Momma Lupe, Book 1 in the Ty Connell 'Novella Series. A Mystery/Suspense Thriller. Cooking or killing -- Momma Had Her Funny WAys (6 page)

He stood to leave. John following suit.

"All you want is a name?" Geddes asked.

"A name that
works
. Somebody who will
talk. Somebody who has something to say."

"And my name doesn't come up anywhere?"

"Paul, you're the invisible man."

Geddes glanced around, to see who might be
watching them, and he nodded, to himself, thoughtfully.

"Okay, man. I'll get back to you," he said,
echoing Connell’s words of the day before.

Outside, in the car John said, "You really
think that stoner dude's gonna come up with a name we can use?"

Connell was glancing in the mirror as they
pulled out of the lot. "He'll go through that second hundred
tomorrow. By Thursday morning —unless he wins the lottery— he'll be
on the phone to me."

At Thursday noon, Paul Geddes put the call in
to Connell: he wanted to meet.

"And bring the rest of the dough," Geddes
said.

Geddes
was at the donut shop once again. Standing outside this time,
waiting when they
pulled into the lot.
Connell motioned him into the back seat of the unmarked. Geddes
hopped in and they exited the lot, to talk with a little more
privacy. Morgan was at the wheel.

Geddes said, "You get my dough?"

Already it was
"
his
" dough. That
told Connell that the hook was well set and that this fish was
ready for the reeling.

He held the canvas cash bag into view and
said, "So, what’s the deal with Vinnie?"

"It
was
Ma’s job,” Geddes said. “Big
Paulie gave it the okay, but Vinnie stiffed Ma direct. Taking some
dope, batting some girl around. I dunno. But Vinnie was Ma’s all
the way and no one in the outfit’s going after her for it. Besides,
it was done by outside guys. No one knows from where. It was Ma’s
to do how she wanted."

Connell and Morgan exchanged glances. Good to
get confirmation. Now they just had to figure out how to build a
case they could take into a court, and it sure wasn’t going to be
by putting Paul Geddes before a judge or jury, or even his
statement. Connell’d given him immunity anyway. At least it was a
start.

Connell glanced at Geddes in the rearview.
“And number two?”

“Yeah. As for a name, let me
get this clear,” Geddes said, and Connell almost had to smile. When
Geddes was on the junk and was totally leveled-out and lucid —like
he was at that moment— the guy was sharp as a lawyer. What a
transformation from the vibrating, inchoate, addict-in-need he
sometimes was. “I give up
one
name and I got no other involvement, right? No
court. No line-ups. No grill sessions."

Connell turned in his seat
to face Geddes. "Not quite, Paul. I don't just want
a
name. I want
the right name
. Somebody
who’ll work with us."

"So, you'll give me the five grand
today?"

"Noooo," Connell said.
"Today I'll give you another two hundred advance. That'll buy you a
few days, and it'll buy
me
a few days. We'll track down the name you give us,
we'll go interview them, and see if it's a go."

"And if it ain't a go?"

"Then I'll need another name, won't I?"

Geddes agonized for a bit.
He wanted the whole payment
then
. But he finally gave up a
name.

"Emily Dumont."

Connell didn’t respond right away, glancing
again at Geddes in the mirror, deciding if the name was any
good.

Geddes also paused, thinking
it over a bit more, that he had to do a bit more sell. He added,
"She’s what you want. Cute kid. Straight out of the Quebec woods
and right off the pumpkin wagon. She hit town without too many
mental issues but they got the needle into her and wired her up
pretty quick and, from then on, they owned her butt. And I
mean
owned
. They
had her processing johns like high-production time at the sausage
factory. They hit her up with smack to zone her out and then with
meth shots to rev her up. She was like this combination of real
live wind-up Barbie doll and zombie. Total mind control. She also
got worked over pretty good by those two sons of Ma’s. They took
runs at her whenever they wanted. So she's bitter.
Bitter
bitter.
And
she knows stuff. About
Momma. About other girls. Knows it all. Probably even where a body
or two is buried.”

“And she'll talk?" Connell asked.

“Yeah. She’ll talk. Just ask about her
sister.”

"Where does she work at?"

"The
Crazy Horse
, usually. I heard she had
some sort of breakdown and they sent her home. Maybe gave up on
her. Never good news when they do that. I’d hurry and get there if
I was you.”

The last comment sent a jolt of concern
through Connell.

The
Crazy Horse
was a sleazy backstreet
knock-off of the famous Paris stripclub/whorehouse. It was located
less than a mile away. No doubt one of Paul’s haunts when he had
cash to spare.

Connell peeled off two hundred dollars and
said, "Paul, we'll talk again in two days."

And they dropped Geddes off back at the donut
shop.

As they drove away Morgan said, "You think
that dude’s smoking us about this gal maybe knowing where a body or
two is buried."

"Not at all. He knows that's what we want. My
bet is he's right on the money. Paul's a first-rate source. Gets it
all right from key players. Not many out there like him."

Connell was just worried
about what might happen to the girl if that strip
club—
or Momma
—
considered her a burnout no longer of use to them. A burnout with
too much insider knowledge.

Back at
the stationhouse, Connell ran the girl's name through the system
and it popped up
with a few minor charges
in recent years. Possession, prostitution, drunk and disorderly,
the usual hooker activities. And there was a driver's license from
the Canadian province of Quebec with a fairly recent
photo.

There was also a Boston address, current as
of three months ago. Some further checking uncovered an old
un-served Province of Quebec bench warrant from her days in Quebec.
A minor traffic offence she’d skipped out on. Most New England
states had traffic reciprocity relationships with most of the
eastern Canadian provinces and would serve each others warrants.
They just wouldn’t prosecute them. But the girl wouldn’t know that
Massachusetts wouldn’t prosecute and Quebec warrant. It gave
Connell a solid negotiating tool.

