I want to know who killed Sunshine.
It had startled me when I caught myself saying that. It was suggestive, telling. I hadn’t yet stopped to think about what I was doing—stepping out of the Calf, coming here to Sunshine’s old workplace to make inquiries, to find out. She’d been killed. Stabbed. Possibly as part of some sick, twisted ritual thing. I would handle the grief of that on my own. But I needed my question answered. Who did it?
Why, though, did I want to know? It seemed if I was asking, then I meant to do something about it. Was that what was happening? I didn’t know.
Was I thinking of revenge?
I absentmindedly lit up a smoke, and immediately a rancid gutter punk sprang up out of the dark and grime, looking to mooch. Beer-stained T-shirt, facial blemishes, gross ingratiating grin. It was tough to give a shit, and I didn’t try, waving him off.
Bourbon, which closes nightly to auto traffic, was supporting just a few handfuls of revelers, those walking around with “specialty” drinks (puked up, they make distinctively colored puddles on the sidewalks) and oversized beers in plastic go-cups. Somebody shouted out, “Newwwor-LEEENZ!” at football rally volume, just in case anybody sleeping in a one block radius had forgotten where they were, and mispronounced our city’s name to boot.
I love the Quarter. I truly do. But it can be a test.
When Chanel came down the front steps, I’d been waiting more like twenty minutes. The tight outfit had been replaced by dowdy civilian clothes, her spiked bottle-red hair hidden under a cap. Frankly, I thought she looked prettier this way, less mannequin-like. She fished a pack of cigarettes out of her shapeless, baggy jeans, and I lit her smoke for her.
“Okay, Bone.” Her makeup too was gone. She looked tired. “Ask me.”
“You want to go someplace?”
“No. I don’t. I want to go home. Ask me here.”
It felt, oddly, for that second there like I was at some line of demarcation, that to cross it I need only ask my first question about Sunshine—that I was at the start of something I could stop now, simply by not going forward.
I stepped off into the void. “Do you know if Sunshine was dating anybody lately?”
“Dating?” Chanel blew smoke through grimly smirking lips. “What, like going to the malt shop, wearing some guy’s school pin?”
I wasn’t doing banter tonight. “Like seeing somebody steady.”
“Couldn’t say. I had the feeling she was screwing someone on a regular basis, but who ...” She shrugged. “We weren’t tight, y’know, her and me. Girls go through here, and it’s usually a while ‘fore I get to know ...” She didn’t need to add that now it was too late to make friends with Sunshine.
“How about customers?” I asked. “Anybody showing up to see her?”
“Sure. But that goes for everybody. Not just the dancers. I get guys asking for me all the time.” She said this with some professional pride.
I was hoping for something easy, I realized—one of Sunshine’s standard disastrous boyfriends, maybe a customer at the club stalking her. Something—someone—obvious.
Chanel was already looking impatient. Who could blame her? A dead co-worker, and now my questions. Better ask while the asking was good.
“Was Sunshine showing up for her shifts on time?”
She shrugged, a bit petulantly this time. “I guess. Most of the time. She wasn’t, like, a total flake.”
“How about money? Was she short on cash lately?”
“I didn’t make a habit of going through her purse.”
I grimaced. “Right. But was she strapped, did she borrow from you, from the other girls? Did she gripe about money a lot?”
“Not to me. Borrowing? I never heard of her doing it. Look, Bone ...”
“I know.” I took a last puff off my cigarette and ground it out under my heel. I did have something I had to ask, had teased around it with my last few questions. It was delicate, and I was using up the last of Chanel’s good will. I didn’t want to, but—I had to ask.
I drew a breath.
“Chanel, was Sunshine turning tricks?”
Those raw, tired eyes lit with a spark. She stiffened. If this was a hard-boiled gumshoe movie, I would be able to divine her body language instantly. Fact was, I didn’t know if I’d bumped against the truth or just provided a point of focus for her free-floating anger over Sunshine’s murder.
With studied icy dignity she pulled herself tall. “You ought to speak a little better of the dead, Bone.” With a sharp flick she shot her cigarette butt inches past my left ear, and that was it. She turned and strode off, down Bourbon toward Canal, a straight crisp line.
Leaving me staring after her, alone on the sidewalk with the street’s fumes and very little accomplished. Alone ... until I realized someone was standing behind me, very near.
* * *
Excerpt from Bone’s Movie Diary:
A good way for an actor to grab the Oscar is of course to play a character with an affliction. Dustin Hoffman’s 2nd Oscar for Rain Man (autistic); Daniel Day-Lewis for My Left Foot (cerebral palsy); Tom Hanks’ double whammy of Philadelphia (AIDS sufferer) & Forrest Gump (mentally challenged); Pacino’s Scent of a Woman (blind); etc. Not always the actor’s best work, is it? Actresses fare well for awards & nods playing prostitutes & women of questionable morals. Elisabeth Shue got a nomination for Leaving Las Vegas, as did Annette Bening for The Grifters, Jodie Foster for Taxi Driver; & the Oscar went home with Jane Fonda for Klute, Mira Sorvino for Mighty Aphrodite, Kim Basinger for L.A. Confidential, Anne Baxter for 1946’s The Razor’s Edge, Liz Taylor for Butterfield 8, & so forth. There are good performances among those, with some glaring exceptions. Yet even the cautionary tales, the gritty & seamy ones ... they seem to subversively & perversely glamorize the lifestyle. We can safely observe and tsk-tsk the proceedings & most of these films encourage us—overtly or otherwise—to do so, but secretly we’re titillated by these “fallen women.” We are meant to thrill as they plunge headlong toward annihilation.
