NO Quarter (22 page)

I started to give up and go back to bed when I caught sight of the battered manila envelope lying where I had tossed it on top of the VCR. That envelope, the one Dunk had given me because he’d thought I was
...
whoever. I had put it there the other day, then I’d forgotten about it. I picked it up, turned on the small lamp by the video cabinet and pulled the photo out. Staring at it in the lamplight, I suddenly realized what was so familiar about the photograph.

* * *

Excerpt from Bone’s Movie Diary:

There’s nothing quite like a good ghost story. On screen they are distinctly different from other horror films. Think
Poltergeist
v.
Rosemary’s Baby
or
Dracula
. Two I saw as a kid—8 or 9 yrs. old—that scared me half to death were
The Uninvited
and 1963’s
The Haunting
. Both old, black & white, bloodless, maintaining a level of suspense & dread that mega-budgeted special effects can’t match without a good story & sincere effort. But, to show I’m not a classic movie snob, let me say I rank M. Night Shyamalan’s
The Sixth Sense
from 1999 among the best of the sub-genre. Frightening, suspenseful, eventually quite touching. I was, first time I saw it, struck by all these emotional effects ... & one more. Pity. I felt tremendously sorry for the ghosts in the movie—not because of whatever horrible ways their earthly lives had ended & not because many were seeking belated justice for what they suffered as mortals. Instead, I felt sorry that they were trapped between the worlds, without the benefits of being either living or dead, caught in dismal repetitious cycles. How tiring it must be, I thought. How useless to be a ghost. Myself, I intend to cut my ties immediately. Whenever death finally overtakes me, I shall go forward toward ... toward ... well, whatever/wherever. What I
won’t
do is loiter around holding grudges about meaningless mortal matters. Let the living live, I’m
outta
here. Appraisals:
Sixth Sense/Uninvited
* * * ½;
Haunting
* * * *

The Stage Door is on the corner of Toulouse and Chartres, four blocks closer to the river than my more normal hangout of Fahey’s. The distance between the clientele of the two bars, however, was much more pronounced.

I had dressed myself only slightly less grubby than when I’d visited the Bear’s Decatur Street bar last night—old blue jeans and a faded red T-shirt. I was also out much earlier. There was still fading daylight in the sky. The Bear had mentioned the Stage Door as Jo-Jo’s hangout. Jo-Jo he’d described as a Mexican ladies’ man—but of course the fact that he was also a recently released ex-con had me particularly interested.

Like I’ve said, everybody’s a suspect at the start of a hunt. However, Jo-Jo had a little more going for him. If he was in fact a vain pretty boy who dated or slept around a lot, then he might just be the type of ready-made trouble Sunshine always picked for her boyfriends. Also, Bone had said Sunshine had dated Hispanics—excuse me, Latinos—in the past, and he apparently had an interest in voodoo.

There are lots of reasons to kill people. Actually, “motives” is the word I’m looking for. Jealousy is a good motive. I’d mentioned it to Bone last night because I wanted him to keep the possibilities in mind. He’d been at the Bear’s bar trying to track down whoever dealt Sunshine whatever dope she did. (I wondered if Bone understood how insular and cagey the drug-dealing world is.) It would be good if we could find that specific dealer, presuming there was one. Sunshine’s murder might have just been a drug buy gone bad ... though it didn’t make much sense that she’d be doing it on the Moonwalk in the middle of the night. I know how casually drugs move in some Quarter bars.

Even so, Bone had to keep an open mind. So did I. Jealousy, blackmail, drugs—there were lots of motives that could lead to someone to do murder.

With Jo-Jo, though, I was definitely figuring along the lines of a love affair gone awry. I would have liked to have milked the Bear for more on him, but I’d gone to some trouble to get the info I had without drawing attention. I didn’t want to spoil that.

For instance, it would have been nice to know at what time of day or night Jo-Jo did his usual hanging at the Stage Door. The Bear had said he
thought Jo-Jo was working at the nearby Court of Two Sisters, on Royal. I didn’t want to go snooping around his work, though, not yet. Two Sisters is a classy joint. It’s a lot easier to finesse information in a rough-and-tumble bar. However, I knew that some of the Two Sisters’ employees hit the Stage Door regularly. I might be able to pick up some solid facts about Jo-Jo just by eavesdropping.

Another thing I wouldn’t have minded knowing was what kind of crime our Mexican friend had been in stir for.

