Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 08 - Death in the French Quarter (19 page)

Punky continued. “Bones sent Hummer Cherry and
Mule Drayton to take care of him. Moochie was a
stringer for Bones, but he decided to keep some of the
jack for himself by overcharging a nickel for every fifty
cents of kibbles and bits.”

LeBlanc’s eyes narrowed. “Stanwikski? Bones was
behind that?”

“Yeah, man. I heard him myself.”

“Kibbles and bits?” I frowned.

I understood what he meant by a nickel for every
fifty cents. That was drug slang meaning five dollars for
every fifty dollar buy, but I had not the slightest idea
what he meant by kibbles and bits.

Punky shook his head in wry dismay at my street ignorance. “Yeah, man, I always knew there was some thing about you that just didn’t fit. Kibbles and bits,
man. Crumbs of crack cocaine.”

I nodded. “Is that what you picked up in your shipment last night?”

Punky shot me a hard look, then a wry grin replaced
the anger. “Yeah. A one pound bundle in each bag of
shrimp.”

LeBlanc nodded. “What about the others Bones
wasted?”

The Redbone’s ex-lieutenant rattled off names.

“What about the two in Austin?” LeBlanc asked, his
elbows resting on the table as he leaned forward.

With an indifferent shrug, Punky replied, “The old
dude was a Cajun guy, Savoie or something like that.
He had one of them sissified French names like JohnPaul or something.”

“How about Paul-Leon?” I suggested.

“Hey, yeah, that was it. I knew it was French sounding. Paul-Leon Savoie.”

I leaned forward, my heart thudding in my chest.
My throat was dry. “What about the other one in
Austin?”

He shook his head. “Some black kid. You know how
they are, low-class, always looking for a handout-”

“Forget that,” I snarled, barely able to restrain myself from busting him in the mouth. “A name. You know
his name?” I felt LeBlanc staring at me.

Punky looked at me curiously. With a shrug of his
shoulders he replied, “Naw. All I know is he come to
work with us for a couple days slinging Coca-Cola”

My eyes narrowed. Blood pounded in my ears, but I
held my voice steady. “How?”

“Huh?” Punky frowned at me, confused.

“How did Bones waste them?”

“Oh. That. Neat. Two slugs in the back of the head.
Twenty-five caliber. Tossed it off the Congress Street
Bridge into the Colorado River after he did the black
kid.” He paused, looking back and forth between us for
any further questions.

LeBlanc broke the silence. “You’re willing to swear
to this?”

A shrewd gleam glittered in the young man’s eyes.
“If I get a good deal”

With a short nod, LeBlanc rose. “How can I get in
touch with you after I talk to the district attorney?”

Punky slid a slip of paper across the table. “Here’s
my cell number.”

I glanced at it as LeBlanc slipped it into his shirt
pocket. “Later,” he said.

Nodding to Punky, I muttered, “Hang tough.”

Outside, I caught up with LeBlanc. I tried to suppress my excitement. “Well, what do you think? Looks
good to me”

He glanced down at me. “Hard to say. If me, I was
back in Iberville Parish, I’d say let’s cut a deal. But
here, I don’t know how the DA, he thinks.”

“But, if you had to guess, what then?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Me, I don’t guess,
Boudreaux. It don’t do no good”

I muttered a soft curse.

LeBlanc chuckled and relented. “But if I did, me, I’d
say we was going to have us a deal. From all I hear, de
district attorney is a smart man”

“That’s good” I fought back the urge to shout and
pump my fist in glee. Not only would Emerente
Guidry-who had hired us to find the real killer for
whom her brother, Louis, had been framed-be satisfied but so would my boss, Marty.

I grinned. I could see him drooling over the twentyfive thousand dollar check. But, more important to me,
my little cousin’s killer would ride the needle.

Drawing a deep breath, I released it slowly. So, now
if nothing went wrong then within a few hours Bones
would be behind bars.

