by Tony Dunbar
“Cocaine, I think.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“A friend of his called me.”
“Where is he?”
“Central Lock-Up, most likely. He was arrested last night. He had a whole house full of people watching the Tyson-Holyfield fight.”
That figured. Cesar was a good host and entertained a veritable salon of musicians, painters, oddballs, and losers who liked to drink beer and watch sports all night on cable TV.
“How much did they catch him with?”
“Something like a kilo, is what I heard. It was supposedly a set up.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tubby said aghast. “That’s like a life sentence.”
“Well, I wanted you to know. I’m sure he would have called you himself if he could.”
“Yeah. Okay. I’m going down to the jail now and see if I can find him.”
Tubby quickly got his jacket off the hanger behind the door.
He did not mess around when people he liked or who paid him well got locked up at Tulane and Broad. Jail in the Big Easy was a dangerous place.
He explained his mission to Cherrylynn and hustled to the elevator. The Hughes for Judge campaign would have to wait.
* * *
Templeman D was one of Sheriff Mulé’s new concrete castles that stretched in a windowless, razor-wire wrapped line for half a mile beside the Pontchartrain Expressway. Unless you drove a police car, no parking was permitted, and you got there by waking through four blocks of prisons and bondsmen— past Police Headquarters, Parish Prison, Traffic Court, Community Correctional Center, the House of Detention, and Central Lock-Up. The prisoners at Templeman were short-timers and pretrialers. They didn’t get many visitors anyway.
The fat black deputy wearing Sheriff Mulé’s black uniform hardly looked up when Tubby pushed through the heavy glass door. She just held out her hand, palm up, for his ID. He kept his Bar card and his driver’s license next to each other in a plastic case, just for such times.
“I’m trying to find Cesar Pitillero,” he declared.
She consulted her computer and made a call. She told somebody to bring the prisoner in 4B down for a lawyer visit.
The trail led through a series of corridors and outdoor walkways, each stage punctuated by a rivet-studded steel barrier that had to be unlocked electronically by some invisible person deep in the nest. Finally you got to sit alone on a long row of blue plastic chairs until the prisoner was brought down. You met him in a booth with a pane of reinforced glass between you.
Tubby was allowed into the booth first, and he heard Cesar proceeding through clanging doors before a gaunt black-bearded head appeared on the other side of the glass.
“Glad to see you, sir,” Cesar said, cracking a wild grin that deepened the crevices in his face, making him look more like a Cuban boat refugee than he actually was. His outfit was color-coordinated— city-issue lavender sweatpants and a navy blue pullover with OPP stenciled in white letters on his chest.
Tubby asked how he was feeling.
“Everything’s okay.” The smile stayed.
“Well, what happened?”
Cesar stared at him dead-on. “A guy I barely know came to my door with a package and put it in my hand. Then all these policemen came in behind him and arrested me and everybody else in the house. We were watching the fights. They let the others go this morning. My bail is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“ Man,” Tubby exclaimed. “What’s the charge?”
“ Here’s what they gave me.” Cesar unfolded a packet of papers he had carried down from his cell. “Maybe you can figure it out.” He selected a worn white sheet and pressed it against the glass for Tubby to read. His fingers were shaking.
“Distribution of a controlled substance. Cocaine,” Tubby read. “Possession of marijuana. Three grams. Distribution?”
Cesar shrugged. “I was just watching the fights.”
“Distribution is the worst they got. It could have been possession, or intent to distribute, but this is worse. How much cocaine was it?”
“A bag about this big.” Cesar drew a picture about the size of a loaf of bread with his hands.
“That’s a lot,” Tubby said.
“Tell me about it.” Cesar knew it was a lot.
“What about the three grams of pot?”
“They asked me where was my pot, and I showed it to them. They thought I was kidding. They were expecting pounds or bales or something. But that’s all there was.”
“Did they search the house?”
Cesar nodded.
“Did they find any money in the house?”
