Trick Question

by Tony Dunbar

  “Hey, maybe I’m a witness,” he told the table. “Ain’t that a kick.”

  “If Swincter doesn’t wake up, you may be the only witness,” Flowers remarked.

  No one could think of a snappy comeback to that.

  “Well, that’s no reason to stop the party,” Tubby declared.

  “Whaddya say we drink to your health?” Mickey asked the table.

  Tubby tapped Dr. Tessier’s elbow.

  “I guess if you had had Dr. Valentine’s research, you would have been in a position to extort a lot of money from Petroflex.” His expression was innocent.

  “I’m just happy being the head of the laboratory,” she replied sweetly. Hers was, too.

  Larry brought another round, and good spirits prevailed.

  But the feelings were not universal. Walter had at that moment been directed to bail out by Mr. Flick. Just leave town, his boss had ordered. Walter, in his embarrassment, had started to apologize for the whole thing, though it had not been his fault at all.

  Flick had cut him off.

  “Enough for now,” Flick had said. “We will discuss the details of what happened, and your future, later.”

  After Flick hung up on him Walter rubbed his eyes and suppressed a scream. He beat the plastic receiver against the pay phone until he noticed the people at the bus stop staring at him. He walked away quickly, leaving the cracked handset dangling from its steel cable. It was no longer a question of strategy. It was now a simple matter of pride and professional revenge.

  CHAPTER 32

  It was a few minutes past six o’clock when the party at Mike’s broke up. Tubby waved goodbye to Mickey O’Rourke, who, wisely, had called a United Cab. Cherrylynn, who had arrived with Tubby, departed with Flowers. Her boss decided to think about that in the morning. He was a little loaded, to tell the truth. On the sidewalk he yielded the right of way to a lopsided bicycle full of kids. The one on the handlebars’ job was to go “beep beep,” and the lawyer stepped off the curb into the street where old beads and glass fragments sparkled. As an afterthought he beeped back at them.

  He had invited Trina Tessier to join him and Denise for dinner, but she said she had work to do. After seeing the doctor safely to her car, he pointed his own downtown.

  On a whim, he stopped at a cigar store near Lee Circle and picked up a celebration Partagas that cost about four bucks.

  Tubby finally found a safe-looking parking place two blocks from Swan’s Gym on Clio Street in front of a neat white house where an elderly lady rocked gently on the porch. Exchanging hellos with her, he locked up and started walking down the sidewalk, without noticing the blue Ford Taurus that pulled to the curb across the street. Over the gym’s front door there was a neatly painted picture of a swan – nothing mean and nothing fancy. It did not look like a place where people got bruised.

  The sounds that greeted him once inside, however, were the grunts of exertion, thumps on punching bags, and loud derisive comments that echoed off the high ceiling. The smells were leather, floor wax, and sweat. Boxers were at work under the lights in two rings, and men and women in gray or red Ringside sweat suits pounded it out on exercise machines whose functions Tubby did not try to grasp.

  He had left his suit coat in the car so that he might look a little less conspicuous, but hell, he was a lawyer, so he kept on his tie.

  He saw Baxter Sharpe, Denise’s trainer, who waved him away and pointed toward the far corner. Tubby saw a tornado in a sparring helmet beating the dust off a punching bag. He wasn’t certain it was Denise until he got close enough for her to notice him and smile.

  “Hiya,” she said cheerfully, and gave the bag a smack for punctuation.

  “You’re smoking that thing,” Tubby commented. He gave it a sock, and it hurt his knuckles.

  “You want to go a few rounds?” Denise asked, and jabbed a couple in his direction.

  “No, no.” He took a step backwards. “Pick on somebody your own size. I’m just here to take you out to eat.”

  “I’m almost done here,” Denise promised. “Give me time to shower. I’m quick.”

  Tubby found a bench from which he could watch two brown-skinned boys whale the tar out of each other, as his father used to say, in the ring. Their coach jumped through the ropes and told them to take it easy, so they slowed their pace to awkward poking. They looked about fifteen years old to Tubby, but he was always way off. He looked around for his formerly potential client, Denise’s coach, but now he didn’t see him.

