by Nick Dorsey
Or, of course, he was wrong. He watched two cars race by on the street below, tires ripping at the wet pavement. He could be wrong, sure. Maybe Sofia did kill her husband. Maybe he just grabbed this case and was wringing it dry. He could see himself doing that, to be honest. After long nights standing on the gaming floor at the casino and longer days to himself, maybe he was looking for something to focus on. Something to do that wasn’t thinking about the hundred different ways he had tried to screw his life up. A few years ago he would have gone to the bar. Maybe instead of drinking, he had taken this case.
He sat on the couch and his eye found one of the only real bits of decoration, the collection of classic cars in 1/32 scale. Bel Airs and Corvettes and a gleaming purple DeSoto. But that only brought up a whole new set of problems in the form of ancient memories. The cars were well dinged and dented, relics of when his son Dennis used to play with them, despite his protestations. When was that? Ten years ago?
Christ, how was he ever going to get to sleep?
He had to get out of his place. Tom looked at the clock. Close enough. He started to get dressed while the sky outside turned from navy blue to some sickly purple color Tom had always associated with being up too late or too early.
A half an hour later he parked at a house on Jeff Davis Parkway and walked through the pre-dawn to join the folks waiting on the porch. There were five of them, mostly older, all men. Lined faces peered over styrofoam coffee cups and craggy voices tried to whisper, afraid to break the morning silence and start another day all over again. Tom recognized a few of the faces and nodded appropriately.
Inside smelled of burnt coffee and old wood. A ring of chairs was set up in the living room. A few of the chairs were occupied by bodies and Tom thought one of them was sleeping. He went through to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. The thin man who owned the house wore a sweater and a perpetual frown, but he grumbled hello to Tom as he filled his cup, a huge plastic travel mug.
“Up early or still up?”
Tom tried a smile. “Still up, unfortunately.”
Tom couldn’t remember the guy’s name. Jason? James?
“Everything good? You good?” James or Jason gulped his coffee and examined Tom. Tom had an idea of what he was looking for. Slurring, of course. Or loss of balance. The smell. All signs that Tom had been out tying one on and wouldn’t be welcome at the meeting. Not until he was sober, of course. James or Jason caught his eye and Tom wondered if he was looking for dilated pupils, which would mean Tom had taken things to a whole new level.
“I’m good,” Tom said. And they left it at that.
The meeting started a few minutes later. Tom was quiet, but he surprised himself by raising a hand when James or Jason asked if anyone would like to speak.
“I’m Tom,” he said. “I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi, Tom,” a chorus of ragged voices greeted him.
Tom paused for a moment, then continued. “Earlier, I was wondering how I ever got to sleep. You know, before I got sober. Then I remembered, oh yeah. Bourbon.”
A few raspy chuckles. Tom went on.
The day had turned bright and windy by the time Tom changed into his suit and made it out to Fine American Autos. The sign and multicolored pennants hanging over the lot flapped in the breeze. When they slapped together it sounded like the rapid-fire of an old toy Thompson machine gun.
Jean and Patton were waiting for him just outside the lot. Jean was wearing sunglasses as she hunched her shoulders in a canvas peacoat.
Tom grinned. “You look like a spy.”
“It’s windy. Besides, I don’t have court this morning. Why should you two have all the fun?”
“The Spy and the Windy Day. Sounds like a good book.”
“No it doesn’t,” Patton said.
Tom shrugged.
Jean ignored that and gave Patton a nod. “Tell him what you told me.”
They walked through a row of cars a decade old and Patton started talking. “I did some looking around online, I checked the Orleans and Jefferson Parish Assessors. Sal LaRocca and Ernesto Adelfi co-own the restaurant, the Pan Dell’Orso, through this company LaRocca Enterprises. No surprise there. I couldn’t find anything about the game room or the strip mall. No online records. I can go by the physical office and root through their files, though. And this place, Fine Autos or whatever, is definitely LaRocca Enterprises.”
