The Contract

by JM Gulvin

  Colback made a face. ‘I’ve been trying to find him but he isn’t answering his phone.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’ Quarrie held his eye. ‘Those notes on that outfit from way back when, we can start with that and deal with him just as soon as I get the Feds squared away.’

  Colback dropped to one knee and worked the combination on his safe. Again Quarrie considered the rifle where it hung on the wall. ‘That the piece from Korea you showed me before?’

  ‘That’s her.’

  ‘The one you used when Pious called the CP that time?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Colback was still bent over the safe. He rummaged around for a moment then stood up. When he turned he didn’t have the paperwork, he held a Colt forty-five automatic.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But the warrant, I got no choice.’

  Quarrie held his gaze. ‘The Feds said for you to arrest me, huh.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you’ll tell them I resisted. You figure the odds are pretty good you can take me down what with Franklin out in the hall.’

  He did not look round. His gaze remained on Colback, the set of his shoulders and the color of his knuckle in the trigger guard. ‘This place,’ Quarrie said, ‘the Garden District, a house that never gets sold. That caddy in the driveway a gift from your father-in-law. Family, Lieutenant, it’s such a big deal down here. I had no idea just how big till your wife told me about her great-granddaddy’s portrait at the top of the stairs. Rosslyn F Tobie who changed his name from James Cutler when he quit Ohio: the last of the copperheads, right?’ Hearing movement from the hall he caught a glimpse of cropped blond hair. ‘That paperwork yesterday,’ he said. ‘I guess I should’ve searched your study after all. You made damn sure I never touched that file on campus, so where’s the rest of it, uh?’

  Colback did not reply.

  ‘All you left was the history, nothing that could tell us anything. But it was Anderson who wrote it not Moore. A detective who specialized in surveillance, he’d done a whole heap of digging, right? He knew about you and Rosslyn Tobie, he knew about Ferrie and Clay Shaw. He knew all about Franklin and April 28. He knew what was behind that foundation on Baronne.’

  Glancing above Colback’s head he indicated the rifle where it hung on the wall. ‘That’s not the one from Korea, that’s in Houston right now. Made sure I handled her, didn’t you?’ He saw a flicker in Colback’s eyes. ‘You remember over at Nana’s place when you saw Pious after all this time? I had him take that photo I found at Anderson’s place down to a friend of mine. The two of them looked it over with a magnifying glass and the one guy figured those cops for Dallas PD. Something about the one at the back bothered Pious but he couldn’t work out what it was. Finally it came to him and he called me up asking what a New Orleans detective was doing dressed as a Dallas cop the day Jack Kennedy was shot. Funny thing is – apart from the way he was shipping his weapon – I never really looked at the cop. I was so busy spotting your buddy back there I never even noticed it was you.’ He let go a breath. ‘All this time I’m thinking it was Gervais blackmailing Moore and him that had Soulja shot. But it wasn’t him, it was you. You told me Gervais phoned about Lafayette Square. That gave you time to have Franklin get to the parking garage and he was there when I left the hotel.’

  Behind him he heard the taxi driver shift his weight and he turned to the hall. Ignoring the Beretta, he stared into the blond man’s eyes. ‘That photograph of the two of you in Dallas. The second shooter, was it you with the rifle or your brother-in-law back there?’

  Franklin did not reply. He just looked at Quarrie and tightened his grip on the gun.

  ‘Gigi Matisse,’ Quarrie said. ‘That’s your sister we’re talking about. I know what you did to her.’

  There was no expression on Franklin’s face, no hint of anything in his eyes. Quarrie turned to Colback again. ‘Lieutenant,’ he said, ‘if this young punk thinks he’s going to shoot me you better tell him to come inside. Every cop in Texas knows I ain’t a runner, he’s going to have to look me in the eye.’

  There was no movement from the hall and Colback remained at the desk. ‘I warned you,’ he said. ‘I tried to make it clear you’d no business being in New Orleans. I told you to go home.’ Sweat trickled from his hairline to the corner of his eye. ‘You should’ve done that. You should’ve gone back to Texas and left things as they were. But you couldn’t do it, could you? You had to dig deeper and deeper and when you called the DA’s office that time . . .’

