by WF Ranew
“Crack dances?”
“Yes, I’ll explain in despicable detail when I see you.”
Only one question swirled around in his head.
Ginger Gail told Red the woman who visited her was on her way to Atlanta for a new job at the Wiggle Tickle strip club on Clairmont Road.
Red didn’t relish the idea of driving from Savannah to Atlanta but figured a drop-in at the Wiggle Tickle to visit a woman name Colly Jacobson, aka Bojangles, might be worth his time. Phone calls rarely worked with people who didn’t know or trust a former law officer.
The next morning, he schlepped up I-16 and northward to the big city.
He drove straight out Clairmont Avenue to the strip joint near the intersection of Buford Highway.
Bojangles had just reported to work when he arrived around two in the afternoon. Red asked to see her but was told her act went on in a few minutes. Red got a seat and ordered an iced tea. He waited for over an hour before Bojangles appeared solo on stage.
She must be good.
There was nothing spectacular about Bojangles’s dancing. Basically, she teased the men around the horseshoe-shaped stage bar by hugging a brass pole and gyrating in various crudely erotic, come-hither moves. That and the fact she stripped naked within thirty seconds of hitting the spotlight made Bojangles a crowd favorite.
Only thing, the men around the stage consisted of four older gentlemen, who whooped and hollered and raised their hands often for the chance to slow-touch her as they placed bills in one of her six garters.
After the act, Red strolled to her dressing room after explaining to the bouncer he was a private dick. The tattooed hulk stepped aside and thumbed him back to the last door to the left.
Red knocked.
“Come right on in here,” came the bright voice with a genuine Deep South accent.
Red entered the tiny dressing room. Bojangles had put on a diaphanous gown that showed everything she had from the time she dropped out of her mama. Red tried not to gawk. Bojangles was young and had all the womanly attributes. About her only advantage in the femininity department. Sexy, she wasn’t.
Leigh was.
Red introduced himself and mentioned how he found her.
“Why, your name is so familiar to me,” Colly said. “I just loved meeting Ginger Gail Gillis. She’s quite the sport, that girl.”
“She is that,” Red said.
Colly nodded toward a straight back chair, and Red sat down.
“She didn’t tell me you’d visit,” she said. “If I know’d you was a coming, I’d’ve baked you a cake, big boy.”
Corn pone humor at its worst. Red considered what else this nearly naked sex bomb might do or say to turn him off.
He took control of the conversation.
“Miss Jacobson, I need to speak with you about your previous employer, Gordon Adan,” Red said.
“The preacher man,” she said. “Boy, Mr. Detective, he’s a piece of work. That man loves, ah, what all women have.”
Red persisted.
“Yes, I can just imagine, given his record for assault and murder.” That cooled the atmosphere in the room from hard-boiled sexuality to tepid personality.
“Oh,” the stripper said. She walked over to a wall rack, pulled off a more conservative bathrobe, and put it on. With clothes, Bojangles lost what looks she had. Suddenly, she appeared like a tired, worn-out woman who’d thrown away much of her life pleasing men, drinking, and drugging.
“Look, mister, what was your name?”
“Farlow. Red Farlow.”
“I knew Gordy was a perverted asshole,” she said. “He made that reputation after about three days managing Molly’s. Hell, he wanted every girl there. Hit on me the first thing. ’Course, he’s old. Couldn’t do a thing in bed. But I know nothing of any murder.”
Bojangles snuggled into her robed and pulled out a cigarette. She lit it up and puffed.
“Can you tell me about him, when he comes in, and who he works for?” Red asked.
Bojangles blew smoke straight up and watched it crawl around a light dome and slowly drift to the ceiling.
“He drags his ass in around two in the afternoon,” she said. “There’s not much of a lunch crowd at Molly’s. It’s mostly a nighttime establishment. The frat boys from Tulane and Loyola crowd the place by six or seven on Thursdays through the weekend. Gordy does a good business at the club and next door with those horny little rich shits.”
“Next door?”
“Yeah, the rooms. Look, Red, I’m not a hooker,” she said. “I’d say only about half the girls were. I didn’t have to be. I get more tips showing my left nipple than most girls get in a week. But eight or ten of the dancers at Molly’s made a living on their backs. They couldn’t dance worth shit, and besides, they are there for selling, not dancing.”
Red asked Bojangles to tell him how the selling side of the house worked.
The dancers got tips, and the other girls got paid by the johns directly. “Except, they had to give a chunk to Gordy. He took care of them, you know. Brought them the customers.”
It occurred to Red that Gordon probably encountered the police on Bourbon Street, given his business.
“How often was the place busted?”
“The cops would drop by Molly’s almost every night. I mean, you’d see a couple of vice squad members at the bar drinking,” she said. “They’d come in, hang around, and leave. But they busted the rooms next door now and again. I don’t know, ’bout four or five times the three years I worked there.”
Red needed to know as much about Gordon as possible, and Bojangles seemed to know everything about the man.
“Where does Gordon live?”
“He has an apartment in an old house off Elysian Fields near the French Market. Think it’s on Decatur Street.”
Red asked about Gordon’s boss.
