“Which means—”
“Which means that whoever nailed Sunshine was going through a lot of extra inconvenience and risk just to carry his favorite killing tool. And that means she was being deliberately hunted. No accident or happenstance involved.”
“And the voodoo shit?”
“Actually proves it. Someone went to the trouble to put that stuff in place. Whether they intended some kind of ritual or were just trying to make it look that way, they definitely intended Sunshine as the victim.”
Bone nodded grimly. “Still ... what was she doing by the river in the first place? I keep thinking about that. Did this ice-picker chase her there from Jackson Square?
I paused to light a cigarette of my own, blowing out a long plume of smoke. It was good to see the kid thinking logically, even if I didn’t have an answer to his question.
I hadn’t yet told Bone about the message Sunshine had left on my machine two days before her murder, or the note. I don’t give out my phone number willy-nilly, but I’d given it to her ... probably during my brief infatuation, in hopes of ... well, in hopes that didn’t mean anything now. I had no idea what Sunshine might have wanted to talk to me about, and I didn’t want to bother Bone with it. After all, we were still waiting for the cops to solve this.
“There’s even more to the ice-pick thing, though,” I said. “Ice-pick killings went out with Penny Dreadfuls. And they certainly have nothing to do with any version of the Vodun practiced here in the Quarter. That raises the question of who would prefer to use an ice pick instead of a more conventional blade weapon. I keep coming up with one answer. I think the hitter is an ex-con. Someone who is used to using a shank for quick kills.”
“A jailhouse shank, you mean?”
“A homemade prison knife, yes. Convicts have a whole lot of time on their hands, and they’ve devised every way imaginable to make weapons while they’re in stir. Classically, you take a spoon and grind the handle down to a point, either on the floor of your cell or on the sly in tool shop. The metal isn’t good enough to hold an edge, so what you end up with is essentially a point weapon, like a foil or an epee ... or an ice pick. There’s no squaring off for fights in lockup because of the guards. You’ve got to be quick and unseen. Basically you walk up on someone, preferably from behind, and slam-punch a couple of holes in him without breaking stride.”
“Sounds like every prison film I’ve ever seen.”
That unexpectedly annoyed me. “We’re talking about the real world here, Bone,” I said, just a bit sharply.
He didn’t react to my tone. “Thanks, Maestro. I’ve been able to distinguish reality from fantasy for some time now.”
I decided to chuckle quietly at that. But we still had serious things to discuss.
“Now, the way I see it,” I said, leaning nearer his stool, “this very likely involves an ex-con. Possibly one who has an interest in the darker side of the occult. That’s a nasty breed of creature, especially if he’s made a habit of shanking people in the joint. The cops will smell the same sort of fish. They’ll be looking for local parolees and whatnot. That means we back off an extra couple of days before we stick our heads up, give them time to—“
“Hold that right there.”
I stopped. Bone had turned sharply on his stool and was staring at me intently. I automatically noted the tension in his thin wiry body.
“An extra couple of days?” He was speaking in that low growl I’d heard him use before.
“That’s right,” I answered blandly, waiting for him to say whatever was on his mind.
He seemed to be making an effort to rein himself in, as if he were on the verge of lashing out.
“I agreed, Maestro, to forty-eight hours,” he finally spoke, his jaw tense. “I agreed to that because you said the cops might take care of this thing within that time. That made sense to me. I also agreed because you made some vague noises about helping out. I appreciated the offer of help. I still appreciate it. I consider you a friend, and I don’t throw that term around indiscriminately. But, understand this. You dealt yourself in. I didn’t ask for the help. And, I have to say ... I don’t have any real idea at all what kind of help you could give me.”
With that he got to his feet and marched out through the bar’s rear, toward the rest rooms. It was still half an hour before Alex was off work, or I imagine he would have just left the Calf at that point.
