Natalie's Revenge (9 page)

CHAPTER 7

Saturday, 26 July 

Frank peered through the windshield at the traffic on Chartres Street. A mule-drawn tour buggy was four cars ahead of them, the mule clip-clopping along slow as a turtle, the tourists ogling the French Quarter sights. Even with the A/C cranked full blast Miller's car felt like an oven thanks to the brutal noonday sun beating down on them.

"We'd have made better time walking," he said.

"What," Miller said, "you in a hurry to talk to the mobster?"

"Kenyon, if the Conroy hit is connected to the Peterson case, we're in trouble. A high-profile murder in the French Quarter? The politicians are already leaning on Vobitch to solve that case. Be hell to pay if they find out we got another one. His job is on the line."

"Morgan can handle it, he's been through this shit before," Miller said. “How's Kelly? Did I interrupt something last night when I called? Seemed like you were in a big rush to leave once you took a peek at Tex.”

Miller was fishing. His partner was the only one that knew he was seeing Kelly. Or maybe the rest of the squad knew and pretended they didn’t. He didn’t care. He suppressed a smile, recalling Kelly’s outfit when he’d returned to her house, a pair of lacy black panties and nothing else.

"Don't see her much since she left Homicide. How's she doing with that jewelry business she was fixin to set up?"

"Still making the jewelry. I don't know about selling it. She does it for fun, says it relaxes her after a hard day at work." The logjam of stalled cars ahead of them moved forward. About time.

"Reason I ask, Tanya just started a business."

"Good for her. I like multi-talented women. Good looking ... sexy."

Miller grinned. "Cut the jive. What it is, Jason's only twelve but he's already six feet tall, gotta buy him men's size clothes."

"Takes after his dad."

"Yeah. But he's got no interest in football, doesn't wanna be a cop either. He wants to be an astronaut. Tanya 'bout flipped when she heard that, knew enough to keep quiet. Next week, he'll be into something else."

"Sure," he said, deadpan. "Racecar driver."

Miller gave him The Look. "Yeah. Lotta black racecar drivers out there."

Traffic stalled again, waiting for the mule to make an aromatic deposit. Irritated, he focused on what to ask the owner of Tequila Sunrise. Conroy's employer, until Conroy took a slug in the head.

"Tanya got this idea to make hip T-shirts for oversized teens, you know, slap a decal of the computer-game hero-du-jour on the front 'stead of having the shirt be plain, o
r
" Miller looked over, grinning now. "Some dorky saying might appeal to a senior citizen."

He burst out laughing. "Like, anybody over twenty-five?"

"Twenty be more like it."

"Sounds like a good idea. Just for boys? Or girls, too?"

The traffic jam broke and Miller put the car in gear. "Boys mostly. Tina's fourteen, almost as tall as Jason, but she's into being
an-oh-rex-ic
like her girlfriends, won't put a stick of gum in her mouth, it's got sugar in it. Jason, he eats everything in sight."

"So how's it going?"

"Not bad. Some of my LSU football bros got kids with the same problem. Tanya found a store on the Internet sells a dozen T-shirts for twenty bucks. Kids tell her which hero they want, she buys the decals and irons 'em on the front. But she needs a hip name for the business. Got any ideas?"

He had no idea about hip business names, plenty of ideas about what would happen if they found out the Conroy hit was related to Peterson's.

"How about Hip Duds for Teens, something like that?"

"I dunno, Frank. Duds sounds like spuds. These kids don't need any reminders about food, get enough of that watching food commercials on TV."

Miller didn't need any either. He was in good shape for a guy six-six and two-forty. But when they worked out together at the gym, Miller constantly complained about his weight. As a middle-linebacker for the LSU Tigers, he'd eaten whatever he wanted. Now that he'd hit forty it was different. 

Miller wheeled onto Decatur Street, parked the unmarked car in a loading zone, plopped an NOPD official-business sign on the dashboard and said, "Let's go see the mini-mobster."   