“Two sisters own the place. Old ladies. But Gordon’s boss was a man named Roosevelt Lincolnton, a black guy who takes care of the ladies’ business affairs,” Colly said. “You never see him there, though. Gordon goes to him.”
He thanked Colly for the information and wasted no time exiting the strip joint.
Red had all he needed to prepare for a visit to Gordy’s business establishment.
It wasn’t going to be a social call.
* * *
Red drove south of Atlanta but got caught in early rush hour. He pulled off and took a state road toward the Alabama line.
At a motel room in Meridien, Mississippi, he called Leigh and told her his plans.
The next morning on the road again, Red spoke briefly with Ginger Gail.
The ride was long, and Red felt relief smeared with deep caution as he drove across Lake Pontchartrain on I-10 and neared the Crescent City.
He stopped first at Jackson Square. The French Quarter seemed almost abandoned.
The virus.
* * *
It had been several decades since Red worked a case with the New Orleans police detectives. But he had contacts who’d retired, and one got him to the right person.
He talked by phone with Detective Félicie Guillroy, who’d coordinate efforts to apprehend Gordon Adan. She knew Miss Molly’s quite well, as the department’s vice squad had raided the place.
Red picked pick up Sheriff Paul Mason at the airport and headed downtown for the police department meeting.
On the way, they discussed the cooperative effort.
“I’m arresting him on suspicion of murder in the death of Rubin Gillis,” Mason told Red. “As mentioned, the state crime lab found his fingerprints on Gillis’s car along with Wallace’s. These guys were a team, I’ll tell you.”
Red and the detectives would go into Molly’s first. Stationed outside were three uniform officers assigned to patrol Bourbon Street.
Red would enter Molly’s and sit at a table. Once he determined Gordon—code-named Seagull—appeared in the establishment, the detectives would move in and arrest him. He’
d be booked into the parish jail and questioned by Mason and Guillroy. Red would monitor the interrogation.
Then Gordon would be extradited to Georgia to stand trial.
That was the plan.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Red strolled down Rue Bourbon. It was Thursday evening, and, several months back, he couldn’t imagine how a pandemic would devastate the world. The epicenter of New Orleans revelry wasn’t at peak crowd levels of, say, college football season. But enough people wandered around to qualify as a super-spreader event. Most walked in groups and wore no face masks.
Red donned two.
He walked up to Golly! Miss Molly’s door and went into the dark hallway, which pulsated with rock music. He stepped along an inclined ramp into a large open room with disco lights glittering and spotlights flashing in syncopation with the music.
A topless lady in red-sequined hot pants seated Red.
“My name’s Rafaela, and I’ll be serving you this evening,” she said, bending into his face and shouting in his right ear. “Can I start you off with a drink?”
Red ordered a cola, and Rafaela jiggled off to the bar. In two minutes, she put the drink down with a bar tab. The subtotal read twelve dollars.
Red looked around the room, adjusted his earbuds, and dialed Félicie’s number.
“No sign of Seagull yet,” he said. She acknowledged and dropped off the call.
An hour passed. Red’s drink tab read thirty-six dollars. There was no sign of Gordon.
At eleven forty-five, the man appeared next to the stage. He was talking to a young woman who’d just finished dancing.
Red called Félicie, described his location, and she gave the go-ahead to apprehend the suspect.
Within seconds, Félicie entered from a side door with another detective. Red saw two uniforms walk down the hallway behind Gordon. A third detective kicked off his stool at the bar.
Two other officers descended upon the suspect. As the two grabbed Gordon’s arm and held him, Félicie showed her badge. He wiggled a little but mostly seemed resigned to his arrest.
Red quickly approached and saw the look of shock on Gordon’s face when the officers grabbed him.
But in a split second, a quick movement, a step, and a raised arm changed the apprehension.
The young dancer had backed away a few steps in shock but remained too close, even as Félicie asked her to leave the area. Gordon fought free of the cop about to cuff him. He grabbed the dancer, who was still nude and pulled a knife on her. He backed against the wall and told all the cops to leave.
“This bitch means nothing to me,” he said. “I’ve killed a lot better people than this little Dixie doxy.”
Red heard the comment and considered it a confession.
The dancer screamed and broke into tears, but she didn’t try to break his hold.
The police cautiously gave Gordon some breathing room. He moved back a few paces before turning with the dancer and moving quickly to a stairwell. He slammed and bolted the door.
Félicie called her colleagues outside and told them to look for the escaping Gordon. “Don’t shoot until I tell you,” she said.
The shift manager told Félicie about a fire escape out the side door a few yards away. The detective and two cops went out and into the alley. Red followed.
“The floor above is where the office is, and the third floor is residential,” the night guy said.
“Who lives there?” Félicie asked.
“The owners are out of town. Should be empty tonight,” the manager said.
Félicie motioned toward the access ladder, and an officer leaped to grab the lower rung. The ladder slid down on rusty tracks. Félicie and the officer ascended to the first landing.
Red steadily climbed up behind them.
He heard a door crash open. He looked to see Félicie had gained access to the second-floor hallway. She and the cop entered.
Red heard a scream.
