A Diamond Before You Die

by Chris Wiltz

  “So you didn’t go out all weekend?” I asked him.

  “Uh-uh.”

  “No parades, no parties?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Then you checked in here Monday afternoon.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you go out yesterday?” He shook his head. “Interesting,” I said.

  “Whadaya mean?” Suspicious. A little hostile.

  He was sitting on the foot of the bed. I put my elbows on my knees, leaning toward him. “I mean this, Danny: The laundry is broken into and you stay home all weekend. No parties, no fun. Your apartment is ransacked and you check into a motel. You’re runnin’ scared, Danny. You tell me.”

  He stood up and walked away from me, then he turned around and pointed with the two fingers that held the cigarette. “You said yourself the film got Marty killed.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t have the film, and whoever searched your premises knows it’s not at either place. What do you know about the film, Danny?”

  He walked back to the ashtray he’d put on the bed, put out the cigarette, and walked back and forth in the space between the bed and the dresser.

  When he stopped pacing, he came on strong. “What’s your interest in this, Rafferty? Who’s payin’ you?”

  “No one.”

  He jutted his chin at me. “Who was Marty blackmailing—you?”

  “No.”

  “Then who?”

  “I don’t know that he was blackmailing anyone. I don’t even know for sure there’s a film.”

  He started hiking again, shaking his head, saying, “Uh-uh, uh-uh.” He wheeled around on the heel of an alligator loafer to face me. “I don’ need this cop routine, pal. You’re askin’ a lotta questions, but you ain’t comin’ up wit’ no answers.” He sounded nasal and mean.

  “I ain’t checkin’ into no motels, either, pal.”

  I tried to sound like I could get just as mean as he could, but I wasn’t getting the desired results. Instead of getting nervous, Mr. D. relaxed. There was a smirk on his face. I had a feeling I was about to get an invitation to leave. I had to try something else.

  “You’re talking to an obsessed man, Danny.” I lit a cigarette and tossed the pack and lighter on the bed. He stayed where he was. I sat back and took a long drag. “My interest in this was to prove to myself I was right, that Solarno murdered a girl five years ago.”

  “Well, you can’t prove it by me, pal.”

  “I wasn’t trying to. I was in Solarno’s apartment after he was murdered. I found a piece of jewelry that belonged to her—a gold star.”

  He kept his eyes on me, and moved over to the bed to get a cigarette. “Wit’ a diamond on it?” he asked. I nodded; he shook his head. “I know the piece you’re talkin’ about.” He lit up, and talked around the cigarette. “Marty gave it to a stripper he pimped for. We were in the joint she worked at one night, and Marty ripped it off her neck because she didn’t wanna turn a trick wit’ some rich nigger.”

  “He ripped it off a dead girl first.”

  “Maybe, but I asked him afterward if he had to buy the girls diamonds to keep ‘em in line. You know how Marry talked: He said it was a cheap bauble he let a friend pay ‘im off wit’ because he was short on cash.”

  “What did you expect him to say, that he’d taken it as a trophy after the kill?”

  “He didn’t have to say anything. He was pissed. His mind was on the nigger who’d already paid ‘im for that particular girl.”

  “So?”

  “Don’t get mad at me, pal. I’m just passin’ along what I was told.”

  I didn’t say anything; I punched the cigarette out in the ashtray, getting ashes all over the bed.

  Mr. D. picked up the ashtray and got the ashes off the bed. He put the ashtray on the dresser and sat on the edge of the piece of furniture, his ankles crossed and his arms folded. “So what’s five years ago got to do wit’ a film?” he asked.

  “Not a damned thing. I’m telling you why I was in Solarno’s apartment. While I was there I happened to notice that he had a projector all set up, but no films; the films were taken.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says the cops. They found a piece of one they assumed was ripped out of the projector.”

  One slime-green shoe tapped up against the other one, but the reptile look was in his eyes. “Who’re you workin’ for, Rafferty—Callahan?”

  “No,” I said slowly, “but you’re asking the right questions now.”

