Now Let's Talk of Graves (20 page)

G.T.'s eyebrows rose. “Now who've you been talking to?”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Nothing good—but what does he have to do with Church?”

“Maybe nothing. I'm feeling my way here.”

G.T.'s eyes focused somewhere deep inside. “You know, I think about Church Lee every day—and dream about him too.
Something
led me to be there when he was killed.”

“What do you mean?” Sam made a mental note to come back later to Jimbo.

G.T. recounted how something had compelled her to drive the ambulance over to St. Charles that evening.

“A feeling, you mean?” When G.T. nodded, Sam went on. “And do you think the Buick hit you on purpose?”

“You know, I've been running that over and over in my mind. I
think
it was an accident.”

“Even though he got you twice?”

“The man was just all over the place, wasn't he? Bouncing out of control.”

“Are we're sure it was a man driving, not a woman?”

“I don't know. We
think
it's a man, don't we? But that's in part because of the mask.”

“Explain.”

“It was a man's face, wasn't it, on the mask.”

“You're right! But whose face? Anybody special? Mickey Mouse or—”

“No, it was just cheap goods you can buy in any store, 'specially in the Quarter. Just a plain old creepy man's face.”

G.T. was smart, paid attention, and had good instincts, the kind of good woman who'd always been dangerous for the bad guys to have around.

“So let's go back. The car hits your ambulance twice, and you think it was an accident. So there's nobody you know who wants to hurt you?”

“Nobody just springs to mind. Except Jimbo King when he's tanked up, maybe, if you want to talk about him. He's not so bad when he's sober.”

“And he has it in for you because of his wife?”

“Umm-hum. He doesn't like it that I've stopped him from killing her a couple of times.”

“
Killing
her?”

“He probably doesn't see it that way. But it's all the same if she ends up dead, isn't it? The way I figure it, anytime a man starts beating up on a woman, there's murder on his mind.”

“I couldn't agree with you more. But let me fill you in on something here—” And then Sam told G.T. about the conversation Harry had overheard in the Pelican. “So you think Jimbo was kidding or not, talking about killing you?”

“That makes it look pretty bad for him, doesn't it? But I don't think he's got it in him to do something that
active,
if you know what I mean. He's the type who would sort of
slide
into something. If it were easy. If it were sitting right there.”

“So, let's try this. He's hired by someone, let's say Maynard, to kill Church. And you just happen along, led there by a hunch, whatever, and he pops you a couple of times after he gets Church, once he sees you, hoping for a twofer.”

“It's an interesting idea. Except I don't think the driver behind that mask was Jimbo King.”

“Why not?”

“Jimbo's over six feet tall. Didn't the driver look a lot shorter than that to you?”

“I'm not sure. Especially in that old car—in the rain and the dark.”

“It
did
happen real fast. But he seemed short to me.”

And that was a very important point. Sam had been focused on Church. What a good idea to talk with G.T., whose attention, it turned out, had been on the driver.

“Now, back to Jimbo, even if he is too tall. Maybe he was scrunched down.”

“Maybe.”

“He was particularly angry with you on that afternoon in the Pelican because the night before you'd helped his wife?”

“Teri. That's right. I took her and the little boy away from the house.”

“Where did you go?”

“To a safe place. I'd rather not say exactly where.”

She was right. The address of a women's shelter was a secret best kept. “Has she gone back to him?”

“No.”

“You know where she is now?”

“I know where she's staying. I know she and the baby are okay.”

“Has Jimbo talked with you since then?”

“No, he glares at me if we run into each other coming out of the house. But I wouldn't say on his best day Jimbo's the world's greatest conversationalist.”

“Has he asked you where she is?”

She shook her head. “He knows better than that. I will tell you something, though. What you said about somebody hiring Jimbo to kill Church? Well, he's been hired to do
something.
Or he's discovered a pot of gold. He has himself a new shiny black car. New clothes. Jimbo King looks like he's hit the mother lode.”

“What do you think? Drugs?”

“Looks like that kind of money. But, unh-huh, I don't think so. Or if it is, he's pretty high up on the hog. There's not been the usual signs, folks coming and going, doorbells ringing day and night.”

“Great. That's great. Now, do you know Maynard Dupree, the man Jimbo was talking with in the Pelican?”

“You think he's put Jimbo up to something? 'Fraid I can't help you, nope. I know the name, of course, from listening to Ida talk about the Lees all my life. I know that he and Church had a running feud, I never knew about what, and I don't know him personally.”

“So you wouldn't know him if you saw him with Jimbo?”

G.T.'s forehead furrowed as she try to put Maynard and Jimbo in the same picture. “No, so I guess I
could
have seen him and not known him. What does he look like?”

“Big man. Heavy. Red-faced. About forty-five. Your standard prosperous Carondelet Street lawyer. I'll see if I can rustle you up a photo.”

“Great.”

“Now let's talk about Zoe.”

G.T.'s mouth turned down, and she shook her head. “What do you want to know? I guess it's no news she's got a whole mess of problems.”

“You know about the drugs?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Harry's tracking down her dealer, thinking there might be something there if Church had gotten wind of who he was. Zoe says his name's Billy Jack.”

“Never heard of him. But if he's supplying Zoe, he must be one heavyweight dude.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I see. You've not got very far with Zoe, if you think she's just using.”