Connell contacted the local QPP station, the
Quebec Provincial Police, in a little town called Saint-Malo, the
town where Dumont had lived and grown up, and the station that had
issued the original ticket. He asked them to fax through a copy of
the ticket and the warrant.

The next day he and John met up at the station.

"How's the tap going?" Connell asked.

"Like a charm, far as sound and clarity
goes," Morgan said, "Only one small hitch."

"What's that?"

"Momma and her crew never talk shop in the
kitchen. They play cards all night and never so much as mention
work. But Momma keeps leaving the room with certain guests. They
seem to head to a small room at the back of the place, and they
come back a few minutes later. All we hear is poker talk and
cussin’. Any time they might be starting to talk about something
good, they leave."

Connell shook his head slowly.

"Son of a bitch. Man,
she
is
one wily old
sow. You think she knows you're there?"

John shook his head
'no'
. "I think it's just
the way the crazy old bat does her business. Probably got a house
rule about no shop talk in the kitchen, like the rest of them rules
she has."

Connell could only shake his
head in begrudged respect.
This one wasn’t
going to be easy.

"You going to keep the tap going?" he
asked.

"No. We gotta pull it. The crew's booked
across town starting tomorrow. We could sit there forever, but I
don't think she's gonna say nothing in that kitchen of hers."

"Too bad. It could have been good. Well,
anyway, I got the Dumont girl's address. Let’s go see what she's
got to say."

They
found the apartment in West Roxbury, a rickety third floor walkup
in a neighbor
hood of low rent high turnover
tenements. Connell knocked at the door. It was almost noon, but
they had to knock several times before the girl opened the door
half-dressed and half-asleep.

"Emily Dumont?" Connell asked.

"'oo the 'ell are you?" she said, in a cute
French accent, scratching her still-sleepy head.

She was a slim girl, almost to an unhealthy
degree —maybe anorexic, Connell guessed. Junk’ll do that to you.
She had delicate, porcelain-like features, and a shock of
reddish-blonde hair.

"I'm Det. Connell, and this is Det. John
Henry Morgan," Connell said, and he flashed his badge.

She said, "Yeah, an' I'm Lady Madonna.
Listen, it's kind of early. Youse guys'll have to catch me down at
the club some time."

And she slammed the door.

Connell was relieved. At least she still had
some spirit. Hadn’t been completely crushed yet. He knocked
again.

They could hear her shuffling back to the
door, which she yanked open in anger this time. "Listen, I tol' you
guys to beat it. Scram. I'm tired. It's too early. Get out of here.
G'wan. G'bye. Adios ..."

And she went to slam the door shut again, but
Connell put his foot in.

"Uh, Miss Dumont," he said,
leaning in. "We really
are
police officers. And we really
do
need to speak with you.
Now
."

"What for? I ain't done nothing wrong."

Connell held up the old warrant.

She squinted at it and her shoulders
sagged.

"Oh,
that
."

"Can we come in for a minute?"

"Yeah, Sure, Why not? I'm awake now
anyway," and she waved them in and pulled her housecoat around her
body which was slim in the waist, arms and legs but remarkably
well-developed up top. It was almost incongruous. A waist so slim
and breasts so overly-developed. Connell had to wonder if it was
all original equipment or after market. Her thin little housecoat
wasn’t easily containing her ample amplitude and they kept
threatening to spill out. Obviously one of the reasons she came in
for so much special attention in Ma’s world.

She sat on the small living room sofa and
Connell and Morgan took chairs opposite.

"So why are you chasing me
about that ol' ting? I
did
stop. The cop, 'e says I din stop, but I
did
stop."

"Miss Dumont, we're not
really here about the warrant. We understand that you work at
the
Crazy Horse
."

"Yeah," she said, a little defensively.
“Sometimes,” she said and reached for a cigarette from the pack on
the table. She lit it.

"And you know a woman by the name of Isabelle
Lupanier. Momma Lupe," Connell continued.

"Yeah," she said again, more defensively.

Connell leaned forward in the tattered old
chair.

"Miss Dumont. We'd like to talk to you about
Momma."

The girl
was clearly frightened and reluctant to talk at first. But it
didn't take much for it
to turn into more
of a therapy session than a police interview. It started in fits
and starts, but before they knew it, she was filling the ashtray
with smokes one after the other and talking so fast they could
hardly keep up with their notes.

She spun out a story about how she was
approached by Ma back in the small town of Burlington, near
Montpelier in northern Vermont. About a hundred and fifty miles due
north of Boston in an almost straight line up the I-93. She said
that, after high school was done, she had begun to slip over the
Quebec-Vermont border to dance in towns and cities in north Vermont
when she was eighteen.

At that she sneered.

“At eighteen in Vermont you
can become a slave to drunks, you just can’t have a drink to get
your
self
numb. Men!
They make all the laws! Keep us sober so they can get
drunk.”

She also been working as a waitress at a
small diner in her home town, Saint-Malo, just across the Vermont
border, she said, and still living at home with her folks. The
dancing she said she was able to keep from her parents and was
going toward building a college fund to go back to school. She had
her heart set on a media arts career. She went on to speak about
how Ma and her sons were so nice the first few times they came by
the club in Burlington. They said that they were tourists, just
visiting the area, and it struck her as odd at the time, that an
elderly woman would be traveling with two grown sons in their
thirties and stopping in strip clubs as they toured. But they
struck up a friendship with her and ended up taking her out for an
expensive dinner that first night. Even gave her some money to buy
some new clothes. She thought they were wonderful.