Fat Man Blues: A Hard-Boiled and Humorous Mystery (The Tubby Dubonnet Series Book 9) (18 page)

“Dubonnet should have gotten the message to back away by now,” Kronke said. “I scared his secretary and his ol’ lady pretty good.”

“You think that’s going to work?”

“Once upon a time I had a plan to get him in a situation that he couldn’t get out of. Like where he had to leave town. It involved leaning on his girls.”

“A gangster’s idea. Where would he have gone?”

“I don’t know. Bolivia maybe. He’s been there before.”

“He would probably like Bolivia— a socialist country where only government employees have rights.”

“You’re a government employee, Adam.”

“Not for long, man.”

“Stay long enough to get a few more good men signed up.”

“Probably will,” Mathewson said.

“Well, the Bolivia thing is ancient history now. With the pressure from the priest, I think the shyster has to be publicly and finally laid to rest. Killing him has also become a test of my manhood,” Kronke said grimly.

“I don’t want any part of it.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m going to handle it myself, and soon.” There was a note of pleasure in Kronke’s voice.

“Let’s get away from that. Don’t we have more important things to talk about tonight?”

“Right. Let’s get started. I hope you have plenty of time.”

“I’ve got nowhere I need to be for a couple of hours.”

As they continued their conversation, the men in the car didn’t realize that there was someone high on the levee monitoring them in the gathering darkness. Seeing what he needed, the man slid behind the crest and breathed deeply of the swampy air of the batture. It was very pleasant here on the river side, where an early fog was settling over the willows. After enjoying his personal moment, he made a quiet phone call.

As the sun went down Tubby was staring at the spot where his filament disappeared below the water’s surface. He and Raisin were in the Boston Whaler fishing, in a passive way, under an evening sky and calm waters on the Lake.

“We’ve known each other a long time,” Tubby said.

“That’s very true.” Raisin cast a shrimp in a lazy arc that plinked into the water about forty feet from the boat. A private jet glinting in the last rays of sunshine made a graceful descent to the runway of the old municipal airport built by Huey Long. The boat rocked gently.

They had been on the water for a couple of hours, and the breeze was finally turning cool.

“I think I always wanted to be a lawyer,” Tubby said.

“Not so,” Raisin said, flicking his reel a notch tighter. “When we first met in college you wanted to be a farm extension agent.”

“Oh, that was just something I picked up during my couple of months at McNeese State.”

“The Cowboys. I’d forgotten you went there.”

“I sometimes forget it myself. It was my mother’s idea of a safe transition out of high school. I didn’t stay long.”

“At our Mississippi alma mater I thought you majored in wrestling.”

Tubby watched the flashing water, hoping for a bite. The boat moved in the breeze.

“In any case,” he said, “I have definitely been a lawyer for most of my life.”

“It is hard to remember when you weren’t,” Raisin agreed.

“I love it.”

“Do you see that black dragon up in the clouds, breathing fire?”

Tubby squinted. “No,” he said.

“What do you love so much about the law?”

“The competition, I guess. The occasional glimpse of justice, too. But I really love having the privilege.”

“You like being privileged?”

“Raisin, I’m talking about the fact that you can say anything you want to me and it’s confidential. I get to keep it all to myself. Nobody can make me talk.”

“You take it all pretty seriously, don’t you?”

“I take that part very seriously. Never screw a client. Never lie to the judge. That’s what it’s all about.”

“You’ve got a fish!”

Tubby jerked his rod, but he reeled in an empty hook.

“You screwed that one up,” Raisin said. “You’ve got to play with him a little bit.” With his sun-browned sandaled foot he shoved the bait bucket toward Tubby.

“You might have noticed that something is bugging me.”

“Yes, I have. Go ahead. I’m good for one confession per day.”

“It’s very disturbing to think that I’m not an actor on the stage, but just some microscopic particle around which important things seem to happen.”

“You’ve done your share of acting,” Raisin counseled him, while at the same time imagining elephants and turtles in the gold and tangerine-streaked cumulus clouds above. “Haven’t you put away your share of bad guys? Haven’t you saved the bacon for some clients? Haven’t you broken up entire crime syndicates?”

“Maybe.” Tubby was not to be consoled. “But consider this. My girlfriend has been run off the highway and almost killed. My secretary has been slapped around. Without even counting that misguided Latino who our vigilante Detective Mathewson blew away, in the past two weeks there have been three victims of gruesome murders in my very own personal sphere, two of them butchered by an axe and one garroted to death and left on the street. And I didn’t solve a single one of them! Damn it!” he added.

Raisin watched the white birds circling overhead. “Look at the bright side, my friend.”

“What would that be?” Tubby asked.

“At least none of your clients were found guilty.”

“You’ve got something,” Tubby said, pointing.

* * *

The moon was high and night had come. They were motoring up to the boat launch.

“Let’s make an evening of it,” Raisin suggested.

“What have you got in mind?” Tubby asked. His phone rang. He clicked it open and said, “Yeah?”

After listening just a few seconds, he rang off. “I have something I have to do that will take me a couple of hours,” he told Raisin. How much was that law license worth?

“That’s fine with me. We need to clean up anyhow. And do something with these fish.” He had two respectable speckled trout.

Raisin hopped onto the dock while Tubby floated with his boat in the water, thinking over what Flowers had just told him and deciding what he ought to do about it.

* * *

Down by the levee the two plotters in the car were wrapping it up. Their conversation had ranged far and wide and gone on for a long time. But concrete plans for expanding their circle had been laid. Some good local men, and a few from afar, had been agreed upon. Revised goals and the specific steps needed to achieve them had been set. The red dots of their cigarettes animated their talk and provided their only light. Somewhere far away a fiddle and accordion were playing.

“I think we’ve got it,” Kronke said. “It’s time to get moving.”

A car drove behind them and parked some distance away in the mist. Its lights cut off, and soft country music wafted into the night from its radio.

“Right.” The passenger put his lighter in his shirt pocket. “Time we rolled out.” He got out of the car and stretched his back. Underfoot the shells crunched as he walked away.

Kronke saw him go in the mirror and reached for the key.

A flash, a crash like a thunderbolt, and the windshield exploded in his eyes! The first shotgun blast caught the driver and covered him in blood and glass. The second blast got him again, square in the head. The pellets tore at his face and the fingers he’d raised to defend himself.

The cop outside dove for the gravel.

There was a moment when he looked up and saw the outline of the shooter in the darkness, and the shooter saw him. And walked away.

Two men lay still, but one was dripping blood onto the floor mats. The other got to his knees. The peace of the night returned. A ship, passing upstream beyond the levee, sounded its lonesome horn.

* * *

Raisin reached for his phone.

“Talk,” he said.

“I’m ready whenever you are,” Tubby said. “Do you want to go out for something to eat?”

“Sure. I’m all cleaned up. You?”

“Clean as I’m going to get. Let’s hit it.”

THE END

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“The wacky but gentle sensibilities of Tubby Dubonnet reflect the crazed, kind heart of New Orleans better than any other mystery series.”

— The New Orleans Times-Picayune

“Sharp and jolly … There’s a lot here to enjoy— especially some great moments in local cuisine and a wonderfully jaundiced insider’s view of a reluctant lawyer in action.”

— Chicago Tribune

“Take one cup of Raymond Chandler, one cup of Tennessee Williams, add a quart of salty humor, and you will get something resembling Dunbar’s crazy mixture of crime and offbeat comedy.”

— Baltimore Sun

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