4 Shelter From The Storm (21 page)

He lay down and tried to fall asleep.

* * *

“Hello, Tubby?”

He recognized Marguerite’s voice immediately, and it rescued him from a nightmare vision of a pile driver exploding downward about to pound him into the earth.

“Hello,” he managed. His mouth was dry, and he was out of breath.

“I had a hard time finding your number.”

“I’m glad you tried,” he said, sitting up and checking the clock. It was three o’clock in the morning. “Where are you?”

“I’m in Chicago. How are you?”

“Not so good. My fried Dan, the bellman, is still in the hospital.”

“I was afraid he might have, you know, died.”

“No, but he’s in a coma. All three of the crooks are dead through.”

“Big Top and Monk?”

“Yeah, and the leader, too.”

“I don’t care what happened to him, but I didn’t really think the other two were so bad.”

“I saw Big Top die. He got clocked on a tug boat and never recovered. Monk had his throat cut in a hospital. They haven’t found out who killed him or Roux. It might be the people they worked for.”

“There’s someone else?” Her voice trembled a little.

“I think so,” Tubby said. “I was sort of afraid they might be after you.”

“Why me?” she exclaimed.

“There’s the small matter of a missing bag of stolen property.”

“Oh. That. A policeman called me from New Orleans. He didn’t seem to know anything about the bag that got lost.”

“Name of Kronke?”

“Yes.”

“He talked to me.” Tubby told her. “I didn’t know whose side he was on, so I didn’t give him anything. I didn’t turn you in.”

“What do you mean, whose side?”

“There are big people with big money behind all this. That’s all I know.”

She did not say anything, but he could hear her breathing.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” he said. Somewhere in the distance a dog was howling. A branch, stirred by the wind, scraped against his window pane.

“I’ve missed you,” she said.

“I thought you ran out on me.”

“I was afraid you might think that. I was kind of outside myself, like almost in another body, after we were taken prisoner. But as soon as I decided what I was going to do, I knew I had to do it by myself. If anyone gets in trouble it should be only me.”

“You think you’ll ever come down here again?”

“I just might. I’ve quit my job, and I guess I should go traveling somewhere. See the world. But right now, I’m going to cooking school.”

“Really? What made you do that?”

“It’s just something that came to me. I was remembering our special dinner in the hotel room. And I thought it was maybe something you would enjoy, if I ever saw you again.”

Tubby felt some of his armor slipping away. Against his better judgment, a little ray of hope entered his heart. It had been a long time since he had had a real relationship with a woman— or even thought he could have one again.

“What does a chef in the Big Potato teach you? How to grade beef?” he asked.

“No, we cook other things.” She laughed.

“Like Chicago-style pizza?”

“Yes, actually, but we also made a good Costoletta Valdostana yesterday, which is veal chop stuffed with prosciutto ham and Muenster cheese. And tonight we’re cooking chicken fricassee.”

“That sounds pretty good,” Tubby conceded. “I guess the New Orleans versions would be veal grillades served with a nice thick gravy and something like Chicken Big Mamou in Pasta like Chef Paul makes.”

“I’m not even going to ask what that is,” she said. “The
piece de resistance
we’re making this week is supposed to be roast duck.”

“My, my,” Tubby said. “You know, the best duck I ever had was at a restaurant in New Iberia where they served me these two grilled ducks, and they laid out a big helping of wild rice and some tasso dressing.”

“What’s a tasso?”

“It’s like a smoked ham. Some people call it Cajun ham. You could use sausage probably.”

“We’ve got plenty of that in Chicago. Bratwurst, knockwurst, Italian, blutwurst…”

“Now, that’s like boudin. That’s a Cajun blood sausage. You know, you’re making me hungry.”

“Gross. All that stuff is bad for you anyway. How are your daughters?”

“They’re fine. Thank you for asking.”

“I’d like to meet them sometime.”

“I would want to get to know you a little better first.”

“Maybe you could come up here.”

“I’d like to, but I’m going to be busy for a while. I’ve got to find out what’s happening locally. For my own satisfaction, if nothing else. I’m going to find out who is responsible for killing all of these people.” And make them pay.

“That could take a long time.”

“Maybe, but I feel like it may be my mission.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to take a weekend off.”

“That’s very tempting. I’ll call you when I’m free.”

“You’re a hard guy to get a date with.”

“I’ll promise you this. The next date I go on will be with you.”

“Gotcha,” she said. “I’ll even pay your way.”

Tubby laughed.

“I’m quite rich,” she added.

“Yeah? And how do you explain that?”

“Slot machines, honey.”

“Are you paying your taxes to Uncle Sam?”

“You bet.”

“Well, watch where you step.”

“You too, dear. And I’ll see you soon.” He heard the sound of a gentle kiss, and he hung up the phone. He wanted to believe. It had been too long since there was a woman in his life he could trust. Marguerite might be a thief, but there was nothing deceitful about her.