  “Ready.” Her announcement surprised him.

  Tubby followed her out of the gym, enjoying the scent of her shampoo and trying to remember her age.

  “Where are we headed?” she asked outside. The street was dark.

  “It’s up to you. My car is down the street. There’s a pretty good steak restaurant a few blocks from here. You ever been to Doug’s Place? I took my daughters there and they loved it.” His girls had really liked the spacious airy feeling, all the light wood, and the “primitive” art that adorned the walls of the restored recording studio. Tubby thought it amazing that simple scenes of the “Old South” were now so popular with urban young people who had never so much as seen a real cotton boll. Scary that what to him was just a routine part of growing up in the hot and flat part of Dixie was now exotic. His daughters had seemed to feel that steaks served in such an artsy place were actually good for you, which was fine with him.

  “I don’t eat meat,” Denise said apologetically. “And I’m supposed to be in training for my big fight. If you wouldn’t mind a little drive, I know a real nice vegetarian place on Esplanade. Or how about sushi?”

  Gad. “How about some oysters?” he suggested hopefully, and began piloting her along the sidewalk toward his car.

  He never got an answer. A large man with a woman’s stocking pulled over his head stepped out of the shadows between two buildings and blocked their way. He rammed a handgun into Tubby’s chest so hard that it knocked him backwards.

  “Give me your money, asshole,” he demanded urgently. His features were hidden, but Tubby couldn’t miss the smell of Purple Musk.

  “Damn right,” Tubby shouted, hands in the air. “I’m getting my wallet. I want you to have it.” He lowered his arm and reached slowly behind him for his pants pocket.

  “Speed it up, turkey,” the robber grunted, and whapped the pistol against the side of Tubby’s head.

  Tubby tried to block the blow and his fingers got smacked against his forehead so hard that he felt intense pain in two extremities at once. Part of him lunged for the weapon and part of him focused on the black barrel hole an inch from his nose.

  Then the hole jerked away. A fist streaked from the right and caught the assailant square in the mouth.

  His lips split into a new grin, and a moist red spot appeared on the pantyhose mask.

  “Biff,” he said.

  Denise caught him with two left jabs in the eyes and another that popped his nose with another splash of blood.

  The man stumbled backwards, swaying with the gun, but Denise was close upon him, working on his abdomen and his nose some more.

  Tubby observed this from a crouch, his hand to his cheek. Finally he made himself move and jump for the pistol. The floating arm eluded his grasp and the butt of the weapon connected with his forehead.

  Tubby saw stars and dizzily renewed his crouch, on one knee.

  He was slightly aware that the gun, a nasty-looking Colt automatic, had come loose and was lying on the curb. Meanwhile, Denise was continuing to go whack, whack.

  “Uh, biff,” the man said, spinning around twice.

  Denise was in heaven. Something black and ugly in her brain was getting a whipping, and her heart was light.

  “Yay!” she yelled, socking the man in the kidneys.

  He grunted in pain, and, bent over at the waist, he turned and ran away from her down the street. He was trailing blood and moving fast, if unevenly.

  Denise, panting, watched him g
o. She sucked up a deep breath and sparred in the air. Cheers of a phantom crowd rang in her ears. She trotted back to check on Tubby.

  “Are you all right?” she sang.

  “Your hands must be broken,” he wheezed, trying to straighten up.

  “This one could be,” she said happily, inspecting the fingers on her right. “It hurts like hell.” Her knuckles were bleeding.

  “God, you were great,” Tubby said while he tenderly touched different spots on his head.

  “So were you.”

  “Baloney. Look, you want sushi, you got sushi.”

  “Oysters would be okay,” she said with a smile, as she helped Tubby to the car.

  He was thinking that he needed lots of oysters, like a steady diet. She was thinking that she might have put herself out of commission for her upcoming bout, but who cared.

  “We’ll call the police from the restaurant,” he proposed.

  “Whatever,” she said. She was still skipping around the ring.