  21

  * * *

  Pal Danny

  Mr. D. wasn’t satisfied until I told him a cop friend had let me into Solarno’s apartment, and I explained to him that I’d only become interested in this film business after Callahan threatened me. I implied that I’d gone to see Callahan initially about the five-year-old murder, but that after I mentioned the film I was followed. The office was broken into, and if someone was afraid I knew about something, then there must be something to know.

  Mr. D. scrutinized me closely while I talked. When I finished he pushed himself off the dresser, rattling the drawers. “Sounds pretty good,” he commented.

  “Sounds a whole lot better than anything you’ve told me yet,” I said testily.

  He sat on the foot of the bed, and fooled around lighting a cigarette, sizing me up out of the corner of his eye. He spit out some smoke and then he started. “Marty came over to the laundry a coupla days before they got ‘im. He was all jacked up over some investigative work he was doin’. He said he was gonna get himself back in the good graces of the fag.” He stopped.

  “Callahan,” I said.

  He nodded. “Marty was Callahan’s bagman. He liked bein’ on the D.A.’s staff—it made him feel important. He was pissed that Callahan got rid of him. Callahan isn’t clean, you understand, it’s just that Marty’s mouth was too big. And he was too unreliable. I figured Marty’d found a way to put the squeeze on Callahan so he could get back on the staff. When he turned up dead, I figured Callahan had decided to get rid of him once and for all.”

  He got up, walked around, and put out the cigarette. “Then you show up talkin’ about this film Marty wanted to show. Right then I figure there’s someone else in the picture.” He waited, but I had no comment. “Marty never said nothin’ to me about no film.”

  “If there was a film, do you think he would’ve?” I asked.

  “Hard to say. For all I know, he was makin’ up stories again. He coulda been tellin’ Callahan one thing, somebody else another. Marty was best at playin’ two people that way, and soakin’ ‘em both.”

  “So you’re saying maybe there is no film.”

  “I’m sayin’ I don’t know,” he said impatiently. “I figure you can get a line on that from someone else.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.” I got up and walked past him and leaned against the wall on the other side of the room. He watched me, ready for a fast one. “You picked a convenient time to hole up, Danny—it got you off the street just in time for Tuesday night’s roundup.”

  “Do you have any idea what that cost me, Rafferty? Almost every film I had left was confiscated in those raids.”

  “I’d say that’s a small price. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

  “You sayin’ I knew about the raids? Then why am I still here, smart man?”

  “That’s the part that’s bothering me. You’re too scared, and I don’t get it. Unless you’re blackmailing Callahan.”

  “You got quite an imagination, pal.”

  “That I do. I can imagine that any number of people might have wanted to kill Solarno. I can imagine that Callahan might have been one of them. I can also imagine that you might’ve been in on the deal with Solarno, except that you didn’t scare until over a week after he was dead. Something’s missing here, and it smells like blackmail to me. You said yourself that Callahan isn’t clean. Maybe what you know buys you some information, like when the raids are going to happen. Maybe you’re afraid that what y
ou know will buy you a death like Solarno’s.”

  That made him sweat. The thought of getting sliced like that would make anyone sweat. He went over to the window, pushed the drape back with a finger and peeked out. He came back to the middle of the room wiping the space above his upper lip.

  He struck his chest with his fist. “You wanna know why I’m scared, man? Because it doesn’t add up"—he swept the air in front of him with the flat of his hand—"nothin’ adds up. I been in this business since I was sixteen years old. I’ve done my share of payin’ off, and I’ve gotten my share, too. That’s the way it goes: One hand pays off the cops, the other one gets it back somewhere else. But this time it’s different. Yeah, I knew about the raids. And I paid for the information—get the films out to the places, and let ‘em know where they went. So why am I bein’ watched? Why am I bein’ searched? I did my part, and all of a sudden nobody’s talkin’ to me.”

  “You mean Callahan?”

  “No. My informant.”

  “Someone in the D.A.’s office?”

  “No comment.”

  That got me irritated. I moved off the wall toward him. “Wise up, Mr. D. How do you expect to find out anything while you’re sitting in a motel room? Who’s not talking to you?” I gave him a minute, then I said, “It’s a good shot that whoever’s watching you is watching me, too, but I’m not planning to sit around and do nothing about it.”

