Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) (The Tubby Dubonnet Series)

by Tony Dunbar

  “Where’s the goddamn money?” was all he wanted to know.

  She screamed incoherently into the phone long after he hung up. She did not have the fucking money, and did not know what Darryl had done with the fucking money, and did not care about the fucking money.

  She began spending most of her time at the club. Except for Ali, the bouncer where she used to work in the French Quarter, she really didn’t have any other friends or much else to do. Even during her off hours she was usually upstairs in the office, exploring Darryl’s life. She studied the ledgers and some spiral notebooks she discovered in the safe, and got a pretty good idea about the nuts and bolts of the operation—what went into the bank and what went into the cash box. She left the bag of pot and the ornate silver cocaine server where she found them in Darryl’s desk. For some reason she wasn’t much interested in dope anymore, but she still would take a drink. The employees got paid, so they were no problem. Her first challenge came from the whiskey wholesaler who showed up with his truck on Thursday morning, his usual time, and who said he wanted to deal “with the boss, now that Mr. Alvarez ain’t here no more.”

  “I guess that’s me,” Monique told him.

  “Who’s going to be taking care of my bills?” he asked.

  “I will. You’ll get paid just like always. Just send me the invoice.”

  “Invoice, shit. Who’s in charge here?” he demanded. “Where’s the man?”

  That made her mad. “I’m the one in charge,” she said. “Now let’s get those bottles unloaded.”

  The man got back in his truck and slammed the door. He started the motor. Then he rolled down the window and said, grinding his gears, “If you’re in charge, you’ve got a lot to learn.”

  “Wait,” Monique cried. She hopped up on the running board and got her face up to a level with his. It wasn’t a pretty sight. She ripped the window frame with both hands, not planning to let him get away without her. “We need that stock. You can’t just drive away.”

  “Like hell I can’t,” he said. “Let go of my truck.”

  “Tell me what the problem is. I don’t understand.”

  He stared at her. “You got to know the deal. You can’t run no bar if you don’t know the deal.”

  “Okay, so explain it to me. What’s the deal?”

  The deal turned out to be very elaborate. Darryl paid the full inflated amount of each invoice by check. The liquor company paid a salary to Jimmy, the Champs bartender. Jimmy kicked back the money to Darryl, in cash. Darryl turned over part of the cash to the boss of the liquor company and kept part for himself. The way it worked out, the wholesaler’s costs were covered, the bar got liquor, everybody’s books balanced, and both bosses pocketed a little cash. And the driver usually delivered an extra case not shown on the invoice. And he deducted two bottles for his trouble.

  “And you give me a gift certificate for a fifty-dollar dinner for my mom and papa’s anniversary every year,” he told her.

  Maybe he made that last one up. Monique would never know.

  “Sounds fine to me,” she said and stuck out her hand. The driver smiled and took it. “How about unloading my whiskey?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. What you need extra today? I got Puerto Rican rum or Taaka vodka.”

  She asked Jimmy about the setup later. “Sure, that’s the way it works,” he said. “I thought you knew about it.”

  “I didn’t know all the details,” she told him.

  “And when I cash the check, I take twenty dollars out as a tip.” His expression radiated sincerity.

  “I may let you up it to forty dollars,” she said. “Are there any other deals you want to fill me in on?”

  And so it went with the purveyors of food, napkins, toilet paper, toothpicks, and peppermints. Monique started to master the finer parts of running a business for the enjoyment of the public.

  She took to sleeping in the office, or on the couch in the lounge. Sometimes Jimmy would lock up while she slept, and she would come awake before dawn, the club strangely empty and silent, wondering where she was. Then she would hear the lake sounds normally muffled by the noises of the crowd—the waves lapping at the rocks, the cool wind from the north, the chimes of rigging ringing against the aluminum masts of the sailboats—and she would remember.

