Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders (3 page)

He grinned when he spotted me, revealing two missing front teeth, one up, one down. “Hey, Tony. Getting
an early start?” He eyed Doreen curiously.

“You know me, Buck. I’m a good little AA’er.” Remembering my manners, I turned to Doreen. “This is Buck Topper. He owns the Red Rabbit. Buck, meet
Doreen Patterson-newest member on the staff of
Blevins’ Investigation.”

Buck leered. “Glad to meet you, Doreen”

Departing from her trademark growls, she replied in
honeyed tones. “Same here, Buck”

Buck grinned sappily at me.

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know Doreen well, but the
transition from her growling and snarling to words
dripping with magnolia blossoms told me that she was
playing games with Buck. “I’m looking for Getdown.
Seen him around?”

He shook his head. “Not since last night. He said he
was coming back this morning.” He cut his eyes at
Doreen and grinned. “He usually comes in for a bite
since his placed burned down”

Her expression remained unchanged, sort of what
you might call a sterile “come hither.”

I glanced around. “What about Downtown or Goofyfoot? Seen either of them around?”

“Naw.” A frown knit his brows, and he scratched his
armpit. “Funny. I ain’t seen much of the bunch since
the fire. I kinda figured they’d hit me up the next few
days, but the only one that come in was Goofyfoot”

Gesturing to the closed bar between the Hip-Hop
and the Red Rabbit, I said, “Looks like Jimmy’s Bistro
picked up some damage. What about your place?”

He shook his head. “Nothing to worry about, but
you’re right about the Bistro. Calvin closed it down. Looks like they’re going to have to tear both down” He
paused, then added. “If I could handle what Getdown
and Calvin want for their places, I could build me a
right profitable little business here. Dress up the place.
Even down to fancy green and yellow uniforms for my
people like Getdown. I might do the uniforms anyway.”

I shrugged. “Calvin couldn’t be asking that much. In
fact, I don’t know how he stayed open. I never saw more
than a dozen or so customers in there at one time.”

Buck grinned slyly. “Well, there’s customers, and
then there are customers”

Doreen frowned at me.

“You talking drugs, Buck?”

“Hey, all I hear is talk”

I filed that little nugget of information away in the
back of my head. Pointing to the rear of the Hip-Hop, I
asked, “Goofyfoot still hang out in the alley?”

Buck shrugged. “Probably”

“Well, I suppose we’ll go take a look.”

He smiled at Doreen again and, without taking his
eyes off her, added, “Why don’t you two come in for
some coffee before you go?” He brushed his shiny
black hair back over his ears.

Before I could reply, Doreen said, “No, thanks, but
you can do me a favor, Buck.”

His face lit up. “Sure, Doreen. Just you name it,
honey.”

She gestured to her Jag. “While Tony and I are gone,
would you keep an eye on my car?”

“You bet,” he gushed.

She turned to me and, with a smug grin on her face,
said. “I’m ready if you are.”

If I’d been with anyone else after we left Buck, we
would have joked how Doreen had managed to play
Buck like a game of Monopoly. After all, when I suggested she didn’t want to take an expensive car like the
Jag down to Sixth Street, she had promptly informed
me she knew what she was doing.

Obviously, she did.

Doreen, one; Tony, zero.

She wrinkled her nose at the garbage filling the alley.
“What’s back here?”

“This is where some of the street guys live.”

She curled the side of her lip. “Winos? What do we
need them for?” The tone in her voice revealed her obvious disgust for street bums.

I studied her for several moments, saying nothing.

She frowned. “What?”

In my four plus decades on this earth, I’d worked
with many people whom I would never invite to a backyard barbecue, but I’d always managed to find a way to
channel my efforts so that usually we succeeded in
whatever undertaking we faced.

This was no different. I cleared my throat. “You’re
really interested in this PI business, huh?”

Her frown deepened as if she were having trouble
understanding my question. “I wouldn’t be here if I
weren’t,” she snipped.

I ignored her curt reply. “No, I don’t suppose you
would. So, in response to your question, in our business, we take advantage of every source we can. These
winos are the invisible men around here. Just like maids
and butlers, maintenance guys, secretaries, file clerksthose kind of folks. At times, they hear or see things
that might point you in the right direction.

“That’s the meat and potatoes of this business,” I
continued as I started down the alley. “Questions, questions, and more questions-of everyone”

“I know that much,” she replied tartly. “I spent a year
at Texas Investigations.”

She was beginning to get on my nerves. “Why’d you
leave?”

With a noncommittal shrug, she replied, “I just did.”

The south side of the alley behind the torched club
was lined with fifty-year-old brick buildings, many deserted, some used as storerooms, and others incidentally used as temporary homes for the transients. I
stopped in front of a door directly behind the Hip-Hop
and knocked.

No sounds from inside. I knocked again, then pushed
the door open.

Over my shoulder, I explained, “This is a storehouse
of sorts for the Hip-Hop. Nothing of real value. Some
of the winos sleep here from time to time.”

The light from the open door illumined the room
enough to see it was empty except for a few worn blankets and stained mattresses strewn across the cluttered
floor. Sparsely filled shelves lined all four of the brick
walls.

Doreen remained outside as I entered and glanced
around the main room and the adjoining smaller room.

“Anything in there?”

“Nope. No one,” I replied, closing the door behind me.

At that moment, a wizened old man in baggy clothes
rounded the corner into the alley. He jerked to a halt
when he saw us and immediately turned back in the direction from which he came.

I recognized him immediately. “Hey, Goofyfoot. It’s
me, Tony, Tony Boudreaux.”