  ‘Come on, Lieutenant, you’ve been planning for this moment pretty much since I arrived. You had a contract to kill Ali and you have to have a fall guy so when I shot Wiley you figured you’d replace him with me.’ He gestured. ‘It’s why you didn’t kill me in Lafayette Square. It’s a fact you needed me in Houston but you can kill me now with no comeback from anyone at all. It has to be you though, huh? Cop to cop, I mean, what with the warrant and all.’

  Quietly he smiled. ‘Only it ain’t so easy, is it? Six feet’s a whole different ballgame to six hundred yards.’ He could see the sheen glistening on Colback’s brow. ‘Maybe you’re up to it and maybe you ain’t, but it don’t matter that your weapon is cocked, I can put you down and still take out that piece of shit behind.’

  Colback did not move. He did not say anything. Quarrie watched his face, the expression as imperceptibly it began to die. Before he could tighten his finger on the trigger, before Franklin could make the connection, Quarrie had a pistol cupped and the hammer covered with his left hand.

  He didn’t wait for Colback to fall. Dropping to one knee he spun around but there was nobody in the hall. He heard no footstep, no sound of any door closing but Franklin was no longer there. Gun still smoking, Quarrie glanced to where Colback sprawled then he bent to the safe. There was no sign of the paperwork, though. As he stood up movement in the hall caught his eye.

  He had the pistol cocked a second time but it wasn’t Franklin, it was Rosslyn Tobie at the foot of the stairs. Wearing an immaculately tailored suit he gripped his snake’s head cane. Quarrie stared at him and all he could think about was what Nana had said on the phone.

  ‘Bravo, Sergeant.’ The old man’s voice was rich with age. ‘Very impressive, your godfather would be proud. But where does this leave you now? How’re you going to explain the murder of a New Orleans police officer? There’s no paperwork to back up your story. It’s already been destroyed.’

  ‘You forget I’ve got Wiley’s file.’

  ‘Of course you do, I left it for you to find.’ The old man smiled. ‘Without it there’s no way we could’ve gotten you to Houston. Details we’d have leaked to the press if we hadn’t been compromised.’

  He turned to peer at the dead man. ‘I have to admit I thought Colback was better than this. I thought he’d be able to accomplish what was asked of him, but he let me down. Now there’ll be a court case we didn’t want and it’s true your attorney can produce that file.’ He looked back at Quarrie again. ‘But what is it but a couple of typed pages you could’ve put together yourself. The file proves nothing, it’s not hand-written and it’s not signed.’ He gestured with the walking cane. ‘You’ve nothing in your corner, Sergeant. Not only were you the last person to see that pharmacist alive, a set of your fingerprints was recovered from the apartment where his body was found. You were the last person to see the pimp from Governor Nicholls, not to mention his driver. But most importantly you were discovered in a hotel room about to take a shot at the heavyweight champion of the world. Muhammad Ali, a Muslim who changed his name and refused to fight for his country, and you a Veteran of the war in Korea. At just nineteen you wrote a letter to President Truman that was published in The New York Times.’

  In silence Quarrie stared.

  ‘That makes you radical. It makes you unpredictable. And just as Wiley fought one war so you fought another. The Louisville lip, well, that sonofabitch don’t want to fight for his country then he won’t be fighting a
t all.’

  He moved behind Colback’s desk. ‘You’ve only got yourself to blame, taking on an organization that’s been around for a hundred years.’ He nodded to the dead man again. ‘Look at him, a highly respected police officer who tried to execute a warrant issued by the FBI. It prolongs this business a little. But we can deal with a court case and discredit whatever your attorney will tell you to say.’

  ‘You’re forgetting the photograph,’ Quarrie said. ‘I’ve got a copy. It’s safe in Texas with Wiley’s file.’

  Again the old man smiled. ‘You really believe we can’t deal with that?’

  ‘You couldn’t. It’s where all this started, remember?’

  ‘That’s true, it did. But we have contingencies now. Think about that photograph for a moment. Almost four years since it was taken and in all that time no one came forward until a New Orleans cop thought he saw something and called the DA. He’s dead, so what does that leave except a grainy image of a police officer who might have a vague resemblance to my son-in-law? If it comes to it I can provide a dozen eminent witnesses who’ll swear Lieutenant Colback was at a garden party in St Charles Parish the day Jack Kennedy died.’ He gestured expansively then. ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary, however, because the only witness your attorney can summon is a Negro convicted of cowardice in the Korean War.’