  Then she would go downstairs and walk around in the dark and stand on the spot on the floor where Darryl had bled to death. And she would take a tall glass from the wooden rack inside the bar and fill it half full of vodka and the rest of the way full with cranberry and orange juice mixed, and she would sit on one of the stools and smoke cigarettes by herself, waiting for the sun to come up so that she could know where the water ended and the land began.

  She was waiting like that, sitting behind the bar in the dark and staring over the stacked chairs at a blank picture window just starting to shift from ebony to charcoal gray, when she heard a scratching noise from the direction of the front door. At first she thought it might be a rat. There were a few about, a fact she had learned since she had started sleeping over. She had made the help set out extra traps. But it wasn’t a rat, she realized when she heard the front door swing open with a creak and felt a little gust of fresh air pass around the bar. A napkin in the clear plastic box beside her blew onto the floor.

  She concentrated on the space where the front hallway met the barroom. Her eyes were used to the night, and she watched alertly for movement and shadows. In a few seconds she saw the figure of a man framed by the entranceway. He moved silently in her direction, pausing with each step to listen. Monique reached for the gun under the register. She got it in her left hand and transferred it to her right without leaving the stool. The man must have sensed the movement because he crouched.

  “Who’s there?” he said in a low voice, like he wasn’t totally sure that anyone was there. She recognized the voice as Casey’s.

  “Me,” she said, and with both hands folded around the pearly grips, she focused what she had at his shadow and started shooting.

  “Shit!” Casey yelled and tumbled onto the floor. A table loaded with chairs turned over with a crash. Casey fired a weapon – she saw the flash but had no thought about where the bullet went – then, with a leap, he smashed through the window she had been looking through and rolled outside. She heard his footsteps running away on the dock.

  Monique stood frozen, both arms expended, pointing her pistol at the broken window, for a minute or more, and then she sat down on the floor.

  “Where’s the damn police?” she sobbed. Not even a dog barked. None lived by the lake. Just the rigging banging on the masts.

  “Where are the sirens?” she cried.

  She got up and walked around the room, stepping around tables and looking into corners. She stuck her head through the jagged hole in the window and looked at the trees blowing outside. A breeze picked up a Popeye’s bag and blew it down the street. She rubbed her hands over the pistol. She smelled its barrel. Somewhere there was a rat in here. At least she could blow that away. An orange streak split the sky.

  The sun came up. Monique sat outside on the dock, watching seagulls dive for their breakfast of minnows at the mouth of the harbor. She was in the company of a bottle of vodka and a row of orange juice cans. The Beretta 9 was on the plank beside her, glistening with dew. She hadn’t thought about it for a while, and didn’t know if it still held any bullets. Some early morning fishermen set up their gear on the rocks across the channel. One waved at her, and in a minute she waved back.

  She got on her feet, not smoothly, stretched, and went back inside to use the phone. It rang a long time before she heard her mama say hello.

  “Hello, Mama.”

  “Who is this? Monique?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “What are you calling so early for?”

  “I just got up early this morning. I thought you’d be awake by now. Is Lisa all right?”

  “Of course she’s all right. What makes you think she would
n’t be all right? Where are you?”

  “I’m in New Orleans, Mama. I just wanted to hear your voice and talk to Lisa.”

  “You sound real funny, Monique, like you’re in a dream. Have you been drinking?”

  “No, Mama. I just had a real bad night. Is Lisa there?”

  “She’s here and in bed and that’s where I’m going to leave her. It’s too early in the morning to be making a phone call and waking people up.”

  “I know she’d like to talk to me.”

  “No, she wouldn’t. It would just trouble her right now. And you’ve been enough trouble to her already. I’m going to leave her asleep.”

  “Please, Mama.”

  “Monique, quit saying please this and please that. You get yourself back together first, and then we’ll talk about it.”

  Monique couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Okay, Mama. Well, then I guess I’ll let you go. You’ll tell her I called, won’t you?”

  “Yes, but I won’t tell her how you sounded.”

  “Goodbye, Mama.”

  “Goodbye.”

