Bone nodded. “So, what do the gossips have to say?”
“Everything. Sunshine was picked off by some random predator from the projects. Sunshine is the victim of a serial killer that the cops are being hush-hush about. Sunshine was the victim of a voodoo cult. You think people only talk out of their asses in the bars? Wrong.”
“You mean you collected a bunch of lame-brained theories as to who killed her? That’s what you did today?” His eyes didn’t exactly bug out, but he did look a bit dismayed.
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Because someone out there might be telling the truth, might even be confessing to the crime. I don’t believe you can have too much info in something like this. I’ve always operated in a ‘high-data’ mode, and I don’t see any reason to change now. The trick is not to let the material overwhelm you. The vast bulk of what you hear is, of course, bullshit. That may be true in all walks of life. Anyway, you listen, you file away, and sometimes your brain makes the connection for you. Sometimes the answer is right in front of you. You just have to get out of your own way to be able to see it.”
I realized I was being somewhat verbose tonight. I also realized that I was enjoying this. It wasn’t the “thrill of the hunt” or anything like that. I didn’t miss my old life. What I was enjoying was being partnered up with Bone like this, engaging in something worthwhile with someone who was more than the usual bar chum. For the first time in quite a while, I was definitely doing something other than marking time.
“There is one thing, Bone.”
He waited expectantly. I didn’t figure he was going to like this.
“I should’ve said this last night, when we were at the Calf.” I spoke firmly but still below the level of the music. “I want you to think about this carefully and get it set in your mind. This isn’t a novel, and it’s definitely not a movie. It’s real life, and we’re just a couple of guys who don’t have a bunch of powerful connections or unlimited resources. If we find out that this is just the tip of something really big, if Sunshine got capped because she decided to blackmail someone high up in the local political structure or tried to get cute with the organized drug networks, we back away from it. There are adversaries out there that are simply too big for us to go to war with or even snipe at a little. Everybody with a brain knows Goliath squashed David like a bug, but David had the better press agent. We do not tackle any giants. It may not be heroic or dramatic, but survival seldom is. I want us to be in agreement on this before it goes any further, or I’ll deal myself out right now. Do we understand each other?”
I knew Bone didn’t respond well to reprimands or orders. Over the past weeks of hanging out with him, I’d gathered he had a serious anti-authority streak. But I had to communicate the gravity of this.
He pursed his lips and grimaced as he thought it over. It clearly wasn’t making him happy. That was all right. I wasn’t that happy with the idea myself. Still, reality is reality.
Finally he gave an abrupt nod. “Agreed.”
I let out a breath. “Good.” I was all speeched out for the time being, and also ready for a refill.
At that moment I realized that a good number of the patrons in Fahey’s were suddenly putting their heads together in pairs and small groups and murmuring while looking at the same door. My line of sight was blocked by the cue lockers, but I leaned forward slightly to check out what had caught the bar’s attention. I was, of course, still in alert mode for my mysterious, clean-cut, early-thirties guy wearing the silver crucifix. I could pretty much relax here in Fahey’s, though. I knew virtually everyone here by name.
That people in the Quarter know each other is an axiom. It’s also a given that Quarterites tend to cling to specific haunts. Sneaky Pete, the bartender from the cop bar I’d visited a couple of days ago, had just eased in through the side door and was shaking hands and joking with a couple of the regular pool shooters.
Normally, the only time Pete comes into Fahey’s is when he has some hot stick in tow, trying to bait some of the young turks into a money game. Since it’s rare that the Fahey’s shooters will play for anything more than a drink, Pete’s gambits are not particularly well received. He only does it once or twice a year, though, so it’s politely tolerated.
Tonight he was by himself and wasn’t carrying a cue. Within fifteen seconds, every shooter in the room, and most non-shooters as well, were aware of his presence and speculating on what he was doing here.
As I watched, he continued greeting people, but his eyes darted around the room even more intensely than his normal automatic “cop scan,” a habit he’d no doubt picked up from his cop clientele. Pete had been on the force before owning his bar, but I understood he had been only a file clerk. I started to get a bad feeling.
“Bone,” I muttered, leaning his way. “Do a fast fade. Wander over to the bar and don’t let on you know me until I come over to you.”
To his credit, he didn’t ask any questions or show any outward reaction. He just stood from our table and glided off around the pool tables, observing the action and eventually wandering to the bar, where he grabbed a stool. The regulars here knew we knew each other but wouldn’t think it terribly strange that we were sitting apart. Bone had also slipped away from the table before Pete had scanned this way. Whatever Pete was doing here, I could see no advantage to letting him spot Bone and figure out that we were hanging together.
Without looking around, I casually got up and made my way to the men’s room.
When I emerged, Pete happened to be standing between me and my table. As I headed back that way, he made eye contact and moved toward me. Uh-huh.
“Hey, Maestro! What’s happening?”
“Same old same old, Pete. What brings you to our end of the Quarter? Doing a little scouting?”
“Naw. I had to drop some stuff off for a buddy of mine down the block and just thought I’d stop in.”
Sure. That was even lamer than the “cable box” jive I’d laid on him.
