Flag Boy

by Tony Dunbar

  Today he planned to have his conversation with the cops. It would be unkind to the dignity of the law were he to continue on the well-worn path of his legal practice while concealing the evidence he knew of the crime of murdering Detective Kronke at the conclusion of the “Fat Man” investigation. He imagined how he would defend the killer. He would emphasize the mental stress he had been under at the time and, more than that, there was the justifiability of the homicide. Detective Paul Kronke had to be stopped before he killed someone else. As everyone knows, a justifiable homicide is no murder at all. But he didn’t expect to get the chance to defend this case in court.

  The first step was to locate Lieutenant Adam Mathewson, who had been a witness to Kronke’s shooting on the levee and who had very nearly been another one of the victims.

  Tubby was surprised to be informed by the woman who answered the phone at police headquarters that Detective Mathewson, like Kronke before his sudden death, had also retired. No, she would not take a message, but, since Tubby claimed to be Adam’s old friend from St. Agapius parochial school, she suggested, “You might try Priebus’s bar.” Further research revealed that this was “Priebus’s Trumpet Lounge” on Roman Street near St. Claude.

  That’s where Tubby found the former policeman at six o’clock that same evening. As he walked the block from his car to the outwardly decrepit dive, Tubby spied the detective’s burly shoulders departing the bar and lumbering away on the sidewalk. He hurried ahead to catch him.

  “Wait, Adam,” the lawyer called.

  Mathewson took one quick look over his shoulder and ducked between two parked vehicles. He came up with a gun pointed over the hood directly at Tubby’s midsection.

  “Yo, Hey!” Tubby protested, coming up short. “What’s up, partner? Just want to talk.”

  “Stay where you are, dude. What do you want with me?” Mathewson’s voice was like a truck grinding gears. His face was flushed and ringed with stubbly whiskers.

  “I want to talk to you, that’s all. You were there, right? You saw the whole thing!”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mathewson said. “Don’t you take a step forward! The man is wasted a foot from me, and now you want to talk? Bullshit!”

  “That’s just it!” Tubby yelled. “I want all of the facts to be known!”

  “I’m retired, you donkey. Get the hell out of here before I blow off your knees!”

  “Now look here,” Tubby began, taking a step forward, “My intentions…”

  In a flash, Mathewson was gone. He bolted into the dark street and ran away into the shadows.

  Boy, he’s fast for a big dude, Tubby thought to himself.

  Evidently, Lt. Adam Mathewson was not going to serve his purpose.

  Back in his own car, Tubby worked the phone. He learned that the detective in charge of investigating the death of Paul Kronke was Sgt. Johnny Vodka. Tubby had met this Latino cop years before in his search for the elusive “Crime Czar” and had the impression that he was an intense and honest man.

  In time, he got Vodka on the phone, but the best that could be arranged was coffee the next morning at the Trolley Stop on St. Charles Avenue. Tubby was forced to spend another night home alone with his memories and conscience.

  Tubby realized that he was in a weird mental place. Shootings happened all the time. Kronke was already yesterday’s news, and it was affecting him more than it was anyone else. But the slate had to be wiped, didn’t it? The music had to be faced.

  In the meantime, he stayed away from places that to him were pleasurable, like Janie’s Monkey Business Bar. He didn’t call his girlfriend Peggy O’Flarity either, being not ready yet to let her know he was back in town. But because he needed some contact, he did call his daughters, Christine, Debbie and Collette, each in turn according to youngest first.

  Collette, who was a recent LSU at Lafayette grad and was dating a rap musician, had all of her shields up. Some kind of electronic music provided the background for, “Leave a message when you hear the drums.”

  “It’s me. Just called to say hi,” he told her phone.

  Christine answered her phone, but she was on the run to study, she said, at some friends’ house. She was in grad school.

  “Where have you been, Daddy?” she asked in a rush.

  “Over in Mississippi, uh…” he said.

  “Did you have a good trip?”

  “I made it back” was all he could come up with. “How’s school?”

  “Great. Listen, can I call you back? I’m getting in the car now, and I’m late.”

