by Tony Dunbar
“What does a typical job cost?”
“Could be five hundred. Could be five thousand. Could be more, depending.” Nordie was fishing.
Frenchy closed his eyes and tossed back his drink. It went down smooth.
“Well, let’s try it out and see how it goes,” he said and smiled. There was something frightening about all of those teeth beneath that tiny little mustache.
“I prefer cash,” Nordie said.
“Just like a whore.” Dufour laughed again. “I love you, Nordie. But you know what? I prefer cash, too.”
It was all in all a very gratifying meeting for Nordie. His first venture as a free-lancer might work out. “Shall we go outside and have a talk?” he suggested.
Frenchy paid the check, and they walked outside, past the handsomely uniformed Canal Street doorman who kept the riff-raff away, to continue their discussion on the busy sidewalk.
CHAPTER VII
Out by Lake Pontchartrain the Reverend Randy Esop Horton had just returned his cruise boat, an updated party barge, to the Municipal Yacht Harbor. He was earnest and strong and had a blond crew cut. His vessel, which he had christened the “Divine Immersion,” was a bright and glistening white. It was the principal asset of the pastor’s business— burials at sea. Horton acted as a funeral director, and the mission was to take the mourners and farewell-wishers, along with the ashes of the deceased, on a pleasant lake cruise accompanied by the musical selections of your choice and with snacks and drinks appropriate to the occasion. At a given point, usually about half a mile out from the Coast Guard lighthouse (or further, depending upon the package requested), Rev. Horton would conduct a brief and respectful service and pour the ashes into the lake. The whole idea was called a “Creator’s Cajun Cremation,” and the captain would provide the next of kin with a GPS certificate showing where the inhumation had occurred.
Business was pretty good, though for Catholics he sometimes had to involve an actual priest who might cause some static about the whole lake thing. Rev. Horton had not thought about going national, or even branching out to another body of water such as Bay St. Louis, until he was paid a visit at the small office he kept in a small strip mall on Robert E. Lee Boulevard by a gentleman named Frenchy Dufour.
At first he assumed that Dufour was a potential customer, but it quickly turned out that the visitor was an admirer of Rev. Horton’s business model.
Dufour, on first impression, was engaging. He had a big, white smile, set off by a weird mustache, in a square handsome face. The Reverend studied people, and this caller exuded “like me,” a quality Horton strove for. He was wearing a gray jacket over a pale blue shirt, a snakeskin belt, and charcoal slacks, like an extremely responsible person. He had a nice tan. He had long black hair with silver highlights and looked like he knew a million jokes. Horton noticed the admirable square gold ring on the visitor’s right hand when they shook, and he made a point of flashing his own heavy octagonal gold wedding band.
“Want to sell your business?” the man asked by way of a greeting. “My name is Dufour, and I’m here to ‘Do For’ you. Money is the game, and I want to make money. And just so you’ll know, I’m really blown away by what you’ve got going here.”
“Are you in the funeral vocation?” Rev. Horton asked, flattered.
“No sir, but I’d like to be. I’m in franchising, investing, making great ideas greater, making little guys into big shots, helping them cash in on whatever they got that’s hot.” He sat down. Horton shoved his pile of brochures and a brass urn to the side and sat up attentively.
“I, uh, guess you’re familiar with what we do,” Horton said. He smiled warmly at his guest. The reverend was a big and handsome man, with Marine commando training before he got religion, but it was hard to match all those flashing teeth.
“Absolutely! I saw your ad in Gambit. I especially liked the part that said ‘locally owned and operated’.”
“Very well. What are you offering?”
“I’d like to bring cash to the party— put some dough into your venture. I’m not just some talker. Let’s see if we can make this grow. I think you have a great, great idea with these lake services. It’s going to shake up the world. The sky’s the limit.”
“Cash is good,” the Reverend said. “But what would be in it for you?”
“An honest return on my capital, simple as that.”
“How much capital are we talking about?”
“Could be a hundred thousand. Could be more or less, depending on the arrangement we come up with. You deal in lots of cash, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” the Reverend replied coyly.
“My contribution would also come in cash, a steady flow over time. I’d get a stake in the business, of course, so I can watch my money.”
“How big a stake would you want?”
“Reverend Horton… that’s the name, right?… I’m not even going to name a price. I haven’t asked to look at your financials, have I? Your profit and losses, and your book of business. But I do love your name, ‘Divine Immersion’, which is tremendous by the way. It can speak to suffering people everywhere. I’d like to discuss a partnership, more like a limited liability company. I’d have a controlling interest and you’d be retained at a certain salary, and off we go.”
“You’d have a controlling interest in my business?”
“Well, naturally.”
“You’re a Wall Street banker, aren’t you?” Rev. Horton was a Tea Partier and knew instinctively when somebody was trying to fuck with him.
“A what? No! No! My office is in Mid-City for God’s sake! I’ve never been to Wall Street in my life.” He laughed nervously, but Reverend Horton knew the devil when he saw it, and he was feeling in his desk drawer for one of the many guns he kept there.
“Say, this is an honest proposition!” Dufour protested when the firearm appeared.
