Bill Hopkins - Judge Rosswell Carew 02 - River Mourn (13 page)

Thursday Morning

“Poverino, poverino.”

Rosswell’s eyes were closed, yet he could see the red
of the blood running through the veins of his eyelids thanks to a strong light.
A hot light.

Sunlight’s shining on me. Either that or a majorly
serious spotlight. Where am I?

“
Poverino
,
you wake up.” Mrs. Bolzoni wiped Rosswell’s face with a cold cloth. “Poor
thing, you now wake up, okay?”

Rosswell opened his eyes. “Mrs. Bolzoni? What are you
doing?” He pressed his palms to the ground. “Ouch.” Drought had consumed the
area since no rain had fallen for over a month. The ground felt like concrete.
Grass felt like tiny spears. The humid air smelled dry.

“The insides, she’s upset, so I walk the park when the
sun come up. You I find like this.” She bent over him, and her thick eyeglasses
touched his face, a gesture that reminded him of an Italian movie he’d seen
once. Both the significance of the hand movements and the movie title escaped
him. “And I find also this.” Rosswell groaned when she stuck the Scotch bottle
in his face. “Empty.”

Rosswell could see that the bottle was empty. He felt
it was totally unnecessary of Mrs. Bolzoni to point that out to him since he
was staring down the neck of the bottle.

A few drops splashed on Rosswell’s face. The odor
caused a flip-flop in his stomach. He sucked in a few mouthfuls of air, forestalling
the vomit creeping up from his insides. A thousand stinking Russian soldiers in
their stinking stocking feet marched across his tongue. If his tongue swelled
much more, he could choke.

Rosswell coughed. “I did not fall off the wagon.”

“You got no wagon. You walk over here.”

“Yes, you’re right.”

Mrs. Bolzoni helped Rosswell stand. “You drink the
espresso. Let’s go.” She tugged at him.

Rosswell brushed ants from his shirt, then ran his
tongue around the inside of his mouth, hoping he didn’t discover any foreign
objects, such as bugs, dead or alive.

“Mrs. Bolzoni, let me stand for a moment. I don’t want
to move quickly.”

“You stand. I wait,
poverino
.”

“
Poverino
.
Does that mean dumb ass?”

“Means you a poor thing what needs the help.”

“I do not need help.” He swayed, toppling to the
ground. All his muscles were in kinks and knots. “I am doing great.” He stood.

“Then you slide to the back, as you say in the
English.” Mrs. Bolzoni put her arm around Rosswell’s waist, urging him to start
walking.

“Please take a look at the wet spot there on the
grass.”

“You peed during the night?”

“That is where I poured out the booze. I didn’t touch
one drop. I had nightmares. I have bad dreams. Sometimes. Especially when I’m
overcome with exhaustion.”

“I take you to see that man who helped Alessandra. He
help you, too.”

“Alessandra?”

“Mia bella figlia.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My beautiful daughter.”

“Mrs. Bolzoni, did you…uh…see anyone over here.
Besides me?”

“I saw you before the sun down and before the bottle
up. No one but you. Why you say that?”

“I thought I saw someone. But it was only a bad dream.
It seemed so real.”

“My daughter she sees the things not there. But the
man helped my daughter.”

“What man is that?”

“The pale man with the rusty hair.”

Rosswell’s headache
dulled and his
stomach calmed by the time he recessed court, mostly due
to the small drugstore in the green bottle he carried everywhere. Sleeping
outside on dry and dusty grass was a formula for both a major allergy attack
and an eruption of his acid reflux. After rummaging through the pills and dry
swallowing a couple, he gathered his suit jacket, tugged off his tie, and trudged
to Mabel’s.

No one in town had noticed him lying in the park all
night. Or, if they had, nothing surfaced during the day. No one at the
courthouse had shot him a sideways glance nor had he overheard any snide
comments. Courthouse gossip in Ste. Gen was as vicious as in any other
courthouse in the world. It’s always Shark Week at the courthouse. Surely,
someone would’ve reported a judge sleeping near the swing sets. The cops would’ve
investigated and discovered him. Although it was a matter of collapsing from
exhaustion and not booze that had led him to camp out, by the time the rumor
mongers got through with the story, Rosswell would’ve been roaring drunk and
scaring kids and grabbing their mothers.

