“I am.” The man coughs as he cries and Beau takes his arm.
“Hope no one you know is the lobby, Reverend.”
• Police Headquarters, 7:16 p.m.
Beau leaves John Worthington, Minister of the Octavia Baptist Church, corner Octavia and Saint Charles Avenue, sitting at the small table in a tiny interview room.
“Can you take off the handcuffs now?”
“In a few minutes.”
“But they hurt.”
“They’re supposed to hurt.” Beau closes the door, goes back to his office where Juanita sits behind her desk and the woman from Room 229 sits next to it. He nods for Juanita to step over and talk with him. They leave the door open.
“See if you can bond with her,” he says. “I’ll see what the minister has to say.”
Beau starts up a pot of coffee, takes two mugs into the interview room. Worthington leans forward in the hard chair, watches him. His mouth is set, jaw jutting. Beau puts the coffees down, goes around and takes off his handcuffs.
“I demand to make a phone call.”
Beau pulls the man’s blackberry from his pocket, puts it just out of reach, draw a Miranda rights form from his binder and starts reading the minister his rights.
“After my phone call.” Worthington reaches for the phone but not fast enough.
Beau scoops it, continues reading the rights, reaches a ballpoint out to the minister, points to the form. “You need to put your initials next to each right, indicating I read them to you.”
Worthington folds his arms.
Beau picks up the receiver of the phone at the edge of the table, punches in a number. The phone doesn’t work of course but he speaks into it anyway.
“Desk sergeant. This is Inspector Beau up in the Bureau. Is the police reporter in his room? Yeah. Take a look for me.”
He covers the mouthpiece, tells the minister, “Did you know the press has a small room downstairs for pool reporters? They take turns covering the police beat. Newspaper reporters, TV, internet news sites, even freelance bloggers. I’m sure they’ll love to hear I have the minster of the Octavia Baptist Church up here on a soliciting for prostitution charge.”
The face goes pale and Worthington tries to lean back in the chair.
“No. No. No.”
Beau speaks into the mouthpiece. “He’s in his room? What’s the extension?” He writes a number in his notes. “I’ll call him directly.” He hangs up, stares at the minister. “What’s it gonna be? You give me a statement who you contacted, how it was arranged and you become a witness for the state instead of an arrestee. Hell, you can even try to convince your wife and congregation you couldn’t go through with it.”
“I couldn’t!”
“See. We’re simpatico.” Beau takes out the Blackberry. “Show me the number you called to set this up.”
Later Beau makes sure there’s a fresh videotape in the recorder on the tripod in the corner of the room, turns it on, makes sure it’s recording and sits back down. He starts with, “This is the voice of Chief Inspector John Raven Beau, New Orleans Police Critical Investigations Unit.” He gives the date, time, location and the minister’s name before he gets to the statement.
A little over an hour later, state’s witness Reverend John Worthington catches a taxi away from police headquarters to head home to give his wife an excuse why he’s so late. He’ll have a little time before he has to tell her the story he’ll make up when he has to testify in court. As Beau fixes himself a fresh cup of coffee, he calls Jessie.
“Hey, Babe,” she says. “How’s it going?”
“Slow but we’re getting there. You sound sleepy.”
“Yeah. I was all ready to go late into the night on the dance floor and now I’m all sleepy-eyed with Stella on the sofa.”
“What y’all watching?”
“Al Pacino. Dog Day Afternoon. Never saw it before. ‘Attica. Attica. Attica.’ Had to pause the movie and go online to learn what Attica means.”
Prison riot. Cops killing prisoners.
“I’m going to be late,” he says as he mixes his cream and sugar in.
“I’ll probably be in bed. Stella had a dead mouse in her mouth when I came in. She dropped it and walked away so I tossed it overboard.”
“Good Stella.”
“Good Jessie or you’d have a rodent carcass on your living room floor.”
Beau tells her he has to get off now, adding he sure wished he was there instead of here.
