by Tony Dunbar
“What were they doing up so late?” Tubby asked.
“Well, I don’t know, but I could see…” Ednan stopped.
“See how? See what?”
“They have lots of windows in the back, and, you know, I could just see them eating, or dancing.”
“And what else?”
“That’s all I saw.” Ednan was innocent. He didn’t mention that the Sultan and his family were of late being privately entertained by strange performers doing freaky things Ednan didn’t care to describe. Who would believe him?
Tubby kept at it. “How did you find out about the murders?” he asked.
“I didn’t see them.” Ednan shook his head vigorously. Tubby watched the bun of black hair on top of his client’s head wave back and forth.
“That wasn’t my question,” he said.
“I was cleaning out this little shed they have back there,” Ednan resumed. “There was so much trash, and old rags and junk. I was starting to clean it out and take the stuff out to the street for the garbage man. I was very busy for a long time.”
“For how long.”
“Maybe an hour almost.”
A long time to be in a shed, Tubby thought. “So then what?” he asked.
“I heard the gate to the courtyard open, and I looked to see who it was. And I saw the sister come in. I called her that, but I don’t know for sure she was a sister. I saw her come in and go into the house. Then I heard her scream. I ran in, and she was calling the police.”
“She did that by herself?”
“Yes. She knew how to do it.”
“Then?”
“The police came and saw me with my dirty clothes, and I had these shears and these knives from the shed, and they thought it was me.”
“There were knives in the shed?”
“Yes, lots of them. Some machetes, some knives for cooking barbeque, but I wasn’t touching them, and I didn’t kill anybody.”
Tubby got to his feet.
“Is there anything you can do to help out Peanut?” Ednan asked.
The weary lawyer had no inkling who Peanut was, but Ednan tried to give him the quick version of the plight of his jail friend. “Yeah, man,” Tubby sighed as he left. “As soon as we beat your murder rap we can worry about Peanut.”
* * *
“He didn’t do it,” lawyer Dubonnet explained to Assistant District Attorney Bianca Maricopa.
She wasn’t impressed.
“This is a little more complicated than your last tale about how he stole a car and therefore enabled us to catch a robber.” She was much less congenial than at their first meeting. “This is a huge crime, and your client had plenty of means and opportunity.”
“Yeah, but no motive. He’s a working man.”
“From the Middle East. Just like the victims. Maybe a family connection? Maybe politics? And there’s always burglary.”
“He wasn’t caught with anything.”
“No, but maybe that’s because the sister showed up too quickly and discovered the bodies. He didn’t have time to steal.”
“There was no flight or attempt at concealment.”
“Maybe because she had already called 911 when he walked in on her. Otherwise she might have been his next victim.”
“You have a very suspicious attitude.”
“You bet I do.” All of a sudden she looked more like the long arm of the law than the high school volleyball cheerleader he remembered.
“But I really need to get his bail reduced,” Tubby implored. “Six hundred thousand dollars is ridiculous. He doesn’t have six hundred dollars.”
“Think of it as one hundred thousand per victim. Anyway, it’s out of my hands. My boss is overseeing this case closely.”
“His Eminence Lionel Carbonera himself?”
“Of course. Six deceased, and half of the New Orleans upper crust went to some party these people threw. This case has a very high priority.”
That was some party, Tubby knew. He didn’t mention that he had been there, though it was nice to think of himself as among the “New Orleans upper crust.”
That famous party, he reflected, gave a lot of people a chance to see how rich the Sultan was. Or maybe the Sultan wasn’t the target. He’d have to get Flowers, his private detective, to look into who all those women, the brothers, the boys were. The entourage had just appeared in New Orleans like a visit by the Cirque Soleil, and like phantoms they were all gone. Vanished – in a flash. Who took them? What about the remains? Who claimed them?
He had lots of questions, including how any of this could be an income-generator.
It was hot in the courthouse and even hotter on the street. As soon as he got in the car, he tried to get the air conditioner working. It was always hard to relax or engage in speculative reflection while a client was in the New Orleans Parish Prison. The jail was a dangerous, lousy place. A lawyer worth his hot sauce ought to be able to spring a client from that squalid dungeon. He had the phone number for Ednan’s girlfriend’s father and called him right away.
“Hello?” the voice was tired. “This is Dijon.”
“Hi. This is Tubby Dubonnet. I’m the attorney for your…”
“Yes, I know who you are.” This was a normal New Orleans voice, not a Fertile Crescent Ednan sort of voice.
“Then you may know,” Tubby continued, “that he has asked me to represent him on his murder charge. Right now he is stuck in jail and has a very high bail.”
“I’m aware of all that. He told me all about it.”
“Good. I don’t think he did it, but we need to get him out of there.”
“Of course he didn’t do it!” the man said with conviction. “Ednan may be dumb as a post but he’s not mean.”
“Well, right. The issue is, will anyone undertake to pay for his legal defense? And maybe post bail, if we can get it reduced? He suggested you.”
“No doubt he did,” Dijon said with resignation. “Did you know that my daughter is pregnant?”
No, Tubby did not.
“That’s right. Bad timing. But we all want to get him out of this. I can come up with some money. But I’m going to have to speak to my club.”
