Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 01 - Galveston (8 page)

“Don’t do it, Tony. I don’t trust any of the bluebirds.”

“Just watch.”

“Don’t worry.”

Wilson was nursing a beer despite the open container law the state had recently passed. He studied me as I slid into the shotgun seat.

“Sergeant.”

He nodded. “Thanks for coming down. Ben’s still in a coma.”

“I know. I called earlier.”

A tense silence followed in which he seemed to be struggling with himself. I glanced around the parking lot, halfway expecting an army of uniforms to converge on me.

He chuckled. “Don’t worry. It’s just the two of us.”

The tension lessened. “Okay. I’ll take your word for it. Now, what did you want with me?”

He studied me another few moments, then cleared his throat. “I been a cop twenty-four years. This is a good department here, honest boys—most of them. You always have one or two rotten apples. I’m telling you that because I’ve been doing some checking on you. What I learned doesn’t fit in with you trying to off Ben Howard. That confused me until I stumbled on to …  well,  … ” He hesitated. “Well, there’s some at the station who aren’t willing for the process to take its own course.”

“You mean about the indictment and Grand Jury?”

“Yeah. Some are going out of their way to build the case against you. I don’t approve of that, but I can’t bring myself to rat on my brothers. All I can do is offer my help, but on the Q.T.” He eyed me steadily. “Understand. I’ll deny everything if words gets out.”

I took a wild stab. “You the informant?”

Wilson frowned and leaned back against the car door. He eyed me warily. “What informant?”

On impulse, I didn’t mention the call claiming Cheshire was on Sam Maranzano’s payroll. An honest cop resents one of his own being accused of being on the take. I didn’t want to risk alienating Wilson. “I had a call from someone at the station. He tipped me to a surprise search of my room. Claimed the D.A. stashed some coke on me.” I continued. “The caller was right. There was a bag of Lady Snow taped to the back of a vanity drawer. The cops went straight to it, but I’d already flushed it down the toilet.”

His eyes widened in surprise. He whistled softly.

“Are you that informant?”

He shook his head. “No.” he thought a moment. “I got no idea who it might be. Most of the boys hate your guts. I don’t know who could have called you, but I’m not the one.” He hesitated, then added. “I wouldn’t take the chance on calling.”

At least he was honest—or seemed honest. “You think my informant was right about the D.A. being behind the coke?”

Wilson chewed on his bottom lip. “I can’t answer that.”

“Can’t or won’t.”

He hesitated a moment, then grinned uncomfortably. “Won’t.”

That was good enough for me. “You mean what you said about helping on the Q.T.?”

He sipped his beer. “Yeah.”

“I need an address. Morrison. Theodore Morrison. Ted for short. He supposedly worked with Cheshire on a recent deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

I wasn’t absolutely convinced of Sergeant Wilson’s sincerity. I decided to play my cards close to the vest. “I’m not sure.”

He grinned. “Okay. I got you. Give me some time. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“How do I get in touch with you?”

“Don’t. I’ll get in touch with you.”

Chapter Nine

Lying on my bed with my fingers laced behind my head, I took another look at what I had, at where I stood, and at where I had to go. Except for a couple nebulous ideas bouncing around in that empty container I called a skull, I wasn’t much closer to having any answers than I had been five minutes after I shot Cheshire.

Oh, I had a lot of theories. The most compelling, though far-fetched, was that Abbandando set up the smuggling deal, and somehow Maranzano learned of it. Though Cheshire reportedly was on Maranzano’s payroll, I waffled between the idea whether the mob boss put Cheshire to work on the caper or Cheshire stumbled across it himself.

Regardless of who planned what, since Cheshire had Morrison contact the fence, it was obvious Cheshire was planning on diverting the shipment from whomever it belonged, Abbandando or Maranzano.

He planned to hijack the goods himself and put the blame on Maranzano. Let the two big boys fight it out while he skipped out with a load of diamonds.

While I couldn’t come up with any sort of connection between Cheshire and Allied Cement, I felt certain it was an Allied truck I had spotted out at Berth 21 in front of Abbandando’s warehouse. On top of that, it was Cheshire who had stepped in the fresh cement at the wharf.

