NO Quarter (37 page)

For a moment, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “Why? Why was that drawing important to you?”

Dunk’s eyes twitched toward the barrel of the shotgun, then hurried back to me.

“It
...
” He licked his lips repeatedly. His eyes were growing shiny. “That drawing
...
it had
her
in it.”

“Sunshine,” I said, and then I realized how hateful it was to be saying her name in the same room with him.

“Yeah.” A tear rolled from his eye. “See
...
I didn’t have any, like, pictures of her. No photos. Nothin’. I jus’ wanted
...
”

“Why did you give me that envelope with the photograph?”

He stared back at me, clueless.

“The envelope,” I said. “Had an M drawn on it. You handed it to me at your place. Why?”

I saw it catch up to him. “Oh
...
right. Sunshine said to give it to—somebody. It was, like, some family thing. I dunno. She told me, if she ever, y’know, disappeared
...
or whatever
...
that I should give it to
...
” Confusion clouded his face. “I couldn’t remember. So I just gave it to you. ‘Cause you were, well,
there
.”

He was useless. Breathtakingly useless.

I watched another tear drop, then pressed him. “How did you get Sunshine to go out there by the river? What did you tell her, what kind of setup? What was she doing on the Moonwalk after midnight?”

He started shaking his head again, frantically this time. The tears were now accompanied by a sickly, squirming whine.

“No. No.
No no no no—
”

“You’re going to answer,” I cut through his whining. “You understand that, so don’t give me this ‘no-no’ shit. Answer. How did you get her out by the river?”

His eyes went over, studied the shotgun again in Alex’s very sure hands—she knew how to work the gun, not me. Then, with the tears still coming but no longer indicating grief for Sunshine, and with his upper lip—dusted with a trail of downy fuzz—quivering, Dunk answered.

“Juh-Juh-Juh-Jugger
...
Jugger was back. He found out about
...
me an’ Sunshine. An’
...
fuck, it made him, like, crazy. He wuh-wuh-wouldn’t let no
girl
touch me. Never. I tol’ Sunshine about him, about my, y’know, my past with him. Jugger said he had to meet her. If she wanted me an’ I wanted her, then we could have each other
...
but he had to meet her first. He tol’ me to tell her that. Tol’ me to tell her when an’ where.”

The brass knuckles hung heavy at my side. I flexed my fingers slightly within the hoops.

His wet eyes looked up desperately at mine.

“That’s all.”

“What day?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“What day of the week—when did Jugger tell you to pass on the meeting time to her?”

He had to think a moment; think hard through the fear.

“Uh, Thursday, he tol’ me. For a meetin’ Sunday night.”

Maestro had gotten that phone message from Sunshine two days before her murder. She had doubtlessly smelled a rat. A middle-of-the-night meeting on the Moonwalk with the assault-happy ex-lover of her boyfriend? Sure she was suspicious. She had perhaps thought about enlisting help or advice and had picked Maestro because he seemed a level head, somebody who could handle himself? Or because of that photo—maybe she thought he might be her father? When she couldn’t get in touch, she had
...
reconsidered? Dropped it? Figured the Juggernaut was all bluff and she had no reason to be afraid of him? Maybe. However it had gone, Sunshine had not tried to contact me, had not turned to me for help.

“That’s all,” Dunk said. “That’s
all
I did. I swear, dude.”

“Get on your feet,” Alex said, and there was nothing about that harsh voice that could have produced that sweet girlish giggling earlier. “Stand up.”

His teary eyes widened, and he was shaking his head again.

“Do it,”
I said.

Dunk slowly pulled his feet under himself, then, even more slowly, stood on legs that shook like a newborn deer’s.

“That’s all I did
...
” His voice was a reedy little whisper now.

“I know it is,” I said, nodding. “Put your hands behind your back, lock the fingers together.”

