Fat Man Blues: A Hard-Boiled and Humorous Mystery (The Tubby Dubonnet Series Book 9) (17 page)

Wearing a checkered suit the man looked like he might prosper preaching on television. He was wearing white socks and pink golf shoes. In his hands he clutched an alligator skin attaché case.

Tubby rose to shake his hand. “Good to see you again, Rev. Horton,” he said. “Please sit down.”

Horton took the offered chair.

“Coffee?” Tubby inquired.

“No, thanks. Had plenty.”

“We’ve met before,” Tubby said.

“Yep. And you gave me your card. That’s how I knew where to find you.”

“You were standing there on Hennessey Street, and you told me what kind of car Frenchy Dufour had.”

“Right. That poor man wanted to buy my business. I thought I might talk to him about it. But he wasn’t there.”

“And now he’s dead.”

“Yes. So sad.” Horton patted his knee as if to comfort himself.

“Your business is?”

“At-sea cremation services. The only one in the area. Actually, we say ‘at-sea’ but it’s really done on the Lake. We lay souls to rest in nature’s own waters.”

“Ah,” Tubby said. He made a steeple with his fingertips.

“Indeed,” Horton said. “But let’s get down to business.” He laid his attaché case on Tubby’s wide cypress desk, where it sat.

“I’ve been hearing about you for some time, Mr. Dubonnet,” Horton continued, leaning back.

“Go on.” Tubby also sat back, ready to bask in the glory.

“One of the sinners in my small flock, Carrie Mae Sunshine, has spoken very well of you.”

Tubby controlled himself. He was happy to hear that Carrie Mae was staying below radar and had found a spiritual home. “Quite a lady,” he remarked.

“Yes, she is,” the reverend agreed. “And she tells me that you do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”

Tubby nodded.

“I don’t know any other lawyer I could say that about,” Horton continued. “So many seem only to work for whoever will give them the most shekels of silver.”

“I do actually work for some silver,” Tubby pointed out.

“I would expect that,” Horton said, “and here’s what.” He reached forward and unsnapped his case. It popped it open for Tubby to see.

Inside was a pleasingly arranged display of green hundred-dollar bills in neat compact packs.

Tubby cleared his throat, as one does before addressing a grave matter.

“That’s some money, yes, sir,” he commented.

“Yes, it is,” the preacher agreed.

“How much is it?” Tubby asked.

“Exactly $250,000 in twenty-five tidy packages. Pretty, ain’t they?”

“Oh, yes. Very pretty.”

“I need your help investing it.”

Tubby’s eyes narrowed. He rubbed his chin.

“Where did it come from?”

“A lifetime of toil,” Horton said.

“Why me?”

“I judge men quickly, and I’m rarely wrong.”

“Thanks, but I’m not a financial consultant. I could recommend one. There’s a Jerry Molideaux…”

Horton held up his hand. “I’d like to hire you to give me advice when I need it. I want you to take this, as a retainer you might say.”

“I’d have to put it in my trust account,” Tubby said, almost to himself. “It wouldn’t earn you any interest. The government would have notice of the cash deposit.”

“I don’t give a hootin’ holler about any of that,” Horton said. “It’s been under the mattress in my boat. ‘Trust account’ has a very nice ring to it, sir.”

“Maybe there’d be a way to move some of it into an escrow account where you could earn some interest, but it wouldn’t be much.”

“I’m not so worried about that either. I don’t think the money will need to stick around for too long.”

“Why?”

“I’ll be looking for a place to invest it. Maybe in another boat.”

A light bulb went off in Tubby’s head. “How about a bar?”

“I’m not opposed to bars. Of the right sort. But I have no interest in any venture that isn’t run by honest people and doesn’t make money.”

“Well, since we’re just jawboning about it, I do know of a potential investment in the tavern business.”

“What’s that?”

“A friend of mine has a bar on St. Claude Avenue and is looking to expand.”

“That’s the wrong side of town.”

“Not any more, Reverend Horton. Not anymore. And the owner is a saint among sinners.”

* * *

Tubby went to the new sheriff’s new jail to meet with his client. The recently constructed visiting room for attorneys smelled a lot better than the old one had, but the layout was basically the same. Lawyer and inmate talked to each other through a steel wall and a solid plane of bullet-proof glass.

