A Diamond Before You Die

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A Diamond Before You Die Page 20

by Chris Wiltz


  32

  * * *

  Epilogue

  Chance Callahan found Leonard Yastovich’s body in the trunk of his car, which is where Quiro had put it. Quiro hadn’t been out to get Yastovich; he had followed me from the Decatur Street motel where he’d been waiting to get Mr. D., and he’d killed Yastovich to save me, because I was such a Good Samaritan (fixing broken windows at the Cotton house, and, generally, looking out for Richard Cotton). But when he did that, it became the first part of his plan to terrorize Callahan, maybe even to murder him, and it had spooked the silver seal badly. It hadn’t been necessary for Quiro to know why Richard Cotton was scared of Callahan. As a kid, he’d hero-worshiped Cotton; as a man, he loved him, fanatically. Any enemy of Cotton’s was his enemy, too.

  Quiro, it seemed, was good at saving everyone but himself. He’d gotten a good look at the raspy-voiced psychopath who liked to carve people’s faces before he killed them. His name was Thurston, and if Callahan had paid Thurston all the money he’d promised him, he might have gotten away with everything—because the cop who shot the black kid never did crack and neither did Callahan on that subject. Hell, maybe that was another one of those coincidences. Anyway, Thurston stuck around New Orleans for three days trying to see Callahan and get his money. The police picked him up on his way out of town and he spilled his guts. After that, Uncle Roddy took over.

  Whenever Uncle Roddy and the old man get together to toss back a few beers now, sooner or later the scene that went down in Callahan’s office gets replayed. At this point, the old man knows more about it than Uncle Roddy does. Uncle Roddy plays himself, tough cop armed with the facts and a lot of shrewd bluff, and the old man plays a much too limp-wristed Callahan finally breaking. Whenever I’m invited to one of their beer-drinking sessions, I try to leave before they get started. One thing, though, neither one of them has ever thrown it up to me that I was wrong about Angelesi having Myra killed. Maybe they don’t because they know it wouldn’t matter anymore.

  I’m free from the obsession of Myra’s death, and it isn’t just because I found out the truth about her murder. I also found out she wasn’t the only woman I could love. I still miss her sometimes, but there are no longer any thoughts about the way it could have been, just about the way it was, the good times, along with the reality that Myra lived like she did because she liked living that way—on the edge. I never could have changed her; only growing old would have, if she hadn’t self-destructed first.

  Even the Euclid isn’t so bad these days. The reason I got such fast action when the bathtub upstairs overflowed was because the owners put in a new manager. They’re fixing the place up, and now that I’m feeling so settled in, watch it go condo, and I’ll have to move, anyway. But I won’t go back to the Channel, and, the truth of it is, I would feel as out of place living in the Garden District as Richard Cotton would feel playing pool at Grady’s Irish Channel bar.

  The Bucktown Tavern is boarded up and in a state of such deterioration that it will probably fall into the lake during the next big blow. The owners were fined a pittance of what they’re worth for showing porno flicks, and they did a stretch of time on the narcotics rap. But they’re millionaires from a drug scam that disappeared without a trace the night of Callahan’s vice raids. Callahan’s drug money, though, won’t do him any good.

  Richard no longer lives in the house in the Garden District. Paula divorced him and lives there alone. Because Richard didn’t have to testify against Callahan, and because Paula had no desire for anyone to know she’d married a homosexual, Richard’s sexual identity is still his own business. He is, as he has always been, the victim of his own duplicity, giving up his law practice and living like a hermit in Covington. Every once in a while I go over there to make sure he’s still with us and drink a glass of port with him.

  As for Lee Diamond—that night in front of Richard Cotton’s house was the last time I saw her for a long time. We spoke once, and she managed to stay cool and unemotional. I didn’t. If you want to get right down to it, that is what we were really arguing about.

  When we did finally see each other again, the same spark was there, but the circumstances were different, and—well, let’s get into that another time.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Chris Wiltz

  ISBN 978-1-4976-5570-6

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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