by H Hiller
“So whose idea was getting a dog in the first place?”
“Biggie was always looking for more street cred and I agreed that it might make some of the bangers respect him more if he had a pit bull.” Bumper shrugged but didn’t really answer the question. He tried to distract me by changing the subject. “He made Tyshika ride in the back seat with the dog while we drove to the Quarter.”
“Was it your idea to dye the dog blue? The trainer said someone from here called and asked him to do that before he wrapped the kennel.”
“I haven’t got a clue on that. Ask Tyshika.” I saw no reason to let him know I had already spoken with the woman I believed he was going to implicate whenever possible.
“Whose idea was it to gift wrap the kennel?”
“I think I remember hearing Tyshika asking her cousin to have it ready that way. I don't know why, it wasn't any surprise what was in the box.”
“Oh, yeah, it was.” Bumper didn't initially see my point but then he grimaced.
“What I don’t get was why Biggie was being presented with a dog the kennel owner said he shouldn’t even take out of the cage and was to train with the next day.”
I phrased the statement to intentionally let Bumper know he was not my first interview. I wanted to shake some of his smugness by making him wonder what I had discovered so far. He was doing a fairly good job of deflecting my questions and pointing me towards people other than himself about his boss’ murder.
“Tyshika didn’t have any money for a birthday present so she asked her cousin if she could just borrow the dog Biggie had already bought and she could act like it was something she got him.” The derision in his voice was not necessary to make it clear what he thought of Tyshika.
“What did you get him for his birthday?”
He started to say something and then changed the subject yet again.
“Anyway, we had reservations at Hard Rock for dinner. I parked in the lot beside the restaurant and went with Tyshika to be sure that everything was set.”
“Why did you leave him alone in the car? Is that any way to be a bodyguard?”
“Biggie didn't need a bodyguard any more than he needed that dog to protect him. Biggie just needed to look like he needed a bunch of protection so people would take him seriously. He couldn't be the bad ass hip-hop producer if people thought he was just another fat man in a suit. It's why he kept hanging out with the gangster boys,” Bumper confided. “I don't remember a single time anyone threatened him that we took serious.”
“Well, you'll always remember to check the dog next time,” I suggested. He held his tongue but was clearly growing tired of being subtly criticized for his job performance.
“Right,” he said and paused for me to focus on his story. “We got out and he moved to the back seat.”
“I noticed that when I watched the security camera footage. Why did he do that?”
“He never wanted anyone walking by the car to think he didn’t have a driver if I wasn't there. He wanted people to know that this was his big fancy car.”
“I also saw you came back to the car for a couple of minutes. You opened his car door and then slammed it pretty quick. What was that all about?”
“I went out to tell him it was going to be a while on the table and he got mad about me leaving Tyshika alone in the restaurant. He’s the one that closed the door so quick.”
I made a mental note to review that footage again. Bumper was quick to respond to everything I asked. He was either being honest or had practiced his answers.
“Is there anything you would like to tell me about Biggie’s operation that would be better for me to learn from you than to find on my own?”
“Such as?” Bumper asked cautiously and then grinned. “Oh, I get it. You want me to tell you if Biggie was breaking any laws and want me to believe I will be the one left holding the bag, now that he’s dead, if you find anything.”
“Well those are your words,” I shrugged. “But, yes, that’s what I am saying. I have already found one interesting lead. I was just wondering if you might cough up the same one.”
“I am not coughing, sneezing, or farting until I have spoken with an attorney.”
“Fair enough. Tyshika gets the first deal,” I sighed, but he didn’t take the bait. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to say whose gun was in the Range Rover’s glove box?”
“Biggie’s. He put it in the glove box that morning because he had a stack of CDs in his hand when I picked him up, and he shoved all of those in the console. They are still sitting on his filing cabinet, right where he put them when we got here that morning.”
This explained the empty console but not why the gun wasn’t returned to the console when it was empty again. Biggie may have left it there because the pistol would have been handier in the glove box riding as a passenger than in the console. Answering the question also let me know that Bumper may not be willing to tell me anything about Biggie’s illegal activities, but would if doing so cast the blame squarely on his boss and not himself.
“You’re aware it was against the law for a convicted felon to have a firearm.”
“I do,” he said tersely. “I also know Biggie didn’t give a damn, and it wasn’t my job to tell him what to do.”
“Did he keep it chambered?”
“Not much use if it isn't. Nobody gives you time to load when the shooting starts, right?”
“Not in my experience, no. Talking about loaded guns, how was the relationship between Tyshika and Biggie?”
“Relationship? No. There was no relationship as far as Biggie was concerned. He felt he owed her some for having been there for him when he got out of Angola, but he did not love that woman and he sure did not intend to ever marry her.”
“Why not?”
“Two reasons. First off, having her around meant other girls were only too happy to sleep with him to get one over on her. Biggie could have any woman he wanted around here, and he could always use Tyshika as the reason he couldn't take anything too far. Second, and this is the real reason, he never forgave her for not fighting him about putting their kid up for adoption. He thought it meant she didn’t really love their son. Biggie wanted her to really depend on him so she'd really feel the knife when he cut her off in the will.”
