4 Shelter From The Storm (6 page)

They had to pass through an elevator lobby. At its far end, on the left hand side, were the tall marble portals by which one entered the vast cathedral of the banking lobby. On the right, down wide stone steps, was the vault and the room full of safe-deposit boxes. A small elevator also descended to the basement, for the use of the men from Wells Fargo who picked up sacks of coins and currency, wheelchair-bound customers, and LaRue’s crew.

LaRue got his men aboard and got Corelle’s attention with a jerk of his thumb. Grudgingly the guard joined them in the small box. His compliance, at least temporarily, had been assured after LaRue went through his wallet, extracted a color photograph of two grinning boys, and promised to sell them into slavery in Mexico if Corelle did not go with the program. He also reminded Corelle that, despite spending the night wrapped in a blanket, his portion of the take was still $50,000. That part was bullshit, of course.

When the elevator opened in the basement its passengers were facing a glass-encased booth in which the worried face of James could plainly be seen fluttering around inside. He waved them forward and unlocked his cubicle to join them.

“I’m sure glad you’re with us,” he said warmly to Corelle, who frowned at him.

“Is everything okay?” James asked.

“Everything’s just fine though our generator got wet bringing it in,” LaRue said. “What’s with the security camera upstairs in the lobby?”

“Them and this one here”— James indicated the little black box behind the robbers on top of the elevator door— “display on my monitors in the booth and also back at the company. I turned ’em all off, like I told you I would, right at twelve forty-five. I’m gonna call the company now and tell ’em it’s just a short. They’re always shorting out or busting a fuse for some reason. They only get worried if they don’t hear from me in maybe twenty or thirty minutes.”

“So, call them now,” LaRue instructed.

“Right,” James said. “I’ll call them.” He trotted back into the booth and picked up a red phone.

Off to the left of the guard booth the massive round door of the vault filled the wall. It was built of gunmetal-gray steel and was at least ten feet in diameter. It was properly outfitted in shiny brass wheels and fancy rods and gave the impression of absolute impenetrability. Everybody looked it over with interest, but the safe unfortunately was not their target. Only LaRue knew what that was. All Monk and Big Top were after was money.

Their mission, for the next twelve or fourteen hours, lay at the other end of the hall. Past a walnut desk and a pair of light pink embroidered chairs was a marble-floored room containing the 1,200 safe-deposit boxes of the First Alluvial Bank.

James jabbered a few syllables into the red phone which was all that was needed to allay the concerns of the spacey technonerds at SecureGuard headquarters. The array of equipment the company had installed at Alluvial Bank was notoriously prone to inexplicable shorts and blowouts. They gratefully accepted James’ opinion that the problem was the wiring at the bank.

When this fine institution had been erected soon after the Great War, it had been the tallest building for a long ways, the Port of New Orleans handled every banana eaten in America, and the science of electrical service was in its infancy. Hidden behind the building’s repeatedly thickened walls were tapestries of circuits, computer wire, and telephone cables, and even miles of copper strands on porcelain spools left over from the birth of the Industrial Revolution that might or might not still do something. It was a wonder the lights came on. Rogue security cameras were routine.

James could still control these cameras, however, and they responded to his touch. With a flip of his dexterous brown fingers, he restored to view, on his monitors, the upstairs lobby and the sidewalk outside the bank. He left blank the cameras on his booth and in the safe deposit room. Humming as he worked, he checked out the world above and said, “Ain’t hardly anyone left in the building now, and the bank’s closed up tight.

“Shoo’ee, look at that rain outside,” Big Top said from over his shoulder.

“Weather like this they ain’t gonna be no question about these cameras shorting out,” James said.

“Long as we got juice to see by everything is A-okay, right Thelonious?” LaRue poked Monk in the stomach. “Now let’s get that generator fired up and go to work.”