  Walter was scrambling down the steep stairs of the Pontalba Building, canvas flight bag in hand, when he met Lieutenant Porknoy and two uniformed policemen coming up.

  “Going on a trip?” Porknoy asked, tapping the man on his chest.

  “Yes, I have a plane to catch. What’s the problem?”

  “Upstairs, you. I have a warrant for Oscar Flick.”

  Mr. Flick welcomed the arrival of the police with an offer of wine.

  Porknoy declined.

  “Are you Oscar Flick?” he demanded.

  “I am. Won’t you gentlemen sit down?”

  “I have a warrant for your arrest in the murder of Dr. Whitney Valentine.”

  Flick did not look surprised. Neither did he look happy. His eyes searched the room, but the uniforms had walked around to block the French doors, and Porknoy was in front of him.

  “Who is this fellow?” Porknoy wanted to know.

  “This is a neighbor of mine,” Flick said quickly. Walter still had his flight bag in his hand.

  “A neighbor, huh?” Porknoy commented suspiciously. He stepped up to Walter, his nose to the tall man’s chin.

  “I see you got a black eye,” the detective observed.

  “I tripped and fell – on the pavement in Jackson Square.”

  “You got a cut lip, too,” Porknoy pointed out.

  “I hit the sidewalk hard,” Walter explained.

  “You fit the description of a fella assaulted a young lady and a lawyer named Tubby Dubonnet outside of Swan’s Gym,” Porknoy insisted.

  “Wasn’t me, Officer. I was here with my friend playing chess.”

  Porknoy considered this while he scratched his chin. Then he smiled.

  “That being the case,” he said, “you can go. Our warrant is for Oscar Flick, and that’s you, is it not?” He turned to face the older man.

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “Okay. Get your things.”

  “Can I take a toothbrush?” Flick asked, as his partner hustled downstairs and out into the night.

  “Absolutely,” Porknoy said.

  Flick went into the regal bath to collect his shaving kit. Quickly, he extracted a plastic bottle from the medicine cabinet, popped it, and swallowed three capsules.

  It would make the ordeal ahead avoidable, entirely avoidable.

  CHAPTER 33

  Mississippi’s Coconut Casino is only an hour and twenty minutes from New Orleans, and it has a parking lot the size of the one at the Superdome.

  “Look at all the Louisiana tags,” Raisin said, while he navigated Tubby’s Lincoln into a space about half a mile from the main entrance. “No wonder our state is broke all the time.”

  “Maybe they just have crowds like this on fight nights,” Tubby said.

  “Ladies’ boxing is not exactly Mike Tyson,” Raisin commented.

  “It’s going to be a real crowd pleaser someday,” Tubby said. “Just wait till they get a look at my girl Denise. This is the sport of the future.”

  They set off hiking toward the distant lights.

  They were not alone. By the time they reached the front door they were part of a steadily flowing crowd of snowbirds from Canada, Airstream campers, New Orleans tour-bus groupies with go-cups, a few barge pilots, and quite a few lads and lassies wearing cowboy hats and boots, fresh from the day shift. Inside it was well lit and well ventilated. The crowd split, half going toward the gaming floor on the other side of a white line painted on the floor. This marked the hypothetical shoreline, the divide between that part of Mississippi earth where gambling was prohibited and the water flowing beneath their feet, where games of chance were encouraged.

  The other half of the crowd, with Raisin and Tubby along, went upstairs to the gateway of the boxing arena.

  “Quite a place,” Tubby shouted, over the din of slot machine bells and whistles and the general mirth of gamblers consuming free drinks.

  “I’d like to have the No-Doz concession here,” Raisin replied.

  The boxing arena was smaller than Tubby expected, but a far cry from the cigar smoke-filled gymnasium he had imagined. It was all new, brightly lit, and the seats were upholstered a garish Mardi Gras purple.

  “This ain’t the Army, dude,” he yelled at Raisin, who gave him the high sign.

  They were ushered into their seats by a lovely young girl wearing blue tights showered in sequins. When she moved, the eyes of the fans moved with her.

