Cold Blood (29 page)

They turned back and continued walking at a slow, unhurried pace.

“You ever think about it?”

Rooney asked.

“Think about what?”

Rosie said.

“Starting up another family?”

Rosie stopped, looking up into his big round face.

“I think about it all the time, Bill, but I’m forty-two now”

An empty cab passed and Rooney interrupted her as he stepped out on the cobbled road to flag it down.

“What’s the name of our hotel, Rosie?”

Rooney bellowed.

“The Saint Marie,”

she said as Rooney opened the passenger door.

The cabdriver nodded, about to do a U-turn when Rooney leaned forward.

“We far from the old Convention Center?”

“No, sah, two-minute ride.”

Rooney looked at Rosie.

“Might as well just drive past, huh?”

“Sure, Bill.”

“You know anything about a new casino complex near here?”

Rooney asked the cabbie.

I

“I heard they bin thinkin’ about it. These rich guys keep on sayin’ they’re creatin’ work for the locals but it’s a load of hogwash. They bring in outsiders, don’t-hire locals, not classy enough, so they say, not intelligent enough to deal a pack o’ cards. Good enough to spend their money there, though. They is corrupt, this whole city is corrupt, an’ I know it, my cousin is a cop.”

“You don’t say,”

said Rooney, leaning forward.

Nick had walked a little farther than he meant: he’d followed Dauphine quite a ways, glad to get away from the bright lights, and then taken a left somewhere. He was bored now with the cheap bar; it must once have been a strip joint, and still had the pink light to make gray-fleshed and jaded girls look younger, and the stage surrounded by sheets of uneven mirror tiles. Old electric cable and piping now hung off the walls, which were covered in tacky seventies posters, and even the red light couldn’t conceal the dirt and neglect. Some young guys played the video poker machines, while an elderly jazz four-piece played with surprising verve and expression under the old glitter ball.

The guys were good, but Nick had had enough, so he signaled the waitress to get his check and she sauntered over. Two kids started screaming at an old black dude who had been sitting on a barstqpl for almost as long as Nick had been in the bar. The old guy had played a set and he was a real good horn player. When he had been on, the place had been jumping. One of the kids pushed at the old man, wMfc-rocked dangerously on his stool. Nick kept one eye on them as he flicRd out his wallet, paying the lazy waitress, who seemed more interested in her tip than in the fracas.

The two boys, both black, were really yelling now.

“We paid you, man, we want the goods, man, you owe us.”

The barman was easing down to the bar phone, his eyes out on stalks. The kids got louder.

Nick was almost at the door when the gun came out. There was a hushed silence. No one seemed to want to make a move.

“Gonna blow your fuckin’ head off.”

The muzzle of the gun was rammed into the old man’s face.

Everything in Nick was telling him to walk away. But there was something about the old dude and his beat-up trombone.

“Hey, take it easy, kid.”

The boy turned, waving his Magnum, and close up Nick could see he was well spaced out.

“Who you tellin’ to take it easy, motherfucker? Stay out o’ this, none o’ your business.”

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Nick came even closer.

“You threatening me?”

“You want your head blown off, man?”

Nick eased into position just behind the old man, who was shaking badly.

“Sonny, I suggest you put that big mama away and cool down because you are kind of making this whole place jumpy.”

“You a cop?”

“Nope, just a guy enjoyin’ an evening out.”

Nick smiled, then made his move. He was fast, jabbing the kid hard in the groin and at the same time twisting his arm hard up behind his back.

“Drop it…”

The gun clattered to the floor. Nick kicked it away but not one person reached for it.

“Get the fucking gun, man,”

Nick said to the old man, who eased off his stool, placed the trombone on the bar and picked up the gun.

“Okay, now everything’s cool. You two walk out and chill out.”

Nick pushed the stoned kid off him. He fell onto his backside, and as his friend hauled him up onto his feet his mouth was frothing with fury.

“I’ll get you, motherfucker.”

They ran out, still shouting abuse as Nick helped the old man back onto his stool.

“You okay?”

“Sure, brother. You wanna beer?”

Nick didn’t, but he nodded his head. The barman removed the weapon and placed a chilled beer on the counter.

The old man turned to the band.

“You guys lost your wind?”

The band started up and the bar buzzed as the old man gave the barman orders to serve drinks on the house. He then turned his lined face to Nick, and when he smiled he displayed four gold teeth, two top, two bottorn.