“Howya doin’?” he asked the fat prisoner, attired in an orange jumpsuit, who was seated in an orange plastic chair, under a camera, on his side of the room.

“Don’t ask.” Angelo had to talk on a hand-held phone, which crackled in Tubby’s ear.

“Food?”

“Bad.”

“Sleep?”

“It’s getting better. I would like to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“The police have two axe murders that they have you pinned for. You had the axe. They’ve sent it off to the lab.”

“I didn’t do anything. Can I see Aimee?”

* * *

Tubby barged into Mathewson’s cubicle at the District Police Station.

“He’s not confessing to anything,” he told the detective. “And he isn’t giving me any information. Let him see his girlfriend. She knows hell from high water, and maybe she can talk some sense into him.”

Mathewson rubbed his nose and said okay.

“But I’m starting not to like you, Dubonnet,” he said. “Male friends or no.”

* * *

After visiting with Angelo in the jail, Aimee came to see Tubby at his office.

“What’s going to happen to him?” she asked efficiently, quite business-like.

“Assuming the axe links to the murders, which the police should know in approximately…,” he pretended to check his watch, “…thirty minutes, they will undoubtedly charge Angelo with both crimes.”

“He didn’t do either one.”

“So he says.”

She chewed her lower lip. “I’d like you to meet my sister.”

“Huh?”

At Sister Soulace’s palm reading shop on Magazine Street, the potions and charms priestess reclined on her plush purple divan wearing a turquoise turban. A sheer chemise was wrapped loosely around her figure. Her glistening red fingernails made pictures in the air while she talked. She was entertaining the attorney and her own baby sister with the story of her life.

“It’s all been so beautiful, so all-encompassing,” she said. “And I’ve been so happy to absorb the earth’s most potent powers, or at least,” she said modestly, “a few of them.”

“Angelo is in trouble,” Aimee interjected.

“Darling, I would never do anything to upset you or your sweetheart. You know that.” The fingernails circled. “He’s a kind man. His water is not quite as holy as mine, but it’s not bad.”

Tubby’s head went from sister to sister in the room thick with musky perfume, but he otherwise remained motionless on his pawn shop chair and said nothing.

“They’ll crucify him for both murders,” Aimee pressed on. “The man at the well and Mr. Momback.”

“No, baby,” Sister Soulace cooed. “Angelo is not one of the actors in this universe. He is one of those souls who form a center, and around them all sorts of other things orbit and happen. I chopped those pricks’ heads off myself.”

“You!” Aimee gasped. But in fact she already knew.

Sister Soulace needed a stage.

“Of course it was me! Who do you think? I was right there in the shed sampling Angelo’s spring water when that goon burst in and threatened our dear man. The instrument of his destiny was at hand. I just picked it up and did what had to be done.”

She smacked her lips with satisfaction and poured herself a small cup of Captain Morgan. Candles on the table flickered as her robes swept over them. Tubby tried not to breathe audibly.

“Schwippp,” Sister Soulace whispered, imitating the sound of an axe slicing through a neck, and she did a nice dramatic schwippp with her right hand. Her left cradled her drink. “And your boss Momback was just as easy. “Schwippp! Schwippp!”

Tubby exhaled softly.

“But why, sweetheart?” Aimee asked.

“For you, dear. That lowlife attacked our family.”

Tubby let out the cough he had been suppressing.

“Who’s he?” Sister Soulace demanded.

Tubby was startled. “I’m Angelo’s lawyer…”

“Oh, yes. I forgot all about you. You see, you are also not really an actor in this story either. Like Angelo you are the nucleus around which other things revolve in orbit.”

“I don’t think that’s…”

“You’re having a problem with a woman in your life, aren’t you?”

Tubby cleared his throat and pursed his lips. “What’s that?”

“She thinks you are her soul mate, her lover. But you…,” she wagged a knowing finger at Tubby, “…you have unfinished business with some other lover from your youth. And you are afraid that she will discover that, aren’t you?”

“You…,” he began.

“Am I right?” She grinned triumphantly.

Tubby stared deeply into Sister Soulace’s sparkling eyes. There was some truth in what…

“I think we need to go,” he said.