“Well, then, let me buy you one,” I said with a smile. “I don’t get to see you on this side of the bar very often.”
If he wanted to play games, I could play too.
We brought our drinks over to the table under the speaker. Pete sat in the chair Bone had vacated. With Pete safely “chaperoned” by me, the rest of the bar ignored him and returned to business as usual.
We chitchatted about the slow business that comes with the summer, swapped comments on the shooters currently on the tables, and speculated on the sexual preferences of some of the ladies present. Then he bought me a round back. Uh-huh.
“Incidentally, Maestro,” he said as he casually glanced around, “thought you might like to know. That case you were asking about—the Sunshine girl? Well, the boys say that they’ve had to file it and move on to other things.”
I frowned and shook my head slightly.
“I missed something here, Pete. Why are you telling me this?”
“I just remembered you were interested is all.” He shrugged. “Some of the boys were complaining about not being given more time on it. Nobody likes an unsolved murder. Especially cops.”
“That’s a shame. She was a nice kid.”
“Yeah. Well, if you hear anything, would you pass it along? If the boys got a new lead they could maybe reopen the case.”
“No problem, but I haven’t heard anything yet, so I probably won’t. You know the Quarter. Last week’s news is an incarnation ago.”
“You’re right about that. It was just a thought.”
I nodded casually toward the back table. “So, you want to shoot a couple racks? See that guy with the baseball cap and the tuxedo shirt? He shoots a pretty good stick.” It was all still perfectly friendly chitchat.
“Naw,” Pete said, getting to his feet. “I got to get back to my bar
before they give the place away. Take care of yourself!”
“You too.” I gave him a ta-ta wave as he made his way to the door and out.
I lit a smoke and nibbled at my drink, thinking hard. That hadn’t been a chance encounter by any stretch of the imagination. He had been specifically looking for me here, at one of my regular hangouts. Someone else looking for me, I thought acridly. I had become uncomfortably popular of late.
“So what was that all about?” one of the shooters on the nearer table asked, wandering by. “I always get twitchy when ol’ Pete shows up here.”
“No big deal,” I said. “He was asking if I knew anyone who wanted to stake serious money on this new stick he’s found.”
“Yeah, right.” The shooter was Superboy, yet another Quarter waiter. He snorted. “Like everyone has so much extra cash, slow as this goddamn summer’s been.”
“That’s what I told him.” I smiled in easy agreement. “He’s probably gotten the same answer all over. Cash must be pretty slim for him to be canvassing this far off his normal range.”
Superboy nodded and went to take his next shot.
I drained my glass down to the ice, caught Bone’s eye where he was sitting waiting at the bar, and made a small jerk with my head toward the door. He gave a slight nod.
We left the bar separately about two minutes apart and regrouped a block away. I was suddenly feeling very cautious.
“We may have a problem,” I told him, aiming us toward the Calf. I wasn’t ready to crash yet. In fact, I was feeling wound up.
“What’s up?” asked Bone.
I gave him a quick briefing on what Pete had told me.
He thought about it for about half a block, then shook his head.
“I don’t get it.”
“I’m still trying to work it out myself,” I admitted. “On the surface it looks like I’m being given an unofficial go-ahead from the cops to conduct my own investigation. Pete went out of his way to tell me the case was being back-burnered and that if I came up with anything on my own, I should pass it along.”
After a moment Bone said, “That’s one way to see it, I guess.” He sounded dubious.
“Pete and me aren’t buddies, Bone. He was delivering a message to me.”
“I guess,” Bone repeated, but now he seemed to be considering it seriously. “I didn’t think the cops worked that way.”
“New Orleans is a funny place,” I explained. “It’s not unheard of for the police to bend the rules or take some covert action to get things done. There’s a long tradition of unorthodoxy here.”
My steps slowed as we turned onto St. Peter Street, closing on the Calf.
“On the other hand, there’s another possibility, too ...”
“What’s that?” asked Bone.
“That there’s someone high up on the force who’s got a bee in their bonnet that I’m meddling in this Sunshine business, vigilante-wise. They might not look favorably on outside interference. It follows then that they might be slyly goading me into acting on this so that if I try something, they get the killer and me in the same net.”
Tired fingers tied my apron’s strings—tired, and the night hadn’t even started.
So sick of this fucking job ...
In the short time that Maestro and I had been palling around, I’d become aware of his low-level paranoia. It was a mild case and not uncommon. You actually see a fair amount of it in the Quarter, where posturing is an art form. You’ll find plenty of people—usually males—that make a great show of not sitting with their backs to the door in a bar, or who will pull their sweatshirts over their heads if a tourist tries to snap a picture near them.
Don’t want nobody seeing my face.
This is said with great moment, with ominous tone, like a kind of reality-show bar drama. We’re meant to buy tickets and keep the show rolling. Right, my friend, somebody’s going to come through the door any minute, Wild West style, and plug you in the back the minute you let your guard down. And, oh yes, absolutely, a photograph of your face would be of inestimable value to the police, to the FBI, to the terrorist networks, or wherever your over-inflated sense of self-importance takes you.
