Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 12 - Murder Among Friends (5 page)

He dropped out of school, and I ended up an English teacher, then an insurance salesman, and finally a private
investigator.

Later, Danny and I ran into each other at an OklahomaU.T. football game in Dallas. We laughed some, lied a lot,
and emptied his silver flask of excellent Scotch.

From time to time over the years, Danny gave me a few
hints on cases I had. I paid him back when I managed to save
his cousin, Bobby Packard, from the needle up in Huntsville.

Today was one of those days I needed his help.

After making a copy of the list Raiford Lindsey had supplied me, I pulled into the multistory parking lot where
Danny had his office.

He greeted me with a large grin and a big hug.

He poured a straight bourbon, and I poured a straight water. He studied the list. “So you want to know if any these
bozos got any reason to hit the armored car, huh?”

“That’s it,” I nodded.

Giving me that little leprechaun grin of his, he replied,
“Why don’t you just talk to all of them?”

I rolled my eyes and gestured to the length of the list. “Not
if I can help it. I don’t have two or three weeks to spare”

He chuckled. “No sweat. I’ll send it out to your place
when I finish”

“Thanks” Then I remembered my old man. “On second
thought, give me a call. I’ll pick it up” A frown knit his
freckled forehead. I explained the situation. “He’d probably flush it down the toilet”

To my relief, my old man was still home. He’d downed
the whole six-pack of Old Milwaukee, but he was still
home. To my dismay, he wore the same clothes, and I had
to throw open the windows to air out the place.

Luckily, I had the foresight to pick up a couple of pepperoni and cheese pizzas and a case of beer on the way in.

John Roney ignored the piping hot pizza, preferring the
beer. I nodded to his ragged garments. “No beer until you
get out of those so I can wash them. I’ll get you some stuff
to wear, and then you can have the beer.”

In less than two minutes, he’d done as I suggested and, in
a set of baggy sweats, was nursing a cold beer. I tossed his
clothes in the washer.

Setting him on the couch, I grilled him on the incidents
at the railway station.

He looked at me blankly. His ragged whiskers clung to
his sunken cheeks. He slurred his words. “I don’t remember
nothing. A bunch of us come in from San Antone. Kansas
City Mort had managed a couple bottles of wine. We done
drunk it down, and I don’t remember nothing ‘til I woke up
in the drunk tank”

He reached for his beer, but I grabbed his bony wrist.
“Listen to me. I’m doing my best to keep you from spending
the rest of your-” I started to say worthless because that’s
all he’d ever been to me, but somehow, the word refused to
roll off my lips. “The rest of your life in prison,” I said.

He looked up at me, and I would have sworn he had no
idea what I was talking about. I continued, “Did you know
someone on the trains by the name of Salinas Sal?”

He cocked his head. “Sal? Yeah. I know Sal. We rode from
Oregon down to Arizona and then over to San Antone together. What about him?” His eyes drifted back to the beer
on the coffee table.

I jerked on his wrist, forcing him to look at me. “Someone
killed him here in Austin, and the cops think you’re the one
who did it.”

He stared at me and muttered. “Not me”

“What do you know about it?”

“Nothing” He shook his head. “Last I seen Sal, he was
heading for Sixth Street. That’s when Kansas City Mort
come up with the wine. We sat under the loading docks and
drunk it down”

Pssing through downtown on the way to Janice’s ranch, I
spotted one of the winos who lived in the alleys and deserted buildings along Sixth Street. Whenever transients
jumped off the train in the Austin rail yard, they usually
found their way downtown.

Possibly, I told myself, as I wended through the traffic
flowing south, I might run across one or two who knew about
the killing. I’d check with them later.

Normally, the winding drive along Bee Tree Road that
cut through the oak- and cedar-covered hills west of Austin
was pleasant and relaxing. Tonight, my mind was tiptoeing gingerly around the subject of marriage. I had rehearsed
a small speech, one I felt was firm enough to deter marriage, yet understanding enough not to hurt Janice’s feelings.

At the top of the last hill, I looked down at Chalk Hills
Distillery, a collection of white stucco buildings with bright
red roofs of Spanish tile.

The main house sat at one end of the compound, surrounded by a magnificent landscape that over the years had
graced the covers of half a dozen national magazines.

Looking back, I know now I was a little too full of myself, for I muttered, “There it is, Tony. All yours for the asking.”
But I wasn’t about to ask.

I waited in the library, visiting with her aunt, Beatrice
Morrison. I remembered the first time I met her. Her thin
frame was ramrod straight and her demeanor regal. I had
thought at the time she would have made a striking Cleopatra, a tad old perhaps, but striking anyway. And the last few
years, if anything, had enhanced the intimidating sovereignty of her majesty.

As always, our conversation was awkward and stiff.
“How are you, Aunt Beatrice?” Though she had requested I
address her as such, I always had the feeling she cringed inside when a commoner such as myself called her “aunt.”

She sniffed and deigned me with a glance. “Well, Tony.
You?”

“Fine, just fine, Aunt Beatrice.”

“Good. Glad to hear that”

“Nice weather.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Might rain.”

“It might.”

And such a scintillating exchange of witty repartees continued until Janice showed up, which she did almost immediately, bringing a merciful end to our conversation.

