A Diamond Before You Die

by Chris Wiltz

  Uncle Roddy’s roars subdue me, but Fonte was undaunted. Rubbing on his jaw, he started, “That does it. Assault of an officer—”

  This time Uncle Roddy’s roar was decipherable. “Let it go!” He glared at Fonte, then at me. “If you two wanna duke it out, do it away from me. Got it?” He waited until we both nodded, then he asked me, “Do you know what Dideaux’s deal was with Callahan?”

  “He told me he talked to Yastovich. It was Yastovich who told him to get films to the Bucktown Tavern. Why don’t you ask Callahan?”

  “I’m on my way to do that, wise guy. Callahan called in about fifteen minutes ago. He said he just found Yastovich’s body.”

  A drink was what I needed to calm the shaky feeling I was left with after punching Fonte. I wouldn’t have had that feeling if I’d been able to punch him enough.

  I sat at the bar in a place on Metairie Road called the Metry Café and thought. Solarno was one thing, but it made no sense for Callahan to kill Mr. D. My own arguments to Mr. D. still held as far as I was concerned. Mr. D. had cooperated, so why would Callahan be searching his premises and watching him? Also, Mr. D. was a penny-ante operator who kept to himself, and even if he’d found a way to extort money from Callahan, there were too many ways that a powerful district attorney could have stopped him if he’d chosen to stop him. He could have had Leonard Yastovich set him up, but instead Yastovich had used Mr. D. to get information crucial to the success of the raids. It was more likely that Callahan had some evidence against Mr. D. that he had used to strike a bargain with the two-bit porno prince—I didn’t see Mr. D. being a willing informant. The more I thought about it the more convinced I became that just as there were two different people breaking into my office and Mr. D.’s apartment, there were two different murderers.

  There weren’t too many people left who knew very much about Chance Callahan. There was a cop who had shot and killed a young kid who’d been tagged a “known and possibly dangerous drug dealer.” The cop was being protected by Callahan. There were the owners of the Bucktown Tavern. Maybe there was a chance they’d talk, but they also had plenty of money to hire slick lawyers. Thanks to Callahan. And there was Richard Cotton.

  Why was Richard so desperate to get something on Callahan? What reckless things had he done when he was younger that he didn’t like to talk about? Why was he being so secretive about where he’d been the last couple of days? There was also the word he’d used on the phone that morning to describe Solarno—scum.

  When Chance Callahan called me to his office, he may have wanted to know if Solarno had something tangible, but somehow I didn’t think that was the only reason he’d called me, maybe not even the most important one. What the hell was it?

  There was another thing—Mr. D. had said that both Richard and Quiro had been to the laundry, but that didn’t mean they’d been there to rent films. What if Mr. D. had been blackmailing Richard—about his reckless youth, or, try this, about why Christopher Raven was in Richard’s house? That would be a way for Mr. D. to cut his losses in payoffs and confiscated films.

  Something was going on with Richard Cotton, and it wasn’t that a Garden District aristocrat liked to break out of his staid existence on the uppercrust once in a while to drink beer with a bunch of Yahoos in Bucktown.

  It took me about twenty-five minutes to get to the Cottons’ house. During those minutes I asked over and over the only question that had any real significance: Where was Lee? And the only answer I could come up with was that she was in a house with a murderer. I prayed that it wasn’t a house that was nearly forty-five minutes away on several isolated acres of land in Covington. Even a karate expert couldn’t catch a knife that was thrown at her back.

  When I got to the house, the Mercedes was in the driveway. A police car was pulled up behind it. Another one and an unmarked car were parked on the street. So was the black Mustang. When I saw it, the muscles in my stomach knotted. I ran up the steps to the front door.

  Fonte let me in.

  “Where’s Lee?” I demanded.

  “In the back.” I started past him, but he blocked my way. “You’re too late,” he said, and my stomach started going to pieces. “Too late,” he repeated maliciously.

  I went around him, pushing him to the side. He put a restraining hand on my arm. I slung it off. After that, he just let me go.

