by Tony Dunbar
Hacking sounds were coming from within Room G-13. Tubby rushed in to find that they were issuing from the other patient there, a frail old man with wisps of white hair on his yellow scalp, affliction unknown.
“Excuse me,” Tubby mumbled, stepping around the curtain to Dan’s side of the room.
His friend’s head lay in the center of a crisp white pillow, as if it might not have moved for a long time, and his eyes were closed. Slow breathing lifted the blue blanket, but the once-magnificent chest seemed now much reduced. Tubby pushed aside the tubes that dangled like spaghetti around the massive head and shook Dan’s shoulder. He got a little grunt, not much but something.
“How’s it going, buddy?” Tubby asked cheerfully, not expecting any response. “They treating you all right?”
The man in the next bed hacked some more.
“Debbie just had a baby boy,” Tubby rambled on. He pushed a hand through his blond hair. “The little thing is happy and healthy and nine pounds and looks just like our old wrestling coach. You remember Coach Ruggs?”
At a loss for more words, Tubby checked the IV bottles as if he knew what he was looking at.
“Anyway, we need you back, man. This old town ain’t the same without you.”
“I knew him from the old neighborhood,” Dan said distinctly.
“What?” Tubby shouted, unwilling to trust his ears. “Dan, what did you say? What did you say? Come on, man.” Frantically he shook the patient’s shoulder while grabbing for the nurse’s call button.
“Come quick! He’s speaking!” Tubby yelled into the plastic mouthpiece. “Yeah, Dan, this is Tubby, from the old neighborhood.”
His friend’s head tossed from side to side. Then he exhaled deeply and lay still.
A nurse flew into the room, wanting to know what had happened.
“He just spoke to me,” Tubby reported excitedly.
But those words were Dan’s entire speech for the day. The nurse counted his pulse, adjusted a valve on one of the tubes, and said she would let the doctor know.
Tubby waited around hopefully and watched Dan’s eyelids quiver.
The man who had shot Dan was called “Roux,” or something like that, and he was supposed to be dead. Tubby had been there when the son of a bitch had blasted a hole in Dan’s chest, and he had chased Roux through half the French Quarter before the gangster had escaped. A day or two later they had found what they believed was Roux’s body, burned up in a campfire in the hobo jungle beside the Mississippi River. There was no doubt in Tubby’s mind that Roux worked for someone yet to be identified. The obsession to track down that evil being had once burned hot and deep inside Tubby. A few months had passed, however, and he had succumbed to the prevailing view that some things in New Orleans were beyond anybody’s control. The difficulty was, of course, that he found that conclusion depressing.
Outside on the sidewalk the day was hot, despite the black clouds rolling low over the magnolias and live oaks that shaded Prytania Street. Tubby had been prepared to face up to his office routine when he first got out of bed, but the birth of a grandson and the encouraging visit to Dan had given the morning a new slant. Seeing this was such a special day, he thought he might just drive over to Mike’s Bar and hoist a few. Strange thing was, he had been doing that a lot lately, and not all of his days were special.
CHAPTER V
Charlie Autin actually showed up at the Tomcat Inn for breakfast. Since he knew what Daisy did for a living, he waited until after ten o’clock before he came tapping on her door, and even then he half expected to have to beat a hasty retreat if she was mad or had someone with her. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. She wasn’t the kind of girl his mom would want him to bring home, but mom was in jail anyway. Charlie had a suspicion, however, that whoring around was only a temporary situation for Daisy. Sex with her had his brain wound up so tightly that he was overwhelmed by embarrassing sensations of pleasure, but it was more than that. He could tell that this was a girl with a lot of heart.
“Who is it?” she shouted.
“Uh, Charlie,” he said, addressing the chipped door. “You know, breakfast.”
“Oh, shit,” he heard her say. There was some banging around before the door crashed open. She was in a blue robe and squinted at him with one hand shading her eyes from the bright morning sunshine.
