by Bill Hopkins
Chapter 15
Thursday Morning, continued
Rosswell's headache dulled and his stomach calmed by the time he recessed court, mostly due to the small drugstore in the green bottle he carried everywhere. Sleeping outside on dry and dusty grass was a formula for both a major allergy attack and an eruption of his acid reflux. After rummaging through the pills and dry swallowing a couple, he gathered his suit jacket, tugged off his tie, and trudged to Mabel's.
No one in town had noticed him lying in the park all night. Or, if they had, nothing surfaced during the day. No one at the courthouse had shot him a sideways glance nor had he overheard any snide comments. Courthouse gossip in Ste. Gen was as vicious as in any other courthouse in the world. It's always Shark Week at the courthouse. Surely, someone would've reported a judge sleeping near the swing sets. The cops would've investigated and discovered him. Although it was a matter of collapsing from exhaustion and not booze that had led him to camp out, by the time the rumor mongers got through with the story, Rosswell would've been roaring drunk and scaring kids and grabbing their mothers.
Yet he couldn't take any chances. He needed to tell Ollie he'd come close to lurching off the wagon. Ollie shouldn't hear that from anyone but Rosswell. The restaurant was deserted. A lull. Even Mabel had left the building.
Beckoning to Ollie, Rosswell chose a booth in a dark corner, where he briefly sketched his near lapse. The news failed to impress Ollie. "You almost fell off the wagon? I've actually jumped off lots of times. But I always got back on." Ollie's gaze darted. A smile twitched at the sides of his mouth. "It's especially interesting when you regain consciousness lying next to a naked woman you can't remember."
"That would be bad." Rosswell breathed deeply. His gut rumbles strengthened again and threatened revolution. Puking was the last thing he wanted to do right now, especially in Mabel's restaurant. He found a decongestant tablet and a gas pill in the green bottle and took them. "A woman. Naked. A stranger."
"Was there a woman involved?"
"Mrs. Bolzoni."
Ollie yelped, shut his eyes, and rubbed them with his closed fists. "Oh, Mylanta. I don't want to hear any more."
Rosswell snickered. "Not like you think. She's the one who found me in the park this morning."
Ollie opened his eyes. "Mrs. Bolzoni wasn't naked in your bed?"
Rosswell ignored Ollie's question. "Mrs. Bolzoni told me something interesting. Nathaniel has been running a rehabilitation center in the mansion for several years. And Mrs. Bolzoni's daughter Alessandra is there for treatment. Mrs. Bolzoni thinks Nathaniel is doing a great job with her daughter. According to Mrs. Bolzoni, Nathaniel is a great guy."
"Unadulterated bullshit."
A pounding at his forehead started. "Don't say that anymore."
"Okay." Ollie flapped his arms. "Then I can fly to the moon."
"Nathaniel bought the fancy house for drying out drunks. It's even got two towers so he can post guards. It's a terrific cover. Dope pushers can move a lot of cash through there without leaving a trace."
"He spends a wad of dough dragging drunks off the street. But if he does it out of the goodness of his heart, then I'm the Queen of Sheba coming to visit King Solomon."
"Mrs. Bolzoni's own story sounds odd. She moves down here from Saint Louis to be near her daughter who's in rehab at a place run by Nathaniel? She hates French people, yet she lands smack dab in the middle of a whole county full of frogs? That makes no sense at all."
"That's what I said."
Rosswell smacked and swallowed a couple of times. "Maybe he's laundering money from his dope operation." His breath stunk of the gallon of coffee he'd sucked down. He'd been careful to stand far away from anyone in the courthouse. A couple of pieces of Big Red couldn't hurt, so he stuck four pieces in his mouth. Cinnamon flavoring bit his tongue with the viciousness of a pair of pliers clamping down, yet he kept on chewing.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you. Of course Nathaniel is laundering money." Ollie tilted his head. "You sure you didn't swig a couple of slugs last night?"
"Positive. Mrs. Bolzoni wants me to admit myself there. I'd last fifteen minutes before Nathaniel killed me."
The gum burned his mouth even more. He spit it out into a napkin and stuck it into his pocket.
"You might not last much longer unless you go home."
