Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 02 - City of Beads (4 page)

“All you need is a quarter,” the lady chirped. There were perhaps thirty dollars piled in the middle of the table. “But you gotta wait for the pot to clear.”

“No, he don’t want to play cards,” Mr. Mike said. “He wants to talk business with me for a minute. Come on, Mr. Dubonnet.” He shoved back from the table, rocking it so that the young man had to grab for his beer bottle, and lifted his short round body out of the chair. “Let’s go to the bar and have a conference.”

He waddled to the end of the bar by the front door and with a grunt positioned his large behind on a padded stool. Tubby did likewise. The cadaverous gray-haired bartender, Larry, who never appeared to be fully awake, materialized from some shadowy spot where he roosted behind the bar and gave them each a napkin.

“You’ll have what? You want an old-fashioned?” Mr. Mike asked.

“Sure, that’ll be fine.”

“Serve the man, Larry, and bring me a couple of cherries, too.”

Larry drifted away and began concocting their drinks.

“You’re doing okay, Mr. Mike? Your health is good?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” Mr. Mike said, shifting his mainframe back and forth trying to find a comfortable spot. “But let me tell you what happened.”

Larry set down an icy red drink in front of each of them and a small white bowl of maraschino cherries before Mr. Mike.

“Ernie ripped me off,” Mr. Mike said sadly.

“Ernie?” Tubby said incredulously. “Not Ernie, your… partner?”

“Yes, Ernie. He was not really my partner. He was more like my prototype, or whatever. He’s gone, kaput, out of town, and he took maybe fifty-five thousand dollars.”

“You gotta be kidding.”

“I wish I was. Not all at once. He took about twenty thousand at one pop, from upstairs. The rest he took over time. I still got Claudia looking over the books.”

“Wow. I didn’t know you ever kept twenty thousand dollars upstairs.”

Mr. Mike gave Tubby a stare, like you’ve got to be kidding, and reached for the cherries.

“We used to have that much,” he said. “On paydays you got to be ready for who comes through the door. We get some volume here like you wouldn’t believe.”

What he meant was you could cash a check at Mike’s Bar, if they knew you. The bar was where lots of people banked. Only it was more interesting than a bank. The procedure was to order a drink, then slide your check over the bar to Larry in a questioning kind of way. He’d look at it, and you could swear he sniffed it, then he would slide it back to you with a pen so you could sign your name on the back. There was a mysterious little panel in the wall by the cash register, and Larry would put the check inside somewhere, and pull the panel shut. A minute or two later he would open it again and money would be there. Happy days. No ID required. It meant that now you could pay for your drink. It was bad form to count your cash at the bar, but you knew it was going to be a little short of the amount written on the check.

You could also borrow money at Mike’s Bar, only it was your marker that went behind the sliding panel. Which was where Ernie had worked. Ernie the silent, the snuff spitter, the college wrestler dropped on his head once too many times. Ernie who was vaguely related to Mr. Mike and who had worked at the bar for at least ten years, closing up the place at night, escorting old folks to their cars, throwing out the occasional oaf who drank too much and peed on the floor.

“We was getting it set up where Ernie was going to take over the business from me next summer. I was going to retire. Man! I got my camp at Grand Isle fixed up real nice. All I was gonna do was fish. We were getting ready to draw up the papers. You were about to get a call. And all of a sudden the little shithead is gone.”

“Are you sure it was him? I mean, it’s just so hard to believe. Are you sure somebody didn’t do something to Ernie?”

“That was my first thought, naturally, but it’s been a week now. And he’s been seen.”

Mr. Mike took a healthy swallow of his drink and shook his head. Tubby waited for him to continue.

“Okay,” Mr. Mike said, and wiped his chin. “He’s got an aunt down in Carencro where my cousins live. And my cousin Gaspar called me. He says he saw Ernie’s car behind his auntie’s trailer. He didn’t think nothing of it. After that he hears about my tragedy. And when he goes back over there, Ernie’s car is gone and the auntie now claims she never seen him. So that’s that. He’s hiding out.”

“It’s just hard to believe.”

“It hurt me deep inside.” Mr. Mike patted his heart. “Ernie was like my son. Better than my son ’cause Ernie would work. There’s no way I can understand why he did this to me. He was hooked on video poker, but who would have thought, fifty-five thousand dollars?”

“That’s really terrible,” Tubby said. “How about the money? That’s got to be hard.”

