Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) (The Tubby Dubonnet Series) (13 page)

“Hey, he had a gun. What was I supposed to do?”

“Not cut his head off, asshole. They can’t talk that way.”

“I didn’t know that fucking gun would shoot like that. We didn’t have anything that would fire so fast when I was growing up.”

“You should have told me if you didn’t know what you were doing, Freddie. I could have got you a .45 or something.”

“If we was to do it now, I’d do it right. I’d have it set on single shot.”

“Let’s roll back the camera and you can do it right this time.”

“We all make mistakes, Casey.”

“Gimme a break, Freddie. We’re supposed to be professionals. You can’t hold yourself up as a professional and say things like ‘We all make mistakes.’”

Freddie looked glum.

“We all make mistakes,” mimicked Casey. “For Christ’s sake, let’s get out of here.”

“I really am sorry.”

Casey put his hand on Freddie’s wrist. “I forgive you. Everybody forgives you. Just concentrate a little more in the future.”

Freddie said he would do that.

After they left, Ali called Monique on the phone. He told her about Casey’s and Freddie’s visit and the parts of their conversation he had overheard.

“Those are the same fucks who killed Darryl,” she said.

* * *

Tubby crossed over the Interstate on the Broad Street overpass and drove back to his house. The route took him past the Wembley tie plant, which always reminded him to check his own for gravy spots. Damn! What a stupid place to wear a fifty-dollar piece of silk. He parked and climbed into the boat. The bag was where he had left it. That was a small surprise considering it was in an unlocked compartment on a boat sitting outdoors in a quasi-major American city. Tubby had been half hoping it would be gone and he would be relieved of the responsibility of deciding what to do with it. Maybe, he thought, the fact that the money was still there was an omen he should keep it.

After checking to see that the bag was still full, he counted out some of the cash and stuck it in his pocket. He zipped the bag up and tossed it in the trunk of his car. The day was going from extremely hot to extremely hot and muggy, so he switched on the air-conditioning as high as it would go. Then he drove to a bank branch in his neighborhood. Inside, after waiting a minute for another customer to conclude her business, he presented himself to a young woman seated at a desk whose name was Miss Bates, Assistant Manager, according to her plastic nameplate.

“I’d like to open an account,” he told her.

“Do you already have one with us?” She smiled.

Tubby said he did not, though he had always meant to have one.

“How much do you plan to open it for?” she asked.

“One hundred thousand dollars,” Tubby said. He had formed a plan to open accounts of this size at every bank in town.

“Oh my, my,” Miss Bates exclaimed. “You realize, of course, that it may take a week to ten days before your funds are available to write checks on, depending on where the bank your check is drawn on is located.”

“I plan to deposit cash.”

Miss Bates looked disturbed. “There’s a form we need you to fill out in that case. We have to report to the IRS any cash transactions over ten thousand dollars.” She rustled around in her desk. “I’m sorry. I’ll have to get one in the back. I won’t be a minute. You can be filling out the account agreement.”

Tubby was on the street in seconds, mopping sweat from behind his ears with his handkerchief, an uncomfortable bulge still in his pocket. He wished he had a female confidante. They were much better at this kind of thing than he was.

From a pay phone outside a Burger King, Tubby called his friend, Jerry Molideau, a financial advisor whose talent was to impress well-heeled businessmen and help them shield their valuable assets from creditors, the tax man, and spouses. He sent business to Tubby, and vice versa.

He got past the secretary, and Jerry came on the line. They said hello.

“A guy just asked me a question, Jerry. I don’t want to look dumb, so I thought I’d better call someone who knows the answer.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“My guy’s got a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and he wants to put it where no one can find it. Any advice?”

“Sure. Open a Chinese restaurant and put all your cash receipts in your pocket. But seriously, that’s an interesting question, and I’d be glad to talk it over in person. On the telephone my best suggestions are to bury it in a tin can in his backyard, or buy Krugerrands and stick them in a safe-deposit box.”

“Have you ever heard of a rule where you have to report big cash transactions to the IRS?”

