NO Quarter (11 page)

It was a joke from the old days, but Bone didn’t crack a smile. We started walking again, making the long circle back to the Calf, like I had last night after Sunshine’s murder.

“I was never into the heavy, rough-off stuff personally,” I continued. “Didn’t like doing it, and after a while I didn’t get called on for it. I chose my own specialty, and I got good at it. I was a hunter/tracker. See, if someone skips on a debt to a loan shark, everyone can see the knee-cappers coming a mile away, and suddenly nobody knows anything about anyone. Me, I’m no one’s idea of a goon. I don’t look it, don’t act it, don’t give off the vibe. Purposefully. So I could nose around, find out if the debt-skipper was holed up with his uncle or an old school buddy, without setting off any alarms. Then I’d feed the information back up the pipeline, and the collection crew would know just where to go. It helps build the legend of an all-knowing, omnipresent organization, one that you can’t escape if you commit a transgression against it. Myths like that are very valuable. They keep institutions like the Outfit operating on a paying basis.”

I paused for another pull on my drink, but also to make sure I was still centered and clear. I hadn’t spoken about any of this in a
long
time. I was surprised to find I felt slightly lightened. Of course, I had no intention of telling him what I did
before
I joined the Outfit.

Bone was still listening, eyes a little wide but otherwise expressionless.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I would hang out with the crews that made use of the info I provided. I picked up a lot from them sitting over drinks. Knowledge your common citizen doesn’t have. So, I know some stuff. Okay?”

We were swinging back toward St. Peter and the Calf. Bone stopped us before we got within range of the hubbub that overflowed off Bourbon. He hunted up a cigarette and a lighter. He was nodding while he thought.

Ahead of us and across the street, a predator who was wearing the latest in housing project reject wear slowed and checked us out. I stared back at him, and, I realized a second later, so did Bone. As if suddenly remembering a more pressing engagement, he broke eye contact and slid off. Apparently he didn’t like what he saw. There were two of us, both reasonably fit and sober. Muggers are on the lookout for victims, not hassles. There is enough of a variety of easy marks wandering the Quarter that the predators are seldom desperate enough to try for healthy prey.

Bone turned toward me. “I take it you’re retired from
...
this Outfit?”

“Yep.” How I came to be “retired” was a story unto itself, and he didn’t need the extra information right now.

“And I’m guessing some of these skills you acquired, some of your ‘non-citizen’ knowledge
...
all that’ll help in hunting down Sunshine’s killer.”

“I’m confident it would.” I felt more amused than annoyed now to find myself “applying for a job” with this kid. Then again, it
was
more his affair than
mine. Sunshine had been his wife—or ex-wife, at least. And I was pretty sure he had never completely stopped loving her.

Bone smoked his cigarette down to the filter and pitched it. I finished off my cocktail.

He was flexing his right hand again, looking quietly pleased with himself for an instant. “I’m not exactly a helpless lamb myself, you understand.”

“Never imagined you were.”

“Last night you said you wanted to watch out for me,” he said. “Because I reminded you of someone. That someone is yourself, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Okay, Maestro.” He put out his hand. “But I promised forty-eight hours before moving on this, and that’s still all I promise. If that’s cool with you, come aboard. I’d welcome your help
...
and your company.”

We shook hands, but did it warrior style, clasping each other’s wrists tightly. It’s how blood oaths used to get sealed.

“Fine.” I was unable to keep the warm smile off my face. I shook the ice in my empty cup. “Let’s confirm our compact with a libation to the gods. I don’t know about you, but I could use another of these. I’ll buy the round.”

“Jesus!
I swear I’m about to
lose
it, Bone.
Jesusjesusjesusjesus—
”

I may have done a disservice, painting the picture as strictly Us versus Them. You work in the service industry in a tourist town,
it’s easy to fall into generalizations.
You band together with your fellow locals and pass your free hours carping over cocktails about the boneheaded out-of-towners that come into your restaurant or bar or hotel or that you see committing acts of touristy idiocy on the streets.

Fact is, of course, there are plenty of homegrown idiots. Some of them are your coworkers.

Judith was practically foaming at the mouth as she tried to work the espresso machine. She had two tables of customers—I had six going. She was at her professional capacity, and, yes, “professional” is very misplaced here.

We were getting a late pop at the restaurant, one of those unexplainable surges of customers, but not really unexplainable since these were locals, mostly Quarterites, and a lot lived night-is-day lives. I figured I would be out of here in an hour, hit the Calf, meet Alex there. This was her Friday. But I’d be going to the Calf also to find Maestro. By then the forty-eight hours I’d agreed to would have officially expired. Which meant we had work to do, or at least plans to make.