Bone turned around suddenly, but I’d glided up behind him, past whatever radar he had. He was startled and his stance was wobbly again.
“Maestro—“
“I thought you said you were going to stay at the Calf.”
He recovered himself, shaking his head. “I didn’t say that. You said you were stepping out to ask about Sunshine. Well, I did the same thing.”
I glanced past him, to the entrance to Big Daddy’s. “You went asking in there?” My tone was clipped.
“Right. I know one of waitresses from around. Chanel. I was just talking to—“
I’d seen him talking to the redhead. “Look, Bone, I want to talk to you about this. But let’s get off the street. We’ll go to Fahey’s. Come on, I’ll buy a round.”
He looked at me funny. “Talk? Maestro, I ought to be getting back to the Calf. I left Alex sitting there. Talk about what? Did you find out something about Sunshine?” He asked it eagerly.
“Who killed her? No.” No one was within earshot, but I still wanted off the street.
“Talk to me on the way back to the Calf, then. I don’t want another drink. I’m going to meet Alex and go home.”
For the third time tonight I put a hand on him, on his shoulder this time. “Bone, we need to talk. Seriously.”
I guess I said it convincingly. After a few seconds he nodded. Tufts of his dark hair were sticking out from his ponytail, and his already thin face looked even more drawn. We hiked down to Fahey’s, which is just two blocks off Bourbon, on Burgundy and Toulouse. On the way, I thought about what I wanted to say.
We stepped into the air-conditioning. Milo was bartending. I took Bone at his word and just ordered him a soda, but by now I definitely wanted another cocktail. It was quiet in the bar but I led Bone back toward one of
the high tables by the poker machines anyway. We were isolated. Even both pool tables were unoccupied, which was rare. Fahey’s is a little local Irish pub that never plays Irish music, but is home base for several pool league teams and has a bank of cue lockers. There’s little or no “trash talking,” no big money games, but on any given night you can normally find half a dozen to a dozen solid shooters sorting out the pecking order over drinks.
“Okay,” Bone said, leaving the soda untouched and lighting a cigarette. “What?”
He wanted to be direct? Fine. Now was the time for it.
“What the hell are you trying to do?”
He had the perplexed look again. “How’s that?”
“Earlier you were ready to go charging off to the crime scene. Why?”
“To find out what happened to Sunshine—if it was true, and what exactly it was that happened.”
“And then you went over to Sunshine’s work place, asking questions.”
“Right.”
“Why?”
He was starting to look pissed off. “Like I said—to find out.”
I took a pull on my drink. “But why?”
Now he was getting angry. “What the hell you think?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think,” I said steadily. “Just answer, Bone. Why are you asking around about Sunshine’s murder?”
“So I can find out who’s the motherfucker who did it!”
I saw Milo glance our way, but the bar’s few other patrons didn’t pay us any attention. It was mostly service industry people, familiar faces.
I leaned forward on my stool and pinned him with my eyes. “And what do you plan on doing with that knowledge, if you get it?”
He bit back on an immediate retort. I watched him think it through. He puffed hard on his cigarette.
Finally, he said, “It depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether the cops know who did it, and whether they catch him.”
I had him thinking in an orderly fashion now. That was good. Before, he’d been reacting strictly from the gut. Still, I had a good idea where this was going, and that wasn’t good.
“What if the police don’t have any suspects, don’t pick anyone up?”
“Then I’ll find out who killed her.” His voice was a level growl. “And I’ll set things right.”
“Revenge?” I asked, almost softly.
“Justice ... no, you’re right, revenge. The eye for an eye kind.”
I let out a long sigh. “Don’t personalize it,”
“What do you mean?” Anger flashed back into his eyes.
“Most of the murders the police get are what they call ‘smoking guns,’ where they know almost immediately who the perpetrator is.” I spoke slowly and quietly, trying to wind him back down. Sometimes boring lectures work. “You’re most likely to get killed by a family member or a close friend in the heat of an argument ... especially during the hot, humid summer months, like now. It’s the cases that aren’t obvious, the ‘whodunits’ that usually go unsolved. If they don’t come up with an answer in the first forty-eight hours, they usually quit. It’s not like TV or the detective novels. They’re overloaded with cases and simply don’t have any more time to put into any single case.”
“You said not to personalize it.” He obviously didn’t like the sound of that.
