Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) (The Tubby Dubonnet Series) (8 page)

“When the local law showed up later they were almost apologetic about the whole thing. But at the start it’s just these federal yo-yo’s, and they were so interested in me they lost the boat. It just backed up and gunned out of there as soon as the cars with the blue flashers rolled in. You’d have thought they could have stopped it down the bayou, but they didn’t. Maybe they were shorthanded. This one cop, he has on no uniform, he keeps pushing and shoving me, getting right in my face, going, ‘Where’s the money?’ He kept yanking me around saying, ‘Where’s the cash?’ He didn’t care at all about any drugs. ‘Give me the cash. It’s your ticket out of here,’ he was saying. And there was a guy in one of the cars who never did get out. I couldn’t see who he was. Him and the guy who was hassling me drove away while the DEA federales were still taking pictures of the pot.”

“And all the time the money was with me,” Monique said.

“Yeah, good thing.”

“Who does it belong to?”

“You don’t want to know. Hey, maybe it’s mine now.”

Reggie Turntide was slightly built, had thinning hair, wore square, tinted wire rims, and maintained a good tan. The glasses were mostly for effect. He liked to polish them, or twirl them around, or suck on one of the earpieces while he was talking to a client. Reggie had a lot of hustle, but he was never seen in court. His favorite clients were local and state politicos, and the kind of people who hung around them, and he had made his reputation in zoning permits, municipal ordinances, and state construction regulations. He had a keen eye for the fine line dividing permitted public profiteering from out-right fraud, and he got paid to show it to his clients before they heard it from the state attorney general.

Reggie liked to say he complemented Tubby. Rarely did their work overlap. They had started off as social friends, through their wives, before they had been law partners. What Tubby liked about Reggie was his gift for gab and his unshakable cynicism. Reggie could walk into any room full of people and find hands to shake. He would have been naturally suited to politics if he hadn’t thought it was beneath him. He liked to be the guy who put things together, and he was out for bigger game—bigger money—than public office offered, even in Louisiana, where it offered a lot.

The only time Tubby had ever seen Reggie nonplussed was when they were both in moot court back in law school. The occasion was a trial—not a real one but a student enactment to learn from experience the feel of the courtroom—but the judge’s role was being played by an honest-to-God federal judge named Sealey, whose teaching method was to kick ass. Tubby was one of the jurors, and Reggie was the defense attorney. When time came for his opening statement, Reggie came from behind his counsel table and approached the jury. As the words, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” came out of his mouth, he lazily took off his jacket—with visions, no doubt, of a folksy William Jennings Bryan clouding his senses. Judge Sealey’s eyes bugged out. Reggie popped his suspenders and got no further than, “This case is about greed,” when the judge began pounding his gavel on the bench, like there was a rattlesnake he wanted dead, and bellowed, “Young man, turn around.”

Reggie complied so swiftly that he almost tripped and had to brace himself against the jury box for support. Great circles of perspiration suddenly appeared on his shirt.

“You will never,” shouted the judge, “never, never, take off your coat in my courtroom. If you ever seek to practice in my courtroom again without your coat on, I will cite you for contempt and have you ejected by the bailiff.” Never mind that there was no bailiff present among the dramatis personae; the point was made. Reggie dove for his coat and got into it posthaste.

“You may continue,” the judge said, mildly. And Reggie did, in a weak voice, but he kept it short. He never repeated the mistake. In fact, Tubby noticed that over the years, you hardly ever saw Reggie without a coat, a blazer, or at least a sweater covering his shoulders. If he was caught somewhere where it would look odd, like on a beach or a golf course, Reggie might let his shirtsleeves show, but he seemed ill at ease when he did.

Tubby and Reggie rarely crossed paths after graduation, since Tubby concentrated on trial work and Reggie was generally allergic to courtrooms. They kept track of each other through their wives, who were both active in the Friends of the New Orleans Museum of Art. The Pan Am airplane crash in Kenner brought them back together professionally.

Reggie had inserted himself into the plaintiffs’ team, though he made no pretense—to the other lawyers at least—that he knew anything whatsoever about personal injury law. One of the bereaved families there were about two hundred of them had hired Reggie, due to some misunderstanding of his competence, which gave him the right to sit at the counsel table. He immediately began organizing the lawyers, moderating such questions as to how to apportion shares of the recovery and who would do the actual work, and negotiating with insurance companies. Whenever there is money in the parish, the politicians get theirs, and Reggie helped to cut up and serve that piece of the soufflé, too. Inspired by the proximity of their husbands, the wives arranged a dinner together, and then a lake trip, and everybody became friends. When the complicated financial settlement was finally reached, Reggie did very well. As did Tubby, who actually put in a lot of courtroom hours and handled several depositions and witnesses. Over drinks at the celebration dinner in the Rex Room at Antoine’s, beneath the framed portraits of past Carnival royalty going back through decades of civic service, the two victors decided to throw in together.