“Your club?”
“Yeah. We’re benevolents. My tribe. We stick together on affairs of this nature. What’s it going to cost?”
Tubby named a figure for legal fees, not necessarily reasonable but realistic. He also explained that he doubted bail would go below $250,000, which would have to be put up in Orleans Parish real estate or in cash. A bondsman would want ten percent to cover that.
“That ain’t going to be easy,” the father of the mother-to-be said.
“Then let’s just concentrate on the attorney fee,” Tubby counseled.
“I’ll let you know. I see your number on this here phone.” He rang off.
Okay, that was progress.
Tubby leaned back to ruminate some more. There were so many compelling issues to contemplate. That pompadour-haired, corrupt bigot Marcus Dementhe, the former district attorney and ex-husband of Faye Sylvester, was also somewhere out there lurking about. And now Detective Mathewson, though retired, seemed ready to instigate some new trouble, he was sure. Mathewson was known to have connections with that group of old Cuban exiles who were reputed to have money and firearms and some very serious agenda that was in conflict with Tubby’s existence. He had once pointed a gun at this brave Detective Mathewson, but had spared his life. Would the cop be as considerate of Tubby Dubonnet if he caught the lawyer again in his sights in a private spot without witnesses? Or might he think it quid-pro-quo to trap Tubby in a murder rap as payback? That was going far afield, but this was an afternoon for deep thoughts.
* * *
Ednan had no chance of making bail, but he felt himself inching toward freedom when his girlfriend’s father, Dijon, came to see him with the good news that he had raised some of the money toward the legal fees. Ednan expressed his gratitude, almost crying, and then Dijon told
him that his daughter, Ednan’s girlfriend, Ayana, was pregnant. At that Ednan did cry.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he sobbed.
Dijon looked at him stonily. “And when you do,” he said, “you know what you got to do.”
“Leave town?” Ednan asked.
“No, fool! You’re going to get a real job!” Dijon slammed his palm down on the stainless steel counter. “You’re going to do right by Ayana. And the kid.”
“It’s my kid? Yep. Right. I got that. And I really will, Papa Dijon.”
“Papa? Wait till you two get married to call me names like that. Now, everybody’s counting on you. Did you do this crime?”
“I swear I did not!”
Dijon had heard this sort of thing before from almost everyone in his Mardi Gras Indian gang, but from Ednan he believed it. Dijon was certain that it wasn’t in this boy to kill anybody. Certainly not an entire family. And certainly not with a knife, since Ednan puked whenever he saw blood, even his own. The chief knew this because he had practically raised the child.
Just twenty years ago, more or less, Ednan’s parents had moved to New Orleans from Iraq or Turkestan, or one of those places, to be in the “oil business.” That was a local joke – they ran a convenience store that sold gas and cigarettes, one of fifty similar stores run by members of a much-extended immigrant Arab or Persian family. The store was on St. Claude Avenue, in the Lower Ninth Ward, and the family lived upstairs. They weren’t high on the totem pole, not even by New Orleans standards, and they were not in the oil business, and they were not closely related to the rich part of the family. From time to time Dijon bought his gas there, and on occasion he had caught glimpses of Ednan’s mom, Jewel Amineh, who was starting to catch onto Western norms to the point of exposing her face and ankles. Sometimes she smiled at Dijon, who worked at the Movato Refinery. He made good wages, both then and now. His own wife had left him alone with a pre-pubescent daughter named Ayana.
Ednan’s dad died, unfortunately and unexpectedly. As the water rose and swamped the convenience store during Katrina, he suffered a heart attack under the strain of dragging precious boxes of cigarettes and canned goods upstairs. With his mother’s wails in his ears, Ednan tied his father’s body to a coffee table that was floating by, and he propelled it slowly to the Claiborne Avenue Bridge. A Coast Guardsman, a woman actually, accepted responsibility there and offered Ednan a cup of soup. He spurned her and dove back in to swim to the store.
In the days ahead, he and his grief-stricken mother simmered in their flooded gas station surrounded by a swirling tide of oil and indescribable things. Unlike others, they were not hungry because they had tins of meat and Green Giant creamed corn to eat, but they were cut off and hopeless.
Dijon became aware of their plight while he motor-boated through the neighborhood, and spied Jewel leaning out of an upstairs window. He puttered to her stairwell landing and offered mother and son a place to stay temporarily. Jewel accepted, but she was so modest that after her first supper at Dijon’s dry house across the Industrial Canal she walked herself and her boy, wading to their knees as needed, back to the apartment over the convenience store to sleep, even though they had no electricity or running water at the time. But she consented to shower the next day at Dijon’s home when he was away at work. In time, when the water receded, she found an open school for her boy.
In the natural course of things, Jewel and Dijon got married. Dijon was a Mardi Gras Indian. He was totally devoted to beads and feathers and the fine art of creating a prettier headdress every year. It helped him tremendously that his new Middle Eastern wife was extremely skillful at hand stitching. She had delicate fingers and sharp eyes and could make wide pelts of tiny beads that other members of his tribe imagined could only be fabricated by a machine. Ednan grew up watching his mother sew like the wind while his stepfather selected feathers slowly and carefully. Through a crack in the door he watched the young girl Ayana learn how to put on a bra.