I blinked. My first reaction was, I think understandably, of the who-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-talking-to-kid variety. I felt a strong surge of anger. But having had years of operating with my emotions, especially anger, carefully in check, I quickly centered myself. I imagined myself with a foil in hand, stepping onto the fencing strip, mind cool and clear.
Who the hell did Bone think he was talking to? The fact was, I realized calmly, he didn’t know.
I was suddenly aware of Padre standing on the other side of the bar, eyeing me.
“Bone all right?” he asked. Like any good bartender, he could track multiple patrons at once.
“He went to powder his nose,” I said. “Seems it’s out of joint.” I pushed my empty whiskey glass toward him.
Padre refilled it and got me another water back. “Bone is young, isn’t he?” he observed.
“I understand it’s a curable disease.”
“Yes. It is,” he agreed, as though my smartass comment had been serious. “He’s young, but I’d say he’s a good man. You always used to say good men were an endangered species and shouldn’t be wasted.”
It’s a good thing, in its way, that I don’t have many longtime friends. I hate it when they know me well enough to quote me at me.
Padre wandered off, and Bone came back. He regarded me from a few steps away, not retaking his barstool.
“Bone,” I said, my tone level and reasonable. I stood up. “Let’s take a walk.”
He glanced at the clock on the wall. There was still time before Alex showed up.
“There are a few things I’d like to explain to you,” I prodded him.
Finally he nodded. I dumped my fresh Irish in a go-cup, and we stepped outside.
* * *
We’d cut across the Square and come out now on Chartres Street, which was quiet this time of night, save for the occasional passing United cab. Bone wasn’t being pouty or sullenly silent. He was just waiting for me to talk.
Yeah, talk, but how to begin? I’ve worked hard to keep my past just that—the past. In the Quarter, that’s fairly easy. Usually, nobody asks. It was a new thing for me, an unnatural thing, trusting someone like Bone with even a part of the truth. Only Padre knew the whole story about me, and he only knew because he’d been the one who’d helped me set up my new identity ten years ago.
I wasn’t sure how much I meant to tell Bone. Not all of it, of course, not yet, and probably not ever. Some of it, if he let it slip in the wrong place or to the wrong people, would land one or both of us in serious trouble.
“Do you remember—” I cut it short. Silly question, that. “Have you ever heard about the old Mission Impossible TV show?”
“Sure,” Bone answered. “They’ve made two movies from the series. First one directed by Brian De Palma, second by John Woo—”
“Right,” I cut him off. There had been nights he’d gotten so wound up talking about movie minutiae that I’d found myself wishing he had an “off” switch. “Anyway, in the show, the team gets a fifteen-second recording and a couple of photos, and then proceeds to pull off some very complicated scams and capers—you know what I’m talking about? Good. When I was younger, watching that show, I always wanted to see more about the unsung, unseen operators that put all that incredibly detailed information together for them. I mean, how do they know that the bad guy’s desk is exactly eighteen inches from the north wall so they can drill into it from th
e basement? Or that the mistress of the general will take the right-hand elevator at exactly two twenty-five so they can kidnap her and ring in a substitute?”
Bone nodded. I took a sip from my plastic go-cup.
“Well, that’s the kind of stuff I used to do. Only ... I worked for the Outfit.”
We paused on a corner, and I automatically stepped out of the immediate circle of the streetlight. I hadn’t heard anything more about the guy both Jet and the Bear had warned me about last night.
“The Outfit,” Bone repeated. He looked me in the eye. “You’re talking about organized crime. Right? Mafia? Cosa Nostra?”
“The Outfit,” I insisted firmly, but I was pleased how fast he’d picked it up. “That’s what we called it. As for it being ‘organized crime,’ once you’ve seen it up close, you realize it really isn’t all that organized.”
It was a joke from the old days, but Bone didn’t crack a smile. We started walking again, making the long circle back to the Calf, like I had last night after Sunshine’s murder.