Tubby lured his daughter over to his house after school on Friday with the promise of a motorcycle ride. They sat on the porch and drank iced tea first, and told each other about their Mardi Gras experiences.

“Do you know when Dan will get well?” Collette asked, eyes troubled.

“No,” Tubby shook his head. “There’s some kind of nerve damage, and he’s not responding very well. It’s just wait and see.”

“The two of you were good friends in college?” she asked.

“Yeah. We both wrestled. You met him a couple of times when you were a baby, but you’ve forgotten about him.”

“I sort of remember.”

Tubby smiled. “Do you think you’ll see Bradley again?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She brushed a drop of water off her knee. “The way Mother acted around him, he may not want to ever come back.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, she told all of the most embarrassing and stupid stories about me, and Christine, and Debbie, in that loud voice of hers, the one she always gets when she’s been drinking.”

“Well, it was Mardi Gras, after all.”

“I don’t really think that’s much of an excuse,” Collette said unforgivingly.

“Come on, that’s an excuse for almost anything.”

“It was a funny Mardi Gras,” she mused.

“It sure was,” Tubby agreed.

“Even with the food and everything, it still seemed extra special, you know?”

“Yeah, like all of the important elements were there. The marching clubs, the Buzzards, the high school bands, the Indians. Even Rex made it. The spirit was still there.”

“New Orleans certainly is a strange place,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder what I would think of all this if I hadn’t grown up here.”

“No telling,” Tubby said. “It would be a lot to absorb.”

“Of course, people here drink way too much,” she said.

“Yeah,” her father agreed. “We’ve sure got some problems.”

“The other places I’ve been seem so backward, though.”

Tubby raised his eyebrows. “You haven’t really been to that many places,” he pointed out.

“Oh, I realize that,” she said. “But isn’t New Orleans generally considered by most people to be a very, you know, progressive city?”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s true,” Tubby said wisely. Nobody could dispute a statement like that.

“Come on,” he said. “Strap on that helmet and let’s take this baby out for a spin around our magnificent, littered metropolis.”

Fox had been partly right, he thought as he settled his rump onto the wide leather seat and felt his daughter behind him get a good grip on his belt. When a bright sun came up over the City that Care Forgot, you did feel better in the morning. It was pretty here. Strange ladies smiled at you on the street. The air smelled good. Tubby could even make himself stop thinking about the evil force that was sucking the guts out of his town, if he tried. If he wanted to. Let the law handle it. Maybe the conspiracy was all just in his imagination, anyway. It was fertile enough, God knows.

He could forget about finding the master crook, hiding behind the veil, up at the top of the heap, breathing the same sea-scented air.

But he didn’t think he would. There was still a final mission to be accomplished.

Tubby cranked the engine and gave it a goose. The beast sprang for the street, and his daughter screamed in delight.

In a dark hospital room, Dan tried to wake up.

THE END

to my sister,

linda lee

I gratefully acknowledge the professional advice of two men of the sea, Amby Daigre and Sam Abelar; the musical knowledge of Doug “A” Jackson, Michael Blackmon, and Mischa Philippoff; the Mardi Gras smarts of Janie Baum and Stephen Nicaud; the defense of Chicago cooking by Lauri Lentz; and the helpful comments of a faithful and critical reader, Linda Kravitz.

We’ll give you your money back if you find as many as five errors. (That’s five verified errors—punctuation or spelling that leaves no room for judgment calls or alternatives.) If you find more than five, we’ll give you a dollar for every one you catch up to twenty. More than that and we reproof and remake the book. Email
[email protected]
and it shall be done!

The first Tubby Dubonnet mystery is CROOKED MAN

http://amzn.to/ZPEMYG

As well as, second in the series

http://amzn.to/13lSu3V

MORE TUBBY DUBONNET MYSTERIES

Trick Question

The Crime Czar

Tubby Meets Katrina

Other Books by Tony Dunbar

Our Land Too

Hard Traveling: Migrant Farm Workers in America, Ballinger

Against the Grain

Delta Time, A Journey through Mississippi

Where We Stand, Voices of Southern Dissent (Editor)

American Crisis, Southern Solutions: From Where We Stand, Promise and Peril (Editor)

We hope you enjoyed
Shelter from the Storm
and wonder if you’d consider reviewing it on Goodreads, Amazon (
http://amzn.to/10lupw5
), or wherever you purchased it? The author would be most grateful. And if you’d like to see other forthcoming mysteries, let us keep you up-to-date. Sign up for our mailing list at
www.booksbnimble.com
.

TONY DUNBAR is a lawyer and the author of the Tubby Dubonnet mystery series set in New Orleans. The seventh episode,
Tubby Meets Katrina
, was the first novel set in the city to be published after the storm. He is the winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award, and his mysteries have been nominated for the Anthony and the Edgar Allen Poe “Edgar” Awards. He has also written non-fiction books about the South and civil rights and has lived for more than thirty years in this beautiful and complicated city.