“She certainly seems to be feeling it. So you knew what was in the will?”
“Umm, yeah.” Bumper realized he had said more than he meant to say. “He told me some things, but I never read it for real.”
“What did he leave you?”
“He left me the condo and my choice of his cars.” I could have asked if he had learned this from Biggie or Logan, but the answer wouldn’t have made much difference.
“Would that be enough reason to wish him dead?”
“Man, I was making close to two hundred large a year watching his ass. I got so much money socked away I won't know he's gone for some time to come. I really liked Biggie, and I sure liked my job, so why would I screw any of that up?”
“Others have for less. You sure you haven't been measuring his office for new drapes all this time?”
“Oh, hell no.” He laughed and went to the fridge and offered me a fresh beer. I had only taken the one drink from mine and left it sitting on the table beside me. “I was getting so much gravy I didn’t need to eat the potatoes. You know how much work I gotta do now?”
“And how do you feel about Tyshika?” I tried to get back on track with the handful of questions I had when I came in the door.
“She's a street girl.” He said this and then looked at me directly to make sure that I knew he wasn’t calling her a prostitute. “She saw that their son had no future. She was working two jobs and still on welfare. She was afraid Biggie was going to get back into his old ways and knew the kid would either grow up with a dad back in prison or dead in the ground, and the boy would probably follow his daddy down that same path. I think she did the right thing, but I sure wasn't going to tell Biggie how I fe
lt.”
This was likely a total lie or just more of his obvious campaign to make her a better suspect than himself. It did sound plausible, but I doubt there had been such a personal conversation with Biggie that the fat man would have ever told his bodyguard any of this.
“Maybe you could tell her now. She might like to hear someone say something nice for a change. Hey, I noticed you have a bit of a limp. Is that something new or old?”
“Old. I played for Oklahoma but I blew my knee out in a late season game my junior year. I had to sit out my senior year. It doesn't bother me much and Biggie didn't hire me for my ability to run from things. He just wanted someone to look mean.”
“Did you get the knee fixed?”
“Nah. I was never going pro so I laid up most of the summer with it but never got back where they needed me for my last year. Now I just wear a knee brace.” He showed me a standard compression brace. It was not what I would have expected for a career ending injury. It also explained where I had heard the name Bumper Jackson before. He had been a great player.
“I know the pain. I had to leave a dream job when I blew mine out and now I’m just a borrowed cop for NOPD. It's like prepping for the big game and then falling just before you get there.” I sounded pretty sad, but I was lying. I love my job. “How did you handle not being able to play?”
“Not well. It was how I got into this line of work in the first place. I went on a bender and wound up doing so much damage to a guy's bar that I had to work as a bouncer until I had paid off the damages. I was working at a strip club in Hollywood when Biggie came in and hired me to cover him.”
“Lucky you, huh?” Bumper just shrugged at this comment.
“Don’t you own that Italian joint by the French Market?” Bumper changed subjects again after we had lapsed into a rather awkward lull.
“Yeah.” I must have looked surprised at this.
“What?”
“I was wondering how you knew about it. It’s not like I advertise the fact.”
“I could say I saw you there, but the truth is I did a little checking up on you.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“No. Not much. Your sister is a big attorney and your dad’s missing, but that’s about it other than you being a State Trooper assigned here since you left their academy. You supposedly spend less time working for NOPD than you do at your cafe.”
“But I do enjoy being a detective more than being a bar owner.”
Bumper had tipped his hand with his disclosures. I now knew he had a source of information that could access my records with the State Patrol, which meant he either had a crooked cop on his payroll or was perhaps a cop himself. I couldn’t decide if this was his way of telling me to back off the case or just his way of trying to intimidate me.
“Any more questions?” Bumper stood up to leave.
“Just two. Did you kill Biggie, or do you know who did?”
“I still blame the dog, just like everyone but you. What’s the other one?”
“What can you tell me about a storage locker full of guns out in Harahan?” I had no idea what there was for him to know because I still had no idea what was actually in the locker Tyshika was supposed to call Avery about. I was sort of hoping Bumper could jump me ahead of the actual search warrant.
“Not a damn thing.”
He turned around and walked away, showing just a bit of a limp on his supposedly lame side. He left me alone to consider how much of what I had just seen and heard was to be believed, and so far what I had seen told me not to believe much of what he said.
That didn’t matter because whatever this guy knew of Biggie's dealings and contacts he wasn’t likely to share with me. It’s a bit funny that it is the ones who know almost nothing who give up everything they know, just to make you think they have something valuable to trade. The ones who tell you the least tend to know the most. I expected Bumper’s version of things to be easy to check out, but I still wanted to see if I could get anyone else to verify his stories. I also noted that he had denied knowing anything about Biggie’s death but had not actually responded to my question about the storage locker.