He shook as he did so and looked very, very frightened. I stepped forward and threw a hard, fast roundhouse that smashed him on the temple, and he caromed off the wall and went down a second time. The many rings in his earlobes jingled, then were still.

This time he was unconscious. I pulled him out into the middle of the floor. I set the brass knuckles out of reach, got the square of duct tape I’d already cut and laid it over his mouth—the mouth that had blown such amazing, soulful music from his saxophone. I thought,
How could someone as repellant and cowardly as Dunk be given such a gift?

I didn’t want to think about it. I shook my head, clearing it, then neatened the edges of the tape, straddled his chest, and looked up at Alex, who had held the shotgun at the ready throughout this.

“Hand me the pillow,” I said. The words hurt my throat. My head, my eyes, felt too tight, too hot.

She laid the gun on the couch, picked up the big feather pillow, and knelt next to me, looking down at Dunk. He hadn’t moved during any of this—out cold. I held out my hands for the pillow, but she continued to hug it, pulling it in tight next to her body.

“Do you think he really did love her?” she asked. “At all?” Her words were soft, quiet.

I
loved her!
screamed through my head. I
did, not him!
“She died because of him!” My voice was choked, raw, and I wasn’t even trying to hold it steady. “He put her there, Alex. Dunk put her there. Too scared of the Juggernaut to stand up to him. He might’ve
...
loved
...
Sunshine. If the selfish son of a bitch could actually feel something like that. But he did the coward’s thing. For Christ’s sake, he gave her up to make
Jugger
happy!”

“But is that a big enough crime? Being weak? If that’s so, Bone, then an awful lot of people deserve to die.”

I looked at her. I hadn’t expected her to stop me, to take up for
him
. “What are you saying? I thought we agreed.”

“We agreed to this when we thought he’d killed her.” She took a deep breath. “I’m saying that, however misguided and foolish she was, Sunshine loved this man enough to face the Juggernaut for him. If she was willing to take that risk, do you think she would want this? Do you think she would want this for
you
?”

I looked into her eyes and found nothing judgmental, just love, and I realized, in tiny increments of understanding at first, then all at once, that she was right. I hated Dunk with all my heart and soul, but did I have the right to kill him? Just for my own personal satisfaction? I looked down at his pathetic, skinny body for a long moment.

“Okay,” I said, forcing out the sound past a mental scream of rage. “We’ll throw him back. He’ll probably be too scared to say anything anyway.”

I removed the tape, wiped off the fluids that drooled out of Dunk’s mouth, stuck my baseball cap on his head and pulled the brim low. Then Alex
helped me get him to his feet and take him down the stairs, moving him in that “drunk-assist” way that is to Quarterites what CPR is to paramedics. I had his arm across my shoulder and held him stiff against my hip. Alex steadied him from the other side, keeping him upright while I did all the walking. It’s a move you use to get your blotto friends into cabs.

It got Dunk out the gate, across the sidewalk and down the street to the nearest underlit alcove. He started to stir a little as we settled him onto the ground. We left him there, like so much trash.

* * *

Excerpt from Bone’s Movie Diary:

The towering screen perfs. are & shall remain: Gloria Swanson’s indelible Norma Desmond in
Sunset Blvd.
; Paul Newman, somber & subdued in
The Verdict
; Morgan Freeman (would somebody get this man an Oscar!) in
Shawshank Redemption
; Peter O’Toole as god-like Eli Cross in
The Stunt Man
; David Bowie’s brief & magnificent portrayal of Pontius Pilate in
Last Temptation of Christ
; Glenn Close, irresistible & evil in
Dangerous Liaisons
; Paul Sorvino’s sidesplitting corrupt evangelist in
Oh, God!
; Jose Ferrer’s articulate lawyer in
Caine Mutiny
; Marlene Dietrich’s Nazi general’s widow in
Judgment at Nuremberg
; Kenneth Nelson, whose tongue drips with poignant acid in
Boys in the Band
; Jane Alexander in
Testament
(the best movie you’ve never heard of); Joel Grey as master of ceremonies/fiend in
Cabaret
; Melinda Dillon with her UFO-abducted child in
Encounters/3
rd
Kind
; and Charleton Heston (yes, Heston) in
Soylent Green
(yes,
Soylent Green
). That’s that. We may reopen the books on this category one day. Watch. Wait.