He looked up and saw Gordon holding the dancer around her chest and along the edge of the building’s roof.
“Careful, everyone,” Félicie called. “Gordon Adan, take the lady to safety and drop the knife. You cannot escape.”
Strangely, Gordon pulled his arm up and grabbed the woman’s left breast.
“Die, you skunk bitch,” he screamed and pushed the woman. Despite her seeming panic, the dancer flailed her arms and grabbed the third-floor fire escape railing on her way down.
The officer ran up the steps and helped her onto the landing. He pulled off his shirt, covered the young lady, and escorted her down to the alley.
Gordon disappeared.
Red figured Gordon had anticipated the arrest and mapped out an escape route.
A police officer followed him through the busy kitchen. Gordon made his way down to the first floor and out the back. He jumped in a pickup truck, started it, and drove into the alley heading opposite where Red, Paul Mason, and the New Orleans officers stood.
Félicie crouched and fired a shot at the truck. She missed.
Another officer called back up and gave the truck’s description. After a nervous ten minutes, the chase cops called to say Gordon was driving over into Metairie, Louisiana.
Paul and Red jumped into a police SUV and joined the pursuit.
* * *
Somehow, Gordon eluded the cops in Houma by shaking them off on backstreets. They picked him up and, siren silent, followed him into the bayous.
They rolled up onto a cleared section around a boat ramp.
Gordon fired three shots at the officers, who crouched behind their cruiser with their spotlight aimed into the woods by the water.
Red and the officers parked twenty yards up the road and carefully walked into the area.
“You assholes leave me alone,” Gordon yelled. “God in his glorious justice will strike you down.”
That was Gordon, a preacher to the end.
He ran back and behind a cypress tree.
“Take him down when you get a shot,” Félicie instructed her sniper.
Gordon moved. The sharpshooter pulled the trigger.
The preacher fell, but he wasn’t dead, not yet.
“Fuck you all,” he managed to yell.
Red detected pain in his voice.
The sniper aimed again, but Félicie held him off.
Silence descended on the group of officers.
Gordon shouted one last time. “God have mercy on your souls. And mine.”
Red, Paul, and the officers heard nothing else. In a few minutes, Félicie and two officers moved toward Gordon’s position. His body sprawled on the ground with a massive gunshot wound to his lower abdomen. His upper torso sank into the water’s edge.
Gordon Adan, preacher, rapist, killer, died in a Louisiana bayou.
Félicie looked down at the lifeless body and called her crime scene unit.
Red felt a chill. “You know, he and his brother killed a man and fed him to the gators,” he said. “Sometimes justice, when it finally pays a visit, bites you in the ass.”
* * *
Red called Ginger Gail and told her what happened. He could hear her crying.
“Bastard,” she said. “He was a crazy fucker long before he seduced me in the choir room.”
Red thought about the comment later and wondered who really seduced whom.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Three months later, Red thumbed through the mail in his Chippewa Square office.
He stood over his desk and stacked the envelopes in two piles, one to read and the other to toss. Most consisted of marketing material for hearing aids, health insurance plans, and cremation services. One notified him of an auto insurance policy with the lowest rates in the country. Had one already.
The next letter wasn’t a sales pitch. It was from an insurance agency with a return address which Red recognized.
The envelope was neatly typed on the business stationery, which read Mr. Red Farlow, Investigation Services, Chippewa Squ
are, Savannah, Georgia 31401
He sliced it open and pulled out a letter. He could almost smell her scent. A newspaper clipping accompanied the letter.
Dear Lovely Red,
I hope you’ll forgive me for intruding into your life once more. I’m sure you never want to hear from me after I opened the door to your adventure in New Orleans. Such a tragic adventure. But I wanted to make sure you knew about this.
Last weekend, I attended a state insurance association meeting in Brasstown Bald. As you know, I retired from my business not long ago. But I was honored for lifetime of service to the association. It was a fun weekend. To a point.
Driving back home Sunday afternoon, I stopped to get gas in Ellijay. A local newspaper’s headline caught my attention. Perhaps you read about this already, but given the nature of the crime and its location, I knew you would want to know.
Yours lovingly for a lifetime,
Ginger Gail
The article dumbfounded Red.
KILLER STALKS GEORGIA MOUNTAINS;
YOUNG WOMAN’S REMAINS FOUND
Teen murdered, dumped on country road
Red sat down and gazed out the window.
Do I want to read this?
He perused the article, which stated the girl was hitching to a basketball game when she was abducted, taken into the woods, assaulted, and stabbed to death. Deputies found a large butcher knife a few yards from the body.
“Authorities continue to comb the area seeking further evidence,” the news story read. “Neighbors in the Boardtown Road area of Turkey Trot Mountain questioned…no witnesses or tips forthcoming…no suspects have as yet been apprehended.”
Couldn’t be him. No way. Or was I wrong this whole time?
Red picked up his cell phone and called the sheriff in Ellijay.
After greetings and casual talk, Red asked about Cleet Wrightman.
The sheriff chuckled. “You know, I thought about him after we learned our Johnny’s real name and his past,” the man said. “But I tell you, Red, Cleet had no part in this or the other woman whose body was found two weeks back.”