He looked stricken, like it was something he’d never thought of. He probably hadn’t.
“How many more murders are you going to be accomplice to until it’s time for yours? You think Milo’s goons wouldn’t jump at the chance to kill a sissy faggot? He probably planted that bra in your desk and is still laughing about it.”
Frankie was crying again. I handed him a paper towel. “What do I do?” he finally said. “I want out of this, I want out of this so badly.”
“Get me the evidence on Milo. And whoever’s behind him.”
“But they’ll know. They would know I took the books.”
“Can you make copies?”
“No, I’m only there during business hours when Milo is there.”
“But could you put some of the books in your briefcase and walk out?”
“Milo checks the drawer every day when he arrives and when he leaves.”
“How about lunch?”
“Yes,” he said hesitantly. “But he’d know in a couple of hours and they would come and get me here.”
“By which time you won’t be here. I’ll get you safely into police custody and into their witness protection program. They’ll change your name and identity and relocate you to a place where Milo can’t get you.”
“The police aren’t even safe. There’s an informant there who’ll tell them what I’m going to do.”
“Who is it?” I asked, putting my hand on his shoulder to shake the defeat out of him.
“I don’t know. And Milo’s not the real leader.”
“Who?”
Frankie shook his head sadly, as if wanting very much to please me, but unable to.
“Can you find out?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Someone big. I’ve never seen him. Only talked to him once or twice on the phone. He only talks to people on the phone, like he doesn’t want to see their faces. You’d think the police would have gotten someone like us, like Milo a long time ago, but…”
“But?” I prompted.
“Like when you broke into Jambalaya. All the real books were gone a long time before the police showed up. Like they knew the second the search warrant was issued. They get away with so many things they shouldn’t be able to.”
“Like what?”
Frankie just shook his head for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry, I can’t go to the police.”
“You won’t. I will,” I assured him. “The police won’t know until you’ve got the records, okay? I won’t tell them anything until after it’s happened.”
“Do you really think there’s a chance?” he asked.
“It’s the only chance you’ve got,” I answered, telling the truth.
He was to spend the weekend as usual and go in on Monday as usual. I would be outside watching and waiting. If he couldn’t get the books, he would go into the deli and get a sandwich as usual. If he got the books, he would keep on walking to the bank. I would follow him and take him to safety. Then I would contact Ranson and make a deal. I wrote my first name and phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to him. I told him to call me only if it was very important. He agreed and I left, taking a circuitous route back to my apartment to make sure no one was following me. I had been pretty careful coming over here, but I couldn’t afford any more mistakes. I wanted Frankie to have a chance to work out his problems. Besides, he probably looked better in a dress than I did.
Outside my door was a package from MacKenzie’s Bakery and a note from Ms. Clavish. She said she had been given three king cakes in the last two days and would I please take one? If I didn’t want it, could I at least throw it out for her so she wouldn’t feel guilty about letting good food go to waste.
My kitchen could use any food that it could get. I penned a thank-you note and put it under her door.
Being hungry, I cut a chunk out of the king cake and poured myself some Scotch. They don’t really go together very well, but it was all I had. I bit into the doll in the first bit. That supposedly meant luck. The only other time I’d gotten the piece of cake with the doll in it, I had been twelve and Bayard had grabbed it away, saying I couldn’t have it since I was really a bastard. No wonder I despised him. I continued drinking my Scotch.
Somehow Saturday happened. I was still in my rumpled clothes. A cat was dangerously close to my face with a desperate, starved look in her eyes. I picked up Hepplewhite and deposited her on the floor, keeping her slashing claws away from my delicate cheek. She meowed. I found half a can of cat food in the refrigerator. She didn’t seem very fond of the flavor, but at least now if she starved it would be her choice, not mine.