“This is my place, my bar, who the fuck are you?”

“Nick, Nick Bartello.”

The gnarled hand gripped Nick’s.

“Name’s Fryer Jones. That was a real nice move you just perrformed, you a cop?”

“Was, long time ago.”

“Ah,”

Fryer said as he slurped his beer.

“What was that about?”

The old man fingered his trombone.

“Nothin’ much. Happens most nights, they get high. I got to pay a pot of protection and you can see the place ain’t a gold mine. We call the cops an’ they ask for even more dough. Sometimes we just let ‘em shoot up the place a bitdon’t bother me, why should it, I had my day.”

Nick drank his beer, and another bottle was placed down in readiness.

185

“So you deal on the side, huh?”

The old guy chuckled.

“For somebody that ain’t no cop y’all sure ask a lot of questions.ŤWhat the fuck you doin’ in this area anyway?”

“I’ve been hired to trace Anna Louise Caley.”

Fryer kissed his teeth.

“Ah, little Caley gal, been a lot ‘bout her in print.”

“So you know who I’m talking about.”

Nick hadn’t really anticipated such a direct reply.

“Know her mama, everyone knows Eeelizabeth Caley, man. And if you want some advice

“

“Take any you’ve got,”

Nick said, liking the old man.

“Git your ass outta here or you’ll get burned real bad, man.”

“Why?”

“Just like I said, lotta people been here before you.”

“What, to this bar?”

Fryer chuckled, shaking his head.

“Nah, man, the city is jumpin’ right now, afloat with millions of bucks, and just a handful gettin’ the pickin’s … it creates a deep murky pond. Dig up some of the slime and like I said, you’ll git yo’self in bad trouble, might have even got yourself into some tonight. Those two kids …”

Fryer fingered his trombone.

“They got heavy connections.”

“Didn’t look too heavy to me.”

Nick drained his beer.

“Nothin7 is how it looks, man. Some got connections to gangsters, some got deep roots, and I’m just givin’ you some friendly advice. Now if you’ll excuse me, I got my second set comin’ ui^J like to keep my wheels oiled.”

P

Nick got off his stool as Fryer unwound from his neck what looked like small animal bones bound with a leather strip.

“Here, brother, wear this, and go easy now. Help ward off evil, they’re the real thing. Go easy now.”

Fryer watched Nick walk out, then turned to his barman with a halfraised eyebrow.

“Crazy fucker.”

He signaled to a young guy drinking solo at the far end of the dark bar, who immediately took off after Nick.

The barman stashed Nick’s empty beer bottles in a crate beneath the bar. Right by the side of the crate was a double-barreled shotgun: if Nick Bartello hadn’t stepped in to help Fryer, the kids were within inches of getting their heads blown off. But he was not to know, Fryer Jones was old and he hadn’t survived this long without taking good precautions. There were a number of dudes quietly drinking who were ready to step in, but Fryer usually took care of things his own way, and unless they got a nod from him they left him to it.

“Lookin7 for that little Caley girl,”

Fryer said as he sucked at his trom-

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bone piece, wiping it down on his dirty shirt front. The barman washed out some glasses, gave a dead-eyed stare around as the place was filling up. Nothing really kicked off until after midnight, when a lot of the regulars would come in from their work at other clubs and restaurants. Some of the musicians, having trotted golden oldies all night, needed to jam, and played at Fryer Jones’s bar. These sessions were almost a nightly ritual, and a lot of hookers would drift in at dawn to have a few beers and a dance before crashing out to sleep the day away.

Fryer made his way to the small raised platform with the old beat-up plastic chairs, a microphone and sound box circa 1956. He patted a few shoulders, then stopped by a young black girl with her hair plaited and decorated with metal beads. She was fanning herself with a folded-up newspaper, eyes closed, her cheap synthetic version of a satin slip dress clinging to her young pubescent body, showing off rather than hiding her small tits with their large brown nipples.

“Hi, Sugar May, your mama know you’re out this late?”

“Yeah, she knows. I wanna be a singer, Fryer, she knows I hang out here, she don’t care either way.”

“Mmm, you said you were gonna stay with your aunty in LA, said you needed two hundred bucks, so how come you’re not singing at one of them Hollywood clubs?”

