Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 08 - Death in the French Quarter (7 page)

“You say something?”

“Huh?” I glanced over my shoulder at Leroi. “No.
No, just talking to myself.”

At that moment, the telephone rang. A feminine
voice, obviously nervous, spoke. “Is this the dude looking for Bones and Punky?”

Bones and Punky? I glanced at Leroi and nodded.
“You mean Guilbeaux and Mancini.”

“Yeah. Them’s the two” She paused. “Look, I ain’t
coming to the motel. People are watching you two. I
ain’t going to end up in the Sabine River for no lousy
five hundred bucks.”

I caught my breath. Apparently, we had stumbled
into Guilbeaux’s stomping grounds. “So, what do you
suggest?”

“Can’t nobody see us together.”

“What about the courthouse. I’ve got to go over there
in the morning.”

She hesitated. “Too risky.”

“How about a drop? Of course, that’s after you tell
me who you are.”

“No, sir. I ain’t telling you nothing like that.”

“Then forget it. As far as I know, you could be trying
to scam me. Give me a bunch of lies and take the
money and run.”

Several seconds passed, pregnant with tension. “All
right. I’s the one who waited on you today at Andre’s.”

I nodded. “Calinda”

Leroi arched an eyebrow and pointed in the direction
of Andre Valerien’s. I nodded. “All right, Calinda. Tell
me how you want to handle it.”

“I tell you what I know over the phone. I gots me a post
office box, six-eight-nine. I tell you what I know, and you
put de five hunnert dollars in the slot at the post office”

“That’ll work for me. Go on”

Her voice dropped in timbre. I’s only doing this
‘cause I gots to get out of Melungo. I wants to go somewhere so I can be somebody”

“I understand, so what about them?”

“Bones and Punky is bad people. Word down at the
tavern is dat they done killed more than one dude. Dey
was here back in de spring, but they’re over in New Orleans now. I ain’t sure what they’re doing, but whatever
it be, it ain’t legal.”

She paused, and I spoke up. “Where in New Orleans? You hear a name, anything?”

“I hear Punky, he say something about Rigues’.”

“Rigues’? What’s that?”

“Me, I don’t know. He just say dat’s where he was to
meet Bones. Dat’s all I know.”

“What about this Punky? What does he look like?”

She hesitated. “He be short. Black hair, real curly.
He wear dem T-shirts that got no sleeves.”

“What about Guilbeaux, Bones? He say anything?”

“No. I don’t hear him say nothing. He come in once
with some of his family, but dey stayed to themselves.
Dat’s all.”

“What does he look like?”

“He be tall. Long hair, straight and black. He be
Melungeon, through and through. He don’t look black,
sorta like red and brown together. You know?”

She hadn’t given me much, but it was more than I
had. It was a direction, and that direction was worth
five hundred dollars. “What’s your last name Calinda?”
She hesitated. “I have to put it on the envelope.”

“Brown. Calinda Brown.”

As soon as I hung up, Leroi asked. “What we’d get?”

“Not much, but it’s worth it. She claims they’ve
killed more than one person”

Leroi’s face grew hard. “Stewart?”

“She didn’t know. It was just talk she overheard
around the tavern. No one specific.”

“But it could have been,” he whispered coldly. “We
don’t know.”

I had to agree. “Anyway, Mancini, the one called
Punky was heading for a place in New Orleans called
Rigues’”

“Rigues’ ?”

“Yeah” I indicated the laptop on the desk. “We’ll
find out in a minute what it is, but at least I’ve got some
direction now.” While we spoke, I booted up the laptop
and typed the name into a search engine.

Leroi came to stand behind me as I scrolled through
the search results. Rigues’ did not have a Web site, but
it was listed among the bars and restaurants in the
French Quarter, on St. Peter, across from St. Louis
Cathedral.

“You know where that is?” I asked, my eyes on the
screen.

