Artist (13 page)

Adan snickered. “Poor baby. Girlfriend out of town and he stays at home working diligently through the night for the cause of justice.”

“You know, Adan,” Dupond said, “Jealousy is an ugly thing.”

“I’m not jealous. Cassie’s a beautiful girl. I noticed that right away. But I also noticed one thing about her that I can’t stand.”

“And what’s that? Dupond asked.

“She’s way smarter than me. Or you. Probably both of us put together. That’s a dangerous quality in a woman.”

Vetter was 28, the perfect age. He lived
in the right place, on Timoleon Street, two blocks off Elysian Fields and maybe ten blocks from the University. The house was a shotgun style popular around New Orleans where a single hall ran the length of one side of the house front to back. The name came from the ability to fire a shotgun through the front door and have the pellets exit the back. There was a well tended yard, an older Dodge Dart parked in the driveway. Dupond could see a covered driveway attached to the back, a swingset past the end of the cement.

“How do you want to do this?” Adan asked. He checked the clip on his automatic, made sure he had a round in the chamber, seated the clip.

“Well,” Dupond said, “We don’t have anything to go on except his initials so I don’t recommend storming in the house and just shooting him.”

“On the other hand,” Adan replied, “If he’s our guy he’ll definitely freak out when two cops show up at his door. It’s a dilemna.”

“My gut tells me this is a dead end, but we have to check him out.”

“You gut also has you in a romantic relationship with a woman who could beat you at Jeopardy with half her brain tied behind her back. I wouldn’t depend on it.”

“Will you let that go? I’m a grown man. I like her.”

“I like her, too. And
, you may be a grown man but you’re not necessarily an intelligent man, despite your reputation. Any man who can’t understand chocolate milk with beignets is a man missing a gear.”

“I’ll knock on the door,” Dupond said, looking to change the subject. “You come with me but stand off to the side in the driveway. That way if he shoots me you’ll have a chance to run.”

“Where’s Flynn when you need him, huh?” Adan said and opened his door.

The gun went into a sewer halfway down Port Mahon. The police would find it, probably, unless they were stupid, and Cassie didn’t think they were. But
, it was clean and would reveal nothing. The street was deserted, the rain driving customers inside the only café on the route. She took the left on Reaumurr, chanced a look behind her. The street was empty, and she dropped the hat between two parked cars. Somewhere in the distance, the distinctive yelp of a siren went off.
The police cars sound different
, she thought, something she knew from movies but hadn’t thought about before. 

Opera Metro station was always crowded and even the rain didn’t change that. Cassie passed through the turnstiles, found the A line headed toward St. Mande’.
So far, so good. There was an empty bench against the wall. The raincoat came off. Across the tracks, a young black man sawed away on a violin, a cup at his feet. She didn’t recognize the song. Two minutes later the train coasted into the station. Cassie got on, leaving behind the raincoat. She liked the purse, she would keep that and a woman without a purse in Paris just didn’t look right. Nation was crowded when she got off. She transferred to the blue line, headed north, exited at Pere Lachaise, and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the cemetery. She visited the graves of Oscar Wilde, Chopin and of course, Jim Morrison, where she stole a flower from the fence. There were no visitors at the grave of Victor Noir. Cassie rubbed the statue in the spot worn smooth and clean by a thousand women before her. The flower went in his hat.

Watt didn’t like the setup. He was in the open too much. Watching from his car, a young couple made their way across the parking lot, the girl
, unsteady, got in the car and pulled out onto the empty street. The bar was an aging, shaggy relic in Lacombe, thirty miles North of New Orleans. At just after midnight, six vehicles, four of them pickups, remained in the shell lot. A few days of watching the Detective and the patrolman sitting in their office one floor below his was all Watt could stand. Pulling them away from the University seemed the best idea and the hysteria of the city hadn’t quite reached this far.

His car was a problem though. The late model Cadillac stuck out like a sore thumb, surrounded by battered trucks and ten year old hand me downs. A jean clad boy came out the bar, stepped next to a truck and took a leak before getting in the truck and leaving. Fifteen minutes passed. Watt could hear the jukebox blaring something that sounded like country but could have been anything. The North side of the lake was a perfect dumping ground. A body could lie on the side of a d
irt road for weeks and never be found. If all he wanted to do was kill, that was easy. But what was the killing without the exhibition? Who would know? He waited another fifteen minutes, started the car and drove back across the lake. There had to be something better than this.

The thunderclouds rolled in across Paris from the East just before dawn. The first lightning flash lit the hotel room, the boom of the thunder rolling through right after. The deluge came next, growing in intensity until Cassie could barely see the trees on the neutral ground across the street. Five minutes later hailstones began to pelt the parked cars, bouncing into the gutter. She’d gotten up to close the window, stayed to watch the show as hailstones rattled the windowsill, rolled into the rain gutter and clattered away. The rain thinned and Cassie could see the hail bouncing off the sidewalk now, getting larger until the sound grew into a roar, then faded as quickly as it had come. The cars below were taking a beating. She closed the window and went in to take a shower, dressed afterward in jeans and long sleeve shirt, went down to find the waiter standing in a puddle of water, inspecting his car.

The roof of the old Renault looked like an orange peel, hundreds of tiny dents spread across the top. The old man was running his hand across them and shaking his head. He turned when she came up behind him.

“Bonjour, Madame. It is quite the storm, eh?”

“Is that your car?” Cassie asked.

“Yes, yes,” he laughed, “Bang, bang, bang on top. Not so good. Are you hungry?”

“I could use an omelet, if you would. Jambone et fromage, s’il vous plait.” Cassie said, trying out her French.

“Bon, bon,” the old man said, grinning, the missing tooth of no consequence. “You sit. Ten minutes. I bring coffee.”