The radio and the paper still reported that the police had made no arrests in the riverside “Voodoo Murder” as they were calling it, but there were fresher stories now. From tomorrow on Sunshine’s murder wouldn’t be mentioned unless the crime was solved. I felt a pang that the media was moving past and leaving Sunshine’s corpse in its wake. Forgetting her. Replacing her. It wasn’t rational, but I let myself feel it anyway.

Clouds of coffee powder flew around the waiters’ station, where I stood, grabbing a smoke and calmly keeping an eye on my tables.

“
I
—am—
going
—to—go—
out
—of—
myfuckingmind
!
I swear to Jesus!”

I felt sorry for Judith’s customers, though there wasn’t really anything I could do. They would be getting their food late, probably wouldn’t get their drinks at all, and would have to fire off a flare to get Judith’s attention if they wanted their checks. Mostly, though, they had to suffer being served by someone
frazzled, thoroughly self-absorbed, and on the verge of hysteria. It’s difficult to enjoy a relaxing meal when your waitress is having a personal meltdown.

I hate my job. I think I’ve made that clear. But my customers do not suffer my bad moods, and my reputation as a waiter is actually a very good one.

Judith had been working here two months, and I dreaded when luck of the draw put us together on a shift. She was twenty-two, twenty-three, thereabouts, large-breasted, babydoll face
...
I could only figure she was sleeping with the restaurant’s owner. Incompetent workers turn up in every industry down here, but Judith was beyond the pale.

“I’m gonna go crazy, Bone!
Bone?
”

It was her high drama, you see, Judith’s Coffee Crisis, and I was supposed to be playing along with it. Or at least paying attention.

I felt sorry for Judith’s customers. Didn’t give a rat’s ass about Judith.

“Maybe you should look into committing yourself,” I commented, sedately finishing my smoke and heading back out onto the floor.

The Quarter is many things to many different people. One of them is Bohemia. That means a population rife with young folk, lots of them transplants, since this is the place to be living doggedly “alternative” lifestyles. That further means a whole lot of leather jackets, nose rings, visible tattoos, dog collars, and guys wearing black lipstick. But those are symptoms. What it really means is that
everyone
down here is some kind of artist. Everybody is going to put a band together and sell a screenplay and become a famous standup comic and found a moneymaking website and write a best seller and get stinking, filthy, revoltingly rich designing interiors and silk-screening T-shirts and circulating mimeographed poetry newsletters—and those are the sensible schemes.

I know there are some very successful people who live in the French Quarter, at least part-time. That includes acclaimed actors, movie directors, TV personalities, novelists. For every success story, though, there are uncounted failures and wannabes and sad sacks.

In other words, a lot of people around here are full of shit.

I made my rounds, gathering dirty plates, refilling drinks, gabbing with my tables. Raindrops still lightly spattered the restaurant’s front windows. Earlier, though, we’d gotten one of those slam-bang summer squalls—thick, sudden clouds, a Judgment Day lightning storm, and two inches of water dropping in half an hour. It had rolled in right above the rooftops, thunder punching loud enough to set off car alarms. We get real weather here, vastly different from the year-round fifty-five degree chill of San Francisco. Summer, in fact, is hurricane season, and one fine day—the natives say this with great foreboding,
and perhaps, some secret, rueful pride—some big blow is going to come roaring up the Mississippi and wipe New Orleans off the map. I guess we’ll see. When Sunshine and I left, San Francisco was still waiting for that killer earthquake that was going to dump it into the Pacific.

It belatedly occurred to me that the rain was probably responsible for this late influx of customers. Most of my parties were of the type I mentioned—poseurs, struggling artists. Some of them were no doubt worthwhile and the genuine article, but,
Christ
, you hear people talking the same shit over and over, it gets hard to believe anything.

Did I, for instance, believe what Maestro had told me about himself?

I had shot pool with the guy, occasionally seen dawn’s light seeping through a bar’s shutters with him. We were pals. He was some odd ethnic mix, like Indonesian-Scottish or something equally goofy, with a swarthy complexion, but not too dark. His hair was curly and very thick, and black where it didn’t show grey. He probably could have stood to lose a few pounds, but he generally appeared fit for his age, early fifties—certainly healthier than most of the booze-bloated, on-their-last-legs, middle-aged barflies I see around.

Maestro looked and acted like a fairly ordinary Joe
...
or as ordinary as the Quarter has to offer.

What he did
not
seem like was an extra from
GoodFellas
. A Mafioso. A made man. A mob warlord.

Okay, he hadn’t claimed that. Still, it was a hell of a bombshell. Particularly because I believed him.

