Nude in Red
Page 10
Beau gives the date, time and address of the hospital before continuing.
“I have an eight by ten inch page that includes six color photographs.” He holds up the image for the camera. “Have you seen this before?”
“No.” Consuela’s voice is deep, scratchy.
He shows her the page.
“Do you recognize anyone among the pictures?”
Consuela nods, points to the image on the bottom left corner.
“Who is this?”
In short, quiet sentences, in a raspy voice, Consuela explains this is the man she knows as Mr. Butera and how he arranged for her to prostitute herself. Beau looks at the detailed list she’d provided and goes through it. The woman knew dates and locations. The second and sixteenth of every month she would check into a hotel or B&B and Butera would send clients. Between twelve and eighteen over a 72-hour span. She had the dates, time of the gangbangs. No addresses. She’d been blindfolded. She got $200 per customer and Butera got the rest. Clients told her she was a $400 trick. Beau is surprised Butera only made 50% off her. She also made between $500 and $2,000 in tips each cycle
“He never beat me,” Consuela adds. “I only saw him the once.”
“Are you sure the man you identified is the man you met and know as Mr. Butera.”
“Positive.”
“Did you recognize any of your clients?”
She nods, rasps, “A few politicians. Celebrities. A lot from out of town. But I’m not giving names.”
“OK. Two sessions a month for seven months?” Beau says.
“A total of two hundred and fifty-eight Johns,” Consuela says. “I kept count and my money is in the banks.”
“You’re talking almost 50K?” Juanita says.
“Tips make it more.”
Beau tries to coax her into naming her clients, but she’s too smart to be tricked and he just goes over as many details as she can give on the dates and locations again. Just as they finish a nurse comes in to clean and dress Consuela’s wound. Beau asks to stay and gets an odd look from the nurse. Consuela just closes her eyes.
There are no marks on Consuela’s throat from a garrote with knots in it. He waits for the nurse to leave before asking exactly how did the man attack her.
“Did he try to wrap the garrote around your neck?”
“No. He come straight at me. Held me down.”
Different method of operation from Judy’s murder at DeSaix. Beau and Juanita both note it.
• Mystery Street, 11:05 a.m.
LaStanza stands behind his desk, his butt against the credenza next to the picture window overlooking the street. He’s in a white dress shirt and jeans. Jessie greets Beau with a peck on the lips, pulls away and both head for the thickly cushioned chairs facing the desk. She’s in a fitted denim minidress.
Wait. It isn’t a dress. It’s a long vest and she left the bottom two buttons unfastened.
No stockings. She wears white running shoes with high white socks, looking sexy as hell, her hair straight and long as usual, her face looking cover-girl with glistening red lips.
“Carlo Butera,” LaStanza says. “Never met him, but I heard he’s a typical, swarthy Mafiosi.”
“Got him on 234 counts of Pandering. One for each John. Including the gangbangs.”
LaStanza whistles, looks at Jessie, explains, “Revised Statue 14:84, Pandering. Fancy word for ‘Pimping’. A felony in this great state.” He looks at Beau again. “When you picking him up?”
“Gotta type the warrants. Find a judge who won’t tip him off.”
LaStanza rubs his chin. “I’ve been thinking about when I should talk to Cataldo. I like hitting them between the eyes. Fuckin’ Cataldo will give it away in his eyes. He tries the cold, Sicilian stare but it never works with him. It’s a cinch Butera won’t talk.”
“Might put a crimp in their business. 234 felonies. He’ll bond out right away with the fuckin’ judges in this city but the heat and publicity will be there and LCN hates publicity more than nuns hate short skirts.” LaStanza points at his cousin and she sticks a tongue out at him.
“Lizette’s vest-dress is shorter.”
“I know.”
Beau gets them back on track. “Two dead girls and a third in the hospital puts more than a crimp in the business.”
“God I hate to speculate.” LaStanza leans back in his captain’s chair and looks at the ceiling. “Is that a spider?”
Jessie jumps out of her chair, looks up, slaps Beau’s shoulder, as if he’d said it, then sits back down.
“It’s like this all the time.” She huffs.
