by Tony Dunbar
“All this just for working an unauthorized private detail? What was it?”
“I was, uh, bodyguard for Trey Caponata?”
Tubby knew that name. “The old man’s son?”
“Yeah.”
“The mob boss’s son?”
“That was just a rumor,” Babineaux said. “The mob is history anyway.”
Tubby shook his head. “Nuts. I met the old guy just one time and there was no question that I was breathing only because it pleased him to see me sweat.”
Ireanous shrugged.
“So that’s it?” Tubby asked.
“No,” the cop said. “Not quite. I also run, I should say ran, the organization that assigned the private details to the other cops.”
“You mean you were in charge of who got the jobs?”
“Pretty much. Other people kept track of the schedules and the books.”
“Running such an organization must have taken up a lot of your time.”
The potential client nodded.
“Did you have any left over for police work?”
The scowl, the growl and the slap on the desk erupted all at the same time.
“I was and am a damn good cop!” Babineaux thundered.
There was a light tap, tap, tapping on the door.
“Come in,” Tubby said softly.
Cherrylynn’s face appeared, radiating concern. “Anyone need any coffee?” she asked.
“No, we’re fine,” Tubby said. She backed out and closed the door quickly.
“Are you married?” he asked the policeman.
“Divorced.”
“Any kids?”
“I’ve got a daughter. She’s in college, but when she’s home she lives with me.”
“Where is she in school?”
“Florida State. She wants to be a doctor.”
Tubby sighed. “Okay. I will represent you. Here’s a contract to look over.” On the document was a blank space where Tubby could write in his hourly fee. He filled that in with a high number and slid the paper over the desk. “Take it home and read it if you like.”
“I can read it here.”
And he did. It was just two pages long, but it took about ten minutes, while Tubby stared out the window at the French Quarter far below. A long string of barges filled with Kentucky coal was being guided downstream around the hairpin turn in the Mississippi River by a red tugboat. Ultimate destination, Spain.
“You get a retainer?” the cop asked.
“I do.”
“What the hell,” his new client said. “I’ll sign.”
“Excellent,” Tubby said. He took back the executed contract and signed it himself. “You can take care of the retainer with Cherrylynn. Now, what kind of paperwork do you have about your assault. I mean, altercation? A write-up? A copy of your grievance? Anything official?”
Ireanous had an envelope in his pocket and handed it over.
“Did I hear you say that Rick Sandoval over in the Police Records office was somehow connected to this?”
“He was in charge of collecting money for the details from the customers and paying it over to the cops.”
“I guess you guys took a cut.”
“Absolutely. We ran a legitimate business.”
* * *
As soon as his new client left, Tubby called Flowers.
“Tell me anything you can about Trey Caponata.”
“Hello to you.” Flowers’ voice was smooth, almost a like song, with a hint of a Spanish accent. “Caponata is a small time gangster as far as I know. A Mafia-wannabe. His father ran the mob through reputation and fear, but I don’t think the son has ever filled those shoes. I expect he pimps some girls and fences stolen goods, but nothing big-time. Why?”
“My new client, Ireanous Babineaux, was his bodyguard.”
Flowers whistled. “That I didn’t know. Babineaux has not actually been a close friend of mine or anything. He has, however, been a source of valuable information for me over the years.”
“You paid him?”
“That’s an unusual question coming from you, Tubby, but, yes, in a manner of speaking.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry into your business. Why would Caponata need a bodyguard?”
“My guess is just for show. Want me to check him out more thoroughly?”
“Yes, I do. And also see what background you can get for me on the head of the police union. Archie, maybe Archibald, I don’t know, Alonzo.”
“Right. I can tell you right away that Alonzo is politically connected. He may have dirtier hands than the young Caponata. But I’ll pull together some details for you.”
“Good. As soon as possible, please.”
“You got it. I’m glad to get back on a case with you.”
Tubby was glad, too. The only problem was that Flowers was expensive. He had better bill this client regularly.
* * *
“Mister Boaz is on the line,” Cherrylynn told him. Tubby picked up.
“Good morning, Jason.”
“It’s noon. I just won three thousand dollars at the off-track. I’m about to walk into Galatoire’s 33 and buy a steak. You want to be my guest?”
Tubby certainly did.
“Out to lunch,” he shouted to Cherrylynn as he bolted out the door.
* * *
She had been waiting to tell him about her trip to the library. It was so frustrating to be in the middle of some real detective work and have to sit on your hands. Mister Dubonnet might not be back for hours. She was tapping her foot impatiently when the phone rang.
“Is Dubonnet there?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but he’s out. Who’s calling?”
“This is Officer Sandoval at Police Records. When will he be back?”
“I’m afraid he’s in court and may be gone for hours.”
“I’ve got something for him.”
“If you tell me what it is, I’ll be sure to let him know when he gets back.”
“It’s a package, and I don’t like keeping it around here.”
“I am Mister Dubonnet’s confidential secretary. If it is important I can pick up the package myself and see that it’s kept in a safe place.”
“I’d say it’s important to him. I’m at police headquarters.”