“Get out of here! Leave me alone!” the preacher shouted. “We have no use for your kind in the funeral business here on Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans, Louisiana.”
Dufour left quickly, and that was that.
But now, three days after this electrifying incident, as the preacher was tying up his boat, two men approached. One was square and muscular and wore a brown leather jacket; the other was tall and skinny with a small head and a big bobbing Adam’s apple. They looked like they might possibly be bereaved, and the preacher was hopeful.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” he asked from the side of the slip where he was tying off the bow.
“Nice boat,” the square one said. “Name’s Nordie.” He stuck out his hand.
“Mind if we come aboard?” his skinny partner chirped. Instead of waiting for an answer he stretched out his long legs and hopped onto the deck. There was something very disconcerting about his high reedy voice.
“Hey,” the Reverend protested and he jumped back on board as well. “Are you here to see about having a cremation?” He didn’t much like the looks of this scrawny hombre.
“Could be,” the bigger one, Nordie, grunted. He also managed to get himself onto the boat by hopping across the foot-wide gap over the murky, oil-streaked water below. “Is this here where you do it?” he asked, pointing to the walnut-stained marine plywood pulpit.
“That’s where I conduct my services from, yes,” the Reverend said. “What kind of service might you fellas have in mind?” He was uneasy about this situation since night was falling and there was no one visible about the deserted marina. There wasn’t much help from any artificial light either, except the twinkle of the seafood restaurant across the inlet. He was grateful that he carried a pistol under his shirt by his butt.
“Cooperation, more than anything,” the tall one squeaked in his tin voice. “You was asked by a certain gentleman to join up in a business transaction, but from what I hear you threatened him.”
That voice reminded Horton of something he’d heard in a horror movie at the Prytania Theater when he was a child, and his hand instantly went to the s
mall of his back.
“Dude’s packing!” the squeaky voice screeched.
Nordie shouted, “Whoa!” and put his meaty fist into the Reverend’s gut.
The skinny one moved fast and slapped a homemade blackjack, consisting of ball bearings in a Crown Royal pouch, across the Reverend’s forehead.
Horton went down.
“Christ, did you kill him?” Nordie moaned in dismay. “We’re just supposed to scare him.”
The skinny one, known as Gums, bent over the pastor’s body and checked him out frantically.
“Naw. He’s breathing,” he said with relief. “We’d better tie him up.”
“Good idea. What with?”
“That rope should do it.” Gums leapt off the boat and undid the line attaching the stern of the “Divine Immersion” to a cleat on the dock. He jumped back aboard, and together the two men disarmed the Reverend and tied him securely to the top of his pulpit.
Pastor Horton came to and realized he was immobilized and defenseless. He groggily observed his two assailants attempting to disembark.
The boat’s stern had drifted out a few feet in the breeze, though the bow was still secured. Gums misjudged the situation, and when he stepped over the deck rail he plunged directly into the Lake.
He screamed for help!
Nordie determined that he might still reach solid ground from the front of the boat if he moved quickly enough, and did so. He successfully jumped the distance to the dock, landing cursing on his stomach. Groaning to his feet he hastened to assist his companion, who was in deep trouble, being weighted down with his Georgia Giant boots and various weapons.
“Grab my hand!” Nordie yelled, waving it around while lying prostrate on the clammy wooden wharf. He reached into the darkness as far as he dared. That wasn’t very far, but Gums saw this one chance to avoid a watery death, mounted a heroic surge, and got his long arm high enough so that Nordie could grab it. The muscular man had prodigious upper-body strength and averted catastrophe by extricating his friend with a single pull, like sucking a straw from a daiquiri, out of the oily, placid waters of Lake Pontchartrain.
“My fuckin’ gun. My fuckin’ wallet. Everything’s soaked,” Gums yelled shrilly, gasping for air.
Horton turned his head to watch them scamper away in the darkness, exchanging unprintable maledictions and imprecations.
He started screaming for help at the top of his lungs.
Eventually a couple of teenage lovers, necking in the darkness on an isolated concrete bench, came over to see what the problem was. They were glad to know that they weren’t going to get into trouble, and after they untied the preacher, they were showered with gift cards for discounted cremations.
CHAPTER VIII
In the course of his brief possession of the “JFK Papers” and his encounter with the old Cubans, Tubby had come to know the names of only two of the remaining members of the group. He was pretty sure who the keeper of the ideology, which meant “security,” was— the Night Watchman. He was a retired cop named Kronke. And the lawyer was positive that the other living member was a priest named Abel de Jesús Escobar, whom the group had called the “Confessor.”
Taking advantage of the priest’s absence, Tubby had once broken into, or had let his private investigator Sanré “Flowers” break into, the clergyman’s residence, and they had made off with those same papers, which they had found hidden in the priest’s bedroom. By now the lawyer figured that the violent old man actually might have died from age or meanness. But Escobar was still around.
Father Escobar did not have a church assignment any more. He was officially retired and could have lived with other religious people like himself in a rectory over on Jackson Avenue, but he preferred to keep his own small house on Belfast Street near Notre Dame Seminary. He was making coffee there for Cisco Bananza, who had been the Father’s altar boy at St. Agapius Church back in the days of vigor.