“I was saying I hate to speculate, but killing off the talent doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense.”
“Unless it’s a rivalry,” Beau says. “Don’t those guys go to war occasionally?”
“Between families. There’s only one family here.”
“Someone’s making a move against La Cosa Nostra?” Beau shrugs. “I got a wannabe killer with a bullet in his gut. That’s all I got.”
LaStanza reaches into his desk, pulls out a box, slides it across to Beau.
“Got you something.”
Beau opens the box, sees the hilt of a knife encased in a carbon sheath.
“This is the 21st Century, Crazy Horse. That knife you wear, well, obsidian is volcanic rock, isn’t it? It can chip. Break. The Sioux are a helluva tribe, in touch with the earth and the air and the sea and all that shit.”
There’s no sea anywhere near the Dakotas, funny man.
“But face it,” LaStanza continues. “They’re a stone-age people. The only metal the use they got from the horrible white man.”
Beau pulls the knife out of its sheath. It has an eight inch blade. The handle is made from the same material as his Glock grips, a kevlar-ceramic mix with pinion resin. Semi-adhesive. No matter how wet his hands get, it won’t slip. The resin will wear off after a couple years but he got a bottle from ATF when they gave him his Glocks. He touches a thumb against the blade and it’s razor-sharp.
“Titanium?”
“Stronger. Inconel 625. Aerospace industry uses that metal for high-strength fasteners on critical joints. No corrosion or oxidation. Strongest metal on the planet.” LaStanza points to the sheath. “The scabbard is self-sharpening. Every time you slide it in and out, it sharpens the blade.”
“Looks expensive,” Jessie says.
“It is. I got a smaller one and I don’t want our best warrior going around with less.”
Beau slides the knife back in its scabbard, reaches around and withdraws his obsidian knife that’s longer. “This is raw. Savage. Black as coal and intimidating as hell. A knife for cutting through buffalo hides and scalping white men.” He shows it to Jessie, then LaStanza.
“The bone handle says Wild West. It says Sioux. If a piece chips off, like a fragmentation bullet. Well, fuck ’em.”
Jessie smiles. “Have you ever really scalped anyone?”
“The blade is uneven. I’ve drawn it across a couple foreheads. Leaves a jagged scar.”
He slips his knife back into the leather scabbard at the small of his back, puts the new knife back in the box and thanks LaStanza, tapping the box, adding, “I can always use another weapon.”
“You have pictures of the bodies?”
Beau nods. “In my briefcase down in my car.”
“Bring them when you meet Nick Cataldo Sunday. You might wanna show him. Maybe not.”
“I’m meeting the boss?”
“Ass-hole goes to eight a.m. mass every Sunday. Immaculate Conception Jesuit Church on Baronne Street. Only church that still does the mass in Latin. Go stick pictures of the dead girls in front of his face.” LaStanza shakes his head. “Goes to mass every Sunday. As if Jesus would forgive him his sins.”
“He goes to confession, gets absolution, he has a new, clean soul. Doesn’t he?” Beau went to Holy Ghost High School in Abbeville.
“Yeah, like those child-molesting priests. What was it, a d
etective or an A.D.A. up in Boston who told the archbishop when the church absolved those child-molesters – “It’s not just a sin. It’s a felony.”
LaStanza gets up, tells Beau to let him know Cataldo’s reaction. “I’ll wait to see if he calls me. He doesn’t? I’ll call him see how much you pissed him off.”
Jessie stands and bumps LaStanza’s hip with hers.
“How about an early lunch?”
“Sure.”
Beau scoops up the knife box and Jessie looks at LaStanza who tells them go ahead, he’ll pass. She rubs Beau’s shoulder. “Whatcha doing after lunch?”
“Unfortunately,” Beau says. “I’m going to try to weasel funds from the DA’s Witness Protection Program. Our victim won’t stay in the hospital forever.”
“No. Not a good idea,” says LaStanza. “I got a better one.”
“Yeah? What?”
• Jefferson Highway, 1:22 p.m.
Beau hands a sandwich to Juanita and puts the other on the roll table for Consuela.
“Roast duck on ciabatta bread. You won’t believe how good it is.”