Tom saw the pennants reflected in Jean’s glasses as she looked around. “This isn’t exactly a den of ill repute. Maybe the game room is a better hook. That’s the illegal stuff, that’s where illegal money is coming in. Money is a motive I can get behind.”
“This place isn’t clean.” Patton tried the door on an old Volvo and slipped inside. “These things are small.”
“It’s old. People were shorter back then.”
Patton gave him a look that told him to quit his bullshit.
Tom grinned, then leaned against the car. “What did you mean, this place isn’t clean?”
“A few articles online came up when I searched for the place. They sold Katrina cars. Got caught twice in 2007, once last year. Clean since then, though.”
“No shit? I thought that was sort of a myth.”
“Nope. These guys really did it.”
Jean looked between them. “What the hell is a Katrina car?”
“These guys get cars that were flooded or otherwise damaged during the storm. Water gets all up in the electrical, which should make the vehicle a total loss. But these guys bring them out of state and get them retitled, do a little work on them, then bring them back and try to sell them. They don’t run too long.” Patton lifted himself from the Volvo. “Anyway, they did it for a while.”
“Can I help you all?” She was young and bundled up in a scarf and beanie, and her smile ate up half her face. “I’m Claire. I see you like the Volvo. Want to take her for a spin?”
Patton shook his head. “No, it’s a little too small.”
“Oh. Well, I have an ‘07 Explorer over there.”
Jean put her hand on Patton’s arm. “Let’s just look around a little more, okay?” She spoke to Claire next, “Can we have a little more time?”
“Sure. I’ll be right inside, okay?” Claire left them alone.
They walked around the lot for a moment until Jean said, “Aside from the Katrina cars, what’s the malfeasance here?”
“Money laundering.” Tom said it quickly. He was sure about it. “Gambling, and whatever else the LaRocca family is up to. It comes here, comes through the restaurant. Comes out clean.”
Jean sighed. “I believe there’s something here. I do. This is just. Well. Out of our scope. You want me to present a whole criminal enterprise to the court? ”
“No, I want to keep working on this. You enter a not guilty plea and I keep working. I just need the time.”
Jean looked at Patton. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, looked away, and blew out his cheeks. He said, “All right. If Sodia Adelfi didn’t shoot her husband, then someone did, right? And they had to set her up. That’s hard to believe, right there. Unless the people doing the set-up know their business. As in, they’re into shady shit. And this guy Sal, he’s not a sleepy citizen. The guys at the game room? Shady as fuck.”
Jean smiled at him. “Shady as fuck? Think a jury would go for that?”
“He’s got me convinced,” Tom said.
“God, this isn’t helping Sofia.” Jean walked a circle around Tom, thinking. “All we can prove is that Ernesto’s family sold a few shitty cars. As much as I would like to say that matters, it’s not a motive.”
“Yet,” Tom said. “There’s more here. I feel it.”
Jean was smiling, but she didn’t respond. Tom liked seeing her like that, smiling in the sun. She was having a good time despite herself.
An old school Cadillac pulled into the lot and Tom cursed under his breath. Nino, the guy with the hair curtains, was driving. Tom turned his back on the car a
nd grinned at Jean. “The game room boys just showed up.”
“Really?”
“In the Caddy.”
Patton took a few steps around a car to get a closer look. “Yeah. Damn. Should we go?”
“We should go,” Tom agreed. “But let’s not run to our cars. Don’t make a big scene.”
“I’m straight.”
Jean was looking in the other direction, toward the Caddy, and she shrugged. “What’s the point? They saw you at the game room. If they’ve got a hustle, they know you’re on to them.”
“Well, it’s just how it’s done.”
Jean brushed past him and made her way to the car, the wind ruffling her short hair. Tom sighed and turned to watch Nino rush around the Cadillac to open the door for Sal LaRocca. Sal looked up and saw the three of them. So that was that.
Tom said, “Well. Shit.”
“They made us last night. She’s got a point,” Patton said.
“But now they know we’re all over them.”
