Trick Question

by Tony Dunbar

  Jeez. He was getting her whole life story.

  “So the connection is, you like her,” Tubby said.

  “Yes, I do,” Monique replied.

  “So now I feel better,” Tubby said.

  “She’s got a bad situation going right now, too.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “She’s been dating her trainer, this guy Baxter Sharpe.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I think he beats her up.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what you can do about it.”

  “I’m not sure either. Why does she put up with it?”

  “I can’t answer that. I don’t think she really loves him. Maybe it’s a disease some women contract.”

  “You know something about that.”

  “Yeah, and I got well.”

  “I don’t know if I can help with that.” Tubby shrugged, even though he was on the phone.

  “I just wanted you to know.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t forget where I am.”

  “Never.”

  They hung up. Don’t ever say there’s no women’s mafia, he thought.

  CHAPTER 25

  Coming through the door of Dubonnet & Associates, O’Rourke looked a lot better than he had at Central Lockup. His hair was combed, his coat was on straight, and the storm clouds had cleared out of his eyes. Tubby asked everyone to join him in the conference room. Flowers overfilled his chair and put his back to the window. Cherrylynn sat across the table from him. Mickey shuffled through the file.

  “Jury selection should take all of tomorrow,” Tubby began. “It will just be bad luck if the trial gets under way before Judge Stifflemire wants to adjourn for the afternoon. And before our side starts, the judge will hear my motion to suppress Cletus’s prior drug conviction. So we hope it’s Friday before the state begins to put on its case. That will take a day. So maybe we get the weekend to keep digging.”

  No one said anything. O’Rourke kept turning pages.

  “I’ll plan to cross-examine Detective Porknoy, unless you want to, Mickey.”

  Mickey kept his eyes down and shook his head.

  “Okay, but you can have the medical examiner or, if you want, the security guard.”

  Mickey shook his head again. “I don’t want to cross-examine anybody,” he said morosely.

  “Man, you can do this,” Tubby said, to encourage him. “It’s your case. You’re lead counsel.”

  Mickey laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

  “God help Busters,” he said, “if this was really my case. I don’t want to take any witnesses, gang. I would just embarrass myself.”

  “There’s too much here for one lawyer to handle, Mickey. I need help too.”

  Mickey looked hopeless.

  “Look,” Tubby said. “Here’s the deal. You prepare, just like you were going to cross-examine the security guard, and you also prepare a direct examination of Ruby Valentine. Just so you’ll be ready if I need you.”

  “All right, I suppose.” Mickey stood up. “But you better not count on me. I know I’m a damn wreck. I can accept that. But I don’t believe I could accept it if Cletus Busters got the death penalty because of my screwups.”

  “So, you’ll do your best to get ready?” Tubby pressed.

  “Yeah,” Mickey said, and he straightened his tie and left.

  “He’ll blow the entire case,” Flowers declared flatly.

  “Maybe not,” Tubby insisted. “If he gets motivated he might do okay.”

  “My money’s still on you,” Flowers replied. “By the way, you want me to pry any further into Denise DiMaggio’s nocturnal affairs?”

  Tubby stared over Flowers’s shoulder and shook his head. “No. I’m going to take a chance on this one and just let it go.”

  Flowers acknowledged that statement by clearing his throat.

  Cherrylynn looked from one to the other, trying to figure out what she was missing. Then the telephone lit up and she went to the corner to answer it.

  “It’s somebody who calls himself W. D. He won’t give his last name. He says you’ll speak to him,” she told Tubby.

  “Can’t be,” he said. “Is this really Wild Dan?” he inquired into the telephone.

  “Tubby, how’s the state champion wrestler and lubricator of the wheels of capitalism doing today?”

  “Oh, I’m doing great, man. Where y’at?”

  “Up near Marksville. Can’t say exactly where. We’ve got us a labor dispute among some catfish-plant workers going on.”

  “Are you still organizing for the union?”

  “Sure, man. Still a Wobbly. And guess what, I’m coming your way.”