“You bet it’s hard,” Mr. Mike said. “It put a dent in my retirement, I’ll tell you that. And now what am I going to do with this place? I’m too old to run it anymore. Claudia can’t handle the upstairs. She wants to watch her soaps. She’s in her golden years and doesn’t want to be bothered counting out money all day. Besides, don’t tell her, but she really ain’t capable no more.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Tubby. You want to buy a bar?”

“What?” Tubby sat up straight.

“Seriously, Tubby. Listen to me a minute. This is a business proposition. It would be perfect for a man like you. Look around you. This is history here…”

Mr. Mike continued, and Tubby ordered a second old-fashioned. The nostalgia of the place began to sink in. Mr. Mike started telling stories about who used to sit on these stools. Maybe I do want to own a bar, Tubby thought to himself. I’ve got some money.

“Do I get to keep all the pictures?” he asked.

Not far from Mike’s, on a little side street, the Thompsons were having a family barbecue. They had the TV on the front porch tuned in to the Saints game. The home team was playing arch rival Atlanta, which always got the fans keyed up to an emotional high. Thomas and Kip Thompson were outside watching the game and keeping a grill lit in the tiny front yard, which was separated from the sidewalk by a low iron picket fence. The day was special because they were celebrating Thomas’s recruitment to play baseball for the University of Southwestern Louisiana. The recruiter had promised he was going to be offered a scholarship.

They had smoked sausage and hamburgers fired up on the grill and an ice chest full of Old Milwaukee beer and Cokes. Their aunt was inside making her gumbo, soupy green and full of chicken, sausage, garlic, okra, and onions. It smelled so rich and fine that the old men in the neighborhood were starting to pass by to say hello. Their sister Tania, whose house this was, had a half-gallon bottle of Canadian Club and some ice in the living room for anybody who dropped in.

“Hurry up, Auntie,” Kip called. “We’re dying of hunger.”

“Don’t rush me,” came a deep voice from inside. “It takes a long time to make things just right.”

“You better get you one of these before they’re all gone.” Kip waved his beer can at his younger brother.

“Naw, you can do all the drinking for me,” Thomas said. He was in training and so high on the possibilities stretching out before him that Kip, his beer, and even Kip’s shiny Cadillac taxi parked by the curb held no temptations at all.

Kip drove a cab for a living. That was his story, and that’s what Thomas believed. In truth, the most kindly thing Kip had ever done was to hide from his little brother how he really made a living, which was by peddling dope.

Kip ran a string of street pushers—the kids who hung out on the corners of even respectable neighborhoods, ready to stick their head into any car that pulled up to make a $20 deal. This had been Kip’s thing since their father, a longshoreman on the Harmony Street docks, slipped on a mooring cable and drowned in the river.

“Let the boy alone,” Tania called from behind the screen door where she had been listening. “He’s got to keep that beautiful body in shape for all those professional scouts when they come to watch him play.”

Nobody messed with Tania. She had been the one in charge since their mother passed away. She had the strength of character to see that Thomas got to school and to church. Kip was too old to train, but she was proud of her work with Thomas.

“Go away, sister. He’s big enough to be his own man,” Kip taunted.

It was halftime. All the guests were inside sampling the gumbo and mixing drinks from the big bottle. Tania poured some potato chips into a plastic bowl to carry outside to her brothers.

A nothing-special sky-blue car, maybe an old Ford Galaxie, drove slowly past the house. Kip looked toward it, then jerked around to look at his brother.

“Thomas!” he yelled.

Anything else he planned to say got lost in the noise of an automatic pistol firing. Errant lead pellets broke the front windows of the house and sent the old men and women jumping for the floor, splashing gumbo and sweet cocktails over the walls and each other. But several found their target and perforated Kip’s chest and face, knocking him backward onto the porch and into his sister’s arms. She threw the potato chips into the front yard and fell on top of him. Thomas took a bullet in the knee. He would never look so pretty to college scouts again.

The nothing-special car didn’t even speed up. It just made the corner and rolled on.

First there were the wails of the women, then the sirens came.

Tubby reclined underneath an umbrella by the pool in Jake LaBreau’s backyard. It was a nice yard, fringed by tall windmill palms, out by the lake.

You couldn’t see the lake from the house because there was a grass-covered levee blocking the view. The public could bicycle or stroll along the levee and look down into people’s yards, but not Jake’s because of the palm trees. The pool was a bright blue, almost blinding under the cloudless sky, and Tubby put on his sunglasses. He looked sharp. Jake was mixing gin and tonics at his outside bar. A little girl, his daughter, played with an inflated giraffe in the shallow water. Both men were dressed for the occasion—tennis shorts and colorful cotton sports shirts.

