Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) (The Tubby Dubonnet Series) (12 page)

“He said, ‘Get in the car,’ just like that, and arrested me. I said to myself, ‘Sandy, the man’s an asshole. He is not tuned in to reality. Just do as he says.’ I have a little voice that sometimes gets me out of these things.”

“He didn’t hit you or anything?”

“No.”

“That’s good.”

“I think they’re afraid to start a fight with me. I think they’re worried I might bite them or something and give them AIDS. Even when he put the handcuffs on me, he tried not to actually let his fingers touch me.”

“All right. Did anybody see this?”

“Sure, lots of people, but I don’t know who most of them are. Miss Nancy was there and saw it.”

That didn’t help much. Miss Nancy was a gray-haired street lady in the French Quarter, who cast spells on the people she passed on the sidewalk.

“Listen, Sandy. This is no big deal. The cop may not even show up for trial, and anyway it’s just going to be a fine. Have you got any money now?”

“Only about fifty dollars.”

“Well, you pay that to me, and we’ll just plead you not guilty. Save your pennies. This may not come up again for six months, and then you can decide whether to pay or fight it.”

“Whatever you say, Tubby. What happens now?”

“I’ll be right back.” Tubby went up to the clerk in front, and told him that his client, Sandy Shandell, was in court and wished to plead not guilty to a charge of assaulting a police officer. The clerk called out Sandy’s name, just to be sure he was there, took a long look at him, and shook his head at Tubby. That was that. Trial date in October.

Tubby turned aside to let the lawyer who was pushing in from behind have some room and saw the bailiff waving him over. “Hi, Janelle,” he said to the black officer leaning against the jury rail.

“Good morning, Tubby. I’ve been keeping an eye out for you. Sheriff Mulé wants to see you.”

“Me, what the heck for?”

“Couldn’t tell you. He saw your name on today’s docket and said ask you to drop by if I saw you.”

Tubby had no idea what that was about. He contributed nothing to the sheriff at election time. They shook hands when their paths crossed at testimonial dinners and such, which was not often, but he had never actually had a meeting with the great Mulé. Tubby went back to where Sandy was sitting and told him to go stand in line at the rear of the courtroom and wait till his name was called. They would give him a notice telling him to come back for trial in 0ctober. It would take about an hour, and Tubby would see him later.

“And let me collect the fifty dollars for today, as long as you’ve got it with you.”

“Sure, Tubby, but I’ve got to take a cab home.”

“Well, make it forty-five.”

Sandy pulled crisp bills from her purse, and Tubby accepted them with dignity.

“All square,” he said.

Sheriff Mulé’s office was in the Community Correctional Center across the street. The heat smacked you as soon as you emerged into the sunlight, radiating off the white concrete of the jail. One of the nondescript buildings across the way had been painted over with a mural tracing the signal events in American history—the Revolutionary War, the Indian Wars, the Civil War, the World Wars, and Vietnam. It was signed “Sheriff Mulé’s Art in Prison Program,” but in truth it had been started by Mulé’s much admired predecessor, a Mediterranean lawman who, in New Orleans fashion, had retired to run an Irish pub in the French Market. Looking at the painting, Tubby reflected that nobody ever seemed to remember Korea.

Beneath the exploding cannon shot, screaming eagles, and painted flags was a praline lady sitting on a metal folding chair. She wore a red bandana on her black head in the traditional way, and had on a double-breasted pink raincoat pulled tight around her despite the temperature. Her wares were on a cardboard boxtop on her lap. Tubby crossed the street to admire the round candies she had arranged neatly on a sheet of wax paper.

“How much are they?” be asked.

“Yes, sir, one dollar,” she said. “And they’re the best in town. Just take your pick.”

Tubby studied his choices. “How’s business?” he asked.

“Business isn’t never much good. I’m getting whooped by them vending machines inside.”

“Why don’t you move up by the bus stop?”

“They run me off up there. Or them kids try to steal whatever little I got. Down here they leave me alone. Besides, I got a godson in there.” She pointed across the street. “I think maybe he can see me.”

“Your godson’s in jail?” Tubby picked out the one he wanted.

“Yes, I’m sorry to say it.” She handed Tubby a caramel-colored praline, thick with pecan halves coated with sugar melted in cream and vanilla.

