Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders (11 page)

I recognized the grinning face of Frank Watson. “Trying to make a buck, Frank. Hey, you seen any of the
street guys around-Pookie, Downtown, any of them?”

“Over in the alley. A couple are sleeping in a box behind a Dumpster.” He glanced at the pickup. “That’s
yours?”

“Yeah?”

With a suspicious grin, he asked, “When did you get
in the delivery business?”

“Hey, you know how it is with PIs, Frank. We have to
have all kinds of sidelines just to make half of what you
rich cops make”

He sneered at me.

“Which Dumpster?” I asked.

“Behind the Red Rooster.”

As Doreen and I headed for the alley, I brought her
up to date on what I had learned from Beatrice. “When
we get back to the office, I’ll get in touch with this Towers guy, and we’ll get in to see him.”

A frown knit her brows. “About the skull?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. In the back of my mind, I think
I’ve heard or read something about crystal skulls, but
for the life of me, I can’t remember what.’

We turned down the alley, and I spotted Clay, Buck’s
handyman, hauling out garbage from the Red Rooster.
He was wearing the same black T-shirt and threadbare
jeans he had worn the day before.

I nodded, but he ignored us.

“Friendly sort,” Doreen muttered sarcastically.

“Probably spaced out”

After Clay dumped the garbage and locked the door to
the Red Rooster behind him, I spotted a pair of worn-out
Nike running shoes protruding from a cardboard box
behind the Dumpster. I squatted and peered into the box,
but the old man was bundled in a GI greatcoat held together by dirt, and his knitted toboggan mask only showed his closed eyes and thin lips from which the drool
had soaked into the cardboard in a spreading damp stain.

I tapped the sole of his shoes with my knuckles. After a moment, he stirred and grunted. I rose and stepped
back. “Pookie?”

From the box came an almost unintelligible reply.
“Not here”

“Who’s in there? Goofyfoot? Spryo? Downtown?”

Moments later, the running shoes began moving and
the grimy bundle began sliding out. The brown mask finally emerged and two phlegmy eyes squinted up at
me. A dirt-stained hand pulled the mask up.

I recognized Spryo.

He grunted when he recognized me. He glanced at
Doreen. “You looking for something?”

“Yeah. You”

The emaciated old man managed to stagger to his
feet. “Me. What for? I ain’t done nothing.”

“I’m looking for a man. It’s worth twenty bucks. The
guy’s got a black ponytail, busted nose, wears fancy
suits.”

He glanced suspiciously at Doreen and then back to
me. “Ain’t seen him. He a regular from around here?”

I shrugged. “No idea, but he’s been around the last
few days” I glanced up and down the alley. “If you run
across Downtown or the others, pass word on”

Spryo scratched his sunken chest, no doubt rearranging his colonies of lice. “Who is this dude?”

“I’m not sure. Just don’t get nosy. If you see him, let
me know. Don’t get involved with him. He might be
dangerous.”

Spryo’s eyes narrowed. “He the one who kilt Rosey?”

I held my hands out to the side. “No idea. He might
have nothing to do with anything. I just want to talk to
him.”

He nodded and began rubbing his belly slowly. “I’ll
run down the boys for you.” He narrowed his eyes as he
rolled his shoulders and dragged the tip of his tongue
over his dried and cracked lips with great lassitude.

One thing I had to admit about those tenants of the
street, they had perfected the use of body language. At
the moment his eyes and face and sagging shoulders reflected intense exhaustion, ravenous hunger, and acute
thirst. With a chuckle, I handed him five bucks. “Here.
This will help you find them.”

Suddenly, the lassitude, the hunger, the thirst vanished as Spryo grabbed the five and scurried down the
alley.

Doreen chuckled. “That perked him up”

“The magic healing power of money.” I glanced
around. “Now, let’s get back to the office”

Just before we reached the end of the alley, the
squeal of tires and the roar of a powerful engine jerked
me around.

