4 Shelter From The Storm (5 page)

“I’d guess you might be pushing thirty,” Tubby said.

“Oh, my, my. You’d better have another drink.” She patted Tubby’s knee.

Larry buzzed in two of the lady’s friends, Newt and Vincent Blando. They were twins who lived together and went to the same church as Mrs. Pearl, just a block away.

They stood around and gossiped, and Newt said let’s play cards. The barkeep sold them a fresh deck of Squeezers, and they carried their drinks back to the big table. The drunk at the bar woke up and spilled his beer.

With an air of regret, Mrs. Pearl uprooted herself again.

“Want to play with us, dear?” she asked.

“Not tonight,” Tubby said. “My daughter’s getting married and I’ve got to save my money.

“Oh, I love weddings,” Mrs. Pearl said. “Be sure to invite me.”

“Okay.” He probably would.

“Want another one?” Larry asked.

“I don’t think I could stand the excitement,” Tubby muttered. “Where’s all the action tonight?”

“It ain’t here,” Larry said.

Monk, Big Top, and LaRue drove to the Night’s Rite Motel on Chef Menteur Highway. They wanted two rooms with two double beds apiece, adjoining, since their party now included a fourth member, security man Corelle. He was currently gagged and cuffed, wrist to ankle, and wedged in the back of the van between the generator and the box of tools.

The motel manager was a portly Pakistani with long raven sideburns. He had a pot of bulgur steaming on the stove in his apartment behind the office, and he was tending it by himself since his wife had gone off to Schwegmann’s to buy some red peppers. He took LaRue’s cash but also insisted on a credit card. LaRue gave him a stolen one. Satisfied with that, the manager handed over two keys on green tags.

“Want more ice, come back here,” he said, filling up a plastic bucket from a machine behind the desk that was leaking darkly on the stained blue carpet.

“Where’s a good place to eat around here?” LaRue asked.

“Tastee Donuts next store, or, you know, Domino delivers.” The manager thought he could smell his dinner burning and excused himself.

LaRue grunted and pocketed the keys.

He walked back to the van.

“Room one-oh-nine,” he told Monk. “Find a spot right in front if you can.”

I hope the room smells better than the office, Rue thought sourly as he crossed the parking lot. It was like a Chinese restaurant in there. He noticed, however, that the outdoor air carried the unmistakable aroma of coffee, and he figured that must be coming from the donut shop.

“What do you want us to do with the dummy?” Monk asked LaRue when they had parked and stepped out of the minivan. The big-eared Texan with the spooky eyes had taken Corelle prisoner; it was his job to decide where to stick him.

“He’ll stay in the room with me. Unlock the back of the van and help me get him.”

Corelle was packed horizontally, and his eyes blinked open as soon as the hatch lid flipped up. He was sweating profusely, and his thick lips twitched around the handkerchief pulled through his teeth. He let out a long growl.

“I’m going to untie the gag. If you make any noise I’m going to put it back on and kick you in the nuts,” LaRue said simply. “Understand?”

Corelle rumbled and managed a small nod.

LaRue pushed the heavy body around on the floor of the van until he could reach the knot with ease. With a few rough jerks he got it loose.

Corelle gasped and swallowed deeply.

LaRue unlocked the cuffs and got his captive into a sitting position. He helped him get out of the van. Corelle stood up unsteadily, shaking his head, and put an hand on the open hatchback for support.

“Come along,” LaRue instructed and directed Corelle by the elbow into the little motel room. Big Top and Monk followed to see what the plan was. Big Top checked himself in the mirror on the plastic dresser and whipped out a comb to fix his hair.

“Hey, man, let’s talk about this,” Corelle said, looking around hopefully and massaging his biceps.

“Later,” LaRue said and startled everyone by spinning the guard around and shoving him face forward onto the bed. He was on top of the man before he could react and, pinning him with a knee stuck painfully into the guard’s back, fastened the handcuffs back on his wrists. He pulled the handkerchief out of his pocket and yanked it tight around Corelle’s mouth again, making his scream of protest unintelligible. He flipped both sides of the quilted polyester bedspread over the prostrate victim and wrapped him up like a tamale.

“Help me get him in the closet,” he ordered Monk and Big Top. They exchanged worried glances, but each quickly grabbed a piece of the body.

“Ain’t you afraid he’ll smother in here?” Big Top asked.

“Fuck him,” LaRue said.

Clumsily, they worked the squirming carcass into a semi-upright position in the closet beside the bathroom and stood back to look.

