Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 02 - City of Beads (19 page)

“Hi, baby,” he said. “Got a minute we can talk?”

“Sure. Is anything wrong?”

“No, no. Nobody is hurt or anything like that. I want to hear from you what went on when you drove out to the parish.”

“Okay. You want to go sit outside?”

They found an empty bench beside the grassy quadrangle, shaded by a magnolia tree.

He asked her to start at the beginning, so she did. When she told about being turned away by the guard at the Bayou Disposal plant, he interrupted to ask if she had given her name. She said she hadn’t, to Tubby’s relief. She gave a blow-by-blow account of her meeting with the crawfishermen.

“What did the man say?” Tubby asked.

“It sounded like ‘Bin Minny’ to me, Daddy. Do you know what that means?”

“I think so,” Tubby said. “He’s a powerful man among those people. He was a colonel or something in the South Vietnamese army. He didn’t come out with the first wave, but got caught and reeducated in some camp. It must not have taken hold because he jumped on a boat and somehow got to New Orleans. He’s got a restaurant, and he’s got a reputation, like some kind of Vietnamese mafioso. I don’t know how much of it’s true. I’ve never met him.”

“Why would they mention him?” Debbie asked.

“It could be they think he can solve their problem better and faster than you and me.”

“What can he do?”

“I have no idea.”

“Then shouldn’t we see what we can do to stop Bayou Disposal ourselves, right away?”

A delicate moment. Lawyering talent was called for.

“I’ve told Twink to write me a report about what happened, and I think you should, too. Your group knows better than I do how to get the attention of the EPA, and I’ll be glad to call or write anybody you tell me to. If we can get any hard evidence, like even a signed statement, from one of the fishermen, we can try to get a restraining order against the company. I know you’re a grown woman now, but this is developing into a very dangerous situation. There’s some involvement here with Potter Aucoin, and he’s dead. His man Broussard is dead. I’m going to have a particularly hard time concentrating on the legal aspects of this case if I’m worrying about you traipsing down to Plaquemines Parish interviewing people.”

“You’re asking me to quit now?”

He was screwing it up, but it wasn’t over yet.

“No. Of course not. I need someone dedicated like you to help with all the legal research. But let someone else go out looking for affidavits.”

Debbie looked at him searchingly for a minute, then she broke out laughing.

“Daddy, you’re trying to protect me.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it.

“You’re damned right,” he said.

“I think I’m too old for that,” she said, “But I promise you I’ll be careful. I’ll talk over with the group who should do what. I won’t go looking for trouble, that’s all I can say.” She patted his hand like he was a doddering old fool in a nursing home.

“Just look out for yourself,” Tubby said, gracious in defeat. They hugged when they parted.

Resolving and closing the Bayou Disposal file was now the paramount concern in Tubby’s life.

Nick the Newsman left a message that Tubby should drop by.

“Watch the office for a while, will you please, Cherrylynn? I’ll bring you back some lunch.”

“I brought my Weight Watchers for the microwave, boss.”

“Oh, well, I’ll bring you back some dessert.”

“Great,” she laughed.

Nick was a little man. He sat on a high stool behind a counter in his newsstand. He carried papers and magazines from everywhere, and they overflowed racks on the walls, the floor, and all around him. He was hard to see when you walked in; his head looked just like another magazine cover stuck to the wall. Maybe a wrestling magazine.

There were a couple of men browsing the racing news when Tubby walked in, and a young woman with spiked orange hair studying something called
Sappho Sisterhood
. Tubby brushed past her and went to the counter.

Nick raised his eyebrows in welcome and scratched his chin whiskers.

“Here comes trouble,” he said.

“Hiya, Nick. I got a message you called.”

“Yeah.” Nick beckoned him to come closer. Tubby bent over, and Nick put an arm around his shoulder. “You asked me who Charlie Van Dyne worked for,” Nick whispered hoarsely, letting Tubby get the full flavor of the onion rings Nick had stuck in the drawer of his cash register along with the remainder of his lunch.

“Right,” Tubby said, gasping for air.

“Well, think about this. He had a legitimate job.”

“So tell me while I can still breathe.”

Nick grinned and tightened his hug. “He was a so-called rehabilitation counselor. He worked for Sheriff Mulé.”