“You’re not giving the police the time to do their job. Realize what they’re up against in every ‘whodunit.’ Give them the chance to check things out their way. Maybe they’ll get lucky. You’re already running around trying to start your own investigation. You’re going to call attention to yourself, maybe end up distracting the cops. I would recommend you chill out, at least enough to think clearly. It’s always better to fight cold than hot.”
He ground his cigarette into the table’s black plastic ashtray. It wasn’t earthshaking advice I was giving him, but hopefully I’d cooled him down sufficiently.
He looked at me, intent but not hostile now. “You didn’t just happen to bump into me up there on Bourbon, did you, Maestro? You came out looking for me. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said simply.
“Why?” He gave me a wry little smile, appearing to enjoy giving me back my own earlier question.
I’d been thinking it over, though, trying to deduce why I felt such a strong protective instinct toward this kid who was, after all, a new acquaintance and not somebody I should be too invested in.
“I’m just looking out for you, Bone.”
“Why?” he asked again, enjoying it even more.
I took another healthy swallow of Irish. “Because you remind me of someone ... someone I don’t want to see doing anything unnecessarily dangerous.” Or stupid, I added silently.
The smirk left his face. “So what do you want from me, Maestro?”
“To lay off this thing for forty-eight hours. See what the police can do.”
He nodded once. “And if they don’t come up with anything?”
“Then you’ll want to do something. Presuming you’re serious?”
“Very serious.”
I finished off my drink. “In that case, you could probably use some help.”
We stared at each other a moment across the tabletop. I thought of Rose turning over the Two of Cups.
“Forty-eight hours,” Bone finally said. “Okay. Clock’s ticking. Meanwhile ...” We climbed off our stools. He had Alex waiting to be escorted home.
I didn’t have anyone waiting for me, but the Quarter, in its entirety, was my home, and ... well, I didn’t take kindly to the murder of one of my household.
* * *
I still had Jet’s news to worry about, of course. That I’d put it on hold while hunting down Bone showed how serious I was about trying to safeguard the kid. Now, however, it was time to look into it.
My apartment is maybe a little too close to the action on Bourbon, so on busy weekends, and certainly during Carnival, I get a lot of crowd noises. I don’t particularly mind, though. My place is a “slave quarters” apartment, a local term I found a bit shocking when I first moved down here. It refers to a detached unit at the rear of a larger building. Mine abuts a flagstone patio planted with jasmine, where there’s enough space for me to swing a fencing foil or a baston eskrima around when the urge takes me. The plants and vines on the perimeter also block the view from the street and the main house, which makes it a good place to practice with live blades.
Jet had mentioned Decatur Street. If somebody was going along that street tonight looking and asking for me by name, that somebody didn’t know my movements. Decatur’s bars are more for the younger set, though there was one bartender I knew well.
I flipped through the phone directory, dialed the number. When the Bear answered I identified myself.
“Maestro!” the Bear’s gruff voice boomed through my earpiece. “How’s it goin’, Bro? I take it you got my message.”
I glanced at the answering machine next to the phone. I hadn’t checked it. “Actually, no. Somebody slipped me word on the street, something about ... inquiries being made.”
“Right. An’ I know how you like your privacy.”
The Bear had the physical presence to match his basso-profundo voice. He was ... well, a bear of a man, except that real bears don’t have shoulder-length hair and tattoos. He’d also been in my sword club when it was active and was one of a handful of people who had my unlisted phone number. The bar where he currently worked was at Decatur’s far end.
“So, who is this guy?” I flexed my free hand.
“He came through here ‘bout, oh, hour an’ a half ago. Asked for you by name.”
“Asked who?”
“Me. I didn’t know him, so he got my best blank stare. He tried askin’ a few of
my customers, but I told him he had to buy a drink or get out. He went.”
“He give you any trouble about that?” I asked.
“Naw. Actually he was well-mannered. Wasn’t drunk. Was wearin’ square clothes. Cheap, y’know, but neat—collared shirt, slacks.”
I absorbed that. “Okay. Tell me what he looked like, please.”
I could hear the bar’s raunchy jukebox in the background, ice cubes rattling. The Bear was making drinks while he talked.
“White, early thirties. Light brown hair. Recent haircut—a short, cheap cut but, again, neat. Blue eyes, soft-lookin’. Narrow jaw. Wore a silver crucifix on a chain around his neck. No rings in the ears, but both lobes had multiple piercings. No tats on the hands or neck. Five foot nine. One forty—one forty-five. Not muscular. No watch on his wrist, no cell phone clipped to his belt.”
It was the sort of thoroughness one could expect from the Bear. He was in his forties, easygoing enough, but he’d spent his youth in the military. Special Forces—that much he’d said, and I never asked further. I figured he had been in on some serious shit, but his past was as off-limits as mine.
I ran his description through my head and nothing clicked.
“Is this trouble for you, Maestro?” he asked after a few seconds.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I appreciate your concern, though. And the info.”
“It’s all good. Hey, you heard ‘bout the girl gettin’ iced at the river?”
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