Yet he couldn’t take any chances. He needed to tell
Ollie he’d come close to lurching off the wagon. Ollie shouldn’t hear that from
anyone but Rosswell. The restaurant was deserted. A lull. Even Mabel had left
the building.

Beckoning to Ollie, Rosswell chose a booth in a dark
corner, where he briefly sketched his near lapse. The news failed to impress
Ollie. “You
almost
fell off the wagon? I’ve actually jumped off lots of times. But I always
got back on.” Ollie’s gaze darted. A smile twitched at the sides of his mouth. “It’s
especially interesting when you regain consciousness lying next to a naked
woman you can’t remember.”

“That would be bad.” Rosswell breathed deeply. His gut
rumbles strengthened again and threatened revolution. Puking was the last thing
he wanted to do right now, especially in Mabel’s restaurant. He found a
decongestant tablet and a gas pill in the green bottle and took them. “A woman.
Naked. A stranger.”

“Was there a woman involved?”

“Mrs. Bolzoni.”

Ollie yelped, shut his eyes, and rubbed them with his
closed fists. “Oh, Mylanta. I don’t want to hear any more.”

Rosswell snickered. “Not like you think. She’s the one
who found me in the park this morning.”

Ollie opened his eyes. “Mrs. Bolzoni wasn’t naked in
your bed?”

Rosswell ignored Ollie’s question. “Mrs. Bolzoni told
me something interesting. Nathaniel has been running a rehabilitation center in
the mansion for several years. And Mrs. Bolzoni’s daughter Alessandra is there
for treatment. Mrs. Bolzoni thinks Nathaniel is doing a great job with her
daughter. According to Mrs. Bolzoni, Nathaniel is a great guy.”

“Unadulterated bullshit.”

A pounding at his forehead started. “Don’t say that
anymore.”

“Okay.” Ollie flapped his arms. “Then I can fly to the
moon.”

“Nathaniel bought the fancy house for drying out
drunks. It’s even got two towers so he can post guards. It’s a terrific cover. Dope
pushers can move a lot of cash through there without leaving a trace.”

“He spends a wad of dough dragging drunks off the
street. But if he does it out of the goodness of his heart, then I’m the Queen
of Sheba coming to visit King Solomon.”

“Mrs. Bolzoni’s own story sounds odd. She moves down
here from Saint Louis to be near her daughter who’s in rehab at a place run by Nathaniel?
She hates French people, yet she lands smack dab in the middle of a whole
county full of frogs? That makes no sense at all.”

“That’s what I said.”

Rosswell smacked and swallowed a couple of times. “Maybe
he’s laundering money from his dope operation.” His breath stunk of the gallon
of coffee he’d sucked down. He’d been careful to stand far away from anyone in
the courthouse. A couple of pieces of Big Red couldn’t hurt, so he stuck four
pieces in his mouth. Cinnamon flavoring bit his tongue with the viciousness of
a pair of pliers clamping down, yet he kept on chewing.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Of course Nathaniel
is laundering money.” Ollie tilted his head. “You sure you didn’t swig a couple
of slugs last night?”

“Positive. Mrs. Bolzoni wants me to admit myself there.
I’d last fifteen minutes before Nathaniel killed me.”

The gum burned his mouth even more. He spit it out
into a napkin and stuck it into his pocket.

“You might not last much longer unless you go home.”

“I’m not leaving Sainte Gen without Tina.”

Lazar Fribeau moseyed through the front door and cast
his gaze over the whole restaurant before he spoke to Ollie. “You got office
here?” The old man surveyed the restaurant some more. “Somewheres private?”

Ollie motioned to Lazar and Rosswell, who followed him
into Mabel’s office. He reached up and tugged a chain to chase the darkness
from the former storage room. “Talk.”

