by Eric Beetner
“I understand,” he said. “Thank you.”
She left the room and he walked to the bed. Burke was breathing evenly, the machine beeping rhythmically.
Talk to Polly was all he had. “I need more, old man. Come on, wake up.”
He didn’t.
“How’s he doin’?”
He turned, saw Telemaco standing in the doorway.
“Resting,” Sangster said. “They tell me that’s the best thing he can do.”
“Has he said anything?”
“No,” Sangster said. “He hasn’t come around.”
“And downstairs?”
“I told you what he said when you bought me that great cup of coffee.”
“I know,” Telemaco said. “I just thought maybe ya’ll might have something to add.”
“No,” Sangster said, “I’ve got nothing.” He turned and looked at Burke. “I was hoping he’d wake up and talk to me.”
“Well,” the detective said, “I’m gonna leave a man on the door in case he does wake up and say something.”
“Or in case somebody wants to hit him on the head, again?”
“Yeah,” Telemaco said, “that, too.”
“Mind if I keep in touch with you?” Sangster asked. “In case he asks for me?”
“I’d actually prefer that,” Telemaco said.
“Fine.”
Telemaco started to leave, then stopped.
“You comin’?”
“Yeah,” Sangster said, with a last look back at the man in the bed, “I was just leaving.”
Telemaco walked with Sangster to the front door, and out.
“Can I drop you anywhere?” he asked.
“I’ve got a car,” Sangster said.
“Okay, then.”
“Where’s your partner?”
Telemaco jerked his head toward the curb. There was a Crown Victoria there with Williams behind the wheel.
“Oh,” Sangster said, “glad I didn’t need that ride.”
“I’ll see you . . . Stark.”
As the detective started away Sangster asked, “Your partner find anything in Pirates Alley?”
Telemaco just waved and kept going.
When he was sure the cops were gone Sangster turned around and went back inside.
He found Nurse Claire O’Malley in the emergency room, standing at the front desk talking to the nurse behind it.
“Mr. . . .” she said, as he approached.
“Stark,” he said. “Can we talk?”
“Sure,” she said, “I have a few minutes.”
They walked off to one side and stood against a wall. There was plenty of activity going on around them, and no one was paying much attention to them.
Sangster noticed that while she might be called a plain woman, there was still something very attractive about her. Maybe it was the white nurse’s uniform. He’d never understood the appeal of the Catholic school girl look, but a nurse . . . well, that was different.
“Can I assume that you’re the one who spent the most time with Burke?” he asked.
“Well . . . maybe other than the doctor who actually worked on him.”
“Can you tell me if he had any other bruises?”
“Bruises?”
“Yes,” Sangster said, “maybe around his ribs, or torso—”
“Are you thinking he might have been beaten?”
“Or kicked, while he was down.”
She thought a moment, then said, “No, there was no indication of that. Are you . . . a policeman?”
“Just his friend and neighbor.”
“A rather good friend, I’d say, for him to ask for you.”
“That’s another question,” he said. “You told me I was his emergency contact. Did he have something on him, in writing, I mean, to that effect?”
“No,” she said, “he told me specifically to call you, and gave me your phone number.”
“Was he able to say anything else?”
“Like what?”
“Well, anything that might be helpful in figuring out who did this to him.”
“No,” she said, “nothing . . . but isn’t that the job of the police?”
“Yes, of course,” Sangster said, “I’m just trying to be . . . helpful.”
“Really?” she asked. “You seem to know what kind of questions to ask.”
“I read a lot of mysteries.”
She looked at the tiny watch on her wrist.
“I have to go back to work.”
“Of course,” he said, “thank you for talking to me.”
“No problem.” She stood there a moment more, then said, “Call me . . .”
“What?”
“. . . if you think of anything else you, uh, want to ask me,” she finished.
“Oh,” he said. “Yes, okay . . . thanks, again.”
She nodded. As she walked away he suddenly had the urge to see what she looked like with all those red curls down.
FOUR
He made sure the hospital had his phone number, in case anything went wrong, and left to drive back home to his house in Algiers. He’d return later in the day, during visiting hours, hopefully he’d find something out by then.
When he got home there wasn’t much to do except catch a few winks. He removed his shoes, laid down on the bed fully dressed and fell asleep.
He woke several hours later, ravenously hungry. He made himself an egg sandwich, washed it down with two cups of strong coffee. Finishing the last cup, he looked out the window at Burke’s house, next door.
Polly was a middle-aged woman who cleaned Burke’s house for him. As for his own house, Sangster cleaned it himself, not wanting anyone inside at any time, even though Burke had recommended Polly several times.
He sometimes saw Polly arrive in the morning between eight and nine a.m., other times saw her leave about three or four in the afternoon. However, he didn’t know her, or what her exact schedule was. So he wasn’t sure if she’d be cleaning Burke’s house on this day, but that was the only place he had to start.
He rinsed his empty cup out, grabbed the extra key Burke had given him some time ago, and went next door.
