The Contract

by JM Gulvin

  When he got back to the hotel he changed his clothes and took the rain-soaked bundle down to Yvonne and asked her to have them laundered. Heading back to the car he drove to Orleans Street where he spotted a black Lincoln Continental parked half a block from Nana’s apartment. A man in a business suit was at the wheel with his gaze alternating between the street ahead and the mirror on his door. Quarrie eased the station wagon up to the sidewalk and glanced at the apartment where the balcony windows were secured against the rain.

  Inside the courtyard, he could hear voices from above and spotted Nana on the landing with her hand gripped by an elegantly dressed older man with a mane of silver hair. Keeping out of sight, Quarrie could not make out his features but he did catch the wary expression in Nana’s eyes. He stepped behind palmetto trees as the old man came down the steps carrying a silver-handled walking cane. The old man did not see him as he crossed the courtyard to the small gate and stepped out into the street. Quarrie heard an engine fire followed by a high-pitched whine as the Lincoln reversed. After that there was only the rain.

  He climbed the steps to the apartment aware of the look still in Nana’s eye. ‘Who was that guy?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, nobody you’d know. Just someone I haven’t seen much of in a while.’ Leading the way inside she closed and double-locked the door. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘When Gigi calls she’s going to want to know what happened.’

  Quarrie let go a breath. ‘Earl was murdered. Somebody shot him before he could talk to me.’ Moving into the living room he checked the street. ‘If Gigi calls ahead of time it’s up to you if you want to tell her. I’m going to phone the ranch tonight so I’ll be talking to her then.’

  The old woman did not reply.

  ‘Nana,’ he said. ‘The way this is playing out right now I don’t think me being around you is any safer than when she was here. I want you to call me if you’re worried about anything, but I’m going to try and stay out of your hair.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. I’ll be fine.’

  He headed for the door then turned. ‘There’s something I wanted to ask you. That club on Bourbon and Governor Nicholls, did Gigi tell you what happened?’

  *

  When he left the apartment Tobie instructed his chauffeur to drive across town to the office on Baronne. The concierge was there to open the door and Tobie made his way inside. He stepped into the elevator and climbed to the second floor where the receptionist looked up from behind her desk. Tobie walked the hall to his office and found Franklin at the window with his back to him and his hands in the pockets of his gabardine jacket.

  ‘I suppose you know what you’re doing,’ Franklin said. ‘Taking Moore out instead of Quarrie, it goes against every instinct I know.’

  With barely a glance at him Tobie took off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair.

  ‘Soulja wants to know what to do with the pharmacist’s body.’

  ‘Tell him to ice it for now. I’ll let him know when we’re ready.’

  Franklin considered the old man’s desk, the pair of muskets and the painting of Jefferson Davis. ‘All this history,’ he said. ‘Such a sense of heritage, how is it you only ever gave me your middle name?’

  Briefly Tobie looked up.

  ‘It doesn’t even mean anything.’ Franklin threw out a palm. ‘It’s just an initial. The F doesn’t actually stand for anything. So where did Franklin come from?’

  ‘You want to talk about that now?’ Tobie said. ‘Our lands in Kentucky: one of my grandfather’s bucks.’

  ‘You named me after a slave?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what your name is or where it comes from. Full blood or not you’ll get what’s coming just as long as you step up.’ The old man could see the lump in Franklin’s throat. ‘You need to show me a capability that so far is conspicuous by its absence. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the only half-breed I have running around. It’s a fact you’re merely the eldest.’

  Franklin turned to the window with his shoulders hunched. ‘My mother told me how this would be. She warned me to stay away from you because I’d never be accepted. She told me if she wanted to see you she had to wait till you called.’ His voice was low in his chest. ‘She said she wasn’t allowed to contact you. She was forbidden from phoning the house.’

  ‘Of course she was,’ Tobie said. ‘I’m an attorney, a businessman with a wife. She doesn’t need other women calling our home.’