“Yeah. I can’t wait to get there. It’s time to settle
some old scores”

I hesitated. Leroi wasn’t going with me, but I didn’t
plan on telling him until we were back in Opelousas.
The truth was, I just didn’t want to listen to him argue
with me throughout the two-hour ride to his house.

Pulling out my cell phone, I called Jack Edney, a close friend back in Austin, so he could feed AB. From
the looks of things, it would be some time before I got
back home.

Next morning, I was staring at my ugly face in the
steamy bathroom mirror while shaving. I almost cut my
throat as the news anchor on the local morning news
stated, “This morning, Calinda Brown, a twenty-sixyear-old black woman, was found dead in the parking
lot of the Sabine Towers apartment complex where she
lived. She had been shot in the chest and forehead with
a small caliber gun”

Stunned, I hurried from the bathroom and stared at
the TV. Leroi looked up at me in astonishment. “Was
it-do you think …”

Nodding slowly, I stared at the screen. “Has to be”

He grimaced and closed his eyes. “Poor kid.” He
looked up at me, his brows knit with concern. “What
have we got ourselves into, Tony?”

I understood my cousin’s alarm. Over the years, I
had experienced that apprehension more than once. It
wasn’t something to ignore, but it was something I had
learned to live with. “Not ourselves, Leroi.”

He looked up at me, puzzled.

“I’m going to New Orleans by myself. You’re staying
home.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I continued. “First, I’ve done this before. Second, Stewart was
your son. I’m not going to take a chance that you’ll come unglued at the wrong time. And third, you say
you don’t know anyone by the name of Bones. But you
know some Guilbeauxs. Odds are a thousand-to-one
against Bones being one of them, but I can’t afford to
take that chance”

“But, maybe that could help.”

“How?”

He frowned, momentarily confused. “Well, I don’t
know for sure, but it might make it easier to get in touch
with him.”

“And what reason do you give for contacting the guy,
Leroi? Look, this joker’s been around a few years. He has
no criminal record in Texas, which means he isn’t stupid.
He isn’t an ordinary guy. He’s probably where he is because he doesn’t take chances. He doesn’t trust anyone.”
I shook my head. “Not even someone he might have
known back in his hometown” I shook my head. “It’s too
big a risk.” I sat beside him on the bed. “I’ll keep you
posted. The best way you can help is by staying home”
He stared at me, his jaw set, his eyes blazing defiance. I
continued. “I’m a rank stranger. I’m nobody he knows”

Slowly, the defiance faded from his eyes. “Okay,
Tony. I see what you’re saying.” He shook his head.
“It’s just, I feel so helpless.”

I laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re
not helpless. You might be dumb and ugly, but you’re
not helpless.”

“Looks who’s talking,” he shot back. Then he grew
serious. “You think we should tell the police about
Calinda calling last night?”

“No. As far as we know, the local law might be in
Guilbeaux’s back pocket. Let’s just keep an eye on our
backs today. I want to get down to the courthouse and
then out of town as fast as I can”

There’s an old maxim that when things are going the
best, that’s the time to expect the worst. And if there
isn’t a saying like that, there should be because that’s
the eight ball I find myself behind more often than not,
the same one I was going to find myself behind two
hours later.

Around nine-fifteen, smug with success, I left the
mayor’s office on the second floor of the Vernon Parish
Courthouse with proof that Albert Mouton had indeed
lied about being in New Orleans on March 12, 2002.

The legal minutes of the Melungo City Council
meeting on that date listed the presence of the mayor
and all five councilmen, including Albert J. Mouton,
which meant there was no way the roly-poly little Cajun could have been delivering leather goods to booths
in the French Market.

Just as I started down the stairs to the first floor,
rough hands grabbed my arms and before I could react,
dragged me through the double doors into the men’s
restroom and slammed me up against the wall. Stars exploded in my head as the back of my skull bounced off
the concrete blocks.

A guttural voice cut through the fog in my head. “All
right, Jack. Just who are you?”

I shook my head and blinked my eyes, clearing the
cobwebs. “What are you talking about?”