It’s usually people living humdrum, repetitious, everyday lives as desk clerks and carpenters and bar-backs that most need to pretend that they are important, extraordinary. The idea of being wanted, even in negative fashion, is quite appealing. If there’s someone out there looking to harm or kill you, then you are made valuable and significant. If you can get your friends or acquaintances to go along with your sham, it reinforces it immensely.
True paranoiacs have a They, an intricately constructed and “logically” thought-out conspiracy where they themselves star as the persecuted individual. These are pitiable people, and they need treatment and care.
Everybody else that plays at paranoia by adopting the trappings is just talking shit.
Maestro’s dose of this locally common disorder had never bothered me. He wasn’t obnoxious about it. It had seemed less the macho shtick than it is with most guys—more a mild over-cautiousness, like someone who’s been mugged once too often and is now apprehensive about walking the streets, day or night.
Of course, my diagnosis of Maestro had taken place before I learned he’d once worked for the Mob. Or ... what did he call it? The Outfit? Sounded like a sporting goods store. Still, it certainly gave his cagey manner some credence.
This thing about Sneaky Pete, though ... there I had to wonder.
Dallas was the restaurant’s night manager, a former Navy serviceman and upright guy. He tapped my shoulder before I went out onto the floor. “Nicki’s quit,” he said.
The too-nice, too-sweet waitress who’d been hassled to tears by that eight-top of college boy mooks the night Sunshine died.
“How come?” I asked, pointlessly. Who needs an excuse to quit this line of work?
Dallas shrugged leanly muscled shoulders. “Dunno, Bone. She phoned it in yesterday, when you were off.”
That was certainly decent behavior. When one quits a restaurant, it is almost conventional to go storming out in the middle of one’s shift, preferably while the place is swamped and definitely while tempers are flaring. Big, spectacular, pyrotechnic exits—that’s how you quit a restaurant.
But Nicki had been nice, apparently, right to the end. I had liked working with her and would miss her. But, hi-ho, people come and go, and how many coworkers had I known in my time? Hundreds? A solid thousand? Faces replacing faces. Interchangeable personalities. Names programmed to evaporate the minute the person drops out of view.
I hadn’t even gotten a “So long” in, same as with Sunshine. Well ... not the same. Nicki wasn’t dead, after all. Just gone.
Feeling another snit coming on, Bone? I hit the dining room floor—it was moderately busy—and my face, of course, betrayed nothing. Sometimes it was a fit of anger, impotent resentment that I had to do what I do for a living, anger against no one. Sometimes it was focused on somebody or something, usually of little or no consequence, blown all out of proportion. Sometimes, and here was my specialty, it was just a blue funk, that sadness ...
Whatever I felt, though, I’d had a lot of years now to learn not to ride those feelings like a passenger on a runaway train. I was capable of control.
So I waited my tables and fed my feeders and made my tips. It wore away the hours.
Maestro and Sneaky Pete ... the thought nagged. Maestro was theorizing that the NOPD, using Pete as a mouthpiece, might be setting him up. “Setting me up” is off of page one of the Paranoid’s Bible, but Maestro wasn’t a true paranoid. He didn’t have a They that was out to get him. But he might have enemies from his past, might even have inadvertently stepped on some police toes during his decade in the Quarter. I didn’t know why, after all, he had retired from the Mob—t
he Outfit, rather. Frankly I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of grilling him on the subject. Maestro was my friend, yes, but Quarter etiquette about privacy is pretty severe.
Still, the cops setting up Maestro, giving him the green light to go hunt down Sunshine’s killer, all so the police could then both bag her murderer and get Maestro for vigilantism ... sheesh! That presupposed a lot, not all of it terribly rational.
Then again, if I wanted to second-guess myself, what did I know? The biggest run-in with the law in my life had happened last night with Detective Zanders. I couldn’t say, really, what the police were capable of.
Maestro gave off a general air of assurance. Whatever else he might be, he seemed sure of his own capabilities and judgment.
I’d made sure Maestro and I exchanged phone numbers last night. I had the feeling he didn’t give his out casually. Before this Sunshine deal, we just used to run across each other, having learned one another’s customary bar-routes. Now we were tied together into something serious and might need to make contact fast. Actually, cell phones would be even better, except I didn’t own one, and I didn’t think Maestro did either. I more or less detested the things, having learned to hate them from self-immersed jerkoffs that bring them into and use them in movie theatres. Heretics in the temple.
Maestro told me about the phone call he’d found on his answering machine from Sunshine, two days before the murder. I had found that ... troubling. No, to be honest, that actually hurt a bit. That Sunshine had phoned Maestro, not me. That, maybe, she had been in trouble and needed a hand and didn’t call on me—me, who had once loved her as my wife, and, except for Alex, had known her longer than anyone in this whole city. I could even feel jealous.
What had that call been about? That was the question I ought to be thinking about. Had Sunshine seen trouble coming? Had she seen Maestro as someone who could get her out of a jam? Maestro had missed her call, hadn’t hooked up with her, and two days later she was dead, killed. Could he—or I—have done anything to prevent it?
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