“I think they already had an idea.”
“Hey! Mr. Connelly!” Sal LaRocca was wearing a checked green sweater stretched over his belly and big clubmaster sunglasses. He waved vigorously. Nino said something to him and Sal responded but shooed the other man away.
Tom walked up with Jean and met him halfway. Sal took both of Jean’s hands in his, all smiles. “Mr. LaRocca. I’m Jeanette Perez,” she said.
“Salvatore LaRocca. You a friend of Mr. Connelly’s?”
“Something like that,” Jean said.
Sal grinned. “I feel the same way about him. And I remember your partner in crime there,” Sal craned his head to call out over Tom’s shoulder, “How you doin’, son?”
Patton raised a hand but stayed back.
“So, what you know good? You need a car?”
“Yeah, but I can’t afford a new one right now.”
“Never say never. We got loans for bad credit, no credit. You name it.”
Jean pretended to look around the lot. “Restaurateur and car salesman. You’re a man of many hats.”
Sal shrugged. “This place? Not really my hat. I’m more of a silent partner here.”
“But you do own this place?”
He pushed out his lower lip and crossed his arms over his belly. “I own a few places. You grow up poor?”
Tom didn’t answer. Jean said, “I grew up in Saint Bernard Parish.”
“See? So maybe you know. I grew up poor down there in the Quarter before the tourists and what-have-you. I grew up poor and hungry, Ms. Perez. And I’m not interested in dying that way.” Sal looked at his tennis shoes for a second, then brightened. “What am I saying. You like Italian food?”
“I like it okay.”
“She likes it okay, Mr. Connelly! Well, my place has pretty good Italian food, right?”
Tom waved his hand back and forth, maybe.
Sal laughed. “This guy! You bring her over, okay? You two come down. Bring your buddy hovering back there, or not. Up to you. We got a good tasting menu for couples.”
Tom saw Jean touch her forehead. Her jaw was set. She said, “Mr. LaRocca, you know I’m not his girlfriend, right? You know I’m counsel for Sofia Adelfi?”
Sal let out a long breath and looked back down at his shoes. “Yeah, I guessed maybe you were.”
Tom let that hang there for a moment. He knew Sal could be volatile and unpredictable. He might be all smiles, but there was anger underneath. Real anger.
Sal said, “Like I told Mr. Connelly, this is America. Everybody has a right to a lawyer. But I heard all about the evidence. All the grisly details. So while I understand you have a job, I understand there’s not a chance in hell that woman goes free. She’ll get the needle.”
“We have the death penalty in Louisiana, but we don’t use it. If she gets death she’ll probably sit on death row the rest of her natural life.”
“Life in a cage suits me just fine.”
Jean took off her sunglasses and squinted in the morning light. “Did Ernesto Adelfi work with you here, at the dealership?”
“He was restaurant people.”
“Did he ever work with you at the game room?”
Sal broke out into a grin. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Jean pointed to Nino. The thin man was still waiting by the Cadillac. “His game room.”
“Game room, eh?” Sal clapped Tom on the shoulder. “I thought you were the cop, Mr. Connelly? But she’s the smart one. You know what, you want to play cards, you call me up, darlin’. I’ll play you a hand or two.” He winked, turned his back on them, and walked toward the office. “Y'all come by the restaurant, okay? Hey! Nino! Wait in the car.”
Jean put her sunglasses back on. “He’s a friendly guy.”
“It’s the car salesman in him.”
“You think he took out his cousin?”
“I’m working on it.” They collected Patton and walked from the used car lot. Tom had to admit, he had a strange feeling about Salvatore LaRocca. Like maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he thought Sofia Adelfi shot her husband.
Patton went back to the office but Jean was hungry, so Tom drove them down Washington Avenue to a red snowball stand that sold sandwiches and yaka mein. They waited in line in the wind. Tom said, “I haven’t had yaka mein in years.”
“It’s good for a hangover.”
“That’s why I haven’t had it in years.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep. I’m dry.”
