5 Crime Czar (17 page)

The sheriff saw her first and made a grab for the judge, thinking to use him as a shield. Hughes, however, refused the role.

“Get back, Sheriff,” he cried. “She wants you, not me.” He shoved Mulé away with such conviction that the sheriff almost fell off the stage and onto the woman below.

He was caught in midfall by blasts from the waiters’ arsenal.

In the excitement, Daisy fired twice. Mulé buckled from repeated hits. He spun around and collapsed on the floor spurting blood.

Surprised by the ease of her attack, Daisy stared transfixed for a moment as pandemonium erupted all around her. She turned to go and again confronted the young man.

“Dude,” he said, awestruck and stood aside to let her pass.

Panic had seized the audience, and there was a mad scramble for the exits. The waiters jumped onto the stage, leapt over the huddled politicians, and ran out the back. Daisy pushed her way to the front exits with the rest of the people.

She didn’t hear Alphonse D’Amica call for a doctor. She did not see, or else she might have commenced another battle, Willie LaRue snaking through the throng in pursuit. She felt, however, a hand grab her shoulder just as she reached the main gateway. Swinging around, ready to fight, she found that it was Tubby who was restraining her. He pushed her in the direction of a baby blue Le Baron parked at curbside.

“Get in, get in!” he kept shouting.

Dazed, she did as directed and stumbled into the passenger seat. Tubby ran around to the driver’s side and Marguerite, hurrying to keep up, leapt into the back.

With the help of its authoritative horn, the big Chrysler parted the sea of people departing the Convention Center and broke free down the freshly paved street. A string of police cars and ambulances shot past going in the opposite direction.

“What are we doing?” Marguerite shrieked from the back seat.

“Don’t ask me any questions yet. I’m still figuring things out,” Tubby yelled. “Daisy, don’t say a thing until I tell you to.” He need not have issued that order. But for rocking with the motion of the car, Daisy was sitting very still and staring out the window with a slight smile on her lips.

“Goddamn, you plugged him,” Tubby said, twisting the wheel and shooting up Poydras Street. “Don’t say anything,” he repeated.

Marguerite realized that neither Tubby nor Daisy had seen the three gunmen.

“I could get disbarred for this,” Tubby said out loud.

A car cut them off at Baronne Street.

“Watch where you’re going,” Tubby yelled, careening across two lanes and then continuing on. He was quite agitated.

“Jesus, I wonder how many people in that hall can identify you?” Tubby said excitedly. “Or me! How many can identify me driving you away?”

“I didn’t see what happened,” Marguerite said, perversely intrigued by Tubby’s agitation. “Did this woman shoot the sheriff?”

“No, no. You didn’t see anything? Of course not. I didn’t actually see it myself. Not exactly. There was a lot of commotion. It was hard to see what was going on.” He was speeding past the Superdome. The lights stretched green all the way to Broad.

“Got the son of a bitch,” Daisy said proudly. She was beginning to shake.

“I told you not to talk yet,” Tubby shouted. “You’re overwhelmed and overcome. We’ll all go someplace quiet. Where it’s safe. Of course, if an arrest warrant is issued for you, I’ll have to advise you to turn yourself in. As a lawyer to a client, of course.” The Model Rules of Ethics were flashing through his mind, and he mentally slashed whole sections away searching for slender principles that might excuse his actions.

“None of us are witnesses, after all,” he said more calmly. The Le Baron was approaching Fountainbleau, where the trees were thicker and the houses bigger. Daisy laid her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. She was well pleased.

“The important thing is to find a safe place.”

Tubby had concluded his internal dialogue, and he softened the pressure of his toe on the accelerator.

He pulled to the curb beside a towering palmetto and cut the engine.

“Whatever the woman may have done,” he explained to Marguerite, “is entirely justified in my mind. Her greatest peril, however, is not the police or the law, but a legion of psychotic killers like LaRue who undoubtedly are at this moment searching for her. She has to get out of town, for her own safety. Any ideas?”

“Sure,” Marguerite said. “I could take her on a trip. I’m thinking Santa Fe.”

Tubby nodded. “It could just be a short trip. Then you could come back.”

“Or you could come for me. You need a vacation.” She smiled.