  Debbie, the only one of his daughters with a child, was now in her early thirties. She was actually willing to talk, though he had caught her at work. She was in the music business, as in selling pools of song rights owned by undiscovered local Swamp Pop artists to investor funds. Tubby was a little in awe of this career, which seemed to be lucrative though he didn’t understand it. He told Debbie that he had visited Rev. Buddy Holly in Mississippi, which was exciting to her since Holly had officiated at Debbie’s marriage to Marcos a few years back.

  “And do you remember meeting Faye Sylvester?” he asked her. “You know, at Buddy’s farm?”

  “Of course,” Debbie said. “She’s a beautiful lady. She got me to talk about a lot of things that really troubled me back then. How is she doing?”

  “Well, the sad thing is, she’s passed away,” Tubby told her.

  “Oh no!” Debbie exclaimed. “Was she sick?”

  “I don’t know all the details,” her father hedged, “but I expect I will go to her funeral.”

  “Didn’t you and she have, sort of, an affair?”

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “I know lots of things.”

  “Yeah, I guess we did,” Tubby told her. “But it ended.”

  “Will you let me know when the service is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay, Daddy?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  * * *

  At night it was really creepy in Central Lockup. The televisions, which had been running endless music videos on Black Entertainment Television all day, were now tuned to reality shows, like “The Real Housewives of Atlanta”. Whooping and hollering was discouraged by the constabulary, but the men could still make loud and insulting comments about all of the women who appeared on screen. The TVs were interspersed around the room, but they were all on the same channel. Spirits high, the prisoners could taunt and threaten each other across the bunks. There were fifty beds in the unit, and fifty apiece in three other identical units on the floor. There was a guard station in each unit, but the guard on duty was typically entranced by his or her phone.

  Ednan had a cot more or less in the middle of the hall next to Peanut, who was some kind of albino. No one befriended the “Terrorist,” as they referred to Ednan, because he could not easily be classified as black, white, or Hispanic. The albino Peanut was another outcast. The two odd prisoners tried to look after each other. Peanut was awaiting trial for breaking into cars, a lot of cars. He had exhausted his neighbors’ patience in the Seventh Ward, and somebody snitched him out. But he never hurt anybody, and he never really found anything of value to steal. There was also some male prostitution charge on him, but Ednan didn’t believe that one could be true. Peanut would do all right on the outside if only he had a few friends and a chance to get a job, or at least this was to be Ednan’s argument as to why some lawyer should help him, if only he had a lawyer. Otherwise he’d be completely screwed since the public defender would probably meet with him only once, the morning of trial, and urge him to take a plea for a year or two in prison. As it was, Peanut was facing two to five.

  There was a big dude who liked to walk over to Ednan’s spot in the evening and harass him. “Hey, Terrorist,” the guy said. “You killed all them Vietnamese people, huh? Was it a hate crime, or what? You just hate slanty-eyed people, or do you hate black people, too?”

  “He didn’t do that crime,
man, and he don’t hate black people neither,” Peanut said in Ednan’s defense. “Him and me are friends, aren’t we?”

  “You ain’t black, Peanut,” the man laughed. “You’re just some kind of freak.”

  “I like freaks,” Ednan rose up and said. “I don’t like anybody but freaks.”

  “So, I guess that means you don’t like me.”

  “You’re all right. When you mind your own business.”

  “My business is on the outside, Terrorist, and I’ll be seeing you when we get out there. You and your cute little man-bun.”

  Ednan settled back. He fingered his hair, then turned over and closed his eyes. This jail was a creepy place at night.

  Ednan had one nice thing to think about. He had a girlfriend named Ayana. They weren’t exactly going steady, but Ednan was sure they would be soon, just as quickly as he could get out of this joint.

  * * *

  Ayana was fair and saucy. She had a very high opinion of herself. She wore nice clothes, since her father had a steady job and doted on her. She was a majorette in her high school marching band and got to shimmy and shake in a tight red-sequined leotard right in front of the horn section. All the boys were so crazy for her they could barely keep time. She wasn’t Honor Roll by any means, but she was going to graduate and do well. That was the plan.

