Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) (The Tubby Dubonnet Series) (14 page)

“Here’s a little tip.” Gently he slipped a few bills past the open neck of her blouse and tucked them into her bra.

Her face lit up, on fire. It was happy. She held his hand to her breast, then brought it inside, guiding his fingers to pull aside her blouse and pull down the bra covering her right breast till, pushed skyward by elastic, it pointed at his face.

“Why don’t you kiss it, sweet little baby,” she said. She pressed herself into his mouth, and he obliged, tasting old flavors. Slowly, with his free hand, he folded another bill and slid it into the band of her shorts.

The electricity was running full current. With her free hand she undid her eelskin belt and pulled down the zipper. He tucked more $100s into her sheer panties. She yanked his belt buckle loose, pulled her breast from his face, kissed him hard, then knelt on the tile floor. She unzipped his pants and worked him free. While she caressed him moistly, Tubby selected bills, one at a time, touched her delicately about the cheeks and neck with them and let them fall. They formed a ragged green carpet around his horny one-time wife. It really took so little to make everything good, really good.

Tubby left in the morning before she woke up. It was raining lightly outside, and the air was sweet. He expected Mattie would be embarrassed about what they had done. To a certain extent, he was, too. When it’s over, it’s supposed to be over. By pure luck, none of the girls had come home. The last thing they needed was some false hope that their parents were reconciling. It had taken them long enough to adapt to the breakup. He looked forward to taking a shower at his house and then going to work to find out what he had missed during his shopping spree yesterday. There were still living clients to care about, and Tubby’s guiding principle was never screw a client.

He left the money in the trunk of his car, not being able to think of a better place for it. After packing the smaller presents he had bought into a sock drawer, he showered, then fixed himself a cup of coffee, sliced up two satsumas, and ate the fruit. He locked up and drove downtown. He was in traffic on Claiborne Avenue when his car phone beeped.

“Mr. Dubonnet, this is Cherrylynn.” Her voice was almost hysterical. “Someone broke into the office last night.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s a mess. The files are everywhere. Your desk drawer was broken open. The safe is open. They went through my desk. And Mr. Turntide’s office is torn up, too.”

“Are the police there?”

“Not yet. But I called them. Mr. Turntide told me to. They should be here soon.”

“Right. Some ace detectives, I’ll bet.”

“Only in the movies. But really, Mr. Dubonnet, you had better come down here. It really is a wreck.”

“I’m already headed that way.”

The police had arrived when he got to the office. Or rather, a lone officer in uniform was shaking his head over the carnage. The place was pretty much as Cherrylynn had described it. Files were dumped everywhere—on the floor, on the desks, in the hall. Books had been pulled off their shelves. His globe had been overturned. He was sad to see that his leather chair had been ripped open and the stuffing was pulled out. Mattie had given him the chair for Christmas when he first started practicing law. It was accustomed to his backside now and fit him just right. Worst of all, one of the oil paintings on the wall, an abstract by the local artist Still, had been slashed. The artist was also his client, but Tubby had actually paid money for the painting because he admired it so much. He liked it when people studied it and was proud to say that he knew the painter. It was going to be expensive as hell to fix.

Reggie and Cherrylynn went with the policeman into the relative normalcy of the kitchen to talk. Tubby followed after them.

“I can’t believe what they did to your office, Tubby,” Reggie said. “What could they have been after?”

Tubby shook his head.

“They sure got your office a lot worse than mine.”

“It’s just devastating,” moaned Cherrylynn.

“Come look at mine,” Reggie said. They walked down the hall through the litter. The wreckage here was on a smaller scale.

Reggie lowered his voice. “This is pretty intense, Tubby. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you working on anything that could, you know, lead to this?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You think it could be connected with Darryl Alvarez?”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. Drugs? Money? Did he leave anything with you?” Reggie’s eyebrows twitched.

“No.” Being partners didn’t mean you had to tell each other everything.

“All of my clients are regular businessmen, Tubby.”

Sure, thought Tubby. “Does that make them sweethearts?” he asked.

