by Tony Dunbar
Playing on the screen now was one of the most useful, a compendium of credit-bureau reports on most of the humans in the United States. There was a disclaimer on it warning users not to make any credit decisions based upon the information contained therein, because to do so would be a violation of federal law, but Flowers was not in the money-lending business.
He was finding quite a bit of information about Max Finn, but he wasn’t sure how much of it was useful. The man had a bank balance that sometimes shot into the hundreds of thousands and sometimes plummeted to NSF. Right now he owed everybody in town, except he was dead, of course. He was maxed out and delinquent on his Visa, Discover and MasterCard. He slow-paid like molasses, and at the time of his demise even his house note was late. Once upon a time he had owned a race boat, but now somebody had stolen that. In short, unless Finn kept his dough in a mattress, he was dead meat, dead broke.
A bum, in Flowers’s opinion. Still, he had a handful of thousand-dollar gambling coins in his system when he died. The detective took a sip of coffee and wrote some questions in his notebook: Who would profit from a bum’s death? What did he know worth killing for? How do you make a man swallow big plastic casino chips? Why do you do that?
Flowers was supposed to learn everything there was to know about Max Finn and to keep a close eye on Norella, the widow. He was killing two birds with one stone when he rapped softly on the door of Apartment 103 on Arabella Street. The place, the whole building, was pink, and there were plastic flamingoes in the yard.
She answered by cracking the door and looking at him through the chain.
“Hi,” he said, giving her his big smile. “I’m Sanre Fueres, and I’m a private detective working for your lawyer, Tubby Dubonnet. He’s asked me to talk to you.”
“About what?” she asked suspiciously.
“The circumstances of your husband’s death.”
“Let’s see some identification.”
He flashed her a badge and a laminated card with his picture on it. He had bought them both through a catalog.
“You can call Mr. Dubonnet and check. His number is 555-2122.”
“That’s okay,” Norella said. “You’ve got a nice face.” She unhooked the chain and stood aside to let him in.
All of the furniture was black leather and chrome. The walls were white.
“I’m sorry about the way it looks,” she said, evidently not really caring. “The apartment came furnished. I took it because I couldn’t stand to be in my own house anymore. Isn’t that terrible? It’s going to be repossessed anyway. Can I get you a drink?”
She was playing with her hands, so he gave her something to do.
“Sure. Have you some coffee?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“How about a Coke then?”
“No, I think the only things I have are some red wine and ice water.”
“A glass of ice water, please.”
She wiggled away in a very short dress. Flowers admired the view. A small motor but lots of voltage was his thought.
He installed a listening devise under the coffee table and had sat down again on the sofa before she returned.
“I’m having wine,” she announced, handing him a glass of water. She had forgotten to add any ice.
“Gracias,” he said.
“De dónde es?”
“New Orleans,” he replied. “Mi mamá vino de Mexicó.”
“Yo soy hondureña,” she said. “De un pueblo pequeño llamado Mosapa.”
“Have you lived here long?”
“For ten years. I came looking for a husband, and when I finally find one he gets killed.”
“So sorry,” Flowers said, “but of course that’s why I’m here.”
“I’m glad you came.” Her eyelashes fluttered.
“Your husband’s death is very curious. Just like the police, we are having a hard time figuring it out. What did your husband do for a living?”
“I could not tell you. That is what the police kept asking me, too. He spent lots of money and bought me some nice presents. I never really cared. He never went to the office like most Americans. He told me he made investments.” She sipped her wine and looked at the floor.
“Do you have his personal effects with you? His papers and books?”
“They’re all over at my house— what used to be my house.”
“You think I could go see them?”
“I’ve still got a key. Maybe I could show you around.”
“That would be very good. Don’t you have anything here?”
“Just the things he gave me.” She displayed her left hand, which was loaded with big sparklers.
“Love letters? Stuff like that?”
“He didn’t write much. Why do you want to see private things?”
“It stands to reason if you didn’t kill your husband, somebody else did. I’m looking for clues. It’s what I do.”
She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, then changed her mind and slugged back some wine.
“Who were some of your friends?”
“What’s that mean? I’ve got lots of friends.”
“How about Max? Did he have lots?”
“Max gambled. When he was winning, everybody was his friend.”
“What about Lucky LaFrene.”
“That was mostly business, I think.”
“What kind of business?”
“I told you I don’t know. They went out a lot at night.”
“You weren’t curious?”
Norella finished her wine and crossed her legs the other way.
“Look, Mr. Detective. Max was good to me. He didn’t like me to ask questions so I didn’t. We got along. I’ve known lots of worse men.”
“How long were you married to him?”
“It would have been a year next month. You want to go see our house now?”
“If it’s convenient for you.”
She stood up and adjusted her skirt.
“I’ve got to tell you,” she said, “that place makes me feel lousy.”
She put her hands around Flowers’ neck, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him on the mouth.
“I’m a married man,” he lied.