Since Tubby’s and Mattie’s divorce, however, they hardly ever saw each other after hours, but they got along fine as partners. They didn’t argue about money, but split it all. Tubby sometimes thought Reggie got the better of the deal, just because he never saw Reggie working very hard. But he had a talent for bringing in the business. And, to be honest, Reggie was better at collecting his bills than Tubby was. Whenever a new client found the firm, Reggie would smile and say, “Pennies from heaven,” and he would keep smiling till they fell.

This morning Reggie was in Tubby’s office wanting to talk about Darryl Alvarez, a client he had given to Tubby. Darryl, Tubby knew, was the manager of a bar at the lakefront and always had plenty of cash. He flashed it for lots of politicos and Jefferson Parish real estate developers, who all loved Darryl, and since Reggie hung out with the same group of pals, he loved Darryl, too. Darryl was great for free meals, tickets to Saints games at the Dome, and tips on horse races. He also made a buena margarita. But, Reggie had sadly told Tubby a couple of weeks before, Darryl had a problem.

He had been caught with a new Ford wide-body pickup truck in Terrebonne Parish, unloading fifteen bales of marijuana from a shrimp boat. Where it had started its journey was anybody’s guess, but it ended with Darryl staring into a DEA agent’s spotlight. He called Reggie from the Parish Jail. Reggie, like most of Darryl’s buddies, suddenly didn’t want to know him at all, but he did at least wake Tubby up at home. Tubby drove down early in the morning. It took a while, but he eventually got the bond lowered from its initial million dollars to a measly $150,000. By some means Tubby never learned about, Darryl got a bondsman to post the bail, and he was soon back in his nightclub.

Reggie wanted to know how Darryl’s case was coming, and Tubby told him.

“I offered Fred Stanley, the U.S. Attorney, five years, simple possession, but he laughed. He’s trying for life. What he wants is for Darryl to turn around.”

“Turn around on whom?”

“I don’t know. I guess whoever he bought the pot from. He hasn’t told me.”

“No chance of getting him off?”

“He’s working on the ‘It was my twin brother’ defense, and the ‘I thought it was hay for a Halloween hayride’ defense. So far no takers.”

“I appreciate your handling this, Tubby. Has he been paying you?”

“No problem there. He’s ahead of the game. When he comes in this afternoon I may ask for another deposit.”

“That’s great.” Reggie did his little finger-flutter, taken from the “itsy-bitsy spider,” meaning here comes more manna from the sky.

“These pennies ain’t from heaven,” Tubby said.

Reggie laughed and was still chuckling merrily when he went off down the hall toward his office. Defending Darryl did not bother Tubby. He had always liked the kid, too.

Darryl came by after lunchtime, which for Tubby had been fried oysters on French with melted butter and lemon juice. Cherrylynn had bought it at The Pearl down the street. Tubby ate the sandwich, all fourteen inches of it, at his desk, brushing the crumbs off a Memorandum in Support of Exception of Vagueness he was reading. He wondered how Californians got by on raspberry yogurt or Whoppers or whatever it was they ate for lunch.

Darryl came in carrying a blue gym bag, the kind a lot of people now showed off to suggest that they had spent their lunch hour working out at an executive spa. Despite his wavy black hair and the two gold chains around his neck, Darryl did not look so hot. A little frayed, maybe. But he flashed his big smile when he asked, “How’s it going today, Tubby?”

“I’m staying busy. Have a seat.” Darryl was pretty fidgety. Maybe facing prison time did that to you. Tubby told him about his talk with the U.S. Attorney.

“You think they’ve got a case?” Darryl asked.

“I don’t see how a first-year law student could miss landing you, Darryl. All they’ve got to do is show the videotape of you waving at the camera with your hand on a ton of marijuana while a shrimp boat disappears into the Gulf. I’m just giving you the straight poop. They misspelled a few words in the indictment, but I don’t think that’s going to save you. They read you your rights four times. If you don’t want to take the hit, you’re going to have to tell them what you haven’t told me. Who were you selling it to? Or, who were you working for?”