“Me too.” She hangs up and he wonders how this came about. Jessie Bella Carini is everyman’s wet dream. But it’s more than that. They way they’ve clicked is hard to believe. John Raven Beau knows the worse thing he can do is think too much about this. Don’t think. Feel. Just let it flow over them and so far, it’s flowing.
He expects her to be calmer, the woman who checked into the Monteleone as Marie Jones and had checked into the DeSaix as Donna Marie. She sits chewing her bottom lip, her arms folded and blinks at Beau as he comes in. Her right leg bounces back and forward. Juanita’s leaning back in her chair, pad in front of her full of scribbled notes.
“Who is Tito?”
The woman blinks again. “You ask me this?”
“Yeah. Who is Tito?”
She tears up and Beau nods for Juanita to step outside with him.
“You ask about what she meant about dying tonight?”
“She won’t talk to me. She’ll only talk to you.”
“What’s all those notes on your pad?”
“Random thoughts.”
“Jesus. One won’t talk to men, one won’t talk to women?”
“No. She’ll only talk to you.”
“What? She said just me?”
“Yes.” Juanita rolls her eyes. “She said she only feels safe with you.”
“She just saw me for what? Ten fuckin’ minutes?”
Juanita pouts, sticks out her lower lip, pats his arm. “Because you’re such a big hunk of a man. You make all us gals feel safe.”
“Funny.”
They go back in and the woman’s wiping tears again.
Beau moves around to sit behind his desk, asks, “Would you like some coffee? Water? We have a Coke machine in the hall.”
She waits for him to meet her eyes, says, “Wine?”
He laughs. “Chablis or Chianti, maybe some Bordeaux?”
She turns the chair to better see Beau. “Chabli?.”
“We don’t have wine.” He nods to her purse on Juanita’s desk. “She have an ID in there?”
Juanita sails the woman’s driver’s license over the desk and Beau catches it. The girl Donna Marie, Marie Jones has as Louisiana driver’s license under the name Marie Smith, her address an apartment in the warehouse district. She’s twenty-one. Five-feet nine inches.
“You still live here, Marie?”
“No. I have apartment in house next to police station. Magazine Street.”
“The police. They know you’re there?”
“No. No. But it is safe place to live, near police, is it not?”
Beau looks into those blue eyes. “Who is Tito?”
She chews her bottom lip a second. “Mr. Tito. He handle me.”
Beau opens the note book on his desk, picks up a ball point. “Tell me everything you know about him. How you linked up, what he looks like, everything.”
She asks for a Coke and Juanita is out of her chair immediately. Beau waits for his partner to return with a Coke for the woman and a Diet Coke for herself, waits for Marie to take her first sip and reminds her this is her only way out of this.
“Talk to me, lady.”
The words come quickly in an accent that has to be East European. Beau writes – Craigslist Ad. A man answered. Set up a meet at coffee shop on Franklin Avenue. Bywater. Interview. Video try out. Sex. Tito is white, five-seven, heavy, brown hair.
“Receding hairline?” Beau asks.
She shrugs.
“Balding in front?”
“No.”
“Does he look like Joe Pesci? The actor.”
“Actor?” She shrugs again, says, “He has bad eye.”
“What?”
She points to her right eye. “It is fallen. Like it slide down the face.”
That’s a description.
Juanita pulls out the photo line-up they’d made which includes a picture of Carlo Butera, shows it to Marie, asks if there’s anyone on it she recognizes.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I am sure.”
Beau asks, “Have you ever heard of a Mr. Butera?”
“No.”
“What is your real name?”
She chews her lower lip again. He waits, letting their eyes connect. Hers are soft, open, pleading. He knows his are hard.
“Maria Eveline Mirescu. I come here from Brad. Small village in Transylvania.”
Beau looks at Juanita who says it. “Romania.”
OK, Maria. Back to her now, Beau asks, “How did you wind up in New Orleans?”
“In airplane.”
No fuckin’ kidding.