Roaring toward us was the snarling grill of the same
Lincoln that had taken a swipe at me the day before. I
grabbed Doreen’s arm. “Run!”

We darted around the corner of the building only
seconds before the Lincoln slammed into the corner,
shearing off a chunk of brick, bouncing over the curb,
ripping up a parking meter, and fishtailing into the alley
across the street.

But not before I got his license number.

My luck was running true to form. When I ran the
license number through the DMV, I discovered it belonged to a 2003 Lexus that had reported the plates
stolen.

I muttered a curse. “That’s twice that joker has tried
to get me,” I told Marty. “I might not be a Sherlock
Holmes, but I’m smart enough to figure there’s more
involved here than just a case of arson.”

Marty pursed his lips and glanced at Doreen briefly.
Fat folds of a frown creased his forehead. “Look, Tony.
We’re not in the business of getting ourselves knocked
off. We leave that to the cops. I’ll bill Joe Sillery for
what we’ve done and refund the rest of his retainer.”

Well aware of Marty’s penchant for money, I knew
this decision had been a tough one for him. And I’d be lying if I said at first it gave me sort of a warm feeling,
which began cooling when I realized his concern was
not for me, but his wife’s sister. His wife would never
let him have a moment’s piece if anything happened to
her little sister.

“Forget that, Marty. Whoever torched the place killed
Rosey. I want to nail that slime.”

“Rosey? But he was just a bum”

Whatever warm feeling was left in my chest turned
to ice as my boss once again donned his tried-and-true
insensitive self. “He might have been a bum, but he
never hurt anybody. He didn’t deserve what he got.
Somebody’s going to pay”

At that moment, my cell rang. It was Danny O’Banion. The information he provided eliminated Patsy Fusco
and Mossy Eisen.

“Fusco had been interested, but last month, Jack Drapper, who headed up the South Side in San Antonio sort
of woke up dead one morning, and Fusco took over his
territory. Eisen ain’t interested. When Joe Vasco in New
Orleans heard Eisen had been asking questions, he suggested Eisen be satisfied with Atlanta” Danny chuckled.
“Eisen ain’t no genius, but he ain’t stupid either.”

After hanging up, I shared the information with
Doreen who then reminded me we had still not interviewed Abe Romero.

I glanced at my watch. “It’s after four. We’ll do it tomorrow. Why don’t you go home and catch a short nap.
Bernie’s closes at nine. I’ll meet you here about eight.”

After Doreen left, I called J.C.Towers, Texas’s Connoisseur of Crystal according to Dame Beatrice, and set
up a meeting at 10:00 the next morning.

During the drive to my apartment on Payton Gin
Road, I tried to sort my thoughts, but the clamor and
din of heavy traffic was overpowering.

As usual, before I was halfway home, I swore I was
going to find a place closer in; as usual, I knew I
wouldn’t. Austin is typical of growing cities all over the
country. As income grows, people move to newer, more
upscale neighborhoods. Lower income citizens move
into to their vacated house, just like a chain. Somewhere
down the chain comes slums, which are usually concentric rings expanding from the downtown area.

When I finally closed the apartment door behind me,
I made for the kitchen and popped the top on an soft
drink and downed several gulps.

A.B. rubbed up against my ankles, so I nuked him
some milk and filled his other bowl with nuggets. I
wandered into the living room where I flipped on the
TV and plopped down on the couch.

Staring unseeing at the TV, I tried to put my thoughts
into some semblance of order and priority, which wasn’t
too difficult. Whoever burned the Hip-Hop killed Rosey
to cover the murder and was trying to do the same to me.
The only explanation, the only motive that made sense
was the crystal skull.

At that moment, the phone rang. It was Janice. I
rolled my eyes, bracing myself for another fusillade of browbeating, but to my surprise, butter, to paraphrase an
old cliche, could have melted in her mouth. “I’m sorry
about today, Tony. I just didn’t think. I apologize.”

I was speechless. Seldom did Janice CoffmanMorrison apologize to anyone. Royalty never stoops to
contrition. I stammered. “I understand. Don’t worry
about it.”