Rosswell couldn’t see Lazar and Ollie clearly, the
only light being a single bulb hanging from a wire in the middle of the
ceiling. Ollie hated wasting electricity.

“Scarface wants to sing.” Lazar touched Ollie’s chest
with his thumb.

“Scarface?” Ollie stepped back. “Who’s that?”

“Charlie Heckle says he palavers, but you and no one
else.”

Ollie’s mouth opened, but no words came out.

Rosswell figured Lazar had been watching too many
gangster and Western movies on cable television. Rosswell also figured he needed
to kick this talk into gear since he’d never seen Ollie speechless before.

“How do you know this?”

Lazar grunted. “You know nothing, you. You paying no
mind to Maman.”

“Following her advice, I literally tripped over a
body. How can you say I’m not paying her any mind?”

“You don’t know what she said, her.”

Rosswell repeated Maman’s advice. “ ‘Cave of one eye
have much treasure. Cave of blind eye, she holds a treasure but not what you
seek.’ ”

“You don’t know what she said because you don’t listen
good. You hear words but you don’t hear meanings.”

Ollie found his tongue. “Sure. We can talk. In the
alley. One hour.” He stepped between Rosswell and Lazar.

Lazar grunted and left.

“You’re back on the case?” Rosswell said.

“For the time being. I want to know who the woman was
who was thrown off the ferry.”

“I’ve reviewed all the pictures of missing women who
look like Tina, but I can’t connect any of them to Sainte Gen. That’s your only
reason? You want to know who she is?”

“She deserves justice.”

Rosswell, moved by the reason for Ollie’s reversal,
argued with himself whether to notify Ollie that his decision verged on
altruism. Rosswell decided against it and instead asked, “Is this going to cost
me another $500?”

“Nope.”

“Good.”

“Start at six hundred.”

“Was this some kind of pretty song and frisky dance?
How does Lazar know Charlie Heckle wants to talk to us?”

“He didn’t say us. He said me.”

“All right, then how did Lazar know that Charlie
wanted to talk to the world famous Ollie Groton?”

“You asked me if the Fribeaus ran this county. Gustave
doesn’t. I’m beginning to think Maman and Lazar do. Behind the scenes.”

“And Lazar runs around the county setting up meetings
between crooks and snitches.”

“Research assistants.”

“Right.” Rosswell paced for a few moments before he
stumbled over a box and fell. “I’ll trust you to be a faithful reporter. I’m not
going to listen to your meeting.” Brushing himself off, he stood.

“A wise choice. What if you heard something that you
needed to report?”

“That problem won’t arise because I’m not going to
listen. But if I did, and I heard something I shouldn’t, I’d dance along the
line. I’d be okay as long as what I hear isn’t too far on the dark side.”

After Rosswell had forked over $600 for another pile of
silver coins at Discovered Treasures, they trudged to the alley. The price had
gone up. Inflation, he supposed.

Ollie leaned against a brick wall on one side, folding
his beefy arms across his chest. “I’ll wait here. You skedaddle.”

“Let me know what he said as soon as possible.” Rosswell
edged down the alley away from the street. Close to the back end of the alley,
he spied a large wooden crate. His head whipped around. Ollie wasn’t watching. The
crate should hold him safely out of view. He peered in.

A stray black cat, disturbed by his intrusion, meowed
belligerently, then wandered away. Small places held terror for Rosswell. At
least there were no snakes. He hoped. Cats ran off snakes, didn’t they? The commotion
hadn’t drawn Ollie’s attention, still focused on the mouth of the alley.

Inside the box smelled like piss. It was hot. He was going
to die in there but decided to crawl in.
The need to hear the
conversation firsthand outweighed his repugnance. He stepped on a smaller box,
then climbed into the large crate, and pulled the lid over the top. Scant light
leaked through the cracks, enough to make it dim inside, although he could see
part of the alley.

Rosswell heard Ollie speaking to himself in a low
voice, “Showtime, boys and girls. Showtime!”