The Contract

by JM Gulvin

  *

  De La Martin turned at the railroad station and headed towards the river. As he drove he worked a palm through his hair and spotted the taxi parked in a bay. Glancing in the mirror he switched lanes and pulled his Ford in behind. No sign of the blond-haired driver, he got out of his car and walked around the cab considering the sign on the roof and the meter, the shortwave radio fixed to the dash. He looked at the hood and the trunk and took a note of the license number. Then he got back in his Ford. The radio crackled and a voice came over the receiver. ‘Are you out there, Detective, pick up?’

  De La Martin unhooked the transmitter from its housing. ‘Copy that,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Marjorie reckons a teletype was sent last night and there’s no entry in her log. She’s asking if it was you and why you didn’t fill out the papers.’

  *

  Ten minutes after Franklin put down the phone the Malibu SS pulled up to the curb outside the Hotel Magnolia. In the passenger seat Soulja Blue glanced at his driver. He told him to park a little way down the street and wait. Then he got out of the car. Shaven head and yellow whites to his eyes, he straightened the flaps of his Nehru jacket.

  *

  Quarrie picked up the phone and asked Yvonne for an outside line. Dialling the organized crime squad he waited to be connected. Finally Colback spoke in his ear.

  ‘You got some nerve calling me again.’

  Quarrie glanced briefly at Gigi. ‘Lieutenant, quit jawing and listen for a minute, will you?’

  *

  Soulja Blue strode into the hotel courtyard and glanced at the metalled walkway before stepping into the lobby.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ Yvonne spoke up from the desk.

  ‘I need a room for the night.’

  ‘We can do that I think, yes, we can.’ She indicated for him to sign the register and he considered the list of names.

  ‘How about 33?’ he said. ‘Always been my lucky number.’

  ‘Yes, sir, 33 is fine. That’ll be sixteen-fifty including the sales tax.’

  The room was two doors further along from Quarrie’s and Soulja glanced at the window as he passed. Inside, he left the door on the latch, took an automatic from his pocket and slipped out the magazine. Popping out the topmost round with his thumb he pressed it back and slipped the magazine home once more. Then he laid the gun on the nightstand and picked up the phone.

  *

  When Quarrie finished talking to Colback he peeled a cigarette from his pack and tapped the inscribed end against the base of his thumb. ‘All right,’ he said, turning to Gigi. ‘Lieutenant Colback’s coming down in a piece and he wants to talk to you. When you’re done either you can go with him to some kind of safe house or I can take you to your nana’s apartment.’

  Gigi frowned. ‘I don’t trust the NOPD.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you do. But I figure you can trust Colback; someone’s playing him for a joker right now same as they’re playing me.’

  Letting her take a moment to think he opened the closet and picked up the folded newspaper.

  ‘What is that?’ Gigi asked.

  ‘It’s a copy of The Dallas Times Herald and I ain’t sure if it was here when I took this room or not.’ He folded the paper away. ‘Anyway, you can’t go home so unless you got anyone else, it’s your nana’s place or whatever Colback suggests.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Is there anywhere else you can stay?’

  Gigi shook her head. ‘There’s the band I guess, but I don’t want to do that. There used to be a cousin lived back my way but he left town a couple of years ago. Took him a loan out with Soulja Blue and couldn’t pay the vig. Soulja don’t take kindly to folks not paying what they owe so he took up a ball peen hammer. My cousin left out after that, I mean just as soon as he got done with Charity Hospital. Soulja never did get his money back, though he did try to lay that debt on me.’

  ‘Who’s Soulja Blue?’

  Gigi looked grim. ‘He’s a black man I’ve known since I was a kid. Got him a club on Bourbon and Governor Nicholls where white boys get to take it to women like me. I’m talking about the same way their great-grandpappies used to back in the day. From outside it’s a regular drugstore, but there’s a club in back and a show every night like a Catholic Mass only with colored girls getting naked and rooms for anything those white boys want to do after.’ Her eyes were heated then. ‘Soulja don’t care what happens just so long as the mess is cleaned up. If a girl’s been beat so bad nobody wants her anymore they have to pay what it costs to get him another.’