Cisco was almost thirty now and had a family of his own. However, he came over to visit the priest most Saturday mornings. Escobar was, and had always been, his only spiritual leader. Father was also the one who ultimately controlled the purse strings to the Rosary Box and its hoard of money accumulated to finance the coming revolution in Cuba— the revolution that had been coming for decades. Cisco was the Rosary Box caretaker, serving at the priest’s pleasure.
Father Escobar would pour coffee, offer a special prayer, then relax into the conversation. This morning, the prayer was short, and Escobar was anything but relaxed.
“What’s bothering you, Padre?” Cisco asked.
“I’m troubled by almost everything, Francisco,” Escobar said, using Cisco’s given name. “That Judas Oliver Prima is hounding us.”
“Hounding us about the ‘Papal Scrolls’?” Cisco asked. That was the word they used for the organization’s prized archives, the cache that had once been briefly held by Tubby before being stolen back.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Escobar told him. “I think we should have a meeting to consider this.”
“Is that really wise, Father? Everyone is concerned about….”
“Surveillance! You have procedures and protocols, don’t you? At least you must have learned that much. Codes? That sort of thing?”
“Yes,” Cisco replied patiently. “We get together regularly.”
“You meet at your stupid soccer games!” Escobar cried, obviously experiencing inner turmoil. Spit formed on his lips. Cisco was mortified by this security breach. They had all been instructed for years to speak in code and to refer to anything important by a secret name. The investment company, for instance, was called the “Rectory,” and the safe deposit box was called the “Rosary Box.” Their inherited armory was the “Guard’s Room.” He tried to shut the priest up with a finger to his own lips.
“I can go to a soccer game, too, can’t I?” Escobar demanded, incensed by the fate age had bequeathed to him.
The Priest had grown far too careless, thought Cisco. He knew that some might consider himself paranoid, but he couldn’t be sure that Escobar’s apartment wasn’t being watched, or maybe bugged. And under no circumstances did the young man want the priest appearing at any prep school soccer match. If he did he might learn how small Cisco’s supposed “group” was. The young man shook his head emphatically.
“I hate to disagree, Padre, but your showing up at a game to have a private meeting with us really wouldn’t work. Everybody knows who you are. You would attract far too much attention. It would be better if you just told me your message, just as you always do, and I’ll deliver it.”
“My message is that you boys should do something other than raise little babies, for God’s sake,” Escobar lamented. “All of you should remember that you carry the banner of the movement. Take all of those guns we gave you and use them.”
Cisco gasped. “Father…”
Escobar continued his rant. “You’ve all been trained to be leaders. Your forebears are too old to fight anymore.”
“I got it Father,” Cisco said. “I’ll deliver the message. You’ll see some action, I promise.”
“Do that, and the next time we meet you can tell me what steps you and your compatriots are taking to further our grand ideals.”
“Okay, okay. I said I got it.”
“Before you know it, the tourists will be taking ferries from Miami to Havana.” The priest’s voice trailed off. He was running out of steam.
“I’d better be going,” Cisco said soothingly. “You look tired.”
“I am tired, but I want to know about the Rosary Box.”
“The Box is fine. It’s all fine. We’re still making money.”
Escobar groaned. “That’s not the point. The money is not for you to get rich with!”
“I know. The point is to further the movement, but nevertheless there is nothing to worry about.”
“It’s a good thing I trust you, Cisco,” the priest muttered.
“You can always
trust me,” Cisco assured him, and reached for one of his host’s Cuban sugar cookies.
“But I think I want to see our money,” Escobar said. “Next week or the week following, I want you to take me to look in the Rosary Box. Just to be sure everything is on the up and up.”
“Of course, Father,” Cisco quickly agreed.
But he would have to think of some reason to delay that trip or prevent it altogether since, at this particular moment, the Box was more than a little light.
* * *
After Cisco left, Escobar lifted his black telephone handset, which weighed a pound, and dialed a number he knew by heart. The Night Watchman answered.
“Hello, Father,” the man said softly.
“There’s unfinished business to talk about,” the priest said.
“The lawyer?”
“Of course! He’s never been properly dealt with. The man had the audacity to violate the sanctity of my house!”
“I’m working on it,” the Night Watchman said. “How are your little altar boys doing?”
“They’re not little. They are the next generation. They just have to be continuously prodded down the right path.”
The Night Watchman scoffed. “They haven’t got what it takes, Father, and they never will have.”
“Don’t worry about them. You’ve got your own job to do.”
“Don’t we all?” The Night Watchman let a second pass and then hung up.
He liked to do that. He wasn’t a pretty man. A pitted face had made him an angry adolescent, and knife fights as a kid followed by almost four decades of gritty police work in the family tradition had left him mean and bitter. Not to mention that throughout it all he was an underground, angry, anti-government subversive and hooligan in the cause of defeating international socialism. This was also in the family tradition. He was barrel-shaped now, like the seedy ex-cop he was, but it was all muscle and, despite his appearance, he was cerebral as hell. He read very frightening political essays, and was secretly writing his own. His wife of twenty-five years quivered at the sight of him, and it wasn’t from desire.