“No way.”

“That’s it. Check the record.”

“I thought the sheriff was an honest dude.”

“You ain’t that big a fool,” Nick exclaimed, dismayed.

“I guess it is suspicious when civil servants can afford to drive a Cadillac and live in a big house on Persephonie Street, isn’t it?”

“Hey, go figure,” Nick said. “It’s the same thing with all dem democrats, am I right?” He bared all of his cigar-stained teeth for Tubby’s pleasure.

“Uh, Nick…” Tubby began.

“You mind if I buy a newspaper?” a young woman trying to get in front of the register demanded.

“Let me tend to my customers, Tubby.”

“Okay, Nick, see you.” On the way out the door he asked himself what he was about to say to Nick, and what good it would have done.

Tubby’s mind was in a whirl as he walked back toward Canal Street. He even passed the pie man sitting on the steps in front of the Wildlife and Fisheries Building, which is what people called the state Supreme Court, before he remembered Cherrylynn’s dessert. Recovering, he walked back and got her a pecan pie, then thought maybe she would like a coconut better so he got her one of those, too. Intrigue always made him hungry, so he picked up a couple of sweet potatoes for himself for later. The old man put all four in a plastic bag, which Tubby placed carefully into his brief case. Always a good idea to lay in provisions, he thought. It can be a long road between pie men.

Back in his office, Tubby wanted to talk to Tania to let her know about the connection with Sheriff Mulé, but more than anything else he just wanted to hear her voice. He thought she might not want him to call her at work, but he did it anyway.

A woman answered, “First Alluvial Bank,” and put him through to Miss Thompson.

“Hi, it’s me,” he said.

“Oh, hello, Tubby. Is anything the matter?”

“No, I guess not. I just wanted to see if you had had any more trouble.”

“Everything is fine,” she said, picking her words carefully because she was on the job.

“No threats? No one following you?”

“Nothing obvious. Sometimes I think I see things.”

“Do you see anything that looks like a police investigation?”

“No. My brother Thomas is getting out of the hospital tomorrow.”

“How’s his knee?”

“They say he’ll walk as good as new, but it’s up to him if he ever plays sports again. It will just take lots of work, but he’s determined to do it.”

“If he wants to badly enough, I’m sure he will. Uh, I wanted you to know that Charlie Van Dyne had a job with the Sheriff’s Department. He worked under Sheriff Mulé.”

She was silent.

“I’m going to try to talk to the sheriff and get a read on the situation.”

She still didn’t say anything.

“I’m not going to tell him your name. I’ll just be looking for information.”

“Okay.”

“Well, take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

“Call me if anything, you know, happens,” he said.

She promised she would.

Sheriff Frank Mulé agreed to see Tubby and told him to come down to the jail—a small word for a big place. Actually, the sheriff had about five blocks of buildings under his control. The old-fashioned, barbed-wire-encased Parish Prison took up one block, as did Central Lockup, where everyone from vagrants to body slashers got processed. Then there was the diagnostic center, the windowless Community Correctional Center, some tent camps, and a variety of satellite institutions and former motels where extra prisoners were stashed. Most days Sheriff Mulé had more miserable outcasts and outlaws packed into his frightening cellblocks than the warden of the state prison farm at Angola had in his. Mulé kept them in line, too. The sheriff had a lot of people working for him who knew how to handle complaints.

Tubby only wanted to know about one of them, Charlie Van Dyne.

He took the elevator to Mulé’s office and told the blonde secretary who he was.

“You’ve been here before,” she commented. She looked sharp, in a storm trooper kind of way.

“Yes.” He smiled.

After a few minutes Mulé said he could come in.

The sheriff, all 120 pounds of him, sat behind a desk as big as a craps table. He was drawing a picture with crayons.

“What do you think?” he asked, holding it up for Tubby to see. It looked like a Tyrannosaurus rex tearing apart a big yellow cat.

“Powerful,” Tubby said.

“I got a new program in mind,” Mulé said. “Sit down, why don’t you, counselor?” Tubby sat. “Instead of all that historical military stuff the last sheriff had the men painting, I’ve thought about having them draw animal life, like dinosaurs and elephants in the jungle.”