* * *

Collette’s day before Mardi Gras had begun on a high note. Her mother had screamed up the steps to wake her a little after ten o’clock, it being a “teacher workday” and a student day off, to ask her if she wanted to speak to her friend, Norene, on the phone. Of course she did, and Norene had invited her to a pool party at her house on Versailles Boulevard. Norene said there might actually not be any swimming because her dad hadn’t cleaned the water since November and, being around 85 degrees, it was probably too cool by local standards anyway. But they would sit by the pool and maybe play some board games. Boys with beer were expected. Her parents were gone to Disney World with her younger brothers. Everything was going to be
tres
phat. Please, please come.

Putting together a clean outfit and navigating past Mom were the only major problems. She had to run a load through the washing machine while she ate her strawberry yogurt and, to smooth the way, she also agreed to wash a load of her mother’s with only a token complaint.

“Don’t forget bleach,” her mother cautioned.

“Obviously,” Collette said. “I’m going over to Norene’s this afternoon.”

“What’s she doing?”

“Nothing. She’s lonely since her parents went to Disney World. She just wants company. We’ll probably go to a show.”

“Okay. You’ll be home for dinner?” Mattie lit a cigarette.

“We might get something to eat afterwards.”

“Just let me know. When you do my shorts, please take them out of the drier after just a minute or two, or I’ll never get the wrinkles out.”

“I know.”

“Thank you.”

Problem solved.

Tubby was stepping out of the shower, feeling groggy, when he heard his front doorbell ring. He threw on his bathrobe and padded downstairs. When he opened the door he was surprised to find his middle daughter, Christine, standing on the steps.

“Is it okay if I drop in?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” He hugged her and bustled her back to the kitchen.

“I brought these from the Daily Grind.” She held up a white bag.

“Scones,” he said, trying to act happy. “I’m getting into scones.”

“These are wonderful. They have cranberries and walnuts in them.”

“Can’t beat that. I’ll make some coffee. Is everything all right?”

“Of course,” she laughed. “Can’t I just visit?”

“Sure,” he said, scooping out the Community. But Christine was the last one to just drop in.

Her eyes were investigating the kitchen. “Everything’s pretty clean,” she observed, as if she expected him to exhibit some kind of piggish, single-man, crude qualities.

“I eat a lot of meals out,” he explained. He got a plate for the scones. “You like honey?” She did.

“Did you know I got accepted at LSU?” Christine asked.

He was dismayed. “No, I didn’t even know you’d applied. You want to go there? What about Tulane? Isn’t that your first choice?” It certainly was his.

“I haven’t heard from them yet,” she said anxiously. “And originally I was going to share an apartment with Debbie, but now she’s getting married and moving in with Macros. A lot of my friends are going to LSU.”

He hit the switch to the coffeemaker, hard.

“I don’t think I have the brains for Tulane anyway,” she added.

“Of course you’ve got the brains. Any dummy can graduate from Tulane. Look at me. The hard part is getting in. Besides, they make you work lots harder at LSU.” He hoped these were good arguments.

“I’m also on the waiting list at St. Olaf’s.”

“Saint who? Who the heck is he?”

“I don’t know. It’s a college in Minnesota. One of the boys I met on my trip to France is going there.”

“Minnesota,” he repeated, incredulous. “Please pass me a scone.”

“I’d like to see more of the world,” she said.

They had a nice talk. He gave her some advice. LSU didn’t sound so bad, upon reconsideration. Anywhere in the state beat Minnesota. Christine thought her sister Debbie should wear white at her wedding even if she was five months advanced. Tubby had not thought about that, but he agreed. Collette was secretly smoking cigarettes and sneaking into bars— which he had suspected but not actually known.

“She has good sense though, don’t you think?

“Sometimes,” was all that Christine would concede.

It was just a visit after all. After Christine waved good-bye he watched her slip lightly down the sidewalk. He could see the young woman taking shape. This morning, he felt useful.

* * *

On the way downtown to meet the time-share lady, Tubby stopped at a sandwich shop on Magazine Street to grab some lunch. His plan was a nice trout po-boy, but the proprietor, a young guy from Paradis who could cook fish in a hurry, greeted him by saying, “Fresh oysters today. Just got ’em in. What’ll it be?”

“That sounds good,” Tubby said. “On French, dressed, to go.”