“I could be there in about twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be outside on the steps taking a cigarette break.”
Cherrylynn wasted no time locking up and grabbing an elevator. There was a cab stand down at the street.
XIII
Tubby swung open the gold-handled door at the restaurant on Bourbon Street and was immediately soothed by the elegant décor, the magnificently long bar, and the subdued lights and soft ragtime music. This was an offshoot of the original Galatoire’s next door, which the lawyer regarded as one of the finest establishments on the planet, but not the sort of place you went to on a whim. He saw Jason sitting with his back to the mahogany-paneled wall. He had an ample martini to his lips. He stood up to greet Tubby, showing how tall and thin he was. Though his beard and black hair were neat, the heavy black-framed glasses he wore and his rumpled trousers and jacket made him look like a college professor.
“Gin or vodka?” Tubby asked. He slid into a chair to face his host.
“A Beefeater’s, my friend. What’s your poison?”
“I’ll follow suit.” A waiter appeared. “Whatever the gentleman is having,” Tubby instructed. He laid the proffered menu aside. “You had a good day with the ponies?”
“A very good day. A little filly named Trailer Trash came in to win the third race at Saratoga at thirteen to one. I’ve been following her for weeks, and she’s always coming in fourth or fifth, every single race. I figured the jockeys were holding her back, and I was right. I nailed that one, then, bless my heart, I won the daily double!”
“Very exciting.” Tubby also liked nothing better than a day at the races, but he wasn’t a fan of off-track betting parlors. They were n
ow basically given over to video poker and slot machines. The traditional clientele had disappeared almost entirely. “How often do you wager?” he asked.
“I dabble in something every day. It’s an addiction, I know. I keep two bookies busy. I even gambled online for a while, but then I got hacked. That was a learning experience.”
The waiter came back with a pair of drinks and offered to take their orders.
“A sixteen-ounce strip, garçon.” Jason tossed back his first drink and reached for his fresh one. “Medium rare. And your potatoes au gratin and brown butter mushrooms.”
Tubby scanned the menu quickly.
“I’ll try your House Boudin-Stuffed Roasted Quail.”
“With a salad or soup?”
“Why yes, please. I’ll have your turtle soup.”
“What about the horseradish-crusted bone marrow?” Jason asked.
“Sounds fulfilling, doesn’t it, but not today. I’d better stick to my diet.”
“Save some space for the peach cobbler. It’s pretty damn good.”
“Let’s do this every week,” his guest suggested.
Jason laughed and took another gulp. “Now, what did you call me about?”
“An old friend of mine owns a bar and music club.”
“No surprise there.”
“Yeah. Well, she needs to be able to measure the decibel levels outside her bar while a band is playing. I thought you might have an idea about how to do that.”
“You use a sound level meter, which I imagine you can probably buy at Radio Shack. Above ninety decibels, something like that, is bad for you.” Jason turned thoughtful. “But that seems like a very old-school way to go about it. How can you demonstrate what and where you took a reading?”
He pulled out his phone and began thumbing away.
“You know, I don’t see that there’s an app being offered for this.” He started humming.
“What are you talking about?”
“It seems to me that what you’d want, for evidentiary purposes as it were, is an app that lets you take a picture of the bar in real time and display the decibel rating on the screen in a way you could save it. It would record the place, the time and the sound. But I don’t see that such an app is available.”
“Too bad.”
“Not bad at all. I’ll play around with this tonight and see if I can’t create one. Who knows, this could be another big idea.”
“Don’t forget where you got it.”
Jason resurfaced to focus on Tubby. He laughed. “You don’t even know what an app is,” he said.
“Of course I do.” Jason spared him from having to display the limits of his knowledge by launching into a discourse on his date with Norella. They had danced till three in the morning and made love on her living room floor. At least that’s what Jason thought had happened.
Before more was revealed, the food arrived.
“Hot plates,” the waiter warned. Jason’s steak sizzled. Tubby’s quail steamed. They stopped talking for a few minutes and ate. The small toasty brown bird was served on a glacé of black cherries and wilted spinach, and with the rice sausage spilling onto the plate it sent out mists of wonderful spicy flavors. It was a shame to pierce it with a fork.
“Mine’s excellent. How’s your steak?” Tubby finally managed to ask.
“Très Bien. So, what else are you working on these days? Any more New Orleans political intrigues or gruesome murders?”
“One of each, actually. The intrigue may involve organized crime and our city police department. I shouldn’t have taken the case, but it promises to be another fascinating glimpse into what makes our very warm and moist small town work. The murder, on the other hand, happened forty years ago, and is personal to me.”
“Really? Who got killed?”
“A young boy. I never actually learned his full name. They called him Parker. It was at a public demonstration. I was there. Someone pulled up in a car and shot him.”
Jason’s ruddy face paled. He took a pull on his drink and signaled the waiter for a refill.
“This was back in the days of anti-war demonstrations. I just happened to get involved during a brief but very, uh, experimental period in my life.”
“You were there when it happened?” Jason’s voice sounded strained.