  “Awright. A guy named Yastovich,” he said. “But so help me, Rafferty, you spill it . . .”

  “Save it.” I laughed. “Good ol’ Yastovich. When’s the last time you talked to him?”

  “Thursday. I tried to get him Friday, again on Monday. On Monday, get this, a secretary tells me to hold on, then she gets back on the phone and asks me if the films are out to the places. She asks me if there’s some problem. I tell her yeah, there’s a problem. She says, but the films are out to the places. I told her the goddamn films were where I said they would be. She says Yastovich will be in touch. I called all day today. All of a sudden he ain’t takin’ my calls.”

  Mr. D. was sweating freely now. He pulled his shirttails out of his pants and unbuttoned his shirt two more buttons. His chest was hairless, his shoulders big and bony looking under the polyester shirt. He sat down in the chair I’d vacated.

  “So you think Yastovich, or Callahan, is having you watched, searching your places.”

  “It’s where I’d put my money, pal.”

  “Why? You cooperated. There has to be a reason. Did you tell Yastovich something you know about Callahan? You think Yastovich squealed?”

  He jumped cut of the chair. “What do you think I know, Rafferty? What do you think I know that if I put the squeeze on Callahan I wouldn’t end up as dead as Solarno?” He was trying hard to keep his voice down.

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  And I thought about it, letting Mr. D. wear the carpet thin while I smoked a cigarette and he calmed down.

  I backtracked to what seemed like some kind of starting point. “You said you let them know where the films were; you told the secretary that the films were where you said they would be. How did the places get picked? You picked them?”

  He gave me a look full of hatred. “I don’t need to talk to you, Rafferty. Why don’t you buzz off.” I guess he’d decided he didn’t like me anymore because he’d lost his cool in front of me.

  “You called me, Danny.” I talked to him quietly. “You said you were scared. You want to get to the bottom of this?” I took silence as an affirmative and went on. “What about the places the films went to?”

  “It wasn’t the places, it was the people,” he said grudgingly. I asked him if he’d like to elaborate. “Like the judges,” he said, “they always used a motel. I had to let them know where.”

  “Who was it at the Bucktown Tavern?”

  “I don’t know. That was different. Yastovich told me to bring the films there.”

  “That was the first time you ever went there?”

  “No. They used to close the place up for private parties. They closed for Mardi Gras day.”

  “So the other people came to you, but not the Bucktown Tavern people?” He nodded. “Who owns the tavern? The mob?” He shrugged. “And that kid on the motorcycle, the busboy from the tavern who was gunned down by the cop—you believe he ran dope for the mob?”

  “I believe he ran dope for somebody.”

  “For Callahan,” I said, and I could feel my adrenaline kick in. Something was coming together here. I didn’t quite have a grip on it, but I was close. Mr. D. wasn’t agreeing or disagreeing, but he’d given up his grudge for a nasty smile. He reached for a cigarette.

  I stood there trying to grab on to something that was going to make it all click right into place. Only it wasn’t happening. Maybe it wasn’t going to happen. The adrenaline kick calmed down. I thought about Richard. He went to the Bucktown Tavern to drink beer with the residents of Bucktown who were his clients. Did one of his clients own the tavern? I doubted it. They’d gotten a lot of publicity since the flooding had started in New Orleans. As far as I knew they were all struggling fishermen who needed to stay on their rent-free land. That made me think of the fishermen unloading the crabs that night I went to see Richard at the tavern, and that’s when it clicked.

  Those nice round-bottomed Lafitte skiffs. I could picture them dragging their nets out in the Gulf of Mexico, a romantic picture against the backdrop of a red sunset I’d seen a thousand times, prints in artists’ studios in the French Quarter, captured on pieces of slate, paintings hanging on the fence around Jackson Square. Now I could see that Lafitte skiff chugging its way to a meeting place on a certain latitude out in the Gulf, chugging its way back to the dock behind the tavern, cocaine unloaded in seafood crates.

