by Don Bruns
‘P.T.?’
‘They’re running it now but all that came up immediately is the P.T. you included in your report. The guy that Lerner was supposed to meet just before he was murdered.’
‘Somebody pick up Antoine Duvay. Bring him in and we’re going to question him one more time.’
Strand, dead? And a meeting with P.T. The case got stranger every minute.
Once home, Archer threw his keys on the small kitchen table and headed for the bathroom. Quickly stripping off his clothes, Archer stepped into the lukewarm shower and let the water wash over him. A little soap, a little scrubbing and in five minutes he felt much better. Stepping out, he wrapped the worn white towel around his waist and took a deep breath. Tobacco, cigarette smoke. He remembered it well. Often longed for it. Someone outside his cottage must be smoking. He opened the bathroom door and the man sitting on his bed smiled at him, cigarette burning in one hand, Archer’s Glock in the other.
58
She prayed for Matebo. To the spirits, all of them. The old man didn’t deserve to die at the hands of a thug like Garrett. And she cast a spell, one she seldom used, wishing that Richard Garrett would be punished. She was responsible. She’d accepted the degenerate as a client and even when she knew he was evil, she had strung him on, hoping that she could learn more about his immoral mission.
It went against her beliefs to wish someone harm. But she followed the ancient ritual. His name, written three times on rice paper. Then she torched the paper, ashes forming in a ceramic bowl. Praying to Erzulie Dantor, goddess of vengeance, she stepped outside, nodding at her uniformed nanny, and blew hard on the black ashes. They scattered in the gentle breeze and she could feel the intense gaze from the police officer. Garrett deserved to be convicted and sentenced to death. He’d been responsible for killing three judges, and he’d hurt Matebo. She hoped the spell was powerful enough. And Garrett was responsible for the patrolmen assigned to her. She was not going to be held prisoner by anyone. The voodoo lady had a healthy distrust of all law enforcement officers, even Quentin Archer, and now to be surrounded by them twenty-four hours a day was almost unbearable.
‘Ma’am, is there any trouble?’
‘No.’ She forced a smile. ‘Some ashes I needed to get rid of.’
He nodded as if he understood. But no one really understood.
She walked back into her shop, thinking about Ma. What if Garrett decided to use her mother? There was almost no security at the home, no real reason for it. Yet Garrett knew her mother was there, and he was aware of the bond between mother and daughter.
She needed to do something. The worst thing that could happen would be if Richard Garrett used her mother as a bargaining chip.
Pulling her cell phone from her purse, she called Archer’s cell. No answer, just an automated voice.
Solange walked into the back room of the small shop, opened the waist-high window and climbed out. In a minute she was on the next street and headed toward the Water’s Edge Care Center.
59
Archer stood there, with just a towel for protection.
‘You’re looking a little tired, bro.’ The man with the Glock hesitated, taking a deep breath. ‘And apparently you-you-you’re getting a little sloppy. I thought you took your gun with you-you know, every-everywhere.’
The slight stutter was familiar. Archer had grown up listening to it every day.
‘What do you want?’
‘A piece of y-you, my man.’ Jason Archer aimed the barrel at Q’s chest. ‘For what you did. You fucked up my life, Quentin. And my brother’s li-life.’
‘You two fucked up your own lives.’
‘We don’t see it like that. And I don’t think D-Dad sees it like that either.’
‘I’ve got a killer on the loose, I’ve got an interview with a suspect, and a partner who just committed suicide. I’ve got a young lady whose life is in jeopardy and as you probably know, my job is on the line. So why don’t you either do what you came to do, or get the hell out of my house.’
‘Always the strong man, Quentin. Always the guy who was p-put upon but kept his backbone straight, like iron. What was that song Dad used to s-sing? “One fist of iron, the other of steel.” I grew up thinking that was prob-probably you.’
‘Didn’t work out so well in Detroit, did it?’ Archer asked.
‘Bobby M is still driving the streets, bro. You should have left well enough alone.’
