Authors: Joe Gores
“I’m on my way to the airport, I’ve got something I—”
“Back to Chicago?”
“No.”
“So Mr. Maxton’s problem was resolved quite rapidly.”
“Not resolved. Suspended. I’ve been waiting for the tape of a phone tap to confirm my next move. My man found someone else
was tapping the same phone. Maybe Maxton is playing games with me, so…” He shrugged. “I wanted you to hear something, check
my assumptions.”
The waitress arrived with their food on a single big platter balanced on one arthritic hand. Sherman took a cautious sip of
orange juice; Dain slurped his chocolate shake, began wolfing down golden-brown french-fried onion rings. The look on Sherman’s
face was worth it.
Munching away, he took the yellow Walkman out of his pocket and set it on the table, punched
PLAY.
“Robert Farnsworth here. How may I—”
“This is Jimmy.”
Sherman’s hand darted out to hit
stop.
“Are you
crazy?
” he hissed at Dain across the table. “Playing an illegal surveillance tape in a public place…”
Dain looked around. In the next booth were a tall trim brown-haired man with glasses and a short white-haired muscular overweight
man wearing a red shirt in a Southwest American Indian motif. Whenever the jukebox paused to change tunes, they could be heard
taking turns trashing publishers and bemoaning Hollywood agents who never returned their phone calls.
Back in the open kitchen the cooks, just out of their teens
and wearing tall white chefs’ hats on top of too-long hair, bopped and jinked to Buddy Holly’s stuttery “Peggy Sue.” The air
was heavy with the smell of frying bacon, sizzling eggs, french fries bubbling in hot grease. The place was jammed, the din
atrocious.
“With the music going, you’d need a shotgun mike in here to hear what those guys are saying at the next table.”
He turned on the Walkman again.
“Jimmy! I’ve been calling your office long-distance, they keep saying you’re out of town. I want to know if you have any phone
numbers out here in San Francisco for me. Girls like—”
Zimmer’s voice interrupted. “Bobby, that… ah, client who has the…” he cleared his throat, “bearer bonds…”
Farnsworth was immediately all business. “These are the bonds you were telling me about in Chicago, Jimmy?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Nothing wrong with them, is there?” asked Farnsworth in a jocular voice. “Not forged? Counterfeit? Stolen?”
Zimmer exclaimed in a near panic, “Good God no!”
“Then take them to our Chicago office and—”
“I’m out of town.”
Farnsworth’s voice said, “Out of town where?”
“N… I can’t tell you that.”
“Attorneys!” He sighed. “Okay, look in your local phone book and see if Farnsworth, Fechheimer and Farnsworth has an office
in whatever city—”
“I already did. They do.”
“Bravo! Take in the bonds and…”
Dain punched off the Walkman. “The rest is just verbiage.”
“What’s it all about?” said Sherman. “Who’re the players?”
“Jimmy Zimmer stole two million bucks in stolen bearer bonds from our friend Maxton. Bobby is his stockbroker buddy temporarily
in San Francisco. It was Bobby’s phone I bugged.”
“So the bonds were stolen twice.”
“Technically, embezzled the first time. Anyway, Jimmy-baby is running around with a woman named Vangie Brous
sard. By her Chicago arrest record, her first busts were in New Orleans for dancing nude on barroom tables at the age of sixteen.
So…”
“You’re off to New Orleans?” demanded Sherman in surprise. He gestured at the Walkman. “On the basis of
that?”
“That—and the second bug on Farnsworth’s phone.”
“But why New Orleans? Because a woman dances on tables when she’s a teenybopper—”
“It’s on the tape—didn’t you catch it?” His food had gotten cold while they listened to the recording. Maybe he wouldn’t have
to eat it. “When Jimmy was asked where he was calling from, he voiced the letter ‘N’ before he caught himself. ‘N.’ New Orleans.
The brokerage firm has a New Orleans office, Broussard’s first arrest was in New Orleans, it’s home territory for her. Plus
her name—Broussard. That’s a Cajun name.”
“I suppose it fits.” Sherman was staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. “Have you ever considered what a very
strange man you are, Dain?”
“I doubt Nielsen would choose you as a test viewer, Doug.”
Sherman chuckled and nodded.