“Yeah. Well, I’ll be working on that. I should probably take you straight to the airport.”

“I’m not going anywhere without Charlie’s belt buckle,” Daisy interrupted from the backseat.

“What are you talking about?” Tubby demanded.

“Charlie. His father gave me Charlie’s silver Harley-Davidson belt buckle because he knew how he cared for me. It’s in my room, and I ain’t going anywhere without it.”

“Where’s your room?”

“On Airline Highway. It’s called the Tomcat Inn.”

“Okay. I know where that is. It’s on the way.” He turned the key and the motor purred.

“You know where that is?” Marguerite asked sweetly.

LaRue saw Tubby drive the two women away. His own car was in the public garage, and he had no realistic hope of following. Instead he worked his way back into the hall to ascertain the condition of his employer.

He watched as a doctor, apparently a guest of the party, attended to Mulé, while Alphonse D’Amica shooed the curious away. There was a wet pool of blood round the sheriff’s head. A strange man was pointing at the sheriff’s limp wrist. “That’s my bracelet,” he kept insisting. A squad of paramedics came running across the emptying floor, pulling a stretcher and lugging some equipment. After a short parlay they bundled Mulé up, strapped him to the gurney, and stuck an oxygen mask on his face.

“ ’Fraid he’s dead,” the doctor said to the EMT before they wheeled the sheriff away.

The rest of the politicians had exited or returned to the bars, where fairly large numbers of voters still were congregated.

LaRue grabbed a handful of mushroom caps stuffed with Parmesan cheese from a plate left on a now-empty table and pondered his next move.

He had seen what Tubby had pulled from his pocket, and it looked very much like a five hundred thousand dollar check payable to cash. One of the fugitives, he figured, might also be forced to hand over a fortune in jewels.

LaRue and set off in pursuit of the three conspirators.

All three of them— the tourist, the assassin, and the attorney— cruised at high speed down the dark straight highway pointed west. They had been delayed briefly by Marguerite’s insistence that she be permitted to gather a few of her personal belongings for the trip, which meant a detour to Tubby’s house. True to her word, she had packed and gotten out the door in less than ten minutes, but it was precious time lost.

Tubby barely braked as he approached the gap-toothed neon sign advertising THE TOMCAT INN— THE BEST RATES ON AIRLINE. He swerved into the driveway. The Le Baron bounced hard over the speed bumps and ran to the curb.

“I’ll be right back,” Daisy promised and scampered out of the car.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Marguerite called after her, and Daisy yelled no. Tubby left the motor running, ready for a quick getaway.

“There’s a ten o’clock flight to Houston. From there you can get to just about anyplace.”

“We haven’t had much time together, but I’ll have to admit it hasn’t been dull.”

“It’s been, uh, nice having you here,” Tubby admitted.

Marguerite took his hand. Tubby was such a sweet man. Some day she would have to straighten him out. They didn’t notice a blue Ford enter the parking lot and cut its lights. It halted by the office, fifty feet away.

“Are you going to miss me?” she asked.

“You know, Marguerite…” he didn’t get to finish.

The door of Daisy’s room swung open and she came out, clutching a small bag. When she spotted LaRue trotting across the parking lot she brought the bag to her breast and screamed.

Tubby saw his enemy, gun in hand, in his rear view mirror and reacted automatically. He crammed the shifter into reverse and mashed the gas pedal. Tires squealing, the Le Baron accelerated backwards.

The bumper caught La Rue right below the belt and bowled him over. With hardly a murmur, the big car rolled over the surprised man and crashed into the side of LaRue’s car. The Chrysler’s trunk lid flew open.

Tubby screamed at Daisy, and she ran for the car to jump in.

Tubby put the car into gear and drove over the man again. This time, both of the tires thumped.

He mashed the gas pedal and peeled out of the parking lot. A forgotten plastic box in the trunk had been knocked open by the collision, and as the car accelerated a cloud of ashes blew from the back. Spinning in the air, the dust formed fairy faces, had anyone been there to see them. Some were recognizable, some were a mystery. They drifted around the parking lot and settled over LaRue’s crumpled body. In Tubby’s mind a row of corpses appeared and just as quickly vanished.

Neither the driver nor his passengers had anything to say to each other until they were almost to Moisant Field.

