The Contract

by JM Gulvin

  ‘It was dispensed by the pharmacist from North Rampart and St Ann whose body was discovered at the complex where Anderson lived. The patient was Gigi Matisse. I don’t know if you’ve heard of her, she’s a blues singer who plays hereabouts. She lives in the 7th Ward and she and Moore were having an affair. I think somebody found out about that, because the way Gigi told it I figure Moore was being smacked by someone working a jackhammer.’ He nodded to the empty bottle. ‘Whoever that was they had him steal her meds twice in the space of a couple of months.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ Garrison asked.

  Quarrie shrugged. ‘I figure Earl knew Gigi had a thyroid problem. Maybe he let it slip and they thought they could use it. Mr Garrison, if you want to fake death by natural causes you ain’t going to buy drugs if you can have somebody steal them.’

  ‘So they wanted him just to steal the drugs?’ Garrison looked doubtful.

  Quarrie shook his head.

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘You tell me. Earl was one of your investigators. What was he working on?’

  ‘I can’t disclose that, Sergeant. At least not till I know what’s going on.’

  ‘All right,’ Quarrie said. ‘Trace Anderson, the man murdered in Wichita Falls. Two guys went to his hotel room and found a photograph hidden in the trouser press. One of them is in the jailhouse right now and the other one is dead. I shot him on a dirt road back in Texas. His name was Wiley; he was a three-tour Vietnam Vet. Does that mean anything to you?’

  Garrison shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’

  Quarrie gestured. ‘The photograph I mentioned. I found what I think is a copy in Anderson’s apartment. I also found a phone number for this office. I think Anderson called here and I don’t know whether it was Moore or Gervais he spoke to, but sometime later he wound up in that hotel room in Wichita Falls.’

  ‘The photograph, Sergeant: what was it?’

  Quarrie told him and Garrison worked the stem of his pipe with his teeth.

  ‘I think Anderson recognized one of the men,’ Quarrie went on. ‘The blond-haired cab driver I told you about. Whether Texas was Anderson’s suggestion or if it came from somebody else, he had the presence of mind to check into the hotel under an alias and leave his ID behind.’ He nodded to the empty drugs bottle. ‘The meds were ground into powder and mixed with water and Anderson was forced to drink it. After that they burned the photograph and they were supposed to find out who he really was, only they couldn’t tune him up because the murder had to look like he died in his sleep.’

  ‘So no police officer would investigate,’ Garrison said.

  Quarrie nodded. ‘Whatever it was they had going on they wanted it buried with the man they murdered. But that’s not how it panned out. After he was done with Anderson, Wiley robbed a gun store and stole a bunch of shotguns as well as a Garand M1C. That’s a military-issue rifle, the kind we used in Korea. I answered a call on the radio after he shot up a state trooper’s vehicle and he threw down on me with a Winchester pump.’

  Garrison blew out his cheeks. ‘Sergeant, that’s quite a story.’

  ‘Ain’t it though, and it’s not all. After those hoods picked me up in the parking garage, I got out of the warehouse via a dousing in the river. I made my way to Esplanade and when I got there I found Detective De La Martin at the apartment complex with the pharmacist’s body. I thought it was him that must’ve given this crew the heads up. I figured he was working for them and they were going to make damn sure I was implicated in the murder.’

  ‘But he wasn’t?’

  Quarrie shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I talked to him last night and I’m wondering if it didn’t play out some other way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Quarrie told him what Van Hanigan had said about the teletype from the coroner’s office. ‘Whoever sent it knew about the murder and they’d already figured Anderson for a cop. I’m guessing that had to be Moore and that’s information he kept to himself. Couple that with what Gigi told me and it’s obvious he wasn’t working for these folks voluntarily.’ Pausing for a moment he went on. ‘They only discovered Anderson’s address after Moore had already been there. He didn’t give it to them and if it wasn’t De La Martin then there has to be some other cop on the payroll somewhere.’

  Garrison looked puzzled. ‘Hold on a minute, I need to backtrack here for a second. You’re saying that Moore sent a teletype from the coroner’s office?’