“What kind of duck?” Juanita says.
“The kind that flies.”
“I mean is it wild duck. Someone shot it or is it farm-raised?”
“It turned itself in. Got tired of flying south, then flying north.”
Juanita shakes her head.
Consuela’s eyes are narrow as she watches. She unwraps her sandwich, takes a bite and smiles.
“After y’all eat,” He tells Juanita. “We got paperwork at the office.”
Juanita takes a bite of sandwich, chews it slowly then laughs at Beau. “Glad it turned itself in.”
He goes out to tell the officers in the hall he and Juanita will be leaving, confirms their instructions.
“Won’t be much longer,” he tells Gaudet and Walker, two of the guys who went with him to Ida Bed and Breakfast. He feels bad he didn’t bring them food until he sees a woman coming down the hall carrying two paper bags. He doesn’t recognize her until she tells him hello. It’s Miss See-through negligee whose face is ‘up here’. She’s decked out today in a trim black skirt-suit with black heels, her hair hanging in long curls. She steps over to Walker and kisses him on the lips and Beau leaves as Gaudet pulls out covered plates of delicious smelling food.
• Police Headquarters, 8:12 p.m.
Juanita leads the way through the Detective Bureau with Beau behind carrying the arrest warrants and search warrants for Carlo Butera’s strip joint, his apartment, Gumbo’s Shop and his 2007 black Cadillac STS.
Captain Mark Land comes out of his office, waves them over, tells them he can get the troops back. They’d spent the better part of the day typing and re-typing the warrants, then finding the right judge, a black ex-cop who turned lawyer and got elected judge. No way Judge Lucius Croon would tip off Butera. Hell, he wanted to come along, join the show.
“I wanted it before six,” Beau says as Juanita opens their office. “Fuckin’ Butera won’t be home, probably won’t be at Gumbo’s. I don’t wanna have to try to locate the fuck.”
He drops the warrants on his desk and Juanita scoops them up. That’s right. They’ll need copies to bring when they book him and need copies of the search warrants too.
“Middle of the night won’t work with Mafiosi either,” says the captain as he steps out of Juanita’s way.
Beau plops down in his chair. “Whaddya think? Six a.m.?”
“Seven. He’ll be just getting to sleep. Those bastards are like bats. Out all night.”
“OK. Seven. We rendezvous here at six.”
“I’m coming along. Haven’t put my foot through a door in a long time.”
Beau calls Jessie, tells her they have to put off dancing until Sunday night. He’s working tomorrow.
“Did you have supper?”
“Nope.”
“Call me back when you’re leaving. I’m bringing supper.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Italian girls learn how to cook before we start dating because we won’t have time once we do. Meat balls and spaghetti. Sicilian style.”
“You had time to cook that up today?”
“I cook up a big batch and put it in the freezer. I defrosted some this morning.”
He tells her that’s an excellent idea and they get off the phone as Juanita comes in with the copies, her cell pressed against her ear. She looks at Beau, says, “Joe wants to know if we wanna have dinner with the JP dicks.”
“You go. I have a date.”
She tells Joe yes, gets him off the phone.
“You guys seem to be getting along?”
She shrugs. “He’ll do for the moment. But he’s not my type.”
“What is your type.?”
“Anyone who’s not a cop or a lawyer. Anything connected to the job.”
“Where do I drop you?”
“Joe’s coming here. They like to eat in the city.”
On his way home, Beau’s glad he made that extra key to Sad Lisa to give to Jessie. No reason she has to leave early the next morning.
Saturday
• Bourbon Street, 6:52 a.m.
Beau pulls the SUV up on the banquette, two marked NOPD units behind and they have the sidewalk blocked in front of Hotsy Jazz Club, 500 block of Bourbon Street. Eighth District Sergeant Leo McDonald leads two uniformed officers through the front door of the narrow strip joint. Beau’s in all black, a bullet-proof vest over a fitted T-shirt with muted gray POLICE across chest and back, black RipStop tac pants, Glock G37 in a tactical canvas holster on his right hip, baby Glock G37B in a cross-drawn canvass holster on his left leg. He wear a new pair of black running boots, police tactical of course, which adds an inch to his 6’2” frame.
