by Tony Dunbar
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Tubby said.
“I’m right here,” she replied with a smile.
A bell rang and their orders were ready.
Two wonderful po-boys appeared. Peggy seemed to find their abundance as stimulating as he did. They dug in, and while under the spell of their indulgence, they made plans for later that evening. Somehow, Tubby never got around to what he wanted to talk about.
They were oblivious to the man waiting in the take-out line who was watching them intently. He might have liked it if they had looked over and seen him.
* * *
Cisco and a few other dedicated descendants of the original patriots knew the answers to some of the questions Cherrylynn had posed to Professor Prima. They knew that their noble but oft-defeated tradition had begun in the days of the Cuban Revolution with the heroes who splashed ashore at the Bay of Pigs. The patriots would have reclaimed the homeland but for the betrayal of their crusade by John F. Kennedy and the rest of his worthless administration.
With an unspent cache of weapons and money, and propaganda and blood, the older generation had continued the fight against the relentless cancer of creeping worldwide socialism. Their mission had passed to their children. Now it was supposed to be the grandchildren’s turn.
It was a cause you were born into, not one you could join. But it was hard, Cisco knew, to get the boys motivated.
Most of the grandkids, “the guys,” as Cisco, referred to them, had kids of their own. While they all greatly admired their heritage, the fact was that school, dads’ clubs, and sports kept getting in the way of world revolution and so many other things. Generally speaking, their wives got along well, so they all often managed to get together for barbeques, Saints games, and birthday parties. But politics? Not so much.
But if they did want to talk seriously, it was easy enough to meet at their kids’ soccer matches, which seemed to occur two or three times a week and could eat up entire weekends.
This Saturday, by the river in Audubon Park, Cisco’s eight-year-old was playing along with José’s godchild for the St. Germaine Sentinels against the Pius School Princes, on which two of the other guys’ boys were “all stars.” The Princes had just raised the score to 2 to 0, thanks to a spectacular header by José’s little nephew. Cisco rose from his lawn chair to stretch his legs.
“How about some fries?” he asked his wife, who shook her head.
“I’m watching my waist, honey,” she said.
Cisco beckoned to José, and together they walked to the Princes’s cheering section where they collected the other guys.
“Your kid’s a fucking monster,” José commented to Cisco as they drifted out of the lights and away from the field.
When they were assembled, Cisco huddled them up and said he had another message from their priest.
“Father wants us to get serious,” he explained.
José was big as an NFL lineman, ex-Army and divorced. He liked things that went boom and was usually game for just about anything that gave him a rush. “What does our good priest have in mind?” he asked eagerly.
The others listened warily. They all had kids and dull jobs and had to be more cautious in their commitments.
“That’s just the problem,” Cisco said. “Father Escobar wants us to show some initiative. He thinks we need to bring the movement forward, with something relevant to today, you know?”
“What’s he mean by that?” one of the dads asked. “Boosting the Papal Scrolls wasn’t serious? We had to steal a van. We had to turn off the alarms. We had to break into the Tulane University library. What’s not serious?”
“That was such a blast!” José shouted and pumped his fist. They all bumped knuckles in agreement.
“But there are still real threats,” Cisco reminded them, “and a bigger movement to think about. We probably do lack the vision thing. Father wants to know if we’re serious about the overall mission.”
“Does he still want to reclaim Cuba?” one of the group asked. He was anxious to get back to the game. “I think we did our thing recovering those papers. Wouldn’t it make sense to cool it for a while? You know, I got the wife. I got the…”
“Well, yes,” Cisco cut him off. “But we also have our obligations to the cause. For example, Father is seriously pissed off about Oliver Prima for planning to write a book about him and our parents, as if they were some ancient history. Believe me, Prima won’t portray our families as politically correct trailblazers either.”
“We could easily knock off Prima,” José suggested. “I know where he lives.” José favored T-shirts with the sleeves rolled up. He spent a lot of time at the gym working on his biceps. “And you know, we do have a whole lot of guns in the ‘Guard’s Room’. What do you guys want to do with those?”