“You mean like for murals on the side of buildings?” Tubby asked.

“Exactly. Keep the men busy, encourage the talents they have, but let them paint something they can relate to—the struggle for survival. The law of the jungle.”

“You don’t think maybe that’s too bloody to put out where people on the streets can see it?”

“Sure, and war’s not violent?” the sheriff asked sarcastically. “I’m thinking painting scenes from nature might put the men’s minds onto life’s important lessons.”

“You could be right.”

“Just a thought, I guess.” The sheriff tossed the drawing onto the rug behind his desk.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Dubonnet? Last time you were here was about that drug pusher, Darryl what’s-his-name. Then he got killed. Now what you want?”

“I’m trying to find out about a man named Charlie Van Dyne.”

“Who’s he?”

“He worked for you.”

“So what. And he’s dead, too. You got some perverse interest in people who get killed?”

“Well, I heard he was into selling drugs.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“It’s just something I heard. A friend of mine is also involved somehow, and is getting death threats herself. I’m trying to find out what the truth is about Van Dyne and who he worked with to see if there’s anything I can do to remove my friend from danger.”

“You come in here saying one of my people was into selling drugs, which would make me look bad.” The sheriff’s voice rose. “You act like I know something about it, which is like accusing me of something. Just who the fuck do you think you are? You hit me with a habeas corpus petition on some twerp named Jerome Cook. Just what’s the matter here? Now you’re asking insulting questions about my employees. You trying to start something with me?” Mulé slammed his hand down on the desktop.

“I’m not accusing you of anything, Sheriff,” Tubby said, taken aback. “I’m just looking for some information, and maybe some help.”

“You ain’t getting any help from me with something stupid like that. That ain’t the way to get things done around here.” The sheriff’s dark face was red, and he looked like he was breaking a sweat.

“Look, this is a courtesy call. I’m trying to be cooperative with you.”

“You won’t get my cooperation like this,” the sheriff fired back.

“I guess I’ll be going then,” Tubby said. The sheriff did not try to stop him so Tubby got up and walked out the door. The Valkyrie receptionist smiled sympathetically when he went past her to the elevator.

“The sheriff must have forgotten to take his pill this morning,” Tubby told her, and punched the elevator button.

Inside his office, Sheriff Mulé picked up his telephone and made a call.

Cruising down Carondelet Street, Tubby suddenly heard the sound New Orleans motorists fear the most – the approaching trumpets and drums of the St. Augustine Marching One Hundred. Oh no! Here came the yellow barricades, pulled across the street by the city’s finest. Just two cars blocked the way between him and the corner of Canal, but it was the difference between an efficient afternoon of work and being caught in a parade.

Desperately, Tubby looked behind him, but cars were stretched down the block. No hope of backing up. Long experience had taught him that there was nothing to do in this situation but to lock the car and watch the parade. Since the top was down on his Corvair convertible, and it was a real pain to put it up, he couldn’t stray too far.

As he looked up Canal Street, he was relieved to see that it was a short parade, as if for a convention. The approaching vanguard consisted of two very tall black men wearing dark suits and purple fezzes, holding between them a blue silk banner as wide as the avenue, which proclaimed that the International Society of Morticians and Embalmers was in town. They were followed closely by a disorganized but happy throng of well-dressed folk sporting buttons the size of paper plates, which read 103RD ANNUAL ENTOMBMENT, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA. These were the dignitaries, no doubt. They were followed smartly by a really jazzy halftime show of high-stepping girls from P.G.T. Beauregard Middle School, their red-and-silver leotards sparkling, their boots flashing. They were full of spirit because right behind them were the blaring horns and booming drums of the fabled St. Augustine High School Marching Band.

This was a deluxe show for the middle of the afternoon, but Canal Street shoppers, jaded by a lifetime of carnival, passed obliviously along the sidewalk, only occasionally giving in to the temptation to hop up and yell, “Throw me something, Mister.” Quite a few friends and family members of the morticians and embalmers, however, stood on the curbs cheering while the routine life of the city went on around them. A meter maid snuck around giving out parking tickets. A couple of white-haired businessmen wearing seersucker suits with cuffed pants haggled a point outside the Boston Club, raising their voices to be heard over the din.