  Franklin turned to face him again. ‘She always wondered what would happen if she stepped out of line and broke the rules.’

  For a moment the old man stared. ‘You can tell her from me – if she wants to find out all she has to do is pick up the phone.’

  For a couple of moments neither of them spoke. Then Franklin flared his nostrils. ‘So now Earl’s dead, what’re you going to say to the clients?’

  Tobie shrugged. ‘I’ll remind them the service we’ve delivered has been far in excess of anything they actually paid for.’

  ‘And they’ll accept that?’

  ‘They have no choice. They know our obligation is over. We fulfilled our mission three years ago and did them a favor back in February. Everything since then has been a bonus.’

  ‘We still don’t know about Williams,’ Franklin stated.

  ‘We will.’

  ‘So you’ll talk to the supplier?’

  Tobie clicked his tongue. ‘Franklin, you need to understand that every facet of any organization has its specific function. If boundaries are crossed they become blurred and a boundary that’s blurred is no longer a boundary at all. To make the kind of request you’re suggesting might seem a small thing to you, but in reality it’s anything but. Change the game halfway through and people start to believe they’re more important than they actually are. They begin to take liberties.’ Breaking off for a second he stared. ‘That’s when things can get messy.’

  There was a knock on the door and the girl from reception came in with a tray of coffee. When she was gone Tobie turned to Franklin again. ‘I’ve been running this operation since I was younger than you are now and I’ve never let any difficulty get the better of me. Every step has to be taken at exactly the right moment. To incept a plan is one thing, to stick to it and not deviate, quite another.’ He nodded to the walking cane. ‘The baton passed to me when my father died and since then we’ve neither postponed nor cancelled an engagement. That’s because I understand what it is that we really do here. I understand what the people we work for believe in. This isn’t just a business. It’s a way of life that echoes the history, the very fabric of this country.’

  ‘That’s one opinion,’ Franklin stated.

  Tobie’s gaze seemed to sharpen a little. ‘You don’t share the sentiment then?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Franklin gestured. ‘But when all’s said and done it is a business. Business is about risk and reward and as far as this situation is concerned the risk seems greater than the reward.’

  ‘Managing the risk is part and parcel of the process,’ Tobie reminded him. ‘Earl’s behavior was unfortunate and it’s the same with Gigi.’ He made a dismissive gesture with the flat of his hand. ‘It no longer matters because he’s dead and she will be.’

  He poured coffee into his cup and put the pot down without pouring one for Franklin.

  ‘Speaking of Earl’s behavior, there’s something else we need to consider.’ He peered at the younger man then. ‘On the phone he told us that the meeting in Lafayette Square was the last piece of business he’d do. I’m told he was confident, arrogant, sure enough of himself to sound threatening.’ Lifting the cup to his lips he took a sip of coffee. ‘He’s never been that way before so something changed and I want to know what that was.’

  *

  When he left Nana’s apartment Quarrie drove back to North Rampart Street then took the one way system to Bourbon. Making a left he crawled to the junction with Governor Ni
cholls and found the drugstore locked and bolted. He drove on towards Esplanade Avenue but slowed again when he spotted a panel truck parked up ahead. It could’ve been the one he’d seen from the roof of the Old Post Office Building, but he wasn’t sure. Parking the station wagon he paced all the way around the truck then peered through the driver’s window. The seats were littered with Styrofoam coffee cups and sandwich wrappers. A copy of an old newspaper lay on the floor and the ashtray was full of butts. There was no window into the back, however, and none in the side panels or rear doors either.

  He drove back to the hotel and phoned the DA’s office on Tulane Avenue. A receptionist answered and he was about to ask for the district attorney, but changed his mind and asked for Moore instead.

  ‘He’s not here, I’m afraid,’ the woman told him. ‘He went home at lunchtime after catching a chill in all this rain. I’m not sure when he’ll be back. What’s it regarding, sir? If it’s in connection with an ongoing case I can put you through to the chief investigator?’