He paused and looked around, peering at me skeptically with his watery blue eyes. “Boudreaux?” He took
a hesitant step toward us, his baggy coat dragging the
ground beside his ragged running shoes.

“Yeah, it’s me”

He paused and glanced at Doreen suspiciously.
“Who’s that?”

“My partner.” From the corner of my eyes, I saw her
glance at me.

A leering grin split Goofyfoot’s wrinkled face, and
he cackled. “Business must be good”

“Not bad” I shrugged. I gestured down the alley.
“Where’s all the boys?”

He shuffled forward, his pigeon-toed foot twisted in at almost a thirty degree angle. The rubber sole outside
his little toe was worn away. He grew serious. “They be
around.”

I glanced at Doreen. Her lips were curled in disgust.
I turned back to Goofyfoot and nodded to the Hip-Hop.
“What happened here? I heard they found someone
dead out here”

Goofyfoot glanced over his shoulder. “Rosey. It was
Rosey.”

Rosey! I grimaced. Rosey was one of the first winos
I met when I started with Marty. He had provided me
with several leads over the years, and in turn I had provided him with the means for several drunks over the
years.

Once in the middle of the throes of a three-day drunk,
he told me his real name was Chadley Beauregard
Collins, and then he swore me to secrecy. “The boys
would shame me something terrible,” he explained.
“They just call me Rosey `cause after one drink of Thunderbird, my nose turns red.”

“Rosey!” I muttered a soft curse. I was going to miss
the old man. “What happened?” Goofyfoot hesitated. I
grinned and pulled out a twenty. “Here. Now, what happened?”

He drew closer. “Don’t rightly know. Me and Downtown was over at the convention center where they had
some big dinner and threw away enough to feed us for a
year. We was dodging the cops and getting what we
could. We heard the sirens and come back. The fire was about out, and there was poor old Rosey lying right
there. Blood was leaking from his head” He pointed at
the ground where Doreen was standing.

With a sharp gasp, she jumped back.

At last, I told myself, a human reaction. “Last I
heard, they hadn’t identified him. All they know was
that he had been struck on the head”

He snorted. “Ain’t surprising. Them blueboys, they
talk to everybody except them that really knows”

“The cops figure Rosey was the one who burned down
the Hip-Hop.”

The worn-out old man grunted. “That’s stupid. He
slept in the back room of the Hip-Hop during cold
weather. Why would he burn down his own house?”

“And he slept in the storeroom the rest of the time,
huh?”

“Yeah. Rosey, he wasn’t much for sleeping outside.
He had standards,” he added with as much dignity as he
could muster.

I glanced at Doreen who, despite the faint curl to her
lip, was listening intently. “Tell me, Goofyfoot. You
suppose any of the boys know anything about it?”

“Naw.” He shook his head. “We talked about it, but
no one saw or heard nothing. Shame. Old Rosey, he always shared his goods with us. Sure going to miss that.
Why, the week before the fire, he sprung us to a big
party right there,” he said, nodding to the storeroom.

I laughed. “What happened? He find some rich guy’s
billfold?”

“Not that. No, sir.” He paused and frowned. “I don’t
rightly know what it was he found, but whatever it was,
he pawned it. Got fifty bucks for it.”

Doreen and I looked at each other, puzzled. I turned
back to Goofyfoot. “He didn’t say what it was, huh?”

“Nope” He paused to pull out a battered pack of Pall
Mall cigarettes. His nicotine-stained fingers shook as
he touched a match to one. “He said he got fifty bucks
for it and waved the claim ticket in front of us. And
then he bragged someone might give him another fifty
for the pawn ticket.”

Now, I was curious. What could a wino like Rosey
pawn for $50.00? And who would pay him for the
ticket? “That’s all he said about it?”

With a shrug, Goofyfoot added, “Said he found it in
the alley behind the Blackhawk Towers on Congress Avenue on-” He grimaced. “I-I don’t remember exactly
when, but two or three days before the Hip-Hop burned.”

Doreen glanced up at me. “Do you think that had
something to do with the fire?”

“Beats me,” I replied. “Probably not, but something’s
odd here.”

“What do you mean?”

I studied her a moment, trying to sort my thoughts.

At that moment, a black-and-white cruiser turned
into the alley from the far end of the block. Goofyfoot
vanished around the corner. Doreen and I stepped out
of the way, but the cruiser braked to a halt and the officer eyed us suspiciously.

“What’s going on here?” His eyes narrowed. “If this
is what I think it is sister, you better move your fanny.
We don’t allow no soliciting in this town.”

Doreen’s eyes grew wide and a crimson blush rose in
her cheeks.

Hastily I replied, “Not a thing, officer. My partner and
I are with the insurance company covering this building.
We’re investigating the owner’s claim, that’s all”

He considered my answer, then nodded. “Well, just
watch out for yourselves” He eyed Doreen a moment,
then added, “Sorry, Ma’am, but this section of town’s
thick with hookers. Some of them are dressed as fancy
as you. You never would guess they were hustling. They
look more like they was going to a PTA meeting.”

After the black-and-white disappeared around the
corner, Doreen sputtered, “I have never been so humiliated in my life. Why, I-”

“Calm down, calm down,” I interrupted. “This sort
of thing is typical for the business.”

At that moment, Buck Topper came out the back door
of the Red Rabbit and spotted us. “Hey, Tony. Getdown
just called. He’ll be here about an hour.”

I waved and glanced at my watch. “That gives us
time to do a little leg work. Let’s go”