Jack saw Franklin de Dios’s calm eyes staring at him and he put his hand to his face, elbow on the roof of the car. “The mighty Mississippi, that’s a thought. The current’d take ’em clear down to Pilot Town. If they can swim.”
“You wouldn’t want to weight ’em down none?”
“I thought we might give ’em a chance.”
Now Crispin Reyna was speaking, saying they were fucking dumb cops and they had better call their superior right now. “I tell you we have the permission to be here.”
“On second thought,” Jack said, “how about drop ’em in the Outlet Canal? They’ll be in the Gulf before morning.” He saw Roy, taller than Franklin de Dios, nodding.
“Less you want to take ’em to the graveyard of strangers.”
“Where’s that?”
“John the Baptist Parish, in the swamp. They say if all the bodies dumped there ever stood up, man, you’d have a crowd could fill the Superdome.”
“It’s hard,” Jack said, “isn’t it?”
What they couldn’t do was let them go just yet. Lucy would need an hour or so free of worry and looking over her shoulder. So they put Franklin de Dios and Crispin Reyna in the trunk of the Chrysler, Crispin bilingual in his protests, but finally got them spooned against each other like a couple of Angola sweethearts in the Big Stripe dorm, Roy telling them to mind and he’d let them out after while.
They discussed the guns for a minute, both 9-millimeter Berettas. Beauties, Roy said, better than those six-shooter Smiths cops had to pack when he was on the force. They stuck the guns under the front seat of Jack’s car, then had a discussion on the best place to leave the Chrysler, with the key in the ignition. Jack mentioned City Park, West End. Roy mentioned out toward Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish there were a lot of good places. Jack said, Yeah, and nobody would ever find them either. Roy said, Well, where we going after? Jack said he thought they may as well get the show on the road; stop by the St. Louis Hotel, find out what room the fundraiser was in and what the setup looked like. Roy said, Well, shit, we’ll drop these dudes off on the way.
That’s what they did. Roy drove the Chrysler with Jack following behind and left it on Tchoupitoulas near Calliope, where they used to park cars for the World’s Fair. As Roy got in the Scirocco Jack was grinning, waiting to tell him, “It’s too bad we can’t stay and watch. Some guy’s gonna come along and take off with that Chrysler. Be driving down the street and wonder what in the hell that noise is, coming from the trunk. Like somebody pounding to get out. Or he hears a voice calling to him like it’s from far away, ‘Help, señor, help.’ ”
Roy said, “Delaney, you’re a weird fucker, you know it?”
Jack didn’t say anything. He felt pretty good, the way things were going.
10
* * *
THEY PARKED AT A CAB STAND on Bienville. Roy, who would never get over having been a cop, said it was all right; he knew the cabbies and if they didn’t like it, fuck ’em. The St. Louis Hotel was right across the street.
Jack sat at a table in the big center courtyard, ordered vodka and a scotch when the waiter finally appeared. He asked the waiter if it was a slow night. The waiter said it seemed to be. Where was everybody? The waiter said they must be out having a good time.
Out on Bourbon Street bumping into each other, the whole bunch of them aimless, probably thinking, this is it, huh? The street a midway of skin shows and tacky novelty shops. The poor guys at Preservation Hall and the other joints playing that canned Dixieland, doing “When the Saints” over and over for the tourists in the doorways. There was some good music around, if Al Hirt was in town or you found a group with Bill Huntington playing his standup bass or Ellis Marsalis somewhere. His boy Wynton had left town with his horn to play for the world.
It didn’t matter, there was enough to see and you could always eat. Maybe it was because he lived here he didn’t understand why anyone would bother with Bourbon Street. If he came to town from somewhere else he’d sit right here and watch the lights in the fountain as he sipped his drink, soothed, in the shade of magnolias and japonicas at night, the whole courtyard all the way up bathed in a pale orange glow.
If he came from out of town he would look at the upper floors, at the white porch railings that ran all the way around the four sides and see doors to guest rooms and dark shutters decorating the windows, the hallways up there open to the courtyard. He would sit here as he was sitting now and decide you wouldn’t necessarily be seen going into somebody else’s room, but it could give you a funny feeling, being exposed like that, standing with your back to this whole place.