Judith shot me dagger looks as I fetched coffee for one of my three-tops. I sailed past, still not giving that rat’s ass. Four of my six tables had checks on them now. Everybody was happy with the food, with my service. I hadn’t even ballparked the tips I’d already made. Probably I’d end up doing very well tonight. And for once I didn’t feel overly soiled, degraded. It was, of course, because I had larger things on my mind.

Twenty more minutes, I figured, and I’d rendezvous with Maestro. And then we could start the wheels turning on avenging Sunshine.

I was
...
looking forward to it. Excited by it. That realization, sudden and powerful, actually brought me to a standstill for a moment there in the middle of the dining room floor, coffeepot in hand, eyes centered intently on nothing.

I had enjoyed punching out that creep last night in Sin City’s toilet. I didn’t have any problem admitting that to myself. But—looking forward to hunting—to
killing
—Sunshine’s murderer? Did I have the right to happily anticipate that? Where was my moral high ground?

Pushing myself back into motion, I let the questions hang. How I felt about what I meant to do wouldn’t have any bearing on my actions, I decided, and rightfully. For instance, I could love being a waiter or hate it, but I still had to show up and do the job. I didn’t have a choice.

The new waiter, Otto, had clocked in and come on, and he could have the graveyard shift. One of Judith’s tables had walked out. Her other party was looking very pissed off. I collected my checks, delivered two more—my last two—and started sorting the contents of my apron pockets.

I recognized the detective when he came in because I’d known him before his promotion, had poured coffee for him here when he was still in a uniform. Zanders. Liked lots of Equal instead of sugar; cream; tipped well. So my brain automatically reported.

He was dressed in slacks and a lavender shirt, and crossing the floor, heading for me. He had an easy gait and looked very comfortable in his new rank. His auburn mustache had since grown handlebars, and his hairline had receded a bit further.

I nodded hello. “Detective Zanders. How’re you tonight?”

“Fine, just fine. I’d like a word with you, okay? You got somewhere quiet here—office, something?”

He had a pistol holstered on his belt. I was suddenly very aware of that, of what it represented. Even when he’d been in uniform, this man had always just been one of my customers. Now, he was ... a cop. A cop who wanted to talk to me, privately.

I thought of Mitchell, the guy who’d threatened Alex, lying crumpled beside the urinal in the back of Sin City.

“Sure, Detective,” I said with a shrug. “Right this way.”

Phil, the shift manager was helping out the cooks—Werewolf and Firecracker—in the kitchen, so the little office next to the prep room was empty. We entered. Detective Zanders closed the door behind us.

“What can I do for you, Detective?” I propped a hip up on the edge of the desk in the center of the small room, pulled out my cigarettes and offered one to Zanders. Detective Zander waved it off, pulling out a little notebook and positioning himself comfortably between me and the door.

“I’m conducting an investigation into the murder of Peace S. Williams. Did you know her?”

Hearing someone official talk about Sunshine in the past tense like that made the truth of her death somehow more real, more raw. But I calmly lit my smoke, inhaling deeply, determined not to let it show.

“Yeah, I knew her.” I exhaled smoke. “I was married to her.” I certainly wasn’t going to lie about it. As Maestro had pointed out, it was something he probably already knew.

“But you’re not married now.”

“No. We divorced last year.”

“A messy divorce?”

“Not particularly. She just wanted her space. We stayed friends.” Damn, saying that aloud made it sound trite.

“Really? What about Molly’s Bar about ten days ago? I gotta say that the scene witnesses described to me sure didn’t sound very friendly.”

I felt anger build, even though I knew he had to ask—had known these questions would come. He was deliberately trying to pull my chain.

“Yeah, OK. We had a fight that night. I think if you ask your witnesses, you’ll find that she came at me.”

“So I’m asking you. Can you tell me exactly what happened?”

At Zanders’ request I recounted the whole awful confrontation, including Sunshine’s appearance and behavior when she came at me. “
...
and even at that, it never got physical.”

“Maybe not then.”

“Not ever! Fact is, that was the last time I saw her alive. And just to clear the air and get this over with, I was here, working, when she
...
died.” I didn’t quite glare at Zanders. He heard it in my voice, though, and gave me a sharp look.

He made a point of looking at his notebook. “Well, one of your co-workers, Judith I think, says you weren’t here that night—says you clocked in and left.”

“Judith!” I almost exploded off the desk, biting back a furious torrent of expletives.
That bitch!
I forced my anger down. It was just a cop interrogation method. He wanted to rattle me to see what popped out.

“First, if you check with anyone, you’ll find that Judith wasn’t here at all that night. So whatever she told you about anything is shit. Second, during that night’s shift I served fifteen tables, ending with a four-top of tourists—the guy who paid was named Ned something—and a two-top with Boogie Joe and Lisa who work at the House of Blues.” I proceeded to rattle off exactly what each diner had ordered just to make it clear that I could.