Darryl sighed. “If I told you that, I’d have a lot more problems than I have now. So what are we talking about if I get convicted?”

“The penalty for possession of that much pot with intention to sell is a minimum of twenty-five years, up to life. Except for your little cocaine bust in 1985, this is your only offense. Because I’m such a good lawyer, I think you’ll get the twenty-five years and serve about eight.”

Darryl sighed again. “Monique would shit over that.”

“Who is Monique?” Tubby asked.

“Aw, she’s my girlfriend. We’re probably getting married. She’s my night manager at Champs. I told her I might have to do six months. I think she might get another job if I got eight years.”

“Give me something to tell the U.S. Attorney and let’s make a deal. Then everybody’s happy.”

“Not as happy as you might think,” Darryl muttered. “I’ll see if maybe the Governor will commute my sentence. I contributed enough.”

“Not even the Governor can commute a federal sentence. He just can’t reach over to Pensacola and say, ‘You’ve got one of my very best friends locked up in your very comfy prison. Please cut him loose and send him home to the ‘Gret Stet’ of Louisiana.’”

“No? Okay, I guess not. What happens next?”

“I’m going to file discovery motions and see what the rest of their evidence is—other than catching you with several bales of grass in your truck. They’ll set it for trial in September, October maybe. There’s not much for you to do now but look after your business. And maybe you should take a little time off and spend it with Monique.”

“I’ve been thinking about doing that, too. Maybe run over to Gulf Shores or, who knows, fly up to Canada.”

“Whereabouts in Canada?”

“Heck if I know. Monique says she wants to go to the Yukon and see the Mounties.” Darryl shook his head. “Listen, Tubby, could I leave this with you?” He plunked the gym bag down on Tubby’s desk. The way he lifted it made it look heavy. “It’s important that it be in a safe place.”

“What is it?” Tubby didn’t want to touch it.

“It’s a lot of my business records. And some personal stuff to do with Monique. I’ve been getting things organized for going away, and this is stuff I don’t want to leave lying around. I was thinking you probably got some room in your safe. I wouldn’t want to leave it here more than a week. After that, I’ve made other arrangements.”

“Let me see what’s in it.”

“I don’t want to open it, Tubby, and I don’t think you want to see this stuff. I swear it’s just papers. Nothing illegal at all.”

“Is there anything that might be thought of as evidence of a crime in that bag?” Tubby was wondering if this conversation might be being tape-recorded. He had recently sat through a few hours of a local judge’s bribery trial, based largely on taped telephone conversations, and now he was paranoid whenever a client made any unusual suggestions. It cramped his spontaneity, since his clients were coming up with wild ideas all the time, but you had to be careful.

Darryl looked indignant. “Heck no,” he protested. “You think I’m crazy? You’re a lawyer. I know you don’t want any bad stuff. And by the way, I brought you the rest of your retainer. I made out the check for fifteen thousand dollars. Is that okay?” He pulled an envelope from his blazer pocket and offered it to Tubby.

Tubby got a warm feeling from Darryl. “Yes, that’s fine.” What the hell, he thought. “Sure, you can leave the bag here. Try to get it out this week, though. I may need to fit something into my safe that’s actually related to my law practice, you understand.”

“Tubby, it’s not going to be a problem. I really appreciate it. Look, I got to run. Call me at the bar if you hear anything. And you know I always got a table reserved for you.”

“Sure, Darryl. And think about your situation a little bit. Call me if you have something I can deal with. Say hi to Monique.”

After Darryl left, Tubby picked up the bag and squeezed it with his fingers. He couldn’t tell much about what was inside, but he was pretty sure it was paper. He held it up to the light but nothing showed through the fabric. He smelled it. The zipper had a tiny lock on it. Easy enough to force. Tubby shook his head at his own foolishness in accepting responsibility for anything that belonged to Darryl, but he did try to accommodate his paying clients. He opened the safe built into the cupboard below the bookshelves and stowed the bag inside next to a stack of wills. He spent a moment watching an old man and a young girl play a graceful game of tennis on the hotel roof below, then forced himself to go back to reading his vagueness exception. So much of the law was really a drag, he thought. It took straightforward disagreements and drew them out so much that the litigants finally screamed for relief or surrender, whichever would make it all stop. As an alternative to gun battles in the street, it was pretty good, but hardly anybody ever felt like a winner and absolutely nobody appreciated the lawyers. It was easy to feel sorry for yourself in this game.