  She drank the rest of her coffee. ‘I think I will call Nana. I ain’t up for the NOPD.’

  ‘All right,’ Quarrie said. ‘Do that and when the lieutenant gets here we’ll take you over to her place.’

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ she said. ‘I got my old Chevy parked up the street.’

  ‘We’ll follow you then,’ Quarrie said. ‘Make sure you get there safe. She looks like you, your nana, same hairstyle. How old is she?’

  ‘She’s eighty. But she’s not actually my grandma, she’s my aunt. Nana’s her Christian name and I guess she raised me pretty much on account of how my momma died when she was having me.’

  Peering beyond him then she started talking as if the shock of having her life threatened had hit home suddenly and all she could do was focus on things that were familiar and close. ‘I don’t mean by herself,’ she said. ‘Two old mammies from the 7th had me come live with them and I guess that was on account of Nana was a woman on her own and she lived a particular kind of life. That life didn’t fit with children so they took care of me but Nana paid for everything and I visited with her all the time. I remember being at her place on the weekend when Lizzie Miles would come around and maybe it was on account of Lizzie that I got into singing. She and Nana used to go at it from time to time; you know, butt heads and all because of the way Nana lived and Lizzie being a Christian girl. I’ll be all right with Nana. She keeps a piece in the house and she’d shoot anyone who tried to get in. Haitian, old-time Creole, she speaks French a lot of the time and when she gets mad she falls into the patois and there ain’t no following her then.’ Breaking off she smiled. ‘She’s done pretty well for a woman on her own. That place where she lives at on Orleans Street, one of her lovers bought it back in the day.’

  ‘One of her lovers?’ Quarrie arched a quizzical brow.

  Again she smiled and got up off the bed. ‘Don’t worry; it sounds a whole lot worse than it is. It’s what I said before about women like us and the way things have to be. Nana had a few lovers in her time and when she was done with them she made sure she was a little further on than where she’d been. This guy was around for a while I guess, old white family from way back when. Plenty of money and younger than her. Course he had him a wife at home but don’t they always,’ she said.

  Fourteen

  Half an hour later Yvonne called up to tell Quarrie that Colback had arrived. Leaving Gigi to phone her nana he went downstairs and found the lieutenant sitting at one of the tables in the courtyard with a cup of coffee. ‘So do we understand each other finally?’ Colback’s tone was edged with a hint of sarcasm.

  ‘We better,’ Quarrie said.

  ‘I guess she’s upstairs then. Is she all right?’

  Quarrie sat down. ‘She’s doing OK. She was a little shaky when she knocked on the door.’

  ‘So what about this cab driver?’

  ‘Last time I saw him was on North Rocheblave Street.’ Quarrie took the business card from his wallet and a slip of paper fell out. The note he had found on Wiley after he shot him, one word scribbled – Jacinto.

  ‘What is that?’ Colback said.

  ‘It’s the name of a street in Dallas.’

  ‘So what’s the significance?’

  ‘I don’t know. I found it in the pocket of the feller I shot back in Texas.’ Stuffing the note away again he placed the business card on the table.

  ‘This all you got?�
� Colback inspected the card where only the company name and phone number were printed. ‘The cabbie never told you his name?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. But he shouldn’t be hard to track down, the number’s right there on the card and that cab is a ’65 four-door Impala.’

  ‘Have you called this number?’ Colback said.

  ‘Not since talking to you.’

  ‘But he told you it was me paying him to keep an eye on you?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘So who’s he working for then?’

  ‘Beats me, Lieutenant. Pershing Gervais maybe; the kid told me how he’s the quarterback in college and it might be he’s making the passes but there’s someone else in charge of the play.’ Taking off his hat he placed it crown up on the table. ‘That other thing I told you about. You got any ideas about this feller Earl?’