And what about my informant at the station? Who could he be? Then there was Sergeant Jim Wilson. Was he on the level? Or was he part of the D.A.’s elaborate plan to stack the case against me?

But what really puzzled me was the true motivation behind District Attorney George Briggs’ crusade to bury me for a lifetime behind the walls of Huntsville Prison.

 I remember one spring when I was a youngster. Grandpa and I were hunting deer along the spongy banks of a black-water bayou when a feral sow burst out of a thicket with the sincerest of intentions to slice us into sides of bacon and then stomp us into small patches of grease.

Grandpa put a 30-30 slug between her eyes, and she skidded to a halt in the spongy peat less than a yard from our feet. At that moment, squeals burst out in the briars and a dozen dark little shapes scattered in every direction, quickly vanishing into the thickets around us.

Grandpa slipped his knife from his belt and sliced the sow’s throat. Bright red blood spurted out. “Son,” he said, wiping the blade on his pants. “Whenever an animal comes at you for no reason, they’re either crazy or protecting something.”

And that’s the only explanation I had for the District Attorney’s actions, crazy or protecting something. And there was no way I figured he was crazy.

So what could he be protecting?

He already had enough evidence to get me indicted on the Cheshire shooting. So why continue building the case?

I rose and stared unseeing out the window at the gray waves rolling in from the gulf. I had stumbled across more than I knew.

The jangling of the telephone snapped me from my reverie. It was Sergeant Wilson. “Got an address,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“Apartment 315, Seaview Plaza.”

“What city?”

“Here.”

Whoa. I didn’t expect that. “Telephone number by any chance?”

“Yeah. 555-3636.”

I jotted the number. It looked familiar, and then an alarm went off in my head. I stammered out my thanks and hung up.

Muttering an excited curse, I fumbled with the list of numbers I had copied from the cover of Cheshire’s telephone book. There it was, the fifth number—the one that never answered. 

I stared at the number on the note pad. Morrison might be able to deny making contact with the fence, Ho Lui, in Philadelphia, but what excuse could he have for his number being on the front cover of Cheshire’s telephone book?

I reached for my jacket, then froze. Janice. My Significant Other—well, more or less significant Other. What was she going to think? All those years with other her Aunt Beatrice as her only kin, and then along comes Cousin Ted. Taking a deep breath, I shook my head and slipped into my jacket.

Ted Morrison looked like he had stepped right out of the J.C. Penny catalog. With his short blond hair, tanned complexion, and dazzling smile, he would be any father or mother’s choice as a life mate for their daughter.

He covered his surprise at my sudden appearance and made an effort to be convivial, but beneath the surface, he was as defensive as a cur mongrel guarding a bone. I had the feeling he knew exactly why I was paying him a visit.

But he was the perfect host. We sat across from each other at the snack bar in his apartment. He sipped a cold bourbon and coke. I sipped ice water and eyed his bourbon. Don’t let anyone fool you into believing booze is easy to leave alone.

Anyway, we made idle chit-chat about our first meeting at the coming out party his aunt had thrown at the country club in Austin a few months earlier.

He relaxed somewhat. After a few more minutes of inane chatter during which we both grew restless, I jumped feet first into the purpose of my visit.

Briefly, I told him about events on the wharf a few nights earlier.

He looked at me in surprise. “I. .  .I read about the shooting, but I didn’t have any idea that you were involved.”

“Unfortunately, I was there—par for the course as far as I’m concerned. Always at the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s why I need your help.”

“Me?” He arched an eyebrow. “How can I help you?”

“I know you had some business dealings with Frank Cheshire. I was hoping you might know what he was doing at the wharf so late at night.”

Morrison chewed on his lip in concentration, but I sensed that he was making a show for me. “I never really had much to do with Cheshire. I really have no idea what he was out there for.”

I couldn’t blame him for being close-mouthed. He was playing a dangerous game with Sam Maranzano and Pete Abbandando, but he was also hammering nails in my coffin.  I placed my elbows on the snack bar and leaned forward. I spoke softly, almost casually. “Look, Ted. I … no, we know you worked with Cheshire; we know you contacted a fence by the name of Ho Lui in Philadelphia about some diamonds; your telephone number was found on Cheshire’s quick call list; and your number is listed more than once on the records from the phone company.”