“Sure. If he buys his Krugerrands from a legitimate dealer, the dealer has to report all cash sales above ten thousand dollars to the government, just like a bank.”

“Do dealers actually do that?”

“Most do. Your average jeweler or boat salesman is marginally more afraid of the IRS than he is of losing a customer.”

“Sounds un-American.”

“Big Brother is here, Tubby.” Tubby said he might drop by to discuss this further and hung up. What to do, what to do? The problem was not paying taxes on the money. It was that he could not think how he could explain to the IRS, or anybody else who might ask him, where he got $950,000.

It suddenly struck Tubby that a great many desirable things cost less than $10,000. If he wandered through downtown, where he had frequented the same shops for years, dropping wads of cash, his visits would definitely be long remembered. He had a reputation for being tight with a dollar. There were all sorts of shopping malls in the suburbs, however, and today would be just ideal to visit them.

Driving west on the Interstate he checked in with Cherrylynn on the car phone. All of his messages were routine but one. His ex-wife had called, but he would deal with her later. He told Cherrylynn he was feeling a little down in the dumps and thought he might spend the rest of the day at the track. She could take the afternoon off, he said. She was too stunned to object. After he hung up, he realized how out of character he was acting. Well, that’s what financial freedom is all about. Destination Esplanade Mall. That was someplace he had never been.

Several hectic hours later he was sitting in a bistro on Veterans Boulevard called Hooters, being waited on by Hooter Girls. He was on his fourth margarita, letting the good feelings build. In the trunk of his car, besides a bag full of money, were wrapped packages containing three diamond bracelets, which Tubby planned to give to his daughters, some incredible lingerie, for a person unknown but coincidentally of a size he imagined would fit Jynx Margolis, four sports jackets for himself, some nice shoes, a pile of hardcovers he wanted to read, and a pair of tickets for a Caribbean cruise.

He had even popped into Andrea’s on impulse and had a wonderful plate of crawfish ravioli and a glass of red Beneventum that cost almost as much as the food. Reinvigorated, he cruised Veterans, looking for just the right thing. And there it was. The Harley-Davidson he ordered would take about a month to come in, but it was more bike than any man could tame. He had managed to get rid of only about $48,000, which was a little disappointing, but he felt great.

It was exhilarating, not so much spending the money, but suspending the moral judgment he had carried with him since his North Louisiana Sunday School teachers, not to mention his parents, got through with him. It had followed him through law school and was at the guilty heart of the majestic law he had bound himself to. Now, on a pretty day, it had lifted off his shoulders like a helium balloon lost at the fair. His judgment was out there somewhere, he was sure, circling around like an angry crow, but he felt as free as the last man on Earth. He leered at the Hooter Girls with their copious bosoms and cantilevered asses, breasts pointed eagerly outward like the outstretched arms of a revival preacher, welcoming, warming. They wanted him to think they liked him, and by God they were succeeding.

Rolling toward home on the Interstate, Tubby dialed his ex-wife on the car phone.

“Is that you, Tubby?”

“Yeah, can’t you hear me?”

“There’s a little static. Are you calling me from your damn car phone?”

“Yeah. You called me?”

“We need to talk, and not on the phone. Has Christine spoken to you about her trip to Europe?”

“First I heard of it.”

“What did you say? You’re breaking up.”

“I just went under a bridge. I said, first I heard of it.”

“It’s going to cost four thousand dollars, Tubby.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

“What, Tubby? Are you doing something to that phone deliberately?”

Tubby was holding it out the window. He pulled his arm back in. “Mattie, I’ll drop by.”

“Did you say you’re coming over?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Right now.”

“That’s a surprise.”

He hung up. One of life’s unpleasantnesses was about to go away. Tubby hummed to the rock ’n’ roll oldies on the radio. As he exited on Carrollton he was singing and thumping the steering wheel in time to the music.

He rang the doorbell of the house on State Street, the house he and Mattie had shared for seventeen years and in which he had not lived for four years. She kept it up nice, he thought, but it could use a coat of paint soon. There were rust spots on the gutters in front with delicate ferns peeking through them. They had not been there when he left, he was damn sure of that.