  FIFTEEN

  Tubby, whatsa big deal, huh? You just droppin’ in or what?” Judge Hughes gave Tubby’s hand a mighty shake.

  “I was just in the neighborhood, Al, and I thought I’d see if you were real busy.”

  “Gawd, yes. It’s always real busy. You see all those guys out there? That’s two pretrials and a temporary restraining order. Then I got a trial resuming at two o’clock.”

  Judge Hughes always smiled when he talked, so he looked kind of like a brown cherub because he was bald and had a round, plump face, big inquisitive eyes, and curly ears. Being a judge, you would think he had heard everything, but he always looked like he was curious about what you were going to say. He was invariably friendly and courteous to lawyers, though slow as molasses to render a judgment and sometimes hard to get on the bench. He much preferred meeting in chambers with just the lawyers around, to get it all arranged peacefully. He was probably Tubby’s oldest friend in the city.

  They had studied together in law school. The bond was firmed up when they had both clerked at the district attorney’s office and realized that they both regarded their boss, a flamboyant DA who always found fiction more persuasive than fact, ridiculous, not to say dangerous. Hughes was one of the first blacks to make a serious run for Civil District Court, and Tubby had walked him around to meet a lot of the white lawyers in town.

  “I can get out of your hair,” Tubby said.

  “No, let them suffer. I need a breather. That’s why I told Mrs. Carlozzi to bring you on in. So what’s new?”

  “I got a little problem.”

  “What kind of problem? How can I help you?”

  “It’s an ethical problem. It seems I’ve got something I don’t own, and I’m not sure who it belongs to.”

  The judge leaned back in his chair. “So what is it?” he asked.

  “You don’t want to know. Well, maybe later, but not now.

  “So you keep it, what’s the problem? After a while it’s yours by acquisitive prescription.”

  “There may not be a problem. I don’t think anybody has a legitimate claim to it, at least not better than my claim. The police might like to know about it. I don’t know for sure.”

  “You mean it’s involved in a crime?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised, but I don’t know that.”

  “Are the police looking for it?”

  “Not so far as I know, and I doubt it.”

  “They haven’t asked you for it.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “So what’s the big deal? If the police want something, they’re not shy, they’ll ask for it. If they don’t ask, fuck them.”

  “That’s about where I’m coming out.”

  “If nobody’s asking for it, and you don’t know who it belongs to, keep it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hypothetically speaking, of course.” The judge grinned.

  “Right. I realize you don’t have all the facts.”

  “Just declare it on your income tax so you don’t get Uncle on your tail.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “So what else you got?”

  “I got this urge to proposition my daughter’s sixteen year-old girlfriend. Is that all right? No, just kidding. I think that’s about it. I’ll be going.”

  “I saw Mattie at the Gibsons’ party,” the judge said. “She looked good. Divorcing you seems to have agreed with her.”

  “Yeah. I saw her this week. She is looking good.”

  “Let’s have lunch one day.”

  “Okay, Al, maybe Friday. I’ll be kind of busy until then.”

  “Call me Friday morning.”

  “You got it.”

  Tubby rose from his chair and started out, but Judge Hughes held up a hand to stop him.

  “Do you know what I tell judges from all over the country when I go to the Bar Association meetings and all those judicial conferences?”

  “No, what?” Tubby asked.

  “I tell them to come to New Orleans to see the prettiest girls in the world; do you agree?”

  “Sure,” Tubby said.

  “Well,” said the judge, getting up and stretching. He came around his desk to face Tubby. “You may or may not actually agree, but if you count the Vietnamese girls and the brown girls and the white girls and the black girls, you know I’m right. Just look around you. And what makes them so pretty is that they smile. I don’t know if it’s what we put in the water or what. In New Orleans, the girls smile. That’s why they’re so beautiful.” He squeezed Tubby’s arm. “You’ve got to keep smiling, Tubby. That’s my moral. And on your way out would you ask Mrs. Carlozzi to send in the TRO?”

