Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 08 - Death in the French Quarter (14 page)

Rubbing my eyes, I muttered, “Can’t it wait? I’m not
used to getting up this early.”

“No. It’s important. Real important.”

“Okay. I’ll turn on the light.”

“Don’t” He closed the door. “No lights.”

Now, he had me concerned. “What’s wrong, Julie?
You in some kind of trouble?”

“It ain’t me, Tony. It’s you”

I forgot all about sleep. “Me? Why?” I had a sinking
feeling.

“Listen, Tony. I know you was out at the cemetery”

My eyes narrowed. I squinted into the darkness that
was his face. “What are you talking about? I wasn’t at
no cemetery”

“I saw you, Tony. I saw you leave. Tonight was my
night to watch the place. Just after Mule went in, you
came out”

His words knocked the wind out of me. I tried to
bluff my way through. “Not me. Must have been someone like me.”

“Come on, Tony. It was you. I know it was” He hesitated. “Look, if it was just me, I’d tell you to keep your
nose out of the business, but it ain’t just me”

The hair on the back of my neck bristled. “Oh?”

“Yeah. When he first went down there tonight, Punky
thought he heard something. Bones had us search the
place, but we couldn’t find nothing. Then later when we
was leaving, Bones had us search all the tunnels again, and in one of them, dust was scraped off them shelves
where they keep them old coffins. Somebody had been
up there.”

I licked my lips. “So?”

“So, Bones is going to ask you where you was. He
sent Punky by your place around two or so, and you
was gone.”

“Naturally,” I replied with short laugh. “I, ah, was
visiting a friend. I just got back here about an hour ago”

“Look. Me, I don’t care. I like you, Tony. You helped
me. I like hanging around with you. I sure like the idea
of you and me going into business like we talked about
over at the Country Grocery. “I just don’t want nothing
bad to happen to you”

“You plan on telling Bones you saw me?”

He paused for several long seconds. “No. I’m covered.
If he finds out you was there, I’ll just tell him I dozed off.
He’ll get ticked and slap me around, but that’s all”

I chewed on my bottom lip, undecided as to how
much I should confide in Julie, if any at all. I decided to
say nothing of my true purpose. In a conspiratorial
tone, I said, “Between you and me, I was nosing
around, wondering what he was up to. That’s all, Julie.
The gospel truth. I wouldn’t lie to you” I felt like a heel.

“But you saw everything.”

“Yeah, but, I won’t say nothing about it.”

I could see his head nod in the darkness. “Maybe the
best thing for you to do, Tony, is to leave New Orleans.
Bones can be mean when he wants to”

“Mean? Like what?” I held my breath.

“Oh, all kinds of things. I ain’t never seen it, but
some of the guys say Bones has put the hit on three or
four dudes that crossed him.”

My heart thudded, but I forced my voice to remain
casual. “Here in New Orleans?”

“Some. I ain’t sure. He’s only been here a few
months. The way they talked, some of them was where
he come from. I don’t know where that was. He’s never
said nothing to me about it.”

I knew what Bones would do if he knew I were the
one in the catacombs, but I asked Julie anyway, hoping
to elicit from him a sense of protectiveness for me.
“What would he do if he knew?”

“I don’t know. He likes you. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t
have thrown the party for you, but I don’t think that
would stop him from getting rid of you.”

My blood ran cold. I blew out through my lips. “That
was a stupid stunt on my part, Julie. I can promise you,
it’ll never happen again. Give me a break.”

The young man grunted. “Like I said, I ain’t saying
nothing about it.”

“Thanks, Julie. I owe you, big time.”

He laughed softly. “But, you got to buy breakfast at
Rigues’ this morning.”

“It’s a deal.”

He hesitated. “Tony. Did you mean it about you and
me going into business together?”

I was glad the room was dark so he couldn’t see the
blush rising from my neck to my face. I felt sorry for
the kid. From what he had told me, he came into the world with nothing, and everything went downhill from
there. “Yeah, Julie. I meant it.”

“Great. Okay, time for me to beat it.” He opened the
door, peered into the dimly lit hall, then slipped out.

