Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) (The Tubby Dubonnet Series)

by Tony Dunbar

  “She had to go to the O’Briens’ for cocktails by the pool.”

  “Is Collette in?” Collette was his youngest daughter.

  “No, she’s out.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “You know Collette. She’s just out.”

  “How’s school?”

  “Great. Oh. There’s another call coming in.”

  “Drive safe to Florida.”

  “I will.”

  “And tell your mother I called.”

  “I will.”

  “Love you.”

  “I love you, Daddy,” she said, and switched him off. Tubby went to the bar to pour himself another gin and tonic. This time he decided to leave out the tonic. He stood by the window and looked out over his city. He watched the lights of the barges below slowly plowing upstream in the river as it turned black in the gathering darkness.

  Tubby recalled one particularly nice spring day. The family had gone for a picnic on the Bogue Falaya River, a sleepy little stream north of Lake Pontchartrain. They had towed the boat behind them across the Causeway while the morning fog was still clinging to the water. They got to the boat launch just when the sun broke through, a fuzzy yellow ball. Wisps of mist like smoke curled around the cypress knees by the bank and the pilings of the piers. When they got everybody packed, precariously, into the boat, along with their barbecue grill, lawn chairs, and ice chest, they puttered upstream to a low-water island. Collette jumped in, waist deep, and pulled them onto the beach. With the girls splashing around, and Mattie trying to keep her shorts dry, they got everything unloaded. Mattie set about arranging the camp to her liking, and Tubby started the fire in the grill. The girls all got back in the boat, and after fighting over the wheel, let Debbie take them downstream toward the deep water where they could go fast and ski.

  Once the coals were lit and smoking, and the chairs were all set up, he and Mattie settled down to relax. They had about an hour to kill, and Tubby was thinking idly about trying to interest Martie in a little roll on the blanket she had spread out on the sand. The setting was warm and very serene. He dipped into the ice chest and popped open a can of beer.

  “You’re drinking a little early,” Mattie said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Hey, it’s Saturday. It’s a picnic.”

  “I don’t want you falling asleep.”

  “Mattie, I’m not about to fall asleep.” She had made him uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Is anything bothering you?” he asked.

  She took a big pull on her cigarette and then held it with her lips while she lifted up her hips and used both hands to tug her shorts into a more comfortable position. A brown hawk soared lazily overhead.

  “Why do you always ask if something’s bothering me? Just because I ask about your drinking?”

  Tubby took a stab at changing the subject. “Can you see that turtle over there on that log?” He pointed across the stream. “Do you know that they’re called ‘tarpins’ in north Louisiana? They make it sound like the name of the big fish.”

  She didn’t say anything, just dragged on her cigarette. Tubby tried to feel serene again, but couldn’t.

  “This is special, Mattie,” he attempted. “What a beautiful place. Clean air, birds, old live oak trees with moss hanging off them like a pirate’s lair, nothing to do but cook hot dogs, three gorgeous girls doing healthy things and baking like cookies on our very own boat. It’s pretty nice, huh?”

  “I hate it when you talk like that,” she said quietly.

  Tubby was annoyed. Could she be joking? “Are you nuts? What’s the problem today, hon?”

  “Nothing. It’s just not enough. Anybody can lay out on the river, guzzling beer, and say isn’t this great, but it’s so common. There’s more in the world than this, don’t you think? There’s more to it than being a turtle, sunning yourself on a log without any more to do than eat a bug.”

  “Like what?” Tubby asked.

  “God, Tubby, like everything. Like Paris, stimulating people for a change, like cultural surroundings, like using your talents to their fullest.”

  “Jesus, Mattie. I didn’t know you were so dissatisfied.”

  “I’m not dissatisfied. I feel like I’m in some kind of a vault I need to break out of.”

  “Maybe we should take a trip,” he offered.

  She was quiet for a while. Finally she said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be all right.”

  But he did worry about it, even after the girls came back in a storm of laughter and shouting about how each had done on the water skis and who from school they had seen out on the river. And it wasn’t all right. It had just kept getting worse, and Tubby had felt more and more lost in his marriage until one day Mattie told him if he didn’t move out and give her some space, she was going to go crazy. She threw and smashed enough things to be convincing, and Tubby had done as she said. It had possibly been a mistake, but he was used to it now.

  SIX

  At the beginning, it was half business, half romance, between Darryl and Monique. She did her job and got along with the rest of the staff. The crowd was mostly students and yuppies and boaters, and they basically drank a lot and tipped well. Waitresses wore tights and leather miniskirts. Behind the bar you wore black pants, a ruffled white shirt, and suspenders. Once or twice a week Darryl would pour her drinks when her shift ended at midnight, and they would go back to his office, or drive to his apartment a couple of blocks away, and have sex. They didn’t go out much.

  Sex with Darryl was very good for her. He was attentive and put a lot of himself into it, and he wasn’t into anything that hurt, which was nice but took her a while to adjust to. Sometimes he would send her home in a cab, and sometimes they would sleep in each other’s arms. She got accustomed to the way he smelled and liked it, like burnt toast.