“Who arranged it?”
“I save money. My uncle. He help me come to New Orleans.”
“What uncle?”
“Uncle Eugen Buzau. He come to New Orleans ten year ago. Change his name to Gene Bailey. He own Roma Real Estate business.”
Roma Real Estate? That sounds familiar.
Beau looks at Juanita who starts flipping through her notes.
“How did he help you?”
“I come four year ago. He give me room to stay. Let me work in office until I decide to make better money.”
“So you turned into a call girl, just like that?” Beau snaps his finger.
“Yes. Just like that. Prostituata. Prostitute. I am curva. Whore. A very good whore.”
She catches Juanita with a mouthful of Diet Coke. Beau reaches into his desk, pulls out a box of Kleenex and passes it to his partner. Maria almost smiles.
“Does your uncle know what you’re doing?”
“No. No. I tell him I am secretary for big business man. Secret type man.”
“Do you know any of the other girls working for Mr. Tito?”
“I meet girls. At hotels. I meet three since I start a year ago. Judy, Angel and Mandelina who works for another man I do not know. Not Mr. Tito.”
Juanita starts looks through her file for photos of the Secretary of the Interior’s daughter Judy Crumit, AKA Judy Allure and Angelina Goolime, AKA Angel Goode and Consuela Suarez, AKA Mandelina Moore.
So Consuela lied to us. If this girl knew her, then it went the other way around, didn’t it?
Juanita, flipping through her notes, stops, looks up at Beau and says, “Roma Real Estate is next door to the DeSaix Hotel.”
Maria tells Beau, “You do not remember me, but I remember you.”
What?
“At parade. St. Patrick Day. You wore uniform. I was there with my first handler. You call him a pimp. Alvin. He slapped my face and you step over and slap him so hard you knock him down. You told Alvin, ‘Hurts doesn’t it? Hit her again and I will break your arm’.”
Beau remembers slapping a tall, skinny black guy at a parade. There was a blond girl. He nods. “Doesn’t help when you won’t press charges.”
“It help. Alvin so mad at you he forget he was mad at me. He got killed a little while after. Car hit him on Canal Street. I had other handlers until Mr. Tito find me. That was two years ago.”
Beau nods, gives Maria a long stare. She puts her Coke down, eyes all wide again.
“Tell me about the DeSaix Hotel.”
Her shoulders sink and she starts in on her bottom lip again. “I did not want to go there. I thought my uncle might see me. I hear noises in the hall and my client rush into room. Say police in the hall so he run out the back door and I rush out.”
Juanita leans over, slides three pictures to Beau who shows the first to Maria.
“Mandelina.”
He shows the second and she nods. “Judy.”
The third is a copy of Angelina Goolime’s passport photo. Maria slowly nods. “Angel. I meet two other but I do not know their names or who they work for. Not Mr. Tito.”
He asks when was the last time she saw them and she had not seen Judy for a long time, saw Angel only once at a Wendy’s in Metairie. She saw Mandelina a few months ago. “We work Hotel Bonne Marie on Conti Street. We talk after.”
“Did you see Judy at the DeSaix?”
She shakes her head, tells him she did now know Judy was going to work the DeSaix.
“Do you know what happened to Judy?”
Her lips quiver again and Maria takes in a deep breath. “I hear. I hear a bad thing. I ask people who work at hotels. Mr. Tito hear I am asking and he come and slap me and tell me to never ask about Judy again.”
The tears return.
“That is why I think I am going to die. If I do not do what Mr. Tito says, he will kill me and if I go to hotels, who killed Judy would kill me.” She puts her hands flat on the desk. “You tell me. What happen to Mandelina?”
For a second, Beau thinks scaring her might be the way to go. Tell her Mandelina was murdered as well. But the truth would be better.
“We got her safe.”
Maria shakes her head, tears welling now. “No. No. She is dead.”