I stood in the dark for several minutes, planning my
next step.

Feeling my way through the dark room, I slid a
wicker chair in the closet and retrieved my cell phone.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I erased my address
book and all voice mail messages, just in case the
phone should fall into the wrong hands.

Just before eight, I made my way to the Cafe du
Monde, ostensibly for coffee and beignets if anyone
were watching, but in reality because I figured with the
crowds always frequenting the cafe, no one would pay
attention to a plain guy like me on a cell phone. After
picking up my au lait and beignet, I took a table at the
rear of the pavilion.

Jimmy LeBlanc had just walked in his office when I
called. While I spoke in a guarded tone, my eyes constantly swept the customers thronging into the cafe.
“I’ve got some good stuff, Jimmy. They’re smuggling
weapons”

He tried to interrupt, but I continued. “Look, I’m at
the Cafe du Monde. I don’t have time to tell you any
more, but contact Saint-Julian. If anyone asks her, I was
with her until around four this morning.”

“If you’ve got something, Boudreaux, get in here and
spill it. We’ll take it from there.”

“Not yet. Listen to me, when you take Bones, I want
it to be for felony murder, not just smuggling. You know
as well as me that those shyster lawyers can twist the
judicial system into corkscrews.”

“Felony murder? Did you find something?”

“Not yet, but this morning one of the gang mentioned a hit on some dudes back in Texas as well as
here in New Orleans.” I paused. “One of them might
have been my young cousin. I can’t let this slime slide
by. I’ve got to find someone who can finger him.”

“It’s too risky.”

“Just a few days, Jimmy, then I’ll give you everything I’ve found.” I deliberately withheld the information that Bones was checking up on me in Austin.

Reluctantly, he agreed.

Upon punching off, I called my boss, Marty Blevins,
so he could find out just which employees of the PI licensing office in Austin were on vacation. “Check the
backgrounds of anyone on vacation. Someone there is a
contact for Bones Guilbeaux. I don’t know how the
guy’s involved, but from what I learned, he might be
tied in with some kind of a hit, maybe Paul-Leon
Savoie or even my cousin, Stewart. Bones might be
blackmailing him. I don’t know. I’m sure the district attorney’s office would like to get its hands on that joker.
It could break a couple cases open”

I glanced up and my heart skipped a beat. Bones
had just emerged from Jackson Square across the
street. He paused at the curb, eyed the early morning
traffic, then quickly dashed across the street. Hur riedly, I disconnected from Marty, but just as I did, my
phone rang.

Muttering a curse, I cupped my hand on the phone
and answered. It was LeBlanc. “I contacted SaintJulian. You were in Room Three-one-seven at the
Lafitte Inn in the French Quarter. We got us a good
cover down there. You’re home free. Got it?”

“Got it.” Hastily, I punched off and jammed the
phone in my pocket.

I leaned back in my chair. A wave of relief washed
over me. Another bullet dodged.

But deep inside, I knew that sooner or later, a bullet
would come along that I couldn’t dodge.

To my dismay the bullet came sooner than I anticipated.

Bones gave me a crooked smile as he wound his way
through the crowded tables in my direction, but the
smile couldn’t hide the look of wariness in his eyes.
“Hey, Tony. How’s the man?” He slipped in at the table
and gestured to one of the bored young waitresses in
the full-service area.

“Can’t complain,” I remarked casually, taking a bite
of beignet and washing it down with coffee. “You?”

He shrugged, a shrewd gleam in his dark eyes.
“Same.” The lanky Redbone glanced up as a young girl
with a bored expression on her face slipped a mug of
coffee in front of him. While he stirred sugar into his
cup, he remarked with a hint of wry humor, “You’re a
hard man to keep track of.”

Every muscle in my body tightened. I answered noncommittally. “Oh? Why’s that?”

“Oh, no reason,” he replied with a shrug. “I thought
you might be interested in seeing us at work last night,
but we couldn’t run you down.”

He was lying, but I played his game. “Wish I’d
known. I’d’ve stayed put. I didn’t figure there was anything going on for the next couple weeks like you said.”

