by Michael Kerr
“I hitched a ride here with the trucker lying on the bench seat,” Logan said. “We were waiting for our meal when a guy wearing a suit walked in and started giving a female employee behind the counter a hard time. Then another suit came through a door from the kitchen and started getting physical with her. I was half out of my seat to intervene, and the next thing I know I’m coming round.”
“Explain the gun in your hand,” Rod said.
Logan shrugged. “Somebody put it there to implicate me.”
Rod gave Logan another off-putting smile and said, “You expect us to buy that bullshit?”
“What I expect is for you to act like a homicide detective,” Logan said. “Your initial goal should be to remove all uncertainty regarding the circumstances surrounding these deaths. That includes absolving or arresting and charging an individual with homicide, manslaughter or a legal variation. And that should come after you’ve interviewed witnesses and any living victims, collected evidence, interrogated suspects and analyzed related information. At the moment you aren’t on top of what happened here. If I was the shooter, then what did I use on the guy lying on the floor with a hole the size of the Lincoln Tunnel in his back? He took a shotgun cartridge, and you know it. The couple at the end of the diner looks as if they took close range shots to the head. If I’d been responsible, how come I was on my knees way back here when the troopers arrived?”
“You’re a cop, right?” Lucy said.
“Wrong tense, detective. I did what you do. I was with the NYPD for twenty years. Now I’m just a private citizen.”
“With no ID,” Rod said.
“Check inside my right boot,” Logan said. “You’ll find a drivers license and a credit card.”
Lucy went down on one knee – careful not to place it in any of the blood that had leaked from the body on the seat and was pooling around the table – to untie the lace of Logan’s boot, and then tug it off. There was a license, plastic, and five one hundred dollar bills inside a plastic bag.
Checking the photo on the license, Lucy was content to believe that the stranger was who he professed to be. She handed the find to Rod, and he gave the license a hard look and pocketed it along with the credit card and bills.
“So what brings you to our fair city?” Rod said.
“Call it a vacation,” Logan said. “I planned on staying for a week or two to sample the food, music and sights. I enjoy seeing new places, and then leaving them.”
“Where do you live?” Lucy said.
“Wherever I lay my head at night. I like to keep on the move.”
“Sounds like you’re running away from something,” Rod said.
“I don’t give a shit how it sounds to you, detective. I believe I need these scalp wounds sewing up, and I could use a cup of coffee.”
“We’ll get you medical treatment after I’ve read you your rights, Logan. And maybe you’ll get to be with us for a lot longer than a week or two.” Rod said. “I think you were a part of what went down here, so for the foreseeable future the only place you’ll be laying your head is in a cell downtown.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CLAYTON lowered the window, inserted the card in the slot and withdrew it as the heavy-duty barrier arm raised up. He drove the Buick down the ramp into the underground parking garage of the apartment block in Terrytown, close to I-90.
“We fucked up,” Dwayne said as they took the elevator up to the sixth floor.
“No,” Clayton said. “Kyle fucked up. He was a crazy son of a bitch.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Have a drink. And then I’ll give the boss a call and tell him what went down.”
“Jesus, he’ll hit the fuckin’ roof.”
“I know, but what’s done is done. I’ll put it all on Kyle. He lost it, hit that guy and then shot his buddy. We couldn’t afford to leave witnesses.”
“The fuckin’ waitress got away, Dicky was only wounded, and the guy that Kyle knocked out will probably be able to give the cops our descriptions.”
“Dicky and the broad won’t talk to the cops, and Kyle put a gun in the guy’s hand. He’ll take the fall. We’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Dwayne walked over to the floor to ceiling window and looked out into the night. The apartment had a fine view of the Mississippi to the south and the city to the north. Working for Nathan Cassidy was the best employment that he and Clayton had ever had. Cassidy had more green than he knew what to do with, and paid well for the loyalty of men that he could trust. Dwayne hoped that what had happened at Dicky’s Diner that evening would not jeopardize his position or the standard of living that he had grown accustomed to.