“The weirdo,” she stated flatly. A few strands of hair escaped from the shiny pink scarf she had loosely tied around her head.
Charlie put on his best smile. Daisy didn’t look so exotic right after she woke up in the morning, but that made her no less alluring in his eyes.
“I thought you might want some eggs. Or ham, maybe,” he said.
“You did.” She sized him up. He wasn’t bad-looking if you didn’t mind eyes spaced too far apart and hair that stuck out like a wildberry bush. Daisy started to giggle.
Charlie blushed and stepped back, prepared to give it up.
“I’m sorry…” he began.
“Hell, I guess I’ve got to eat, so I might as well let you pay for it,” she said and almost laughed again at the way his slightly undernourished face lit up.
“Go wait in the truck,” she directed and closed the door in Charlie’s face.
He socked his fists into his palms, adjusted his pants, and hastened to his pickup to dust off the passenger seat.
She made him wait about twenty-five minutes, but she came out fresh and clean, wearing a pair of black jeans and a creamy sleeveless top. She looked a lot like the girl who had refused to go with Charlie to the high school prom on account of they would not let him graduate.
He held the door for her and would have helped her climb up if she hadn’t moved so fast.
“Where to?” she asked when he got in beside her.
“I was thinking Denny’s,” he said.
“Fine with me,” she said, impressed that he was going first-class. “They got biscuits and gravy.”
Charlie drove onto the Causeway. They didn’t talk, but he watched her out of the corner of his eye. She caught him once and frowned at him. That got him smiling, and he started humming, “You Are My Sunshine.” She rolled her eyes and looked out the window at the endless panorama of strip shopping centers, muffler shops, and gas stations they were passing.
At Denny’s the air conditioner was set so high she began shivering. So Charlie sat right next to her in the booth and put his arm around her shoulder. She let him, just as if they were on a real date.
Daisy ordered biscuits and gravy and three eggs, over easy, and hash browns and grits and bacon and sausage and orange juice and coffee. Charlie had the number five.
“So, how long you been here?” he asked.
“I told you not to ask for my life story.”
“Well, it would be nice to know something about you, other than…”
She looked at him sharply.
“Well, you know. Something normal,” he concluded.
She took a big gulp of coffee.
“I’ve been here nearly two months. I came on the bus from Loxley, Alabama. Does that tell you anything?”
“Sure, that’s a start.”
“I don’t know how normal it is, though,” she said, reaching for the cream pitcher.
“I paint cars for a living,” Charlie said.
“That’s nice.”
“But I’m looking around for a better job.”
She snorted.
“I believe everybody can change the way they are.” He studied his knuckles.
She shot a glance at his profile and thought of several cute things to say.
“I don’t guess it hurts anything to believe that,” she said instead.
“Yeah, I figure we’ve all got to have a bright picture of where we want to go in our minds, if we ever want to get there.”
The waitress showed up and spread plates of food all over the table.
“You’re weird,” Daisy said, shaking pepper on her eggs until they were mostly black. “
I like eggs with my pepper,” she commented.
“Maybe I am weird,” Charlie said and took his arm from around her shoulder so he could grab a fork.
“Biscuits were better back home,” she said reflectively.
“They got Denny’s there, too?” Charlie asked.
Too weird, Daisy thought, and patted his thigh.
CHAPTER VI
Tubby rolled into his office a little after two o’clock. Circling the spiral ramp of the Place Palais parking garage, feeling three beers slosh around, he hoped that Cherrylynn, his secretary, was out for lunch. She had been the first to comment upon the progressive irregularity of his life. Except when the kids slept over, which wasn’t often, Tubby lived alone. And since he lost his law partner, Reggie Turntide, he worked alone, too. So hell, who else but his secretary would notice? All of Tubby’s best friends were alcoholics. Some were drunks.
He locked the door of his not-yet-paid-for Chrysler Le Baron, squared his shoulders, and took the elevator to the forty-third floor. At the far end of the hall, the gold letters that said DUBONNET & ASSOCIATES, ATTORNEYS AT LAW beckoned him, and he fought the urge to run away.