  ‘A cop she was talking about.’ Colback pushed out his lips. ‘I made some calls but don’t go hanging your hat. If he’s in the job we don’t know if it’s the city or the sheriff’s department, which means we could be talking Jefferson Parish or Bernard, Plaquemines and St Tammany probably as well. Earl isn’t exactly an uncommon name in these parts, is it?’

  Quarrie looked the length of the courtyard to the traffic out on Canal Street. ‘Gigi told me he was the one who warned her to stay away from me. Said how he came around her house in the 7th Ward so jumpy he could barely get the words out.’

  Colback was quiet for a moment, sipping from his coffee. ‘When we talked on the phone you told me you thought it was a photograph in that hotel room back in Texas. The guy you shot, what was his name again?’

  ‘Wiley.’

  ‘Wiley, right: so did he burn everything? There wasn’t anything in those ashes you found that might give us some kind of clue?’

  ‘Nope, all that was left was mush.’

  ‘What about the kid you said he had with him?’

  ‘Henderson?’ Quarrie made a face. ‘He swears he never saw the photo, and with what-all he’s staring down the barrel of right now he’d be running his mouth if he did.’

  Colback peered beyond him. ‘So they burn a photograph and tip a bunch of pills down some poor bastard’s throat. What do you know about him?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Quarrie said. ‘Right now we’re waiting on the NCIC.’

  *

  From the crack in his door Soulja Blue saw Quarrie walk the gantry and make his way down the steps. He saw him heading for the back of the courtyard where he disappeared from view. Then he opened the door and strode along the short landing with the automatic held at his side. When he got to Quarrie’s room he knocked.

  *

  Downstairs Colback glanced at his watch. ‘I got a meeting to go to,’ he said. ‘Let me have a word with this gal real quick, see if she’s got the sense to let me take her somewhere we can protect her.’

  Quarrie led the way upstairs to his room. There was no answer when he knocked and no sound from inside. The door wasn’t locked and, with a glance at Colback, he went in. The room was empty, no sign of Gigi: the door to the bathroom stood open but there was nobody there.

  ‘So where is she?’ Colback said.

  Quarrie didn’t answer; his gaze settled on a scrap of paper on the nightstand beside the bed. He picked it up and studied three words scribbled in an unsteady hand. ‘She’s gone to her nana’s house,’ he said.

  Colback pumped the air from his cheeks. ‘Did she tell you she was going to do that?’

  Quarrie was still studying the note. ‘She said she had a vehicle parked up the street but I told her we’d cover her till she got there.’

  ‘Do you have an address?’

  Quarrie gave him the address for Orleans Street he had found in the phone book.

  ‘Soon as I’m done with my meeting I’ll give her a call,’ Colback said. ‘If you talk to her in the meantime, tell her I’ll have a prowl car make regular sweeps.’ He turned for the door. ‘And by the way, if you get hold of that cab driver – make sure you let me know.’

  *

  In the room two doors down Gigi lay on her side, her mouth stuffed with toilet paper and her hands tied at the base of her spine. Her eyes were wide as she stared at Soulja where he sat on the chair with his forearms resting on his thighs. He was staring at her and his gaze had dulled till there was no expression at all. He was listening to the two men talking on the walkway outside. Gigi started to murmur and he lifted a finger to his lips. She was silent again, and he picked up the sound of footsteps receding and the door to Quarrie’s room as it was shut. Still he sat there and then he got up and came over to the bed. Sitting down beside Gigi his free hand fell to her hair. Fingers stiff he worked them against her scalp and she shut her eyes, drew her legs up tight and tried not to wet herself.

  *

  Franklin’s cab was parked outside Stein’s Clothing a little further along Canal Street from the hotel. He had the collar of his jacket turned up and the radio playing Marvin Gaye. He sat up a little straighter as Lieutenant Colback came out from under the hotel arch and walked half a block before he got in his unmarked car. A minute or so after that Quarrie appeared and Franklin watched as he made his way to the corner.