Tom watched her take that in. He saw it made her uncomfortable, so he changed the subject. “You think you’re sticking with the Public Defenders? Or will you go out on your own?”
“They ask for three years, and I’ve got my three. Plenty of people leave after three. But I’ll stay. It gets better every year. Sometimes it’s hard to see that from the inside, but if I think about how it was right after the storm, it’s amazing how far we’ve come. When I started the whole city was a mess. We didn’t have Defenders for a time after the storm. When we started up again, it was chaos. Basically, we would come in Monday morning and have a basketball court full of clients. That’s not an exaggeration. We would only have twenty minutes to interview seventy people, and you couldn’t hold ‘em all in the courthouse. So they stuffed the clients in a gymnasium in OPP.”
“You mean the accused.”
“Or defendants. But for us, it’s always clients. We work for them.”
“Right.”
“So we would have a lawyer in the courthouse, and several of us would be in the gym, talking to as many people as we could. We had a video conferencing system set up. But the monitors on the other end, in court, weren’t private, so the judge is listening the whole time. We didn’t have any confidentiality then.”
“I bet the judges loved that.”
Jean barked out dry laughter. “The judges love anything that gets their court up and moving quickly. They have tee-times. That’s why they love those private lawyers so much. They don’t waste time. They have their deal worked out beforehand. Then the judge is a rubber stamp. Is the deal the best thing for their client? Who cares? They’re getting paid. The judge gets to look all compassionate. Everyone goes away happy. Then when the judge is up for re-election, the lawyers throw his campaign some cash, and the whole ride starts all over again.”
They ordered from a to-go window that emitted a warm, rich aroma, and took their bowls of soup to a group of picnic tables to eat. Yaka mein was part Chinese and part Creole, something like ramen or pho. A collection of spices in a thick, rich broth topped off with boiled eggs, beef, and noodles. They attacked the steaming bowls with chopsticks and large spoons.
Tom wiped his mouth after a few spoonfuls. “Even after knowing all this, you still want to stay in the system?”
Jean slurped up a mouthful of noodles. “If I don’t fight for them, who will?” A long line had formed in front of the little red shack. “We got here at the right time.”
The bro
th was thick and spicy. Tom grabbed a slice of beef with his chopsticks and ate it. “Hey,” he said. “I’m close on the Adelfi thing.”
“You’ve got the tip of some sort of iceberg.”
He brightened. “You think so?”
“Some sort of iceberg.”
“Huh.”
“But not one that I’m looking for.”
The words hit Tom like a punch in the kidney. Suddenly, he wasn’t so interested in yaka mein. “I have to disagree.”
“I’m getting it from all angles, Tom. The timeline you and Patton came up with doesn’t give me anything. I think I can get her to agree to involuntary manslaughter.”
“Yeah? You think you can get her to agree to that? Because the woman I spoke to the other day said hell, no.”
“If the other option is life in prison she might change her mind.”
Tom pushed his bowl aside and leaned forward. “Jean? This is me as a cop. A detective, whatever. I’m telling you there’s more here.”
“Maybe. I’m not saying there isn’t. I certainly don’t think that the LaRocca boys are all on the level. But I have court a few times a week. I’ve got to meet clients, and I’ve got more clients every day. I want to fight this one out with you, but I can’t. I’m stretched thin, Tom.” She reached across the table and took Tom’s wrist. “Hey. I’m sorry. It’s over.”
The smell of cigarette smoke wasn’t something that Tom disliked, but it was something he noticed. It hit him every time he went to work at the casino. He hacked out a cough and spent a few minutes watching a group of tourists play Blackjack. He knew he should focus on his work. So what if Jean Perez pulled the plug on his case. That’s the way it goes.
But it didn’t feel like that was the way it had to go this time.
He went down to Ray’s office and found it dark. Tom stood in the dark for a moment, listening. There it was: slow, steady breathing. Tom turned the light on. The medic was laying on the stretcher, squinting in the light.