“Make a commotion,” LaRue told the bedspread, “and I’ll set you on fire. I’m a bad dude.” He closed the door.

“You guys got any booze in the van?” LaRue asked.

“I’ll get it,” Big Top said, hurrying out of the room. Happy hour had arrived.

* * *

Tubby went home early. He dozed off in the living room while Hoda Kotb read the ten o’clock news on television. He was dreaming about spending money during a rerun of
The Price is Right
when the telephone woke him up.

He grabbed it before realizing he didn’t want to talk to anybody. Too late, he had already said hello.

“Hey, Tubby, it’s me, Dan.”

Dan was an old pal, working these days as a bellhop at a hotel downtown. They went way back to those good ol’ college days best forgotten, when they had filled up the top two weight classes on the wrestling team. The bigger guy had been known as “Red” Dan because he would organize a demonstration against any hint of bourgeoisie injustice on campus. He had, for example, thumbtacked a manifesto on the athletic department’s door calling for student rebellion because the school jerked the basketball scholarship of a fraternal troublemaker, but only after the team’s winning season was safely in the bag. All of the jocks threatened to strike, but then they forgot about it and the school kicked the kid out anyway.

“Whadya say, Dan?” Tubby came awake.

“I think I got a client for you.”

“Really?” Tubby said warily.

“Don’t sound too thrilled. Am I interrupting something?”

“No, that’s okay. I’m just watching the tube.” His lack of excitement was because Dan had finally found his true vocation in life as a roving union organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World. He blew through town infrequently but never quietly. The kind of clients he sent to Tubby all had hopeless cases, no money, eviction notices stuck to their door, and five hungry kids at home.

“Yeah,” Dan said excitedly, “there’s this lady staying at the hotel, and me and her got to talking a little bit. She’s from, like Iowa, and doesn’t know krewes from cornflakes, know what I mean? Not too streetwise.”

“Yeah.”

“So, the time-share cultists got her. They kidnapped her on Bourbon Street, took her down to Elysian Fields, made her watch their mind control films, and sold her a time-share she doesn’t want.”

“Has she paid for it?”

“Yeah, like fifteen thousand. And look, it’s for a week in August.”

“Wow,” Tubby laughed. “Why did she do that?”

“They said it was the week of the Belle Chasse Blessing of the Lowquats Festival, or something like that. She’s confused. She wants out of the deal. She wants a lawyer.”

This was a pleasant surprise. If she could write a check for $15,000 and get a room at the Royal Montpelier, she ought to be able to pay Tubby. And if he moved quickly it should be a cinch to get her dough back because there was a special provision in the law, he knew, for the protection of corn-fed midwesterners who bought time-shares and then repented.

“Okay, I’ll talk to her.” Tubby reached for his pen.

“Want to come down tonight? We can catch a few brews when I get off work.”

“No way, bro. I’ve been parading all day with Collette. I need my beauty sleep.”

“Too bad. The Quarter is absolutely hopping. There’s a great sax man playing at O’Mulberry’s Irish Bar. Of course, they might pass the hat for the IRA.”

“What? No, I can’t do it.”

“Okay, well look— how about tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Tell her to come to my office. I’ve got a couple of errands to run in the morning, Say, two o’clock.”

“She’ll be there, man.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely!” Dan exclaimed. “She’s put her fate in my hands. I told her about the time I worked for John Deere tractors. She thinks I’m the only upright dude in New Orleans.”

“Did you tell her you left the lug nuts off the inside tires?”

“That didn’t come up in our conversation. Hey, looks like I got to get back to work. We got people pouring in here from all over the world, man.”

“Have fun.”

“Don’t forget, I’m referring this lady to you because I like her, and I know you’ll play straight with her.”

“Okay, Dan. Have a good Mardi Gras.”

“I’m raking in the dough, buddy. Workers of the world unite.”

He hung up, and Tubby went into the kitchen to look for something to drink that might clear his head.

Willie LaRue slept a peaceful sleep and came wide awake, with the covers tucked neatly under his chin, at seven o’clock when the first sunlight came through the crack in the curtains. He never had trouble sleeping, and he never remembered his dreams. Long ago, when his father was kicking the shit out of him because he couldn’t learn to throw a lariat around a fence post in the back yard, a skill damn important to his old man, LaRue had learned to turn his mind off and on. When it was off he felt no pain. When it was on he could burn a hole through your head, he was so focused.