Reggie blinked rapidly, maybe thinking. “It’s not really their style,” he said. “Plus, whoever heard of busting up a lawyer’s office just because you’re mad at him? This doesn’t look like vandalism to me. You better go over your client list, Tubby.”

“You can bet I’ll give it some thought.” Tubby meant that. “Guess we better call the insurance company.”

Cherrylynn came and got them. The policeman wanted an inventory. She also told Tubby that Clifford Banks was on the phone. Banks was the chairman of the Louisiana Bond Counsel Association. He represented municipalities and parish governments wishing to sell tax-free securities. He was known throughout the state. He never called Tubby Dubonnet, and Tubby tried to steer clear of guys like Clifford Banks.

“I’ll tell him you’ll call him later.”

“Right. No. I’ll take it at my desk.”

He had to look for the phone. It was on the floor, underneath a pile of paper, but it was still plugged in. Cherrylynn had been picking up and reshelving books, but she stepped outside to give him some privacy.

“Hello, Mr. Dubonnet?” It was a quiet, assured voice. A flat, slightly nasal accent. A Republican Garden District voice.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry to call you out of the blue like this. It’s been quite some time since we were introduced at the Federal Bar Association dinner.” Tubby had only the faintest recollection of attending any such dinner. He thought it might have been two or three years ago. He did not recall that Clifford Banks had been in attendance, though you shook so many hands at those affairs that anything was possible.

“I didn’t think you’d remember that,” Tubby said lamely.

“Of course I do. Listen, I’ll tell you why I called. I have a client who is interested in the death of Darryl Alvarez.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He is a potential heir to Mr. Alvarez’s estate, and he is trying to learn more about the circumstances of his death, and what the assets of the estate are, things of that nature.”

“I wouldn’t know about either, Clifford,” Tubby said, but he was thinking that the other shoe was finally beginning to drop. “I was just representing him on a criminal matter. I don’t even know if he left a will. Who is your client?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say. I know a statement like that always raises more questions than anything else, and I assure you there is nothing to hide here, but I have to respect my client’s wishes.”

“I don’t see how I can help you.”

“You may be able to help me more than you think. I wonder if I might meet with you, this afternoon if possible, and perhaps I can explain a little more fully what I’m trying to find out. Could I drop by your office?”

“No, I’m sorry, but my office is being remodeled right now.” Tubby righted a trashcan with his foot and tried to collect the wadded-up things that had spilled from it.

“Then perhaps you could drop by mine,” Banks said. “Or, better still, why not let me buy you a drink after work. We could meet in the bar at the Fairmont.”

Tubby had no desire to meet with him anytime, but he said, “Okay, what time?”

“Whatever suits you. How about six o’clock?”

“All right, I’ll see you there.”

Tubby hung up and looked around his office. The cabinet safe wasn’t bank-vault quality, but someone had to know what they were doing to get it open. He had no doubt that the safe was the target. The burglar or burglars had probably cut up the oil painting and his chair just out of meanness. He walked outside and found the policeman sitting at Cherrylynn’s reception desk, writing up his report. He was tall and good-looking and very young. Cherrylynn was fawning over him. Tubby saw that the policeman had a cup of coffee, which his secretary must have fixed. The cop’s radio was on, bleating announcements of car accidents interspersed with static.

“Do you know what you are missing, Mr. Dubonnet?”

“Not yet.” Tubby gestured at the wreckage.

“Do you have any idea who might have done this?”

“Not a clue. Probably some doper.”

“They would have taken your typewriters, and your curtains and your paper clips. Angry client?”

“I don’t think I’ve made any that angry. Why don’t you take some fingerprints or something?”

“I don’t know what we’d print. A lot of people probably come in here. To be honest, we can’t get the fingerprint teams out on anything but homicides or rapes. It’s a question of resources.”

“How do you ever catch anybody?”

“Well, you know, somebody turns them in, or, if something was stolen, it usually turns up. Also people confess. You’re not sure that anything was stolen?”

“I’ll know better when I clean up the mess. But really there’s not much here to steal except the copier and the word processor, and they’re still here.”