The one thing guaranteed to win sympathy with a victim is another victim of the same thing.
Once I realized Jugger
thought Dunk was cheating on him with Alex, the only way out was to make him believe Alex was cheating on me. I hoped our relationship as “pals” would make Juggernaut leave Alex to me, especially if he thought I was going to do a really good job of punishing her. There had been no way to warn Alex of the plan. I had to hope she would catch on and play along when I started tearing into her. And she did, in a performance worthy of an Oscar.

The ploy worked so well that, once Jugger and I left Dunk, we commiserated about unfaithful lovers for the entire five blocks to the Stage Door. Take that to mean Juggernaut complained loud and long about his “bitch’s” lack of fidelity, while I threw in an occasional word or comment just so he wouldn’t forget I was there. I comforted myself with the knowledge that there was now no doubt of Jugger’s link with Dunk. I just had to keep Jugger clear of Alex and Bone long enough for them to get Dunk, and then, at last, I could deal with the Juggernaut.

I would have preferred to head somewhere besides the Stage Door, where most of the bartenders knew me, but decided it was more important to get the Jugger into a situation where he could be contained for a while. As it turned out, I got lucky. The regular bartender had called in sick and the replacement was a new guy I had never seen before. I ordered a round and found a table near the back. Jugger slugged back his drink in one motion. I quickly ordered him another. He wouldn’t be the first man driven to drink by a faithless lover, but the tipsier I could get him, the better. Once I had an opening, I planned to duck into the sandbox, call the Bear, and set the final phase in motion.

Halfway through his second drink, Jugger saved me the hassle, going for his own sandbox run. I used his bathroom break as an opportunity to make the call to the Bear. I would call again once the target was in range.

I sipped my drink sparingly, careful to stay clear-headed. It was almost over. Now that I was sure we had the right guy, it was just a matter of taking care of business.

Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, and Jugger had still not emerged from the men’s room. Suspicious, I did a quick check and confirmed my fears. Jugger
had done the same thing I had once done to him—used the sandbox run as an excuse to duck out, undetected. Alarmed, I tried to imagine where he would go. Normally I couldn’t peel him off with a crowbar. What would be more important than the companionship he wanted from me? The answer: his “bitch.” He was going after Dunk—and Dunk was with Bone and Alex. I left my drink mostly untouched and quickly headed towards Bone’s place, using my ground-eating “late to meeting” stride, though I didn’t really care who saw me rushing this time.

I turned the corner on Burgundy in time to see Bone disappear quietly into his gate. There was no sign of Juggernaut. I moved closer and found a secluded place to keep watch, scanning the street for any sign of the big man. Some thirty minutes later Bone, and Alex—now without the blond wig—emerged from the gate, half dragging a very groggy but surprisingly alive Dunk between them. They deposited Dunk in the nearest recessed doorway, went back inside. I watched long enough to see Dunk crawl out of the niche and struggle to his feet—with lots of help from the wall nearby. He leaned on the wall for a while, obviously not in the best shape, before he started stumbling slowly down Burgundy toward Barracks. Once I was sure no one was watching, I gave Bone a quick call on his landline. He met me at his gate and led me up to his apartment where Alex waited amid a comfortable clutter of clothes, pillows, books, and movies. A small, green-eyed black cat lurked at the far end of the hallway.

They told me about Dunk. They had spared him, and I had to admit their reasoning made sense. It was their decision, anyway.

Juggernaut’s fate was mine to decide.

“Yeah,” I said, “I saw Dunk head off to his place. I’m just glad you’re both safe.”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Alex asked from where she sat on the overstuffed couch, snuggled close to Bone. “Certainly not because of Dunk.”

