by Ed Kovacs
“He tell you any specifics?”
“Never. And asking didn’t elicit the nicest of responses. He would go to Michoud maybe twice a week for half a day. What he did, I have no idea.”
“So you sometimes worked for Breaux as a consultant, but then you started working as his personal assistant, right?”
“When the Storm hit, I got wiped out like a lot of people. Del needed an executive assistant, I needed money, so I took the job.”
“You had keys to the office on Poydras?”
“Of course.”
“When’s the last time you were there?”
“Thursday afternoon when I left work.”
“What kind of business was Breaux Enterprises?”
“Whatever Del was into at the time.”
“And what has that been recently?”
“You don’t know?” he asked, incredulously.
“I’m asking you.”
“Have you been to the offices yet?”
“I can’t reveal details of the investigation.”
“Investigation,” he said mockingly, as he shook his head. “There won’t be an investigation, don’t you get that? Any time now, the word will come down, NOPD will back off, and that will be the end of that.”
“Please answer the question. What kind of business was Breaux doing?”
“You have to have been to the office by now. How can you not know what the company did?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Sorry, I abhor redundancy.”
Peter Danforth was a real smart-ass. An equivocating, smart-mouthed bastard. He acted like he could simply blow off the police and it wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans. I felt tempted to smack the information out of him, but we had witnesses watching.
“Are you in possession of any office files?”
“No.”
“Which financial institutions did Breaux use for his business transactions?”
“You won’t get that from me.” He took a long drag and gave me his best “screw you” look.
“Don’t play cute, Danforth. There’s a lot of evidence in play that puts you right in the middle of things.”
“If you say so.”
“When is the last time you had sex with either Breaux or Parks?”
Danforth flushed. “What has that got to do with Del’s and Ty’s murders?”
“Maybe everything. Jealously is the oldest motive for killing known to mankind. Your old boyfriend Joey Bales the jealous type?”
Danforth snorted. “Joey? The only thing Joey would be jealous of is that he didn’t get to join us for a threesome.”
“Where can I find him?”
“Somewhere in the bars on the gay end of Bourbon Street, I imagine. I’m not in contact with him anymore.”
“Where were you the night Del Breaux and Ty Parks were killed?”
I studied Danforth carefully, waiting to analyze his body language. I’d already asked him a few questions I’d known the answers to and had watched him carefully as he answered. He certainly looked nervous, but then, he’d pretty much been a nervous, chain-smoking wreck since the moment I’d walked in. Still, I had an idea of what to look for in case he lied.
“Atlanta. When it made the news, I flew back here.” He looked me straight in the eyes.
“Have proof?”
“I bought plane tickets, I have boarding passes. Stayed at the Hilton, ordered a lot of room service. You could probably get their security video if you needed visual proof I was there.” His lips didn’t tighten; he wasn’t pointing a finger or making demonstrative gestures. I guessed he’d told the truth.
“I’ll do that. So we can establish an ironclad alibi in terms of you not being present at the crime scene.” Of course, he might have hired the killers for all I knew.
“I’m not worried about establishing my alibi. No offense, but the only reason I’m speaking to you is because Barry Morrison is an old friend.”
“You thought you wouldn’t have to speak to the police after your boss was murdered?”
“You’re not really the police, but even if you were, I don’t think you will get very far with this.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Danforth just shook his closely-cropped head of streaked blond hair, then templed his fingers together and put them to his lips in a worried gaze. “It’s kind of pathetic how clueless you are.” He gestured to the guys at the door, and one of them disappeared. “No reason to talk to you since I can’t count on NOPD for help.”
“Are you suggesting there is some kind of grand conspiracy at play?”
“It doesn’t matter what I tell you. You can’t help me. That’s why I need a high-priced D.C. attorney to get me into a federal witness-protection program. I’m guessing the only reason I’m alive is because I was out of town and came here immediately when I got back from Atlanta. There are armed men here who will do everything they can to protect me, but that isn’t nearly enough to keep me alive, considering what I’m up against.”
“Why would your life be in danger?” I flashed on Harding and her warning that more murders were imminent.
“Loose ends.”
“Related to Breaux Enterprises.”
“I should think so.”
“You need to tell me what kind of business Breaux was up to.”
“It would be healthier for me if I didn’t.”
“You only say that because you haven’t seen me pissed off.” I looked him right in the eyes. He stared back blankly, and I took a slow sip of fine bourbon, never breaking my gaze. “Ever heard of a guy named Decon?” I asked.
“Decon? No.”
“So who wanted to kill Breaux and Parks?”
“They had to have been after Del.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Someone in the Buyer’s Club, I imagine.”
“The Buyer’s Club?”
“They all had their reasons.”
“How about some names?”
Peter Danforth gazed down at the reddish Oriental carpet, scowling.
“Do you really think I can’t take you down to Broad Street headquarters right now? There won’t be any safehouses or around-the-clock security details there. You’re a suspect in a murder investigation, wiseguy. I’ll throw you in a freaking holding cell with forty hardcore felons who would cap your ass for fifteen bucks. Now give me some names!”