Fahey’s is a service industry hangout. Lots of waiters, busboys, and cooks show up. The Stage Door is the same, drawing in workers from a different set of restaurants. That’s where the similarity ends. Fahey’s is a spacious, low-key place that leans toward the Beatles on their sound system. The pool games there, as I’ve said, are mostly clean, and the people who drink there are educated, or at least well-mannered and passingly intelligent.

The Stage Door, on the other hand, is cramped, and the heavy metal or rap blasting from the speakers makes it seem even smaller. The place has a shady, blue-collar vibe coming off even those wearing their natty restaurant black-and-whites. This is particularly apparent around the single pool table. Money games are often shot there, and from around one o’clock in the morning on, the stakes can get high. The woofing and trash-talking that goes on is loud and forceful enough so that, to the uninitiated, it often seems like a fight is about to break out any second.

That was pretty much the scene I found wandering in off Toulouse’s sidewalk. I figured if I didn’t find Jo-Jo on this run, I’d hit here again after one or two o’clock. By then a new bartender would be on and if anybody else was still hanging, they’d no doubt be too owl-eyed to remember my face.

It would have been tight enough inside even if it hadn’t been crowded. I had to wait until a huge guy at the table took his shot, then edged past him to an open seat at the bar. German Caroline was bartending, and came over as soon as she saw me. The “German” was to distinguish her from British Caroline and Tennessee Caroline, also Quarterites.

I said a lot of people use nicknames down here. I didn’t say they were all clever.

“Hey, Herr
Dirigent
!” Caroline called out. “You shooting or scouting tonight?”

“Just watching,” I said with a smile. German Caroline has been around the scene awhile. I’ve always hoped that that “Dirigent” she calls me translates as “Maestro,” and not something else entirely. “I heard the Hanoi Hangovers have a couple of new sticks on their team and I thought I’d try to scope them out before we shoot against them in a couple of weeks.”

Perfectly reasonable. The Hangovers shot out of here, a good team but notorious for disputing shots, most often when they stood to lose a rack. If I were a lesser man, I’d say they were all a bunch of pussies. Good thing I’m not a lesser man.

“How’re you doing this session?” Caroline doesn’t speak with much of an accent.

“The Snake Plisskens or me, personally?” Our team name comes from how so many of our players are transplants who’ve “escaped” New York. It helps to keep the mood light.

“Both,” she smiled.

“Team’s good.” I rattled off our stats. “Padre especially. Me, I’m shooting so-so, but I still have my good nights.”

“Sounds like a personal problem, Herr Dirigent. Take it up with the Chaplain.”

I chuckled.

“Gott in Himmel,”
she said suddenly, exaggerating her accent. “You must be dying of thirst. Are you still drinking Tullamore Dew?”

I nodded and tossed a fiver on the bar.

Caroline set down my Irish and scooped up the money. “Well, good to see you. You should come around more often. Okay?”

I blew her a kiss and she wandered off down the bar. While big money rolls through the bars during Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, most Quarter bars live and die on the local business that tides them through the dry spells. Bartenders are often hired because of their “cult” followings, and there is an ongoing low-key competition among them for the limited pool of regulars. Even so, somebody that drinks at Molly’s—the one on Decatur, not Toulouse—isn’t likely to start making O’Flaherty’s, for instance, his regular hangout, no matter who’s bartending.

After ten years in the Quarter I’ve seen a lot of bars change ownership and names. Longtime Quarterites will sometimes continue to refer to a bar by its old name, even if that name is obsolete by two incarnations. The Calf/Yo Mama’s thing is a perfect example.

I took my drink in my hand and pivoted around to face the pool table, my elbows resting on the bar behind me. While seeming to watch the action of the game, I made a leisurely scan to see who all was in the Stage Door.

The Court of Two Sisters waiters and busboys were easy to spot, their bright green jackets hung over the backs of their chairs as they gathered around a circular table near the back. A few faces I didn’t recognize, and those I did were mostly nodding acquaintances. But nobody among them fit the description of Jo-Jo I had gotten from the Bear. Still I kept an ear cocked in their direction, listening to hear if the name popped up in conversation.

The huge guy at the table was wearing big, stomping boots, and a pair of overalls that had enough fabric to cover a good-sized Volkswagen. His head was shaved. He wasn’t all flab, not by any means. A lot of his enormous weight looked like muscle. Something that looked like a dried bird claw on a leather thong dangled from his massive neck.