This morning, he was focused on how to rob a bank. His prisoner, Corelle, was still wrapped in the bedspread and stuffed in the closet. He had passed out quietly in the middle of the night. Assuming he was alive, Corelle remained a part of the plan.

LaRue brushed his teeth and knocked back three 500mg vitamin C tablets, his own private tonic for staying alert. He would need any edge he could get to carry off the job, especially with the two morons from Mississippi, as he had tagged Big Top and Monk. He had begun to believe they were queer for each other. Prison will do that to you, as LaRue well knew. He took a shower and carefully washed himself.

He was dressed and had dragged the mummy out of the closet into the center of the room when there was a knock on the door.

“It’s me,” It was Big Top’s high-pitched voice.

LaRue stepped over Corelle and took the chain off the door. Big Top came in bearing a cardboard tray of coffee from Tastee Donuts.

“Morning,” he said and stopped when he saw the pile on the floor.

“Is he all right?” Big Top did not really care. He was just curious how bad a dude Rue really was.

“Don’t know yet,” LaRue said. He took off the plastic lid and tasted his coffee. Unimpressed, he set it down on top of the Formica dresser.

“Let’s unwrap him,” he said.

They had to roll the body around on the rug to get the bedspread off him. Corelle was alive enough to groan deliriously. There was a stain, blood or vomit, on the rag in his mouth, and his eyelids were wet with tears.

“We’re gonna bring you back to life, big fellow,” LaRue said, pinching his earlobe. “Yes, sir, we are.”

Fifteen minutes later, after administering a combination of cold water and hard slaps, they had the guard sitting unassisted in a chair. He was wagging his head from side to side and moaning softly, not yet ready to speak.

Monk had joined them, and they were all drinking their coffee and watching the
Today Show
with Katie Couric. Big Top had a Hubig’s peach pie in his freckled hand, and he was dropping crumbs of sugar on the rug. The topic of the show was a serial killer who had buried bodies in public places all over Oklahoma. People had apparently seen him digging holes with a pick and shovel on numerous occasions, but nobody had ever questioned him or noticed that he was planting people. Or if they had noticed, nobody had thought it was worth reporting to anyone who might care more.

LaRue laughed soundlessly.

“Do you believe these people seen what he was doin’ and didn’t say nothing?” Big Top exclaimed.

“You just gotta do things in broad daylight,” Monk said. “That’s when nobody sees a thing.” Monk had once robbed a used-car lot in Talladega in broad daylight and been apprehended by the Alabama State Police in about twenty minutes, but he had forgotten that.

“Which is just what we’re doing when we go into the bank today.” Big Top swallowed the last of his pie. “We’ll just roll in our box of tools like we’re the King of Spain and nobody will say a thing.”

“That’s right,” LaRue said, thinking that Big Top could have been a stand-in for Howdy Doody if he’d had the brains. He prodded the slowly reviving guard with the toe of his lizard skin cowboy boot.

“And you’re going to walk right in with us, aren’t you, soldier?”

Corelle licked his lips. He wasn’t ready to communicate just yet.

* * *

The big guard was feeling better after an air-conditioned ride downtown in the Astro van. Somewhere in the maze of tall buildings Monk found a space in a freight zone. He pointed out the “Closed for Mardi Gras” sign on the watchmaker’s shop they were in front of. Half a block away was the main entrance of the First Alluvial Bank Building. With Big Top’s help Monk lifted the heavy generator and the tool chest out of the hatchback and placed them carefully on the sidewalk. A light rain was falling. With Corelle and LaRue joined at the elbow and bringing up the rear, they rolled the equipment down the block at a fast clip. All three robbers wore white jump suits over their clothes with Stanley Sanitation stenciled in red thread on their breast pockets. This had been LaRue’s idea, and Monk had lifted them from a laundry truck in Hattiesburg.

It was shortly after noon, and bankers, anxious to get out of downtown before the day’s first wave of parades hit, were streaming out of the building. A petite black woman was standing on the steps talking to a fat man in a navy-blue suit. “Have you got any big plans for Carnival, Tania?” LaRue heard the man ask. “Pastor Green and I expect to practice our singing at the church,” she replied sweetly. “We’re not much on parties.” LaRue held one of the large glass doors open and asked the citizens to stand aside while, grunting and groaning, Monk and Big Top manipulated the bulky items through. Corelle followed, looking dejectedly at the slowly rotating security camera mounted high on the wall.