Danforth looked at me evenly. “Like I said, it’s pointless, you’ll be off the case before the day is out. But here’s a name you can chase: Clayton Brandt. Add Del Breaux and three other men and you have The Buyer’s Club.”
“Give me the other names.”
“No. I give you Brandt. He’s the scariest, which is saying something.”
“And what did the Buyer’s Club buy? Drugs? People? Secrets? Are you looking for immunity, is that why you want witness protection?”
The guy at the door who had disappeared returned with four more men. So six men, all looking like gym regulars, crowded into the room near the door. Danforth stood and motioned them forward as he backed away.
“Look, we both know that I don’t have to tell you or any other detective a thing. You want to arrest me? Go ahead. But this is a waste of my time. The fact that you’re going to be pulled from the case may just save your life. Until then, be careful. Give those people the slightest reason and they will simply eradicate you. Cop”—he gave me a derisive look—“or not.”
Back at my loft by nine, I ran Clayton Brandt’s name through some online databases. The only likely candidate to emerge was a retired air force general, but the details were sketchy. Honey could run him through law- enforcement databases and I could probably wheedle Harding for a deeper background check. If Breaux had been on her radar screen, chances were that Clayton Brandt had been too.
I replayed the Danforth interview using a cheap waterproof digital music player as I showered, alternating from hot to cold. The thing that bothered me was tha
t he identified Brandt as the likeliest of the likely killers, but then said, “Give those people the slightest reason and they will simply eradicate you.” “They” had to refer to the Buyer’s Club as a group. Or did it? And what kind of group acts with the kind of impunity that doesn’t think twice about killing police officers?
Danforth had wanted federal witness protection and was convinced Honey and I would be pulled from the case. That suggested an extreme sensitivity as to the nature of the conspiracy, yet Harding emphatically denied being aware of any connection between Breaux and the selling of secrets.
It occurred to me I should pull the body armor out of my closet. It occurred to me, but I didn’t because it was so damn hot. I opted for a second pistol—a reconditioned 1911A—and extra mags instead. I’d replaced the sights and grips, added a Picatinny rail in case I wanted to pop on a laser, and had a trigger job done to ease the pull. I wore the big pistol and mags in plastic paddle carriers hidden by my long shirt tails; I still kept the Glock 36 tucked in to my rear waistband.
I also stuck a stainless steel Japanese-made karambit in my front waistband to function as a last-chance knife that I could use with my weak-side hand if I were struggling for my weapon. Karambits have a hole in the handle / frame to insert your index finger into as you grip the knife. Mine has a short, sharply curved, razor-like blade that folds into the handle and works well at slicing and dicing. I’d attached a plastic flex cuff to the second, smaller hole in the blade, and then snipped off the plastic excess. That left a small knob protruding from the blade’s blunt edge, so that when I pulled the knife from my pants, the plastic nub caught on my waistband and automatically opened the blade as I pulled the knife clear. A nasty knife that deployed into fighting mode faster than any other knife I owned, I wore it sparingly, usually when expecting extreme trouble.
I’d just added about five pounds of gear to my waistband and, for no terribly good reason, I found that comforting.
Weird that I geared up, but I didn’t exactly know what I was up against. Thoughts of Bobby Perdue got exiled by the encroaching sense that I was about to step on a hornet’s nest.
I stopped for a frozen granita with two extra shots of espresso at the PJ’s not far from my place since the rest of the evening in my mental day planner had the name Decon written all over it, and I figured it would be a long, hot night.
CHAPTER SIX
Leave it to Greater New Orleans to have a strip mall comprised of nothing but bars, taverns, lounges, saloons, pubs, and a drive-in daiquiri stand. That left no doubt as to why people pulled off the Interstate-10 frontage road into the parking lot; they were thirsty. And I guess that was the big attraction here: Plenty of Free Parking! Freeway Close! In that regard, it sure beat the Quarter.
But only in that regard.
At a daiquiri stand you can buy cocktails to go, handed to you though your car window, like getting burgers at McDonalds. Just don’t insert the straw, because that would be drinking and driving. What was to prevent someone from lifting the lid and taking a sip as they cruised our safe streets, I’m not sure, but then this was Louisiana.
Honey had parked her unmarked unit a couple of blocks away and we pulled into the grubby mini-mall lot together in the Bronco as I finished debriefing her on the meet with Peter Danforth.
“I have to bring him in for questioning. All of the money from Del Breaux’s business and personal bank accounts was transferred into some offshore account the night he was killed.”
“Traceable?”
“If I had unlimited resources. Even a good financial forensics person? It might take months.”
“I’m guessing Danforth was up to his eyeballs in some dirty business with Breaux.”
“And we’ll need to confirm his story about Atlanta,” said Honey.
“Sorry I’m not much of a partner. I can’t do the small things for you like running checks on Clayton Brandt and requesting security video from a hotel.”
“You’re helping me. Don’t worry.”
“Danforth’s tone was like—resigned. Nervous, but resigned. He thinks our investigation is insignificant, that we’ll be pulled from the case any minute, that NOPD is meaningless.”
