NO Quarter (9 page)

“I suppose you’ve heard about Sunshine getting tagged behind the Brewery last night,” I said, lightly, or as lightly as the statement could be made.

“Yeah. The guys were talking about it when they came off shift.”

“Any word as to what it was all about? From what I’ve heard she didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

Instead of answering, Pete favored me with a long stare, then turned and poured himself a short beer.

“I dunno if I should say anything about that to you, Maestro.”

I didn’t have to fake being surprised.

“Whoa, Petey. You lost me there.”

“If I recall, the last time you were asking about a case here in the Quarter, the perp turned up in the Charity ER about twenty-four hours later.”

I blinked at him, genuinely trying to remember what he was talking about. Then it came back to me. It had happened six or seven months back.

The perp in question was one of those who made a habit of beating up his women. In the final round with his latest girlfriend/punching bag, he had smashed a vodka bottle over her head, coming within a fraction of an inch of taking out her left eye. The doctors at the emergency room convinced her to swear out a complaint against the boyfriend and he got picked up. The next day he was out on the streets again.

I remembered now asking Pete about the incident only because I knew the girl and was concerned, and because it was league night and we were shooting against Pete’s team. I remembered Pete saying that the girl had dropped the charges.

The reason it had all slipped my mind was that I hadn’t hunted the dude down. In fact, I almost wasn’t involved at all. As it happened, I found myself sitting two stools down from the punk at Fahey’s, late, the night after he’d got out of lockup. He started bragging about it—bragging loud, as drunks tend to do.

“Damn straight she dropped the charges!” He said this to nobody in particular, puffing up his scrawny chest like a bantam rooster. You could tell just by looking that he was a mean little shit, but not brawny enough to take on anyone even his own size. “The bitch knew what I’d do to her if it went to court. When I got home I slapped her ‘round again anyway for talkin’ to the cops at all. Re-opened her stitches and she had to go back to Charity, but this time she’s keepin’ her mouth shut. I’ll shut that mouth of hers for good if she tries any of that shit again.”

It wasn’t the sort of trash you normally hear anyone talk in Fahey’s, but Milo was simply ignoring the guy, probably not wanting the headache of tossing him out. Listening to this crap was distasteful enough that I abandoned my seat and shot a couple of practice racks of pool instead. I could still hear him as I shot, though, and my irritation grew until I found I couldn’t concentrate on my shooting anymore.

I gave it up, settled my tab, and hit the sandbox, figuring to call it a night. That probably would have been all there was to it. But as chance would have it, when I came out of the restroom, Bantam Boy—now very drunk—pushed off his stool and went staggering out of the bar, not ten feet ahead of me. I followed him out, but I didn’t
follow
him, understand. I was just heading home, and he happened to be in front of me.

Even then, had there been anyone else out on the street, I probably would have let it go. As it happened, Toulouse was empty in both directions.

If fate intends something that adamantly, why fight it?

As usual, I was wearing “felon-fliers”—that’s athletic shoes to the suburbanites. I like to move quietly, as it lets me hear what else is going on around me. In the shape he was in, though, I don’t think he would have heard a brass band coming up behind him as he staggered and lurched his way down the sidewalk.

He certainly didn’t hear little ol’ me as I lengthened my stride and slid up close behind him. I took one last glance up and down the street, and then I raised my hand until it was floating just behind his shoulder blades. Then, when he was in mid-stride and off balance, I powered him forward with a full hip twist and all the strength of my arm and upper body. He would have plowed the pavement face first if a street sign hadn’t been in the way. It made a vague, dull, but pleasing musical sound as he hit it and went down. I took the corner without breaking stride and never looked back.

It didn’t even make the papers, being a fairly unremarkable incident. Rumor said that he had a broken nose and jaw plus multiple lacerations. Since he still had his money when he was scooped up, it was generally written off as a drunken tumble. He himself had no recollections of what happened. I’d heard his girlfriend—the one lucky to still have her left eye—left town before he got out of the hospital. He had since moved away, too. Good riddance.

I mentally shrugged it away and focused my eyes on Pete, opting for indignation over innocence.

