Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders (12 page)

I instructed Doreen to pull into the rear, where we
parked beside one of the cars. After Doreen raised the
Jag’s top, I pulled one end of a tarp over the Jag, leaving the front window and hood uncovered. “You watch
from here. I’ll go around to the other end of the building and find a place by the bridge.”

“What if I see someone?”

“Just honk, three times, but stay in the car and keep
the doors locked.”

The Congress Avenue Bridge serves as a sleeping
spot for transients although most of them find spots in
downtown alleys closer to food and drink. Except for
one or two, I had the bridge to myself. I found a spot
behind some shrubs where I could see the rear of the
buildings plus have a good view of the bridge as well as the trail leading down to the river. I settled down to
wait, rehashing the events of the last couple days.

The river rolled past a hundred feet below at the base
of a steep slope covered with trees and shrubs.

Time dragged. Several times, I heard the sound of
feet on rock. Occasional murmurs drifted up the slope,
but after a few moments, the sounds ceased as a transient found himself a snug spot for the night. I yawned,
beginning to wonder if I had swung at a wild pitch.

Suddenly from below, metal against rock jerked me
awake. A skiff had touched the rocky shoreline. I
blinked against the darkness, peering into the night.

Then came the scrape of footsteps. I hunched closer
to the ground although I knew my outline was lost in
the shadows cast by the bridge. Minutes passed, and
then I heard labored breathing. Seconds later, a dark
shadow appeared on the trail.

From time to time the shadow paused, then continued. As it grew closer to the pawnshop, it dropped into
a crouch, trying to blend with the shadows cast by the
trees and shrubs lining the trail.

Abruptly, the shadow darted out of my sight to the rear
of the building.

I crept closer. Despite the occasional traffic on the
bridge, I heard the clink of metal on metal as he jimmied the rear door. I paused behind a live oak, its lowest limbs about five or six feet above the ground.

I moved forward in time to see a figure step through
the door and close it after him. That’s when I reached for my cell phone. I had arranged with Pachuca to report
in if I spotted anything that night. “Don’t go overboard,
Boudreaux,” he had insisted. “You’ve no jurisdiction.
You see something, call in. We’ll have a cruiser right
there.” And I had no argument with that. I was no hero.

Quickly, I punched in the number of the police station.

In the next instant, a terrified scream followed by the
enraged snarls of a very angry dog cut through the rumble of traffic on the bridge.

Suddenly the door burst open and a dark figure leaped
out, screaming and trying to fight off Max, the monster
dog. The flailing shadow scrambled in my direction.

On his heels, snarling and snapping, came the Rottweiler, and I could swear I saw the moonlight glittering off his talonlike teeth.

Grinning, I pressed up against the trunk of the tree.
Moments later, the screaming man raced past with the
enraged dog growling and snapping at his heels. I tried
to get a look at his face, but the limbs of the live oak
sagged too low.

Suddenly, the dog slid to a halt and turned back to me.

I froze, and then a voice in my head screamed do
something, Boudreaux. Do something.

And I did. Just as the dog leaped at me, I swung up
on the live oak limbs. Something caught the tail of my
jacket, yanking at me. I clung to the limb for dear life as
the snarling dog hung in the air momentarily.

A loud clatter of rocks and a scream of pain sounded
from down the slope.

Without warning, the dog released my coat and,
barking and yapping, raced down the slope. I skittered
several feet higher into the tree, peering into the darkness below.

I heard the poor guy fall once or twice more, the dog
snarl and yap, the guy scream, a moment of silence;
then he’d scream again and the dog would yap again.
Moments later, I heard a splash in the water.

That’s when I dropped to the ground. I hesitated, staring at the blood on the white rocks at my feet. Suddenly
from below, I heard the frantic yapping of the dog.

I wasted no time sprinting back to the Jaguar.

Just as I jumped in and slammed the door, an infuriated Rottweiler slammed into the window.

“Go, go, go,” I shouted.

The Jag leaped forward while Doreen screamed, “He’s
scratching my car”

“Then get us out of here before that monster bites off
a tire.”

As we pulled onto the bridge, I told her to drop me
off on Sixth Street. “Why can’t I go?” There was a hint
of defiance in her tone.

“I don’t know how late I’ll be”

She grunted. “Hey, I’m a big girl. In case you have
noticed, I can stay out after dark”

Suddenly, she hit the brakes and brought the Jag to a
screeching halt in the middle of the Congress Street
Bridge.

Four vehicles had piled up, spilling gas over the
bridge and closing it down. Traffic piled up behind us.
We were in the outside lane, but Doreen managed to
work to the inside, then made a quick U-turn and
headed back in the direction from which we had come. We had wasted thirty minutes in the traffic jam. Fifteen
minutes later, we turned down Sixth Street.

Still complaining, she pulled over to the curb. “I still
don’t see why I can’t go with you”

I climbed out and closed the door. “With all these
cowboys and zombies on the street, you draw too much
attention.”

My remarks were punctuated by two leering punks
who whistled and shouted for her to “dump the dude
and come with us”

“See what I mean?”

She smiled becomingly, and although the flashing
neon signs suffused her face with red and orange, I
could have sworn I saw a blush creep into her cheeks.
“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

After she drove away, I inspected the back of my
coat. I muttered a curse when I saw the eight-inch-long
rip. Two days, two coats.

I shook my head and looked up and down the bustling
street. I planned to canvas it, searching for three men;
S.S., behind the bar at Neon Larry’s; another with fresh
dog bites; and a third in a pinstripe suit, sporting a
ponytail and a nose spread over his face.

S.S. was first.

Neon Larry’s was jumping.

Blue smoke filled the dimly lit club. Against a far
wall, a mismatched four-piece combo banged out an unrecognizable tune. Two dozen tables, all filled, were
spread around the room. I slid onto an empty stool at
the bar.