  She was sorry to hear that Ednan had been arrested. “He’s such a sweet dummy,” she told her father, but she didn’t plan on going to visit him in jail. There was a fine young man named “Stroker” who lived in the neighborhood and who DJ’ed all the local parties. He had a non-stop patter everybody loved and could get you dancing as soon as he flipped on his mike. And he had started to pay attention to Ayana, calling her name when she passed the stoop he hung out on, saying her clothes looked so good, asking when she would go out with him. “Ayana,” he sang, “take me to Nirvana.” It wasn’t going to take much for her to say yes.

  In his cot, Ednan fell asleep thinking about Ayana. She stayed awake in her bed at home thinking about Stroker.

  CHAPTER 9

  “I woke up early this morning. I dreamed about what you did to me!” Jenny, the physique artist, was walking down Magazine Street talking on her phone. “You bastard!” she cried.

  “Yeah, you did too!” She continued her monologue. “You took off my panties and you felt me all over. While you had me doped up.” She was passing a bakery and people eating croissants at a sidewalk table heard some of this but ignored her. You heard snippets of private conversations all the time these days, and it was okay as long as the people kept moving and didn’t burden you with their whole life stories.

  “No, you fucking asshole, I don’t want to see you again! And I don’t want to pay your fucking bill either! And I want my pictures back!”

  Around the corner from Valence Street came a band of Mardi Gras Indians marching to loud tambourines and tom-toms. They were chanting in time while pirouetting to display their flaming plumage and costumes. A small but spirited second line had formed up behind them. Most of the people were jazzed up and dancing and drinking plastic cups of beer.

  “I can’t hear you!” the woman screamed into the phone. She was so stressed that she started to exercise her shoulders back and forth, limbering herself up to squeeze into some tiny safe space.

  The parade turned at the corner, in the direction she was headed. She held back on the sidewalk, waiting for them to pass.

  “What, you asshole? I can’t hear you!” she yelled again.

  She stared helplessly at her dead phone and slumped against the wall of a pizza restaurant. She punched in the number of her gymnast girlfriend, who answered and got a teary earful.

  “I just wanted to be shaped and sculpted,” Jenny sobbed. And it was true. It took a nip and a tuck sometimes to keep the body so small. Where she got the idea that the doctor took pictures, however, was less clear. Someone might have told her, or it might have come to her in a dream, but that did not matter. Jenny was convinced it was true.

  “I’m going to get him!” she assured her friend. “We’ll bring him out to the forest where all the birds can see and finish him there.”

  Her friend caught the “we” but did not object. She got her personal kicks going, with Jenny, where no man had gone before.

  * * *

  Tubby got to the restaurant early, but he found Officer Vodka already seated at a square table packing away his eggs, biscuits, and bacon. There were crumbs on the floor. He waved Tubby over, while at the same time talking to someone on the bluetooth stuck behind his ear.

  “Fuck no,” Vodka told somebody.

  Tubby took a seat.

  “Fuck no!” Vodka said again, louder, and twirled his eyes apologetically at the lawyer.

  The waitress passed by and Tubby ordered coffee and a menu, but he really wasn’t hungry. He had his toothbrush and a change of clothes in the car, ready to go to jail.

  The coffee came while Vodka was still on the phone, but he finally said, “Later,” to the somebody and asked Tubby, “What’s up?” He grabbed his own mug and took a gulp.

  “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met…”

  “Sure. Couple of years back. Before the storm. You’re a lawyer. I remember who you are. You were after our nutcase district attorney, Marcus Dementhe. What about it?”

  Vodka was a compact man with curly black hair and a tanned complexion that could have been Italian or Creole, but he was actually Mexican. Tubby noticed that the detective’s mouth always moved, whether he was eating, talking, or listening, like he was chewing gum. Tubby guessed him to be about forty years old. The kind of guy who pressed three hundred pounds and ran marathons.

  “I understand that you are working the homicide of Paul Kronke, the retired cop who was shot a couple of months ago out by the levee near Magazine Street.”