They hustled into the Tequila Sunrise. After the sizzling heat outside, the lounge felt like a freezer. The long narrow room stank of beer, and neon beer signs on the walls provided the only illumination. At the bar, six men were sucking up bottles of Corona, eyes glued to a baseball game on the TV above the bar. Someone got a hit and they let out a cheer.

Frank flashed his ID at the bartender and said they needed to talk to the owner. The barman gestured to a hall at the far end of the bar.

“Nicky’s in his office. He’s expecting you.”

It hadn’t taken long to ID the body in City Park. This morning a clerk opening a convenience store saw a car parked in the lot. A posted sign said No Overnight Parking so the kid called the manager to see if he wanted it towed. But when he described the ca
r
a powder blue Cadilla
c
the manager said, “No, that’s Tex’s car,” called Tequila Sunrise and found out Tex never showed up for work last night. Having seen a bulletin on the late news about an unidentified man found dead in City Park, the manager called NOPD. An hour later they had a name: Lawrence Conroy.

They walked past the bar and entered a dark hallway. A door at the end of the hall was open. Inside the office a paunchy man in a green-and-white-striped shirt sat behind a messy metal desk. His pink scalp showed beneath wispy-gray strands of a comb-over. He glowered at them, owl-eyed.

Frank didn’t take it personally. Pissed-off was probably Nicky’s usual demeanor. He'd dealt with plenty of Italian lowlifes in Boston. Not that Italians had a corner on the scumbag market.

He did the introductions, then said, “What can you tell us about Lawrence Conroy?”

“I can tell you he didn’t show up for his shift last night.”

“How long did he work here?”

“A year, maybe. I’d have to look it up. We get a lotta turnover.”

“Was he a good worker?” Miller asked.

“He wasn’t stealing from the till, if that’s what you mean.”

“Did he have a girlfriend?” Frank asked.

“I got no idea. You’d have to ask the other bartenders.”

“We’ll need names.”

Nicky opened a drawer and held out a sheet of paper. “Here’s a list of my current employees.”

Miller took the list and began copying names into a small spiral notepad.

“Did Conroy have any enemies?” Frank asked.

Nicky gave him a dead-eyed look. “Hey, everybody’s got enemies. The kid was a bartender, not a priest. I think he's from Texas, but I don’t ask for life stories when guys come in looking for a job. You wanna see his application?”

“Yes.” Nicky needed a dope-slap. And a better hair stylist. Frank scanned the application. “No next of kin listed.”

“I guess that means I don’t gotta send his last paycheck to anybody.”

He glanced at Miller. “You set with the names, Kenyon?”

“Yes, but we need a way to contact them.”

Nicky held out another sheet of paper. “Here’s their phone numbers.”

“You got a copy machine?” Miller asked.

Nicky made a show of looking around the office. “Gee, I don’t see one, do you?”

Frank wanted to ram a fist down his throat. Nicky wasn’t going to give them squat. At this point they didn’t know if the slug that killed Conroy came from the same gun that killed Peterson, but he'd been in law enforcement long enough to know that whatever could go wrong usually did. Vobitch had put a rush on the ballistics tests, no telling when they'd get the results.

“In that case," he said, "I guess we’ll have to take this one with us.”

“Hey," Nicky said, outrage written large on his jowly face. “I need it. One of ‘em doesn’t show—”

“We’ll return it after we make a copy. Thanks for your time, Mr. Abate.”

As they returned to the bar, Miller muttered, "Asshole."

They took seats at the bar and Miller waved the bartender over. “What can you tell us about Lawrence Conroy?”

The barman, a twenty-something guy with a droopy ginger-colored moustache and a ring in one nostril, frowned. “You mean Tex?”

“Is that what you call him?” Frank said.

“Yup. He’s a good ol’ boy from Texas, wears a cowboy hat all the time, even when he's working.”