Cautiously, Tubby grasped the brass handle and pushed open the tall walnut door.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Dubonnet,” Cherrylynn said lightly. There was no mistaking, however, the worry in her eyes.
“Good afternoon,” he replied. “Guess who’s a grandfather.”
“Ooh!” she squealed. All of her freckles danced. “Debbie had her baby!”
“Yep,” Tubby said proudly. “Nine pounds and it’s a boy.”
“What’s his name?”
“She hasn’t decided yet.”
“Everything is fine?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s just worn out.”
“What time did the baby come?” Cherrylynn wanted all the details. Part of her function as Tubby’s receptionist, secretary, and, let’s face it, manager of his law practice, was to try to get the whole picture.
“At about ten o’clock this morning,” he told her before he recognized the trap.
His manager checked her watch.
“I had a meeting… to go to,” he said and marched toward his private office. “Any phone messages?”
“They’re all arranged on your desk, boss.” He knew they would be. She was such a valuable person to have around that he would have to put in a couple of hours work just so he could afford to pay her.
He looked warily around his office, waiting for the inevitable stress to set in. The familiar things— the worn cypress desk, the leather-upholstered chair, the pictures of his children— were comforting, but in this season he was weary of being a lawyer. He had felt that way ever since Dan got shot, since it had been driven home to him how casually lives could be thrown away if they interfered with making big bucks in the Big Easy. It was not that he was naive. It was just that he was programmed to right the wrongs around him. This time he did not know how, and he wasn’t coping very well with the frustration.
Tubby tossed his briefcase on the desk and went to the window to squint through his red telescope. Ah, two ladies in colorful bikinis were sunning themselves beside the bright blue pool situated on the roof of the Fairmont Hotel. That could still get a rise out of him, so he must not be depressed, exactly, he thought while adjusting the knob. He was just pissed off at the whole damn city.
“Mr. Dubonnet.” Cherrylynn was standing in the doorway. “Judge Hughes called this morning. He said it was important.”
She was fretting, as if perhaps Tubby had missed a court date or forgotten to file a brief.
“Really?” Tubby took his eye away from the telescope. The day had cleared, and he could see the city stretching out below him from Lake Pontchartrain to the yellow-and-blue marshes past Chalmette. He had an eagle’s eye view of the French Quarter, the sharp curve of the Mississippi where the river ate a channel six hundred feet deep, the last point of land at the Rigolets, and the endless water beyond.
“I’ll call him right away.” Tubby smiled at his secretary reassuringly, and she nodded and slipped away. She need not have worried about him messing up his docket. Never screw a client and never lie to the judge were still his guidelines. And, of late, he had been avoiding taking on clients with the kind of problems he could screw up.
“Mrs. Evans, this is Tubby Dubonnet. May I speak to the judge?” Tubby was gingerly seated at his desk, flipping nervously through a thick pile of pink message slips.
“Counselor,” Judge Hughes’s voice boomed into his ear. “How are you today?”
“Fine, Judge. My daughter just had a baby.”
He got to tell the story again.
“The Bible says ‘Fruitful will be thy issue.’ I feel this will be the first of many fine grandchildren for you.”
“You could be right,” Tubby said, trying to sound jovial. Christine was seventeen and Collette was fifteen, and he wasn’t ready to think about either one of them getting pregnant just yet. Hell, Debbie had just turned twenty-one, but she had always been headstrong, and…
“I’ll tell you why I called.” The judge cut into his reverie. “I want you to be the cochairman of my reelection campaign.”
“What!” Tubby exclaimed. “Is it time for you to run again?”
“Every seven years I must go among the public, regular as a plague of locusts.”
“Is anybody actually going to oppose you?”
“I’ve heard they will,” the judge said, lowering his voice. “The one that I know of is Benny Bloom.”
