Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) (The Tubby Dubonnet Series) (9 page)

But then look at Darryl. Tubby’s father had told him, whenever he got down in the dumps, to think about people with real problems. He did, and it helped.

Sometimes, to pick up a few bucks, Casey tracked down people who skipped bail. If he could catch the guy at home, he had enough authority to make the arrest and bring him before the court downtown. He collected from the bondsman for his services.

A prisoner at the jail had given Casey a tip that a minor pimp called Phil the Phoneman was staying with his mother in Algiers, the part of New Orleans across the Mississippi River. Phil had failed to appear for his trial on a charge of promoting prostitution, causing his bondsman to risk forfeiting $5,000. So there was plenty of financial incentive to find him.

It was easy. Phil even answered the door, pretty as you please, and now he was sitting in the backseat of Casey’s car. Freddie was the passenger in front. To save paying the toll on the bridge, Casey decided to take the ferry back over the river. They had to wait a few minutes in a line of cars, while listening to their captive go on and on.

“This is bullshit. Oh, man,” he’d say.

“This is real bullshit. Oh, man,” he’d say again.

“I cannot believe this.” His hands were cuffed in front of him, not too securely, but symbolic of the fact that his day was totally shot.

They were waved onto the boat and snugged in with the other cars and trucks.

“I’m getting some air,” Casey said when they were parked. He opened his door, and Freddie did the same to join him.

“How about some music at least,” Phil whined.

“Shit, man, you think this is a cruise boat?” Freddie asked.

“Turn on the radio for him,” Casey ordered. “Who cares?”

Freddie switched on a country station and got out of the car. He caught up with Casey, who was at the rail, looking at the brown water churned up by the ferry’s powerful battle with the current. There was a tanker coming downriver fast, and the ferry paused to let it pass. Black chunks, like tree trunks or railroad ties, bobbed in the big ship’s wake and floated after it in pursuit. They could hear snatches of music from the tour boats loading up at Woldenberg Park in the French Quarter. Casey had a few peanuts in his pocket, and he cracked them open, tossing the shells toward the seagulls trailing the ferry. He didn’t offer any to Freddie.

“This has been a very unprofitable week,” he said, almost to himself. “It is hard to believe Alvarez didn’t have any money with him. I thought for sure we’d find it in his truck.”

“They tore that apart,” Freddie said.

“Very frustrating,” Casey said.

He ate another peanut.

“I guess we’ll never know unless we ask Darryl,” he said, and spit out a piece of shell.

Above them the captain blew the horn, signaling their approach to the dock. The pilings groaned as the boat crunched against the pier, and the two men watched the civil servants throw heavy ropes ashore to secure the vessel. They got back in the car. Phil the Phoneman was still shaking his head, but he seemed to have calmed down some.

“This some terrible music, man,” he said. “Can’t you find no rhythm and blues, or something with a beat?”

Casey shut off the radio and started the car.

When he had them off the ferry he parked by a fire hydrant and told Freddie to watch the prisoner.

“I need to make a phone call,” he said.

There were pay phones in the ferry terminal, and the third one Casey tried had a dial tone.

“This is Casey,” he said when he made the connection.

He got an earful of complaints.

“Well, he didn’t have the money on him so either he was planning a rip-off or else he’d made arrangements to buy now, pay later,” Casey said.

He listened some more.

“Sure I understand it’s important. I’m gonna do what I can do. I’m gonna talk to the man personally. I’m optimistic he’ll cooperate with me. Darryl ain’t one to put up much of a fight.”

After another minute Casey hung up. He was pissed.

When he got back in the car both Phil and Freddie were popping their fingers to some Motown on the radio.

“You’re a real freak, Freddie,” he said sourly, and Freddie straightened up.

To the prisoner he said, “Where you’re going they play the music loud all night to drown out what they’re doing to each other. But you already know that, don’t you, Phil?”

Phil dropped his hands and sat back in the seat.

“Oooh, cold,” he said.

There’s an off-track betting parlor on Bourbon Street near Canal. From the sidewalk you can’t see what’s inside because the windows are tinted dark like the sunglasses a lifeguard wears, but there’s a neon sign outside to let you know the place is alive. Inside it is cool, clean, and green. There are little tables and chairs, a big television screen, and race results playing electronically on a board, like stock prices at a New York broker’s office. There is a well-stocked bar, and waitresses come to the tables. Outside the sun burned down, but inside Tubby was sharing a cocktail with Jason Boaz, the inventor. Both were watching the television screen on the wall, looking at the horses lining up at the gate. Tubby had ten dollars down on Peach Smoothie to place and another ten dollars on Trolley Car to win. The real live action was only a couple of miles away at the Fairgrounds.