“They took about three thousand dollars from my bathrobe hanging on the bed post. They said it was evidence.”
“That’s a lot of money to keep in your bathrobe.”
Cesar nodded again. “I wasn’t buying the cocaine. That’s just where I keep my money. I was set up.”
“Why?”
“If you can get me out of here maybe I can find out.”
“Yeah, well that’s a real stiff bail.” Tubby was surprised it wasn’t higher. Cesar’s case had lousy facts. “Who set it?”
“I don’t know his name. He was a white guy.”
“Okay. I can find that out.”
The lawyer tried to give his client an encouraging smile. Cesar smiled back. There was a tic in his cheek, and it didn’t make him look so good.
“You got everything you need?” Tubby asked.
“I can’t complain. I’m going to be here awhile, aren’t I?”
“To be honest…” Tubby nodded. “What about the other inmates?”
“They’re okay. I’m a star. Once they found out how much I was in for they think I must be a very super dude.”
“Of course you are. Just ahead of your time. Or behind it, or something. I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll be here.” His eyes were like the dog you left behind at the pound.
Tubby walked out. He reclaimed his own ID and eventually stepped into the smoggy free air. He began his trek back through the jail kingdom in search of his car— thinking that an attorney is but one cog in a very frightening criminal justice machine.
CHAPTER XII
Tubby believed that a lawyer must eat, and so he decided to take a chance that there would not be a long line at Uglesich’s. It was only a few minutes’ drive past the Clio (affectionately known as “CL 10”) housing project. Tubby always told out-of-town visitors to the restaurant that the neighborhood looked worse than it really was. He braked hard to avoid butting a couple of kids who sped through a red light on their bicycles, yelling unintelligible warnings at each other and at him.
He approached the unpretentious eatery, crooked wooden siding painted gray, and entered its garlic-rich atmosphere. The small dining room was packed with a combination of guys with ties, white shirtsleeves rolled up, and a jazzier clientele wearing floral dresses, vividly colored T-shirts, sandals, and jeans. He was filled with an aching hurt for oysters or shrimp, but all the tables, and even the seats at the bar, were taken.
“Hey, Tubby.” A familiar voice rose above the din.
Back in the corner Tubby spied the waving hand that belonged to Winnie Alphonse, a lawyer most noted for his mane of white hair and his pink Stetson cowboy hat.
“Come join me,” Alphonse yelled, and Tubby squeezed his way through the dense thicket of chairs and shoulders hunched over bowls of gumbo and platters of crabs.
“Have a seat.” Alphonse kicked the chair across from him, and Tubby fell into it gratefully.
“Man, it’s crowded today,” he said, settling in.
“Timing is everything.” Alphonse leaned back against the wall to permit a short, portly waiter to wedge in with a basket of French bread.
“Take your order?” the waiter asked Tubby between gasps.
“What are you having?” Tubby asked Alphonse.
“Red beans and rice. It’s on my diet, except for all the
sausage.”
After scanning the blackboard quickly, lest his waiter escape, Tubby ordered shrimp scampi.
“Want some beer to drink with that?”
The prospect was appealing, but Tubby ordered a Barq’s red drink instead.
He watched Alphonse attack his plate.
“So what’s new?” his benefactor asked between bites. “I haven’t see you around the courthouse lately.”
“I’ve been trying to avoid stress.”
“I had a law partner once,” Alphonse told him. “Her idea of how to avoid stress was to go work out every afternoon at the New Orleans Athletic Club for about three hours. She’d jump rope and swim and do all those machines. Then she’d go to the steam room and get a massage.”
“Yeah? How did it work?”
“It was tremendous for her. She liked it so well that she quit practicing law, and now she’s got a TV show in Boulder, Colorado, where she teaches aerobic exercises.” Alphonse mopped up his forbidden cheese and butter with a crust of bread and popped it into his mouth.
