Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders (22 page)

There were half-a-dozen or so patrons inside the Red
Rabbit.

“I should have known,” I muttered, spotting Getdown at the back of the room gobbling down cheeseburgers.

With his shiny black hair hanging down on his forehead, Buck sat at the table with him, and the two
seemed engrossed in their conversation, which stopped
abruptly as we approached.

Getdown licked the grease off his sausage-like fingers and grinned up at us. “Well, you find out who
torched the place?”

I pulled out a chair for Doreen and one for myself.
“Getting closer,” I replied, glancing at Buck who was
eyeing me warily. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here.
There’s a few things we need to straighten out before
we go any further.”

Getdown frowned and shot a puzzled look at Buck
who brushed his greasy hair from his eyes and scooted
back from the table. “You guys talk. You need anything,
just give me a yell”

“Before you leave, Buck. You seen S.S. around?”

He shook his head. “S.S.? That jerk? What would I
see him for?”

Doreen shot me a furtive look. I raised an eyebrow,
and she nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Never mind. Thanks anyway.”

“No problem. Like I said, shout if you need anything.”

After Buck was out of earshot, Getdown frowned.
“Now what’s this all about?”

Resting my elbows on the table, I leaned forward and
narrowed my eyes. “Look, when we take on a client, we
do the best we can with the information we have. But
when one of our clients deliberately lies to us, then I’m
ready to take that lie and stick it where it hurts most”

A cagey gleam filled his small, pig eyes. “What are
you talking about, Boudreaux?”

“You lied to us, Getdown. You weren’t in Dallas
when your club burned down. You were here in Austin.”

He protested. “I don’t know what kind of pills
you’ve been popping, but whatever they is has gots you
seeing things. I told you I was up in Dallas at the Somalia Sunrise Club.”

I leaned back and folded my arms across my chest.
“That’s a fine trick. Tell me, Getdown, how do you audition rap groups when there aren’t any rap groups
around?”

A flicker of surprise glittered in his eyes momentarily, then faded. “Whoever told you that was flying
higher than a kite.”

“Maybe so, but it was the same one who told us that
the Somalia Sunrise had been closed down for a month.
Just reopened a couple days ago” I leaned forward and
fixed my eyes on his. “Besides, how did you know the uniforms you ordered from the laundry burned if you
didn’t see them on Monday?”

He frowned, but his small eyes shifted nervously
from Doreen to me. “What’s that you’re saying? What
uniforms? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” Doreen said, pulling out that ubiquitous notebook of hers like a shotgun and thumbing
through the pages. “When we first interviewed you, you
said-” she paused, then read from her notebook. “You
said, `I had a backroom full of beer and wine plus all of
my cloth goods.’ When Tony questioned you as to cloth
goods, you said, `towels for the bar and restrooms,
tablecloths, and the new uniforms for my people.”’ She
snapped the notebook shut. “Those are the uniforms
we’re talking about”

I took over. “They were delivered on Monday before
the fire on Tuesday. The only ones who could have
known about the uniforms were those who had been in
the storeroom”

Sweat beaded on his fat forehead and floppy cheeks
and rolled down the folds of sagging flesh about his
neck, staining the collar of his pale-yellow silk shirt.

I nodded to Doreen’s notebook. “Cops might be interested in that little book of yours, what do you think?”

She chuckled. “It might open their eyes”

Getdown Joe dragged the tip of his tongue across
his lips. “All right. So I was in town that Monday. After
the bar closed down that night, I come in to pick up
some scratch for a trip I was taking the next day. I saw the receipts for the laundry delivery on the desk. That’s
how I knew the uniforms was there.”

A tenuous thought hit me, then vanished. I glanced at
Doreen.

She frowned. “What?”

Joe hesitated, puzzled.

I shook my head and made him repeat himself, hoping I could latch on to that wraithlike thought.

“What?”

“What you just said about coming in to pick up some
cash”

He frowned at Doreen, then shrugged. “Like I said, I
was in town, but I didn’t torch the place. After the boys
closed up for the night, I come in and picked up some
cash for a trip to Denver the next day. The receipt for
the laundry delivery was on the desk. That’s how I
knew the uniforms was back there.”