“We’ll need those when Obama comes for us,” one of them theorized. “Cuba is a lost cause, anyway. I gotta go.” He slipped away to watch the kids play.
“I don’t know about that,” another said, “but I do know business opportunities are opening up down there now.”
Cisco sought to bring the dwindling group together. “I don’t disagree with Father that we should devote some time to defining our vision thing,” he said.
“That’s a good idea, but I’d suggest we secure our perimeter while we think this out,” José suggested.
“Meaning what?” Cisco prodded.
“Shut Prima’s mouth while we give this ‘big picture’ more discussion.”
“That may be the best idea,” Cisco agreed, since this was his viewpoint as well. As functional leader of the group, he was very practical when it came to planning the revolution and even more practical when it came to protecting the money in the Rosary Box.
Another covert action and a commitment to planning for the movement of the future would, he was sure, make Father Escobar happy. It would also buy Cisco some time to straighten out the books and replenish a certain shortfall in the Box. “Okay,” he said. “So here’s the deal.”
* * *
Later, in a dark room across town, the Night Watchman reported to Father Escobar that he planned soon to make his “effective” and long-promised move on the meddlesome lawyer, Tubby Dubonnet.
“You’ll never get any action out of your little boys,” he added.
The daggers in his voice bugged Father Escobar sometimes, though he had played a role in training the hit man. He wondered sometimes what truly motivated his henchman. There had been whispers once that he was a spy for the FBI. The Night Watchman had so brutally assassinated those who dared spread such rumors that the talk simply went away. Escobar was personally grateful that they were on the same side.
CHAPTER XII
It had become ten in the morning on Sunday, and Tubby had a date. She was his middle daughter, who was in graduate school at LSU in Baton Rouge but was back in New Orleans visiting her mother for the weekend. She had surprisingly agreed to have lunch with him, and he told her to pick the place, expecting something vegan featuring a menu dominated by kale. But her diet had changed remarkably.
“Dat Dog?” he exclaimed in surprise. “That definitely works for me. I’ll swing by and pick you up around noon.”
So he put on khakis and a clean polo from M. Goldberg’s and drove to his old house, where his ex-wife still lived. He rang the bell and immediately Christine popped out. She said that Mattie, his ex, was “in the back,” which was just as well.
Christine was trim and shapely and had a great smile and a pile of curly hair. It was currently blond with pink highlights. She hugged her father with enthusiasm and skipped to his car.
The restaurant was only a few blocks away. Diners ate on picnic tables outside under a canopy over what used to be the driveway of a gas station, and they only served hot dogs or sausages, with just about anything you could imagine to dress them up. They also had several lavish versions of French fries. It was a New Orleans original and the owners wouldn’t disclose the source of t
heir sausages.
Tubby got the “basic” beef wiener and had it topped with guacamole, ketchup, bacon, ranch dressing, Asian coleslaw, onions, olive salad and mustard. He also placed an order for New York Sharp Cheddar Cheese Fries for the table.
Christine got a grilled duck sausage, with the simpler, yet still adventurous, condiments of mayonnaise, sauerkraut and Pico de Gallo. They carried their orders, and a couple of Barqs, outside.
“This carnivorous stuff is something new for you,” he commented approvingly when they found a table. The day was warm for a change.
“I’ve shifted from brontosaurus food to cave man food,” she laughed. Her course of study was paleontology.
“How is school?” It was his routine opening question, and she had anticipated it.
She told him that everything was fine and described her palynology professor who was “creepy” when he lectured about the reproductive roles of spores and pollen. They dug into the mound of fries.
“And how’s your roommate?” he prompted to keep hearing her voice. “What’s her name?”
“Oh, Ariella is okay. She’s mad at me for coming home to New Orleans this weekend. She wanted to go hear some all-girl band at Bayou Blast.”
“I’m glad you came down instead. It’s been a while. This is a great hot dog, by the way. How’s yours?”