  Quarrie nodded.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I said just now how I figure they were working him over and I think he needed an angle. He knew they’d murdered Anderson so he had to be involved in the set-up. But the murder wasn’t down to him and he had to find a way out from under that jackhammer. I’m pretty sure he was in that apartment ahead of me and I think he found something that could give him what he needed. They either knew that or suspected it at least, because they shot him in the park when they could’ve shot me.’

  Slowly Garrison nodded.

  ‘Whatever it was he found – they haven’t got it. I know that because they searched that apartment the night they dumped Matthews’s body.’

  ‘And you think that whatever he found might be here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Quarrie shrugged. ‘Somehow I doubt it, but why don’t you have somebody search his desk?’

  Garrison made no move to do that. He was silent. Sitting back in his chair he studied Quarrie with his chin high. ‘Everything you’ve been telling me. Clearly you suspect Moore, but are you saying my chief investigator is involved as well?’

  ‘He’s the only person who knew about Lafayette Square.’ Quarrie glanced towards the door. ‘He asked me to come in and the blond guy was waiting in the parking garage. Is he around, Mr Garrison? I’d kindly like to talk to him.’

  Garrison shook his head. ‘He’s not here, no. He’s gone up to Baton Rouge.’

  Quarrie thought about that. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Then I need to ask you something else. Clay Shaw, this investigation that’s all over the newspapers. Is Gervais working that?’

  Garrison shook his head. ‘No, he’s not. Sergeant, you’re probably not aware but he’s not well liked in New Orleans, at least not as far as law enforcement is concerned anyway. He and I go back to our days in the service, however, and he was always good on the bricks. When nobody else would give him a job, I did – and he’s never let me down. That’s why he’s now my chief investigator. But I’m not a fool; when I found so many anomalies in the report for the Warren Commission the team I assembled did not include Gervais. I knew how things would look if it did so he has no access to any of the files.’

  ‘But Earl Moore did?’

  Garrison nodded.

  ‘He ain’t coming back, sir. Maybe you should search his desk.’

  Garrison took a moment to consider that then he got to his feet. ‘You stay here and I’ll have somebody bring you some coffee.’ He left him and Quarrie walked to the window where he looked across the road at the neon-lit windows of the bail bond companies. Nobody brought him any coffee but five minutes later Garrison was back. He closed the door and sat down again at his desk.

  ‘Well?’ Quarrie said.

  ‘Nothing, there’s no paperwork, no file or photo that I don’t know about, so if he did find something then he must’ve taken it home or hidden it somewhere else.’

  Quarrie indicated the file that Garrison had separated from the others. ‘That’s David Ferrie’s paperwork, isn’t it?’

  Garrison nodded.

  ‘The pilot Clay Shaw used to use here in New Orleans. You were talking to him because he was in Texas the day after Kennedy was shot?’

  Garrison nodded.

  ‘Ferrie was found dead in his apartment on Louisiana Avenue Parkway. I read that file, Mr Garrison, and the coroner put his death down to a naturally occurring brain aneurism.’

  Again the DA nodded.

  ‘Only when you sho
w up you discover that empty bottle of pills right there, and when you have the residue tested you find it was Proloid. You know what that’s for on account of you’ve taken it yourself. You also know that an overdose can cause a blood vessel to burst in the brain.’

  ‘That’s right, Sergeant. A couple of years ago I had it prescribed for an under-active thyroid.’

  Quarrie looked evenly at him then. ‘David Ferrie didn’t kill himself and he didn’t die of natural causes. He was murdered in the same way Anderson was. When you put those two deaths together you’ve got a direct link between your investigator and the man you indicted over the assassination of the president.’

  Twenty-nine

  Sitting back in his chair the district attorney pressed threads of tobacco into his pipe. ‘A lot of information, Sergeant: you’ve given me much to think about.’

  ‘I ain’t done yet,’ Quarrie said. ‘Tomorrow is April 28 and I saw that date in Anderson’s diary.’ Again he indicated Ferrie’s file. ‘The president’s assassination, you’ve made it clear you think Lee Oswald was there primarily to take the fall. Two bullets and two shooters from two different directions, it’s why you’re going after Shaw.’

  Garrison nodded.