The last two assertions were blatant lies, but they worked.

A crimson flush rose beneath the smooth tan on Morrison’s face. He sputtered over his reply. “How … But, I … ”

I tossed in the fence’s address to nail down the validity of my assertions. “Ho Lui’s office in Philadelphia is on the corner of Market and Forty-sixth Streets, the Ninetieth Police District.” I paused, staring at him.

He stared at me like a cornered animal, his eyes darting about, frantically searching for a way out. “No. No, you’re wrong about that. You’re way off base.” He chewed on his bottom lip, this time out of nervousness.

It was at that very moment that I knew he was not a Morrison. His cousin, Janice, and I knew each other intimately, and I knew his Aunt Beatrice, the matriarch of Chalk Hills Distillery. I knew her well, not as well as Janice, but well.

While I sometimes sneered at their money and social posturing, I had always admired their cool aplomb in the middle of crisis. Plop either of them on the stool across the snack bar from me and they would have greeted this same accusation with a steel backbone and a look of defiance in their eyes so cold as to bring about a new ice age.

I shrugged. “Then if I’m off base, you won’t mind if I turn this information over to Abbandando and Maranzano.”

His face paled. He swallowed hard. His hand trembled as he fumbled in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. “I … ah, I wish you wouldn’t,” he mumbled. “I … I think there’s some kind of misunderstanding here.”

“Tell me about Cheshire then.”

Hands shaking, he touched a match to his cigarette. His face sagged in resignation. “Not much to tell. I ran into him at Sandy’s.”

“Sandy’s?”

“Yeah.” He gestured over his shoulder with the cigarette. “A bar down on Post Office Street. Cheshire gave me five big ones and a round trip ticket to ask that Ho Lui guy about some diamonds. The Chink wasn’t interested. That’s it.”

His story stunk worse than Virgil’s feet, but I went along with him.

“And that’s the only time you had anything to do with him?”

“Just that once.”

“How did you come to meet at Sandy’s? I mean, did you go to him or did he look you up? Who contacted who?”

I could see the wheels spinning in his head as he fabricated his story. He frowned, a little too dramatically.  “As I remember, I mentioned to the bartender I was running short on money. I asked him to keep an eye out for something.”

I played along with him. “You don’t work with the law firm anymore?”

The question surprised him. “Law firm? Oh, yeah, yeah, the law firm.” Morrison was a terrible liar. He had no idea what I was talking about.

I grinned and gave him a break. “You remember. The one you were at when you discovered your cousin and your aunt.”

His face lit in understanding. “Oh, yeah. The law firm. No. I don’t work for them any longer. I did some investigative work for them, but the contract ran out. I’m sort of between jobs you might say.” A smug grin curled his lips.

“You and Cheshire must have done a lot of talking about the deal. He had your name on the cover of the phone book, and the telephone records show eight or ten calls to your number.”

His smile faded from his lips. “Well, maybe we did talk more. Yeah, now that you mention it, we did have several conversations about the diamonds.”

“Did he tell you who he was hijacking the diamonds from?”

“Oh, no.” He shook his head emphatically. “There wasn’t no hijacking. The way he talked, a shipment was coming in. I assumed he brokered it. Strictly legit. He needed a buyer.” A sly look slid over his face. “You know, I was wondering about the guy in Philadelphia. That’s when I figured something was crooked. When I got back, I told Cheshire I didn’t want nothing to do with nothing against the law.”

“He must have given you some time, a date to pass on the fence in Philadelphia.”

Morrison frowned.

I explained. “A timeline. Like when could he have the merchandise in Philly.”

“Oh. No. Nothing like that.”

He was lying again. What part of his story should I believe? None? Or all? Might as well flip a coin.

“But, he did tell you about the diamonds?”

Morrison nodded briefly. “Yeah.”

I vacillated a moment between asking him the question or keeping quiet. I went with the question. “Would you be willing to tell the police about the diamonds?”

His eyes grew wide. “Police? But why? What good would that do?”

“I need proof that Cheshire was dirty. He was smuggling diamonds.”

Hastily, Morrison backtracked.  “I didn’t say nothing about smuggling. Like I said, it was legit.”