“How long has he been in?”

“Oh, I’d say better than a year.”

“And he’s still here? I didn’t think they stayed that long in the jail. Maybe he’s been sent to one of the prisons.”

“I couldn’t say. That’s where he went in, though, and he hasn’t come out.”

Tubby bit his praline. A piece cracked off and Tubby grabbed at it and missed. He sadly watched it hit the sidewalk.

“What’s your godson’s name?” he asked.

“Jerome, Jerome Cook,” she said.

“Well, I hope he gets out soon.”

“I sure hope so, too,” she said.

Tubby nodded to her and walked back across the street. Going up the wide steps to the Correctional Center he passed a group of guards standing around eating candy bars together. Their black uniforms made him nervous. They herded, washed, fed, and processed the five thousand or so prisoners, more than most countries confined, which Orleans Parish held on a daily basis, rode in Mardi Gras parades on horseback, and campaigned for Sheriff Mulé every four years. The sheriff reigned over them, dozens of public buildings, tent cities full of inmates, and millions of dollars. Mulé was a man to be reckoned with.

The guard at the front desk told Tubby to have a seat, which he was glad to do until the perspiration chilled off his forehead. After a minute he got up and went back to the desk.

“I need to see if you’ve got a man in here,” he told the guard.

“What’s his name?”

“Jerome Cook.”

“Okay, let’s see.” The guard tapped information into his computer console, whistling tunelessly between his teeth.

“Jerome Rasheed Cook,” he said. “Yep, we got him.”

“What’s he charged with?” Tubby asked.

Clickety-click, the man’s fingers moved over the keys.

“That’s funny. I can’t exactly tell you. It doesn’t seem to be on the screen.”

“How long has he been in here?”

“I don’t know that either. ‘This doesn’t show any information on him.” He looked up at Tubby and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what the problem is.”

“Can you deliver something to him?”

“You’re a lawyer, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want to leave for him?”

“Just give him my card.” Tubby reached into his coat for his wallet and slipped out his white business card. The guard took it.

“Will you see that he gets this?”

“Sure,” said the guard. “There’ll be someone going up to the cells in a few minutes. I’ll have them carry it up.”

“Thanks,” Tubby said and sat back down. After a few more minutes, the guard’s phone rang and his name was called. The guard pointed him toward the elevator that led to the sheriff’s executive offices above. A quick ride later he was greeted by an attractive woman with a pile of curly blond hair, also in a black uniform, who took him through the door to the sheriff’s splendid office. You could hold court in here, Tubby thought. The city skyline could be admired through its picture windows. The floor was thickly carpeted, and the walls were covered with hunting trophies—cats, big birds, a bear’s head, even a stuffed alligator. Mulé, a small man, peeked above his desk twenty paces from the door. He was almost hidden behind an enormous stuffed bird of prey.

Mulé stood up and extended his hand when Tubby came in. He was wearing a suit, brown as mud, with wide lapels.

“Howya doing, Tubby? Thanks for coming by.”

“Sure, Sheriff. You could have just picked up the phone.”

“No, I wanted to have a face-to-face, and I heard you were coming down today.”

“You’ve really got your antennae up.”

“I try to take care of my friends. It ain’t always easy. Would you like some coffee?”

“Sure, thanks.”

Mulé pushed a button on his telephone and an inmate cautiously opened the door.

“For this man, coffee, Pedro.”

Tubby told him to make it black, and Pedro disappeared.

“I see where Darryl Alvarez got shot,” Mulé said.

“That’s right.”

“Did he ever say who his business associates were?”

“Not to me. What’s your interest in this, Sheriff?”

“My interest is in keeping drugs off the streets. Also, he was one of my campaign supporters. I hate to see any of my supporters go like ‘that.”

“Yeah. It’s a shame. He had a lot of friends.”

“I know you were one of them.”

“Not really. I got the case through Reggie Turntide, my partner. He doesn’t do criminal work.”

“That’s right,” the sheriff beamed. “Darryl hadn’t made his deal with the U.S. Attorney, had he?”

“No. You could ask the U.S. Attorney the same thing.”