At the corner, we paused. LeBlanc looked up and
down South Peters. “Call me in a couple hours. Me, I
should know something by then”

“On the nose”

At eleven-thirty, I called Jimmy LeBlanc from a pay
phone in a Walgreen’s Pharmacy. LeBlanc chuckled.
“He’s got a deal, Boudreaux. As a felony murder nonslayer participant, if he’ll take manslaughter, he’ll get
five years, out in two with good behavior.”

The deal sounded good to me. I said as much.

“When can you get him in here?”

“I’ll call now and get back with you”

After hanging up, I started to punch in Punky’s cell
number but at the last moment I hesitated, glancing around the crowded pharmacy. After a moment, I decided to find another phone down the street. No sense
in drawing attention to myself by hanging around one
phone too long. A couple blocks down was the Lafitte
Inn. I would use the phone there.

As I stepped out the door, I saw a crowd gathering in
the middle of the block. At that moment, a New Orleans
police cruiser raced past, its red and blues flashing.

A chill raced up my spine for some inexplicable reason. A sense of foreboding swept over me as I hurried
past the Lafitte Inn to the excited crowd.

Suddenly the crowd parted, and I saw the man’s
body sprawled on the sidewalk face down, blood pooling out from his chest. I froze when I spotted the black
T-shirt with the cut-off sleeves. The fingers on the
man’s right hand were splayed against the sidewalk,
and I spotted a red tattoo on the underside of his index
finger. I was too far to discern its shape, but I knew exactly what it was, a redbone.

I closed my eyes and muttered a short prayer.

The officer knelt, felt for vital signs, then gently
turned the body over.

Nausea churned in my stomach.

It was Punky!

I slammed my eyes shut in disbelief.

Suddenly, a hand touched my shoulder, and I
jumped. “Jeez!” I exclaimed, spinning around to see
Julie looking at me, his blanched face somber.

“Bones wants to see you,” he said woodenly, deliberately averting his eyes from Punky’s body, which told
me Punky’s death was no surprise to him.

“Sure. No problem.”

Without a word, Julie headed up Bourbon, his eyes
fixed forward. I hurried to catch up with him. “So,
what’s up?” I deliberately avoided mentioning Punky.

He glanced around at me. “I don’t know for sure,
Tony. Something’s going on. Bones is ticked off about
something.”

As we passed the Lafitte Inn, Saint-Julian stepped
out. When she spotted me, she gave me a seductive smile. “Hi, Tony. What for you left so soon?” She
glanced at Julie, then added with a mischievous glint in
her eyes. “Last night too much for you?”

I laughed and gave her derriere a playful slap. “Just
catching my breath, sweet. Don’t go away. I got some
business, but I’ll be back.”

She touched a delicate finger to her pursed lips, then
laid it on mine. “Don’t be long.”

We paused at the open door to Rigues’ back room.
Bones sat at the table by himself. “Wait outside, Tony. I
got some business with Julie. Take just a minute.”

Julie entered and shut the door behind him. I closed
my eyes, trying to still the pounding of my heart.
Glancing up and down the hallway, I toyed with the
idea of pulling a disappearing act, not only from
Rigues’, but from New Orleans.

What if somehow, Mule had recognized me? A
trickle of sweat ran down my spine.

At that moment, the door opened, and Julie came
out. With a broad grin on his face, he winked at me.
“Go on in, Tony. I’ll see you later.”

Somehow, that grin and that innocuous remark
seemed to relax me. “Yeah, see you later.”

Inside, Bones smiled amiably at me. “How you been,
Tony?” His tone was convivial, but I remained wary.

“Can’t complain.”

“Sit”

Casually I glanced around the room. Just the two of
us. I couldn’t help wondering about Mule and Hummer. “Sure.” I slipped in at the table and tilted back on the
legs of the chair. Folding my arms across my chest, I
said, “So, what’s up?”

A crooked grin curled one side of his thin lips. “Hear
that you and that little squeeze of yours is seeing a lot
of each other.”

With an indifferent shrug, I replied, “Not much else
around here to do, and I’m not into the tourist business.”