“I’ve been on a less drastic program,” Tubby said, looking around the room. It wasn’t much to see— stained walls, a couple of beer signs, and the kitchen right there where you could hear the pots banging around, but Mr. Uglesich could dish up the food.
“I just came from the jail,” Tubby said.
“You got appointed to something?”
“No, an old acquaintance of mine got busted for cocaine.”
“How’d it happen?”
Tubby told him the story.
“Sounds a little farfetched— the part about being set up,” Alphonse opined. “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“Sure!” Guys who stayed up all night watching ESPN didn’t do drugs, did they? “Of course there are a lot of details I don’t know yet. The visiting area down there isn’t really conducive to sharing confidences. Getting his bail reduced is going to be tough. There’s no upside for a judge to make it any easier for a drug dealer to get out of jail, especially in an election year.”
Alphonse patted his lips with his napkin. “Oh, there’s always a way,” he said. “Especially in an election year when the pressure is on to come up with money. A couple of thousand dollars to a person of influence might enable him to get out on a personal surety bond.”
“You know such a person?” Tubby asked.
“It’s possible that I do.”
Tubby reflected upon that information. He watched the waiter storm out of the kitchen with what Tubby hoped was a large lunch for him. “Funny,” he said. “I’ve been practicing for a long time, but I’ve never done anything like that.”
“It don’t always work out so smooth.” Alphonse finished his bottle of Abita beer and wiped his lips.
“Shrimp scampi,” the waiter announced, dropping a steaming platter in front of Tubby.
“Looks good,” Alphonse said.
Tubby carefully speared a shrimp with his fork and studied it while it cooled.
“I don’t think I’m ready to go that route,” he said finally, and took the flavorful critter into his mouth.
“It’s a bad practice,” Alphonse agreed. “Your client, however, might take a different view.”
Walking slowly to his car, under the weight of a substantial bowl of bread pudding and rum sauce for dessert, the good and the bad voices inside Tubby carried on an angry debate about where a lawyer’s ethical duties lay in such a situation.
CHAPTER XIII
Sometimes, after the bar closed, the owner took a drink herself, up on the balcony overlooking the yacht harbor, with the stars twinkling overhead and the warm, almost salty air blowing over the lake for company. This was Monique’s time by herself, while the bartender cleaned up downstairs and before she had to relieve her baby-sitter at home. She could think about life’s little things. And about the big ones, like how she missed Darryl, her boyfriend, who had been killed beside the cash register below, and who had bequeathed her this hot spot known as Champ’s.
Tired, Monique was holding a wet plastic cup full of cranberry juice and vodka and letting the breeze cool under her blouse. Sometime it was hard to keep the ghosts out of her mind, and lately they were invading her sleep. Some of them were strangers. Suddenly she heard a long wail and saw a woman break from the shadows on the far side of the harbor inlet and hurl herself over the quay side into the black water.
“Jeez-o-flip,” Monique exclaimed. “Jimmy!” she yelled, bending over the railing and waving at the window below. She saw the woman’s arms flailing around in the water, agitating the yellow and blue reflection of the bar’s neon lights.
“Jimmy!” Monique screamed. Getting no answer, she pitched her drink over the side and ran back through the “chill-out” parlor used by important patrons, knocking over a chair in her haste, and clattered down the stairs.
“Call the Coast Guard!” she yelled. There was a patrol station right next door. Jimmy, stacking napkin holders by the light of a Bud sign over the bar, stared at her, befuddled. “A woman just jumped into the water!”
Monique pulled open the glass doors and ran onto the wooden deck where, on sunny days, sailboats docked and boys and girls greased each other with tanning oil.
“There she is. I can see her!” Monique pointed to midstream. A head, hair spread out in the gentle current, bobbed up and down.
“What’s the number?” Jimmy was behind her.
“God damn it!” Monique cursed, plopping down onto the deck and pulling off her sneakers. “Jimmy Fender, can you see that God damn Coast Guard station over there? Run over there and get somebody!”