Frank glanced at Miller, got back a tiny nod. After hearing about the body in City Park, the uniform that patrolled the park that day reported seeing someone in a cowboy hat in a powder-blue Cadillac parked near where Tex Conroy's body was found. According to the patrol officer only one person was in the car, but other than the cowboy hat he couldn't give a description. 

“Were you and Tex friends?” Miller asked.

“Not really.” Looking anxious, he said, “Is he okay?”

“Someone found him in City Park last night," Frank said. "Shot dead.”

The barman didn’t seem too upset, didn’t seem surprised, either. Maybe he’d seen the late news last night and put two and two together. 

“Did Tex have a girlfriend?” Miller asked.

“Yeah. She came in a few times. Quiet little gal. I don’t know her name.”

“How about the other bartenders?” Frank asked. “Did anyone know him well?”

The guy sucked the end of his mustache into his mouth and screwed up his face. At last he said, “Ask Benita. She knew him better than anyone.”

Miller checked his notepad. “Benita Gonzales. And your name is?”

“Arthur Miller.” The bartender grinned. “Not the guy that wrote plays. If I was a bigshot writer like Arthur Miller I wouldn’t be working in this dump. And don’t be thinking Tex’s girlfriend shot him. That little gal’s too mousy, wouldn’t kill a cockroach if it was crawling up her arm.”

Nice image. They left and got in the car quick to escape the brutal heat.

“Wouldn’t kill a cockroach,” Miller said. "Hell, it’s the quiet ones you gotta watch out for.”

Frank chuckled. “Like Tanya?”

Miller looked at him, deadpan. “The day Tanya’s quiet is the day I’ll really start to worry. Let’s go see Benita.” 

_____

Her plane landed at Logan Airport at 9:53. During the two-and-a-half-hour flight she'd dozed fitfully, jolted awake by ghastly faces with dead eyes.
Bone-weary, she edged into the crowded aisle. Last night at the Atlanta airport she'd bought the last copy of Friday's
Times-Picayune.
The Peterson murder was all over the front page, including his photograph, taken at a business dinner, Arnold smiling broadly as if he'd just closed a lucrative business deal.

No more business for Arnold now.

No more smiles, either.

The cops weren’t saying much, but that didn't reassure her. Either they had no idea what happened or they did and they weren’t saying. Nothing in the paper about an unidentified man found dead in City Park. Early this morning she had pinned a chestnut-brown fall to her hair and used her Robin Adair ID to board the plane. 

Chinese proverb:
All warfare is based on deception.

The shrill cries of a cranky baby cut into her thoughts, and the crush of passengers in the aisle began to move. Towing her suitcase, s
he hustled up the gateway and raced through the terminal to the Logan Express bus stop.

Several people sat inside the glassed-in cubicle.

Five minutes later she boarded a bus to Nashua, New Hampshire.

_____

They talked to Benita Gonzales at a coffee shop near her apartment. When they told her Tex was dead, she seemed much more upset than the bartender. She didn’t cry but her eyes welled up. An attractive woman in her twenties, she had thick brown hair, brown eyes and a gold ring in one nostril.

Was body piercing a requirement for bartending, Frank wondered.

“Do you know if Tex had any enemies?” he asked.

Benita sipped her foamed latte, considering. At last she said, “Not that I know of. But he didn't treat his girlfriend very nice, I can tell you that.”

“Anything you can tell us might help us find the killer,” Miller said.

Her eyes widened. “Whoa! I didn’t mean that I thought she killed him!”

“Of course not.” Miller gave her a reassuring smile. “What’s her name?”

“Maryanne. I don’t know her last name. She only came in a few times when Tex was working. I don’t think he wanted her there. He used to flirt with the customers.” Benita wrinkled her nose and her nose-ring waggled. “If he’d been my boyfriend, I’d have called him on it, but Maryanne seemed timid. One time she had a bruise near her eye and when I asked how she got it, she said she ran into a door. The usual bullshit.”

Benita rolled her eyes. “Sorry for the language.”