  Quarrie thought about that for a moment. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That would be useful, thank you.’

  A minute later Pershing Gervais came on the line.

  ‘This is Ranger Sergeant Quarrie,’ Quarrie told him. ‘You remember me from Colback’s office?’

  ‘I remember you from McAlister’s. What do you want?’

  ‘I want to talk to Garrison.’

  ‘The DA, he’s not in right now. What do you want with him?’

  ‘I need to tell him about Earl Moore.’

  ‘What about him?’ Gervais said.

  ‘He was murdered in Lafayette Square.’

  Gervais told him to come into the office but he couldn’t come armed. Unstrapping his shoulder holsters Quarrie considered leaving the guns in his room, but instead he carried them downstairs and asked Yvonne if there was somewhere she could lock them away. She looked a little doubtful but he held her eye and she told him he could use the safe.

  *

  Franklin left Tobie in the office and went down to his taxi. He sat for a moment drumming fingers on the steering wheel then drove as far as the drugstore two blocks down the street. Inside there was an old-fashioned phone booth and he closed the doors. He sat down on the stool and dialled the number. He waited and no one picked up so he hung up and redialled. Again he waited and it took a little while but finally the phone was answered.

  ‘About time,’ he said. ‘I started thinking I had the wrong number.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Wichita Falls: we weren’t able to secure either his real name or an address. I want you to get that for me and call me on the warehouse phone.’

  *

  Quarrie stowed the snub-nose in his boot then drove to Tulane Avenue and the criminal court building that housed the district attorney’s office. Parking in a side street he left his hat on the seat and cigarettes on the dash then walked back to Tulane where he spotted the mass of photographers gathered outside the main entrance. Adjacent to the court building was the coroner’s office. As he went in he was thinking about the teletype the NCIC had received and the fact that Moore had worked just across the hall. He stood in the foyer for a second or two then spotted a sign for the stairs that led to the underground parking garage.

  It was dark down there with the bays poorly lit and not much light drifting from the ramp that led to the street. A number of cars were parked and he could see the unmarked door Gervais had told him about. Behind it was an elevator that ascended directly to the district attorney’s private bathroom. Crossing the concrete floor he paused at the door and looked for the button to call. Lights flared from a car parked over by the ramp. Lifting a hand to his eyes he tried to see who it was but the lights were blinding. When he turned again he stared into the barrel of a pistol.

  Twenty-two

  A black man with a shaven head. Quarrie picked out the pigment of steroids in his lifeless eyes. It had to be Soulja Blue and he wasn’t alone; another man emerged from the shadows, the one from the club with a band aid covering the cut on his head. He held a Colt forty-five in his hand and he stared at Quarrie. Passing the weapon to Soulja Blue, he searched him and found the snub-nose in his boot. Pocketing that, he marched him across the parking lot to where the cab was parked at the heel of the ramp. Behind the wheel Franklin stared. The man with the band aid opened the door and Soulja nudged Quarrie in the back. As he bent to get in Band Aid hit him with the grips of his pistol.

  He woke to a pain in his head that was more like a noise. He could taste blood in his mouth and felt bilious. He had no idea where he was but intermittent shafts of light seemed to break up the wall across from where he lay. He was on his side. He could not move. At first he thought his feet were bound but they weren’t and neither were his hands. Blinking slowly he could see shadows crossing and re-crossing those strips of light, he could hear machinery and voices. Something was moving beneath him. Gaps in the floor, whatever it was down there, it was shifting back and forth and it took a moment before he got his head around how that could be. Water; he was lying on a floor made from old wooden planks and that was the river he could see.

  He could smell something, a kind of metallic tang in the nostrils; it took a moment before he worked out it was tomatoes. Pressing a hand underneath his stomach he maneuvered himself up and sat with his back to the wall. He tried to figure this out: the river beneath, and those strips of light were gaps in walls made from vertical wooden planks. A storeroom of sorts; on his left was a metal door and another made of wood. He could hear voices again and picked out shadows of workmen criss-crossing the warehouse floor.