I had to tell them.

“Because
...
” I took a deep breath. “I lost the Juggernaut.”

“You
what
?” Alex looked stunned. “But you’re a super hunter-tracker wise-guy or whatever. You’re the pro, right? How could you lose him?”

Bone blinked at me, probably thinking the same thing.

I proceeded to tell them what happened. “So I want you both to stay here by the phone—especially since you no longer have a cell phone. I don’t think he knows where you live, but we can’t count on that. I’m going to find him.”

Bone frowned. “You’re going to hunt him down alone? Is that wise?”

“Not really, but the Jugger still thinks we’re friends, I’m sure of that. And I’ve got an idea where to look. Trust me, if I need you, I’ll call. I have no delusions of being a hero.”

I left Bone and Alex holding each other on the couch. If nothing else, this hunt had certainly opened Bone’s eyes. Now the bond between them was practically visible, no doubt strengthened by what they’d undertaken together.

* * *

I followed the track Dunk had taken, down Burgundy toward Barracks street. If I was right, Jugger would head for Dunk’s place and wait. Since Dunk was only a few minutes ahead of me, I figured I had a good chance to catch him there.

At the edge of the park I slowed, surreptitiously looking through the fence to Dunk’s building. No sign of movement there. A couple of kids walked by on Barracks, heading toward the river. A derelict sat slumped on the steps a few doors down. Still no sign of Jugger. I decided to do a casual pass-by to see if I could pick up anything closer to the building. Without changing stride I crossed Barracks and turned toward the river on a path that took me in front of Dunk’s building. I stopped, bending to pretend to tie my shoe, and listened. The place was dark and silent. I continued past, glanced at the derelict on the steps, and froze in my tracks. I recognized the partially shaved, greasy dark hair, cutoffs, and stained purple T-shirt. It was Dunk.

Glancing around to make sure there were no eyes on the street, I knelt down for a closer look. He wasn’t breathing. Careful not to touch anything, I pulled out my lighter and flicked it. In the glow from the flame I saw two bloody punctures in Dunk’s chest. He wore a cord with a dried chicken’s foot around his neck, just like the one I had seen on Jugger—I was fairly sure he hadn’t had been wearing it earlier. He also had one of those tourist trinket voodoo dolls clutched in his fist.

The examination took only seconds. No pulse, two wounds straight through to the heart. It had been so quick that his ruptured heart hadn’t had time to pump out much blood. Dunk was dead, that was certain. I was equally certain I wanted to get as far away as possible before someone else noticed. Jugger had definitely been here. He couldn’t be that far ahead. Making sure that I’d left no sign of my presence on the murder scene, I stood up and continued casually down Barracks. To anyone watching, I would have simply been a passerby who’d stopped to give a light to a bum.

I decided to head back to the Stage Door, hoping to get lucky. I turned up Bourbon, mixing in with the party crowds to throw off anyone who might have seen me on Barracks, and glanced in the Bourbon street bars as I passed. Fortunately Jugger’s unusually large size made him easy to spot. He wasn’t in any of them. I turned on Toulouse and continued on to the Stage Door. This time the gods smiled on me, I spotted Jugger in the back, looking particularly sullen.

“Hey, Jugger,” I greeted him warmly, “Where did you go? I waited for you, but you didn’t come back.” “Sorry ’bout dat. Had to take care o’ some business.” He chugged the remainder of his drink. “Fuckin’ two-timin’ bitch
...
got what was comin’ to ’im.”

I signaled the bartender for another and sat down. “So you showed him, huh?”

“Damn right I did. Damn right. That skank’s gonna get hers, too. Bitch’s gonna pay for messin’ with mine. Gonna do right by you, too, Maestro.” He leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “You don’t ‘ave ta tell me. I saw where she lives.”