Clayton poured them both large bourbons and drank half of his before using a burner cell to call a secure number at the house on St. Charles Avenue, where Nathan lived with his wife and two daughters.
“Yes, Clayton, why the call?” Nathan said in a soft, deep voice.
“To keep you up to speed, boss.”
“Did you take care of business?”
“Not exactly. Kyle got trigger happy and shot a guy. We had to improvise.”
“Who did he shoot, Dicky?”
“No. Dicky appeared from nowhere and blew Kyle away with a shotgun. Dwayne returned fire and wounded Dicky, but he turned tail and vanished.”
There was a few seconds of silence before Nathan said, “What else do I need to know?”
“The waitress saw us both. When the shooting started she did a runner and made it out of the diner.”
“Terrific. You can rightly assume that I’m pissed, Clayton. Dicky will keep his mouth shut, but the waitress is an unknown quantity. Find her and make her vanish.”
Clayton didn’t get chance to answer. The call was terminated.
Nathan went over to the bar in his study and poured two fingers of Jack Daniel’s and added a handful of ice slices from a bucket. He took a couple of deep breaths and then sipped the Tennessee whiskey. He supposed that what had happened was no big deal, as long as the waitress was capped and dumped in some bayou for catfish, turtles and gators to feast on. But it was a little disconcerting. The last thing he needed was heat from the cops. Quite a few people knew that Clayton LaSalle and Dwayne Nash were on his payroll, and so if the woman gave a description of them, then he would be in the frame by association. With any luck she’d have the smarts and know that spilling her guts would be nothing short of suicidal. But she would have to be dealt with. And the truth was he had no time for phrases like: with any luck, and words like maybe, possibly, hopefully and perhaps. Black and white worked for him. He hadn’t got to amass a few million bucks, live in a mansion, and be considered by most people that he knew to be a kind, compassionate, tolerant, upright, god-fearing and generally all-round pleasant guy by overlooking and under thinking anything and everything.
Nathan was first and foremost a loan shark of great white proportions. He offered loans that were subject to extremely high interest rates, and was in essence a predator on people and businesses that were in need of funds that they could not obtain elsewhere. If necessary he enforced repayment by using intimidation, blackmail or threats of violence. He was a criminal, knew it, and didn’t care. The government legally robbed its citizens with taxation that was not used in a way to benefit the many, only the few. As the owner of Cassidy’s Restaurants; a franchised business serving mainly Cajun and Tex-Mex food in Louisiana and southeast Texas, Nathan paid his taxes and kept the IRS happy, but also had a business title in Panama where his fortune from money lending went, and on which he paid nothing but the fee to ensure his anonymity. He avoided involvement with drugs, prostitution and gambling, having no need to dabble with them. His reputation was that of an honest hard-working citizen, above reproach.
“What did he say?” Dwayne said as Clayton pocketed his cell.
“That we need to find the waitress and whack her.”
“How do we do that? We can’t ask Dicky because I shot him in the face and leg. Wit
h any luck he bled out.”
“Benny Cooper delivers to the diner. He works for the K and L meat market on Jefferson Highway. He’ll know who the bitch is.”
“You know his address?”
“Yeah. I play poker with him and a few other guys a couple of times a month. I gave him a ride home once when he got shit-faced after losing a week’s pay. He’s a stand-up sort. Done some time and knows how to keep his mouth shut and stay healthy.”
“Where does he live?” Dwayne said, twisting the cap off the bourbon and refilling his glass.
“He rents a ground floor apartment on Banks Street, a couple of blocks south of Finn McCool’s Irish pub.”
“So let’s go and talk to him. We need to make this right. The boss is pissed over what went down.”
Benny was stoned. He was sucking on a joint and watching an episode of The Walking Dead. The guy with the crossbow was retrieving an arrow from where he’d put it in the head of a zombie.
