John Raven Beau

by O'Neil De Noux

  It’s a stupid suggestion but Angie smiles again and slips into the booth across from me. Those eyes stare right into me. As usual, Joe’s burger is delicious.

  She says. “Sharon came back to you on the rebound.”

  She’s caught me with a mouthful. All I can manage is a, “Huh?”

  “She broke up with her bank teller boyfriend.”

  Why does this girl always seem to know more than I do about my life? Maybe I should ask her who’s killing the cops.

  “At first, I felt sorry for her,” Angie says. “But that’s life, isn’t it? Love’s hard.”

  “Harder than solving murders.”

  Jesus, sometimes I can’t believe the things that come out of my mouth. I take another bite of burger.

  “Just ask Romeo and Juliet,” she says. “And Rhett and Scarlett and Scott and Zelda.”

  The door opens and four men come in. Angie gives me a look of resignation and climbs out of the seat. Adding, “And Cleopatra and Antony and Zhivago and Lara and Prince Rudolf and Baroness Mary.”

  She heads for the four men who have slipped into the first booth. As she’s handing them menus, an elderly couple comes in. As I eat, I watch Angie move from the booths to the counter and back again as she serves her customers. Just as I finish my burger, Angie brings me another Barq’s.

  “Rudolf and who?” I ask.

  Backing away, she answers, “Rudolf and Mary.” Then adds the word, “Mayerling.” Whatever that means.

  I drink my second root beer slowly. Outside several shrimp boaters are drying their nets, reminding me it’s time for me to get to work. I climb out of my booth and Angie comes over with the check. I can see in her eyes, she wants to talk more.

  “Why do you leave me such big tips?”

  Again, she’s changed direction. My Daddy told me that’s why hurricanes used to be named for women. “De hurricane. De heavenly storm dat change direction on a dime, yeah.”

  The aquamarines are waiting for my answer.

  “I like the service, here. You’re a good waitress.” For a moment I regret describing a full-time student by her part-time job. But her eyes tell me she’s not offended.

  “You don’t have to leave big tips.”

  “You earn them.”

  She turns away and I leave a five dollar bill on the table and pay Cecilia the nine dollar check at the register.

  •

  Detective Elvis ‘Elmer Fudd’ Channard stands talking with a bored-looking Anthony Dunn in the center of Henry Clay Avenue. Channard has his little arms folded. He wears a tan sport coat with dark blue pants. Dunn, who wears a dark blue sport coat and tan pants, turns to Gonzales and me as we step up.

  “Hell. Look at you two. No more ties, huh Gonzales?”

  Channard stops his soliloquy a moment, but quickly continues, “... and the woman cuts her own grass, with one of those push lawn mowers, the kind without a motor ...”

  I spot Bob Kay standing between two marked units along the downtown side of the street. He’d called us on the radio, forty minutes after I left Flamingo’s and ten minutes after picking up Gonzales. Kay nods our way and starts walking over.

  “ ... and she has one of those upright vacuum cleaners with the big bag. She takes it outside and vacuums her sidewalk ...” Channard hasn’t lost a breath.

  I move around him as Bob Kay steps up and points to a small apartment complex to my right. “Someone spray painted a message on a dumpster in back,” Kay tell us. “About the cop killer.” He’s left his coat in his car and wears another white shirt over his dark blue bullet-proof vest.

  “And?” I ask.

  “And we found two dead cats in the dumpster.”

  Gonzales moves around Channard whose voice rises, “... and she has at least five different wigs. A red one. Brunette. Blond. Blue and Pink ...”

  “How’d the cats die?” I ask Kay.

  He takes in a deep breath. “Decapitated.”

  That’ll kill ‘em, all right.

  “ ... and she never goes out. Except to cut her grass or vacuum her sidewalk ...”

  Gonzales turns to Channard. “What the fuck you talking about?”

  Blinking, as if he’s just noticed us, Channard says, “The woman who lives across the street from me. She’s peculiar. She has this big bird in some sort of cage ...” The Fudd continues.

  “What do you want us to do?” Gonzales asks Kay.

  “We need to interview everyone in the apartments.”