People described Jason as lanky. He had a long, rugged face with a neat black beard. He wore heavy black plastic glasses that had never been in style. Today he had on a white shirt, a string tie, and baggy blue slacks, like a chemistry professor at some Midwestern college where they admire sloppiness. He was chain-smoking stiletto menthol cigarettes and partaking of Long Island Teas, a staggering combination of four white whiskeys and Coke.

The race started, and though neither man said anything they both leaned forward a bit because they had money on it. Jason had a bet on Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em. At the end, Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em took it. Peach Smoothie came in fourth, and Trolley Car retired limping. There were claps and moans, laughter and a half-hearted Bronx cheer from the other gentlemen and ladies spending money in the place.

“Attaboy,” Jason yelled when his horse came in first.

“What did you have on him?” Tubby asked.

“Fifty bucks. I had a hunch and should have bet more. I could kick myself.”

“Life is rough,” Tubby said and crumpled his worthless tickets into the ashtray.

“See the jockey? That’s Nicky Piglia’s son.” Tubby looked blank. “You know, Nicky Piglia. Has a po’boy shop, whatchacallit, yeah, ‘Nicky’s.’ Out in Marrero. He serves a half and half that’s, like, mammoth.”

“Any relation to Roy Piglia, who got killed when Pan Am 282 crashed out in Kenner?” asked Tubby, remembering what was far and away his most lucrative case, the one that had made it possible for him to open his downtown office, start his practice with Reggie, and buy a new car. It was a bright-yellow BMW, and he gave it to his then-wife Mattie. She sold it after they got separated, and what did she do with the money?

“I don’t know, maybe they’re cousins. There’s got to be about a million Piglias.”

Another race was starting, and Tubby had a horse in this one, too. He was betting Shake and Bake to win, but the horse was stuck in Gate 4, not such a hot spot to be in.

“So Tubby, while I got your meter off, so to speak, you think it’s worth me protecting my Porta-Soak and Mow?”

Tubby couldn’t remember hearing about that one. “Tell me about it,” he said.

“It’s a neat idea. I thought we’d talked. There’s a plastic water tank, like for one of those Super Soaker water guns, just bigger. And you pump that up. You strap the tank to your back. There’s a tube comes out of the top with a spray nozzle, and while you mow your grass, or do anything that gets you really hot, you can give yourself a little shower or a light mist. It’s adjustable.”

Tubby lost his concentration on the race, which was just now beginning, and stared at Jason to see if he was serious. Jason wasn’t giving anything away. He probably was. Jason’s last idea had been for a shoe that circulated cold water around your feet. Ha. Ha. He had built a prototype and showed it around. He ended up assigning his patent to a Korean manufacturer for $418,000. Tubby had done the paperwork.

“Well, Jason, it sounds kind of clumsy. Why don’t people just go inside and take a shower, or jump through a sprinkler? Anyway, who mows yards anymore?”

“Kids mow yards, and kids will like this. And college kids at the beach, they will like this. We make the tanks in orange, ‘Day-Glo’ green, crazy colors, you know, acrylics. They’ll spray each other. They’ll fill it with beer.”

Tubby thought he could visualize that beach party. “Hell, of course you should patent it,” he said.

“That’s what I think.”

“Get your drawings together, come by the office, and let’s talk.”

“Okay, why not. It might be a big payoff item.”

“You got much left from the Cool Shoe?”

“Well, it’s about a hundred dollars less for every hour I sit in here.”

The horses came around the stretch. Shake and Bake first, then second, then third across the finish line.

“Like I said.” Jason dropped his ticket into an empty coffee cup.

“Gotta run,” said Tubby. “I got a lunch at Galatoire’s.”

“Hope you’re not treating.”

“No, this is a payback. Call me at work.”

Tubby walked the two blocks to the restaurant. It was almost two o’clock, which was good timing for Galatoire’s. There was no line.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Dubonnet,” the head waiter said softly. “We will have a table in just a moment. Are you alone?”

