Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 02 - City of Beads (25 page)

Larry brought the tea.

“Women are fickle,” Tubby told Raisin, hoisting a cold dark beverage high in the air and swallowing deeply. The world had gone from sharp to soft to fuzzy.

“No argument here,” Raisin said, absently spinning his green Heineken coaster on the bartop.

“I mean, what’s the point?”

“Don’t ask me,” Raisin said, “I’ve never even been married.”

“You’re better off,” Tubby said.

“You mean that?” Raisin asked. He flipped the coaster into the air and caught it on the back of his hand.

“No, I guess not. Of course not,” Tubby added.

“You got some great daughters out of the deal.”

“That’s for sure,” Tubby said. “But when I see them, sometimes, it hurts to remember how me and Mattie messed things up so bad.”

“Well, that was her fault,” Raisin said.

“You think so?” Tubby asked.

“Why, sure,” Raisin said. “She’s crazy.”

“Maybe, but I haven’t had much luck with anybody else.”

They drank in silence for a minute, then Raisin got up and put some money in the jukebox. The voice of Marvin Gaye singing “Sexual Healing” filled the barroom.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of message?” Tubby asked when Raisin got back to his stool.

“No, I just like it. Don’t worry, I got Frank Sinatra coming up next.”

Tubby ordered them both another drink.

“It’s just that women are so damn fickle,” he repeated.

“They’re not much good, are they?”

“No good at all.”

“Thing is, you get fond of ’em.”

“That I do,” Tubby said, and put a few bills on the bar.

“Enough heavy thinking. Let’s go play some pool.”

“Suits me,” Raisin said. “Rack ’em up.”

Tubby saw the familiar figure clad in her pink raincoat sitting on her folding chair down by the jail. He went up to her, shuffling his feet so she wouldn’t get caught by surprise again.

“Hi, Miss Pyrene,” he said.

“It’s the lawyer,” she exclaimed, giving him a toothless smile, partly covered by her wrinkled hand.

“You saw Jerome?” he asked.

“Yes, and I was so happy. My prayers were answered. You are a fine young man yourself.”

“It was nothing,” Tubby said modestly.

“Seeing him again was the most wonderful day of my life.”

“I’m glad for you. I hope he straightens up. What are you still waiting here for? You don’t have to look for him to come out that door anymore.”

“This place suits me now,” she said. “Nobody bothers me, and the business is pretty good. And I’m here to watch when they take all those young men in. Some of ’em I know from when they were babies. I wave at them even if they don’t see. And I like to think I’ll be here when they get out.”

“I’m sure that means a lot to them,” Tubby said. He asked if he could have two pralines.

He searched in his pants pocket for his wallet, and his fingers encountered the strand of beads he had found on Bourbon Street.

How had they gotten there?

“You want some beads?” he asked, showing them to her.

“They’re pretty nice,” she said, and took them into her palm where she could inspect them.

“Yes, I believe I will keep them.” She looked up and her eyes, to him, seemed wise and kind. “You’re all right for a lawyer,” she said.

“Thank you very much.” It gave him a peaceful feeling to hear that.

“You sure seem to love my candy,” she said.

“Yeah, I like all the nuts,” he replied.

The pink arms flew up. Her hands covered her mouth as she laughed.

He joined in.

THE END

Many thanks to Carrie Lee Pierson, Steven Grover, Martha Crocker, and Jon Graubarth, ingenious people who unraveled for me some of the mysteries of the computer; to Chris Pepe, my editor, Kristin Lindstrom, my agent, and Doug Magee, my friend, for their good humor; and to Linda Kravitz, Brenda Thompson, Mary Price Robinson, Anne Francis, and Philip Carter, who read my early drafts and gave all the kind advice a writer could want.

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The first Tubby Dubonnet mystery is CROOKED MAN. Find out about it and others at
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and
www.tonydunbar.com

TUBBY DUBONNET MYSTERIES

Crooked Man, G.P. Putnam’s (New York, 1994)

City of Beads, G.P. Putnam’s (New York, 1995)

Trick Question, G.P. Putnam’s Sons (New York, 1996)

Shelter From the Storm, G.P. Putnam’s Sons (New York, 1997)

The Crime Czar, Dell Publishing (New York, 1998)

Lucky Man, Dell Publishing (New York, 1999)

Tubby Meets Katrina, NewSouth Books (Montgomery, 2006)

Our Land Too, Pantheon Books (New York, 1971); Vintage Books (New York, 1972)

Hard Traveling: Migrant Farm Workers in America, Ballinger (Cambridge, 1976; Co-Authored with Linda Kravitz)

Against the Grain, University Press of Virginia (Charlottesville, 1981)

Delta Time, A Journey through Mississippi, Pantheon Books (New York 1990)

Where We Stand, Voices of Southern Dissent (Editor), NewSouth Books (Montgomery 2004), Foreword by President Jimmy Carter

American Crisis, Southern Solutions: From Where We Stand, Promise and Peril (Editor), NewSouth Books (Montgomery 2008), Foreword by Ray Marshall

And don’t miss ENVISION THIS, a new Tubby Dubonnet short story!
www.booksbnimble.com

TONY DUNBAR is a lawyer and the author of the Tubby Dubonnet mystery series set in New Orleans. The seventh episode,
Tubby Meets Katrina
, was the first novel set in the city to be published after the storm. He is the winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award, and his mysteries have been nominated for the Anthony and the Edgar Allen Poe “Edgar” Awards. He has also written non-fiction books about the South and civil rights and has lived for more than thirty years in this beautiful and complicated city.