In the almost four years he had been renting his house on Algiers Point, across Lake Ponchartrain from the French Quarter, he had played chess with Burke at least three times a week. They alternated porches for their games, turning their matches into a home and away series.
The two houses were similar: two story wood-frame structures that had survived both the fire of 1895 and Hurricane Katrina. Sangster rented his, but Burke owned.
Before using the key he knocked, in case Polly was inside cleaning. When there was no answer he used the key to let himself in.
Burke also had an extra key to Sangster’s house, but it had taken the two men a long time to trust each other that much. Sangster, the ex-hitman, had been shocked to find that Burke, the ex-lawman, was a kindred spirit, and the two had formed a bond—the kind of bond Sangster had never experienced, and never could have experienced, before that morning when he woke to find that he suddenly had a soul.
It took only seconds to ascertain that Polly was not around. However, the house was clean, so he assumed she had been there in the past day or so.
There wasn’t much he could do for his friend until he spoke with Polly. That meant finding her. Burke had a small office, with a desk and one file cabinet. Sangster went through the cabinet. In the first drawer he discovered Sheriff’s Department files, all of them unsolved cases. But he wasn’t interested in those at the moment. In the second drawer he found what he wanted: copies of paid—and unpaid—bills. He had to go through gas, electric, mortgage and other monthly bills before finding some canceled checks that had been written to Polly. He pulled the folder out, leafed through it, and finally found Polly’s address. He didn’t recognize the street, but it was also an Algiers address. He kept the piece of paper it was written on and returned the file to the cabinet. Then he left Burke’s house, lo
cking the door behind him.
He went back to his house, using his landline to call the hospital and check on Burke’s condition. A woman at the nurse’s station told him Mr. Burke’s condition had not change—no better, no worse.
“Can you tell me if there is still a policeman outside his door?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, there is.”
“Thank you.”
He hung up. There was no reason for him to rush to the hospital right away. So, he decided to go find Polly, and then see Burke during the evening visiting hours.
After locking up his house, Sangster set off on foot to find Polly.
Algiers was home to many pubs and restaurants—no fast food places allowed—many of which, like the Old Point Bar, had live music. Some of the Mardi-Gras troupes had warehouses there. In addition, there were many Catholic and Baptist churches in the area. The population was about 2,200.
As Sangster walked, he discovered that Evelina Ave, where Polly lived, was also in Algiers Point, but on the other side of the ferry landing. When he reached the address he saw it was one of the older shotgun style houses, so-called because there were no hallways inside. You could fire a shotgun through the front door and the bullet would come out the back door.
He stepped up to the front door and knocked. After a few moments the door was answered by a small boy about eight.
“Hello,” he said, looking up at Sangster.
“Hello,” Sangster said, “does Polly Bourque live here?”
“Yeah,” the boy said, “she’s my ma. I’m Hugo.”
“Hugo, is your ma home?”
“Naw,” the boy said, “she’s at work.”
“Work?”
“She cleans.”
“Are you here alone?”
“Naw,” Hugo said. “My sister’s here.”
“Is she older than you, or younger?”
“She’s older.”
“Can I talk to her?”
Instead of answering, the boy turned and ran back inside the house, yelling, “Octavia!”
Sangster waited and after a few moments a teenage girl wearing tank top and cut offs, came to the door. She was dark-skinned, pretty, with pointy little tits and not an ounce of fat on her. She looked him up and down, pushing her pokies out at him.
“Where y’at?” was the traditional New Orleans greeting, only she said, “Where YOU at?”
“What it is,” he said, giving the standard response.
The girl smiled and said, “You ain’t no Algerine.”
“No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m looking for your mother.”
“Why?”
“A friend of hers is in the hospital,” Sangster said. “I just want to let her know.”
“I can tell ’er.”
“I’d like to tell her myself,” he responded. “Where she is?”
“She’s workin’.”
“Your little brother told me that much. Can you tell me where?”
“It’s Tuesday, so I think today she’s doin’ the schools.”
“The schools?”
“Yeah,” the girl said. “She cleans a couple of the schools.”
“Which ones?”
“I think she’s on Old Aurora today,” she said. “That’d be Alice M. Harte Elementary or Edna Karr High.”
Sangster didn’t know the schools in Algiers, but he could find them.
“Thanks for the information, Octavia.”
She cocked her head to one side and said, “You wanna maybe come in, have a drink?”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Call me in four or five years, Sweetheart.”
As he walked away he heard her say, “Chicken.”
Back to TOC
Here’s a sample from Matt Hilton’s Rules of Honor.
Chapter 1
‘Stay in bed, I’m going to take a look.’
‘I’ll phone the police.’
‘No. Just wait until I check things out. It was maybe just the wind.’
‘That wasn’t the wind, Andrew.’
‘Maybe not, but it’s too early to call the police. Just wait and I’ll go see. If I’m not back in two minutes, call then.’