  “Oh, neat,” Tubby said. The muscles in his stomach and neck tightened involuntarily. Dan’s infrequent sorties into New Orleans disrupted all of Tubby’s routines and threatened everything he held dear.

  “Yeah, man. Got a call from some hotel bellhops. Can’t say at what hotel. They want me to negotiate for them.”

  “When are you planning to get here?”

  “Should be in a couple of weeks. Right now we got these fish slime bosses by the catfish nuggets. We ought to be able to wrap it up real soon. Then I’ll just slide on down to the Big Easy. Look for me on your doorstep.”

  “Well…” Tubby said.

  “Gotta go. Don’t want to stay too long in one place. See you when I do.”

  “See you.”

  “Who was that?” Cherrylynn politely asked, when she tired of watching him staring at the handset.

  “Just an old friend of mine from college coming to town. You might have to run things here for a couple of days.”

  She shot him a look over her shoulder as if to say, What else is new?

  “He’s a real story in himself,” Tubby chuckled. “Well, we can forget about him for now.”

  There really wasn’t much else to talk about. Tubby told them he was going to take a drive – just to clear his head before going home to rest. He told Flowers and Cherrylynn to lock up and do something relaxing for the evening.

  * * *

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” Cherrylynn asked Flowers after her boss left.

  The detective stretched and yawned.

  “No, not that I can think of,” he said. “I think I may be off for the night.”

  “Me too,” Cherrylynn said.

  “Sometimes it’s like this. Hurry, hurry, then… nothing.” He spread his hands. “All you can do is wait to see what happens in court.”

  “Mr. Dubonnet seems discouraged. He’s not usually like that.”

  “Oh, Tubby is an odd bird,” Flowers said. “He has a way of pulling things out of his hat.”

  Cherrylynn smiled. “You’re right. But when he gets down in the dumps, that’s when I start to worry.”

  “Hey, that’s your job,” Flowers said. He stretched again and stood up.

  “I suppose I’ll head out,” he said.

  “Me too,” she said. “Maybe get something to eat.” She took a breath. “You want to join me? We could have a drink somewhere?” She blushed.

  “I’ll have to pass tonight, Cherrylynn,” Flowers said. “I have other duties.”

  “Sure, okay,” Cherrylynn said. “Well, good night then.”

  “See you in court,” he said, and soared out of the door with his long gliding stride.

  She stared at the space he had left, then started tidying the place up for tomorrow.

  Outside the St. Charles Avenue entrance to the Place Palais building where Dubonnet & Associates had its home was a watering hole called the Sandy Bar. It was for securities brokers and young professionals who wanted an attitude adjustment before rolling on home in their fancy cars. Along with a string of losers, Cherrylynn had met a couple of nice people there, and she knew the bartenders. One of them, a young Irish rover with an earring, smiled at her when she walked in and beckoned her toward a tall chair. She looked around to check ou
t the crowd and saw Flowers and Trina Tessier laughing together at a corner table, over the warm glow of a candle flickering in a red goblet. Cherrylynn made an abrupt U-turn and departed, feelings bleeding and brokenhearted again.

  And I’m such a pretty girl, too, she thought.

  CHAPTER 26

  Tubby’s drive took him to Mike’s Bar, where he indulged his own weakness at a table in the corner by himself. Larry filled him a glass whenever he raised a finger, and Tubby raised all the fingers on one hand.

  He thought about how Cletus Busters’s miserable life was in his hands and how he was sitting here like an asshole getting plastered. A fear he hadn’t encountered since his law school exams had him in its grip. The trouble was, he had no defense for Cletus. He might lose the case. He could not remember ever approaching trial so empty-handed. And Tubby had no defense for himself. He raised another finger, and Larry shuffled his way.

  Finally, feeling ill, he waved ta-ta to his bartender and stepped clumsily into the night.

  “Steady as you go,” he instructed himself as he stumbled on a piece of concrete jutting out of the broken sidewalk. The street was quiet. A cat hissed at him and leapt off the hood of his Spyder.