“Yeah?” Tubby could see where there might be a problem. Benny Bloom was a brash young attorney who ran spectacular ads on television where oil rigs caught fire and blew up. In the next scene, Benny is handing out checks to lots of smiling widows and guys wearing hard hats. He had all sorts of name recognition.
“Why would he want to be a judge? He’d have to take a huge cut in salary.”
“That’s what I can’t figure out,” Hughes said sourly. “He says he wants to pay the community back, some crap like that. I really don’t know what his angle is.”
“Well, I’ll help you in any way that I can, Al, but what does a cochairman have to do? I’ve never been one before.”
“Oh, you know, you sign your name to all my fundraising letters, and you go to the rubber chicken dinners, and call all the right people. Nothing too strenuous.”
“What about the fact that I’m white?”
The judge thought that was funny. “Hell, Tubby, I don’t hold that against you. You remember the first time I ran, when you took me around and introduced me to all those high-class lawyers in the big firms downtown?”
“Sure.”
“It helped me then. I want you to do the same thing this time, only on a different level. Anyway, my other cochairman is gonna be black.”
“Who’s that?”
“Reverend Horace Weems, only he doesn’t know it yet. I’m gonna call him next.”
“I don’t believe I know the reverend.”
“He pastors St. Pious the Third Evangelist Baptist on Orleans Avenue. He’s a fine man. And listen, I’ve got a campaign manager, too, and I’m getting a media consultant. They’re going to be doing all the nuts and bolts work.”
“And me and the Reverend Weems?”
“You and the reverend are going to help me figure out how to pay for it all.”
“I’m flattered, Al.” And he was. “I could probably find the time.” Since he didn’t have any clients. “But as far as my personal financial contribution…”
Judge Hughes laughed so loud Tubby had to jerk the phone away from his ear.
“I don’t need your money, Tubby,” he roared. “I want you to help me get all those other lawyers’ money.”
Relieved, Tubby laughed with the judge. “Sure, Al,” he said. “I’ll be glad to do it.”
“I knew you would. Either I or Mrs. Evans will call you in a day or two and set up a first campaign meeting.”
“So soo
n?” It was still summertime, for chrissake.
“Soon? The primary is in September. I don’t plan to lose this race.”
Tubby told the judge he was with him all the way, and he had a smug expression on his face when he hung up the phone.
“Hey, guess what, Cherrylynn,” he called out loud. “I’m going to be cochairman of the Judge Hughes Reelection Campaign!”
She ran in to hear the news. He did not immediately realize it, but his mental fog was starting to lift. She spotted it right away.
CHAPTER VII
Charlie Autin was into martial arts, and he was usually never happier than when he was rearing back and kicking someone— laying a mountszu on them. Until he got involved with Daisy, and then she was the only thing on his mind.
He thought she must be older than she said she was, which was twenty-two, because she seemed so experienced about everything. The way she told it, she had only been on the streets a couple of nights before Charlie picked her up that first time. Even allowing for a certain understandable fibbing in that area, it was just amazing what she knew. Tarot cards, for instance. She could predict the future. He had tested her, like on the outcome of a Zephyrs baseball game— they would lose— and again on whether Charlie’s boss would give him Saturday afternoon off— no— and she was right both times. She had traveled more than Charlie and had even been to the casinos on the Gulf Coast. And sex was just crazy, it was so good. She could make Charlie crawl on the floor and beg for more.
Other girls he had dated lacked all of those abilities.
She agreed to come over and see his apartment on a side street near Bonnabel Avenue in Metairie. It was in the back of a brick house with a little yard, and the owner lived up front. Daisy looked real hot when he picked her up, tight red slacks with some kind of gold fringe on them, and a low-cut white tank top that showed off a herd of brown freckles on her neck. They rode off into the deep canyon hidden in the lacy pink bra that peeked out around all the edges of her shirt. He had to sneak her up the driveway to his door in the back so old Mrs. Winters wouldn’t have a heart attack.