SEVENTEEN
Avery’s reaction to the likelihood that I thought Bumper might be an undercover cop, or had an informant in Avery’s own department, had been to quietly allow my investigation into Biggie’s murder to grind to a halt. I initially used the excuse of conducting follow-up interviews to spend time with Amanda, but she had been the one to suggest we drop the charade and our time together became devoted to my introducing her to the city as locals know it. We were seldom able to find time alone until Parker was asleep, but the New Orleans I wanted to show her did not really exist until well after dark. We did take her son, and Georgia, to a football game at Avery’s alma mater, but it was Amanda’s home state’s team that had crushed LSU.
Avery expressed little interest in the investigation when he came by most days at Happy Hour. He and I both knew the matter of Biggie’s death needed resolved eventually, if for no better reason than that Avery’s budget could carry Roger for only so long. I also needed to rescue the dog sitter from having to deal with my mother on a daily basis. I will admit another part of my inertia was my private concern that I would lose Amanda once the case was closed, as though this was the only reason she was ever attracted to me. I brought the subject up only once because Amanda mocked me as being paranoid. I knew I was not misreading the expression on Georgia’s face when I would pick Amanda up after she had put Parker to bed. She made me feel like a teenager running the gauntlet past a prom date’s parents.
It had been three weeks since my interview with Bumper when the dust began to fall from the case once again. It started with an unexpected call from Amanda. She woke me from a sound sleep, but it was already well past nine o'clock in the morning. I had last seen Amanda barely six hours ago, after taking her to see Amanda Shaw play zydeco at Rock-N-Bowl on Carrollton and Marcia Ball’s second set of honky-tonk piano at Tipitina’s. This was followed by a slow dance to a street musician’s rendition of Rocket Man on Frenchman Street and a pre-dawn breakfast of bacon and eggs at the less than romantic Clover Grill on Bourbon Street.
“I need you.”
“I need you, too.” It’s always easier to be the second to make such a declaration.
“I need to talk to you.” She obviously wasn’t calling to confess her affections and the sounds I had mistaken for moaning were actually the sounds of Amanda’s sobbing.
“Then I’m on my way.”
I managed to hang up on her as I hastily pulled on the jeans I had worn the night before. I pulled a clean shirt from the closet, and tracked down my shoes at the end of the bed. I grabbed my bag and tossed in the keys, wallet, and pistol from atop my dresser and headed downstairs. It occurred to me that it would be faster walking the short distance than driving.
Amanda greeted me in the lobby. She had obviously been crying, but the look on her face was one of unmistakable outrage. She wore a loose blouse and jeans and was stamping about the lobby’s polished marble floors barefoot. She was silent as we ascended to her place and then motioned for me to follow her as we stepped off the elevator and the doors hissed closed behind us. The sound seemed magnified by the tension in the house. I matched Amanda's brisk pace up the stairs towards her office, allowing myself a long look at her tanned legs and thoughts of happier visits to the top floor.
The office was large, as were all the rooms in this place, with a hand-woven rug, a heavy antique mahogany desk, and comfortable upholstered seating for anyone sitting across from her. The room looked out on the Mississippi River and the ferry dodging towboats and freighters as it crossed to Canal Street from Algiers. Amanda’s distraught appearance dispelled any comfort I might have felt in the chair as I faced her. She gave a deep sigh and collapsed into the high backed leather chair behind her desk.
“Here.” She moved a thin folder of typewritten pages across the desk and explained that th
e paperwork had arrived by courier barely an hour earlier. She dropped her head on the desk, resting her forehead on her crossed arms as I read the sheaf of legal documents now in my hand.
The paperwork had come directly from Dan Logan's office and, in brief, stated Tyshika was planning to go to court to revoke her son's adoption by Amanda and her late husband. Tyshika was now claiming Biggie Charles had actually sold the child to the couple against her wishes.
“She’s lying.” This was a decision I had more hopes than evidence to support after reading the paperwork twice. I looked for a shredder to make my point. “Any court gets a look at Tyshika and you'll automatically win. Let me make some calls.”
My first call was to my sister at her law office. She listened as I read the paperwork to her, brightened Amanda’s day with hysterical laughter so loud it could heard through the phone, and immediately agreed to take Amanda as a new client if need be. Tulip then explained to me exactly what she found to be so funny.
I was still grinning when I dialed Logan’s office. Logan answered the phone himself. He was probably watching the caller ID on his phone in anticipation of Amanda calling in response to the paperwork, checkbook and pen in hand.
“Logan Associates,” he said cheerfully.
“Exactly who associates with you? We need to talk about the papers you had delivered to Amanda Rhodes this morning.”
“Oh, my.” I could hear his voice tighten just a bit. “I did not expect you to be the one who called.”
“Are you seriously looking for disbarment?”
“Please explain.” Logan was now acting as defiantly as he could, and he had the capacity to muster a lot of disagreeable characteristics on cue.
“You handled the original adoption, right? That means you would have known all of the details of what you are now threatening to expose. You are either violating attorney-client privilege to admit that you were party to an illegal adoption, or you are part of a cheap extortion attempt based on a lie. Which one are you going to let take you down?”
There was a very long pause as he weighed his options for moving ahead with his thinly veiled threat. “Well, I suppose something can be worked out, right?”