She came to the door wearing baggy white shorts and a madras blouse, earrings, and a matching tennis ankle bracelet, so he knew she had dressed up a little for the occasion. Nothing surprising there. She would want him to know how well she was doing, physically and emotionally, to go along with how poorly she was doing financially.

Mattie was a head shorter than he was and had red hair and a tiny colony of freckles under each of her blue eyes. She had a big mouth, both figuratively and literally, which could break into the kind of smile that would make a state trooper tear up a ticket. The smile was the thing that had drawn him in years ago. That and her gorgeous tits, to be honest about it. But it was her way of always staying a step ahead of him in a conversation that kept him around. She was getting a little plump, but all in all, with three kids, she was looking pretty good.

The first thing that hit him whenever he saw her was how long they had been happily, he thought, married, and how short had been the period of dissatisfaction before the divorce. Yet the years of their marriage, and the birthing and raising of children, were such a blur in his memory, and it seemed there were only a few fragments he could bring back clearly. But the painful days blasted back into his consciousness whenever they felt like it, and there was no on-off switch for them. After Tubby moved out, Mattie had taken her trips and had her affair, at least one that Tubby knew about, under circumstances he had found embarrassing and hard to forgive. When it was clear that their temporary separation would be permanent, when they both settled into their new and private lifestyles, the trauma finally passed. Now they had healed their own wounds as best they could, but Tubby knew that his were still close to the surface, waiting around.

“Hi, Mattie.” He pecked her on the cheek as she tilted toward him.

“Come on back.” She led the way to the kitchen. It was done in white and black tiles, which he had paid for, and a tiled bar where they used to eat their family meals together.

“Would you like a drink?” she asked.

“Are you having one?”

“Just a little glass of wine.”

“If you’ve got some bourbon, I’ll have some with soda.”

“You never were a soda drinker.”

“Hey, I’m getting sophisticated.” Actually he was getting drunk.

“Where are the girls?” he asked.

“Christine is in Florida. Collette is going to a party and may sleep over at her friend’s tonight. Debbie is probably at her apartment, but she may drop in later.”

She organized the drinks efficiently, placed his on the counter, and moved around to the other side to perch on a stool.

“What’s this about Europe?” he asked.

“Christine has a chance to go with her Newman class for a month to Paris, and then to Italy. Everybody attends language classes, and they take bicycle trips and, you know, travel around. It’s going to cost about four thousand dollars for her tickets and tuition and some spending money. They’ll be staying in youth hostels, but even so…”

“Four grand,” he said as he sipped.

“I spoke to Vinny about it, and he thinks it’s covered in the decree.” Vinny was her lawyer, and here was where Tubby was supposed to get nervous and angry. He was sure Vinny had told her no such thing, but this was the tip-off that the tough negotiating was about to begin.

“I don’t think four thousand will be a problem, Mattie. Let’s take care of it now.” He pulled a long envelope out of the breast pocket of his jacket and counted out $4,000 in $100s onto the bar. He pushed it over to her. “I want her to have a good time.”

Mattie did not speak right away, which gratified Tubby a lot. Plus, from her little half smile he could see she was really pleased. She liked to argue, especially about money, but she liked money more.

“Why, Tubby, that’s so sweet. Where did it all come from?”

“Lucky day at the track.”

“I’m so surprised. I thought this was going to be one of those long-drawn-out fights.” She came around the bar and kissed him on the forehead. Tubby inhaled the familiar perfume she wore on her neck and shoulders, and couldn’t keep from beaming.

“I also brought you a little extra,” he said. “I know I’ve been slow a couple of months.” He pinched a half inch of bills from the envelope and pressed them into her hand. Such joy from soft, green rag paper, smelling of fingers and printer’s ink and leather wallets, a richness like fresh turned soil. Mattie’s mouth formed a perfect O as she stared at the warm pile in her hand. She was moved, deeply.

“Oh, Tubby, this is not necessary,” like he had given her a present on their first date.

He gave her the old smile and wink.

She bent over, and this time the kiss was on the lips. Tubby himself continued to float somewhere overhead, watching it all happen, from his golden balloon.