The fundraiser was in 501, top floor, the suite in the alcove there, right off the elevator. The desk clerk said he was out.
Roy was checking to see if he knew any of the help. If he didn’t it would be the only hotel in the Quarter. Roy said it was good to have a lot of friends. Especially if they owed you. He used to have a girl friend who lived on Bienville up just past Arnaud’s, a call girl named Nola Roy said did a better lunch business than the restaurant. He said she was a pretty thing and sweet as could be till her life closed in on her. That was the trouble with broads. On the one hand they made the best snitches, they were born to be informants, especially whores. But on the other hand they became emotional and didn’t know when to shut up.
“Now that I know that,” Roy had said, “what the fuck am I gonna do with it here?” Telling Jack the story after they met at Angola and became friends.
“This was a sweet kid I’m talking about. Didn’t look atall like a whore. She was demure, had this little tiny voice. ‘Oh, Roy, I didn’t have you as my friend I’d be smacked out twenty-four hours a day.’ ”
“That’s all you were?”
“Hey, friends can go to bed, can’t they? Two people misunderstood at home. My old woman, Rosemary, all she did was bitch that I was never home. You see her, you’d know why. And Nola was married to a guy was a half-assed bookmaker. You probably knew him, Dickie Duschene, sometime they call him Dudu, had a place upstairs on Dauphine. He’s making book and she’s hooking, so they didn’t have what you call a home life. The deal was, I’d stop by and Nola’d tell me her troubles, or anything she might’ve heard would be of interest to me. You know, stuff she picked up on the street or from Dickie. And my part of the deal, I’d look out for her and wouldn’t hassle ’em none, let ’em go about their business. One day I’m over there she’s sniffling and nervous like she’s strung out or somebody died. I ask her, ‘What’s wrong, precious?’ Nola pulls a trash bag out of the closet has thirty grand in it, all fifties and hundreds. I tell her, ‘My, you been working your cute little tail off, haven’t you?’ She says Dickie gave it to her but she’s afraid to keep it in the apartment. She gets a john every once in a while will go through her things. She says some freak’s liable to rip her off, so would I keep it for her. She says the money’s from Dickie’s bookmaking and card games in that joint he had, place on Dauphine looked like it was boarded up. Okay, but something doesn’t smell right. He’s gonna let her keep thirty grand in a room guys walk in and out of you don’t know? I said, ‘Hey, Nola, bullshit.’ She says he did, honest. But then tells me a little more. She found out Dickie was going out on her with this nurse at Charity and Nola had a fit. Started breaking things over at his place, so he gave her the thirty grand to calm her down. Only it worked the other way, made her nervous.”
“He gave her thirty, the guy must’ve had a lot more.”
“That’s right, and the guy didn’t run that big of a book. But I take the money home and hide it in a good place, ’cause now I have this tremendous idea. Put the money to work, as the occasion arises, in my continuing fight against crime. Like using a confiscated car on surveillance? Use some of the scratch to pay off informants. Get these assholes tripping over each other to tell me stuff.”
“Don’t they lie to you?”
“Sure they do, it’s their nature. You got to jam a snitch, get him against the w
all. Fella’s dealing against a third fall, he tells you where this other fella’s gonna be with a load of smack on him, only he ain’t there. So you tell the guy, ‘He ain’t there the next time, asshole, you gonna get triple-billed and go on up to ‘Gola.’ Now, the word’s on the street I’m paying off, shit, I got ’em lined up like I’m hearing confession. Listen, I’d get phone calls in the middle of the night, which Rosemary would answer on account of her sour fucking disposition kept her awake. And if it was a broad on the phone that was cool, ’cause then Rosemary wouldn’t even look at me for about a week. I got mostly shuck, but not all.”
“You have kids, Roy?”
“My babies are grown up and gone, two fine girls, but they come to see me.” Meaning, to Angola.
“Go on with the story.”