Sugar May shrugged her pretty little shoulders.

“Mah brother took mah money, FryerRaoul’d take mah cherry if I didn’t keep my legs crossed. He’s been gone a few weeks now. So you gonna let me sing?”

Fryer looked around, then bent really close to Sugar May, gripping her braids so he drew her head back.

“You tell that mama of yours if she send any mo’ your relatives squeezin’ me for protection I’ll shove my trombone right up her ass. That was dumb, hear me, girl?”

“I didn’t know my brothers was comin’, Fryer, they’re just stoned.”

“They shoot their mouths off, threaten me with an old pistol in front of my cli-hon-telle, Sugar May, an’ one of ‘em was an outsider.”

“I’ll tell her, Fryer, I will truly, and I wasn’t lyin’ about going to stay with Aunt Juda, honest I wasn’t.”

Fryer released his hold on her braids.

“You also tell her the guy was looking into Anna Louise Caley, and this one don’t look like he’ll be bought off. He was here, right? So maybe he knows somethin’. And now get your tight little ass home.”

Sugar May eased away from him, scared, her big brown eyes wide as the old man creaked up onto the platform. She didn’t dare push for singing tonight, but she’d push those two dumb bastards that made a show of themselves. She’d most certainly tell on them.

Nick Bartello crashed out on one of the many beds in his hotel room, without even undressing or removing Fryer’s leather thong with the animal bones from around his neck. He liked it, it reminded him of his hippie days. He hadn’t noticed he’d had a tail on him from the moment he left Fryer’s bar.

Edith Corbello, Juda Salina’s sister and weighing two hundred pounds, was asleep in front of the TV set. The house was one of a run-down, onestory row, with a sagging felt roof and maybe ten feet of battered frontage facing the street. There was a veranda all right, tiny, the front railing missing half its posts, but even on fine evenings Edith rarely sat outthere wasn’t much enjoyment in looking across a vacant lot full of weeds at the raised section of the I-10’s concrete underparts, or the trash stuck on the barbed wire around a disused warehouse, or the slack utility cables slung right in front of the house; she just stayed put and dreamed. Edith woke with a start when Sugar May nudged her.

“Fryer is blazin’, Mama. Willy and Jesse went into the bar tonight threatenin’ him and waving a gun around. He also said there was some guy asking questions about Anna Louise Caley, an’ he sajd this one didn’t look like he’d go away easy.”

Edith Corbello eased herself onto her big flat feet, her swollen ankles spilling over on her heels. She was wearing djfcty old slippers, about the only thing her bloated feet could get into.

“I swear, I’m gonna teach them both a lesson. I’m gonna scare the fuck out of them both.”

“They were stoned, Mama,”

Sugar May added, almost gleefully, and received a swipe to her head from Edith.

“An’ you should be in bed, go on, git out. Out!”

Edith shuffled to the door and into the dark hallway. She passed the closed door to her

“company”

parlor, making her way down to the back of the stifling hot kitchen. She looked in. The place was filthy, grease on the walls and floors, littered with old takeout cartons and empty beer bottles and stinking of decaying food and cigarettes. She pulled the cord of a rickety ceiling fan and pushed open the screen door to the yard. Willy and Jesse were flat out, one on a hammock and the other on the backseat of an old wrecked car. For her size she moved fast, picking up a broom, and with one swing she brought it down first on Jesse’s head and then sideswiped Willy, so that he fell out of the hammock with a scream.

“I’m gonna fix you both good, I warned you. What’s this about you going down Fryer’s place, shooting more’n your yapping mouths off?”

The broom swished again, catching Jesse in the eye. He howled as Willy tried to dodge it, but she clipped him hard on the top of his head, and he sank to his knees, holding on to his head with the flat of his hands. Her breath heaved in her chest, her eyes bulged and the sweat streamed off her body.

“Pair o’ you git in that kitchen and make it presentable, then you come see me in the front parlor. You’re gonna have to make good with Fryer or so help me God I’ll put a snake in your guts, an’ you know I don’t make empty threats. Move!”

She sank onto the old car seat, tossing the broom aside. Since Raoul had left she’d had her hands full with those two, and sometimes she just got so angry with Juda. All that money she was making, while she was still living in a pile of ramshackle rooms with four kids. She wished she had never set eyes on that rich bitch Elizabeth Caley.