Wearing a Neon Larry’s T-shirt over a long sleeve
shirt and a do-rag, S.S. gave no sign of recognition
when he spotted me. He wiped the bar in front of me.
“What’ll it be, pal?” He pursed his lips.

“Draft beer.”

Moments later, he returned with the beer. “Two
bucks.”

I handed him a five. After making change, he tossed
the $3.00 on the counter. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Where’s the john?”

He pointed down the hall and turned back to another
customer. I set the beer on the $3.00 to mark my spot
and headed for the men’s room, which coincidentally
just happened to share a thin wall with the storeroom
behind the bar.

Pushing the unpainted door open to the john, I flipped
on the light and stood patiently as a dozen resident water roaches scampered across the walls and disappeared
into the cracks in the corners. I locked the door behind
me and waited.

Moments later, a voice came through a pencil-sized
hole in the wall about eye level. “What’s up?”

“The Hip-Hop was burned last week. I need a name
or two that can point me in the right direction of the
torch man.”

There was a hesitation, then S.S. replied, “Wanda Darcy. Thinks she’s a hot singer. Hangs out at the Blue
Light with all them other weirdos doing that Black
Metal stuff.”

“What’s her connection?”

“I ain’t sure. When I heard some talk about the HipHop, her name came up”

“One more question. Buck Topper and Calvin Engels. Their names mentioned with it?”

“Engels ain’t got the guts. Besides, he can do his
business on the street. He don’t need no club.”

“What about Topper?”

S.S. sneered. He hated Buck Topper. I never learned
exactly why, but rumor had it Buck had cheated S. S. out
of over a hundred thousand, the very hundred thousand
he used to purchase the Red Rabbit four years earlier.

More than once when S.S. and I were alone, he had
regaled me with the exact methods he would gleefully
use to carve up the man. “He ain’t no good, but there
ain’t nothing out there about him and the fire. I wish
there was. I’d have made sure the cops got hold of it,
but there ain’t.”

“Thanks”

Back at the bar, I finished my beer, slid a ten under
the three bucks for a tip, and sauntered out on the
sidewalk. I headed for the Blue Light on the next
block, considering the information I had garnered
from S.S.For the present, I dropped Buck Topper and
Calvin Engels down a few notches on my primary list
of suspects.

I’m not going to pretend I understand or enjoy the
deafening music bouncing off the walls of the Blue
Light. You can almost feel the floor vibrate from the incessant pounding of the Black Metal music that is a cacophonous cross between rap, reggae, and ragtime.

Standing on stage in front of the combination of an
electric guitar and keyboard following the primitive
rhythm pounded out by the drums was a woman wearing her black hair in spikes. Her eyes were closed, and
her black-cloaked body swayed back and forth to the
unsteady beat of the music, uttering words understood
only by those zonked with the current drug of choice. I
guessed her to be in her late thirties or early forties, and
doing her best to appear twenty.

Wanda Darcy.

My casual dress was out of place in a club filled with
black eyes, white makeup, and rainbow-colored mohawks. I slid on a stool at the bar and glanced around
self-consciously.

While the group continued to pummel the walls with
its jarring chords, Wanda stumbled off the stage and
plopped down at a table. She lifted an almost empty
mug of beer to her lips and drained it.

Quickly, I bought two mugs of beer and set one on
the table in front of her. She looked up through bleary
eyes. “Who are you?”

“An admirer. I heard you sing.”

She studied me a moment, then nodded and gestured
to the chair across the table.

As I sat, I glanced at the musicians. The long-haired
guitar strummer eyed me suspiciously. I smiled and
nodded.

Wanda sipped the beer, spilling some down her chin
and neck. “Admirer, huh?” She grinned smugly, her
eyelids fluttering between closed and half-closed.

“Yes, but that isn’t why I’m here” I handed her a
business card. “I’m looking for someone, and if you
can help me, it’s worth a hundred bucks”

Her eyes grew wide, then quickly drooped to halfclosed. Without looking at the card, she slipped it down
the front of her blouse. “Who you looking for?”

The band had stopped playing and put their instruments down. The skeletal guy on the keyboard was eyeing me with the same suspicion as the guitar strummer.
The third one, the drummer, just sat staring over our
heads with a dreamy smile on his face.

“Someone who can give me information on the fire
down at the Hip-Hop last week.”

She gulped another swallow of beer and laughed
drunkenly. “Is that all? Hey, everybody knows about that”

The two musicians started toward me. They were
both about my size, probably not in as good condition
as I, but they were fifteen years younger and that made
a difference.

Keeping one eye on the approaching musicians and
the other on Wanda, I quickly replied, “Do you know
someone who can tell me about it? Like I said, it’s worth
a hundred bucks.”

She was beginning to slur her words. “Sure I can.
Where’s the money?”

By now, the two cold-eyed bozos were three tables
away. “What’s the name?”

She leaned forward, but before she could give me a
name, one of the men grabbed her shoulder and glared
at me. “What’s going on here?”

With the mug in hand, I rose and amiably explained.
“Nothing to get upset about, friend. I’m looking into
the fire down at the Hip-Hop last week so I’ve been
talking to people up and down the street. It’s worth a
hundred dollars for information.”

Wanda jumped to her feet and knocked the keyboard
player’s hand away. “You get out of here, Jojo. That’s
my money. He asked me first” She slapped at him and
missed.

And I knew I was in trouble when Jojo slapped her
back. He didn’t miss. She spun around and fell across a
table, overturning it.

“Hey, what’s going on over there?” the bartender
yelled, slurring his words.

His eyes fixed on mine, Guitar Strummer shouted
back, “We got a nosy cop over here trying to cause
trouble.”