“What about tomorrow night? Are you busy then?” I
heard a trace of suspicion in her tone.

Right then I made up my mind, I was not going to be
busy. “No. How about dinner tomorrow night? Same
place, the boardroom at the Ritz-Carlton?”

“Wonderful. Cocktails out here at eight?”

“See you then”

For several moments, I sat slumped on the couch, a
sappy grin on my face. Slowly, my thoughts went back
to the crystal skull.

On impulse, I slipped behind my computer and went
online where I ran a search on crystal skulls. To my surprise, I discovered a plethora of speculation and supposition.

I spent the next few hours reading about the ancient
crystal skulls, and as I read, my skepticism grew.

According to the information I pulled up, there were
at least six crystal skulls that had been uncovered in the
last two hundred years. Their ages theoretically ranged
from five thousand to thirty-six thousand years, but
what was so perplexing was that the technology used to
carve the skulls from crystal has only been available in the last few decades. As I read, I jotted a few questions
for Mister Towers.

Most of the stuff was Internet garbage as far as I was
concerned, but then I stumbled across a piece of information that arrested my attention faster than an irate
cop can slam a perp up against the wall-an article
written by a J.Adkins-Manor.

The article focused on one skull, the Nelson-Vines
Crystal Skull, which was not only anatomically correct
but also had a movable jawbone. That was not as surprising as the next statement, which stated that from a
technical standpoint, not even today’s most talented
sculptors or engineers could duplicate the Nelson-Vines
Crystal Skull. And it was thousands of years old!

Suddenly, I sat up, staring at the screen. The skull at
Bernie’s had a moveable jaw. Could it be the NelsonVines Skull?

A sudden barrage of theories bombarded my brain.
Had another skull been discovered? Or was this the
same skull, stolen to be held for ransom only to be lost?
What was the value of an only-one-of-its-kind skull to
a serious collector? Enough to kill for? I shook my
head. Stupid question.

To my added surprise, I learned that select groups the
world over collected, even worshipped crystal skulls, a
behavior, if you think about it, no different than worshipping some of the material idols many celebrate today.

The jangling of the telephone cut into my thoughts. Still reading the screen, I picked up the receiver.
“Boudreaux here”

“Tony. It’s me, Doreen. Where are you? I’ve been
waiting in the parking lot for thirty minutes.”

I glanced at my watch and muttered a curse. “Sorry.
Be right there.” I turned back to my computer. Hastily I
sent an e-mail query to J.Adkins-Manor, questioning
the possibility of a second Nelson-Vines Crystal Skull.

I reached the parking lot just before nine. She suggested we take her Jaguar. “After all, we’ve used your
pickup the last couple days. Someone might recognize it.”

For a moment, I hesitated. So what? Everyone knew
my truck. But then, I shrugged. What could it hurt? Besides, it had been years since I’d ridden in a Jaguar.

While the low-slung Jaguar makes me feel like my
rear was dragging the ground, I couldn’t argue with
the luxury of the sports car with its soft leather seats
and burled dash nor the boost to the ego of riding in
such a sleek car with the top down despite the nip in
the air.

During the drive down Lamar and Guadalupe to
Congress Avenue, more than one head turned to look
after us. When we stopped at the signal light at Congress and Tenth Street, a car pulled up beside us and
one head too many turned to look.

It was Janice in her little Miata, and when she spotted me, her face turned into a slab of ice. Before I could
open my mouth, the light changed, and she shot away.

Doreen frowned and glanced at me. “Hey, wasn’t
that your little friend we saw today?”

“Yeah,” I replied weakly, leaning back and staring
into dark night overhead. “And was is the definitive
verb here.”

The strip mall that housed Bernie’s Pawnshop was a
couple hundred feet long, in front of which grew a
neatly trimmed privet hedge. A used car lot was adjacent to the strip, and in the rear of the office were
parked a dozen or so automobiles with tarps draped
over them against the weather until they could be refurbished and placed in the front lot.