Creole Belle dr-19

by James Lee Burke

  “You can’t do that, man.”

  “Get on the Internet in the morning. You’re going to be a celebrity. Maybe I can get some pics from your jacket and post them on there.” Clete Purcel got in the Caddy and turned the ignition, an unlit Lucky Strike in his mouth. “Look, go to a psychiatrist. Get some help. Getting over on you is like cruelty to animals. It’s really depressing.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that, man. Hey, come back here. Come on, Purcel, we always got along. Hey, man, you don’t know what you’re doing. We’re old school, right?”

  It was almost ten P.M. when Clete called me at the house. “I creeped Bix Golightly’s crib. His toilet seat is inlaid with silver dollars. His interior decorator must do the decor for cathouses.”

  “You broke into Golightly’s apartment?”

  “I got into his phone records and listened to all the messages on his machine. I also got into his computer. He’s a degenerate gambler. He must have half a dozen bookies and shylocks after him. That’s why he was trying to squeeze me. I think he’s been trying to fence some stolen paintings, too. Or forgeries. He had written some e-mails about an Italian painter. What does a guy like Golightly know about art?”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Over in Algiers. Golightly is parked by an old brick apartment building. I think that’s where Grimes is holed up.”

  “Get out of there.”

  “No, I’m going to take the pair of them down.”

  “That’s really dumb, Clete.”

  “So is letting one of them pour scalding water on my secretary.”

  “Why’d you call me?”

  “In case it doesn’t go right, I want you to know what happened. This is what I think is going on. Golightly is working for somebody he’s afraid of. He and Frankie Giacano got ahold of my marker and decided to score a few easy bucks, then somebody else came down on their case. Now Golightly is sweating marbles on several fronts. The old-time Giacanos always behaved like family men and lived in the suburbs and didn’t draw attention to themselves. Golightly and Frankie and Grimes broke the rule.”

  “Are you carrying a drop?”

  “I always carry one.”

  “Don’t do what you’re thinking.”

  “I don’t let myself know what I’m thinking. So how can I do what I’m thinking if I don’t know what I’m thinking? Lighten up, big mon.”

  Try arguing with a mind-set like that.

  Clete folded his cell phone and set it on the passenger seat of the Caddy. He was parked behind a truck on a tree-lined street in an old residential neighborhood of Algiers that had gone to seed and been rezoned for commercial development. Across the Mississippi, he could see the lights of the French Quarter and the black outline of the docks on the Algiers side and a greasy shine on the surface of the river. Bix Golightly’s van was parked just beyond the streetlamp at the corner, in the lee of a two-story purple brick building, Bix puffing on a cigarette behind the wheel, the window half down, smoke drifting in the wind.

  Why didn’t Bix go in? Clete wondered. Was he waiting for Grimes to go to bed? Was he planning to pop him? It was possible. Bix usually hired button men, homicidal morons like Grimes, to do payback for him, but now his voice was on tape blowing off the AB, and in the meantime he’d probably brought some extra heat down on himself for queering somebody else’s action. Would Bix cap a guy like Grimes to wipe at least part of the slate clean?

  Would anybody who knew Bix Golightly even ask the question?

  Clete reached into his glove box and removed a. 32 auto that was one cut above junk. The numbers were acid-burned, the wood grips wrapped with electrician’s tape, the sight filed off. He dropped it in his coat pocket and got out of the Caddy and walked up the street in the shadows of the buildings. He saw Bix take a final hit off his cigarette and flick it sparking onto the asphalt. Showtime, Clete thought.

  Then he realized why Bix had remained in his van. Two city cops came out of a corner cafe on the side street and got in their cruiser and drove through the intersection and on down toward the river. Ironically, they paid no attention to the van, but the cop in the passenger seat looked directly at Clete. The cruiser’s brake lights went on briefly, then it turned at the next intersection, and Clete knew he had not only been made, but by cops who considered him an adversary.