“Excellent,” she tried to say, but she was wiping her lips with a napkin. “I’m glad I came, too, but I don’t like to make Ariella upset. It’s important to keep peace in the family.”
“The family?”
“Daddy, we are living together.”
“Well, I know that, but…”
“But what?”
“It’s not like you’re married.”
There was a long pause. “Are you?” Tubby asked.
“No, we’re not,” said Christine. “But we have talked about it.”
“Hmmm.” Tubby was non-committal, but he was processing.
“You like her, don’t you?” his daughter asked.
“Sure. What I’ve seen of her. I’ve only met her twice and one of those times she had the flu or something.” What about grandchildren? he was thinking.
“I think it was cramps. Maybe you could come up to Baton Rouge. We’ll show you around all the neat places.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Tubby accepted the invitation. It was too easy to disengage when the kids got old enough to have lives of their own. You had to work at it to stay in touch. “I just want you to be happy. Did I tell you I’ve been seeing someone?” he asked.
“That lady from Chicago? The one with the bright red hair?”
Tubby had forgotten he’d ever mentioned Marguerite to Christine. “No. She moved to Florida and somehow, uh, it just didn’t work out.”
Christine pinched some melted cheese from the fries and dropped into her mouth. “So, who’s the new one?” she asked innocently.
“A very nice lady. Her name is Peggy and she lives across the Lake on a horse farm. She’s very active in several arts organizations, and we get along. There’s just one problem.”
“Isn’t there always?” Christine remarked, as if she were the wise parent.
“Yeah, I guess, but…”
The phone in his pocket buzzed. With a sigh, he dug it out. Christine took that opportunity to check her own.
“Mr. Dubonnet, this is Angelo.” The man’s voice was strained.
“What’s up?”
“I need to see you.”
“We have an appointment tomorrow at my office.”
“I’m in trouble now. Another of my delivery guys got pushed off his bike, and they dumped out all of his bottles of water on the street. All my other guys are afraid to come in.”
“Did you call the police?”
“I don’t do that. And my girl is in trouble.”
“What do you want me to do today? It’s Sunday?”
“I want you to keep me from taking my gun and shooting someone with it.”
“Where are you now?”
“At my shed, where my well is, on Lesseps Street.”
“Okay. I’ll get over there.” He hung up.
“An upset client,” he explained to Christine with a frown.
“Who is it?”
“A guy named Angelo Spooner. He turns out some special bottled water called ‘Angelo’s Elixir’.”
“Oh, we drink it all the time!” Christine exclaimed, thrilled. “Ariella is a complete freak for the stuff.”
“Really? He wants me to come over and see him right now. At what he calls his ‘well’. I’ve never been there before.”
“I’ll go with you,” Christine stated.
“I don’t think so. It might be a little risky. I’m not sure Angelo is quite right in the head.”
Christine’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me, right?” she said. In the immediate aftermath of Katrina, Christine had been kidnapped and abused by a deranged prison escapee named Bonner Rivette. Having survived that ordeal she now considered herself bullet proof.
Tubby didn’t argue with her. Christine was supposed to be his for the afternoon anyway.
* * *
The old front gate made out of galvanized roofing tin had been replaced by wrought iron welded into a pretty pattern over thick sheets of black steel. The doorbell was under a brass plate on which “Angelo’s” was handsomely engraved, but there was no response when Christine pressed it. Tubby called Angelo’s phone, but no luck. The gate wasn’t locked, however, and it creaked halfway open when pushed. Tubby stuck his head inside but there was nothing much to see except a wooden building painted turquoise with orange trim, its door ajar. Christine tried to edge past him. He elbowed her out of the way.
“Hey, Angelo,” Tubby called, entering the yard. “Anybody home?”
From inside the shed there was a humming noise, like a small motor running. There was no activity and no sign of people about except a bicycle leaning against the fence. Tubby went over to the shed and pulled open the barn-like door.