  ‘And your son who was here just now?’

  Pacing around him Tobie furrowed his brow. ‘Sergeant, I have no idea what you’re talking about. There was nobody here but you and me and the brave lieutenant lying there. Everybody knows I only had two children and one of them died at the age of nine. If it’s the taxi driver you’re referring to then you mean the witness they’ll call when it comes to trial. The decent young man on a football scholarship who picked you up from the airport and took you everywhere you wanted to go.’

  ‘He’s in the photograph,’ Quarrie said.

  ‘Is he?’ Tobie smiled. ‘I don’t think so, sunglasses and all that hair. That was just some hobo they pulled off a train.’

  ‘What about Moore?’

  ‘What about him? A disillusioned police officer with a penchant for colored girls, a married man with young children, no wonder he disappeared. He’s not dead. There’s no body, remember? I imagine he’s in New York or Chicago with some mulatto whore right now.’

  Quarrie was aware of the beat of a pulse at his eye.

  ‘You’re done here,’ the old man said. ‘You were out of your depth from the moment you arrived.’ As he spoke the doorbell rang and he paused. ‘I imagine that’ll be De La Martin come to arrest you for murder.’ With that he turned for the hall.

  ‘Nana told me about you,’ Quarrie said, ‘the kind of man you were.’

  In the doorway Tobie looked back.

  ‘How you were Gigi’s daddy. She told me how it was with you and her, what with you being married and all.’

  ‘Did she? Well, that woman always did like to talk. She’s a lot to answer for.’

  He went to get the door and Quarrie remained where he was. Seconds later De La Martin appeared with the old man holding his arm.

  ‘Detective,’ he said. ‘This is the Texas Ranger the papers were writing about. He’s wanted by the FBI.’ Grimly he indicated the body where it lay against the blood-spattered wall. ‘He murdered Lieutenant Colback as he tried to arrest him. I was upstairs and heard the commotion. I witnessed everything from the stairs.’ Reaching in his pocket he brought out a business card. ‘As you probably know I’m an attorney and I’ll be available to make a statement, but I have a pressing engagement now.’ The hint of a smile on his face, he looked Quarrie hard in the eye.

  He left them then and they heard the front door open and close. De La Martin pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the sweat from his brow. ‘One riot, one Ranger,’ he muttered. ‘We’re going to need a miracle now.’

  For a moment Quarrie stood where he was then he slipped his gun back into its holster.

  ‘Is Amos outside with the cab?’

  De La Martin squinted. ‘I guess so. I just left him. Why?’

  Quarrie went through to the hall. ‘It ain’t a miracle we need, it’s a ride.’

  Thirty-five

  Outside, Tobie walked to the corner where the Lincoln was parked in the shadow of a couple of trees. The chauffeur made to get out and open the door for him but the old man waved him down. Climbing into the back he regarded Franklin where he sat with his arms folded and his chin on his chest.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ the old man said. ‘But it is what it is and I might have to produce you as a witness later so you were never there.’ Leaning forward he tapped the divider with his cane. The glass slid down and he told the chauffeur to take them to Orleans Street.

  Franklin’s features were set. ‘You should’ve let me shoot him just now when I had the chance.’

  ‘A bullet in the back of the head, I don’t think so. You heard what he said. It had to be Colback only he wasn’t up to it, I’m afraid.’ Tobie forced away an audible breath. ‘De La Martin showed up and I imagine that was prearranged. He has no choice but to arrest Quarrie for murder, though; they’ll be heading downtown right now.’

  Franklin stared through the glass divider into headlights coming the other way.

  ‘I would’ve preferred it to go as we planned of course, and there might be some unwanted publicity for the foundation, so I want you to make sure we have a fresh initiative we can demonstrate publicly if we have to. Make it something for colored boys who might be considering leaving the bosom of Christ for their brothers in the red bow ties.’