“My relations with the man aren’t that good,” the sheriff said with a grimace. That sounded right. A couple of weeks before the Times-Picayune had leaked the news that a federal grand jury was investigating various allegations of unconstitutional behavior at the jail.

“Any idea who he was working for?”

“Hell no, Sheriff, and I don’t even speculate. The last thing I want is to be hauled before some grand jury investigating organized crime.”

“Right. That’s just the way it should be.”

The sheriff stood up and circled his desk. He put his hand on Tubby’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, almost as if he wanted to pick him out of the chair.

“Thanks for coming by, Tubby. I really appreciate your help.”

Tubby, rising, said, “I don’t know what help I gave you.”

“You satisfied my curiosity. At least part of it.”

Mulé showed Tubby the door. Exiting, Tubby almost collided with Pedro returning with a Styrofoam cup of coffee on a tray. “I had to make it fresh, sir,” he said.

“That’s okay. Maybe the sheriff would like it.”

“No, sir. He don’t drink nothing but Kool-Aid.”

That was baloney, Tubby knew. Sheriff Mulé had twice hit the papers for being drunk and highly disorderly in very odd unsherifflike places, but he had yet to get locked up in his own jail.

Tubby smiled again at the receptionist with the big hair, thinking that the black uniforms certainly looked sexier on the women than the men, and he got the elevator back to the ground floor. It was a relief to step out the front door into the free world. Mulé had showed an awful lot of interest in one crooked bartender. He did not like any part of his conversation with the sheriff. The man was connected – to the good guys and also to some characters too shadowy to classify. He had goons working for him who beat on prisoners, or so it was rumored. Maybe all jailers did. But there was also a newspaper reporter who had written about sex and drug rackets in the jail and who had been mugged so badly that he lost sight in one eye, culprits unknown. He had left town for a safer assignment. There was the uppity jailhouse lawyer who had filed dozens of suits over conditions at the jail, who was found with his throat slashed in the shower, done in, said the authorities, by his fellow inmates. All this was smoke, rumors, or allegations the sheriff had defeated in lawsuits. On the flip side was the celebrated community service—no charity gala was complete without him—but still it made you think.

Tubby figured he needed to do something about the money soon. He was coming to the conclusion that there was something he wanted and something he did not want. He did not want the gym bag to be in his boat much longer. He did want the money.

A once-pretty redhead on the downside of thirty shook her fanny, cellulite and all, in the face of an old Cuban stuffing an ashtray full of cigarettes in one of the seedy strip joints that had survived on upper Decatur Street. A couple of cop types Ali knew were at a tiny round table in the dark, leaning against the wall, having a private conversation. The taller of the two, a man they called Casey, waved Ali over.

“You used to have a girl named Monique work here?” he asked.

“We get lots of girls. About when would that be?”

“About a year ago. You know who I’m talking about.”

“Not really.”

“Brown hair, healthy-looking, real country, all-American type. I’m sure she was real popular.”

“Okay, yeah. I might remember her.”

“You probably fucked her,” said the short fat guy with Casey. He was called Freddie, and he always had a radio or a pair of handcuffs hanging off his belt to show he was in law enforcement. Freddie burped up Budweiser.

Ali didn’t say anything.

“She turned tricks with the customers, didn’t she?” Casey asked.

Ali shrugged.

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

“If we’re talking about the same girl, not since she quit.”

“You wouldn’t be fooling me now, would you, Ali? She wouldn’t have come by and given you something to keep for her, would she?”

“No.”

“This is a big investigation. It’s not just me asking, it’s the Sheriff.”

Ali didn’t know if that was bullshit or not. These half-assed policemen always talked like that, but Sheriff Mulé had once been in the joint in Casey’s company, so it was a possibility. Mulé had tipped well. It didn’t matter either way to Ali. He didn’t give a rat’s ass for Sheriff Mulé and the answer was the same anyway.

“She didn’t leave me nothing.”

Casey turned to look at Freddie, and Ali walked away. They might not be finished talking, but he was. He moved softly around the dingy room, emptying ashtrays, guiding his bulk by memory and night radar.

“She’s got to have hidden it somewhere at Champs,” Freddie told Casey. “She don’t go nowhere else.”

“That’s real smart, Freddie. Of course, we would have had the money by now if you weren’t such an incredibly dumb fuck.”