There was the wispy thought again, and again still
evading substance. “Go on. Then what?”

“I caught the six o’clock flight out to Denver Tuesday
morning. I got back Wednesday morning. So, when the
fire started, I was out of town” He must have seen the
skepticism on my face, for he added, “And I can prove it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure you can”

He nodded emphatically. “I was in Denver, at a meeting with a guy.”

For a moment, I studied him. Sighing deeply, I shook
my head. “Okay, what guy?”

He pressed his lips together doggedly.

I held out my hands on either side in frustration. “Me
or the cops, Joe. Me or the cops”

He nodded. “Okay, okay. A dude named Bernard,
George Bernard” He hesitated. “We-ah-we had business to discuss.”

Doreen and I looked at each other in surprise. According to J.C.Towers, George Bernard was one of the three
most notable collectors of crystal skulls in the world. If
Getdown was with Bernard on Tuesday, he couldn’t have
torched his club.

Trying to keep the excitement from my voice, I
asked, “What business did you have with Bernard?”

Getdown grew tight-lipped. “Just business.”

My next words hit him between the eyes. “About the
crystal skull?” He gaped at us, and I continued. “We
know about the skull, Joe. What I want to know is your
connection with it.”

He stammered a moment, and before he could reply,
I continued. “I’ve got enough on you that the police
would be more than interested in taking a look.”

His eyes narrowed. “You ain’t got nothing. You can’t
prove nothing.”

“No? I know a guy named Abraham tried to sell you
the skull, and you sent your boy, Ivory, to follow him.
That night, Abraham fell, or maybe he was pushed
from his tenth floor balcony. Too bad, because you still
couldn’t get your hands on the skull. Then somehow,
you must have found the skull at Bernie’s Pawnshop.
Of course, without the ticket, you couldn’t get to it.”

“Then yesterday, when we transported the skull to
the jewelers, your boy, Ivory, followed us. And surprise,
surprise, the jewelry store was broken into last night
and the skull along with a couple million in uncut diamonds was taken”

Getdown Joe’s eyes grew wide. The white around his
black pupils contrasted sharply with his dark skin.
“What makes you think that?” He demanded. “How do
you know it was Ivory?”

“His Jeep. His yellow-and-black Jeep. The same one
parked at the lot two blocks north of here”

Getdown sputtered. “The Jeep was stolen. If you
don’t believe me, call the cops. Ivory done reported it
Monday.”

I winked at Doreen whose lips were twisted into a
skeptical grin. “You bet. Next you’ll be telling us the
cow really did jump over the moon.”

He frowned. “Huh?”

“Forget it.”

At that moment, a short, lanky black man with a
bald head and wearing a loose-fitting tank top and
baggy shorts that sagged within six or eight inches of
his bare ankles entered the Red Rabbit. I recognized
Ivory.

Doreen nodded to his unblemished arms. Whatever
else Ivory might have done, there were no wounds to
suggest he was the one who broke into the pawnshop a
couple nights back.

Getdown waved him over and gestured to us. “Ivory. You get your tail over here and tell this dude about your
car. He don’t believe it was stolen.”

The light-complexion man frowned. “What’s that
you say, Mister Joe?”

Getdown pointed to me. “This PI don’t believe your
car was stolen.”

Ivory looked up at me blankly and in a dull monotone devoid of any expression, said, “Yes, sir, mister.
That Jeep of mine was done stole last Monday. When I
told Mister Joe about it, he told me to report it to the
law” He shrugged. “I did, but me, I don’t figure I’ll
ever see it again.”

Getdown grunted. “Don’t be too sure, Ivory. These
two here say they saw it at the Munkres’ parking lot a
couple blocks north of here”

A puzzled frown wrinkled Ivory’s forehead. He stared
at Getdown, not comprehending the fat man’s words.
“What’s that, Mister Joe? Are you kidding me?”

