The Take (14 page)

She
felt him slipping from her protective grasp, into the waiting arms of a Mexican
siren, whose motives were questionable at best. Even when he was in Houston,
she still could protect him. He would call her when he needed her, and her arms
would reach out across Louisiana and East Texas, where they would wrap around
him, shielding him from the pitfalls and double-crosses of life. But she knew
now that, once he left New Orleans, he would be lost to her forever.

Through
her window, she saw them turn down Burgundy Street. A taxicab honked at the
intersection of Burgundy and St Louis, behind a stalled pickup truck. Off in
the distance, she heard the joyful cry of a steam calliope drifting off the
deck of a big paddlewheeler, just arriving from somewhere upriver.

R
afael Vega
cursed the traffic. It wasn’t supposed to be heavy like this, coming back into
town in the late afternoon. But a stalled eighteen-wheeler and a minor
fender-bender had caused a major pileup, turning the Washburn Tunnel into a
parking lot.

“What
do you think’s gonna happen with Chico?” Tomás asked.

“You
heard the doc. He ain’t never gonna walk again.”

“No, I
mean with the business. The organization.”

Vega looked
at Tomás with wary eyes and turned defensive. “What do you mean by that?”

“You
know. The business. If Chico can’t run it, then you’re
probably the one who —”

Vega’s
coal-chunk eyes narrowed into thin, dark lines.

“Listen
to me, Ese. As long as Chico’s breathing, he’s running the business. I work for
him and so do you. And don’t you forget it.”

“Hey,
man, I didn’t mean nothing by it. It’s just, you know, that if Chico’s laid up
pretty bad, well, we all know that you’re his number one man, and this could be
your opportunity …”

“Opportunity
for what?”

“Hey,
you know, Ese. The opportunity to take over. I mean, we’d all work for you and
everything, because we want —”

Vega
slapped his face. The resounding crack startled Tomas, and Vega could see it
stung.

“I don’t
give a fuck what you
pendejos
want.
Chico’s in charge. I don’t care if he can’t even sit up. He’s still the fucking
boss!” He slapped him again, harder. “If I hear you talking that shit again.”

He
pulled his nine millimeeter semi-automatic from under his cashmere topcoat,
then held it hard to Tomás’ forehead.

“If I
even think you’re talking that shit again,” he said, “you die.
¿
Me entendés?
” Vega could see the chilly fear slinking
into Tomás’ eyes, even though he knew that Tomás was not easily cowed.

The
reply came. “Y-yeah, Ese. I understand, man. I understand.”

Tomás
quaked in the passenger seat under the cold steel against his flesh, while Vega
growled more threats. He pressed the heavy weapon tighter against Tomás,
forcing his head back into the passenger side window. The gun looked
dangerously large in Vega’s small hand, like he wasn’t really up to handling
it. It also looked like it could go off any second, spreading Tomás’ brains all
over the snowy interior of the new Cadillac.

The
thing was, Vega had more than enough backbone to use it, and he knew Tomás had
gotten the picture.

Vega
seemed the natural choice as a successor in the organization. Chico had
fostered his rise up the ladder, and Vega owed him. He had sided Chico all the
way, and he wasn’t going to dump Chico overboard now. Vega wasn’t that kind of
man.

Beneath
the threats, however, he knew all too well what Tomás meant. The word on Chico’s
condition would eventually get out, leading to fast-spreading talk among
certain ranking members of his organization. The general consensus would
undoubtedly be that, while they all wished Chico a speedy
recovery, no one wanted to work for half a
man.

It was
that simple.

A
s they stepped
out of the department store onto Canal Street, blustery winds bit into Eddie
and Felina, causing the shopping bags to nearly blow out of their hands. They
linked arms, then forged headfirst into the fierce gusts. In the fading
daylight, the mercury had dropped off the table, but neither one cared as they
buttoned up their new warm coats just before turning the corner onto Bourbon
Street.

The
street had changed its clothes, its quaint daytime persona retiring for the
evening. The afternoon version, lit by the sun, begged to be seen. Obliging
tourists wandered around aimlessly, looking at everything. With every T-shirt
purchase, they acquired just a little more of the Big Easy to take home with
them. The daytime Dixieland bars served up costly drinks, with only the promise
of the livelier action sundown would bring. Early-shift barkers, pledging
untold delights in the strip joints, were only loosening up their spiels for
the really big show later on.

Night
on the street was something else altogether. Neon-lit and fueled by whiskey, it
begged to be touched, to be felt, to have strange hands softly slide their way
up its bare leg. It offered a quick sniff of perfumed hair, along with the
tantalizing promise of sin away from home. Raunchy bars seemed to explode out
of quiet cafés. Even the T-shirt shops
turned profane, their doorway displays now straddling the cusp of
indecency.

A
couple of blocks up the street, Felina said, “Hey, isn’t this where we were
last night?”

Eddie
looked up. The understated sign said, Louis Philippe Hotel.

“Damned
if it ain’t. That sure was a top-drawer spot. What I c’n remember of it,
anyway.”

“Didn’t
Garner say he was staying there, too?”

“Come
to think of it, he sure did. Hey, whaddya say we get a room? Right here in this
fancy joint.”

“No
baby, that’s not a good idea.”

“Come
on,” he cooed, slipping his arms around her waist. “We c’n take up where we
left off a while ago.”

She
pulled away from him. “No, Eddie.”

“Hey,
why not? I’m Garner now. He was s’posed to be staying here. Maybe they even
kept his room for him.”

Felina
pulled him away from the doorway.