  Franklin sat up straighter in the seat. ‘All this because some cop who thought he could make a buck spotted Colback in a uniform he shouldn’t have been wearing in a place he shouldn’t have been.’ He gestured with the flat of his hand. ‘What about Rosa, how’s she going to be when she finds out her husband is dead?’

  Tobie sat with his palms pressed to his thighs. ‘She’ll grieve of course, but she’s family and that means she’ll survive. She has me and her mother, the memory of her brother. She’ll get over it. She’ll be fine.’

  They were silent as the chauffeur turned onto St Charles Avenue and drove to the lights at Canal. As they crossed into the Quarter Franklin glanced at the spot where he’d killed Soulja Blue. ‘So why Orleans Street?’ he said.

  The old man pursed his lips. ‘She called the house. Just as I was leaving for Rosa’s place she phoned me at home.’

  Franklin looked sideways at him then. ‘Who did she speak to? What did she say?’

  Tobie stared straight ahead. ‘She spoke to my wife. She told her she needed to talk to me and I had to explain that she was a caretaker for one of our properties and I’ve never had to do that before.’ He half closed his eyes. ‘A call like that – you know it’s not an option. In all the years I was seeing that woman she knew it only too well.’ The walking cane across his knees, he worked the serpent’s tongue with his thumb.

  A few minutes later they turned onto Orleans Street. The chauffeur parked and Tobie glanced up at the darkened windows of the apartment.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Franklin said. ‘Right now, I mean, what with De La Martin at the Camp Street house.’

  ‘It won’t take long.’ Tobie got out of the car. ‘I told you how it is with boundaries, if they’re blurred even slightly they’re no longer boundaries at all.’

  He made his way across the road to the small gate and slipped his key in the lock. Inside the courtyard he crossed to the spiral staircase and looked up to where the door to the apartment was ajar. One hand on the rail he called out. ‘Nana, it’s Rosslyn: I’m coming up.’

  No answer from above, he climbed the steps to the short landing and stepped into the hall. Nana was at the far end bathed in shadow, he could barely make out her gown. ‘We need to talk.’ His tone was icy now. ‘The phone call, you’ve no business calling the house.’

  Still she stood where sh
e was, not moving from the bedroom door.

  ‘You called the house. Why would you do that? You’ve never done it before.’

  Nana stared at him with a light in her eyes. ‘Rosslyn,’ she said. ‘A long time ago you made it clear that you’d kill us both if I gave you cause, do you remember what you said that day?’ She stepped out of the shadows and Tobie’s gaze fixed on the gun she was pointing at him. ‘I’ve been thinking on it lately and I figure all the time you’re alive then Gigi’s in danger. I’m done with her living that way.’

  *

  In the back seat of the Lincoln Franklin heard the shot ring out and the chauffeur jumped where he sat. For a second Franklin stared at the darkened windows of the apartment then he rapped on the glass. ‘Go,’ he yelled. ‘The old fool always was too sure of himself. Get us out of here now.’ The chauffeur did not move. He just looked over his shoulder with his mouth hanging open. Franklin saw the flare of headlights in the rear view mirror as another car came up the road. Again he banged on the glass. ‘For God’s sake, man, just drive.’

  *

  As the cab turned the corner Quarrie saw the Lincoln heading for North Rampart Street. Next to him De La Martin was sweating and Quarrie told Amos to pull up. Throwing open the door he got out and stared the length of the street. Half a mind to get back in the cab and give chase, his attention was diverted to the apartment as lights flooded the balcony. De La Martin came lumbering around the back of the car as Quarrie crossed to the small gate. From the courtyard he could see lights over the gantry and was halfway up the steps when Nana appeared at the door. She had a gun in her hand, the smell of cordite in the air; he could see she was trembling slightly. For a moment she looked at him and he looked at her. Then she stood aside.

  Tobie was lying on his back with one palm pressed to his breast. His eyes were open and he was blinking slowly, lips moving soundlessly where blood gathered in bubbles with every broken breath. He tried to sit up but when he moved more blood pulsed from the wound in his chest. The look in his eyes was part fear and part shock; the pupils seemed to wander then they fixed on Quarrie’s face. ‘You knew.’ The words were no more than a whisper. ‘You knew she was waiting. You . . .’