I turned on the shower, letting the water run. I took my clothes off and threw them in a pile in the corner. The water wouldn’t get hot, just sporadically lukewarm. Just as well, it would wake me up. I got in. Why is the water that hits your body always twenty degrees colder than the water that hits your hands? I shuddered, then quickly soaped and shampooed myself. It was a quick shower. The cold water hadn’t helped the fog that I was in.
I thought about going to karate class to work out, but didn’t want to risk meeting Ranson there. I thought about driving out to the shipyard, but realized that I didn’t want to be out there with nothing to do but think. I looked at the clock. It was seven-thirty in the morning.
I got dressed and walked purposefully to the French Quarter, bought a paper, found an out-of-the-way table, and ordered chicory coffee. The paper was the usual boring list of scandals and intrigues this city is famous for. The only thing vaguely interesting was a picture of the distinguished older man I had seen with Ignatious Holloway. He was standing with some smiling policeman holding a certificate. He had probably donated money to the Crippled Widows and Children of Officers Slain While Protecting Little Old Ladies in Wheelchairs Foundation. I forced myself to read the society column because I had nothing better to do. Distinguished gentleman was Alphonse Korby and he owned the Julia Street Telecommunications Company. He was donating money to the Patrolman’s Save Our Children Anti-drug Fund. How perfectly acceptable. Holloway’s picture was also there, Karen standing beside him like the perfect granddaughter she wasn’t. They were flanked by two more men, also rich and powerful from the looks of them. Holloway, in his anti-crime zeal, was donating seed money and the equipment for a drug hotline, a “hey, kids, call up and turn in your parents for smoking dope” kind of telephone service. The man beside Holloway looked familiar. Why is it that corpulent white men all look alike to me? Judge Aldus Raymond was his name. “Send ’em upriver” Raymond. Had I heard that from Danny? What did it matter anyway? I turned the page to the comics.
When I couldn’t find anything more to read in the paper, I left and walked to my car. Maybe it just needed some fast highway driving, I rationalized. I drove, taking Highway 90 instead of I-10. I didn’t turn around until I crossed the Biloxi Bay bridge, some two hours east. Then I drove back without stopping. It was evening when I got back to the city. My car was still making funny sounds. I parked it and decided not to worry about it tonight. What could I do on a Saturday night anyway? I stopped by the liquor store and picked up two bottles of cheap, but marginally decent Scotch. It was late enough in the day to start drinking. I did.
I woke up Sunday with a hangover. I looked at the Scotch bottle and saw how much I had had to drink. No wonder. A lot of dead brain cells.
There was a light on my answering machine that I was sure hadn’t been there last night. I ran the tape back. Ranson asking me to call her. When I can hand you Milo’s head on a plate, Joanne, baby. Until then, I work best alone.
I went out, got the Sunday paper, a half dozen eggs and some English muffins for my breakfast, and a couple of cans of cat food for Hepplewhite. She appreciated my efforts by wolfing down her food, then throwing it up on some dirty socks that I had thrown on the floor.
Danny had called while I was out, but I ignored that message, too. I cleaned up after my adorable little kitty cat, then settled in with the pap
er and scrambled eggs. After I had finished the serious sections, I made myself a Bloody Mary with the dregs of a vodka bottle and a can of tomato juice that had been sitting in my refrigerator for at least six months.
I had just sat down with my third drink when my buzzer rang. Probably Baptists to save me from eternal hellfire. I ignored them. I want a warm afterlife. It buzzed again, insistently. I didn’t answer, but curiosity did prompt me to peek out the window. I saw Ranson. I also saw the gesturing hand of the person buzzing me. It was Danny’s, and she had a key. Ranson and the hand disappeared. They were coming inside.