  Once Darryl set her up with a couple of customers after hours. He made a party of it, in the large private room upstairs from the bar, then let her know she was free to leave with them and charge whatever she could get. She didn’t mind, and pocketed a couple of hundred bucks, but she was very nervous about how Darryl would feel about her afterward. It turned out he was okay, at least as far as she could see. They kept on dating after work, and she could tell he was falling for her though he saw some of the other girls, too. She moved from the French Quarter to a condo rental unit near the lake. Her old bike had been stolen when she left it on the street while she ran into a grocery store and forgot to lock it, so she bought a new one at Western Auto. She started riding it to work. Everyone said she was dumb to ride home around the lakefront by herself at night, but to her it was part of being the new and improved Monique, strong and brave.

  Darryl still invited her upstairs to party every so often with some politicians or businessmen, nothing grungy, and he didn’t complain when she went out with them, or when she turned them down. It was up to her. The only time he ever got really mad at her was when she once asked him if he would sell her a little cocaine. He went ballistic and almost got violent about it. He said he was no penny-ante dealer supplying the help and—his main point—if she wanted anything like that, all she had to do was ask and he would give it to her freely. How was she supposed to know that, she asked, and in so many words he said it was because he cared for her deeply. At least that was what Monique thought she heard him saying.

  She got extremely soft on him after that, and they became pretty much of a steady thing. He made her the head cocktail waitress and shift manager, and she more or less moved in with him. He didn’t ask her to party with the customers much anymore, except one night with a particularly important pair of hotshots, and she wished she’d said no to that.

  It was the weekend before Mardi Gras Day, one of the high points of Carnival season and its zany final fortnight crammed with lavish public parades and private balls. The whole city had a crazy atmosphere. Champs was crowded all day. It was early March, but the weather was warm, springlike, and boats of all sizes tied up at the pier outside the ba
r for short stops. Drinkers moved noisily back and forth between deck and dockside, and when people, some of them masked, began rolling in off the streets after the parades passed, the joint really started jumping. It was intense, maintaining the steady flow of drinks, seeing that the bar was supplied, and keeping track of the waitresses who kept vanishing into the midst of the boisterous mob.

  Monique was wired up when she turned her register over to Jimmy, the late-night manager who would pilot the place until it lost altitude and crashed to the ground around four or five in the morning. She had been sipping juice all night and had taken a little toot at around eight o’clock. Now she was quite ready for a couple of drinks. Her mind was on rest, not party, when she went upstairs to Darryl’s office to take him the shift receipts.

  His office was part of a large suite. To get there you passed through the private lounge furnished with a couch, card table, and chairs, and Darryl’s guests used it to hang out in. When the club had live music the band had the run of the upstairs lounge to get stoked up and primed for their performance. The lights were kept very dim.

  The nicest part about the room was that it opened onto a small balcony overlooking the lake and the boats tied up at the dock below. Monique noticed that there were people on the balcony when she walked past, but she didn’t pay much attention to them. A hallway ran from the lounge past a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a locked storeroom and ended at the door of Darryl’s office. It was also kept locked, whether he was inside or not, and it was covered by a security camera so that Darryl could know who was outside before he opened up. He buzzed Monique in. He was sitting facing away from her at his oak desk, counting money, and he nodded to her without looking up or losing count when she came in. He was wearing his regular late-night outfit, faded blue jeans and a baggy white-and-blue striped sweater, and his gold necklace and bracelet. The air conditioner was on high, and he had his big color television on for background noise. It was tuned in to Letterman.

  “What a night,” she said, placing her register tray on the desk.

  “Still a good crowd?” he asked, without looking at her. He probably knew the answer anyway because there was a television monitor on the wall showing all the activity immediately around the bar.

  “Huge,” she said. “You want a drink?”

  “Maybe in a minute. You help yourself.”

  Monique liked it better when Darryl poured, but she didn’t say anything. She went to the bar and mixed up a concoction of orange juice, cranberry juice, and vodka. She took it to one of the garish vinyl-covered armchairs, plunked down, kicked off her sandals, and lit a cigarette. She leaned back and blew smoke, waiting for Darryl to finish the books.

  “Was anybody out in the lounge?” he asked.

  “I think there were a couple of guys out on the balcony. Are they all right?”

  “They’re not exactly all right, but it’s cool. Are you busy tonight?”

  “No.” She thought it was polite of him to ask.

  “Why don’t you go out and get them some drinks. See what they want to do. They’re looking for a good time.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Just a couple of guys. They’re from here. It would be good for business. You might like them.”

  “I’m pretty uptight.”

  “It’s up to you. The big guy’s probably loaded. Go see what they want to drink anyway.”

  “Okay.” She put out her cigarette and got back up. She checked herself in the mirror and kissed the back of Darryl’s neck. “Later for you, baby,” she whispered in his ear. He smiled and gave her hand a squeeze but kept on tallying up the cash. She gave her hips a bounce when she walked out the door, thinking he might look around and see it.

  There were two men on the balcony, partly hidden because one of the French doors was closed. She opened it when she went out. Both men were leaning over the rail, swapping jokes with some Loyola girls, according to their sweatshirts, sitting on the deck of a sailboat tied up below. The top of its mast was at their level, and they were trying to entice the girls to climb up. One of the men was skinny and looked like he might be a high school teacher or something. The other was built big and solid and had on a red nylon windbreaker.