  He reversed direction, got in the Caddy, throwing the drop in the glove box, and backed all way through an alley until he popped out on the next street, one block away, his mouth dry, his heart beating. He turned off his engine, his breath coming hard in his chest, and knew with no doubt what he had been planning for Bix Golightly and Waylon Grimes.

  Just rein it in, he thought. You can still take them down. It doesn’t have to be for the whole ride.

  Right?

  Right, he answered himself.

  He waited until he was sure the cruiser had left the neighborhood, then he got out of the Caddy and began walking up the alley toward the street where Golightly’s van was parked.

  The inside of the apartment building was poorly lighted and smelled of old wallpaper and carpet that hadn’t been vacuumed in months. Bix climbed the stairs to the second floor, taking them three at a time, pulling on the banister with the elasticity of a simian swinging through the trees. He felt a sense of anticipation he hadn’t experienced in years. The blood-pounding rush of a big score had long ago faded into a memory, like the joys of sex or flashing money at the track. Intravenous drugs once were a great source of pleasure and secret comfort, but they no longer got him high and he shot up only to maintain, as they said in the trade. Which meant he was a zero plugged into the end of a needle. The vices he could easily afford had become bland and uninteresting, and there were days when Bix felt that someone had done a smash-and-grab on his life.

  He walked down a hallway that was lit by low-wattage bulbs inside fluted shades gray with dust, the wallpaper stiff from water seepage, the fire escape framed against the glow of the Quarter across the river. He paused in front of a door that had a metal number seven on it and slipped a credit card from his wallet and started to wedge it between the lock and the doorjamb, then realized the door was unlocked. He replaced the card in his wallet and put his wallet in his side pocket and peeled the Velcro strap off the. 25 auto strapped to his ankle. He twisted the knob a second time and stepped quickly inside the room.

  It was almost totally dark. A digital clock glowed on top of a stereo; a television set was playing in the bedroom, the sounds of a woman in orgasm bleating from the speakers. Bix held the. 25 behind him, staring into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust. “Waylon?” he said.

  There was no response.

  “It’s Bix. I got a little hotheaded on the phone. I’m getting too old and don’t know how to hold my water sometimes.”

  The only sound in the room came from the porn film.

  “Hey, Waylon, what’s going on?”

  Bix felt on the wall for the light switch, the. 25 flat against his thigh. Then his hand froze on the switch. He stared at the silhouette of a man sitting in a cloth-covered chair, the red glow of the clock reflecting a nickel-plated revolver the man was holding casually in his lap.

  “Jesus Christ, Waylon!” Bix said. “You trying to give me a coronary?”

  He eased the. 25 into his back pocket, successfully concealing it from Grimes. He wiped his palm on his trousers. “This is your fuck pad? Where do you pick up your broads? At the Lighthouse for the Blind?”

  Bix waited for Waylon to speak. Then he said, “You want to put your piece away? Let’s have a drink, then we’ll go down to my van and I’ll give you the twenty large you got coming. We’ll forget about Purcel and the nun. Are you listening? Somebody slip you a hot shot?”

  Bix hooked his thumb under the light switch, paused briefly, then flicked it on.

  Waylon Grimes did not move, not an inch. His right hand rested on the frame and cylinder of a Vaquero. 357. His head was tilted back slightly into the upholstery,
his mouth partly open. One eye seemed to be fixed on Bix, as though he had been taking a nap and been disturbed by an unwelcome visitor. The other eye had been blown back into the socket, the lid hanging halfway down.

  Bix let out his breath. “Hey, who screwed the pooch?” he said, turning in a circle, his piece held out in front of him. “Is there anybody else here? If there is, I got no beef with you. I was here to pay a debt, that’s all. You heard me say it.”

  He felt like a fool. Was he losing his guts? He went into the bedroom and the bath and the kitchen, but there was no sign of a burglary. He replaced the. 25 in its holster and pulled a hand towel from the rack in the kitchen and wiped the inside doorknob, then stepped out in the hallway and wiped the outside doorknob and stuck the towel in his pocket. Had he missed anything? He couldn’t think. He had touched the doorknobs and nothing else. He was sure of that. Time to boogie and think through complexities after he was clear of Grimes’s pad.