“You been asking too many questions,” growled a
short, heavy-set man with a broad nose and a copperhued complexion. He glanced up at his partner, a tall,
skinny Cajun. “Ain’t that right, Cuth?”

“Yeah, and George and me, we don’t like outsiders
asking questions,” Cuth snorted.

Before Cuth could say another word, I slammed my
heel into his kneecap, doubling his skinny leg in a direction it wasn’t designed to double. At the same time, I
swung a backhanded karate chop into George’s throat.

Cuth fell back against the wall, grabbing at his distended knee while George doubled over, clutching his
fat throat.

I raced to the doors, pausing to grab a broom leaning
against the wall. Outside the men’s room, I slid the
broom handle between the pull handles on the two
doors. Moments later, George and Cuth hit them from
the inside.

I raced from the courthouse and jumped in the
pickup.

“What the-” Leroi exclaimed.

Cuth and George burst from the courthouse and cut
across the lawn in the direction of a Dodge Ram. Cuth
was bobbing up and down like a one-legged stork. “I’ll
explain later!” I shouted, slamming the truck into gear
and heading north out of town.

“What went on in there?” Leroi yelled above the roar
of the engine, holding to the safety handle over his door.

“Somebody didn’t like the questions we asked.
Where are they? Can you see them?”

“Yeah, and they’re coming fast!” Leroi shouted,
peering out the rear window.

I glanced in the side mirror. The Dodge Ram was
about three or four blocks behind. I accelerated, whipping around and back in front of a slower moving vehicle on the two-lane street just ahead of an oncoming
line of cars.

The Ram pickup had to slow, giving me time to race
ahead.

“Slow down!” shouted Leroi as we hurtled toward
the sharp right turn ahead. “Slow down!”

“Not to worry,” I muttered, touching the brake off
and on, then whipping the pickup to the right. As soon
as we were out of sight from the pursuing pickup, I cut
into the parking lot of the Piney Woods Apartment
Complex and promptly pulled into a parking slot.
“Duck,” I whispered.

Moments later, the squeal of tires broke the silence,
and the guttural howl of the Ram’s eight-cylinder engine roared past.

Hastily, I backed out, and we headed back to town.

“I don’t know about you, cuz,” Leroi mumbled, “but,
I’ll be glad to leave this town behind.”

“That’s two of us” I grinned at him. “But first, I’ve
got to make another stop”

“What? Why? In case you haven’t noticed, these
people around here don’t care too much for us”

“It won’t take long.” I turned down Vernon Street.

“You going back to Mouton’s?”

“Yeah. I didn’t have time to tell you, but he lied a
second time, this time about being out of town on
March 12” Before Leroi could ask how I knew, I explained. “Minutes of the city council meetings. They’re
public records, and by law, they have to show which
members are present”

“And he was?”

“And he was, every single pound of that fat little body”

Leroi’s face twisted in concentration. “Then that
means that he lied at Louis Guidry’s trial.”

I winked at him. “Go to the head of the class”

Mouton denied, denied, and once again denied that
he was at the March 12 meeting. “De secretary, Mrs.
Begnaud, she make mistake.” He grinned and shrugged.
“De dear lady, she done be de mayor’s secretary now
going on thirty year.” He touched his finger to his temple. “Sometime, she don’t think too good, dat one”

From the smug grin on his face, he knew I didn’t believe him, but he also knew there was no way I could
prove he was lying. So, I thanked him and left, but I
made myself a promise that one day, I’d jam his lies
down his gullet.

“Now can we get out of this town?” Leroi blurted out
when I climbed back in the truck.

I grinned. “As fast as we can”

But that wasn’t fast enough. Before we had gone two
miles on a narrow winding road paralleling an irriga tion ditch with rice fields on either side, the snarling
grill of a red Dodge Ram filled the rear-view mirror.

I muttered a curse when I spotted the truck. Leroi
groaned. “How did those suckers find us?”

Flexing my fingers about the wheel, I shook my head
and kicked the truck up to seventy miles an hour.
“Looks like they didn’t have anything better to do”