  I went down the hallway, past the dining room, and into the den. A uniformed officer stood to the side of the doorway to the library. It was Gaudet, one of the officers who’d been there the night Raven burned up in the fireplace. He nodded to me, and I stepped inside the large, book-lined room.

  They were talking softly. She had pulled a chair up to the sofa so she was directly in front of him. He leaned toward her so their heads were close together, his back to me. I stepped a little further into the room so I could hear them. Lee glanced at me; Quiro didn’t bother to turn around.

  Quiro said in his soft, rhythmic speech, “You know why I followed you, Lee. I had to make sure you didn’t want to hurt Richard.”

  She nodded. “I know. And the phone calls to Paula, the scratching at the doors . . .”

  “I want her to leave,” he said with some vehemence. “I tried to scare her to make her leave. She’s no good for him.”

  “But she’s his wife. That’s his decision.”

  He shook his head. “She makes him feel guilty for being what he is. He doesn’t want her. He doesn’t want any woman.”

  She nodded again, conciliatory. “Did he want the man who died here in the fireplace?”

  “No! Raven was an employee, but I knew he was into dope. I got him to get me some stuff and he made Richard pay for it all over again. That made Richard angry at me. That night I told Raven never do that again. Raven said if I told Richard not to pay, he would put stuff in the house and call the cops. He said he would tell everyone what Richard really was, starting with his wife and his law partners. He said he could get Richard plenty of trouble. He laughed at him. All they want is his money.”

  “Who?”

  “No one anymore. You got rid of the first one; I got rid of the other one.”

  “Mr. D.?”

  “Yes. Richard never should have given him anything. He should have told me a long time ago what Danny was up to. I told Richard to let Chance Callahan take care of Danny, but Richard said Danny wouldn’t ask for any more. Then he calls Richard and tells him Callahan is after him, that he needs more money to go away for good. But Chance Callahan wasn’t after Danny. I was.” He laughed, a strange, low laugh that was more like a cry than a laugh, a strangled sound caught in the throat. I’d heard a laugh similar to it come from a retarded child once.

  He shifted abruptly. I took a step forward, alarmed that he was going to try to hurt Lee, but he turned his body, straightening it so he was nearly lying on his side. “I want to give you something, Lee.” His cuffed hands struggled to get into one of his pants pockets. He sat up, holding something I couldn’t see out to her. “I can’t use it anymore. I want you to have it.”

  She made no move to take whatever it was. His shoulders jerked as he thrust it at her. “Go on. Take it. They won’t search you.”

  That’s when it all hooked up in my mind, what I’d smelled in her apartment, that same sweet, smoky, vaguely medicinal odor I’d gotten a brief whiff of in the house across the lake the first time I’d gone there, a smell not quite like anything I’d ever smelled before. I was willing to bet it was part of the stash of opium that was found in the house of the gunned-down black kid who had worked at the Bucktown Tavern.

  She took it from him and put it in her purse. A wave of repulsion came over me at the thought that the two of them might have smoked opium together. I was angry, too. And there was something else worming its way deep inside me that hurt much more than the anger or the repulsion.

  He was making a trade-off. “I want you to tell Paula that she should leave. Will you do that, Lee?”

  She didn’t answer him. They s
at looking at each other, and I stood behind them, my legs like concrete columns.

  Fonte came into the room. “Time to go,” he said. He took Quiro by the arm.

  When Quiro turned around he was no longer the cocksure, dancerlike man he had been. His entire carriage was different. The smooth brown skin of his face was puffy, like he’d been crying, or was about to, because his deep, round eyes were glistening. As he passed me, he said, “Take care of that face, boss.”

  My guardian angel. My guardian angel was a psycho killer.

  Lee and I followed him and Fonte to the front of the house. When he got to the stairway, Quiro stopped, holding strong against Fonte, who tried to keep him moving. He looked up at the stairs, and the smallest drop of liquid fell out of his right eye. He turned to me and said, “Tell Richard good-bye for me,” and then Fonte led him away.