I thought about the closet, but there weren’t enough clothes hanging in it to hide Hepplewhite, let alone me. As I wasn’t about to confront an assistant D.A. and an experienced detective sergeant, that left the ledge or the couch. Since I was both hungover and a bit drunk, the five-inch ledge didn’t seem like a good idea. That left the couch. I hastily made an even greater mess of the newspapers and dirty clothes in front of it—though the dust balls alone would hide a herd of elephants—then rolled underneath it just as I heard Danny’s key in the lock. From where I was hidden, I could see the door, or at least the lower part of it. Two pairs of feet entered, one in running shoes that I recognized as Danny’s and the other in black and gray boots. Ranson had fashionable feet off duty, I noted. I suddenly wondered what it would be like to be her lover, not to just sleep with her, but to be with her and listen to her say what she really felt about things. I felt a stab of envy for Alexandra Sayers.
“Not here,” Ranson commented.
Oh, good, I’d fooled them.
“But recent signs of habitation,” Danny said. “Note that the paper is today’s and… Aha…there are still ice cubes in the glass.”
Someone picked up the glass.
“Not to mention cheap vodka,” Ranson snorted, evidently having smelled it.
“True. Here is the bottle in the trash to prove it,” Danny said from my kitchen.
“A bottle of vodka and two bottles of Scotch. How often does Micky take out her trash?” Ranson asked.
“She can be very schizophrenic about it. At times, the worst slob you’ve ever seen and at other times almost obsessively neat.”
“That’s right, you two lived together for a while.” There was a pause. “Well, there are some empty cat food cans in here and egg shells and none of it seems close to rancid, so those bottles piled up pretty quickly.”
That vodka bottle was almost empty. I took the trash out on Friday. Today was Sunday. Two days. Two bottles. A nice round number. And one of those I’d opened on Thursday. Let’s not exaggerate too much, Joanne, dear.
I heard my answering machine being played back.
“She was here at the time of my call. The message light’s off and the tape was wound back,” Danny commented.
“Or she came in shortly afterwards,” Ranson added.
“No, she was here. Damn her butt anyway. I’ve got better things to do then chase after a Micky who doesn’t want to be found.”
“She’s drinking too much. I don’t like that,” Ranson said.
“She always drinks too much. Micky’s very good at living on the edge. I used to worry and wait for her to fall, but she’s too good. You just make a fool of yourself trying to catch her,” Danny exploded.
“Whoa! Sounds like someone got hurt in that affair of yours. Both of you always acted like it was just a casual thing.”
“It was for one of us.” There was a pause, then Danny continued, “I guess we all get kicked real hard in the face at least once.”
“What did she do?”
“Nothing, really. Micky was just being Micky. The kick was that she didn’t change for me. I’d seen her all through college, ringside seat. She drank a lot and probably other things, too. All the dykes and not-so-dykes on campus were after her. And they could all have her, too, most of them; she did have a few peculiar standards. But only for a night or two. The other nights she’d spend with me, the platonic friend, over cheap beers in a nearby bar or in our rooms studying or just being two poor kids from Naw Lins.”
“How did you become lovers? Here, have some of this. She doesn’t need it.” I heard glasses being filled. Shit, Detective Ranson had detected my spare bottle of Johnny Walker.
Before Danny answered, they sat down on the couch. Springs groaned dangerously over my head.
“We both came back here after graduation and found an apartment together, since we couldn’t afford to live alone. One night, in early June, we were standing at our one window with a view, watching a spectacular thunderstorm. The lights went out. I remembered watching the lightning flashes on her face. Neither of us went to get candles. There was a tremendous clap of thunder and we started kissing each other. I remember thinking, after the first time we made love, that I was set. I had a degree from a name school, I was going to law school and no one could stop me, and I had a smart, funny, great-looking woman for my lover and I didn’t have to try to explain bayou country or even the South to her.”
There was a pause. I heard my good Scotch being sipped.
“Things were great at first. Great sex, a lot of fun, but…well, the closer I wanted to get, the more Micky pulled away. We had lots of fun that summer, but autumn came and…the ease and comfort of the summer went away somehow. I was devastated when I finally realized that she was sleeping around on me. But I kept thinking she would fall, and I had to be there to catch her. Then, one night when she was out, I didn’t know where, but she was gone, and I was there alone, I realized that she had never told me that she loved me. Never said the words. What I had always heard was my assumption. And I knew she never would. I’d be waiting there for her to fall into my arms and she never would. The next night, when I finally saw her, I broke it off.”