The hum got louder. He peered inside. It was very bright, lit by overhead florescent lights. The sound came from a pump hooked up to pipes that ran through the wall, evidently to the well, and there was a stainless steel contraption not much bigger than a microwave that was apparently intended to channel the water through a nozzle into plastic bottles. Crates of them, empty and full, lined the walls and were stacked all over the floor, where there also happened to be the prone body of a man wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt.
His head had been nearly severed off, but not quite. The dead eyes stared inappropriately away at a right angle to his shoulders. There was no need to check out the gaping mouth, frozen in a horrified scream, or the unblinking eyes, black pits of pain, to know that the man wasn’t living. The sound of the motor wouldn’t go away.
Christine looked over his shoulder and gasped but caught herself. “That puddle of blood around his neck still looks wet,” she said weakly, “but that’s not Angelo.”
Sure enough, Tubby saw nothing in the lifeless white face to resemble the healthy, fat man with wavy black hair who stared at him smiling on the labels of a thousand Elixir bottles.
“Makes you wonder where Angelo is.” Tubby used his cell phone to call 911.
* * *
The policemen, who began to arrive slowly about 30 minutes after Tubby made the call, wondered the same thing. They also wondered who Tubby and Christine were but got that straightened out in a few minutes. A big African American cop checked the corpse for a pulse and herded the visitors outside. They were told to stick around. A plainclothesman eventually showed up. He went inside the shed.
The lawyer and his daughter wandered over to the well. It was securely covered so there wasn’t much to see. It didn’t look like it could possibly be a hiding place for a killer, assuming that the stiff on the floor hadn’t cut off his own head.
The detective emerged and approached the pair.
“I’m Lieutenant Mathews
on,” he said.
Tubby introduced himself. “I got a call about an hour ago from a Mr. Angelo Spooner, who asked me to meet him here.”
“Do either of you know the man inside?”
“No,” Tubby said. Christine shook her head.
“The name on his drivers’ license is Michael Battistella. Mean anything?”
Again, they both shook their heads.
There was a small commotion at the front gate, and a reporter and her photographer barged in.
Usually, Tubby wasn’t happy to see Kathy Jeansonne, a veteran news hustler who had switched over to the Advocate when the Times-Picayune moved to Alabama. She spotted Tubby instantly and made a beeline for him.
“Counselor,” she said hungrily, eyeing him as prey.
“Kathy,” Tubby acknowledged sweetly. “There’s a dead body inside.”
“And you are?” Detective Mathewson asked, as if there were any doubt. Nevertheless, she proudly revealed the newspaper ID card that she had clipped in the pocket of her blouse.
“Who’s the deceased?” she asked, her throat reddening.
“Don’t know yet,” the cop said.
“The name on his license is Michael Battistella,” Tubby said helpfully. It never hurt to give a freebie to the press. “And he’s been decapitated.”
Jeansonne’s eyes watered and she had to suppress a sob of joy. She pivoted away from Tubby and practically ran to the shed, photographer in tow.
“Wait! Hey!” The detective yelled.
Father and daughter were left to their own devices.
“This has turned into a pretty stimulating afternoon,” Christine observed.
Tubby’s advice was, “Don’t tell your mother.”
“Did you see a murder weapon?” she asked.
Tubby shook his head. “Let’s get out of here while we still can,” he suggested.
They nodded to the policeman guarding the front gate and kept going.
CHAPTER XIII
“AXE MURDER REPORTED IN BYWATER,” read the morning’s headline in the Metro section.
Tubby enjoyed reading about it over his bacon, biscuits and eggs at Ted’s Frostop, but he didn’t learn much about the murder that was new. It wasn’t necessarily an axe though, but “an instrument with a sharp blade.” There was some information about the victim. He was thirty-two, a former “correctional officer” with the Sherriff’s Department, and a member of the “7th Ward Gentlemen,” a club that marched in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. This last tidbit was courtesy of an old story about when Mr. Battistella, Budweiser in hand, had driven the club’s sound truck into the crowd on Louisiana Avenue, injuring three pedestrians. No arrest ensued.