There was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” Benny shouted as he picked up the remote and muted the TV.
“Clayton LaSalle. Open up, Benny.”
Putting the roach – the end of the joint – down in a small foil tray, Benny got up and shambled across to the door that opened up on to a narrow and ill lit passage. He squinted through the peephole and recognized LaSalle immediately by the long scar on his flattish face being illuminated intermittently by a flickering, fly-spotted light tube on the ceiling a few feet along from the door.
“What do you want, Clayton?” Benny said. “I was just about to hit the sack.”
“I need some information.”
Benny opened the door and stood aside as Clayton and Dwayne entered.
“This is Dwayne,” Clayton said by way of introduction. “We’re looking for some broad that you know.”
Benny frowned. He didn’t socialize much, apart from poker nights and time spent on a stool at Rocky’s Bar on Baudin Street, which was a douche bag place that attracted the worst kind of people, including Benny. But he didn’t hit it off with women. His wrinkled clothes smelled almost as bad as his breath, and he never held on to enough dough to pay for a decent lay.
“I don’t know any,” Benny said.
“Of course you do. You work with some at the meat market, and you deliver to a lot of places, like Dicky’s Bar.”
“Well, yeah, but I don’t get involved.”
“What’s the middle-aged blonde waitress at Dicky’s called?” Clayton said.
“Er, Ellie Mae.”
“Ellie Mae what?”
“Sawyer. Why?”
“Doesn’t matter why, Benny. Just tell me all you can about her.”
“If she’s on duty when I make a delivery, she usually pours me a cup of coffee and asks how I’m doin’. She’s nice.”
“Where does she live?”
“Is she in trouble?”
Dwayne stepped forward and doubled Benny up with a fist to the stomach. Just hard enough to knock the wind out of him and drop him to his knees. “Stop with the questions and answer Clayton’s or I’ll start breakin’ your fingers,” he said.
Benny put both his hands palm down on the tacky carpet and took deep, wheezing breaths. He’d thought that Clayton was a regular guy, but you never really knew anyone, or had a clue what they were capable of.
“This is business, Benny,” Clayton said as he placed his right shoe on Benny’s left hand and applied pressure. “We need to know where to find her. Just tell us and we’ll be on our way.”
“She lives at the River View Trailer Park a couple miles east of Dicky’s. It’s third in on the left; a cream-colored doublewide.”
“How do you know that?” Clayton said.
“Her old Ford broke down a while back, and so I gave her a lift home.”
“You’re a good Samaritan at heart, Benny,” Clayton said as he took his wallet out of a hip pocket, removed five Benjamin Franklins’ and tossed them on the floor under Benny’s face. “If anyone should ask, we were both here with you from seven-thirty till eleven this evening. We had a couple of beers, played poker, and you got lucky and won what I just gave you. Think you can remember that?”
“No problem, Clayton,” Benny said. “I got it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
DICKY was being pushed from the office along the hallway on a gurney with a squeaky wheel, past the arch that led into the main diner. He was conscious, stabilized, and had been given a shot for the pain. The bullet through his thigh had not compromised the femoral artery, so he was not suffering from a life-threatening injury. The graze on his cheek didn’t even need any sutures.
“Hold it right there, would you?” Rod Reynolds said as he moved away from Logan and approached the emergency medical technicians that were transporting Dicky towards the entrance door.
“He needs to be on his way, Byron Cummings said, continuing to push the gurney.
“He needs to tell me what went down here,” Rod said, grasping the rail and stopping their progress. “Give me a few seconds will ya?”
Byron sighed and said, “Make it quick, detective.”
“Okay, Mr. Dicky, long story short. What went down?” Rod said.
“I don’t know,” Dicky said as he looked past Rod to the scene in the diner. “It was obviously a stick-up. I heard gunshots so came through from my office with my shotgun. There were people down and a guy with a gun in his hand, so I shot him, due to believing that my life and others’ was at risk.”
“Did you see the big guy sitting next to the bench seat taking part in any of this?”