  He went back down the stairs and exited the building without being seen, the wind cool on his face and hair, the smell of the river balm to his soul. How lucky can a guy get? he thought. Somebody else had snuffed Grimes, and now Bix was home free, not only on the Purcel scam but on the invasion of the nun’s house and the twenty grand he owed Grimes. He could use the money to square his debts and maybe get into a program for his addiction. Thanks, Waylon. I never thought you could do me so many favors. I hope you enjoy your ride in a body bag to the mortuary.

  But who had popped him? That one was up for grabs. Plenty of people hated the punk, including Purcel and the parents of the kid Grimes had killed. Yeah, it could have been Purcel, Bix thought. Grimes must have known the killer, because there was no forced entry. Grimes always had two or three guns stashed around his crib and must have tried to make a play with his. 357. It was probably hidden under the chair cushion; he had gone for it, and Purcel had parked one in his eyeball. If that was true, maybe Bix could squeeze a few bucks out of Purcel after all, or see him go down on a murder beef. How sweet could it get?

  Or maybe one of Grimes’s broads did it. There were stories that he liked to hang them up on a hook and work them over with leather gloves or make them play Russian roulette. Grimes was definitely not into long-term female relationships. Who cared, anyway? It was a great night. Time to celebrate, have a few champagne cocktails with a lady friend or two, maybe shoot craps at Harrah’s. This was still his city. Then he had a thought. What would make this whole caper perfect? What if he planted evidence implicating Purcel? He had plenty of time. Nobody would find Grimes until he started rotting into the chair. Bix knew a house creep who would steal something out of Purcel’s office and plant it in the apartment for a few lines of unstepped-on blow.

  Bix walked down to the van, tossing his keys in the air and catching them, a song in his heart. He opened the door and got in and peeled the Velcro-strapped holster off his ankle and locked it in the glove box. It was no time to get stopped and frisked in Algiers. He inserted the key in the ignition, lighting a cigarette, blowing the smoke at an upward angle out the window, like a dragon that could breathe fire.

  He had paid no attention to a figure standing in a doorway across the street. The figure stepped into the light and walked toward the van, wearing a red windbreaker and a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap and tight-fitting jeans tucked inside suede boots. The figure’s hands were in plain view. Bix started the engine but did not shift into gear, his cigarette hanging from his mouth, his grin stretched as tight as rubber.

  “Is that you, Caruso?” he said. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”

  The figure did not speak.

  “I took a wrong turn off the bridge,” Bix said. “I ought to know better, growing up here and all. You want to get coffee or something? I’m supposed to close a couple of deals tonight. It’s part of a charity drive with the chamber of commerce, can you believe that?”

  The figure leaned down as though determining if anyone else was in the van, then stepped back, glancing up and down the street.

  “You can come along if you like,” Bix said. “I belong to an all-night health club. We can play some handball. I’m trying to get off of cigarettes and lose some other bad habits I got. Funny seeing you in Algiers. I always lived in the Quarter or uptown and never really dug the lifestyle over here. If it’s not in the Quarter or up St. Charles, it’s not New Orleans. It’s like Muskogee, Oklahoma, you know, downtown Bum Fuck with Merle Haggard singing songs about it. Jump in and we’ll take a spin across the bridge. From the bridge, the lights of the city are beautiful. When you visit New Orleans, you ought to call me. I know all the famous places you won’t find on any map. You want to see the house where that vampire novelist used to live? I can show you the rooftop where the sniper killed all those people in the Quarter. I was born and bred in this city. I’m your man. Believe me, Caruso, Algiers sucks. Why the fuck would you want to hang out here?”

  Bix stuck another cigarette in his mouth without ever missing a beat, forgetting he had left one in the ashtray, the cigarette in his mouth bouncing on his bottom lip while he talked on and on, his dignity draining through the soles of his shoes.