‘Who killed her, Jason?’
‘I th-think it was an accident.’ He aimed the barrel at Q’s head, then moved it down to line up with his crotch. Pointing with his free hand to the papers on the end table, he nodded. ‘You’ve been doing a little dig-digging. Somebody in D-Detroit feeding you information?’
‘Private security company. Nobody you know.’
‘You were warned, b-bro. Leave it alone. We’ll st-stop you if we have to.’
‘Who killed her, Jason? Tell me. Because if it was you, you’ll never outrun me. And if it was Mercer or somebody else, I need to know.’
‘Denise was a noose around your neck, Quentin. You got all high and mighty when you finally hooked up. L-let it lie.’
‘That was my wife, Jason. My wife.’
‘I know, dude.’ He snubbed the cigarette out on the faux wooden end table and the embers sizzled as they burned into the surface.
‘So what’s it going to be?’
‘Pretty tough talk from a man with no clothes.’
‘Get it over with, Jason.’
Jason Archer smiled, and stroked his scraggly beard with his left hand.
‘No heroics? No desperate grab for the gun?’
‘You’ve got to live with what you did and what you’re going to do. It’s pretty much your call right now. I just want to know who killed Denise. Who ran a vehicle up on a sidewalk to get even with me?’
‘You put our brother Brian in jail, Quentin. You set back an, you know, an operation that was doing pretty well for everyone. There are a hun-hundred side deals going on in Detroit. Everyone looking out for themselves and you come along and decide to play Serpico. One man is going to bring down everyone. You arrogant piece of sh-shit. You pompous asshole. You could have stayed out of it and none of this would have happened. Even dad told you to b-back off. Your wife would be alive, you’d have your old job back and Brian wouldn’t be doing time.’
‘And you’d still be pushing drugs on the street and getting people killed.’
‘Fuck you.’
Jason raised the barrel, aiming it directly between Quentin Archer’s eyes.
‘You were sent here to kill me, weren’t you? You going to shoot me?’
Jason nodded and pulled the trigger.
60
Solange walked quickly, not knowing how long it would take until the policeman realized she had left the shop. His job would be on the line, and she felt sorry about that, but her main concern was her mother. That was all that mattered.
Avoiding the main streets when she could, she dodged into alleys and courtyards that she knew well, taking a shortcut here, going the long way around over there. A mongrel dog growled menacingly as she worked her way through a back alley, and she gave it a stern look. The mangy-haired animal cowered and whimpered as she moved on by. She dodged garbage cans overflowing with rotting produce and putrid meat, the stench permeating the air, and several rusted charcoal grills that stood on cement block porches, along with vinyl folding chairs that were torn and faded from wear and the sun.
She wasn’t sure what her next move would be, but she felt certain that staying with Ma would be the first step toward insuring her safety. The helplessness of the old woman brought tears to her eyes.
Stepping out of a small courtyard, she saw the long, two-story building one block away. Water’s Edge Care Center. She sprinted across the street barely missing a man selling ice cream from a pushcart. A family of four stepped aside as she ran past them. In between two small cottages and—
‘Where the hell do you th
ink you’re going?’
The thick arm came out of nowhere, wrapping itself around her neck and picking her up off the ground.
She gave a strangled cry and started kicking, her small frame helpless against the big man who reeked of alcohol.
‘You think you can threaten me, cost me my job? You think you are too fucking good for me?’
‘Clarence, you don’t want to do anything else. Stop it now. Seriously, you are going to be in so much trouble.’
He tightened his grip and she felt lightheaded, choking and desperately gasping for any air.
‘Tell me about trouble, missy. You don’t want to fuck around with me.’
Solange Cordray felt a sharp pain shoot through her brain. She needed to save her mother; that was her primary goal. Focus. Ma. Her eyes watched exploding stars, until there was no more air to breath.