  “... and she feeds it mice, I think. Or maybe hamsters. Or maybe gerbils. I can’t be sure ...”

  I lean around Channard and pretend to be looking for something on his back. Gonzales and Kay start moving away, only my partner stops and asks what I’m looking for.

  “The fuckin’ off switch.”

  Dunn makes a loud fart sound. “Give up. There ain’t none.”

  “... and she wears the strangest clothes ... and ...”

  We leave with Channard’s voice echoing behind us.

  “Hey,” Dunn calls out angrily. “Don’t fuckin’ leave me with him.” He hurries after us.

  I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke as we move between the small apartment buildings, each suspended over a blacktop parking area jammed with pickup trucks mostly. The green dumpster is behind the left building next to a white Chevy Suburban up on cinder blocks. Spray painted in bright red on the dumpster are the words: COP KILLER HATES CATS.

  A bespectacled crime lab technician is dusting the outside of the dumpster.

  “One dead cat was on the far side of the dumpster.” Kay points around the side. “The other was inside.”

  Dunn makes a helicopter noise. Around the back of the dumpster I find a pentagram painted in black.

  “Pentagram?” Kay moves around to where I am. “Jesus,” he says. “Don’t tell me this thing’s got Satanic implications.”

  “Better call your FBI buddies,” I tell him. “Only they have the power to take on Satan.” I pull out my note pad and head to the nearest building, knock on a hollow-core wooden door with a brass number 1A on it. A woman with dirty blond hair answers. She wears a white undershirt and baggy red gym shorts, cigarette dangling from her lips. She nods at me, turns and yells to a teen-aged boy sitting on an orange sofa. “See. I told you they’d figure out who did it.”

  I hold up my credentials and she backs away, waving me in.

  “OK, officer. He’s all yours.”

  The boy won’t look at me as I enter and stand next to the beat-up coffee table. He’s about fourteen with short-cropped red hair. He wears a black, oversized Saint’s Who Dat? tee-shirt and extra baggy denim shorts that go past his knees. He’s barefoot.

  “Well, Nottoway,” the woman says. “You gonna tell him or do I have to?”

  Nottoway? Jesus, the kid’s probably named for the famous plantation house up by Bayou Goula.

  The boy folds his arms. “You fuckin’ tell him!” He looks at me for the first time and his dark brown eyes squint fiercely. And it occurs to me that his mother is smarter than she looks. Nottoway is an Algonquain word which means rattlesnake.

  Sometimes it’s that easy. Just knock on the right door.

  A half-hour later, I’m leading the way back to Henry Clay Avenue, Gonzales, Kay, the crime lab technician and Dunn in tow. We leave this heinous crime scene in the capable hands of the two Juvenile Detectives Kay summoned twenty minutes ago. The crime amounts to two counts of violating Louisiana Revised Statute 14:102, Cruelty to Animals. A fuckin’ misdemeanor in Louisiana.

  Nottoway and two of his buddies, out of boredom, decided to liven up the apartment complex by decapitating two cats and painting the pentagram and message on the dumpster. It was a lark, a youthful indiscretion, a cool-as-fuckin-hell bitching rush. The girls would notice them now. Fuckin’ A! They got the fuckin’ Task Force out enmasse. Too bad Kay hadn’t called Captain Picard and the FBI boys. I’da loved to see how they handled this. I could use the training.

  Channard i
s standing in the same place in the street. Guess he’s been guarding the cars. He steps in my path and says, “Is Jodie coming?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “So, what happened?”

  I stop so I don’t run him over and take in a deep breath. “If you promise not to ask any questions, I’ll tell you.”

  He nods furiously and I tell him. Gonzales waits politely for me. As soon as I finish, my partner adds, “Dumb shits.”

  Channard turns and looks at the apartments. “Dingbats,” he says.

  “Fuckin’ dingbats is right,” I agree and start heading for my car.

  “No.” Channard points to the buildings. “The apartments are dingbats. That’s an architectural term. Built in the fifties and sixties. Apartments with parking beneath. Brick and wood, painted in pastel colors.”

  I keep walking, but my partner has to ask Channard, “What the fuck are you yakking about now?”