“I was never into the heavy, rough-off stuff personally,” I continued. “Didn’t like doing it, and after a while I didn’t get called on for it. I chose my own specialty, and I got good at it. I was a hunter/tracker. See, if someone skips on a debt to a loan shark, everyone can see the knee-cappers coming a mile away, and suddenly nobody knows anything about anyone. Me, I’m no one’s idea of a goon. I don’t look it, don’t act it, don’t give off the vibe. Purposefully. So I could nose around, find out if the debt-skipper was holed up with his uncle or an old school buddy, without setting off any alarms. Then I’d feed the information back up the pipeline, and the collection crew would know just where to go. It helps build the legend of an all-knowing, omnipresent organization, one that you can’t escape if you commit a transgression against it. Myths like that are very valuable. They keep institutions like the Outfit operating on a paying basis.”
I paused for another pull on my drink, but also to make sure I was still centered and clear. I hadn’t spoken about any of this in a long time. I was surprised to find I felt slightly lightened. Of course, I had no intention of telling him what I did before I joined the Outfit.
Bone was still listening, eyes a little wide but otherwise expressionless.
“Anyway,” I continued, “I would hang out with the crews that made use of the info I provided. I picked up a lot from them sitting over drinks. Knowledge your common citizen doesn’t have. So, I know some stuff. Okay?”
We were swinging back toward St. Peter and the Calf. Bone stopped us before we got within range of the hubbub that overflowed off Bourbon. He hunted up a cigarette and a lighter. He was nodding while he thought.
Ahead of us and across the street, a predator who was wearing the latest in housing project reject wear slowed and checked us out. I stared back at him, and, I realized a second later, so did Bone. As if suddenly remembering a more pressing engagement, he broke eye contact and slid off. Apparently he didn’t like what he saw. There were two of us, both reasonably fit and sober. Muggers are on the lookout for victims, not hassles. There is enough of a variety of easy marks wandering the Quarter that the predators are seldom desperate enough to try for healthy prey.
Bone turned toward me. “I take it you’re retired from ... this Outfit?”
“Yep.” How I came to be “retired” was a story unto itself, and he didn’t need the extra information right now.
“And I’m guessing some of these skills you acquired, some of your ‘non-citizen’ knowledge ... all that’ll help in hunting down Sunshine’s killer.”
“I’m confident it would.” I felt more amused than annoyed now to find myself “applying for a job” with this kid. Then again, it was more his affair than mine. Sunshine had been his wife—or ex-wife, at least. And I was pretty sure he had never completely stopped loving her.
Bone smoked his cigarette down to the filter and pitched it. I finished off my cocktail.
He was flexing his right hand again, looking quietly pleased with himself for an instant. “I’m not exactly a helpless lamb myself, you understand.”
“Never imagined you were.”
“Last night you said you wanted to watch out for me,” he said. “Because I reminded you of someone. That someone is yourself, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Okay, Maestro.” He put out his hand. “But I promised forty-eight hours before moving on this, and that’s still all I promise. If that’s cool with you, come aboard. I’d welcome your help ... and your company.”
We shook hands, but did it warrior style, clasping each other’s wrists tightly. It’s how blood oaths used to get sealed.
“Fine.” I was unable to keep the warm smile off my face. I shook the ice in my empty cup. “Let’s confirm our compact with a libation to the gods. I don’t know about you, but I could use another of these. I’ll buy the round.”
“Jesus! I swear I’m about to lose it, Bone. Jesusjesusjesusjesus—”
I may have done a disservice, painting the picture as strictly Us versus Them. You work in the service industry in a tourist town, it’s easy to fall into generalizations. You band together with your fellow locals and pass your free hours carping over cocktails about the boneheaded out-of-towners that come into your restaurant or bar or hotel or that you see committing acts of touristy idiocy on the streets.
Fact is, of course, there are plenty of homegrown idiots. Some of them are your coworkers.
Judith was practically foaming at the mouth as she tried to work the espresso machine. She had two tables of customers—I had six going. She was at her professional capacity, and, yes, “professional” is very misplaced here.