Soon, Dijon introduced Ednan’s mother to the Indian gang, and she became a part of its theatrical marching show. An avid dancer, though fully concealed in a robe, she was also a natural tambourine player. Never a Queen, Jewel nevertheless became a respected woman of stature, a “Second Queen.” Meanwhile, Ednan and Ayana bridged their own cultural gap. The girl helped her new “brother” come to grips with America.
As for the gang, Ednan was groomed by Dijon to become its Flag Boy.
“I can’t picture you as no mass murderer,” Dijon told Ednan in the visitors’ room of the jail. “But naturally they’re going to pick the first black man they see.”
“I’m not black, Uncle Dijon. I think my heritage is what they call a Semite.”
The big chief looked at him somberly. “Same thing, son,” he said. “Don’t you forget. They’re always going to be after you.”
CHAPTER 19
The police identified the Sultan’s landlord in no time, since he appeared on the scene in a flash. E.J. Chaisson had wanted to ascertain immediately what condition his building was in. As soon as he read about the mass homicide, he definitely wanted to know who was still alive to pay the rent. Unfortunately, he learned that there was effectively nobody left, except for one middle-aged woman who was related to the Prince. She had been away on an errand to buy candles, according to her, and she had discovered the bodies when she returned. Apparently, she spoke very poor English. She was trying to arrange passage back to her home country.
At the crime scene, E.J. found the first floor’s main room to be in complete disarray. It was being worked over thoroughly by the cops. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any massive damage that would warrant the landlord, who was personally wary of policemen, remaining any longer. As he proceeded to walk out, however, he found himself bracketed between two men. One, a muscular Latin man with an earring, wearing a green T-shirt who introduced himself as Detective Vodka. The other was a taller cop whose name E.J. didn’t catch.
Chaisson expressed his total innocence in general, and his total ignorance of the facts of this case, and he pleaded with the officers to discuss all of this with his attorney, Tubby Dubonnet. The mention of that name got the cops’ attention and they left the room to confer privately.
“You know, gentlemen,” E.J. said when they came back, “I’ve got to see a guy down the street about changing all of these locks. Carry on. I’ll be on my way.”
They let him go.
* * *
Within the hour, Tubby was driving up Tulane Avenue to answer a summons from police headquarters. Halfway there his progress was suddenly halted by a parade occupying the middle of the street. It was some Mardi Gras Indian club that had decided to pop out from Banks Street, complete with a small police escort. They were halting traffic.
The lawyer turned off the ignition and stepped outside to lean against his car and watch. There were only about fifteen major actors, vividly outfitted as always, following a brass band. As they came around the corner and entered the avenue, pedestrians fell in behind them, even some itinerants pushing shopping carts full of their possessions.
With the Indians, there was always a mystery. Who exactly were they, and why did they do this? Why were they disrupting the city’s routine on this particular day, and where were they going? Nobody except the gang really knew. An enduring mystery like this, a beautiful phenomenon that was quite familiar to city-dwellers, was what he loved best about New Orleans. It was like, why were there so many more green lizards than people? Where did all the backyard possums come from? Why did kids in school bands compete for the chance to high-step in patent-leather boots for seven miles in a Mardi Gras parade? Why did men race in red dresses or run across town while being pursued by horned women with plastic baseball bats? Why did people hold festivals to celebrate tacos and brunch?
The Indians, and their followers, turned right on Tonti Street. A toddler in feathered regalia, accompanied by her mother, broke loose from some bystanders who were photographing her
and ran after the parade. The motorcycle policeman with his flashing blue lights trailed behind, and the street was soon cleared of this colorful distraction and back to its drab reality.
Tubby got back behind the wheel and, while waiting for traffic to move, made a call to Sanré Fueres, whom everybody called Flowers. He was the private detective of choice for the law firm of Dubonnet & Associates. He was the only detective whom Tubby Dubonnet trusted. Steering uptown with one hand, dodging potholes, he told Flowers what he wanted. It was a long list.
“And see what you can find out about Marcus Dementhe,” he added.
“The old district attorney?”
“The same. He’s not in jail.”
“Maybe he died.”
“That would be a good result.”
“We shall see. We shall see…” Flowers trailed off. Tubby knew that the detective was already working his computer, his busy fingers sending out little inquiries.
“And look, give me a call in about an hour. I’m being questioned at police headquarters, and they might just decide to keep me.”
* * *
The lawyer made it clear to Detectives Vodka and Daneel that he was voluntarily submitting to be interviewed.
“I’m sure that Mister Chaisson doesn’t know a thing about this,” he assured them. “He probably has the applications the tenants mailed him when they were renting the place, and it might tell you their banking information. That could help you. I’ll be happy to see what I can pull together.”
“Yes, you do that,” Vodka said, even less pleasant than he had been over coffee at the Trolley Stop. “We may follow up with a warrant to you, so be sure you provide us with everything.”
“Of course.”
“You know, Mister Dubonnet,” Vodka said, sucking on a toothpick, “I’m actually becoming quite interested in you personally.”