“Look,
you got Garner’s ID. You kind of look like him now with the mustache and
everything, but we can’t go in there. We can’t take the risk. Maybe Garner was
really well-known in there, we don’t know. Remember, he told us he knew all
about this place, knew the owner and everything. He probably was fucking one of
those whores in there on a regular basis. If you try to pass for him, who knows
what would happen. Somebody who really knows him might come up to you. You
wouldn’t know what to say if we ran into someone like that.”

She
flicked a quick glance around her to make sure no one nearby was listening. “Shit,
you don’t even talk like him. They’d spot you right away. We can’t afford even
one slipup. Then she added
“
We’re
out on the edge already.”

He gave
her half a nod, his shoulders sagging a little. She put her palms on his chest,
fondling his new Italian linen shirt.

She
said, “I’ve been trying to tell you, this is our chance. Our one chance to get
away clean with more money than we’ll ever see in our lives. We can’t screw
around right now.”

“Yeah,
I guess … I guess you’re right.”

“Now
let’s get on back to Linda’s and lay low. We don’t know who might be out here.”

She
guided him into the oblivion of Bienville Street, heading toward Linda’s
apartment. Too bad, because he was heating up at the thought of Felina coming
to him in a classy hotel room. But it all subsided the farther away they got
from the quickening Bourbon Street night action.

T
& T’s was
pretty full, even for a Saturday night. The vinyl booths along the wall were
all taken. Only one stool stood vacant at the bar. The TV played the Rockets
game. Few watched.

In the
back, regulars crowded around the pool table, hypnotized by the click of the
heavy balls. Video games chattered, while the jukebox hadn’t stopped all night.
The bartender fired off the drinks nonstop, raking in the dough.

Amid
this barroom baroque, the two topcoated Mexicans entered unnoticed.

They
elbowed their way into the single empty space at the bar. There was a “Hey,
watch it!” from the guy Tomás shoved, but a chilly glare silenced him. Shortly,
the bartender came over to them.

“What’ll
it be?”

“We
want information,” said Vega. He had to raise his voice a little to be heard.

“Information?
What are you lookin’ for?”

”Did
Tony Chávez ever shoot pool in here?”

”Tony who?”

”Chávez.
Tony Chávez!”

”Chávez?
I dunno. We get a lotta guys in here playin’
pool.”

Vega
looked around. This wasn’t Jimbo’s. No point in
creating a scene in this crowd. He pulled out his money clip.

“Well,
try to remember this guy,” Vega said, sliding a twenty across the bar. “Good-lookin’
Mexican guy, about twenny-fi’, black hair. Maybe hung aroun’ a guy named Val.”

The
bartender palmed the bill. “Oh, now I gotcha. Val. Yeah, you bet. Tony came in
here every so often. Too bad about what happened to him and Chico. Chico used
to drop in here, too, you know. Back when he was on his way up. Matter of fact,
he was raised right around here, in this neighborhood.”

“You
know this Val?”

“Aw
sure. I been knowin’ Val a long time.” He looked over his shoulder at a
customer a couple of stools down, crying for another draft.

“What’s
his las’ name? Where can I find him?”

The
bartender discreetly maneuvered the twenty between his fingers. Vega coughed up
another one.

“Val
Borden. Pool hustler. He shoots in here a lot. Maybe three, four nights a week.”

The
waitress impatiently hollered out drink orders, cursing the bartender for
wasting time.

“What
if I wanna find him right now?”

The
bartender eyed Vega carefully. Cops didn’t wear cashmere. This was no social
call. It was obvious that Val was in very deep shit.

 
“You the cops?”

 
“Just answer the fucking question. Where
can I find him?”

“Well,
I think he lives over around McCarty someplace. Can’t say for sure. But he
hangs out with a guy — a good friend of his — who lives right down
the street here.”

“Good
frien’ o’ his?”

 
“Yeah. Guy by the name of Eddie Ryan.”

L
inda was
incredulous. “You were gonna do what?”

“Check
into Garner’s room at that hotel where you play,” Eddie replied.

“Why’n
the hell would you wanna do a damn fool thing like that?”

“What
do you mean, damn fool thing? Besides, we didn’t do it. I told you. We came
straight back here.”

“This
sounds like it mighta been one of your bright ideas, señorita,” she spewed to
Felina.

“Kiss
my ass, bitch! Eddie, you gonna let her talk to me like that?”

No, he
wasn’t. “Linda, you’re outta line. Now chill out.”

“I’ll
say any fucking thing I want. She’s getting you into more shit —”

“No,
she’s not! I’m telling you, nothing happened. It was my idea, and it was Felina
who said we shouldn’t do it. Now let’s not lose it among ourselves here. Come
on! Chill.”

“All
right, all right.” Linda was still furious. She went out to the kitchen for a
root beer. “But listen to me. You got to start thinking about leaving. Where
you’re gonna go. What you’re gonna do.”

Her
eyes demanded an answer.

“We can
go anywhere,” Eddie said. “We can do anything. We just gotta decide.”

“So
start deciding.”

“Well,
we’re gonna need a car. Like I said, we’re gonna get one tomorrow.” Eddie
leaned back into the sofa and allowed himself a smile. “Maybe a nice Caddy.” He
looked over at Felina. “How’d you like to leave this town in style, sweetheart?”

Before
Felina could reply, Linda said, “Oh yeah, that’s it. That’s right. Yeah. Just
waltz on in to some Cadillac dealer and buy a new Coupe de Ville — what
do they cost? About seventy grand? — and pay for it with cash money?
Sure, peel off the goddam C-notes. Ha! That’s guaranteed not to raise any
eyebrows. Like the fucking IRS wouldn’t be over there in about two seconds
flat.”