  The program said the headliner was a light heavyweight bout between Zitty Garcia and Montana Denver, but that would come later. First there was the warm-up match they had come to see – an exhibition between “New Orleans’s Own Denise DiMaggio” and Roseanne Spratt of Nashville, Tennessee.

  Raisin got them a couple of beers, and they settled down with their programs.

  “How’s the kids?” Raisin asked to make conversation.

  “They’re doing fine.” Tubby had not yet decided to tell anyone about Debbie’s pregnancy. “Except that Mattie’s no-good brother, Harold, ripped off Debbie’s apartment. He’s always into something. And I haven’t the faintest idea what Christine’s up to. She says her grades are fine, but she hasn’t sent off her college applications yet. Now, Collette” – he allowed himself to glow – “is the world’s primo fifteen-year-old. You know she’s been getting me to take her to church?”

  “Really. Are you going tomorrow morning?”

  “Uh, probably not.” Found guilty again.

  “Do they have any idea what you do for a living, old buddy?” Raisin asked.

  “That’s a deep question, man. I don’t even have much of a grasp on that one myself.”

  “I just wondered if they ever came to see you in court.”

  “At one time or another, all of them have had that pleasure. I’ve tried to arrange it so that the occasions have been arguments to the Court of Appeal, when I am at my lawyerly best. I’ve never invited anyone to watch me at a trial.”

  “It would make you nervous?”

  “It might embarrass me, is the real reason.”

  “I thought you were a great trial lawyer.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “You did.”

  “It would be more truthful to say I’m a seasoned lawyer.”

  “What’s ‘seasoned’ mean?”

  “That means I’ve had my ass kicked a few times.”

  A bell sounded loudly and the ring announcer proclaimed that the first bout, between “two lady sportsmen,” was about to begin.

  Loud cheers and whistles, Tubby’s included, greeted Denise as she paraded down the ramp from her dressing room. She was decked out in a yellow silk robe. When she climbed over the ropes and into the ring she stripped it off, to more ovation, revealing her multicolored tights. The crowd expressed its appreciation.

  Roseanne from Nashville got much the same reception. Raisin remarked that she had the largest chest he had ever seen on an athlete.

  Both fighters pranced around the ring, sparring in the a
ir and nodding at the advice from their trainers. He waved at Denise, and gustily added his support, but she didn’t pick him out. He noticed that her ringside coach was not Baxter Sharpe.

  The referee gave the fighters their instructions in the center of the ring and sent them back to their corners.

  The gong rang, and both women came out hopping. They circled around each other warily, and then Denise stepped in with some quick left jabs.

  Roseanne ducked and bobbed away. Denise followed, and suddenly they were both flailing away at each other. The crowd loved it. And what was not to love? Hard female bodies, nice curves, taut muscles, faces straining in exertion.

  Denise’s head jerked back when a roundhouse right got under her ear, but she recovered and closed up with her opponent. She was pounding Roseanne’s stomach when the bell rang to end the first round.

  Both women went back to their corners and flopped down to let their attendants clean them up.

  Tubby felt sick.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he mumbled to Raisin, “but something is making me feel bad. I need to get out of here for a minute.”

  “You gonna be okay?” Raisin asked, concerned.

  “Just need a little air,” Tubby said. “You stay here. Tell me how it comes out. I’ll be right downstairs.”

  He made his way over the knees of the cheering fans and stumbled toward the exit. He heard the bell signal the start of the second round as he banged through the swinging doors. His head was swirling a little, but it was his stomach he was worried about. Something about seeing Denise slugged on the face had gotten to him.

  He went to the men’s room, where lots of other groggy-looking patrons were splashing water on themselves at a score of sinks lined up in a row. Tubby found his place and followed suit. Apparently ladies’ professional boxing was not the sport for him.

  “I just won three thousand bucks!” the guy at the next sink with the House of Blues T-shirt spread over his world-class beer belly ranted.

  “Great,” Tubby gurgled between his fingers.