The cop looked around as if to confirm that, nodded his head, and went back to writing.

“You find something gone, you call me,” he said. “And if you need a report for your insurance company, here’s the incident number.” He tore off a slip of paper from his notebook and gave it to Tubby.

“And you call me if you learn anything or get a line on who might have done this.”

Wasn’t that supposed to be the other way around? Tubby asked himself.

“I will, Officer.” He bent over to read the man’s badge. Tucker. “I hear anything I’ll call you.”

“Okay, and thanks. See you later, ma’am,” he said to Cherrylynn.

“Such a nice fellow,” she said when he was out the door.

“Very easygoing,” said Tubby. “Look, can you clean up this mess? I mean put the files in order. Call Maintenance and they can haul out the trash. I’ve got to get to court.” He couldn’t stand being there any longer, for some reason, and he needed to see Judge Hughes.

Monique went into mourning after Darryl got killed, but she managed to get the saloon back in operation. There was nothing official about it, but she had the keys and knew the combination to the safe, which nobody else did, so they all deferred to her. One night her apartment was ransacked while she was working, but she didn’t report it. She just cleaned up the mess and went on. At least they didn’t steal her bike. A man called her on the phone right after the shooting. She thought she recognized the voice as the guy on the balcony, the one with Casey who ordered a Wild Turkey.

“Where’s the goddamn money?” was all he wanted to know.

She screamed incoherently into the phone long after he hung up. She did not have the fucking money, and did not know what Darryl had done with the fucking money, and did not care about the fucking money.

She began spending most of her time at the club. Except for Ali, the bouncer where she used to work in the French Quarter, she really didn’t have any other friends or much else to do. Even during her off hours she was usually upstairs in the office, exploring Darryl’s life. She studied the ledgers and some spiral notebooks she discovered in the safe, and got a pretty good idea about the nuts and bolts of the operation—what went into the bank and what went into the cash box. She left the bag of pot and the ornate silver cocaine server where she found them in Darryl’s desk. For some reason she wasn’t much interested in dope anymore, but she still would take a drink. The employees got paid, so they were no problem. Her first challenge came from the whiskey wholesaler who showed up with his truck on Thursday morning, his usual time, and who said he wanted to deal “with the boss, now that Mr. Alvarez ain’t here no more.”

“I guess that’s me,” Monique told him.

“Who’s going to be taking care of my bills?” he asked.

“I will. You’ll get paid just like always. Just send me the invoice.”

“Invoice, shit. Who’s in charge here?” he demanded. “Where’s the man?”

That made her mad. “I’m the one in charge,” she said. “Now let’s get those bottles unloaded.”

The man got back in his truck and slammed the door. He started the motor. Then he rolled down the window and said, grinding his gears, “If you’re in charge, you’ve got a lot to learn.”

“Wait,” Monique cried. She hopped up on the running board and got her face up to a level with his. It wasn’t a pretty sight. She ripped the window frame with both hands, not planning to let him get away without her. “We need that stock. You can’t just drive away.”

“Like hell I can’t,” he said. “Let go of my truck.”

“Tell me what the problem is. I don’t understand.”

He stared at her. “You got to know the deal. You can’t run no bar if you don’t know the deal.”

“Okay, so explain it to me. What’s the deal?”

The deal turned out to be very elaborate. Darryl paid the full inflated amount of each invoice by check. The liquor company paid a salary to Jimmy, the Champs bartender. Jimmy kicked back the money to Darryl, in cash. Darryl turned over part of the cash to the boss of the liquor company and kept part for himself. The way it worked out, the wholesaler’s costs were covered, the bar got liquor, everybody’s books balanced, and both bosses pocketed a little cash. And the driver usually delivered an extra case not shown on the invoice. And he deducted two bottles for his trouble.

“And you give me a gift certificate for a fifty-dollar dinner for my mom and papa’s anniversary every year,” he told her.

Maybe he made that last one up. Monique would never know.

“Sounds fine to me,” she said and stuck out her hand. The driver smiled and took it. “How about unloading my whiskey?” she asked.