  He tried to get to his feet. It was awkward, he was unstable and swayed with one hand out to the wall. Gradually he felt a little strength return to his limbs and stood tall. His mind was mud; the parking garage, Tulane Avenue, he’d been on his way to meet Gervais. Stumbling a little he put one eye to a gap in the wall and saw a pair of forklift trucks transporting pallets of tomatoes beyond an up and over door and depositing them on the wharf.

  He must’ve passed out again because when he opened his eyes he was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall and all the machinery had been shut off. Forcing himself to his feet he could see that the door to the wharf was still open but there was no sign of the longshoremen now. Moments later a car pulled into the warehouse and stopped outside the storeroom door. A shiny blue Malibu SS, he could see it through the gaps in the wall.

  *

  In an office at the far end of the warehouse Franklin put down the phone and sat with his hands clasped together on the desk. Getting up he opened the venetian blinds and saw Soulja Blue get out of the car. He watched as his driver unlocked the door to the storeroom and dragged Quarrie out. They marched him across the floor to the office. Franklin did not say anything. He stood behind the desk while the man with the band aid made Quarrie sit on a high-backed chair.

  ‘Mr Football Scholarship.’ Quarrie held Franklin’s eye. ‘I guess it wasn’t Colback paying you after all.’

  *

  Tobie ate an early dinner with his wife. Halfway through the entree his butler appeared and hovered a little uncertainly at the dining room door.

  ‘What is it, Benson?’ Tobie said.

  ‘There’s a telephone call for you, sir?’

  ‘I’m eating dinner. You can see that, man. Can’t it wait?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I know, sir, and I already told them. But they were insistent. They said it was very important and you would want to take the call.’

  *

  Franklin perched on the edge of the desk, Quarrie in the chair with his hands hanging down by his sides. Soulja Blue stood in the corner and Band Aid had his gun just inches from Quarrie’s eye.

  Quarrie stared into Franklin’s face. ‘I fly into town and you’re there. I visit Matthews and he disappears. I talk to Gigi and you go after her then you shoot Moore when you could’ve shot me. So tell me about Wiley. What was the deal with that M1C?’
/>   ‘What did you find in Anderson’s apartment?’ Franklin said.

  ‘So you know about him then, huh. Was it De La Martin that filled you in?’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘You mean apart from a photo? When was that taken? Where was it taken, uh?’

  ‘I know about the photograph,’ Franklin stated. ‘You need to tell me what else you found.’

  ‘Who was the other guy in that picture with you?’

  ‘I asked what else you found.’

  ‘That photo got a man killed. A bottle of drugs ground into powder to make it look natural. What was all that about?’

  ‘So you didn’t find anything else. There wasn’t anything, was there?’ A smile on his face, Franklin got up from the desk.

  ‘There was a date.’ Quarrie looked keenly at him then. ‘April 28, that’s just a few days from now.’

  Franklin stopped. He seemed unsure of himself for a second then he glanced at Soulja where he stood with his arms across his chest. ‘Lock him up again,’ he told him. ‘I want the two of you back here as soon as you’re done so we can take him out to the bayou.’ He turned to Quarrie again. ‘You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to kill you.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Quarrie said.

  *

  He sat on the storeroom floor peering through the slatted boards as river water washed around the pilings. As soon as they had locked him up again Soulja Blue and the other man had taken off. Franklin had stayed in the office for a while but he had gone as well now leaving Quarrie alone. In the bands of light that pierced the walls he considered how those boards were old and warped. He could see they were held together by rusty-looking flat-head screws and he was thinking that if he could pry a couple out he might be able to create a gap large enough to drop through. But he had nothing to work with save his fingernails, and he hadn’t given much thought to the reality of being in the Mississippi River with the kind of currents that carried down here.