“Got you covered,” the cook said and reached for a loaf of bread about the size of a softball bat. He whacked off a third of it. Tubby watched him take a handful of sliced Creole tomatoes and shredded lettuce. He was thinking that oysters were really sort of unappealing when you met one by itself. The moon rock shell might be as big as your hand, and stuck fast to all manner of barnacles and calcified sea life. Grab it firmly and it would likely slice the heck out of your fingers. It took a character with a strong wrist and a stout blade to open one, and then what you had was a moist pale creature void of form. Yet he could think of no superlatives adequate to describe the pleasures of consuming one.

“What to drink?”

“Red drink, please,” Tubby said. “I changed my mind. I’m just going to eat it here.”

No sense wasting a pile of crisp, hot, juicy, just fried oysters. He sat at a little square table and unwrapped the paper around his sandwich. He sprinkled on some Crystal, made sure he had pickles, and rolled with it. Man that bread was fresh.

“Good oysters,” he called to the cook, scattering a few bread crumbs.

“I said you’d like them,” the man agreed, busy with a pan of frying catfish.

Soon, a relaxed and generally laid-back lawyer located his recently polished Chrysler LeBaron, which he had gotten when he traded in his Lincoln Town Car, and cruised on down Magazine.

He looked serenely at the black-garbed youths sitting on the front steps of the Necromantic Gift Shop and Museum, and the midday drunks propped up against the several taverns and Middle Eastern groceries along the route. He shrugged off the cold wind from nowhere that whipped the live-oak branches above the street. With no sense of aggravation he passed a stalled city bus, bright red and coated with an advertisement for Rex crab boil, and a guy who had parked his car in the middle of the street so he could use the pay phone outside of the K&B. Once downtown, he zipped past the main branch of First Alluvial bank two blocks from his office, and did not even think about the dwindling balance in the checking account he kept there. Tubby didn’t actually start to get his first twinge of tension until he turned into the multistory parking garage of the Place Palais, the building downtown where lately he spent too little time working.

The place was practically deserted since no one with any brains was anywhere close to the central business district on the day before Mardi Gras. Half the attorneys in New Orleans were off skiing in Colorado and the other half were recovering from the Bacchus Ball or getting ready to ride that evening with the Krewe of Orpheus.

He gunned it round and around the spiral ramp, tires squealing, remembering how it felt when he was growing up to cruise the old muscle cars on the Avoyelles Parish quarter mile. When he got dizzy, he parked. Whistling, he locked up the Chrysler and went for a ride in the talking elevators.

When the grand machine announced that he had reached the forty-third floor, he marched into the carpeted hall and to the handsome walnut doors upon which, in gold letters, “Dubonnet & Associates” was etched.

With some difficulty he managed to figure out how the key worked in the lock. This was usually his secretary’s job, but Cherrylynn was off for the day (and the next and the next) and no telling where she was.

He hit the overhead lights and checked his watch. It was half past one, so his client, if she showed up, was due soon. The door to his private office stood open and he tossed his briefcase on the old cypress desk that was the centerpiece. And, as Tubby usually did when he first got to work, he went to the window that covered one wall and surveyed his domain.

The view this afternoon was dramatic and frightening. He hadn’t realized how it had clouded up, but some bad weather was definitely passing through. The eastern part of the city all the way to The Rigolets was bathed in a soft golden sunlight, almost like a beach at sunset. To the west, however, there was a wicked billowing black mass of clouds, an advancing stampede that blotted out both sky and earth. A seabird’s view of startling weather patterns was one of the major perks of this office: this sky looked not only scenic but particularly menacing. He could imagine the shock waves it was literally sending to all those boat captains out on the Lake trying to get back to the harbor, not to mention the fear in the hearts of all of the Carnival krewe captains who were trying to get their parades lined up and rolling.

“Well, better to rain on Lundi Gras than Mardi Gras,” he thought.

He heard noises in his outer office and stuck his head out to see if maybe he had a paying client after all.

A short round lady with a distressed look was standing uncertainly in front of Cherrylynn’s desk. She was not too much older than Tubby, he figured, but wore her hair in a bun which added a few years. She clutched an enormous white purse and squinted at him so intently that he checked his hair.