“Touché”
He leaned forward across the table. “But even if by some strange event they should be there, how do you plan to—”
“She’s too smart to let Jimmy cash any of the bonds this soon, so she’ll be dancing in some topless joint in the Old Quarter
to raise them a travel stake.”
Sherman hesitated, spoke as if with difficulty. “Dain, I have a bad feeling about this one because of that second bug…”
Dain stood up, scooping up the check and leaving a too-large tip in its place. “And I have a good feeling about it—because
of that second bug.” He stuck out his hand; Sherman shook it. “I’ve got Shenzie in the car, I’ve got to drop him off at Randy
Solomon’s place before I go to the airport.”
“I’m surprised you’d leave your cat with that Gestapo thug. Will there by anyplace I can reach you if—”
“I’ll reach you. If.” He grinned again, pointed at the
Walkman with the Farnsworth tape still inside it. “Keep that for me until I get back. Just in case.”
He left his car in his rented parking place across the Embarcadero from the loft, caught the shuttle bus to the airport, and
was in New Orleans in time to watch the sunset.
Here the Mississippi was the classical Mark Twain river—lazy brown water, green banks, a churning paddle wheeler angled upstream
to fight the current. On the landing dock was insomniac Dain, one of the few early passengers waiting to catch the deliberately
anachronistic paddle wheeler’s first trip of the day. His only lead was Vangie; he could only look for her at night. So he
rode in a clopping horse-drawn carriage through genteel upper-crust neighborhoods, watched the Vieux Carré street life through
wrought-iron filigreed balconies, listened to the music starting to strut from some of the clubs.
Dain went through the open passageway to the hotel court where the fountain burbled and brightly clad tourists sipped tall
pastel drinks. From the courtyard, he went along Chartres to Conti, turned left toward the rising sounds of Bourbon Street.
Wandered, pausing to look in windows,
peering through open club doorways at the entertainment inside. Stood on a corner to watch black boys tap-dance for thrown
coins.
A topless joint, the music not very good, leave without even making it to the bar for a drink. Stand on the sidewalk eating
a po’boy and drinking beer from a paper cup. Then plunge back into the night world.
Better music, the hornman a Muggsy Spanier clone, nurse a beer through a whole round of floor shows, leave the bottle half-full
behind him. Just another single male alone on his own in the big city. To bed at dawn, to not sleep worth a damn.
Another day to kill. He rode a streetcar named Desire out to the end of the line, rode it back in again, spent a half hour
admiring the stations of the cross and the stained glass at St. Louis Cathedral, sat in a pew, feet on the kneeler… his eyelids
drooped…
The black hole between Marie’s breasts blossomed red. Her eyes were wild, her hair was wild, from her mouth, strained impossibly
wide, came a hoarse masculine SCREAM, quickly muffled
Dain jerked erect, mouth-breathing, looked around quickly. A nun in a habit was staring at him from across the aisle. A little
child was crying, pointing a finger. He almost fled.
At the oyster bar of Houlihan’s, he watched a man commit murder on fresh dripping bivalves with great skill and a sharp knife.
Couldn’t eat, found a karate dojo, exhausted himself with two hours of the basic “forms” of his second-degree black belt—two
taikyoku
drills, five
pinans,
and the other “open hand” drills—
saifa, kanku, tensho
and
sanchin.
Back at his room he lay nude on the bed, tried to justify his life. Whatever he did was meaningless. Lassitude gripped him.
He was surprised to realize that he hoped Broussard would outwit him, but he knew she wouldn’t. He was too good at the precise
geometry of manhunting, she was a prey animal that
Between Marie’s beautiful breasts the black hole blossomed red. Her eyes were wild, her hair was wild
Dain woke with a yell, bathed in sweat. He was falling to pieces. He took another shower, when he emerged, wet hair slicked
back, towel around his waist, another night had fallen and the old-fashioned streetlights glowed from their cast-iron poles.
Music drifted up from Bourbon Street to his small outside balcony, along with the clip-clop of a horse-drawn buggy in Rue
Chartres. He leaned on the filigreed railing. Jasmine and mock orange filled the air with heavy fragrance.
He had to find her soon or abandon the search.