“Too bad. Let’s take your car. Mine’s out of gas.” She picked up her purse from a little table by the door. Then she changed her mind and put it back again. “We can go later,” she said, and unbuttoned her blouse. Then she reached behind her back and unhooked her bra.
CHAPTER XXVI
Ever since his wife left him, Lucky LaFrene spent his best evenings at home playing with his fish. He had a custom-built aquarium in his den, and it took up nearly a whole wall. He had a polka-dot boxfish, and an Indo-Pacific wrasse, and a pantherfish, but his passion was his school of yellow tangs, because they were so gaudy. He had collected twenty-three varieties. He fed them French bread and ground-up nutria that he caught in his backyard, which bordered the 17th Street Canal, and they all lived together just fine, which the books said they wouldn’t do.
He could monkey with the electrolyte level in the water and fiddle with the filters for hours, but he only got a chance to do it once a week or so because mostly he was eating out or having a few drinks with his many pals. He felt guilty, though, because his fish needed him. Like Felix there, his boxfish, who had something brown and cruddy growing on her dorsal fin.
The telephone rang and Lucky reluctantly set aside the little net he was using to herd Felix out of the artificial reef. He picked up the receiver with annoyance.
“Playing with the fishies, you bizarre stooge?”
The voice made the color drain from his face, and he stood up so straight it looked as if he might topple over backwards.
“Why are you calling me a name?” he whined.
“Because that’s what you are. I called to remind you of that.”
“I’m not talking to anybody, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Keep it that way or you’ll b
e floating in your own fish tank.”
“You don’t need to say things like that. I’m—” The line went dead.
Lucky hung up the phone and pushed the set away like it was hot to the touch. Suddenly afraid, he stole a look over his shoulder and almost jumped out of his chair when he saw Felix’s fish lips pressed against the glass. The little bitch was looking at him.
***
“One thing turned up I thought you ought to know about,” Flowers told Tubby.
“What’s that?” Tubby had the phone jammed between his shoulder and his ear while he worked in the kitchen. He was whipping up a celery-and-carrot cocktail in the new juicer he had just bought.
“Max Finn wrote a couple of checks, one for fifteen hundred and one for five thousand, to Boaz Enterprises. Is that your friend Jason Boaz?”
Tubby sat down hard.
“What were they for?” he asked.
“Can’t say. Would you like me to ask him and find out?”
“No, I’ll ask him myself.” He bit off a piece of celery and chewed it thoughtfully.
CHAPTER XXVII
It was supposed to be a festive occasion. Trying to make peace, Tubby had invited Raisin and Sapphire out to dinner at the State Street Café. He even called ahead to order a full bucket of boiled crabs, shrimp, crawfish, and potatoes. He was going to be big about it and extend the hand of friendship to his ol’ buddy Raisin and the nymphet Sapphire.
Things got off to a bad start because, in Tubby’s sober opinion, Raisin had been drinking all afternoon.
“Have you ever been here before?” Tubby asked Sapphire as he got her seated at a table by the window.
“Place smells like a bus station,” Raisin said loudly, dropping into a chair across from his date.
Sapphire stuck out her tongue at him.
“Do you mean the smoke from the bar?” Tubby asked.
“Like an open latrine,” Raisin finished his thought.
“Good shrimp, though,” Tubby said hopefully. He had been sampling the bucket while waiting for his guests.
“This used to be a steakhouse, didn’t it?” Raisin waved his hand for a beer.
“Yeah, for years and years.”
“Too bad it changed.”
“Everything is quite fine,” Sapphire said in a determined voice.
Tubby decided he liked her better in person than he had on the tape. She didn’t seem like such a child after all.
“You live in the French Quarter, right?” he asked, making conversation.
“Uh-huh. On Burgundy Street. I hardly ever get uptown.”
“Two beers,” Raisin instructed the waitress who had appeared from the cloudy kitchen.
“Just a Barq’s for me,” Tubby said.
“Same here,” Sapphire said.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll drink ’em both.” Raisin motioned the server away.
“You’re a musician, aren’t you?” Tubby went on.
“And a damned good one too,” Raisin chimed in.
Tubby wasn’t ready to give up yet. “What kind of music do you like to play?” he asked, fiddling with the salt shaker.
“Country, mostly. Some people say I sound like Shania Twain.”
“Shania Twain is a hat act,” Raisin said emphatically. “Country music these days is nothing but baby-faced adolescents with clear complexions and big hats. Hat acts!” he repeated and looked around, daring someone to disagree.
Sapphire gave him a cold glare. She let her silence take effect and then said very quietly, “You’re just trying to sound like an illiterate hillbilly. Why do you do that?”
“Because that’s just what I am?” Raisin crowed.
Tubby stared out the window at a white-haired gent across the street trying to get his car unlocked. The man kept dropping his keys.
“You’re coming on like a bitter old drunk,” Sapphire said, looking away.
“That’s right. And I’m going someplace else where bitter old drunks are appreciated.”
Raisin pushed back his chair and stood up. “Some things were not meant to be,” he informed Tubby. On his way out the door he grabbed a bottle of beer from the waitress’s tray.