“You got a real nice place here, Jake,” Tubby remarked.

“We like it,” Take brought over their drinks, pretty healthy ones in plastic Endymion cups, sweating cold droplets. “Beth and I have been real happy here.”

He raised his glass. “To good fortune,” he toasted.

They drank.

“Tubby,” Jake continued, “it’s been too long since I saw you. You’re staying in shape, I see.” Jake settled down comfortably. “You’re getting some sun, too, huh?”

“Well, I just got back from a trip to Florida with an old buddy of mine. We did a lot of fishing.”

“That’s great. I need to get away a little myself. But I’ve been so busy. Beth and the little baby—” he pointed at the child splashing the pool—“get over to our condo in Destin almost every weekend, but I can’t seem to get out of town.”

“Your clients keep you that busy?” Jake was in the public relations and advertising business.

“I only have one client now, Tubby, didn’t you know? I’m the general manager for the Casino Mall Grande. Actually I’m more like the promotions manager. One of the guys from Vegas does the day-to-day business stuff. I just keep the machinery oiled, so to speak.”

“I didn’t realize that, Jake. Who’s running the ad business?”

“My brother. Yeah, it’s been about two months now. It was a deal I just couldn’t pass up. Good steady income. Great benefits. The sky’s the limit.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I just never pictured you as a big time gambler.”

“The truth is, I’m not. I’m not allowed to win anything where I work, so there’s no sport to it. And believe me, you don’t want to go out gambling on the competitor’s boat after spending all day in a casino. But it’s a lively atmosphere, that’s a fact.” Jake took a belt out of his drink.

“I can imagine. Day and night.”

“You’re not kidding. But some of it is pretty mundane. And that’s why I called you.”

Great, Mr. Mundane, Tubby thought.

“So tell me, what can I do?”

“You know all about leases and supply contracts, employment contracts, all of that sort of thing, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Tubby said encouragingly.

“Well, we need a lawyer to handle all of that stuff. A lot of it is routine, or I’m sure it would seem so to a great legal mind like yours.”

“Routine is okay. I’d be glad to help. Who’s been doing your legal work?”

“Bacchus and Belcher. They did our licensing and got us all set up, but that’s all politics. They cost an arm and a leg, too. Bacchus burps and it’s two hundred bucks, but of course it’s his people who do all the work. What can I say. They don’t satisfy me. I can’t ever get them to come to the casino. It’s like they don’t approve of the place. And then I thought about you.”

Tubby wasn’t sure if he should take offense. “I’m not exactly cheap, Jake,” he said.

“Maybe not, but there ain’t but one of you. I’m always paying those guys two or three at a time. And anyhow, 1 know you.”

“That being the case, you might have yourself a lawyer.”

“Fantastic. Hey, you want to take a swim, Tubby? I got some trunks in the house will fit you.”

“No thanks. I’m feeling just fine.” Tubby rattled the ice in his cup.

“Well then, let’s go have some fun. I’ll show you around the casino and give you a couple of files—mix business with pleasure.”

“Dressed like this?” Tubby asked.

“Sure, dressed like that. Haven’t you ever been to Casino Mall Grande?”

“Actually, Jake, I haven’t been inside a casino in ten years, and that was in Reno. I like the track. I can even stand dog races. But this whole casino thing has just passed me by. I see the crowds lined up, but I just haven’t gone in.”

“No time like the present, guy. Let me fix us both a go-cup and we’ll cruise.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Tubby. Jeez, what the heck. Drink, drive, and gamble. And it was still daytime. What a way to make a living.

Tubby had definitely forgotten what a casino was like. This one took up a whole block, right in the middle of town where the tourists stay. It was along the lines of a plastic Egyptian temple. Huge columns and Sphinxes guarded its magnificent entrance. It was also very bright and loud inside, and he had the sensation of entering a giant pinball machine. Hundreds of slot machines cachunked and gonged discordantly, all jangling quarters at once, it seemed. The blackjack tables were crowded with players, regular-looking folks sitting in a half circle surrounded by spectators, all putting away drinks. Odd noisy wheel. Games whirled round and round and clacked to a stop, reminding Tubby of the sound of the playing cards he had once clipped to his bicycle spokes a long time ago.