We were getting a late pop at the restaurant, one of those unexplainable surges of customers, but not really unexplainable since these were locals, mostly Quarterites, and a lot lived night-is-day lives. I figured I would be out of here in an hour, hit the Calf, meet Alex there. This was her Friday. But I’d be going to the Calf also to find Maestro. By then the forty-eight hours I’d agreed to would have officially expired. Which meant we had work to do, or at least plans to make.
The radio and the paper still reported that the police had made no arrests in the riverside “Voodoo Murder” as they were calling it, but there were fresher stories now. From tomorrow on Sunshine’s murder wouldn’t be mentioned unless the crime was solved. I felt a pang that the media was moving past and leaving Sunshine’s corpse in its wake. Forgetting her. Replacing her. It wasn’t rational, but I let myself feel it anyway.
Clouds of coffee powder flew around the waiters’ station, where I stood, grabbing a smoke and calmly keeping an eye on my tables.
“I—am—going—to—go—out—of—myfuckingmind! I swear to Jesus!”
I felt sorry for Judith’s customers, though there wasn’t really anything I could do. They would be getting their food late, probably wouldn’t get their drinks at all, and would have to fire off a flare to get Judith’s attention if they wanted their checks. Mostly, though, they had to suffer being served by someone frazzled, thoroughly self-absorbed, and on the verge of hysteria. It’s difficult to enjoy a relaxing meal when your waitress is having a personal meltdown.
I hate my job. I think I’ve made that clear. But my customers do not suffer my bad moods, and my reputation as a waiter is actually a very good one.
Judith had been working here two months, and I dreaded when luck of the draw put us together on a shift. She was twenty-two, twenty-three, thereabouts, large-breasted, babydoll face ... I could only figure she was sleeping with the restaurant’s owner. Incompetent workers turn up in every industry down here, but Judith was beyond the pale.
“I’m gonna go crazy, Bone! Bone?”
It was her high drama, you see, Judith’s Coffee Crisis, and I was supposed to be playing along with it. Or at least payi
ng attention.
I felt sorry for Judith’s customers. Didn’t give a rat’s ass about Judith.
“Maybe you should look into committing yourself,” I commented, sedately finishing my smoke and heading back out onto the floor.
The Quarter is many things to many different people. One of them is Bohemia. That means a population rife with young folk, lots of them transplants, since this is the place to be living doggedly “alternative” lifestyles. That further means a whole lot of leather jackets, nose rings, visible tattoos, dog collars, and guys wearing black lipstick. But those are symptoms. What it really means is that everyone down here is some kind of artist. Everybody is going to put a band together and sell a screenplay and become a famous standup comic and found a moneymaking website and write a best seller and get stinking, filthy, revoltingly rich designing interiors and silk-screening T-shirts and circulating mimeographed poetry newsletters—and those are the sensible schemes.
I know there are some very successful people who live in the French Quarter, at least part-time. That includes acclaimed actors, movie directors, TV personalities, novelists. For every success story, though, there are uncounted failures and wannabes and sad sacks.
In other words, a lot of people around here are full of shit.
I made my rounds, gathering dirty plates, refilling drinks, gabbing with my tables. Raindrops still lightly spattered the restaurant’s front windows. Earlier, though, we’d gotten one of those slam-bang summer squalls—thick, sudden clouds, a Judgment Day lightning storm, and two inches of water dropping in half an hour. It had rolled in right above the rooftops, thunder punching loud enough to set off car alarms. We get real weather here, vastly different from the year-round fifty-five degree chill of San Francisco. Summer, in fact, is hurricane season, and one fine day—the natives say this with great foreboding, and perhaps, some secret, rueful pride—some big blow is going to come roaring up the Mississippi and wipe New Orleans off the map. I guess we’ll see. When Sunshine and I left, San Francisco was still waiting for that killer earthquake that was going to dump it into the Pacific.
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