"I'm not leaving Sainte Gen without Tina."
Lazar Fribeau moseyed through the front door and cast his gaze over the whole restaurant before he spoke to Ollie. "You got office here?" The old man surveyed the restaurant some more. "Somewheres private?"
Ollie motioned to Lazar and Rosswell, who followed him into Mabel's office. He reached up and tugged a chain to chase the darkness from the former storage room. "Talk."
Rosswell couldn't see Lazar and Ollie clearly, the only light being a single bulb hanging from a wire in the middle of the ceiling. Ollie hated wasting electricity.
"Scarface wants to sing." Lazar touched Ollie's chest with his thumb.
"Scarface?" Ollie stepped back. "Who's that?"
"Charlie Heckle says he palavers, but you and no one else."
Ollie's mouth opened, but no words came out.
Rosswell figured Lazar had been watching too many gangster and Western movies on cable television. Rosswell also figured he needed to kick this talk into gear since he'd never seen Ollie speechless before.
"How do you know this?"
Lazar grunted. "You know nothing, you. You paying no mind to Maman."
"Following her advice, I literally tripped over a body. How can you say I'm not paying her any mind?"
"You don't know what she said, her."
Rosswell repeated Maman's advice. " 'Cave of one eye have much treasure. Cave of blind eye, she holds a treasure but not what you seek.' "
"You don't know what she said because you don't listen good. You hear words but you don't hear meanings."
Ollie found his tongue. "Sure. We can talk. In the alley. One hour." He stepped between Rosswell and Lazar.
Lazar grunted and left.
"You're back on the case?" Rosswell said.
"For the time being. I want to know who the woman was who was thrown off the ferry."
"I've reviewed all the pictures of missing women who look like Tina, but I can't connect any of them to Sainte Gen. That's your only reason? You want to know who she is?"
"She deserves justice."
Rosswell, moved by the reason for Ollie's reversal, argued with himself whether to notify Ollie that his decision verged on altruism. Rosswell decided against it and instead asked, "Is this going to cost me another $500?"
"Nope."
"Good."
"Start at six hundred."
"Was this some kind of pretty song and frisky dance? How does Lazar know Charlie Heckle wants to talk to us?"
"He didn't say us. He said me."
"All right, then how did Lazar know that Charlie wanted to talk to the world famous Ollie Groton?"
"You asked me if the Fribeaus ran this county. Gustave doesn't. I'm beginning to think Maman and Lazar do. Behind the scenes."
"And Lazar runs around the county setting up meetings between crooks and snitches."
"Research assistants."
"Right." Rosswell paced for a few moments before he stumbled over a box and fell. "I'll trust you to be a faithful reporter. I'm not going to listen to your meeting." Brushing himself off, he stood.
"A wise choice. What if you heard something that you needed to report?"
"That problem won't arise because I'm not going to listen. But if I did, and I heard something I shouldn't, I'd dance along the line. I'd be okay as long as what I hear isn't too far on the dark side."
After Rosswell had forked over $600 for another pile of silver coins at Discovered Treasures, they trudged to the alley. The price had gone up. Inflation, he supposed.
Ollie leaned against a brick wall on one side, folding his beefy arms across his chest. "I'll wait here. You sked
addle."
"Let me know what he said as soon as possible." Rosswell edged down the alley away from the street. Close to the back end of the alley, he spied a large wooden crate. His head whipped around. Ollie wasn't watching. The crate should hold him safely out of view. He peered in.
A stray black cat, disturbed by his intrusion, meowed belligerently, then wandered away. Small places held terror for Rosswell. At least there were no snakes. He hoped. Cats ran off snakes, didn't they? The commotion hadn't drawn Ollie's attention, still focused on the mouth of the alley.
Inside the box smelled like piss. It was hot. He was going to die in there but decided to crawl in. The need to hear the conversation firsthand outweighed his repugnance. He stepped on a smaller box, then climbed into the large crate, and pulled the lid over the top. Scant light leaked through the cracks, enough to make it dim inside, although he could see part of the alley.
Rosswell heard Ollie speaking to himself in a low voice, "Showtime, boys and girls. Showtime!"