“Talking about snitches . . . there was a case I was working on, a Wells Fargo stickup in Jackson, Mississippi, where some of the money was showing up in New Orleans. The feds already had a lead on four local guys they’re watching. But the feds don’t have any police experience, they use computers, and a computer isn’t worth shit on the street, to get information. You have to get down there in the sewer with the assholes and talk to ’em man to man. One of my ace informants tells me to see a guy at Charity in there with a gunshot wound he says was from a hunting accident. The feds ask him if he hunts with ninety-grain .38s from a Smith and Wesson service revolver. See, they know one of the guys in the Wells Fargo heist was shot on the way out. This guy in the hospital, his wound is through and through, but he doesn’t know that. See, they don’t have a slug, they’re just trying to bullshit him. The day I go see the guy, first thing in the morning, I’m too late. During the night some guy walked in his room, put a pillow over his face, and shot him five times through the pillow. Leaves the gun and walks out. The guy in the next bed saw the whole thing. The nurse tells me they have to change his sheets every time somebody walks in the room now he doesn’t know. I think, hey, this nurse is a cool broad. I begin to wonder about her and a couple days later I meet her for a drink, place there on Gravier, when she gets off her shift. I’m employing now what’s called the swag approach to police work, a Scientific Wild-Ass Guess. We sit down, order Manhattans, the drinks arrive, and I say, ‘Say, how’s your friend Dickie Duschene?’ She just about chokes on her cherry, can’t fucking believe it. The cool nurse is no longer cool. We make a deal and by the time she’s on her fourth Manhattan I’ve been apprised of the fact the guy that got whacked in the hospital expected it, saw it coming while, in the meantime, he was falling in love with the nurse and telling her where he stashed a hundred and fifty big ones, in a locker at the airport. She didn’t know what to do with it, so she gave it to her boyfriend, Dickie, for safekeeping. You see what’s coming? Honest to Christ. Dickie gives Nola thirty grand to keep peace in the family. She gives it to me and I’m using part of the take from the same fucking heist I’m investigating.”
“That’s an amazing story.”
“I’m not done yet. I see where I am, I’m right in the middle of all this shit and I gotta get out, fast. But the cool nurse who’s no longer cool goes immediately to the feds, who’ve been talking to her anyway, and now the fucking daisy chain comes around again. Dickie talks. Nola screams she didn’t do nothing, she gave it to the police, me. The feds and cops both come to the house. They ask, where’s the money? I’m in deep shit if I admit anything. Nobody’s gonna believe I used some of it only to pay snitches. Those administrative assholes don’t understand the value of snitches. They want to get me anyway ’cause I never told ’em dick what I was doing and that infringed on their management position. So I say, ‘What money?’ ”
“Play dumb.”
“Sure, but you know what they did? They take Rosemary aside and question her. I haven’t told her nothing about the money, so I figure I’m home. But then, Jesus, they tell her about my relationship with Nola, dirty bastards, that it was Nola gave me the money. Rosemary says, ‘Oh, is that right?’ They tell her it was thirty grand. It could’ve been thirty cents, it wouldn’t a made any difference. Rosemary opens up her sewing box and takes out a handful of money straps I had taken off the dough each time I got some to pay a snitch and threw the paper straps in the wastebasket. And each time I did, Rosemary dipped in and got it out. Then waited for the right time to stick it in my nose. Finding out about Nola was the time. They trace the bank straps to the Wells Fargo heist, I’m brought up on accessory charges, possession of stolen currency, shit, I’m convicted and draw ten to twenty-five. Rosemary, at the sentencing, she has tears in her eyes. A woman from the TV news asks her how she feels. Rosemary wipes her eyes and says, ‘Thirteen years married to that son of a bitch he barely spoke a word to me. Let’s see how he likes it when nobody speaks to him.’ Meaning in here,” Roy told Jack Delaney at Angola. “A cop trying to make it in the joint.”
Roy appeared, coming past the illuminated fountain. He sat down across from Jack, took a drink of his scotch, then hunched over, his arms laid on the table.
“You have a fire key for this place?”
Jack shook his head, comfortable in the patio chair. “This wasn’t a hotel when I was working. I don’t recall what it was; I think they made it into one. It’s nice, huh? Cozy.”
“You don’t have a key, how you plan to get in the man’s room?”