She brought the rest of the drinks to the table.
“Is he coming back?” she asked politely.
Tubby said he didn’t know.
“I hope not,” Sapphire sighed. “I’m pretty hungry,” she told Tubby. “Are you leaving, too, or can I have some of those crawfish?”
“Dig in, dear,” he said. “I’m delighted to have you for company.”
She did as she was told, and her host followed suit. Between mouthfuls they had a nice conversation about the direction country music was headed and whether New Orleans would ever produce any greats in that field.
Raisin was a forgotten blight. Tubby bent Sapphire’s ear about all the great music you used to be able to hear around town, but then the waitress toddled up and said he had a phone call at the bar.
“Pardon me.” He excused himself, thinking that Raisin was probably trying to horn back in. He found the telephone on the wall beside a video poker machine.
“You told me to call if something interesting happened,” Flowers said excitedly.
“What’s up?” Tubby asked, forgetting about the quarter he had automatically stuck in the game.
“Your client, Norella Finn, has led me on a merry chase.”
“Where are you?”
“Way out in the east by Lake St. Catherine. She was at her house, all nice and peacefully tucked in, when suddenly she comes running out the front door and jumps in her car real fast. She got out on the interstate and just kept going. Then took the old road out of town and led me out here to the boondocks. It was just a lucky thing I had enough gas to stay with her because I was expecting a quiet night. Right now she’s at a fishing camp on the water and I’m in some bushes trying to stay out of sight. Guess what?”
“What?”
“There’s about a fifty-foot speedboat identical to the one stolen from the Finns tied up to the dock.”
Tubby mulled it over.
“I’m going to come,” he said finally. “Tell me exactly where you are.”
Flowers did, and as Sapphire watched from her table, the lawyer took notes on a bar coaster.
When he had hung up and returned, she arched her head inquiringly.
“I’m going to have to leave,” he reported sadly. “It has to do with a case I’m working on.”
“Want some company?”
“I’d love it,” he said, “but this might be a little dangerous and it’s out of your way. I’m going down by The Rigolets.”
“I hope you’ll be all right.” She whispered theatrically.
“Don’t worry about me.” He stood up. “You finish your meal. I’ll go get the check.” He went to find the waitress, but when he got back Sapphire was packed and ready to leave.
“I’ll go with you.” Without waiting for permission, she led the way outside into the warm air of the evening.
“I can’t take you,” he said, catching up with her by his car.
“Hey, guy, you got me all revved up, you’re not going to leave me like this.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to.”
“No way. I don’t have a car or anything.”
“I’ll give you some cab money.”
“Hell, I like excitement. I’ve been dumped by one date, and I don’t intend to be dumped by another. I’m not working tonight. So unless you’re as big a jerk as your buddy, I’ll just come along for the ride.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
Not many roads are blacker and lonelier after dark than Highway 90, traveling east out of New Orleans. It is long and straight with nothing for scenery but dense cypress swamps and jagged strands of pine, ebony against a gray sky. Where the water touches land, fishing camps with colorful names, owned by weekenders and old salts who keep to themselves, perch precariously on crooked pilings driven into the marsh or the flat black
sea itself. When the weather is calm and warm, as it was this night, the only ripples on the water’s glassy surface are wakes from occasional small boats running far from the shore without lights, out for late-night sport or on errands of a private nature.
Tubby and Sapphire had discussed much as they raced through the uninhabited grassland— about what he did for a living and what she thought about the President— but he fell silent when they crossed the narrow Rigolets bridge, and she followed suit. At the sign that said, ENTERING ST. TAMMANY PARISH, LOUISIANA Tubby slowed down and began to clock the tenths of a mile, as Flowers had instructed. The car was barely crawling when, about where Tubby expected, he spied the detective’s blue Explorer nestled in some palmetto bushes beside the road. He eased his Chrysler onto the clamshell shoulder and parked beside the truck. He cut the lights.
“Wait here,” he told Sapphire and quietly opened his door. The smell of salt air and decaying marsh blew into the car. Somewhere tree toads without number sang, and far away a radio played a Beatles song.
A shadow stretched across the highway, and Flowers appeared from the bushes.
“We got some mosquitoes out here,” he complained. “Who’s that in the car?”
“Sapphire Serena. I was having dinner with her when you called.”
“She’s going to stay in the car?”
“I hope so. What’s going on?”
“There’s a camp down that little drive called the Red Saloon. Norella drove in about an hour and a half ago. Everybody seems to be in the building that’s up on stilts. At least they were there a few minutes ago. I don’t know who all is inside, but one of them is definitely Lucky LaFrene.”
“Really?”
“I got a good look at him when he came onto the porch to take a whiz off the rail.”
“You’d think he’d use the head inside.”
“Maybe he likes nature. I’ve been hearing loud voices, but I haven’t tried to get close enough to see what they’re talking about. The racing boat is tied up to the dock, and there’s another little motorboat down there somewhere too.”