CC’s Community Coffee House on Royal was one in a chain of thirty in Louisiana. A popular gathering spot in the Quarter with an extensive coffee menu and a variety of baked goods, it was a great place to hang out. And hanging out was exactly what Samuel Jackson was doing.
He sat at one of the tables, rotating fans in the ceiling keeping him cool. He tried again to program his new iPhone. The trick was erasing the previous owner’s programming. He’d searched this phone for bank account numbers, phone numbers and any other personal information, but he’d pretty much come up empty. Now he was trying to erase the information already in memory and program his own information. He could then sell the phone and capture any private information the new owner would download. Jackson had a market for all of that information. It was a complicated procedure, but very lucrative. He could make a couple hundred bucks a day just Apple-picking. He pecked at the keyboard, intently watching the screen.
‘Sam?’
Surprised, he looked up and didn’t like what he saw. Two bruisers with gray sport coats and their hands in their pockets. Only three reasons why someone has their hand in a pocket. To keep the hand warm, to steal something from that pocket (and he had plenty of experience with that reason) and to pull out a gun. Immediately he settled on number three.
‘Who wants to know?’
Quietly the bigger of the two whispered, ‘Richard Garrett. It seems you have something of his.’
‘Oh, shit.’
‘We can make this easy, Sam. Give us the wallet, everything included. We’ll even roll on the money, sonny, but we need everything else.’
‘I can get it. I don’t have the Black Card, but I know where it is and if you just—’ He’d already sold everything else and pretty much spent the money.
The two men picked him out of the booth, one holding him under each arm.
‘No need to keep looking, folks,’ the smaller man said. ‘Nothing to see here. Go back to your business, do you understand?’
Several of the senior citizens nodded, not wanting to rile the local ruffians.
Jackson started screaming, imploring the management to step in and stop his abduction.
Amid the confusion, the two men carried him to the street and threw him in the back of a black Porsche Cayenne.
The smaller man sat with him, pinning his arms behind his back. The bigger man drove, two hundred fifty pounds sitting daintily in the driver’s seat, squealing the tires as he pulled out onto the street.
‘Sam, we need all the cards and personal shit that was in the wallet. Surely you understand that?’
‘Please, I don’t have that stuff, but I can get it.’
The big man put more pressure on the arms until they almost cracked.
‘How soon can you get it?’
‘Oh, my God, in two days.’
More pressure, and then more and there was a cracking sound. Shoulders separating from the joints.
The scream, the shrieking was enough to deafen someone. Jackson was crying, tears flowing from his eyes.
‘Hey, Sam,’ the driver shouted back to him, ‘you fucked with the wrong man. It happens. Don’t get crazy over it.’
The screams came even louder and the driver just laughed. He needed a diversion because when the boss found out that he didn’t have the goods, the man wasn’t going to be happy. Not at all.
61
Levy and another detective walked into the restaurant, Levy flashing an official warrant. The patrons and workers parted as the law enforcement team walked into the kitchen. Duvay looked up from chopping an onion and rolled his eyes.
‘Oh, shit. Don’t you ever give up?’
‘Antoine Duvay, you are wanted for questioning in the murder of Judge David Lerner.’
The detective walked up and put his hand on Duvay’s shoulder. For just a moment the young man gripped his knife, his hand shaking. Levy squeezed hard, sending a message that any attempt at escape would be a mistake. This was serious business.
As they led him away, Levy dialed Archer’s cell. Good news needed to be shared, plus he wanted Archer in on the questioning because Levy had no idea where Archer was going with this.
The phone rang and rang and rang. No answer. Levy hoped he’d get an answer by the time he had Duvay at the station.
‘Call me, Archer,’ he muttered under his breath. If this was so damned important, he could at least answer his goddamned phone.
62
Archer closed his eyes and held his breath. When he heard the click of the trigger he opened them again, his heart racing.
‘Come on, bro. I wan-want a piece of you. Not everything. Not yet. I’ll tell ’em you dodged the bullet. No matter how much I want to, I can’t kill my own br-brother.’
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Archer’s bloodshot eyes stared daggers into his brother’s brain.