“
What?
You’re talking about whazizname? The rough-off artist? You think
I
did a number on him? Com’on, Pete. You’ve known me for
...
what
...
five years now? Have you ever known me to get into a fight? Even when the other guy was leaning real hard?”

He thought for a moment, shrugged.

“Yeah. You’re right.” He shook his head. “Sorry. Just wishful thinking on my part, I guess. When I heard he took a tumble, I didn’t want it to be that easy. I wanted the son of a bitch to have gotten a bit of his own.”

“It would have been nice,” I agreed, “but we’ll have to settle for what happened. Call it karma.”

“I guess.”

“As far as Sunshine goes, I was just curious is all. Everybody’s tongue is wagging over the murder, naturally. Some are saying she was doped up when it happened, but some are saying she was straight. Since I was here, I thought I’d ask. No big deal.”

“Somebody thinks it’s a big deal,” Pete insisted. “That’s why I flinched when you asked. The boys are keeping real quiet on this one.”

“Yeah?” I didn’t press, just waited, hoping he had more to say.

He did. “They found some dead chickens and Voodoo stuff around the body. You’d think that would be enough to set them on edge. But that’s not what’s bothering them.” Pete leaned closer and dropped his voice, even though there was no one to hear. “The word is she got done with an ice pick, or something like one. Double punch to the heart.”

I gave a low whistle. “No wonder they’re edgy,” I said. “Do me a favor. Forget I asked anything.”

“You didn’t ask. And I definitely didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah. Well, catch you later.”

A lot of thoughts were churning in my head as I made my way down the street. Mostly, I was annoyed that Pete had connected me with that rough-off artist. Even if I had convinced him I had nothing to do with it, it would surface in his mind if anything else came up with my name on it. Repeated coincidences draw attention, and the last thing I wanted was attention. Once, hospitalizing people
—or doing a bit more than that—
was nothing extraordinary to me
,
but those days were pretty long ago.

Then, too, the fact that Sunshine had been killed with an ice pick bothered me. It bothered me a lot.

Summer is considered, among most of the local service industry ilk, to be a lousy time to wait tables here. Louisiana’s summers are brutal, heat and humidity spiking into the nineties. At the same time the hotel rates plunge, and the yokels and overseas tourists come. And they don’t come with a lot of money, or they don’t lay out decent tips when they do.

Summer ... and waiters and bartenders prone to panic
will
panic, and talk desperately about the
SEASON
. The
SEASON
starts in October or December or January—depending, naturally, on who you’re talking to—and it means Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, and if we can only hold on until the
SEASON
, the promised
SEASON
, we’ll be
set
, rolling in tip money, and all our troubles will be over!

I don’t subscribe to this faith. Granted, I work at what’s very nearly a locals-only restaurant. I don’t depend on influxing tourists, but that’s not the point. If every day of the year was the
SEASON
, those wait-folk who bitch and panic the worst would
still
always be on the verge of financial tragedy. They’d be doing the headless chicken dance, wondering if the $27 check they just wrote Entergy would clear before the lights got turned off. They’d piss and moan about the night’s cheap tips, even while they fed those aforementioned tips a bill at a time to the poker machines you’ll find in nearly every bar in the Quarter.

In short, I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy.

When Kirk, one of Pat O.’s green-jacketed waiters, started that familiar sullen gripe after I’d asked him about Alex, I wanted very much to snatch his tray out of his hands and bash his skull with it. But I wanted more to know where she was. Someone I didn’t know—and who didn’t know Alex’s whereabouts when I’d asked—was currently guarding the gift shop’s array of T-shirts, sweatshirts, champagne flutes with the Pat O.’s logo, and other souvenirs.

“I’m tellin’ you, these tight-ass people coming over here from France an’ It’ly an’ shit
...
” Kirk, who was young twenties and still going with his griping, I knew only slightly.

“Kirk.”

We were standing on the large, two-tiered, open-air rear patio. When Pat O.’s is busy, this area is mobbed. Right now, on this summer weekday with the sun still up, it was dead.

Kirk blinked and centered on me.

“Where is Alex,” I said, steel in my voice, “the girl that’s usually in the gift shop right around now?”