  30

  * * *

  The Standoff

  We watched Quiro leave, then Lee went to the rear of the house to get her purse.

  Fonte came back inside with Gaudet, who stationed himself at the front door. I was still standing at the foot of the stairway. Fonte swaggered down the hallway toward me, a slow, practiced, police-on-the-beat walk. There was a bluish stain on his jawline where I’d hit him.

  “Rankin’s with Callahan?” I asked.

  “That’s right. This one’s my show, Rafferty. Your girlfriend called me,” he stated smugly. He dropped his voice to a low snarl. “Time for you to say bye-bye.”

  No way. I stood my ground, waiting for Lee. I could hear her coming up behind me.

  Fonte’s face broke into a wide, friendly smile. He spoke over my shoulder to her. “I need a statement, Lee.”

  “Will tomorrow morning do, Phil? I’m hardly able to think I’m so tired.” He nodded, a curt dip of his head. Lee said, “And thanks for giving me some time with Quiro.”

  “Consider it an even exchange—I’ll need something from you someday.”

  The piece of sleaze, trying to get his hooks into her. If I stayed much longer, I was going to start pounding him, not that she needed any help from me.

  She said, “Another collar, maybe?”

  His jaw flexed, vacant without the usual wad of gum.

  There was one more thing I hoped she’d say to him, but she didn’t. Maybe he was just too repulsive to talk to.

  She started out, me behind her.

  Gaudet opened the door for us, and we stepped out into the muggy night air left by the rain.

  It was dark and quiet in the land of the rich and staid. The tall houses made shadows laced by the treetops. In the house across the street, through elegant, tied-back curtains, the perfectly furnished living room was exposed, perfectly lit to show off high-priced artwork, arrangements of fresh-cut flowers, and the silver ribbons of the burglar alarm system framing the windows. No one was in the room. I had a sudden longing for the treeless, bawdy streets of the Channel where the way people live is not on show all the time, where the demands and problems of having money don’t exist. That’s not to say there aren’t other problems, but they weren’t on my mind right then.

  We walked past a confederate jasmine vine growing up the lamppost in the front yard. The sweet smell of it filled my nostrils and nearly gagged me. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to smell jasmine or anything sweet like that again without it setting off my gag reflex.

  “Your place?” Lee asked, and part of me wanted to forget it, but the biggest part of me couldn’t.

  I waited until we were out on the sidewalk, away from the house. I stopped walking and said, “You forgot to give the opium to Fonte, Lee.”

  She had taken a step beyond me. Turning swiftly, her brown hair swinging, she faced me squarely.

  “Don’t tell me I didn’t see what Quiro gave you.” I was keeping in mind that Maurice had said she could have been a great trial lawyer, and, also, that she didn’t like assumptions. “I didn’t have to see it. I know what it is, and you didn’t give it to Fonte.”

  “I didn’t forget,” she said.

  “Where I come from, smoking opium is considered a vice. So is lying.”

  “I have never lied to you, Neal.”

  “The smell that was in your apartment yesterday was the same thing I smelled in the house across the lake once, and it wasn’t incense.”

  “I did burn incense—while I smoked.”

  We were talking quietly up to this point, but when she said that, I thought she was cutting a pretty fine distinction, and I was ready to say so—pointedly and heatedly. But she was saying, her voice soft and low, yet clear, “I don’t have to tell you all my secrets just because we’re lovers. I prefer to smoke alone.”

  “But you don’t always. I guess smoking with Quiro was the reason you were able to crack him wide open.” I could feel anger rising, filling up my chest.

  “No, Neal, I would never have smoked with Quiro.”

  The streetlight that was several feet behind her was making her eyes burn yellow, not like they had in the firelight, but the way they had on that first night we’d stayed together. The anger slid back like a snake into its hole.

  “Then why did he use it to make a trade-off with you?”

  “Because when Paula Cotton and I went to the Covington house this morning, I smelled it, and I told him I knew he was smoking opium. He didn’t have to ask how I knew.”