Getdown shook his head and with a soft grin, replied,
“No. Your Jeep is at Munkres’ parking lot”

The lean man’s eyes lit up as he finally understood
Getdown’s words. I glanced at Doreen who arched an
eyebrow. I nodded. Buck Topper wasn’t far off base.
Ivory was slow.

“I reckon I ought to go up and be certain, don’t you
think so, Mister Joe?”

“Sure, Ivory. Get up there. If it’s your Jeep, then call
the police and tell them you found it. You hear me?
Don’t drive it until they say you can. No sense in get ting yourself arrested for stealing your own car.” He
laughed.

Ivory nodded emphatically. “Yes, sir, Mister Joe.
Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Hold on,” I said, fishing the keys from my pocket
and tossing them to him. “You’ll need these.”

He nodded again. “Thank you, mister.”

After Ivory left, Joe looked up at us with a I-toldyou-so expression on his rotund face. “Now, do you really think that one has the smarts to rob a jewelry
store?”

Doreen glanced at me, a self-conscious smirk on her
face. I knew how she felt. After the last couple minutes
with him, I wasn’t even sure Ivory could find the parking
lot. Still, Getdown had sent him after Hermie Abraham.

The fat man persisted. “Well? Do you, Boudreaux?”

I grinned. “Doesn’t look that way, but then, looks
can be deceiving.” Joe’s brows knit, and I continued.
“Now, what about it? Didn’t you send Ivory to follow
Hermie Abraham?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. I wanted to know where the
dude was hanging out. Even Ivory can do a tail. He followed the guy to the Blackhawk Towers. When Ivory
come back, he told me the Jew-boy had killed hisself.
That’s it.”

I eyed him narrowly. “You’re sure?”

He studied us several moments, and then slapped us
both in the face with his next admission. “Listen,
Boudreaux. I know you-” He paused and nodded to Doreen. “And probably your partner is straight up Sherlocks. Fawn okayed you, and that’s good enough for
me. So, I’m telling you straight. I wanted that skull. I
still do, but I had nothing to do with the fire or the old
bum’s death or the Jew-boy’s death. And I sure don’t
know nothing about no jewelry store robbery. That’s serious stuff.”

“Why did you lie about going to Dallas?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t want no one to know about
the skull.”

An idea hit me. I glanced at Doreen then fixed my
eyes on Getdown. “You say you want the skull.”

He looked at me in surprise. “Yeah, but you said it
was stolen.”

I shrugged indifferently. “I didn’t say I didn’t know
where it was, did I?”

His fleshy forehead wrinkled, and then a devious
gleam filled his eyes. “No. I don’t suppose you did.”

“If I-we-could find it, what would it be worth to
you?”

From the corner of my eyes, I could see Doreen staring at me.

Getdown eyed me shrewdly, then glanced questioningly at Doreen. “I ain’t lying to you Boudreaux. I ain’t
sure just how much that Bernard dude will hold still for,
but I’ll give you a third of what I get from him, which I
figure is at least half a million.” He tapped the chest of
his pale-yellow silk shirt with the tip of a greasy finger,
leaving a small grease mark on the garment.

I studied the fat sneak a moment, then nodded.
“We’ll be in touch”

Outside, we paused on the sidewalk as the late afternoon crowd began to thicken. “What was that about?”
Doreen asked, her brow furrowed.

“A shot in the dark. I don’t think he was lying about
the jewelry heist. He’s too eager to get the skull, more
than if he had it tucked away somewhere.”

She shook her head. “Well, if his Denver alibi holds
up, he’s for certain off the hook with the fire”

“Could be. We need to contact Bernard”

“What if he lies for Getdown?”

“I don’t figure he will. He’s one of three worldrenowned collectors of the skulls. He’s got a reputation
to protect”

She cocked her head to one side. “I suppose you
heard Buck say he hadn’t seen S.S.”

It was not a question, but a statement. I arched an
eyebrow. “Yeah”

“Could he be lying?” She gestured up the street to
Neon Larry’s. “The guy up there said S.S. had gone
down to the Red Rabbit last Monday”