He glanced toward the bored girl sitting at Alex’s usual post at the window. I started to push past this dumbfuck kid and go find a manager. Something in me was thrumming like a live wire.

“Bone!”

I turned, and there she was, coming off the stairs from the second level. Relief slapped me like a cold wave. Her message on the answering machine ...

“Oh Bone, I’m sorry.” She took my hand, pulling me through the club’s long brick archway. “I shouldn’t have called. It’s nothing—not what I guess I
made it sound like, but I was really upset, and I just wanted to talk to someone
...
”

We were out front now, on St. Peter, the Calf across the street, but hours before Padre and the regulars showed up.

“Alex,
what
happened?” I turned, squeezed her shoulders. Two doormen in those sad green jackets were sweating and standing by the club’s entrance. I do despise my job, but I don’t have to wear any uniform to it. Alex wears slacks and a white shirt.

She looked into my eyes. I could see she was a little frightened, still, though she forced a brave smile. “I thought you’d just phone me back,” she said. “Honestly, I didn’t expect you to come out all this—“

“Alex.
Please
.”

“First off, I’m all right.”

I nodded. She picked a cigarette from her shirt pocket, and I lit it. “Second,” I prompted, “you said someone threatened you. Who? And, how?” Just saying the words, entertaining the thought, I could feel the fury
...
a waiting fury, but no less dangerous. I didn’t stop to wonder why I felt so protective toward her. I hadn’t been there for Sunshine. That wouldn’t—couldn’t—happen with Alex.

She took a deep drag off her cigarette, holding it for a long moment before blowing it out. “He
...
this guy
...
started out as just another customer. He came to the window, drunk of course—because all those
auslander
tourists come here and think all physical laws are suspended for them! They think they can drink
way
beyond their limits, or the limits even of those of us who are used to it.” I could hear the anger building in her voice, but she caught herself and took a deep breath. “I deal with guys like him all the time. But he was more annoying than most. I tried to help him, but he got pushy—every time I brought him the cap or T-shirt he asked for, he demanded to see it in different colors and sizes.”

She fortified herself with another quick puff. “He obviously had no intention of buying anything. He just wanted to make me run around the shop like a trained monkey.” I recognized the bitterness in her voice. Such treatment was all just part of the occasionally foul task of serving the public. Alex knew it. I knew it too.

“Then he started making suggestive comments—trying to push my buttons, I guess. But they weren’t even very imaginative—nothing out of the ordinary. I refused to rise to the bait, and remained polite. Apparently that pissed him off, so he got really crude, telling me, in detail, about all of the deviate sex acts he wanted me to do for him, and how all I needed was a real man, like him. I had had enough by that time. I just wanted to get back to my cross-stitch. I told him he would have to leave. I obviously didn’t have what he wanted. When he refused I told him I was going to call security. He got really mad. And that’s when he said it.”

Alex’s hands were shaking a little, but I couldn’t tell whether it was from fear or fury.

“What did he say? Exactly?” Alex doesn’t have my memory, but I knew she could come close.

“He said,” she lowered her voice, attempting to approximate his vocal tone and style of speech, “ ‘Wanna gimme trouble, huh, d’yuh? Well, watchit or yer gonna end up like that bitch by the river las’ night.’ I yelled for security, at which point he apparently reached the limit of his drunken bravery and ran off.”

Alex looked up at me. “He said, ‘
...
like that bitch by the river last night.’ Bone, do you think he could be the one who got Sunshine? That’s why I called you.”

Not because some cretin had threatened to kill her, but because she thought I would want to know what he said about Sunshine. Brave, but
...

“So what does he look like?”

Alex has a natural eye for detail. She described him as mid-forties, a round face with a pudgy gut, and mud-colored hair cut short.

“He had a new T-shirt with a flashy black and red logo. I think it had the silhouette of a woman. I’m sorry, I can’t remember what the logo said.”

“It’s okay. I’ll figure it out.” Alex couldn’t remember what the logo said, but I quickly sorted through the images that matched her description, came up with a matching design and the name of the bar it had come from:
Sin City
.

Alex insisted on going back to the gift shop, calmer than when I arrived. We planned to meet at two tonight at the Calf, everything as usual. I marveled again at how tough she was for such a tiny thing.