* * *

Outside, by Tubby’s Camaro, Aimee sobbed softly. “My sister is truly nuts,” she whispered.

“I’m not so positive of that.” Tubby wiped sweat from his forehead. “But if she is, we just might get her off.”

* * *

Tubby went to visit Angelo at the jail a second time. He explained that he had an offer from the district attorney. While it was true that Angelo had not killed anyone, he could still be charged as an accessory to murder, before and after the fact. But the offer was that he could actually go home soon if he would agree to testify against Sister Soulace.

Angelo said no.

“What about Aimee?” Tubby asked. “She needs you.”

“I know that.” Angelo was down in the dumps. “I wish she had a job.”

“You know, maybe I can help with that,” Tubby said. “There’s this bar called the Monkey Business, and I happen to know they’re desperate for someone to serve drinks and wait on tables. The tips should be very good.”

“Aimee’s had some bad luck with her bosses.”

“She wouldn’t this time,” Tubby assured him. “Her boss would be a real classy lady named Janie.”

“She might like that.”

“Your testimony would be very helpful.”

“I’ll think about it.”

* * *

Three Vietnamese enforcers reported back to Bin Minny, though only the leader, “Dapa Jack” Nguyen, actually addressed the boss, who was very cross.

“There was supposed to be no killing,” Bin Minny said emphatically.

“Mr. Minh, we killed no one,” Dapa Jack explained humbly. “We didn’t even touch the fool. Dufour saw us waiting there as soon as he got out of his car. Our mistake. He grabbed his briefcase and ran across the street and into an alley. We only intended to scare him, anyway. To teach him a lesson as you directed, but we got no chance.”

“So, what happened?” Bin Minny’s gaze was hot, even though these were his best boys.

“We were there only a few seconds when a tall white guy came out of the alley carrying Dufour like he was light as a flower. And he threw Dufour into the seat of the man’s own car. The Frenchman was dead at the time, sir. There was no question about it. I saw his face.”

“And you?”

“Aware of our situation, Mr. Minh, we left immediately. We weren’t seen.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Dapa Jack looked at his two team members, and they nodded nervously in agreement.

“Well, that’s something,” Bin Minny said.

“So, is this matter finished?”

“Yes, it’s over. The case is closed,” the boss decided.

Angelo accepted a probation revocation and was sent back to the Orleans Parish Prison for the three months remaining on his original sentence for car theft, the one he caught back in the days when he was a criminal, back before the church bell squashed his partner. He did agree to testify against Sister Soulace, but it was unnecessary because she had confessed to everything. Her fate had yet to be determined, according to the authorities, but Sister knew.

There was one hitch. Because of the overcrowding at the new jail and various federal consent decrees, prisoner Spooner was shipped to Washington Parish, seventy miles away in the piney woods. It was hard on Aimee, having to drive that far to visit her beau, but Angelo had a release date in sight so it really didn’t bother them too much.

At the detention center Angelo realized that he had a certain celebrity as an axe murderer. In fact, the other inmates didn’t call him the “Fat Man” any more. No, they called him the “Axe Man.”

They let him listen to any music he wanted to pick on the radio. Naturally, he selected a Swamp Pop station. The guys grooved on it, and even danced, and Angelo developed a substantial following.

* * *

In a gravel parking area where Magazine Street meets the river, the sun was setting over the levee. Two men sat in a red car, windows open, smoking cigarettes.

“They think I’m the Night Watchman,” Kronke told the man in the passenger seat.

“There can be as many Night Watchmen as they want to believe in, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Father Escobar is coming around slowly to the idea of expanding the group. He just needs a little more evidence of the imbecility of those youngsters.”

“Do you know where they keep the money?”

“Not yet, but I will soon.”

“Hopefully before they spend it all. And the guns?”

“Soon.”

“And the old papers, the records, what you call the Papal Scrolls?”

“I don’t know where those are. The boys do, since they took them. They will tell me before long.”

“They might be worth a lot.”

“Sure. They could also land us all in jail.”

“We will know once we get them. What about the lawyer, Dubonnet? He’s a nice enough guy but he won’t keep his butt out of our affairs?”

“Depends on how bloodthirsty you are.”

“Hey, you recruited me. The purpose is to blow the shit out of everything, right?”

They sat quietly for a minute.