Dicky squinted at Logan and shook his head.
“You sure?”
“He was stretched out on the floor face down when I reached the archway.”
“So you didn’t see his face?”
“No, but I saw the clothes that he’s wearing.”
“What else did you see?”
“Another guy at the other end of the diner. He was the one that shot me.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“No, I was too busy getting the hell back to my office to phone for help.”
“That’s it,” Byron said. “We need to get him moving.”
Rod told a trooper to go with them. Brad Dicky had a lot of questions to answer when he’d been treated and was able to give an in-depth statement.
“Is Ellie Mae okay?” Dicky asked as he was wheeled away.
“Who’s Ellie Mae?” Rod said.
“A waitress,” Dicky said. “There was only her and the cook on duty this evening. The other waitress phoned in sick.”
“No sign of her,” Rod said. “But you’ll need to hire a new cook.”
“Gabriel?”
“If that was his name, yeah. He’s as dead as the ground beef he made your burgers with.”
Ellie Mae saw the shiny black sedan speed by, and knew that it belonged to the guys that had murdered people in the diner. A few minutes later a police car arrived, and then an ambulance and more cops. Keeping to the tree line, she limped back to the diner through the long saw grass, to enter the parking lot and walk up to a couple of troopers standing next to a patrol car outside the main entrance door.
“That’s far enough, ma’am,” Trooper Josh Harper said. “You need to go back where you came from. This is a crime scene.”
“This is where I came from,” Ellie Mae said. “I work here. I took off when the shooting started.”
Josh escorted the pale-faced woman into the lobby of the diner. Told her to wait, and then stepped through the arch and approached the two detectives that were talking to a man who was sitting on the floor, hooked-up and with blood running down the side of his face and neck.
“I’ve got a woman out here that says she works here and was a witness to what happened,” Josh said. “What do you want me to do with her?”
“I’ll talk to her,” Lucy said, leaving Rod with Logan.
“How about taking these bracelets off, getting us bo
th a cup of coffee, and having one of the medics stop my head from bleeding before they leave?” Logan said.
“You’re not out of the woods yet, Logan,” Rod said.
“The hell I’m not, detective. I’m a victim here and you know it. And I can give you descriptions of the two guys that were giving the waitress a hard time. And she will be able to tell you that I wasn’t a part of it.”
“We’ll see,” Rod said as he waved for one of the two remaining EMTs to attend to Logan’s scalp wounds.
There were several rail back chairs in the small lobby, for the weekend evenings when Dicky’s was busy and patrons had to hold their horses and wait for a table.
“Take a seat,” Lucy said to the trembling woman, who was obviously distressed and looked as though she had been through a Marine Corps obstacle course, judging by her ripped clothing and the dirt and scratches on her hands and face.
“I need a cigarette,” Ellie Mae said. “Mine are behind the counter, next to the cash register.”
Lucy nodded to the young trooper and he went to find the cigarettes and returned less than a minute later with a pack of Salem and a cheap plastic lighter.
Ellie Mae lit up under a NO SMOKING sign, took a couple of deep drags and began to relax a little.
“Have you sustained any injuries that need treatment?” Lucy said.
Ellie Mae shook her head as she blew smoke out of her nostrils, and then said: “I’ve sprained my ankle, but an ice pack’ll fix it.”
“So tell me your name and then what happened here this evening,” Lucy said.
“I’m Ellie Mae Sawyer. I was behind the counter when a guy walked up to me and asked if Dicky – that’s Brad Dicky, the owner – was in. I asked who he was and said I’d call Dicky on the phone. But another guy came through from the kitchen and the situation got real bad. He grabbed hold of my wrist and got mean. A regular customer, Neal Brody, intervened on my behalf, and a tall guy from a booth made to stand up and get involved, but some other lowlife who must have been with the other two that were giving me a hard time, clubbed him with a gun and…and then shot the guy he’d been sat facing.”