  Then he felt an engine inside him wind down and stop. He looked at the glove box where he had locked his. 25 auto and became silent. He lifted his eyes to the figure standing by the window and removed the unlit cigarette from his mouth. He started to speak, but the words would not come out right. He sucked the moisture out of his cheeks and swallowed and tried again. When he heard his own words, he was surprised at the level of calm in them: “You ought to come here during Mardi Gras. Like Wolfman Jack used to say, it’s a toe-curlin’ blast,” he said.

  The figure lifted a silenced. 22 auto and pointed it with both hands and fired three times into Bix Golightly’s face, hitting him twice in the forehead and once in the mouth, clipping his cigarette in half, the ejected casings tinkling like tiny bells on the asphalt.

  The shooter bent over and picked up the ejected rounds as dispassionately and diligently as someone recovering coins dropped on a beach. From the edge of the alleyway, Clete watched the figure walk down the street through a cone of light under a streetlamp and disappear inside the darkness. The shooter’s windbreaker reminded him of the one worn by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Then the shooter reversed direction and came back toward the streetlamp and seemed to stare momentarily at the alleyway, uncertain or bemused. Clete edged deeper into the alley. His. 38 was clenched in his right hand, the grips biting into his palm, his pulse jumping in his neck. He pressed himself into the brick wall, his own body odor climbing into his nostrils, a vaporlike coldness wrapping itself around his heart. His blood was pounding so loudly in his ears that he couldn’t be sure if the shooter spoke or not. Then he heard the shooter walk away, whistling a tune. Was it “The San Antonio Rose”? Or was he losing his mind?

  4

  Clete’s Caddy pulled into my drive at five the next morning, the windows and waxed finish running with moisture. I heard him walking on the gravel through the porte cochere and into the backyard. When I disarmed the alarm system and opened the back door, he was sitting on the steps. The oak and pecan trees and slash pines were barely visible inside the fog rolling off Bayou Teche. He told me everything that had happened in Algiers.

  “You went into Grimes’s apartment after Golightly got it?” I said.

  “I didn’t touch anything.”

  “Grimes died with a. 357 in his hand?”

  “Yeah, he probably let the wrong person in and didn’t realize his mistake until it was too late.”

  “Why’d you go into his apartment?”

  “Grimes tortured my secretary. I shouldn’t go into his apartment?”

  “You didn’t call the shooting in?”

  “I called in a shots-fired from a pay phone.”

  “You did that later?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s something not coming together here, Clete. You had your piece out when you were in
the alley?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “But you didn’t try to stop the shooter?”

  “Would you eat a round for Bix Golightly?”

  Clete was staring into the fog, his big hands cupped on his knees, his porkpie hat low on his forehead, his stomach hanging over his belt. He picked up Snuggs and started wiping the mud off the cat’s paws with his handkerchief, smearing mud and fur on his slacks and sport coat.

  “You’re leaving something out,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “You’re telling me you froze?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just left Golightly to his fate, that’s all. He was born a bad guy, and he went out the same way. The world is better off without him.”

  “You’re a witness to a homicide, Clete.”

  “What else do you want me to say? I told you what happened. You don’t like what I’ve told you, so you put the problem on me. You got anything to eat?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You guess?” he said, putting Snuggs down.

  “Come inside. I’ll get some eggs and bacon started.”

  He took off his hat and rubbed his forehead as though he could smooth the wrinkles out of it. “Just coffee,” he said. “I don’t feel too hot.”

  “You pull something loose inside?”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “How can I help you if you won’t be square with me?”

  “I thought this fall we’d be fishing again. Like the old days, when we caught green trout north of Barataria Bay. New Orleans is the only place in the world where people call bass ‘green trout.’ That’s pretty neat, isn’t it?”

  “Who was the shooter, Clete?”

  A T 7:45 A.M. I went to the office, and Clete went to the cottage he rented at a motor court down the bayou. At eleven A.M. I called Dana Magelli at the NOPD. I asked him what he had on a double shooting in Algiers. “How do you know we have anything?” he replied.