  “The tavern was where the drugs came in,” I said to Mr. D. “And the kid—he was running dope out of the tavern for Callahan, except he was stealing part of it, bringing it home, stashing it.”

  “Bing-o,” said Mr. D.

  “That’s what Solarno found out.” I was excited now. “Yastovich made sure you got films to the tavern and that there was plenty of coke going around so the tavern could be raided and shut down.”

  “And that’s the problem, pal—there ain’t no more tavern. Just like there ain’t no more Solarno.”

  “No, but there’s Yastovich.”

  There was also one thing that was still bothering me, that I had no explanation for. “Ever hear of a Christopher Raven?”

  “Sure,” he said, and smiled that nasty smile. “I heard he was found burned up in some posh uptown fireplace.”

  He was getting on my nerves. “Did you know him?” I snapped.

  His bony shoulders came up close to his ears. “I’d seen him around.” He could see I was ready to turn nasty now, so he added, still smiling, “At the Bucktown Tavern. He was a busboy, too.”

  I thought about it for a few seconds, and then I decided to go with it. “Does a man named Richard Cotton ever come to the laundry?”

  He gave a low nasal laugh. “Not anymore.” His sharp-edged smile cut deeper into his face. “He sends his nigger.”

  22

  * * *

  The Alleyway

  After telling Mr. D. to stay put until I got back to him, I left the motel and crossed Canal with a third eyeball attached to my spine. The big city noises receded as I walked deeper into the quiet of the dark warehouse district, movements of cars and people muffled by the heavy humidity and the thick brick walls of the buildings until they became a steady hum indistinguishable from my own brain waves. In the dense silence my heels hit the concrete like a pile driver making its way down the street. I thought it might be time to follow the ranks of joggers as far as the shoe store.

  I stopped to light a cigarette, then the spongy darkness closed in around me again. The area was eerie at night, deserted at the end of the workday, the rusted doors closed and immovable looking, an iron a
nd brick ghost town.

  The warehouses were a slim sidewalk away from the street. Between some of them there were spaces wide enough for big trucks to back up to loading ramps; others were separated by alleyways narrowed by dumpsters and piles of corrugated boxes and other rubble. My car was parked about three blocks down a little ahead of just such a narrow alleyway. I started walking more quickly toward it, my presence on the street alien and inappropriate.

  As I got deeper into the gloom, I began to feel spooked. I didn’t think I’d been followed, but the sense of another presence was very strong. I slowed my pace for a few steps, then stopped walking altogether. The hum of traffic seemed loud now—it was all I could hear. I flicked the cigarette into the street and turned around. In the wet air Canal Street was a haze of light at the end of a tunnel. From it the isolated honking of a horn penetrated the hum. After that the silence was denser, more complete. A few seconds passed. Off in the distance a police siren began to wail. I waited for it to get closer, but it died away. I turned again and headed for the car, less than half a block from me. My body was tensed; my right hand was foolishly empty. It reached into my pocket and got out the car keys.

  They made their move as I bent to put the key in the lock. They jumped from the alleyway, and even with my back turned I knew it was two of them. My right elbow sprung back and dug under the rib cage of one of them. I heard a short grunt and caught a glimpse of a face with a pair of glasses on it as my arm came back around, my body twisting to throw its weight into the swing. I was sapped behind the left ear before I could finish the pivot.

  My legs gave way and somebody grabbed me under the arms, dragging me backward as I fought to stay conscious. I tried to move my legs, to get some traction, but I couldn’t. Then I thought pushing might be easier, so I tried to push off with my heels, to shove into the person behind me, but although my brain gave the command, my body didn’t obey. The next thing, I was falling, falling. It seemed as if I fell a long way before my back thudded on the concrete. I was vaguely aware of my shoulder striking something sharp. I was also aware that I’d been dragged into the alleyway, but I wanted to see that face again, and the face of the other one. Then my head bounced. I must have blacked out because I didn’t remember my hands being secured or the enormous pressure on my chest. There was also something in my left eye, at the outside corner. I tried to flutter my eyelids to get rid of it, but it only stuck deeper, causing me to cry out.