Honey shrugged. “I work for a department that had a bad reputation before the Storm. Now it’s worse. A lot of people think we’re a joke.”
“I don’t think he was putting down NOPD. He was alluding to the power of the opposition.”
“Good,” said my beautiful best friend without a trace of irony in her voice. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
The pub was mostly empty, but a skinny drunk with a voice like a fork stuck in a garbage disposal told me Decon had been permanently eighty-sixed months ago, for reasons he wouldn’t elaborate on.
In the saloon, an overweight but pretty-faced blond bartender told me Decon owed her three-hundred dollars so she never expected to see him again. Yet she insisted he was always around.
As Honey and I walked into the tavern, a guy with glassy eyes slammed his cell phone onto the bar, breaking it and sending his flat battery flying because his drug dealer wasn’t answering. He told me Decon owed him fifty-five bucks, and could I give him the money and then collect it from Decon when I found him. Uh, that would be no.
In the lounge, when Honey brought up his name, we were met by a roomful of very unfriendly stares, firmly establishing that Decon wasn’t the most popular guy in the mini-mall. A beefy guy told us Decon slept in a crypt at Greenwood Cemetery. I chalked that up to drunken bar talk, although it did remind me of the Jefferson brothers’ contention that Decon hung out in cemeteries. Shrugging at each other, Honey and I moved on.
To me the drinking establishments felt interchangeable; slightly seedy workingman’s joints with darts, video gaming and pool tables. Lots of tattoos, trash talk, drug-dealing, low energy, and way too many quarrelsome drunks.
I lit a mini-cigarillo as Honey and I stepped back out into the sultry night, heat still radiating from the crumbling parking-lot pavement. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he lives within walking distance,” I said, looking over to the buildings on the other side of Interstate 10, no more than a few hundred yards away. “I don’t buy that he sleeps in cemeteries in New Orleans but drinks every night out here in Metairie.”
“Then let’s take a walk,” said Honey.
We circled around behind the mini-mall, surprised to see two more watering holes in a gravelly parking lot. Different bars, same story. We soon found ourselves strolling into a so-so neighborhood of apartment buildings and multi-family dwellings.
“Check out those neon lights up ahead. Does that look like what I think it is?” Honey asked.
“Yep. Another bar. Wonder what the car insurance rates are in this neighborhood?”
We picked up the pace a bit, and Honey took my hand. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
I stiffened. Damn, does she know I pinched the laptop? How could she? I searched her eyes for a clue. “Possibly.”
She looked at me, waiting, then said, “Kind of strange, you coming out of Breaux’s bathroom. Wearing your backpack.”
She knew. “Then you know what I found. But it might be safer for all concerned if we kept that off the record.”
“I know why you took it. I understand.”
Did she really?
“What kind of problem do we have then?”
“None. Between you and me. But if you lied to me? If you told me you didn’t take it? It wouldn’t be good.”
“I can plant the laptop back at Breaux’s, introduce it into the chain-of-evidence—”
“What laptop? Just keep it safe for now. And let me know what’s in it.” She stopped, pulled me into her arms, and kissed me like a blissed-out lover on a hot date. And I kissed her back. It was the most intimate kiss Honey and I had ever shared. She broke off, smiling, and then said, “Let’s go get lucky.”
Millie’s Lounge was a stand-alone joint on a mixed-use-zoned, unremarkable suburb
an street. About half a dozen customers seemed to be behaving themselves, although someone had dialed up a run of acid rock on the jukebox that made it hard to hear. Maybe that’s why the skinny guy with long black hair and a goatee didn’t seem to notice us enter.
Millie’s looked like a quantum leap up in class from every other bar we’d been in so far. They even had an old-fashioned absinthe dispenser set up, and the bartender had just started the water drip onto a sugar cube set over a glass of the magic juice. Classy, but looks can be deceiving.
The guy matching Decon’s description sat angled away from the front door, his nose buried into a video screen. Honey remained near the front as I casually circled around, approaching him from behind.
Still unaware of our presence, Decon, who’d apparently already had a few, looked over to the bartender and said, “I like mine strong, so if the last one was three-to-one, make this one two-to-one.” He smiled and announced to no one in particular, “I’ll be chasing the green fairy all night tonight.”
He looked back to the video screen and began a new game where you compared two seemingly identical photos—in this case a partially-clothed woman provocatively posed in exotic surroundings—and had to quickly mark and identify the differences between the photos.
I closed in behind him and leaned in over his shoulder. “She’s missing a nipple ring; there’s two coconuts in the tree instead of one—”
He checked out my reflection in the video screen. “Good eye, friend,” he said cautiously.
“And then there’s that bronze cornerstone plaque missing from the building in the CBD.”
His eyes went wide with white showing all around, telling me he was about to bolt, or slug me. He quickly pivoted but was unsteady on the barstool. I grabbed his right hand, put him into a wrist lock, and applied pressure. Well-executed wrist locks cause a binding-type pain that is pretty scary initially as your balance gets displaced, usually accompanied by a takedown that is quickly overshadowed by your head hitting the concrete. Which is what happened to Decon in about 1.5 seconds.