  ‘I told you that Wiley robbed a gun store, right? He stole an M1C, that’s a military-grade rifle, the kind a sniper might use.’ Quarrie’s expression was bleak. ‘Whoever these people are, their business is killing people and you’ve re-opened a case they already closed.’

  ‘Sergeant, what’re you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying there’s a contract out on you, Mr Garrison. I think they plan to kill you, sir, and they plan to do it tomorrow.’

  *

  Franklin was on Canal Street when Quarrie drove back to the hotel. He saw him swing around the loop at the light and pull into a parking bay facing the way he had come. Standing in the doorway of Stein’s Clothing, he wore a pair of Ray-Ban aviators and the leather pea coat, his gaze fixed as Quarrie strode under the arch into the hotel. Franklin remained where he was for a moment before stepping onto the sidewalk and considering the sky-blue station wagon. Turning again he went into the clothing store where a young man approached from the counter. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ he said.

  ‘Sure.’ Franklin pointed to the revolving hat stand next to the door.

  *

  Back in his room Quarrie was thinking about calling Pious to see if he’d been able to get hold of Dixie Wells yet, when somebody rapped on the door. He reached for his shoulder holster. ‘Who is it?’

  No answer from the walkway. He was on his feet with a pistol drawn. He called again and still there was no answer. He moved to the side of the door. Whoever his visitor was they knocked again, louder and more harshly this time.

  Quarrie opened the door and saw Soulja Blue on the walkway. He wore gray pants over leather boots and a collarless Nehru jacket. He stared at Quarrie and Quarrie stared back at him. Neither of them spoke then Soulja glanced over his shoulder. When he turned again he worked his tongue over lips where a hint of spittle was building. ‘Are you going to let me in or do I just stand here till they show up and shoot me?’

  He made to come into the room but Quarrie held up his hand. ‘I know you’re packing,’ he said. ‘I want to see them, guns and knives.’

  For a second Soulja stared at Quarrie then he opened his coat and slid an automatic from an inside pocket with his forefinger and thumb. Carefully he laid it on the bureau next to the door. Quarrie indicated with the barrel of his Blackhawk. ‘Ankle,’ he said. ‘And don’t be forgetting the knives.’

  The big man dropped to one knee and rolled up his trouser leg where Quarrie could see the grips of a thirty-eight poking from his zippered boot. He tweaked that out and placed it on the bureau with the other gun then fetched a switchblade from his hip pocket.

  ‘That it?’ Quarrie said.

  Soulja nodded.

  Taking a step back Quarrie let him into the room. Holstering the Blackhawk he considered the array of weapons then he turned to Soulja. ‘I find out you’re holding out on me you’ll know about it, I promise.’

  Like a couple of fighting dogs they all but paced each other. Soulja reached for his pocket. ‘Cigarettes,’ he muttered and brought out a box of Sobranies. Multicolored tubes of tobacco; he selected one and placed it in the corner of his mouth. He slapped his pockets again then glanced around the room looking for a match. Quarrie tossed him his Zippo and Soulja lighted the cigarette with both hands cupped to the flame. ‘They give you this in Korea?’

  Quarrie nodded.

  ‘I heard you were out there.’ He blew smoke. ‘Call you John Q back in Texas, don’t they?’ His lips parted in a half-smile that smacked of mockery. ‘As in John Q Public, is it? Mean something that then, does it? Just regular folks are you?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you think?’

  Soulja rolled the cigarette between his fingers. ‘Soon as they wrote your name in the newspaper the other day I knowed who-all you was. Had me a spell in Korea myself. Was over there when you wrote the president from where you were at in the hospital. Osaka, wasn’t it? Japan, right? That brother they wanted to send to the firing squad. Wasn’t that about how it was?’

  ‘That’s about how it was.’

  ‘I don’t remember his name.’

  ‘Pious Noon,’ Quarrie said. ‘He was at your club on Governor Nicholls.’

  Soulja twisted his mouth at the corners. ‘That him outside with the vehicle?’

  Quarrie nodded. ‘Gigi told him all about you taking it to those girls you got on account of white boys stumping up gobs of cash. I get you over to Texas anytime soon, best you steer clear of him.’