  “Sure, see you, Al.”

  * * *

  Tubby made it to the Central Grocery before it closed, double-parked, and picked up a can of olive oil and a large sack of pistachios. The olive oil was for cooking and the pistachio nuts were for writing briefs. Since he’d started doing all of his own shopping and cooking, he ate much better things.

  After he got his groceries, he drove around the French Quarter to the old D. H. Holmes department store parking garage on Iberville Street. You parked your own car and took the keys with you. With almost a million dollars in the trunk, he was not about to turn the wheel over to some kid. Also it was rush hour, and he didn’t want to get tied up in business-district traffic driving across Canal to the Fairmont parking lot. It was just a short walk to the hotel.

  The Fairmont’s narrow lobby ran the length of the block. Since they tore down the St. Charles, this was really the only one of the grand hotels left. Carnival’s first royalty held court here, though they called it the Grunewald then, and Huey Long plotted upstairs to beat the New Orleans machine. The scheme for his famous “Round Robin,” which scuttled his impeachment, was hatched upstairs, so they said, and in a nearby room his assassins may have met secretly to plan his death.

  It was orderly and sedate, a nice contrast to his office, which he had spent the afternoon helping to reorganize. Nothing had turned up missing. That was probably because what the burglars were looking for was in the trunk of his car.

  Sazerac’s was the bar off the lobby. Tubby usually avoided it because it was likely to be full of conventioneers, but tonight, except for a couple of cigar chompers and the bartender, the place was dead.

  He recognized Clifford Banks sitting at a round table in a dim corner beneath an orange mural, painted by a WPA artist, of vegetable and fruit vendors in the French Market. Banks was smoking a cigarette, but he stubbed it out as soon as Tubby entered the room. He placed the ashtray surreptitiously on the adjoining table like he was ashamed of it. When he stood up to shake hands, Tubby had to acknowledge that he had a commanding presence. With streaks of silver at his temples, and his wide, clear blue eyes, he was a distinguished figure.

  “Hello, Tubby,” he said. His voice was generous and friendly
. “Thank you for joining me.”

  “My pleasure, Clifford.” Tubby fitted himself into one of the soft black leather chairs. They contrasted with the rug, the curtains, and the base of the bar, which were red, like dark blood. A waiter appeared. Banks ordered a martini, straight up, please, dry with an olive. Tubby said he would have the same. A speaker hidden somewhere emitted Stravinsky. Or maybe it was drifting in from the symphony playing at the Orpheum across the street.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you since the Bar dinner a year or so ago,” Banks said. “But I’ve heard you have been doing very well.”

  “I’ve been staying busy.” The waiter brought mixed nuts.

  “That’s certainly better than the alternative.” Banks chuckled. Tubby smiled. They smiled at each other.

  The drinks came. Banks fiddled with his red plastic swizzle stick. It was imprinted with the Fairmont Hotel crest and would have been something to grab for if it was tossed from a float at Mardi Gras.

  “Tubby, you may be able to help me,” he began. Tubby didn’t say anything but raised his eyebrows and tried to look cooperative. It was an effort to avoid staring at Clifford’s tie, a collage of purple plums on a cloudy pink sky.

  “I’ve got a client who is interested in certain assets of Darryl Alvarez. Would you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

  “Why don’t you tell me,” he said.

  Banks seemed to ponder this and took a moment to respond. He tried again.

  “I believe it’s cash, Tubby, a sizeable amount of cash.”

  “Where did you get the idea that Alvarez had a sizeable amount of cash?” Tubby asked.

  Banks nodded. “It could have been in a blue gym bag, Tubby. Alvarez didn’t give you anything like that, did he?”

  “Whose money was it?”

  “My client’s. And he is very anxious to have it back.”

  “Why doesn’t he go to the police?”

  “He would prefer to leave it a private matter.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “I hoped, Tubby, that you would help us find it, and give it back.”

  “Why in hell should I do that?”