Mark Land looks as neat as a soup-sandwich in a huge bullet proof vest, RipStop pants that are too loose, a sky-blue NOPD T-shirt that’s too long, white tennis shoes and old leather police service belt. His 9mm Beretta is in a revolver holster. The man plans on kicking a door in tennis shoes.
“You lose weight or something?” Beau says.
“Lose it and it keeps coming back.”
Hotsy Jazz, like most joints along Bourbon, never closes. Beau and Mark go in, leaving two cops outside to secure the door, watch the cars. One of the uniforms inside assembles the bouncers and bartender in a corner, along with the two customers.
The place reeks of stale beer, sweat and cheap perfume. Black walls give it a dungeonesque feel, a long bar on the right, tables on the left, a stage in back where the strippers perform. McDonald leads them through a narrow hall, past a couple dressing rooms to a stairway where Beau takes the lead and Mark muscles his way past the uniforms.
The lone apartment has a wooden door painted red. Beau moves past it, Glock out now. Mark has his Beretta in his right hand. Beau knocks on the door. Hard. Hears nothing. Knocks again. Harder.
“Who the fuck?” The voice inside sounds angry.
“Police! Open up Butera or we’ll break it down and probably shoot you.”
A moment later, the voice says, “I don’t see you.”
There’s a peep hole in the center of the door.
Mark steps in front of the door and kicks it hard, right next to the lock and the frame cracks.
“Whoa! Whoa! I’ll let you in!”
The captain moves to the other side of the door and there’s a loud click and the door starts to open. Mark hits it with his shoulder and the door flies open.
“Owww!”
Mark goes in, Beau right behind and Carlo Butera is on his ass, right hand over his nose. The captain moves through the living room. A kitchen on the right is clear so he steps toward what has to be the bedroom door.
“Anyone else here?” Beau asks Butera who’s is in black boxer shorts, Beau’s Glock pointed at his face. Son-of-a-bitch does look like Joe Pesci.
“No. You broke my fuckin’ nose!” Sounds like Pesci too.
“No blood. No foul.” Beau growls.
Beau handcuffs the fat fuck behind his back. Pulls him up on a leather sofa, tells him not to bleed to death as a trickle of blood comes out of the man’s left nostril.
“Needless to say, you’re under arrest.”
“What the fuck for?”
“Pandering.” Beau lets out a maniacal laugh. “Imagine that.”
“A chickshit pandering charge.”
“Not ‘A charge’ but 234 counts.”
“What? You ain’t even Vice Squad.”
“CIU. Critical Investigations Unit.”
Mark steps back in, gives the all clear sign. He comes over, takes a look at Butera. “What pants you wanna wear for the cameras?”
“Fuck you!”
Beau takes a step to the side, accidentally steps on Butera’s bare foot. Hard.
“Excuse me.”
“Fuck you too!”
Beau steps on the other foot with his big boots. “I’m so clumsy these days.”
“What’s your fuckin’ name?”
Mark brings a pair of bright green pants and an orange shirt out from the bedroom.
“Be good now,” Beau tells the prisoner. He pulls out his obsidian knife, places it against Butera’s forehead, lets him feel the edge. “My name? I’m Beau. John Raven Beau.”
“You that fuckin’ Indian killer-cop!”
Beau draws the blade across the forehead enough to give it a red mark but not enough to break the skin.
“Behave now.” He puts the knife back into the scabbard at the small of his back. The new Inconel 625 knife is strapped to his right leg.
They stand Butera up and help him into his clothes.
“Did you bathe in cheap cologne?” Mark tells him.
“Fuck you!”
Beau manages to step on Butera’s left foot again and the man cries out again.
“Leave him barefoot,” the captain adds. “Maybe he’ll step on something sharp.”
They take him to the door, pass him to McDonald and ask him to take the fuck to Central Lockup. Before they step away, Beau pulls out his ID folder, takes out a Miranda rights card and reads Butera his rights.
Beau makes sure to leave a copy of the search warrant for Mark to leave, taps the door frame, says, “You’re losing your kick.”