The other shooter was some skinny kid who wore a blue baseball cap pulled low. The big man would have dwarfed anybody in the bar, but he looked big enough to carry his opponent in his pocket.

I watched the kid make a precise short-rail shot, easing the cue ball off the rail around the six to tap the eight into the corner. It’s satisfying to win a game on a well-executed tough shot.

“I don’t think so,” his mountain of an opponent spoke. Biting through the almost indistinguishable Cajun inflection in his low, deep voice, he made each word a snarl.

“Whatcha mean, man? That was a beautiful shot!”

“You came off the six. That’s a foul. So puttin’ down the eight means you
lose
.”

The kid looked ready to argue more, for a second there. Then I guess his instinct for self-preservation kicked in. He laid his stick on the table.

“Hey, man. You don’t want to pay me, no problem. I don’t want no hard feelings.”

It was an old scene I’d watched before. Someone makes a bet on a game, then tries to argue his way out of it when he loses. Surprisingly enough, contrary to the big bad image of the Quarter, it rarely goes to a fight. Like the kid was doing now, the winner usually just waives the bet. Of course, if the loser tries the same stunt too often, he suddenly has a hard time finding anyone who’ll shoot him for money.

Then again, why on earth would the skinny kid want to fight
this
guy? He was doing the smart thing.

“That’s bullshit! It was a foul. You lost. You owe me five!” The big man wasn’t about to let it go.

The even smarter thing now for the kid would be to bolt out the doors and not look back. No doubt he could outrun his opponent. It would only cost him his dignity. I didn’t think that was too unreasonable a price. Obviously, the kid didn’t want to fight the big guy, but he couldn’t stomach turning tail. Paying out five dollars for a game he’d won was simply out of the question. He looked around the bar, appealing for help. People watched, but no one stepped forward to interfere.

His eyes settled on me.

“Maestro! You were watching. Was that a clean shot or not?”

I was startled but hid it. I hadn’t recognized Willie under the baseball cap. He had shaved off the neat beard he usually sported, probably unable to stand it anymore in the summer heat. He worked at Ralph & Kacoo’s, just up the block.

“This isn’t league, Willie,” I said. “I’m not in a game, I keep my mouth off it.”

Suddenly, the lights went dim. The big guy stood in front of me, blotting out the rest of the room. I noted he was balanced on the balls of his feet like a fighter. I didn’t move from my elbows-behind-on-the-bar slouch, though to all appearances it left me wide open. My SpyderCo was a heartbeat from my right hand.

“He asked you a question, fella!” he said. “Tell him he ticked the fuckin’ six.”

From being the unnoticed observer, I had suddenly become the focal point of the entire bar. I didn’t particularly like that.

You’ve heard about how the martial arts let a small man beat a big man. That’s basically bullshit. It works nicely when the little guy knows how to fight and the big man doesn’t. Then the little guy takes the big man like a LAWS rocket takes a tank. Unfortunately, if the big man knows how to fight as well, the little guy loses.

It was weird thinking of myself as the “little guy,” but the evidence loomed hugely over me.

This scenario illustrates perfectly why I like knives. The knife was the great equalizer long before the Colt revolver came along. I shifted ever so slightly on my stool, so that my right hand was now only
half
a heartbeat from the SpyderCo.

To my surprise, the big guy caught the “casual” move and took a step back.

Uh-oh. He was a knife-fighter too and recognized the move. We had both just identified each other. That put the ball in my court.

I didn’t let it become a standoff, aware of the audience watching the scene. I tilted my head a few degrees so I could see past the big guy. Willie was holding his ground.

“You both agree to go along with what I say?” I said evenly. I looked directly at the giant in the overalls. “Even knowing that I know Willie there?”

“That’s right. Call it.”

I shifted again on my barstool, getting my feet under me.

“In that case, I was looking right at it and it was a clean shot.”

The big guy stared at me hard. I got ready to make my move, being careful to avoid twitching a muscle. Then, slowly, he nodded his head.

“All right,” he rumbled. “I’ll take that as honest. Otherwise you would’ve called it against him just to keep from lookin’ like you were throwing the game to him.”

He fished a five out of his pocket and handed it to the kid. Willie took it and faded fast, dignity intact, but he didn’t even bother to return his cue to the wall rack. He left it on the table and hit the sidewalk.

The crowd turned back to their drinks, the collective tension draining from the room, everybody glad the confrontation was over.