With that, Monique dove into the water and began splashing away. Jimmy pulled at his hair and set off running.
Trying to keep the engine-oil flavored lake water out of her mouth, Monique flailed across the channel until she bumped into a limp, floating form. Trying to approximate a hold her Sunday School teacher had taught her long ago, she gripped the woman under the chin and clumsily began sidestroking back toward her tavern. It seemed to take a long time.
Men with flashlights were running onto the deck when Monique got near, and they reached in and dragged her and the floater out. One squatted down to perform CPR on Monique’s catch. Another tried to do the same thing on Monique who, operating on instinct, kneed him solidly in the groin. He rolled off her, howling.
With a gurgling sound, familiar at Champ’s, the potential drowning victim vomited a large amount of Lake Pontchartrain and gasped for air.
Keeping his distance, the coastguardsman whom Monique had repulsed radioed for an EMT wagon and, before you knew it, the deck was swarming with guys in green coats. Five or six cops who had been patrolling the playground on the lakefront made their appearance, and for a while you could hardly move.
Everybody congratulated Monique and got an eyeful of her bod through her soaked clothes. One of the cops finally remembered his manners and got a blanket out of his car to drape over her shoulders.
The young woman Monique had pulled from the deep got strapped to a rolling stretcher. She was awake and crying. Monique stood over her and watched curiously. Their eyes met for a moment before the EMTs hustled their patient to the van.
Monique offered all the cops a beer, but they said no. One asked Monique for a date.
“I’d think twice about that, buddy,” advised the coastguardsman whom Monique had popped. Finally they were gone.
“Man, that’s a hard way to kill yourself,” Jimmy said thoughtfully, smelling the lake water with distaste. “You didn’t even think about it. You just jumped right in,” he said, admiration showing.
“It ain’t no big deal.” Monique started to say, “Anybody would have done it,” but Jimmy was already shaking his head.
“I don’t go into that water for nobody,” he said. “It’s full of gross shit I don’t even want to imagine.”
Monique shrugged. She knew there was worse stuff than dirty water.
“Tonight you close up
,” she said. “I’m going home for a shower.”
Jimmy let her out the front door. Monique still had the blanket wrapped around her. Normally she took a bicycle to and from work. Her apartment was only about four blocks away.
“You gonna walk?” Jimmy asked her as she set off down the street.
Monique just waved good-bye. She felt great, as if her life had a purpose. Like a nun in her brown habit, Monique shuffled along the deserted pavement.
The cop who had asked her for a date flashed his lights at her, and she let him give her a lift.
* * *
Flowers pulled to the curb in front of a small white house badly in need of paint in a neighborhood of welding shops and plumbing contractors. He walked to the iron-barred security door, rang the bell, and waited.
Presently, a timid voice within asked who he was.
“Sanré Fueres, ma’am. I’m the detective who works for Mr. Dubonnet. We spoke on the phone.”
Aunt Melissa Haywood, a white-haired wisp of a woman in a pink quilted housecoat, opened the inside door tentatively.
“Could I see some identification, please?” she asked.
“Sure.” Flowers got out his wallet and handed her through the bars a plastic card with his picture on it.
She inspected him and the photograph carefully. “I guess this is you,” she said and used a key to unlock the security door. “Can’t be too careful nowadays.”
She led the way into a living room crowded with a lifetime of furniture and pictures. She offered him a Coca-Cola.
“Thanks. I’d like one very much,” he said and sat on a yellow vinyl-covered chair while she slipped away to the kitchen. Flowers jumped up and quickly sniffed around the room. He glanced over the calendars and photographs on the walls and the electric bills laid out on a small desk. It was a habit with him. He was settled quietly on his chair by the time she returned with a glass of Coke and a paper napkin.
“There. Now how can I help you?” She sat down softly by the desk.
“Mr. Dubonnet has a theory that the man who killed your nephew might be somebody Dan knew, someone ‘from the old neighborhood’.”