The woman watched her husband pull a robe over his bulky shoulders, then move for the closet in their bedroom. He opened the door and reached for the top shelf, from which he retrieved a locked box. Inside the box was a relic of her husband’s past. He glanced at her briefly, an apologetic look, but then withdrew the gun that winked dully in the lamplight. Inside the box was a rapid loader, and Andrew fed the six bullets into the gun with precision. Done, he looked at his wife again.
‘It’s only a precaution,’ he whispered, closing the cylinder and latching it tight.
‘Be careful...’
His wife had switched on the bedside lamp, but the rest of the house was in darkness. As he eased open the door and peered into the upstairs hall he pressed his body close to the opening to stop light spill. He paused there a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark. Then he slipped out into the hall, surprisingly agile for a man of his advanced years. Andrew was a septuagenarian but looking at him most would guess he was at least ten years younger. His height had barely been touched by the years, and he still had the broad shoulders and heavy arms of his youth. His knees bothered him these days, but not now while a bubble of adrenalin coursed through his frame. He went along the hall with the gun held close to his side. He didn’t concern himself with the guest bedrooms or the bathroom because the sound that had woken them had definitely come from below in the living room.
Recently there had been a spate of burglaries in the neighbourhood, the cops putting down the breaking and entries to drug addicts looking for cash, credit cards and items easily pawned. Andrew and his wife, though they weren’t rich, were wealthy enough to attract the attention of a sneak thief. That angered Andrew: he’d worked hard all of his life, even put his safety on the line, to make an easy retirement for him and his wife. No sneak thief was going to take anything from them.
A lifetime ago he’d fought in Korea, had survived the worst that war could throw at him, and for decades afterwards had striven to be the same soldier. He had failed to protect his girl child, who’d succumbed through illness, and one boy following suit with a military career had been killed in the line of duty. So now he was more determined than ever that he would not fail his wife and allow some punk to invade their home and take their lives’ worth. He was old but he’d lost none of his military acumen and thought himself more than equal to a drug-addled thief.
From the head of the landing he peered down the stairs.
Moonlight flooded the vestibule at the bottom, a skewed oblong cast from the window in the front door stretching across the floor. Within the light grey shadows danced, but Andrew recognised them as the trees in his garden dancing to the breeze. He took the stairs one at a time, avoiding the third step down that was prone to squeak under his weight. As he descended the stairs he looked for the blinking red light on the alarm box on the hall wall, but it was steady. Whoever had found a way inside was clever enough to dismantle the alarm. Or they knew the code and had turned it off. There was only one other person who knew the code, but he wasn’t prone to dropping in uninvited like this in the dead of night. Alone the sound they’d heard wasn’t proof that an invader was in their house, but the dead alarm now solidified it. Andrew considered going back upstairs and telling his wife to telephone the police immediately, but something halted him. Pride. Foolish pride perhaps, but he wasn’t the type to run from danger.
Some would have been tempted to call out a challenge, but Andrew knew that it would be a mistake. A desperate drug addict might run for it, but then if Andrew had managed to corner him then his desperation might turn violent. Better that he initiated any beating than the other way around. He went down the stairs, paused to check the alarm box and saw that the guts of it had been teased open and a wire clip
ped onto the exposed workings to form a loop in the system. The alarm had been negated, but the automatic signal to his service provider would not have kicked in, as it would if the wires had been merely torn out. If he’d stopped to think for a moment he’d have realised that it was too sophisticated a method for an addict only intent on his next fix. But he wasn’t thinking he was reacting. Threat demanded action.
He glanced once towards the kitchen but discarded it: a thief would go for the living room where the possibility of rich pickings was greater. He moved along the short hallway and saw that the door to the sitting room was ajar. Always conscious about home safety, fire and smoke being the worst threat to sleeping inhabitants, he was always careful to turn off electrical appliances and to close doors tight. He had got it down to a bedtime routine and knew he’d closed that door tightly, as he did every night. He paused there listening. He thought he heard a soft footfall, but it came from above, probably his wife. Placing a fingertip to the door, he teased it inward, the revolver held steady against his hip. Then, without warning he shoved the door hard and stepped quickly into the room, sweeping the familiar space for anything alien.
There was nobody to be seen.
If not for the jerry-rigged alarm he’d have thought he’d been mistaken, that the noise that woke him was nothing but wind throwing the garden furniture around the yard. He wondered if the burglar had heard him as he’d risen and had made himself scarce. But in the next instant he knew that he was wrong.
A cold metallic tickle behind his right ear made him halt.
‘You know what that is, don’t you, old man?’
Andrew nodded slightly, a minute movement because he didn’t know how hair-triggered the gun pressed to his skull was.
‘Mine’s bigger than yours,’ whispered the voice over his shoulder. ‘I suggest you drop that old revolver and kick it back to me.’
‘Okay, son, take it easy now.’ Andrew lifted the revolver and flicked the latch to open the swing-out cylinder. He rattled the gun and allowed the shells to tumble out and clatter on the hardwood floor.