My dash across the Quarter had winded me, but I didn’t notice until I set out, walking now. I felt it now, the tightness in my smoker’s lungs, calves a little rubbery, sore. More, though, I felt dogged purpose
...
felt it cold and remorseless, even as the fury came with me while I walked.

It’s better to fight cold than hot.

I mistook it for a movie quote for a second before I remembered Maestro saying the words to me at Fahey’s. He was offering me his services—whatever those services might be—in finding Sunshine’s killer. Fine. That was nice. I appreciated it.

This
, though
...
this was mine.

Sin City was on St. Philip, not far, and my breathing leveled—or at least no longer hurt me—by the time I arrived. I’d been in before. A good bar, with character, though that character was definitely on the scuzzy side. A long crypt of a place, with a pool table in back, but this wasn’t one of those bars where the silly-ass pool league commandeered the joint once a week to shoot their oh-so-deadly-serious games. Maestro had made nudges at me about joining up. I love pool, hate organized anything, but especially organized sports. Want to know what one semester of high school basketball did to me? Tell you later.

So, I’d been here before, but not often. The bartender—husky biker type, tattooed shoulders—didn’t know me, and I didn’t immediately recognize any of the customers. There were only a few, but with my sunglasses still on, I gave each a good furtive looking at. None fit the description Alex had given me of the man who had threatened her life.

Objectively I could understand that “threatened her life” was stretching it. Drunken imbeciles will say atrocious things that don’t, in the end, mean anything. But there are things that should not be said, by anyone, to anyone—and certainly, oh yes most
abso-fucking-lutely
, should never be said to
my girlfriend
.

The vehemence of the thought caught me by surprise.

I’d always thought of “girlfriend” as a kind of throw-away term, almost neutral. My feelings for Alex weren’t neutral in the least. They weren’t moderate. They were
...

No way. She was like my sister,
Sunshine’s
sister, our very best friend, one of the family, but not
...

When the hell did this happen? How?

Impossible. Crazy, but there it was.

And
...
it felt right. Did she feel
...
no, there would be time later to find out how Alex felt. After
...
after we’d dealt with Sunshine’s murderer.

I ordered a rummincoke, even though I was still only just out of bed. I didn’t want to be remembered for ordering soda or asking the burly bartender to
make a pot of coffee. He looked like he was suffering with summer allergies. A number of people I’ve met who’ve never had allergies before become susceptible when they move down here. Christ knows what’s in our air, but luckily, it’s never caught up to me.

The shirts were here for sale, tacked up on the spotty glass behind the bar, obscuring old fliers and dusty semi-pornographic Polaroids from birthday bashes and Halloweens. They all bore the Sin City logo. The threatening man’s shirt had been crisp and new. That he had been in here earlier—maybe earlier today—was no guarantee he’d be back, but this was the most logical place for a blind.

It was tempting, of course, to grill the bartender, to see if he’d sold a shirt to anyone matching the description, but I didn’t know what was going to happen here, if anything, or what I might or meant to do. Calling the least attention to myself seemed right.

Sin City had a trivia machine at the end of the long bartop. It put me a long way down from the swinging French doors, but I could also study incoming patrons at my leisure before they realized I was watching.

I gave the trivia machine a few bucks, laid my smokes by my cocktail and settled in for an ambusher’s wait. Naturally I played the movie category, and even with only one eye on the game, I put the previous high scores to great shame.

I drank slow but tipped well, the dirty panes of the French doors got dark, and I was long since trying to top my own scores. Sin City was close enough so I could hear the cathedral’s bells toll the passing quarter hours. I also heard the heavy, low-level rumble of a freight train on the tracks that run alongside the Mississippi. A meal would be a good idea. Not that I was particularly hungry, of course, but I would need something eventually to counteract the booze. It could wait, however.

I watched people coming and going in the dimness. They were a youngish crowd, more punk than Goth or white trash. In my customary jeans and dark T-shirt, I wasn’t conspicuous. I filled an ashtray with butts, didn’t lose focus on what I was doing, and I didn’t see the man I wanted.