Juanita steps over to the nearest filing cabinet, unlocks it, pulls a manila folder out, comes around to put it in front of Maria, who wipes tears from her face. The first photo is a close-up of Consuela’s neck with the deep burn mark and Maria lets out a mousey noise. Juanita flips through the pictures to show Consuela sitting up in bed and looking at the camera.
“They almost killed her. We saved her,” Beau says. “She’s safe.” He waits for Maria to look at him. “We could not save Judy or Angel.”
Maria gasps.
“We can keep you safe, but you’re going to have to help us.”
“How?”
“Information. We need to know everything you know about Mr. Tito, the way the operation works, the names of your clients. Names. Dates. Locations.”
Maria nods slowly.
“You hungry?”
“Very much.”
Beau says, “I feel like a muffuletta.”
Juanita looks up from her notes. “From where?”
“There’s a Rouses Grocery Store down Broad.” He gets up. “I’ll be right back.”
“You serious?”
On the way down to the SUV, he looks through his phone contacts.
Why don’t I have Ashton’s cell number?
He’s about to call Mark Land, but calls Fel Jones instead.
Fel answers after the first ring as Beau backs the SUV around in the police garage.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
“Just my date with a long, legged mahogany feline with sensuous lips and beguiling eyes.”
Was that a slap?
Fel laughs, goes, “What you want, man?”
“From your Intell days, you remember a goomba named Tito with a bad right eye?”
“Droops. Tito Palista. Has a droopy eye and Badalamente called him Droops. Button man.”
“Good. Thanks. One more thing. We got another witness to stash.”
Fel lets out a breath. “All right. When?”
“Tonight.”
“Jesus.”
Later – the three split a muffuletta sandwich, twelve inch round loaf of thick, soft white Italian bread, split down the center, opened so imported olive oil could coat the bread with several layers of different slices of cheese joined by ham and salami and the most delicious homemade olive salad. The sandwich is cut into quarters, each a meal by itself. Beau bought two, left one in the SUV to bring home later. Maria has another Coke, Juanita another Diet Coke and Beau opts for Barq’s Root Beer. He’s not surprised Maria’s never had a muff, but how Juanita lived so long in New Orleans without tasting one is a mystery.
She recognizes the face on the NOPD mug shot of Gene Bailey, owner and operator of Roma Real Estate, Toulouse Street. Her Uncle Eugen Buzau. Her eyes go wide again.
“Arrests?” Beau asks his partner.
Juanita says, “14:66, 65 and 34.5.1.”
“What’s that last one?”
“Battery of a bus driver.” Fucker beat up a bus driver.
Beau explains the first two offenses to Maria. “Extortion and simple robbery. Your uncle’s a fuckin’ thug.”
“I know he is tough man but I did not know he arrested.” Maria leans toward Beau. “If you go against him. He is tough man. He is what you call a thug.”
“Hell, I’m the thugist man you’ll ever meet.” Beau stuffs the last piece of his portion of muffuletta into his mouth. He’s eaten half the huge sandwich while the women are content with a quarter each.
It’s Juanita who says it aloud. “You know we have to go federal with this.”
“Let’s get her tucked away. Safe. Then we’ll call on our friend the ASAC.”
When their meal is over, Juanita leads Maria to the bathroom, waits outside and Beau moves to his partner, holds up the picture of Uncle Eugen Buzau.
“Fifties. five-eight. two hundred pounds. Black hair with gray at temples. Brown eyes. Wide face with flat nose.”
They don’t have to say it. This is probably Consuela’s last client. The man who kept saying ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’ in Romanian while he humped her.
Back in the office, Beau tells Maria, “We need to know about Romanians.”
“Romanians?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“The Bucuresti,” Juanita says.
If she’s lying, she’s good. Those big eyes just stare without a hint of recognition.
“Bucharest. Is capital of Romania. What is Bucuresti?”
They take notes as Maria Mirescu from the small village of Brad in Transylvania tells them everything she knows about Romanians in New Orleans. Allegedly. It isn’t much.
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