“She's
dealing
?”

“Wheeling and— Ida told me about her habit, says nobody else in the house wants to know about it. I didn't believe it at first, so I kept my eye on Zoe. Did a little asking around. Found out it was more than just a habit. Girl's big time.”

“Why on earth? It's not like she needs the money—unless she's got a
very
serious habit—”

“Blow can get expensive. Then, on the other hand, who knows why people do what they do? Lots of hungry to be filled up in her, Ida says.”

This
presented a whole other scenario. If Zoe were dealing, God only knows what she'd gotten herself into—who might want to get their licks in. Church's death could have been a warning.

G.T. leaned back in her chair. “Did it ever occur to you we could chase ourselves around in circles on this from now till Christmas and it could turn out we're dealing with your basic hit-and-run? Nothing more to it?”

“Just as likely as not. What do your instincts say?”

“I think whatever spirits sent me over to St. Charles to watch Church Lee get killed didn't do it to waste my precious time. I think you've got yourself a serious row to hoe here. And”—she looked out the big arched windows, checking the darkening sky—“I think I've got to get going.”

Sam paid the check, and they stepped out into the early evening. The air smelled of flowers in hanging baskets. Of the brown and muddy river. Of hot sidewalks now cooling in front of restaurants, hosed down by white-jacketed busboys.

They strolled toward the bus stop. “What about Cole Leander?” asked Sam. “You know him?”

“Oh, Lord, yes. One of my uncles works for him at his barn.”

“I was just out there visiting.”

“Uncle Rich says he used to be the meanest man on earth. Then, when he went blind, all of a sudden he got religion.”

“That's what he told me. He said Church—whose surgery blinded him, and he was suing Church, did you know that—?” G.T. nodded. “—Church introduced him to Sister Nadine, who changed his life. Now he's dropping the suit. Does that make sense to you? Or that Church would even know Sister Nadine?”

“I've never been one to predict what rich white men might do.”

They walked by Harry's hangout in the Royal Orleans. Sam looked up at the windows, but he was nowhere in sight.

Now they were standing at the corner of St. Louis and Royal. “Zoe's dealer Billy Jack used to work at Patrissy's on Royal,” Sam said. “Is that near here?”

“Up that way.” G.T. pointed uptown on Royal toward Canal. “Across from the Monteleone.”

* * *

Across the street from Sam and G.T., leaning against the illegally parked white stretch limo belonging to Joe the Horse, was his man, Lavert Washington.

That's what Joey the Horse, Joseph Cangiano to his sainted mother, always called Lavert. My man. He'd gotten the idea from watching
My Man Godfrey,
the original version with William Powell and Carole Lombard—not the remake with David Niven and June Allyson which he'd ripped out of his VCR and asked Lavert to throw down the toilet.

Lavert, who'd been making
tête de veau
at the time in Joey's state-of-the-art kitchen, dropped it down the garbage compactor instead.

Having a man, Joey had thought, some kind of majordomo, would tone up his act as the heaviest of the heavy hitters in the organization—which he had become since his uncle Carlos was spending what looked like would be the rest of his life on a long vacation with the feds. Uncle Carlos, who may or may not have been instrumental in wiring Lee Harvey Oswald to do the dirty deed, had left him Lavert—who at the time had just been a kid of twenty, juking around doing odd jobs, numbers running, moving heavy things, some of them full of cement, etc.—along with his empire and the keys to the house in the Quarter on Governor Nicholls.

Joey had seen Lavert's potential. A, he wasn't stupid, having done a couple of years at Grambling reading the likes of Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald in addition to playing football—before he busted up his knee and lost his scholarship. B, his size
was
impressive, which meant that he was handy to have around, just in case, and he looked great in a cutaway. Joey liked that a lot—watching people's faces when Lavert answered the door. C, and this was the best, which Joey explained when goombas who didn't have better sense asked why he'd taken an
uomo
nero into his organization, the man had a natural talent for the culinary arts, which had developed into something spectacular when Joey sent him to cooking school with Marcella Hazan in Bologna, which was in Italy, and to La Varenne, which was in France.

Now Lavert looked up Royal Street in the direction G.T. was pointing, up toward the Monteleone.

The good old Monteleone.

He never drove past it unless he had to.

Joey kidded him about that a lot.

“My man drives all the way around the block avoiding that hotel. Thinks it's a jinx.”

Let Joey think what he wanted to. Joey knew Lavert had earned his bones, spent his time chopping cotton up in Angola. Lavert knew all about good time, bad time, humongous
bad
mothers who would stare you down in the yard, give you the knee-walking creeps, make even a man the size of Lavert look like a little toad.

But Joey didn't know Lavert had spent time in 'Gola because of the Monteleone.

Sweet stuff in the Monteleone.

Well, indirectly sweet stuff.

He'd had the hots for this little girl named Sharleen who was working there as a maid while she was saving up enough to go to beauty school, and she'd call him over at his mama's house when there was something special in one of her rooms.

He'd go over and check it out—jewelry, cash—whatever it was they left lying around. But he wouldn't take it then. Hotel security would be pointing the finger at Sharleen in about five seconds, it happened more than once.

He'd just bide his time. Lavert was born with the gift of patience. He'd wait and follow them. Tourists sure were fools. Getting drunk, falling down, walking into dark alleys.