  “Yep, that’s my crime.” Vodka’s jaws worked overtime. “It ain’t going nowhere. Whatcha got?”

  “I have a suggestion about who the perp was.”

  “Yeah?” Vodka liked that. His eyes lit up. He grabbed a biscuit and stuffed a piece of it in his mouth. “It was a black female. Who was she?”

  “What!”

  “A black female. There was a reliable witness, whose name is Lt. Adam Mathewson, and I stress the ‘Lieutenant’ because he was a highly regarded police officer, and he said, in no uncertain terms, that the shooter was an African-American female.”

  “Not a white male? Why would he say that?”

  “Got me. Because it’s true? Because Kronke left behind a whole list of complaints from African-American females who said he had fucked them over? I don’t know? What the hell can you tell me about this? I’m all ears.”

  “Well, that’s news to me.”

  “So, who was she?”

  “I really don’t know. I guess I have to think about what you are saying.”

  The waitress came and refilled Tubby’s coffee cup.

  Vodka was still staring at him. “Want some cream?” he asked Tubby.

  “No, I drink it black.”

  “I don’t care for it without cream,” Vodka said, his jaw flexing. “You going to eat?”

  “No, I’m not too hungry, but this is on me. Have whatever you want. You’re my guest. I remember when you nailed Marcus Dementhe. He was one bad dude.”

  “Thanks, but we didn’t nail our cracked D.A. He ran away. He had some kind of fake passport and off he went. Out of the jurisdiction.”

  That was astonishing news. Faye’s deviant ex-husband, who preyed on innocent prostitutes, had slipped the noose.

  “When was that?” Tubby asked, fearing his consternation was evident. He absently took one of Vodka’s biscuits and started to butter it.

  “That was a long time ago, wasn’t it, Mr. Dubonnet? It was like, around the time of Katrina, right? A lot has happened since then. Anyway, Dementhe was just a possible suspect. For a murder, okay, but just a suspect. I don’t think there’s even a warrant still out for
him.”

  “Where could he have gone?” Tubby couldn’t believe he had been too absorbed in lesser matters to notice that Marcus Dementhe was never prosecuted. Maybe the guy would come back to New Orleans and go gunning for Tubby again.

  Vodka shrugged. “Where do they welcome criminals? Where is off the grid? I don’t know. Bolivia? Venezuela? Ecuador?”

  Tubby’s mind was in a whirl. Now there was also an ex-husband who really might have wanted Faye Sylvester to suffer.

  Vodka broke in. “Anyway, ancient history,” he said.

  Tubby forgot what he was doing, and his butter knife dropped to the floor.

  “Careful, buddy,” Vodka cautioned and picked up Tubby’s utensil. “So, what’s troubling you, man?” the cop asked. “Aren’t we catching enough gangsters to suit you? You want us to waste our time chasing after people who didn’t do anything.”

  “Maybe I will take some cream,” Tubby said. Vodka handed over the little pitcher, and Tubby stirred some in. “A hell of a way to start the day,” he said, to anyone who was listening.

  “Sir,” Vodka told him abruptly, standing up and tossing his napkin on the table. “Stop wasting my time. I’ve got too many other crimes to worry about. Let me know if you come up with something real. I’ve got work to do.” Almost as an aside, he mumbled to himself, “This is a sick city.”

  He was gone.

  The waitress returned, and Tubby ordered everything he could think of. He got the Southern Special, with sausage, bacon, grits and gravy, and three eggs sunny side up. And an “everything” bagel, heated up, with Philadelphia cream cheese.

  “Man.” He had to chuckle when she walked away with his order. “It’s hard to turn yourself in. I guess maybe I should just practice law.”

  Waiting for his breakfast to come, he imagined that he was still floating in the creek. His inflated black tube turned him slowly in the sunshine.

  The food came, but he ignored it. Deep in his thoughts, big trucks sped past him on the Interstate. They were all going to New Orleans and, if not there, on to Texas, where life’s vistas spread out forever. Feeling spacey, he paid for his breakfast and left it on the table.