“Maybe we won’t have to.”
“Then what do we need a burglar for?” Roy said. “What’s your part in this deal?”
“You afraid you’re gonna do all the work?”
“I have so far.”
Was he being serious? Jack wasn’t sure. He got out a cigarette and scratched a hotel match to light it. Roy’s tone was always the same unless he was talking to traffic or a lavatory door, so it was hard to tell. But was he serious at this moment or not?
“I’m gonna follow the guy,” Jack said, “and learn all about him. Where he banks, where he eats his supper. . . . If I have to go in his room I’ll find a way, so don’t worry about it. Okay?”
Roy said, “I’m not worried. I already found you a way.” He sipped his drink, not taking his eyes from Jack, then put on a grin as he said, “You starting to feel some strain?”
It told Jack, yes, Roy had been serious a moment ago and now he was letting up, turning it around. Roy was a friend, but Roy had to be handled with a pair of Leo’s rubber gloves, carefully.
Jack said, “You found somebody working here you know,” and watched Roy put a little more into his grin.
“Guess who.”
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“Black or white?”
“Dark brown. Give you a hint—great big nigger.”
“I know him?”
“There was a time he might’ve killed you, if it weren’t for me.”
Roy was maintaining his importance. Jack said, “It surprises me I even knew how to take a leak before I met you, Roy. This was up at the farm you’re talking about. Lemme think. . . . The time I was watching TV and the hogs came in the room and switched the channel.” He saw Roy nod. One of his first nights in Big Stripe. The lights went off in the dormitory at ten-thirty, but TV could stay on, in the bare room with folding chairs, till twelve.
That same day, just before they blew the yard at six and everybody had to be somewhere, the black con had approached him making a kissing sound, said, “Hey, bitch, I think you my style, yeah,” made that kissing sound again and Jack hit him in his puckered mouth, half turned and threw the punch with a lot of body in it. He took the guy by surprise and decked him the same way he used to do it when he was fifteen and sixteen at the river beach and it was for fun, not a matter of staying free, out of some guy’s bunk after lights out. He had heard guys with each other in the dark, Jesus, and couldn’t believe it. Right after he hit the guy and a crowd began to close in, Roy had walked up and said, “You willing to fight anybody wants you as their gal-boy?” Jack had all his adrenaline there handy and said, “You want to find ou
t?” Roy said, “You need me, Delaney.” Knowing his name already. “There are seventy-one of them and eighteen of us.” Meaning blacks and whites in the dorm. “If you don’t care to be part of a mixed marriage then tell them you’re Roy Hick’s round-the-way. You understand? You’re my home-boy, friend from civilian life. It’ll save you breaking your hands or dying, one.”
Now at the table in the hotel courtyard Roy said, “You were watching ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ and the three hogs come in and switched it to ‘Bugs Bunny’ or some fucking thing.”
Jack said, “ ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ the burglar’s dream program, wasn’t on the air yet. I was watching a movie and I’ll tell you what it was, it was The Big Bounce, a terrible movie, but Lee Grant was in it and I was in love with her at the time. Woman has a wonderful nose. And the hogs, they came in and switched it to ‘Love Boat,’ which I couldn’t stand to watch. So I got up and switched it back.”
“That’s when I came in,” Roy said. “And who was it switched it back to the ‘Love Boat’?”
“Biggest black guy I ever saw—up until the Superbowl and the Refrigerator was playing with the Bears. You mean to tell me Little One is working here at the hotel?”
“He’s a waiter,” Roy said. “I just saw him, pushing a table into the elevator. Little One, that night, he switched the TV back and you didn’t know what to do.”
“You talking about? I would’ve switched it back soon as Little One sat down. You walk in, look at me. You go, ‘What’re you watching this shit for?’ I wasn’t watching it, I was watching the movie.”
“He’d a killed you.”
“He might’ve tried.”
“I told him, ‘Little One, sit down.’ You remember? I told him, ‘You behave, or I won’t let you join the Dale Carnegie Club. Shit, I was on the executive committee and Little One knew it. He was dying to get in the club ’cause you know the man liked to talk. But they wouldn’t let him in account of he was such a mean asshole.”