  It was blocking a fire hydrant, but the meter maids did not venture into this neighborhood.

  “I’m all right,” he said out loud as he slid behind the wheel.

  He believed Tchoupitoulas Street might be the safest way home for him, meaning the road less traveled by policemen and other motorists. It ran beside the railroad tracks and the wharves, following the river’s curve, and though it had major potholes, he knew where most of them were.

  After a few misfires, the Spyder’s turbo-charged six got going. He found WWOZ on the radio, an old blues show hosted by John Sinclair. Tubby himself had the blues so bad he wanted to point his car toward Texas and cruise until he ran out of gas.

  With that destination in mind, he laid a black streak of rubber and shot off into the darkness. He skipped a stop sign and rounded the corner onto Tchoupitoulas Street in a graceful slide.

  Headlights came up fast in his rearview mirror.

  Cops, Tubby thought, but relaxed as the other car pulled beside him to pass on the narrow rocky street.

  “Goddamn maniac,” he griped.

  It was passing – too close. Tubby almost lost control of the wheel as the big car broadsided his, inches from his shoulder. His little sports car hopped the curb onto the broken, grassy sidewalk.

  Trash cans and telephone poles loomed ahead, and he zipped past them, nicking the wooden steps of a shotgun house built close to the street. Tubby’s mouth was open, and maybe he was yelling. He fought his way back into the roadway and jammed hard on his brakes. The big car behind him clipped one of the Spyder’s taillights and sent the unstable sports car skidding cockeyed down the lonely street.

  Tubby straightened out, downshifted, and shot a quick glance behind him. He couldn’t see who the other driver was. He shifted up, and the Spyder roared down the street, fender flapping, with the other vehicle in pursuit.

  The contest was short. The big car got on his bumper again, and when Tubby maneuvered around an asphalt crater he found himself in the wrong lane, in a neck-and-neck race again.

  He got smacked soundly on the passenger side and pushed toward the truck-loading docks. He was bouncing in the seat and frantically trying to turn the wheel when his car hit the train tracks and left the ground. The Corvair sailed nicely, but landed hard with a crunch. It slid noisily over gravel, concrete, and trash and sheared along the side of a brick warehouse, trailing sparks, until it slammed into a Dumpster.

  The big car that had rammed him shot past and disappeared into the night.

  Tubby found that he was alive and gradually released his grip on the steering wheel. Tests showed that his toes and fingers worked. He dared gasp for air.

  His tires hissed as they deflated, but quiet had returned to the dark street.

  Tubby climbed out of the wreck of his Corvair. “I guess this heap is finally finished,” he told himself sadly.

  He scanned the forbidding facades of the deserted warehouses and the empty street. No help was in sight.

  It occurred to him that when the police came, they might take one whiff and arrest him.

  Despondent over the mess his car had become, he cleaned out his glove box, stuffed the registration in his pocket, and set off limping down the street.

  He knew where he could catch a bus. He only had to traverse about ten blocks of some other guys’ turf.

  CHAPTER 27

  In the morning, Tubby called a client of his, Adrian J Duplessis, and told him where to find the Spyder. Adrian, whose street name was Monster Mudbug, drove a tow truck by trade. He was curious about what had happened, but Tubby massaged the pain in his head and said he would tell him later.

  He drove his respectable Lincoln to work – cautiously. He had no idea who he had tangled with the night before, and he doubted he would ever find out. There were some crazy people riding the streets of New Orleans.

  He couldn’t waste time wondering about that with his trial starting in an hour.

  George Guyoz’s phone call caught Tubby just as he was walking into his office.

  Guyoz said he had read Tubby’s Supreme Court case and had to admit that it might have some passing similarity to the facts of the Pot O’ Gold stock controversy.

  “In fact, they are almost exactly the same,” Tubby said, to rub it in.

  “Well, there are some differences,” Guyoz sniffed, “but without wasting a lot of your time and mine arguing about it, I think you have a fairly good position.”