He laughed. “Well, in a few days, that’ll be remedied. Just hang tough. I like you, Tony. You ain’t pushy,
you do what you’re told, and you can handle yourself.”
He studied me a moment. “I can use someone like that”

I arched an eyebrow. “I’m your man. Just let me
know when you want me to start”

“Won’t be long” He grew serious. “I got me a good
operation here. It’s bigger than you think, and I got to
have someone I can trust” He snorted and glanced over
his shoulder. “Punky did the job real good at first, but
he got greedy. I can’t have that. I got to know that my
right hand does what I say, when I say.”

I rocked forward in my chair. “I wouldn’t want to
end up like Punky.”

A frown flickered across his face. “Do what I say,
and you won’t. And the money’s good.”

“Sounds good, but-” I hesitated. I had to find out
about Mule and Hummer.

Bones lifted an eyebrow, and I continued. “What
about the others, Gramps, Mule, Hummer, Ham? Won’t
they figure Punky’s spot should go to one of them?”

Anger flared in the Melungeon’s black eyes, then turned to laughter. “Those ones, they don’t do no thinking.” He jabbed his thumb into his bare chest. “I do all
the thinking. You remember that, then you and me, we
got no problem” He arched an eyebrow as if to ask if I
understood.

With a crooked grin, I said, “That’s how I like it. If I
don’t do any thinking, I don’t cause any problems.
Right?”

He laughed and pushed himself to his feet. “That’s
what I like about you, Tony. You roll with the punches.
Come on. I’ll buy you lunch. I’ve been hungry for
steak. Sound all right to you?”

I muttered a curse under my breath. I had wanted to
contact Jimmy LeBlanc about Punky, but now I would
have to wait. “So long as it’s a big one,” I replied, pushing away from the table.

The thick steak served at the Jackson House Restaurant on the corner of St. Ann and Decatur was one of
the best I had ever tasted, but I couldn’t enjoy it because I was too busy trying to parry the barrage of
questions Bones fired at me, all casual, all friendly, but
at the same time, prying, probing, poking.

Bones Guilbeaux was indeed a bright, clever man.

After lunch, Bones headed back to Rigues’ leaving
me in Jackson Square, where I plopped down on a sundrenched bench as laughing and chattering tourists
strolled past. I rolled my shoulders in an effort to relax
the knotted muscles caused by the tension of the last few hours. At the same time, I glanced furtively around
the square for any familiar faces. I had to reach a telephone but not around here. I didn’t need to have any
questions asked.

While my neat little scheme to nail Bones had blown
up in my face, at least it didn’t appear he was on to me.
Still, I told myself, his conviviality could have merely
been an effort to throw me off guard.

More than once in working on cases, I’d been kicked
back to the proverbial square one. This time, square
one, the smuggled weapons, had also vanished like a
pickpocket on Bourbon Street.

I was left with nothing, back at the beginning. A sudden yawn caught me by surprise. I stretched my arms
over my head and felt a great lassitude settle on my
shoulders.

Pushing myself to my feet, I headed back to my
room at the La Maison de Fantomes on Toulouse, but
first, the phone call to Jimmy LeBlanc.

Two blocks down on Chartres, I stepped off the narrow sidewalk into a small voodoo shop run by a spacedout woman of interminable age with a corncob pipe
clutched between what few teeth remained in her
shrinking gums. Half a dozen tourists browsed the
aisles. I filtered in with them until we reached the back
of the shop, and then I ducked out the rear door into an
alley, then cut through the rear door of a T-shirt shop.

Moments later, I stepped out onto Royal Street, then
at the next corner sidled into a bar with the disconcerting name Dead Man’s Chest.

Ordering a beer, I wound around the empty tables to
the telephone next to the restrooms in the rear.

LeBlanc exploded when I reached him. Using a few
of the more colorful Cajun obscenities, he demanded,
“Where is that jerk? The DA, he don’t like to be kept
waiting.”

“Tell him to forget it, Jimmy. Punky’s dead. Royal
Street just below the Lafitte Inn.”

He cursed again. “When?”

“This morning. About the time we talked.”

A long silence followed, and then finally in a resigned voice he said, “That do it, huh? Without the
snitch, all we got be de stash of weapons. I suppose we
got to go with that”