Midnight again. Dain leaned in the doorway of yet another exotic dance club on one of the side streets of the Quarter—for
the moment he had exhausted Bourbon Street. How many had he hit tonight, how many more would he have to hit before he scored
or admitted that his logic had been faulty—or was driven away by his now incessant nightmares?
Another hour, another joint. Different faces, different voices, different music, all the same. The gyrating woman was past
her prime, like pheasant hung so long that the skin had a greenish tinge and when you shook it all the feathers fell out.
When he left the mostly empty joint, he set his untouched beer on an empty table in passing. Somebody was gulping it down
from the bottle before he cleared the doorway.
Directly across the narrow street was something called Carnal Knowledge. For some reason it was jumping, blaring, spilling
customers out the open doors. Raucous rebel yells, groans, screamed sexual obscenities. If the two scantily clad women sprawled
spread-legged in chairs outside the joint were typical, its success was undeserved.
Dain slid inside. Very good music pounded a wicked beat for the topless girl writhing onstage. Being tall, he could just see
her over the silhouetted heads of shouting, arm-waving tourists and drunks. The dancer was Vangie Broussard.
She was magnificent, of body, face, movement. He felt an
irrational flash of sympathy for this bright wood duck among the mud hens as he turned away, edged back out of the crowd again.
He felt an equally irrational flash of caution. Why? There was no reason anybody should be tailing him. But what reason had
there been for that extra bug on Farnsworth’s phone?
One of the resting dancers blocked his way with a meaty white thigh. “Don’t like girls, baby? That one’s hot stuff.”
Dain patted her cheek. “So are you, darlin’, so are you.”
He went on, feeling the little momentary fierce joy he’d always felt the rare times he’d beaten Marie at chess. Nothing to
do with winning: rather with the implacable beauty of
Marie, her eyes wild, her hair wild as her feet came up off the floor with the force of her death
Dain growled aloud, thrust the image away. No, goddammit, don’t rob yourself of this triumph, minuscule though it might be.
Make it pay off. Then maybe Marie could stop haunting his dreaming and—now—even his waking hours.
Deserted 2:00
A.M.
street, the nightlife behind him, its raucous sounds dim on the air. He’d come this way deliberately, still wary, the same
wariness that will make a leopard lay up on its own backtrail to ambush the white hunter he doesn’t even know is tracking
him.
Okay, deserted enough here. Dain took out the little pocket guide to the French Quarter he had gotten at the hotel desk, used
it as an excuse to stop abruptly and gawp up at the next pair of street signs. Yes! An echo of sound scraped from the pavement—only
it was not an echo because he had stopped moving. He squinted up at the signs, down at the guide, nodded and turned down Ursulines.
When he was out of sight, a tall spare man in excellent condition, with the coloring and weathered look of the outdoors, cut
across Burgundy at an angle toward the corner where Dain had disappeared. His shock of sandy hair had natural curl and was
shot with gray, he wore glasses with a half-moon of bifocal on the lower curve of lens. Like Dain, he was sauntering.
Moving through the bright lights and thinning crowds, Dain got fragmentary images of the tall spare weathered figure
before it could slip off the edges of reflecting store windows. So, he’d been picked up on the street sometime during the
evening. Dain felt totally alive for the first time since his snake dance in the desert. Hunting, he had become prey. Wonderful!
He turned off on Conti, went in through the archway to the hotel courtyard, in the tiny taproom was served by a black-haired
girl in leather shorts and halter who dispensed drinks with a smile and a lot of cleavage. Leather-bound book clipped under
one arm, he crossed the courtyard to a small round white wrought-iron table near the splashing fountain. At this time of the
morning, he was the only person in the court. A gecko hung in sideways patience against the curved side of the fountain.
He set down the icy opened imported beer on the table, seated himself with his glass of ice water, the pastel lights from
the fountain playing across his face. A chair scraped being drawn out Dain spoke without glancing over.
“Pauli Girl. I took the chance you were a beer drinker.”
The stalker tipped the glass to pour beer without getting too much of a head. His hands were big, strong, angular. He had
a soft inviting Louisiana accent.
“You make me feel lacking in southern hospitality, Mr. Dain, buying for me in my own town.”
Dain looked at him. He was a big man, big as Dain but without Dain’s weight of muscle. His hard-bitten face had an inner calm
behind the hardness. Dain matched his courtly tone.
“You have the advantage of me, sir.”