  “The apartments. They’re dingbats. Probably built in the fifties and sixties. Apartments with parking beneath. Brick and wood, painted in pastel colors.”

  Unlocking my car door, I call back to Gonzales that if he wants a ride, he’d better get the fuck over here. Channard remains talking in the middle of Henry Clay Avenue. Pointing to the apartments and waving his arms around as police cars pull away, some peeling out.

  God, I love police work.

  This ought to work

  My casework has degenerated into maddening surveillances of Sandie in barrooms, Felice in more barrooms and Mullet in even more barrooms.

  Three nights after visiting the dingbats, Gonzales and I are parked against another curb, down the street from another barroom, this one called Pluto’s on Camp Street. Mullet’s Harley is parked with a dozen other bikes a block away. Gonzales dozes next to me while I sit as far down in the seat as possible in the dark car. A couple neighbors have already peeked out at us, probably figuring we’re the heat, especially in my stripped-down Caprice.

  My mind wanders back to Flamingo’s. Angie looked so good this afternoon. In a pair of faded jeans and a white buttoned blouse, she had two gold barrettes in the hair, pulling it up on the sides. It made her look a little older, more sophisticated. Three shrimpers sure thought so, repeatedly calling her back to their booth, flirting with her big time. Two were middle-aged, but one was young, closer to Angie’s age than me. She seemed to like the flirting. Like a true plains warrior, I kept my face expressionless as I ate. It bothered me, seeing her laughing and cutting up with the men. But I didn’t show it.

  A black dog races past the Caprice, as if something’s chasing it. I sit up higher and see nothing. I settle back and my eye-lids feel so heavy, I fight off sleep. It’s hard. I feel myself drifting ...

  The sound of a hog starting up brings me out of my dozing and wakes Gonzales with a start. A green Harley pulls away from Pluto’s as my partner and I both sit up and stretch.

  “Wish we had more coffee,” I say.

  “Jesus.” Gonzales yawns. “OK, so we have another one of Mullet’s hangout for Sandie to check out. Why are we still here?”

  “Got anything better to do?”

  My partner sulks against the door, stretches his legs again and folds his arms across his chest. He’s in black jeans tonight. I’m in faded jeans.

  “Tell me something to keep me awake,” Gonzales says. “Seen any naked women lately?”

  Not answering him won’t shut him up, but it’s worth a try.

  “Why don’t you tell me about the four guys you shot?”

  He’s serious. “Come on. How’d they happen? It’ll keep me awake.”

  My memory re-winds to my rookie year. I had parked my car across Magazine Street from the Second District Station and was heading in for four p.m. roll call ...

  “Come on. Tell me a story. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.”

  Jesus. I raise a hand and just give up.

  “The first man I shot was outside the Second District. He was in a cowboy outfit. Ten gallon hat, leather vest, boots and spurs, two nickel-plated revolvers in a double holster rig. He even wore chaps.”

  “What?” Gonzales sits up.

  “Leather trouser things cowboys wore over their denim pants. Protected the legs from thorn bushes.”

  Gonzales nods. He’s awake now and listening intently.

  “He walked up to some cops standing outside, including my partner, Tim Rothman. The cowboy stopped about twenty feet away, spread his feet and told the cops to draw. He had his hands over his guns, like a gunfighter.

  “Ever the clown, Rothman took out his notepad and drew a stick figure of the cowboy and showed it to him. Everyone laughed, except the cowboy. That’s what caught my attention as I crossed Magazine from where I’d parked my car – the laughter.

  “The cowboy drew both guns and fired. He blew out the windows of the police car Rothman was standing next to, and sent everyone diving to the sidewalk. I pulled out my .357 and dropped him with two shots.”

  Gonzales smiles widely. “I remember that. I was in the academy. He was a mental wasn’t he?”

  I nod. “In and out of Mandeville. Bought the guns by mail-order. I had no trouble in front of the Grand Jury, but caught hell on the department. Injun kills cowboy.” The streetlight at the corner blinks then goes out. I look around, but it’s quiet. Guess the neighbors will have to call the power company when they get around to noticing.

  “What about number two?”

  Six months later. Armed robber from the K&B at Carrollton and Claiborne got into a running gun battle with police. Buncha shots fired by the police that evening. Three hit the robber. All from my gun.