  Fifteen

  There was no one in the lobby when Soulja Blue came down the steps with his jacket slung over his arm to hide the automatic. He had Gigi’s hand hooked through the crook of his other arm and together they walked out onto Canal Street. Glancing towards the trolley car tracks, Soulja signalled to his driver and seconds later the blue Malibu was hugging the curb. Forcing Gigi into the back, he climbed in beside her and the driver pulled out into the traffic. Soulja sat with his arm around Gigi’s shoulders.

  ‘They say what goes around comes around, don’t they?’ he muttered. ‘The hippies, I mean, in their communes and whatnot. I think they might have a point. I mean, your cousin lit out owing Soulja money and here I am getting paid.’

  Gigi was shaking. She could not speak. She could smell leather and the scent of cologne. They drove across the Quarter to Bourbon Street and down to the junction with Governor Nicholls. The car pulled up and the driver got out, a more slightly built man wearing a dark suit and white shirt. He bound Gigi’s eyes with a strip of cloth then Soulja pushed her out of the car and she was on the sidewalk breathing in the stench of the river. She felt the driver grab her again and she was bundled through a door and across a floor to where she felt strands of metal brush her face. Another door was opened and she could hear the sound of church music echoing from somewhere behind.

  Manhandled along a narrow corridor she came to a flight of stairs. She felt a hand at her back and was forced up those stairs and along a landing where the blindfold slipped. The driver reached to tie it again but not before Gigi glimpsed a corridor with doors leading off and one of the doors was cracked. Beyond it she caught sight of a middle-aged black man slumped on the floor with his hands tied and blood staining the front of his shirt. Then she was past and the driver shoved her up another flight of stairs and along another corridor. He opened a door and she was forced inside and across the floor to a rancid-smelling bed. Thrown onto her back she felt drops of water spilling from some leaking pipe above as the driver secured her hands and feet. His breath all over her face, she twisted her head away. She heard the sound of the door opening and closing and all that was left were the strains of that organ drifting from two floors below.

  She did not know how long she lay like that, it could have been minutes, it could’ve been hours, but then she heard the door open and twisted her head to the side. Whoever was there did not speak, but she could hear the music from downstairs and it was louder and laced with intermittent voices. ‘Who’s there?’ she cried. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  Silence, nothing, there was no sound in the room, even the dripping had stopped.

  ‘Who are you?’ she cried again. ‘What do you want with me? Why did you bring me here?’

  ‘Gigi Matisse from the 7th Ward who won’t d
o what she’s told.’ A man’s voice so close to her ear she physically jumped.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I thought Earl made it perfectly clear. He warned you what would happen. All actions have consequences, Gigi. There’s no such thing as an action that does not have a reaction. Talking to strangers, sleeping with white men; not doing what you’re told.’

  Gigi opened her mouth to say something but could not find any words. She felt a hand on her shin and a shudder worked through her as that hand climbed to her knee. ‘On top of everything else there’s the money now as well. Your cousin, we settled his debt with Soulja Blue so now it’s us you owe. We know you can’t pay in cash but it’s not cash we want, it’s you.’ He was silent for a moment then he said, ‘You’re going to die here. You need to know that. You’re never going to see your nana again or any of your friends, none of the boys in your band. You’ll live only as long as it takes to pay off what we gave Soulja Blue.’ She felt him get up off the bed and pad across the floor. Then she heard the sound of the door being opened and closed.

  ‘Hear that?’ he said. ‘That’s a sound you’ll be begging me to silence. Open and closed. Open and closed. Before we’re done you’ll scream for me to slam it once and for all.’

  *

  Quarrie bought a pack of Camel regulars from the kiosk outside the Shell Oil building. Standing on the corner he peered towards the river as he tore the cellophane away.

  Back in his room he sat on the bed and considered the slip of paper Gigi had left on the nightstand. He phoned the number he had called earlier that morning and the same woman answered as before.

  ‘Ms Matisse,’ he said. ‘My name’s Quarrie. I called you this morning.’