“Now I finally know what they mean by justice,” Daisy said at last, almost to herself.

“I wonder if any judge would agree with you,” Tubby replied. His mind had entered a new zone.

“I don’t really care what any of your judges would say. Last one I met was too busy trying to get his pecker out of his pants to care about who’s breaking the law.”

“You can’t justify what you did and I did that easily,” Tubby said.

“Candy-ass Trapani,” she muttered, watching the flicker of the approaching runway lights.

Tubby shot her a quick look.

“Who?” he said finally.

“Candy-ass Trapani. He was my date at Benny Bloom’s hotel room.”

Tubby drove in silence.

“Talk about a distinguishing characteristic,” Daisy said.

“What was it?” Marguerite asked, turning around.

“I can’t believe this crap,” Tubby said.

He followed the signs to departing flights.

“Why don’t you just whisper it in my ear,” he suggested.

She did, right before the car reached the curb.

Later, heading home, the thought crossed the lawyer’s mind that Cesar Pitillero’s chances for early release had dramatically improved.

On Saturday morning, election day, campaign signs sprouted like poppies on the neutral grounds of Orleans Parish, and Tubby slept late. When he finally roused himself and cleared his head sufficiently to retrieve the newspaper from the front sidewalk, the headline told him that Sheriff Frank Mulé was dead.

He had been struck by bullets from three different guns in what was being termed a gangland-type slaying. This did not make much sense. The deceased had been wearing a bracelet that a witness at the scene identified as having come from a robbery at First Alluvial Bank.

Tubby was sipping a shot of coffee and chicory when he got a phone call from Clifford Banks.

“We’ve got a few problems to work out,” Banks said.

“Like what?” Tubby asked. He was afraid Banks might be ready to accuse him of murder.

“Like the theft of an item from my office.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Tubby said with relief.

“I insist that we meet.”

Though tempted to hang up the phone, he acquiesced.

They picked a time early in the afternoon. Neither lawyer favored an office visit, and they settled upon a walk in Audubon Park, along the Mississippi River.

Banks was sitting on a bench watching the oil tankers battle the current when Tubby arrived. The bond attorney, wearing a tie and cradling a leather briefcase, was easy to spot by the sole practitioner in baggy khaki trousers.

“You didn’t need to dress up,” Tubby said.

“It’s my standard uniform,” Banks said. “I’m used to it, you know.”

Tubby sat down on the bench.

“I am making the assumption that you have our five hundred thousand dollar check,” Banks said.

“If I do, I’d say it’s as much mine as anybody’s.” Tubby stared at the current.

“Why?” Banks asked. “Just because Mulé is gone?”

“That’s right,” Tubby said. “The king is dead. To the victor belongs the spoils.”

“Be real,” Banks said. “Business is business. You think we liquidate just because of an unexpected downsizing?”

“Well sure,” Tubby replied in surprise. “Frank was the boss, wasn’t he, the big cheese, the guy at the top? He was responsible for all the deals.”

“Nonsense,” Banks said. “We will all miss Frank, of course. He was an important person and often handy to have around, if intellect wasn’t required, but the team goes on.”

“The team?” Tubby asked. “Sheriff Mulé was not the crime czar?”

“That’s a very odd term,” Banks said disapprovingly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a business. It’s not dependent on any one man, and certainly not a czar.”

“And you? Are you the chairman of the board?”

Banks smiled thinly. “It would be more accurate to say that I am the attorney for a number of serious businessmen who rely upon me to protect their interests, but no. There is no permanent chairman of the board.”

“Damn.” Tubby watched a seagull peck at a pile of fish heads somebody had deposited on the sidewalk.

“We wish to go ahead with the project,” Banks continued, interrupting Tubby’s reverie.

“My deal was with Frank Mulé,” Tubby said. “I don’t really know you.”

“We’ll get to know each other better,” Banks assured him.

Improvisation is critical to success, a law professor had once taught him.

“If that’s the way you want it,” Tubby said, scratching his head, “you’ll have to act immediately. The funds to pay for the WWB franchise must be delivered to New York by tomorrow at the latest. That’s the deadline I’ve been given. I have other investors lined up ready to move if you’re not,” Tubby lied. “If your team wants in, it’s got to be now.”