  “You should have given it to Fonte.”

  “Why? Because that’s what you would have done?” It was a simple question; she wasn’t attacking me.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Have you never done anything that wasn’t right?” Another simple question, not cynical or sarcastic, not a question I would have liked to answer. “I’m not like you, Neal.”

  I wanted to put my hands on her shoulders, shake her maybe, but that was no way to convince Lee Diamond. “Don’t you see that taking the stuff from Quiro makes you vulnerable?”

  “If I thought that, I’d have given it to Fonte.” Her eyes seared my face. “Does your knowing I took it make me vulnerable? Would you feel differently about this if I’d told you I liked to smoke? Would you still think I was wrong?”

  Her questions were maddening. My chest was beginning to feel full again. “I’m surprised you would ask questions that require an assumption. The fact is that’s not how it happened.” I didn’t say it as nastily as I might have. There was something about her quietness and reserve, her control, that was rather compelling.

  “I think you’ve been very unscrupulous,” I said. “If Quiro didn’t confess to you while he was in an opium dream, then you used information you got from me.”

  “You had the information before I did.”

  That put me right on the edge of being furious. “What the hell is this—some kind of competition?”

  I felt only a moment’s relief when her eyes left my face while she shook her head.

  “When I brought Quiro back from across the lake this afternoon, I didn’t know Danny Dideaux was dead. I didn’t know that until I heard the evening news, after you left this afternoon. Quiro was with Richard Cotton. By the time I realized what had happened, I thought Cotton might have tried to get him out of the country. I gave him plenty of time to do that while I was busy shedding a few tears over what I lost in the flood.”

  “So you called Fonte and had him meet you here?” She nodded. “Why not Rankin?”

  “I called him first. He was out.”

  I was ready to buy it, but I wasn’t ready to let her off the hook.

  “The thing is, Lee, I told you about the death threat I found in Danny’s apartment, and I told you about Quiro playing Billie Holiday in Paula’s dress. But you didn’t tell me you knew Richard Cotton is a homosexual.”

  “I was keeping a client’s confidence. Anyway, he’s your friend—I thought you knew that.”

  “Another assumption, Miss Diamond. He’s kept it well hidden. I doubt that many people know, but you did.”

&nb
sp; “I knew because Paula told me. When she hired me, she wasn’t worried about other women, she was worried about other men. And she was embarrassed, humiliated. I took the case because she’d received several threats over the phone.”

  “You didn’t tell me that either.”

  “They stopped for a while after Raven died.”

  “That’s another thing—after Delahoussaye told you Raven was bisexual, you must have at least suspected there was some sort of tie between him and Richard.”

  Any appeasement she’d been trying for was over with now. In a much colder, more detached tone she said, “I wasn’t working with you on that case, Neal, and I don’t like having to defend myself this way. Anything I didn’t tell you, I chose not to tell you, just as there are things you choose not to tell me.”

  “Only out of fear that you’ll call me sentimental or self-indulgent.”

  We had reached an impasse. She asked me if I still wanted her to come over, but I didn’t. I didn’t really believe she wanted to be with me either. When she got in the car and drove away, she may have been sad, but her detachment, her self-containment, was so complete that it was hard to tell.

  I walked down the street to my car, and Myra was on my mind. And maybe from force of habit whenever I thought about her, or because I’d been thinking about the Channel, the old man, too. What was it the old man had said, that when all else fails, they cry? It wasn’t like that at all. None of it had been like he said. You don’t fight with a woman like Lee Diamond. She gives you no ground. You don’t raise your voice to her, or she’ll leave. If she cries, she cries alone.

  You don’t try to save a woman like Lee Diamond, and you don’t try to possess her, either. If you try to help her or protect her, you’re only competing with her own survival instincts. Maybe I’d gotten too used to trying to save Myra so I could have her to myself. I’d tried to win Myra, but I wasn’t competing with her because of her profession, or even with the other men she slept with. I had been competing with something inside myself, and that competition, I had to admit, had started a long time ago—at home.