The smile froze on my face. He meant Alex. He had seen her with Dunk, followed her, and somehow I had missed him. She was next on his little list, and now he knew where she lived. Now I had no choice. If I were going to do something about the Juggernaut, I had to do it tonight.

“Let me get you another drink. It’s on me.” I excused myself and went to the bar to collect our drinks. Setting them down in front of Jugger, I waved towards the restrooms and continued on to the back. I stopped short of actually going in, stood just out of Jugger’s line of sight while keeping him in mine. I
would not
lose him again. I made two quick calls, one to Bone and one to give the Bear his “warning order,” then rejoined Jugger at the table.

“How about a game?”

Ten minutes later Bone walked into the Stage Door, wearing an unusually brightly colored yellow and blue Hawaiian shirt. Jugger had his back to him, but I caught his eye and nodded. He said something to the bartender, turned and left, heading up Chartres.

Jugger took his shot, and missed. As I moved into place and lined up my own shot, I spoke. “Hey, Jugger, are you still looking for that skinny guy? That Bone dude?” I sank the four-ball and moved on to my next shot

He looked at me sharply. “Yeah, why?”

“I think I just saw him. He was just in here, wearing a really bright yellow print shirt.”

His head whipped around toward one door, then the other. “Did ya see which way he went?”

“Afraid not. He talked to the bartender and left, but I didn’t see which direction.”

“Thanks, Maestro.” He set his pool cue down, started to leave.

“You’re not going to run out on me again, are you? I thought you really wanted this game. Or is it just because I’m kicking your butt all over the table?”

The big guy actually looked crestfallen. “Aw, Maestro, you know it ain’t that. There’s just something I gotta take care of, and it can’t wait. How about I meet you back here in, say, half-an-hour, forty-five minutes? Would that be cool?”

I pretended to ponder for a moment, making a show of looking at the run I had carefully lined up on the table. I finally decided I had stalled long enough to give Bone the head start he needed. “Sure, Jugger. Fine.” I smiled. “Give me a chance to warm up some more on the table and really kick your butt. But you’re buying the round!”

He smiled back and thumped me on the shoulder, nearly knocking me down. He’d done that before, and I didn’t like it any better this time. “Thanks, Maestro. You’re a real pal.”

Yeah
, I thought,
a real pal
.

He headed for the Toulouse door, stopping to talk to the bartender who helpfully pointed down Chartres. I watched him duck out, hoped Bone had made good time, and headed out myself—the other direction, down Toulouse. Both Bone and I were heading for the same place, the Bear’s bar. But Bone intended to lead Jugger on a merry chase while I took a more direct route.

I had to make one brief stop along the way. My movie would have let out by now, so I needed another solid alibi. It was just after midnight, so I headed for the Dungeon, an infamous bar rumored to be the site of an actual slave dungeon during the early 1800s. Located just a half block off Bourbon on Toulouse, it was on my way, and it opened at midnight, so I knew the crowds would be heavy.

I ducked down the long narrow stone passage that led from the street to the Dungeon door, making certain the security cameras in the passage caught a good view of my face. Once inside, I greeted the bouncer, Butch, and the bartender, Jenny, both good friends, and made certain they saw me head upstairs to the sound bar, again making sure the cameras caught me. There were no cameras pointed at the seating in the corners, so I headed for a back table, out of camera range. As usual at this hour, the place was packed. I waited for a large crowd to head out the exit, and joined them. I had spent many an hour sitting at the end of the bar with Butch, watching him track the security camera, so I knew just where I had to be to avoid being seen on the way out. It worked to my advantage that the cameras were designed to catch people coming in, which gave the bouncer warning of approaching trouble, rather than on the way out.

Alibi established, I ducked out onto Toulouse and turned down Bourbon, heading for the Marigny and the Bear’s bar. Bone should be up around Canal Street by now—the opposite direction—and starting to head back. Juggernaut would certainly take Bone in a stand-up fight, but I was pretty sure he didn’t have a chance against him in a foot race.