?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t give her the name.”
“You mean a woman is running this?”
“Well, it isn’t like the Mafia, for Christ’s sake. I’m just saying she’s one of the names I hear dropped. And second, why not a woman? It’s time Louisiana got with ERA.”
“Where do I find her?” I asked.
“There’s a spirits shop on Magazine, near Napoleon. You go in and ask for a rare wine. She feels you out and does some checking.” He sniffed. “No offense, Micah, but you’d never make it through the preliminary.”
I nodded. He was right. My lame arm made me easy to trace.
“You ever met this Spiderwoman?” I asked.
“No. I told you, I just heard the name. I’m told she keeps books with pictures of available kids in them.”
I thought for a moment. Sandy wouldn�
�t do for this one. I needed a male. I thought of LaVelle and then dismissed the possibility.
“Well, thanks a lot, David—I mean, Henri.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “And Micah …”
I turned on my way out. “Yeah?”
“You were right. I wouldn’t have done it.”
“Done what?”
“Been your stooge on this one. No matter how much you paid me.
“Touché, Papa Doc.”
I got an oyster loaf at Frankie & Johnny’s and then drove over to the Church of the Deliverance. It was a square white two-story, all brick and concrete, and it looked more like a fortress than a place of worship. The downstairs door, which faced Thalia, was oak, and looked to be about a foot thick. It was the only church door I’d ever seen with a peephole. The windows had bars instead of stained glass. The only concession to convention was an iron cross on the top, but even it had a spear blade on the end.
I was about twenty minutes early, and I made the block a few times. It was a black section, but not what you would call a ghetto. Before the freeway had run through the center of it, it had been a respectable neighborhood. New Orleans still has neighborhoods; the projects are the ghettos. I found a parking place on the street and slid in.
Sandy would have told me if she’d referred me to someone for an investigation. This had to be something else. I wasn’t sure I liked it, but there wasn’t enough yet for warning signals to go off.
I went up the broad steps and knocked on the door. The panel slid back and a face stared out at me. I held up my card.
“You were told one o’clock,” the face said accusingly.
“I can leave.”
The panel slid closed and the big door creaked open.
“Come in.” The man facing me was dressed in a green dashiki and highly polished black shoes. He stepped aside and once I was inside closed and bolted the big door behind me.
“This way,” he said, leading me down a narrow hallway filled with African art. The floor was hardwood, but somehow his feet made no sound. The air held the fragrance of incense, and somewhere inside the bowels of the building I heard a deep, mellifluous laugh. We came to another oak door and he knocked twice. The door opened and he stood aside for me.
The room I entered was vast, with a ceiling twelve feet high. The walls were hung with animal skins and the floor was covered by a bamboo mat. At the back of the room was some kind of altar, and standing before the altar was a man dressed in white.
“Mr. Dunn,” he said, coming forward, and I knew he was the man I had spoken to on the phone.
He was an inch taller than I was, with skin the color of chocolate and a thin mustache. I judged his age to be forty, but he could have been five years either way: he seemed to be in good condition, with muscles that bulged under the white fabric of his long-sleeved guayabera.
“You know my name,” I said, “but I’m afraid I don’t know yours.”
He thrust out a hand. “It’s Condon. The Reverend Gabriel Condon. I am the spiritual adviser of the Augustine family.”
Condon. Of course; Sandy had mentioned the name. “I didn’t think this had anything to do with insurance,” I said.
“Actually, it does.” He pointed to a pair of cushions and sat down on one. I ignored the offer and took a chair across from him. “You see, we provide members of the congregation with a small life insurance policy as part of their tithe.”
“Interesting idea,” I said.
“Vital, in today’s world. So many of our people have nothing.”
“The Augustine boy was insured, then.”
“Most definitely. It will be enough to bury him and provide his mother with a few miserable dollars for the next few months.” His tone was suddenly bitter. “Certainly not enough to purchase the services of a private detective to find the man who killed him.”
“The police are supposed to do that,” I said.
He laughed. “Yes, the police. I spoke to them this morning, and they tell me the man who committed the crime has escaped.”
“If you mean Calvin Autry, I don’t know that he committed the crime. But I can promise you he will be found.”
“Of course. And his high-priced attorney, Mr. John O’Rourke, who once defended antiwar activists, will now defend a child molester and murderer and buy his client five to ten years in Hunt Correctional. Justice.”
I was sure Sandy hadn’t mentioned O’Rourke’s name, which meant Condon had a pipeline in the police department.
“Reverend Condon, since I’m here you must know that I’ve been hired by Calvin Autry. But you also know I can’t withhold evidence. If you’ve got some evidence that either implicates or exonerates him, I’d like to know.”