  “Then we agree.”

  “I believe we might. I’ve explained things to my client, and he is ready to do the right thing. He will recognize his niece’s one thousand shares, and she will recognize his. They will then be equal partners.”

  “Wait a second,” Tubby said. “She also has another stock certificate for one hundred shares, so she’s actually the majority stockholder.”

  “No, no,” Guyoz protested. “He is not going to agree to that. Roger DiMaggio built the company. If your young lady wants to run it fifty-fifty, and agrees to keep her uncle on as a salaried officer, then we can make a deal. But if you expect more than that, we’ll litigate till hell freezes over.”

  “And you’ll lose.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. That’s a mighty old case you’re relying on. I can promise you, however, that Roger DiMaggio is not just going to bend over for his niece’s benefit.”

  “Okay, I don’t know what her reaction will be, but I understand your proposition. I’ll discuss it with Denise and get back to you.”

  “Right. Do it quickly because there’s a big oil-drilling contract under negotiation, and it cannot get finalized until we settle who owns what.”

  Tubby said he would respond as quickly as he could. The words “big oil-drilling contract” had an extremely nice ring to them.

  Hazel Whitepod, Judge Stifflemire’s secretary, unlocked the doors of Section 0 at nine o’clock on Thursday morning when the high-ceilinged corridors of the Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans were just beginning to echo with the quick footsteps of busy lawyers, the shrieks of little children, and the shuffle of orange-suited prisoners being escorted here and there in chain gangs. Jury selection for State of Louisiana versus Cletus Busters began an hour and a half later, at half past ten.

  In the meantime, Tubby and Cherrylynn came chugging up the stairs, each carrying a black leather trial case full of Tubby’s notes, a sheaf of exhibits, and a green book that contained the Code of Evidence. There were reporters in the hall. The TV news had stayed outside where the light was better. “We expect to see justice done,” Tubby had grimly told them all. He was too worried about his lack of a case to bluster any more than that.

  Judge Stifflemire arrived in his chambers and Hazel brought him some coffee in a mug that said “Krewe of Olympians” on it. He read the socie
ty page of the newspaper, then took his coffee into his private washroom and poured it down the sink, just as he did every morning. He pulled his black robe over his head and checked his thinning hair in the mirror before signaling Hazel to signal the bailiff that the judge was on his way.

  “Oyez, oyez. All rise! The Criminal District Court for the Parish of Orleans is now in session. The Honorable Hector Stifflemire presiding. Order and silence are commanded.”

  “Good morning,” the judge said, taking his accustomed perch behind his mahogany bench, from which he could see a younger version of himself, rendered in oils, hanging on the wall in the company of judges past.

  “Good morning,” all the lawyers murmured, and everyone else sat down and hid.

  He disposed of four guilty pleas and as many continuances of motions and trials before settling down to the main business at hand.

  Cletus was in his workman’s clothes, handcuffed in the pews to the judge’s right where prisoners got to wait, but when his case was called the cuffs came off and he was led to the counsel table where he could sit beside Tubby. Cletus’s checkered green shirt smelled like mothballs.

  “Damn, they keep it cold in here,” Cletus said by way of greeting.

  “You okay?” Tubby asked. It didn’t seem cold to him at all.

  “Good as I’m gonna get,” Cletus whispered.

  Tubby nodded to Clayton Snedley, the assistant district attorney, and the serious young woman who was his lieutenant, when they took their places at the adjoining table.

  The judge cleared his throat and received everyone’s attention. He scanned the room over the top of his glasses.

  “Are we ready?” he asked in a booming voice.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” the district attorney said.

  “I have a motion to suppress yet to be heard, judge,” Tubby said, rising to his feet.

  “Yes. Well, we’ll take that up after we impanel the jury.”

  Stifflemire waited a moment until Tubby got seated again.

  “Let’s bring ’em in,” the judge shouted.

  The clerk gestured to the bailiff, who gestured to the policeman at the rear, and he pushed open the tall wooden doors to admit the first of the herd.