“Mr. Chaisson is joining me,” Tubby said. The dining room was narrow, and all of the tables were full. Old waiters, most of them familiar to Tubby, carried silver platters around, trailing fragrances of fish and garlic. No women servers distracted the diners.

Tubby was shown to a table against the wall beneath an ornate mirror. He ordered a gin on the rocks. His mind drifted over the things he was supposed to do that day. Then it settled for a moment on Jynx Margolis. Was there some chemistry there? It had been so long since he had dated anybody that he had forgotten how to read the signs. She was certainly appealing, in a good, clean, middle-aged fun kind of way, a nicely tanned and very fragrant kind of way. Problems did not weigh heavily on Jynx’s shoulders. Marriage to her would be difficult, he imagined. She was irrepressibly self-indulgent and sort of an airhead sometimes. But who was talking marriage? Could she really find him attractive? Hard to tell with Jynx what was actually a magnetic field and what was simply her flirtatious nature. Maybe with her it didn’t matter. She was a mystery to Tubby, a bit exotic. It was flattering having an exotic try to flirt with you.

Tubby was lost in thought when E. J. Chaisson came through the door. He was slight and dapper, combing his thin blond hair straight back to accentuate his large eyes and smooth, angular face, like a hungry street kid who had picked up good manners. He wore Italian suits from Rubenstein Brothers on Canal Street and always carried a cane or umbrella. Today it was a thin brown stick with an ivory handle that Tubby saw was a carved alligator, its tail curving around and gripping the wood. E.J. hung it with a flourish on the back of the empty chair between them.

“Tubby, I intended to arrive early and hold a table for you. Did you wait long?”

“Not at all. I’ve just ordered a drink. Join me.” Tubby waved at the waiter.

“How have you been? A Sazerac, please,” Chaisson told the man who appeared beside him.

“Busy, but that’s what pays the bills.”

“I’ve also been busy. I’m going into radio.”

“Are you going to be explaining legal issues to the public?”

“That’s certainly a good idea.” His drink arrived. E.J. took a sip and nodded to show that it was agreeable. “No, I’m starting to advertise—in Vietnamese.”

“You speak Vietnamese?”

“Heck no, but my yard man does. He’s been working for me for a year, and one day we start to talking about what I do. He tells me, guess what, there’s about twenty thousand boat people in New Orleans who he is related to, and not one of them knows an attorney.”

E.J. grinned suddenly, showing his pointed white teeth, and winked. For emphasis he snapped a little bread stick from the basket the waiter put before him, stuck a scoop of fresh butter on the end, and waved it like a conductor’s baton. “He’s going to bring me clients. Plus interpret for them. If I take a case, he gets a piece of the action.”

Tubby finished his drink.

“The Bar Association won’t like that.” Tubby was an expert on things the Bar Association would and wouldn’t like. He’d run several moneymaking ideas past its ethics committee, and each time had been advised to steer clear. He was sensitive because of a problem he had had over the Pan Am crash. After Tubby had signed up one of the victims, a downtown attorney had complained that Tubby was hustling clients in the hospital. Tubby had explained, in a letter to the Bar, that the referral had come quite innocently from one of the physicians treating the poor man, a plastic surgeon named Dr. Feingold. Tubby also immediately stopped his check to the doctor, even though it was just a token of friendship. He heard no more about it from the Bar, but he had heard about the check from Dr. Feingold ever since.

“The thing is, you can’t split your fees with a nonlawyer. It’s unethical.”

“Are you sure about that?” E.J. asked.

“Oh yeah, positive. Look it up in the rules.”

“We didn’t have to learn that stuff to pass the bar exam when I was in law school.”

The waiter returned and took their orders. The oysters were salty, and E.J. ordered his en brochette. Tubby chose trout meunière amandine. “Look,” said Tubby, “there’s ways around it. Why not just call your guy a paralegal and put him on a nice salary?”

“I don’t think so,” E.J. said sourly. “I’m afraid his appetite is a little bigger than that. He wants to be on the incentive plan.”

“Send him to law school.”

“Can’t do that,” E.J. said between bites of bread. “Then what would he need me for?”

“Okay, try this. Suppose you set him up an advertising company. Immigrants all love to own a company. Do you agree?” E.J. nodded. “He broadcasts advertisements in Vietnamese for your law office. You pay him according to the number of calls you receive from the ads. You have a gentlemen’s understanding that, down the road, if the cases pay off he gets to raise his rates.”