Bones looked at me expectantly. I hesitated, wondering if I should provide him the information he was
seeking or just wait him out to see if he would ask, but
that was one decision I didn’t have to make.

At that moment, Saint-Julian, in a white midriff halter and matching skin-tight shorts that showed off her
tanned arms and legs to full advantage, strolled up to
the table and smiled becomingly down at me. “Where’d
you go this morning, Tony? You were gone when I
woke up.”

For a moment, I was speechless, but Bones unknowingly gave me the jump-start I needed. With a crooked
grin, he eyed Saint-Julian appreciatively. “I thought you
had better sense than leaving a pretty young thing like
this behind, Tony.”

Saint-Julian glanced at Bones, and spoke to me.
“Who’s your friend, Tony?” Before I could stammer,
stutter, or splutter, she offered her hand to Bones. “I’m
Misti.”

He took her hand almost sensually. “They call me
Bones”

For a moment, she left her hand in his, then smoothly withdrew it and winked at me. “You know
where to find me, Tony. Don’t be a stranger.” And she
turned on her heel and sashayed seductively back to the
street.

Bones whistled. “For someone new in town, you get
around. Where’d you meet her? I never seen her
around.”

“One of the bars down on Decatur. I don’t remember
which one I met her in. I got nothing else to do except hit
the bars,” I replied in a none too subtle effort to suggest
my impatience in having to wait a couple weeks.

If he caught my hint, Bones gave no sign of it. “She
ain’t a bad looker. She got a place around here?”

“Beats me. We went to the Lafitte Inn last night. I
guess it’s her place, Room Three-one-seven”

“Lafitte, huh? Ain’t that down on Bienville?”

I recognized his attempt to trip me up. To my dismay, I had no idea of the location of the hotel. All I
knew was that, according to LeBlanc, it was the French
Quarter. “Can’t prove it by me. I was snockered when I
went in, and three-quarters asleep when I came out. I
don’t know how far I walked before I found my hotel
this morning. I think I must have crossed Decatur Street
a dozen times,” I said, laughing. “I was lost as a goose”

Bones eyed me suspiciously, then sipped at his coffee and cast a glance in the direction Saint-Julian had
disappeared. “She’s choice.”

I knew what was on his mind; I resisted the almost
overpowering urge to smash a chair between his eyes
for those thoughts. “Yeah.”

He downed the last of his coffee and shoved back
from the table. “Well, got to go. See you around” The
lanky Redbone paused and eyed me curiously. “Hang
around. We might have us a party tonight. Rigues’.
About nine.”

Watching his retreating back, I wondered what was on
his mind. He didn’t strike me as the gullible type. Had he
believed our little yarn? I just hoped LeBlanc and SaintJulian had followed through on our cover story.

On impulse, I stopped a young waitress. “Excuse me,
miss. Can you tell me how to get to the Lafitte Inn?”

She smiled brightly. “One street over to Royal, then
take a left. It’s about four or five blocks down”

So, Bones had tried to trip me. I would have to be
even more careful. I glanced at my watch. Almost nine.
Still an hour before meeting Julie at Rigues’ for coffee.

From where I was sitting, I could see the passing
tourists. Idly, I watched them, and then I spotted Ziggy
of the spiked hair lounging outside the Plantation
Restaurant on the corner of Decatur and St. Ann across
the narrow street. They young man was doing his best
to keep an eye on me without appearing obvious.

On impulse, I slipped out the rear of the pavilion and
made my way back north behind the Cafe du Monde
and the adjacent shops for a couple blocks until I was
well behind Ziggy. Then, mingling with the tourists, I
slipped through the French Market and circled the
block, leaving the hapless young man watching the cafe.

While waiting for Julie in the shade of the oaks across the promenade from Rigues’, I pondered my
next step. Whatever it was, I had to be careful. Ziggy’s
presence was ample proof that Bones had no more trust
for me than he had for an angry cottonmouth in his bed,
and he would handle me with the same abrupt dispatch
as he would the snake.