  “I caught him crossing Carrollton. Another good shooting.”

  Gonzales starts drumming his hands on the dashboard. “This is better than T.V.” He’s doing Wipeout. “Continue.”

  I point to his hands and he stops.

  “Number three was a month after I came to Homicide. Jodie and I jumped a rape-in-progress call. We arrived with two patrolmen. Jodie had me cover the side of the house while they went in the front door.

  “The rapist jumped out of a window and charged at me with a butcher knife. I fired four times. He took two in the chest and two in the head.”

  “I remember that one too. Didn’t you have a little trouble with the Grand Jury with that one?”

  “Yep.” I tell him how a woman in the house next door swore I didn’t yell “police” and that I executed the man after he was on his knees. Hell, I didn’t have time to yell anything and the trajectory of my bullets proved he wasn’t on his knees when shot.

  “My fourth shooting was Exchange Alley.”

  Gonzales starts drumming Wipeout again as my mind flashes back to the alley. It seems so long ago. My partner quiets down for a while and I’m thankful for that. Mullet comes out at midnight, climbs on his hog and we follow him home.

  “Wasted fuckin’ night,” Gonzales complains as we drive away from South Derbigny.

  “Not really. He didn’t go out and kill a cop, did he?”

  I feel Gonzales staring at me, but won’t look over at him until he says, “Seems to me you’re plagued.”

  “Plagued?”

  “Shooting people. You’re plagued by being a good shot while everyone else misses.”

  He might have a point. So I have to ask, “By the way, how good a shot are you?”

  “Fuckin’ horrible. That’s why I don’t mind hanging around with you, Cochise.”

  “Wrong fuckin’ tribe, Zorro.”

  •

  Five minutes after five the next evening we follow Mullet to Pluto’s. Ten minutes later, Sandie, in an iridescent yellow body suit, climbs out of the back seat of our car and goes in. Gonzales and I, both in all black, wait outside.

  Predictably, the FBI has taken over our Task Force. Not officially, of course, it’s a joint venture. Kay is still in charge. The Bureau just tells everyone what to do. As an act of defiance, more than believing I’m really on to somethi
ng, Kay has shielded me and Gonzales from the assignments handed out daily by the men in the nice suits.

  “They mean well,” Kay explained earlier that afternoon.

  “They’re too cerebral,” Gonzales complained. “This is a street thing.”

  Both are right of course.

  “Well,” Kay added, “they have one thing we’ve been needing.”

  “And that is?”

  “A printing press. They can print up as much money as we need.” With that Kay handed me ten one hundred dollar bills to split between Sandie and Felice.

  Now, as we sit as inconspicuously as we can down Camp from Pluto’s, we wait. A boring hour passes. Half way through the second, I look over at a sign next to the willow tree we’re trying to use as cover. The sign is white with red lettering that reads: This Is A Drug Free Zone. There’s a drawing of a hypodermic needle with a slash through it, like a no smoking emblem.

  “Those signs really work,” I tell my partner.

  “What?”

  I point to the sign. “A few weeks ago I saw two guys standing next to one of these over by the Melpomene Projects. They were about to make a deal, when one of them noticed the sign, slapped himself on the forehead and said, ‘Wait. We can’t deal here.’ They walked two blocks over to make their deal.”

  Gonzales taps down his sunglasses and gleeks me. I bend my chin down and return the gleek, looking at him over the top of my glasses.

  “Don’t get too fuckin’ weird on me, Crazy Horse.”

  At least he got the tribe right. No way I’m telling him how close he is to my ancestry. According to my grandfather, that is.

  •

  At first, the number of people milling around the street doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. Mostly kids, several breeze by on roller blades. Ignoring us, they laugh and cut up as they pass. It isn’t until four men carry a large folding table out of a house and set it up on the sidewalk, do things seem strange. Another man wheels a barbecue pit over to the folding table and starts up the flames. The crowd, a nearly even mix of black and white faces, grows quickly and I look around to see if a parade is coming. People are standing in the street now and sitting on nearly every front stoop. Everyone seems friendly. I have that Twilight Zone feeling again.