“How come you’re still friends, after that?”
“When I told her it was over, she looked at me and said, ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this.’ And the next day, while I was at class, she cleaned up the apartment, stocked up the refrigerator, peeled a whole bunch of crawfish my parents had brought that were going to waste, took all her things, and left. I remember crying that whole night when I got home. But she was kind and clean going out the door and that was the best thing for both of us.
“When my dad had his heart attack, Micky was there. She still visited them occasionally, after we broke up. She looked after the bait shop for two weeks while he was in the hospital and my mother was with him. I didn’t even know she was doing it. I came out on the weekend, figuring I would at least open it then, and there was Micky, suckering some rich tourist into buying fishing gear that had sat around for years. How can you not be friends with someone like that?”
“Yeah. When Micky’s good, she’s very good.”
“But when she’s bad, watch out.” But Danny laughed when she said it.
“Another drink?”
“Sure, why not? Micky’s a great host when she’s not here.”
Ranson got up and stole more of my Scotch.
“She ever talk much about her childhood?” Ranson asked.
“No. Her parents were killed in a car wreck when she was ten. And she got sent to live with a harridan of an aunt and lump of an uncle. I met them once when their youngest son was hauled in for possession. I overheard her telling her husband that they would have no trouble getting their son off, since a darkie was prosecuting the case. The boy had the decency to look embarrassed, otherwise I would have kicked his ass as far in jail as I could have.”
“Ever get the feeling that she’s hiding something?” Ranson asked.
“Lots of things, but then aren’t we all?”
“Yeah,” Ranson replied. Then there was silence. Whatever Ranson knew, she hadn’t told Danny. At least not yet.
“Can I ask you an intrusive question?” Danny said. Ranson must have nodded yes, because Danny continued, “You were seeing each other at some point, weren’t you? Did you ever sleep with her?”
“Yes and no. Yes, we went out a few times and even got as far as sitting in my car and kissing. A cop car came by and I freaked out.”
She hadn’t really freaked out. Just sat up straight and said, “I don’t think we’d better do this right now.” I would pay a fair bit of money to see Joanne Ranson freak out.
“And, no, we never slept together. I wanted someone who would be there in the morning and I never got the feeling from Micky that she would be. Not that I wasn’t tempted, mind you. There are some things to be said for ‘a no strings, let’s fuck’ affair. Now that I’m with Alex, I kind of regret that I didn’t go ahead and get it over with.” Ranson was getting garrulous on my good Scotch.
“Get it over with?” Danny said what I was thinking.
“It’s hard not to see her and wonder what she might be like in bed. I’ve seen her naked plenty of times changing for karate class and I’ve always liked what I’ve seen.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Danny chuckled.
“If I weren’t with Alex, I’d fool around with her. I’ve never slept with a woman taller than I am. It would be a nice change of pace.”
Well, girls, I’m available. As a matter of fact, Joanne, you’re sitting on my face right now.
“I’m ready to get out of here,” Danny said. “Elly will be home soon. Should we leave a thank-you note for the Scotch?”
“Let her wonder. She’ll probably think she drank it herself,” Ranson answered.
I heard the springs creak as Danny got up, then two sets of feet walking across my floor and out the door. The lock clicked shut and they were gone. I stayed under the couch with my ear to the floor until I heard the thud of the downstairs door closing.
I rolled out over my disheveled newspaper. I felt like a voyeur. Because I was a voyeur. Tawdry came to mind. If I could have gotten out from under that couch without having to explain why I was avoiding them, I would have done it. I knew they, Ranson particularly, had a lot of questions. I also knew that I didn’t have a lot of answers.
Death by the Riverside Page 16