Janice, as usual, was a knockout. All I knew about the labels on her dress or shoulder wrap was they did not come
from K-Mart or Penney’s.

She crossed the room to her aunt. “Good night, Aunt
Beatrice.” She touched her lips to her aunt’s cheek. “I’ll be
in early.”

She turned to me, and with a bright smile handed me the keys to her Jag. “You drive, Tony. I don’t want to ride in that
pickup of yours with my good clothes.” She slid her arm
through mine. I had no idea what perfume she wore, but it
was tantalizing and tempting.

And I didn’t mind going in her car. I loved driving the
Jaguar roadster. During the drive to the Starlight Room in
downtown Austin, we made idle chitchat. Each time the
conversation lulled, my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach, thinking the next words that rolled from her lovely lips
would be marriage.

But, to my surprise, she mentioned nothing about it.

I did not recognize the remodeled Starlight Room at the
Commodore Arms. The only things that were familiar were
the prices.

We enjoyed a few cocktails, appetizers of flavored olives
and baba ghanoush, and several dances before ordering.
When our server came to take our order, Janice clapped her
hands like a little girl and said, “Let me order for us, Tony.
Aunt Beatrice and I had some wonderful dinners on our
Mediterranean cruise”

I sipped my cocktail and smiled at her. “Go right ahead.”

She nodded to our server and ordered chicken Provencal
with artichokes and garlic, toasted Israeli couscous pilaf with
onions, and zucchini boats filled with caramelized onions,
pesto, and Romano cheese.

Throughout dinner, she bubbled with conversation, not
once mentioning the word marriage. I was beginning to wonder if I had gotten a little too bigheaded for my own good.

By midnight, when we climbed in her Jag and headed
back to the ranch, I had pushed my concerns aside. Once
we hit Bee Tree Road, she scooted around in the seat and laid her hand on my shoulder. “Remember when I said I
wanted us to talk, Tony?”

For a fleeting second, I froze. If someone had offered
me a million dollars to turn the wheel of the little Jag half
an inch one way or another, I couldn’t have done it. Finally, I found my voice. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember.” But what
I couldn’t remember was the little speech I’d rehearsed and
rehearsed for this very situation, telling her she was too
good for me.

I kept my eyes fixed on the dark and winding road ahead
of us. She continued. “You know a few months ago, when
you were down in San Antonio, we talked about marriage”

“Yeah, I remember” But I didn’t. In fact, my entire past
had gone blank. I was starting to sweat.

We started down the hill toward the main house. Her tone
grew serious. “Then Aunt Beatrice went to the hospital”

That I remembered. “Yeah”

“Luckily, it was nothing serious, but it made me stop and
realize that she needs me. I’m her only family. I couldn’t
leave her by herself.” She squeezed my arm. Her voice
tense, she asked, “You understand what I’m saying, Tony?”

I had to blink my eyes once or twice. I wasn’t sure if I
did or not, but I lied. “Yeah. I understand. Sure, I do”

The tense stress fled her voice. Her words bubbled. “Wonderful. I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I think the
world of you, but marriage isn’t something I think I should
enter into right now”

I pulled into the circular drive and stopped the Jag in
front of the main entrance and turned off the ignition. For
several seconds, I sat staring out the front window.

Her voice was a whisper. “Tony, Tony. Are you all right?”
She laid her slender fingers on my arm. “You’re sweating”

I should have been elated, but for some inexplicable reason, I was confused. I forced a wide grin. “Sure. I’m fine,
and I understand. Don’t you worry about it”

She smiled brightly and hopped out of the small roadster. “Fine. And don’t forget about Sunday”

With a terse nod, I replied, “Charging the battery on the
car now.”

Her eyes glittered in the porch lights. “Just leave the Jag
here. One of the boys will put it up”

After escorting her to the huge double doors and giving
her a light goodnight kiss, I stumbled woodenly back to my
pickup. Slowly, the realization dawned on me that Janice
had dumped me. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work.
I was supposed to reject her, not be the dumpee.

The drive back to my apartment on the north side of
Austin was the longest drive in my life. The left side of my
brain was bouncing around and shouting in glee, while the
right side wallowed in the quicksand of misery.

Adark Lincoln Town Car was parked in front of my
apartment when I pulled into the drive. I recognized it as
Danny’s. The door opened, and a behemoth in a Nicky
Hilton suit lumbered out. The big vehicle seemed to spring
up six inches when he exited.

Huey. Danny’s bodyguard. A body double for Godzilla.

As always when I met him, I grinned and held up my
hand. “Hey, Huey”

The first time I had seen Huey was one night on a narrow
road west of Austin. At the time, his square face looked like
a chunk of chipped granite, square, solid, with no distinguishing features other than a couple of fissures for eyes, a
square knob for a nose, and a third crevice that was probably his mouth. His face hadn’t changed over the years, still
full of knobs and fissures.

A grunt escaped his thin lips, and he held out an envelope. “Danny says I should give you this.”

“That was fast”

The compliment didn’t faze him. Without a word, he
turned back to the Lincoln. I could have sworn I felt the
ground shake. “Tell Danny I said thanks”

His only reply was a faint nod.

The Lincoln sagged when he slipped behind the wheel.