  “Care for anything to drink, gentlemen?” she asked.

  They both looked around and checked her out.

  “Whatever you’re having,” the big one said.

  “About three fingers of Wild Turkey,” said his partner.

  “You got it,” she told them, and went back inside. She called down to the bar on the house phone and asked Jimmy to send up the waiter with a beer and a whiskey and a cranberry juice for her. The big fellow followed her in and sat beside her on the couch. He offered her a Marlboro, which she accepted, and he lit it with a big butane lighter.

  He asked her name and she told him. She asked his, and he said Jack Daniels. He was shitfaced already, she could tell. He had plenty of muscles, but he seemed to be in a good mood. He got cozy in stages, seeing what the rules were. A young waitress brought up the drinks, and he tipped her ten dollars from a roll. He had a lot of money and wanted Monique to know it. The slim man came off the balcony once to go back to the bathroom or maybe talk to Darryl. Monique couldn’t tell where, but he was gone. Jack Daniels brought out a plastic pill bottle and tapped about a quarter teaspoon of white powder onto the card table.

  “You want some of this?” he asked.

  She said okay, and he played around with it for a minute with a small gold pocketknife, then they both sniffed some up through a rolled-up twenty. It was good stuff, and Monique completely spaced out. Jack Daniels got real friendly then and had his hands all over her while they talked and he shot the bull. She remembered that they ordered up more drinks. She kept enough of her wits about her to make him give her some money. He managed that without much of a break in the action. She asked what about his friend. Jack Daniels said something like he’s just a fucking little old lady; he doesn’t care about the finer things in life. They dipped into his pill bottle a couple more times. She jerked him off right on the couch. They went downstairs and had a drink. She remembered taking a ride out to the boat launch in his car. They did it in the backseat. He was a little too rough. She remembered he had a gun strapped to his chest. Put it together with the facts that he was big and muscular, with the beginnings of a beer belly, and she concluded, without too much brainwork, that he was a rogue cop. At least he came with all the trappings of cophood as she knew them. He dropped her off at her place and scratched off before she could find her keys.

  Monique felt completely wrecked when she woke up late the next morning. After she finally got herself moving, she took her bike outside and rode all the way down Lakeshore Drive and back to try to clear her head. She reported to work a little early and tracked down Darryl to get a read on the situation. He acted like it was no big deal, nothing to forgive. Later on he mentioned that he was sorry he’d fixed her up like that. Those guys could be bad actors, he said. She should stay away from them. So what was she supposed to make of that?

  Monique had a problem of her own. She had a prior conviction in Alabama—for possession with intent to sell. She had never told anybody in New Orleans about it. It was part of the degrading time of her life with Ned that she wanted to bury forever. She knew Darryl had a prior, too, but since he didn’t talk about it, neither did she. It was one of the things they hadn’t shared yet.

  What’s worse, she was still on probation. Except for her party nights, and except that she might keep a little grass or coke around for home consumption, she tried hard to stay clean. In other words, she didn’t cut up much in public or do any dealing. She realized that Darryl did, but that was his affair and she kept out of it.

  Sometimes Darryl would go away for a day or two, on business. It was none of hers. They weren’t married. He sometimes made her wait in the hall for a few minutes before buzzing her into his office, and he had even once sent her outside while he took a phone call. She was na
turally curious but not too concerned. She didn’t think that it involved another woman, and that was the main thing that scared her. She hadn’t seen anything serious develop in that area, though. Darryl might sleep around a little, but he showed her enough respect to hide it well. That was something she appreciated.

  She had fallen in love with Darryl, she believed. She liked the way he ran things, the way he was casual around drugs, the way his mood always stayed up no matter what trouble he’d had. She could visualize finally starting to build a home base. The air by the lake was fresh and clean, and wet breezes flushed away the blue fog she got in her mind from working behind a bar. She was making good money, enough to send some regularly home to her mama to help care for Lisa.

  Lisa, the child she had had with Ned, was another of the things she hadn’t yet revealed to Darryl. Lisa stayed with Monique’s mama in Evergreen. She was four years old, and she wrote letters to Monique, the kind that little girls write. The arrangement had begun when Monique had been arrested and spent a little time in Atmore at what they called a rehabilitation center. Monique’s mama hadn’t quite gotten over that, and she still wouldn’t let Monique visit Lisa. Monique imagined that she and Darryl might get married, and then he would help her get Lisa back no matter what her mama said.

  The closest she or Darryl came to talking about kids was when she asked him if he had any brothers and sisters. No, he said, he was an only child.

  “Where did you grow up?” she asked.

  “Mostly here in New Orleans,” he said. “My father sent me and my mother here to live in an apartment when I was a little boy. When I got out of high school, he told my mother to come home and left the apartment to me.”

  “Where did he live?”

  “In Mexico City.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He had a shoe factory,” Darryl said, looking right in her eyes in a way that said he didn’t want to talk about it.

  “You had an apartment and lived all by yourself?”

  “That’s right.”