‘Stop your Mickey Mouse investigation. You’ll hear from me again, Quentin. Bri-Brian sends his best.’
Jason Archer rose from the bed, the gun still leveled at Quentin and he backed away toward the door. Reaching it, he laid the gun on the floor.
‘No bullets. I did-didn’t trust you.’ He laughed as he walked out. ‘Hell, I-I didn’t trust myself.’
Archer stood there, a sheen of warm sweat covering his body and the towel wrapped around his hips. He couldn’t exactly run through the streets of the Quarter naked, chasing his criminal brother, and he had no weapon other than a cold piece of steel which without its ammunition meant absolutely nothing. It was about as useless as a paperweight.
His phone was ringing and he grabbed for it, but the limit had been reached. He checked it for the number. Levy.
Archer called back immediately.
‘Archer, we’ve got Duvay. What the hell do we do with him?’
From one crisis to another. The good news was he was alive to handle them. One at a time.
‘Hold him till I get there. Give me twenty minutes, Levy.’
A minute ago he’d thought it was all over. He’d closed his eyes and expected to be on the other side by now. Quite a start. Quite an emotional upheaval. Now he was back, expected to solve the murder of three judges. Nothing had changed, except he realized his own mortality was in jeopardy. His brother proved what he already knew. No matter how careful he was, at any time someone could take his life. And almost had. Jason Archer was on the loose, and as long as that was the case, Q wasn’t safe. He wasn’t safe at all.
Should he alert the cops that a wanted man from Detroit was in New Orleans? In another minute the city would swallow Jason up and he’d only be seen when he resurfaced. When he wanted to be seen. Yet, in a twisted way, his own brother had spared his life.
Archer walked to his closet, and started to get dressed.
It took half an hour to get there but now they sat in the interrogation room, the suspect chained once again to the metal table.
‘You ran, Antoine. Something scared you. I think you knew more than you told us,’ Archer said.
‘Not often a white man accuses me of knowing something. Hell, knowing anything. Most often I’m just some dumb nigger to you all.’
‘You know why Lerner was murdered, don’t you?’
‘Shit, man, why do you think I know anything? What makes you think I’ve got that kind of information?’
‘Because you worked for the warden. You worked Jakes’s personal detail and you figured out a lot, didn’t you? Lerner’s murder had to do with the warden and the prison, am I right?’
‘You understand that I tell you anything and it’s a death sentence?’
‘How is that?’ Levy asked.
‘How it is, is that this goes to the top, man. Governor’s office, maybe further. I’m not shitting you.’
‘What goes to the top?’
‘You can’t stop ’em, Detectives. You’re two five-ohs who couldn’t get a jaywalker ticketed if they didn’t want you to.’
‘OK, let’s paint a picture and you tell me where I’m wrong.’ Pieces. Put them together and see what fits. ‘Lerner had a thing with Rodger Claim, head of security, am I right?’
‘Claim was the one who suggested me to work at the warden’s house.’
‘Claim was gay, so was Lerner.’
‘I’m gonna walk if I cooperate?’
‘Pretty sure that can be arranged.’
‘And how am I gonna keep safe once you have this information?’
‘We’re trying to get evidence, Antoine. With evidence, we won’t need your testimony.’
But they probably would.
‘They used Rodger Claim to get to Lerner. And then Lerner got to somebody else,’ Duvay said.
‘Why?’
‘I’m guessing.’
‘You ran, Antoine. You had a pretty good suspicion.’
Duvay was quiet, just slightly shaking his head.
‘OK, was it Judge Warren? Was that the “somebody else”?’
‘I don’t know, man. I just got lots of bits and pieces. Maybe I heard Warren’s name. I was just some dumb kid, so they didn’t seem to worry too much about what I heard or saw. And, man, I saw plenty.’ He hung his head low and shook it several times.
‘Like?’
‘I walked into the garage one time and Claim and Lerner were in the Jag, buck naked and—’