“Yeah. The kid died, practically in my arms. I never knew who did it or why. Is there something wrong with your food?”
Jason had quietly set down his fork, and he dropped his chin as if in prayer.
“How do you plan to find the answers to your questions?”
“I’ll dig up what can be dug up. Granted, it was a long time ago. But I’m a resourceful person.”
Jason raised his head and met Tubby’s eyes.
“You should leave this in the past, my friend. The people who did this are loco crazy. They were crazy then, and they are crazy now.”
Tubby was astonished. “You actually know something about this event?”
Jason just shook his head sadly.
* * *
The taxi dropped Cherrylynn off on Broad across the street from the jail. She had to fork over most of her cash because the swarthy driver with the tiny mustache claimed that his credit card machine was broken. Flustered, she hurried up the wide steps and spied, across the plaza, a sentry-like uniformed policeman who was indeed smoking a cigarette. Getting closer, she observed that he was surrounded by a ring of smashed butts which blended into the gum-stained concrete. He was holding a manila envelope.
“Officer Sandoval?” she inquired.
He looked her up and down and grunted, “You ain’t bad looking.”
“I’m Mister Dubonnet’s secretary,” she said, inexplicably not feeling insulted by his forwardness. “Do you have something for him?”
The policeman stuck out his arm, big as both of hers, and handed over the envelope.
“Tell him this is all there is.” He shrugged. “It was a long time ago and things get lost. This is the original file, and I’d like it back.”
Sandoval ground what was left of his smoke into the pavement with all the rest.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Secretary.” He turned abruptly and walked back into the glass building.
“Thank you,” Cherrylynn called after him.
She turned the envelope over. There were no markings on it. She noted that the flap was clipped shut but not sealed. Holding it against her chest with an elbow, she searched through her purse until she found a dollar and a quarter. Great! At least she could afford to take a bus back downtown.
Soon, sitting in air-conditioned comfort on the crowded Number 30, she gave in to temptation and unfastened the clasp. She peeked inside. There was a ragged worn folder— so this was indeed the original— and just a few pieces of paper. The top one had a Police Department letterhead.
Her seatmate, a fat lady with a Bible on her lap, was watching this out of the corner of her eye. Cherrylynn closed the envelope and stared out the window at the chicken shacks and drug clinics they were rolling past. She hopped off on St. Charles Avenue and was unlocking the DUBONNET & ASSOCIATES offices five minutes later. Obviously, Tubby had not yet returned.
No doubt the boss would expect her to inventory the contents and transfer them into a file. This would also satisfy her curiosity. She extracted the pages and spread them out on her desk.
Here’s what she found:
A worn dirty manila file folder with a tag pasted to it that read: “No. JDX2374.”
A form releasing the body of John Doe to the Dennis Mortuary on Louisiana Avenue, signed by Frank Minyard, the Parish Coroner.
A copy of a piece of paper with a handwritten name on it. It was Bert Haggarty, followed by “Indiana.”
The official Police Department document was a short report. It had one paragraph, denoted as “SUMMARY.” It read:
“Deceased John Doe, wounds possibly self-inflicted. Subversive anti-war buttons, vagrant, possible altercation with unknown parties. Possible
drug deal. One marijuana cigarette in pants pocket, sent to evidence. Prints taken. No known match. Photo of body shows gunshot.”
There was no marijuana cigarette, and there were no prints. There was no photograph of the body.
Cherrylynn inspected the pages carefully. She turned them over and scanned the backs. Nothing. The manila folder, except for the file number and a small blue ink doodle on the inside that resembled a spider, was blank. But wait, near the doodle there was an indentation likely made by a pen or pencil writing on something with the folder underneath. She got out the magnifying glass she sometimes used to check her skin and made out a name. It appeared to be “Carlos Pancera,” and beside that a phone number with a five-o-four area code. She jotted it down.
Cherrylynn put everything back into the envelope and locked it in her desk. After checking her phone and picking some dead leaves off the ficus plant in the corner, she couldn’t think of anything else to do. So she opened up her Philosophy reading, Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, and gave it a try. “That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.” Okay, so far. “So how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise other than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly of themselves produce representation…” She closed the text. Critique of Poor Reason, maybe. She could get this, she knew. But not now.
Tapping on her laptop, she Googled “New Orleans Police Officer P. Kronke.”
It didn’t take long. He was in the White Pages.
* * *
At Galatoire’s 33, the diners’ conversation languished. What remained of their meal passed in strained silence. Jason Boaz and his guest both said no to the waiter’s offer to serve them additional drinks. The last bite of quail remained on the plate. Dessert, sadly, was forgotten.
“Jason. That was a very important event in my life,” Tubby pointed out, signaling the waiter that they were done. “I’m not going to let it go.”
“I beg you, my friend. Let it alone.”
“No. It’s not going to end here,” the lawyer insisted.
“Eres hombre muerto.”
Tubby didn’t know what that meant, but he stood up.
Jason pulled out his credit card and paid while his friend left.
When the mystified boss got back to the office Cherrylynn announced, “I have some news for you.”