The rain left the streets wet, puddles against the curb and water still running in the gutter. Cassie took a table outside on the sidewalk, got up to get a paper, sat down before opening it up. The shooting was on the second page, a shot of Café Drouant with police cars in front. She couldn’t read French but she could see Lorie’s name and “morte” and that was enough. Nobody was knocking on her door. She resolved to start taking on learning another language or two, maybe French and Arabic.

The waiter came out, setting a plate down in front of her. Rather than mixing the ingredients in the scrambled egg, the ham and cheese were set alongside, cut into strips. She mixed the whole thing together on the plate, eating it with the hard bread that came with every meal she’d had here in Paris. The waiter brought more coffee and took the seat beside her.

“Sorry about your car,” Cassie said, pointing with her fork. “The hail was bad last night.”

He laughed, waved his hands. “No problem, it still gets me to work, no? C’est la vie. That is life. It will still be a pretty day today. You are enjoying Paris?”

“Oh, yes. Shopping today, then I leave tomorrow.”

“Go to Arc de Triomphe,” all round, he waved his hands in a circle,
“very good shops, expensive but good. The Marais also. Tres bon.”

“I will,” Cassie said. “Thanks for the omelet. I leave early tomorrow but I’ll be here for dinner tonight.”

“Good. Tonight is poulet avec champignon. Tres bon.” He cleared the table, disappearing inside. Cassie finished her coffee, watched the rush hour traffic start to grow before heading off for the day.

From the sidewalk, Dupond could hear a radio playing somewhere inside. Adan followed, splitting off to the far side of the driveway as Dupond approached the front door. It was something he’d done a million times before and it never got any better. The simplest things got you killed. A routine traffic stop, carried out in every city of the country every single day, could get you killed. Knocking on doors was the worst for Dupond. You were exposed, the people inside had access to all kinds of things, guns, knives
, there was no telling. Dupond had once been hit with a garden rake trying to arrest a 16-year old for stealing a car. The mother didn’t like the idea and he could still feel the rake, bits and pieces of weeds hanging off the teeth, as it dug into his side.

He looked at Adan, who nodded. The driveway was clear. Dupond stepped up to the door, knocked, took three steps back, giving himself distance. Waited. Dupond had his badge folder in his left hand, his right was resting on his hip, inches from his weapon. The curtains behind the front row flickered. He took another step back, more room, less threatening. The door rattled, opened, a young black man stuck his head out. “What?”

“Afternoon,” Dupond said, flashing his badge. “I’m looking for a Curtis Vetter.”

“Son of a bitch,” the man said. He stepped out on the porch. “He did it. The old bastard did it.”

“Do you have any identification, Sir?” Dupond asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I got ID. I own the place.
I want to press counter charges on him, too. How do I do that?”

“Can I see your ID, Sir.?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure. This is my house. Here.” He pulled a wallet out of his pocket, dug around inside, handed over a drivers license. Curtis Lay Vetter, 28 years old. Dupond relaxed. Adan was drifting in closer. Vetter saw him, held his hands up.

“Hey, I don’t want any trouble. The guy pushed on me first, I got witnesses.”

“You want to explain to me what you’re talking about, Sir?” Dupond asked.

  Vetter scratched his head. “This is about Sunday, right? The old guy across the street?”

“Nope,” Adan said. “You want to tell me about it?”

“The old guy that lives over there,” Vetter pointed across the street. “We kind of had it out last Sunday. I had a birthday party for my little girl. Some people came over and someone parked in front of his house. He came over with a case of the ass, kind of pushed me, poked me in the shoulder, you know. I tried to calm him down, offered to get the car moved but he poked me again. Waving his finger in my face, you know. I pushed back, my wife came out, his wife came out. Kind of calmed things out. But he said he was gonna call the cops. I figured that’s why you were here. Cause of him.”

“Nope,” Dupond said. “Don’t know anything about it. This is something else. We’re looking for a guy but you don’t fit the description. Sorry we bothered you.”

“What’d the guy do?” Vetter asked.

“Stole some stuff,” Adan said. “Have a good day.” They walked off leaving Vetter staring after them. He finally shrugged and went back inside.

“Well, I guess your instincts were right on this one,” Adan said when they got back in the car. “Let me get out my calendar and write this down.”

“Too easy,” Dupond replied. “Let’s go see what Flynn and Slade are doing.”

The Arc de Triomphe looms over the western end of Paris, the epicenter of a circle that features twelve wide streets radiating out into the city. Tourists spend their time snapping pictures from every angle before taking one of the tunnels that cross under the street to reach the Arc itself. Some will brave the climb to the top. Many content themselves with just seeing it. Cassie spent most of her time walking the blocks immediately adjacent, a mix of mostly upper end shops and souvenir stands set up on the sidewalks at every intersection. She bought perfume, a scarf, and a beret.

Afterwards, she caught the Metro to Champ de Mars, making the obligatory pilgrimage to see the Eiffel Tower. The Seine rolled on a few feet yards away, floating restaurants and guide boats working their way back and forth. It was Paris, a beautiful day, and she was depressed. Something was sitting in the back of her mind, something she’d heard but couldn’t pull back up. A street vendor approached, replicas of the Eiffel Tower in a bundle. She bought one for Dupond and one for Adan, checked her watch. Three o’clock. Eight o’clock in the morning in New Orleans. Maybe she could catch Dupond in the office. A cab passed, she waved it down and went back to the hotel.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate music,” Flynn was saying when Dupond and Adan came through the door, “It’s just that my taste runs more toward Kool and The Gang or better yet, Rick James, than the stuff she pulled out.”

Slade was unsympathetic. “That’s because you’re an uneducated moron with a one gutter mind. Here you have a chance to learn something from a girl way out of your league and you don’t appreciate it.”