His lips curved into a thin smile. “Of course you would.”
“Why did you ask me here, Reverend Condon?”
He got up quickly like a spring uncoiling. “ ‘Blessed are the meek,’ ” he said with sudden vehemence. “That boy, his family, and all the people in this city like them are the meek, Mr. Dunn. The downtrodden. The persecuted. The ignored.” Turning away, he walked over to the wall and then wheeled again to face me. “If that boy had been white, don’t you think the district attorney would have called the chief of police, and that a dragnet would be combing this city right now?”
I exhaled. “A dragnet is combing this city. And the mayor is black, as was the mayor before him.”
He chuckled. “Ah, yes. I forgot. The Oreo aristocracy. And what do you think their attitude is, Mr. Dunn? Do you want me to tell you? It is not, why did a depraved homosexual attack and kill a defenseless child? It is, what did that child do to provoke him? It is, what can be gotten on that boy and his family to excuse the killer? It is, one more little nigger boy dead, so who cares, he would’ve grown up to be a criminal anyway.”
“That may be the attitude of some. It isn’t mine.”
“No? Then why did you send your assistant to the family to pry and peep? Why are you taking money to try to make the boy out to be the criminal, instead of the victim? Is it that a man with your infirmity cannot get any other kind of work?”
“I think I’ll be going now, Reverend.” I rose and started for the door.
“Wait,” he called. I heard his steps coming across the mat behind me. I turned. “I’m sorry for what I said. Here.” He reached under his shirt and came out with an envelope. “Look inside,” he urged.
I did and found myself staring down at a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“To find the truth about the molestation and murder of Arthur Augustine.”
“I already have a client,” I told him, handing back the envelope. “The rule is one client per investigation at a time.”
“Too bad,” Condon said ruefully. “I was hoping we could do business.”
“Not today, Reverend.”
I went back down the hall and out into the cool October sunlight, taking a deep breath. There was something going on, and I didn’t like it.
Seven
I drove for half an hour, trying to put it together, but nothing came clear. Did Condon want to buy me off because he had a political ax to grind, or was there something more to it, like guilty knowledge?
Finally I stopped and called my answering machine from a pay phone. The only message was from Katherine, reminding me that we were on for dinner at seven-thirty and asking me to confirm. I dialed her number, left an acknowledgment on her machine, and then called Sandy, but Sandy still wasn’t home. I hung up in frustration. Then it came to me: I was almost all the way uptown, only a few blocks from the wineshop where the Spiderwoman hung out. It must have been in my unconscious all along, prodding me in this direction, so I decided to give in. I drove to the address and went in.
It was an old house, converted about ten years before, from the looks of it. It smelled of cheese and nuts, and from the tasting table floated the slightly fruity aroma of wine. The racks were fill
ed with different vintages, from the ordinary to the esoteric, and a wide range of liquors. They even had a line bottled under their own name. The cheeses came from most countries in Europe, from Wisconsin in the U.S., and there were even some from the Orient and the Mideast. It was yuppie heaven and I wondered what would happen if anyone came in and asked for Mogen David. And, of course, I knew: he’d get it with a smile. The smirks would come later.
I was still pondering the choices when a woman appeared from behind the counter and asked if she could help. Blonde and maybe twenty-five, she was too fresh-faced and collegiate to be the proprietress.
“I was looking for something special,” I said.
“How special?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not an expert on wines. But something different.”
The clerk frowned. “What will you be having to eat with it?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said truthfully. “I guess I need something that can go with about anything.”
She nodded and took me to a rack in the center of the room.
“What about a Martini zinfandel?” She held up a bottle.
I nodded. “If you think so.”
“It goes with almost anything.”
“All right.” I followed her to the checkout and paid. As she rang it up my eyes went to the doorway and found a TV camera. She handed me my change and thanked me. I started out, turning at the door ostensibly to inspect their specials in a barrel just inside the entranceway.
That was when I saw the Spiderwoman.
She was standing at the rear, near a closed door that must lead into the office. Tall, she wore a burgundy dress and a necklace of pearls the color of her hair, and she was watching me like a spider watches it prey. She was a handsome woman, but she had the eyes of a killer, gray and cold. I finished inspecting the wines in the barrel and went back out into the sunlight, leaving the chill behind me.
When I got back to the office Sandy was waiting.
“I met the Reverend Condon,” I told her wryly. Then I told her about the money in the envelope.
“I knew the man played rough,” she said. “But Micah, in a way you can’t blame him.”
“Can’t blame him? What he did was try to bribe me.”
Deep Kill (The Micah Dunn Mysteries) Page 7