  Soulja sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘So you know they killed Vernon,’ he said. ‘He talked to you and they beat him up pretty good then put a bullet in him.’

  ‘Who did?’ Quarrie said.

  ‘The people you want to talk about.’

  ‘So talk about them.’

  The big man wagged his head. ‘I ain’t telling you any of what I know till we figure out what we got going on.’

  ‘Soulja,’ Quarrie said. ‘What we got going on is this. Without me you’re a dead man. It’s why you’re here. It’s what you talked about with Vernon.’

  Soulja inspected the end of his cigarette.

  ‘Even if you live you’re looking at kidnap and rape most probably. That’s fifteen to twenty and you won’t be making parole.’

  ‘I never raped anybody.’ The big man shook his head. ‘And I never kidnapped nobody neither, I just did what-all I was told.’

  ‘Who was it told you?’ Quarrie said.

  ‘You think I’m some dumbfuck nigger going to spill my guts without cutting a deal?’ He let a breath hiss between his teeth.

  Quarrie sat down on the chair by the door. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk bottom line here. You picked up Claude Matthews from his house on Alabo Street and held him at your club. You beat him up and left him trussed like a turkey. That cab driver showed up to shoot him then you and Vernon took his body over to that apartment on Esplanade Avenue. While I was trying to figure a way out of that storeroom you were in the apartment. You were here in this room. Gigi will testify to it. You took her to your club and she saw Matthews before he was murdered.’ Slowly he shook his head. ‘Buddy, you’re screwed everywhichway, but we both know it ain’t going to come to a courthouse.’ He was quiet for long enough to let his words sink in. ‘I can protect you,’ he said. ‘I can do it here or I can ship you back to Texas, but I ain’t doing anything till I know what you know, you understand? You screwed up and that blond guy’s not big on forgiveness. It’s why you’re here and it’s like I told Vernon, I’m your best chance of seeing out the day.’ He looked hard at him then. ‘So tell me who the blond guy is.’

  Dragging on his cigarette Soulja blew smoke from the corner of his mouth. He got up off the bed and walked around to the other side where he flicked ash into the aluminum tray. ‘You
really think I’m going to tell you anything setting here in a hotel room?’ He shook his head. ‘What I know is all I got to play with and I ain’t going to give it up till you get me out of town and I know they can’t come get me.’

  Resting forearms on his thighs Quarrie studied him. ‘You’ve known Gigi a long time, haven’t you?’

  Soulja cocked one eyebrow. ‘A while I guess, I knew her cousin a whole lot better.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard what you did to him. So what did you do to Gigi?’

  ‘I told you.’ Soulja sucked again at his cigarette. ‘I never did nothing to her ’cept bring her to Bourbon and Governor Nicholls.’

  ‘And that blond sonofabitch, what about him?’

  Soulja did not say anything.

  ‘Who ordered you to come get her?’

  ‘Mister, you don’t need to ask me that. You know who it was already.’

  Quarrie looked at him still. ‘How did you know Colback was going to be here at the hotel? Did you talk to Pershing Gervais?’

  ‘I don’t know nothing about Colback and I ain’t ever spoke to Pershing Gervais.’

  ‘But you know who he is?’

  ‘Sure, I know who he is. He’s the DA’s chief investigator.’

  ‘What about De La Martin?’

  ‘Homicide, 3rd Precinct.’

  ‘All right,’ Quarrie said. ‘Now you’re going to tell me the blond guy’s name. Who is he? Where can I find him?’

  Soulja shook his head. ‘I ain’t telling you his name. Not here, not right now. I done told you that already.’

  Quarrie looked at him for a moment longer then reached out and opened the door. He let it swing wide so the humid air filtered in. ‘Have it your way,’ he said. ‘I got no jurisdiction in this town so I can’t arrest you. Best you take your chances.’

  The big man stayed where he was. The light in his eyes had hardened and sweat bubbled on his scalp.

  ‘You want me to close the door? Figure maybe you’ll talk to me?’

  Soulja stared across the courtyard to the rooms on the other side.

  ‘Do that and you might just stay alive long enough to get quit of this city.’