Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 14 - Murder in a Casbah of Cats (9 page)

One of the first places I turned for the skinny about the underbelly of Austin was Sixth Street, Austin’s answer to the New Orleans French Quarter, although even the most passionate Austinite would have to admit the street lacks the charm of the quarter. While it lacks the charisma, it can well match the rowdiness and bizarre behavior of the City That Care Forgot.

The first call I made was to Neon Larry’s, a bar on Sixth Street close to Congress Avenue. It and Wichie’s Last Chance down the street were the only two stable businesses. The others changed owners faster than a politician can switch sides.

They still sold the same goods—booze, food, and ear-jarring music—but if you wanted to find the lowdown on any locals, Larry, or Chopper at Wichie’s Last Chance, were the most likely to dig it up. My third call, and the one I was really counting on, would be to Danny O’Banion.

Rumor was that Danny was Austin’s
caporegime
.

I knew the truth, but I never said a word about it. Danny and I go back to high school, where in the eleventh grade we managed to get into a few scrapes together.

He dropped out of school, and I ended up an English teacher, then an insurance salesman, and finally a private investigator.

Later, Danny and I ran into each other at an Oklahoma-UT football game in Dallas. We laughed some, lied a lot, and emptied his silver flask of excellent Scotch.

From time to time over the years, Danny gave me a few hints on cases I had. I paid him back when I managed to save his bosses a few million and later, his cousin, Bobby Packard, from the needle up in Huntsville.

Now was one of those days I needed his help.

I dialed Neon Larry’s first. From experience, I knew every night was chaotic at the bar, so I didn’t start getting restless until the phone rang for the thirtieth time. Just as I started to hang up, Larry answered. He had to shout over the noise in the background. “Yeah.”

I shouted back. “Larry. It’s me, Tony.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I need some help.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Al Guzman, Corky Radison, Willy Morena, and Chippy Alberto. You know them?”

“Yeah.”

“You know where they are?”

“No.”

“Can you find out?”

“Yeah.”

“Call me on my cell. You got the number.”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

I punched off. Old Larry sure knew how to carry a conversation.

I called Chopper at Wichie’s. Our conversation was just about the same, except he’d seen Al Guzman earlier in the week down near I-35.

“He still dealing?”

“What do you think?”

Then I called Danny. He was out, but I left the information on his voice mail. In addition, I asked him to tell me what he could about William Collins. I gave him Collins’s place of employment, adding that he’d been released from the joint five years ago.

Hanging up, I glanced at Eddie’s report. On impulse, I decided to run down Collins’s brother and sister.

The brother, Carl Samuel Collins, lived in Tioga, Texas, a tiny town north of Fort Worth. I found four Madeline Ellen Collinses, one in Texas, one in Oklahoma, one in Missouri, and one in Idaho.

I leaned back. That was enough for now. If I need to talk to the brother and sister, I could.

I glanced at my watch. Almost eleven. I stood at the French doors, staring out at the night. To the south, towering thunderheads rolled toward us, their crowns brilliant with dancing white slashes of lightning.

The heart of the storm hit an hour later, lighting the sky with an ear-wrenching display of lightning and thunder. The lights went out, and as Henry said, within seconds, they were back on.

I turned my bedroom light off and stared out the doors at the storm. I guess you could say I have a lightning fetish. From inside my
grand-père
’s barn when I was a kid, I enjoyed watching lightning storms as they rolled across the Louisiana prairies. In college, I’d often drive out to the hills around Lake Travis and sit in my pickup, watching the awesome display.

From time to time, the wind whipped wispy sprays of rain under the porch, but I paid it no attention. The streetlights on Woodlawn Boulevard and Niles Road were off, but the explosions of lightning lit the stormy night like day.

Little traffic moved along the streets. A city bus slowed as it approached the bus stop, then continued when the driver saw no riders. After about fifteen minutes, I decided I’d seen enough.

Just before I turned to leave, a dazzling flash of lightning lit three figures on the grounds just inside the fence. I blinked, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me. No one in his right mind would be out on a night like this. I chuckled. Unless they were down on Sixth Street. I don’t think even a hurricane could keep the Sixth Street denizens away from the clubs down there.

I hurried to the balcony rail, peering into wind and gusting rain blowing under the porch.

In the next burst of lightning, one figure was falling back to the ground, and the other two appeared to be grappling. Another explosion of lightning followed immediately. The figure still lay on the ground, but the other two had vanished.

I waited. The next bolt revealed the figure still on the ground. In the strobe-like light of the following two thunderbolts, the figure remained motionless.

Hurrying into my room, I rummaged through my sports bag for the miniature halogen flashlight and hurried downstairs. As I reached for the front door, a voice stopped me.

“What’s wrong?”

I glanced over my shoulder and spotted Edna standing in the arched entrance to the dining room. “Someone’s fighting outside. Two ran. The other’s lying on the ground by the fence.”

“Here.” She stuck an umbrella in my hand.

Holding the umbrella into the wind, I slogged through the water and mud, blinded by the driving rain. Each time the lightning burst, I cringed. I stumbled, dropping the flashlight. It went out. I picked it up and fumbled to turn it on. Finally, a beam of light shot out.

As I staggered past the low-hanging limbs of a live oak, Henry appeared at my side. “What’s going on?”

I shook my head and pointed toward the fence, unable to keep from wondering over his sudden appearance. I shouted above the pounding of the rain and the deafening explosions of deadly bolts striking around us. “A fight. About a hundred yards east of the gate.”

Once, he slipped and fell to one knee, grabbing at my arm. I helped him up. Then he shouted above the rain, “There. Over there.”

We reached the supine man. I shined the light on his face. The rain splattered against his dark skin and flattened his black mustache. Hispanic, no question. Henry shook my arm. “How is he?”

“How do you think?” I shouted into the wind and rain as I drew the beam of light from his face to the knife in his heart.

“Dead? You mean he’s dead?”

I knelt and felt the man’s carotid. No pulse. “Couldn’t be deader.”

Gadrate hurried up to us. “What’s wrong? I saw you running out here.”

I glanced up. A burst of lightning revealed her short hair hanging like limp noodles. Mud covered her soaked jeans and blouse. I rose and handed Henry the flashlight and umbrella. “Let Henry tell you. I left my cell upstairs. I’ve got to use the house phone to call the cops. When I get back, then you two can get out of the weather.”

Five minutes later, I returned. “They’re on the way. You two get on back out of this mess. I’ll wait here.”

Henry handed me the umbrella and flashlight. They both looked as bedraggled as wet cats. “What happened?” I gestured to Gadrate’s muddy clothes. “Fall?”

She hesitated, then quickly replied. “On the way out. I’ve got to get inside and get cleaned up.”

Five minutes later, a cruiser with flashing overheads pulled up in front of the mansion. Henry was waiting on the porch. He pointed me out to the officer, and I waved the flashlight.

Garbed in his rain gear, the officer trudged through the mud and rain. When I shined the light in his face, I recognized him, Ross Wehring. He hit me with his light. “Boudreaux? Is that you? Jeez, what happened to your head?”

I held out my arms. “Believe it or not, I ran into a tree,” I said, for some reason feeling a touch of shame that my injury was not the result of a more heroic effort, like saving a drowning person or something. “Sorry to get you out in this kind of weather, Wehring.”

“All in a night’s work,” he said, glancing at the well-lit mansion. “Hey, how come they got lights and everywhere else the power’s off?”

“Generators.”

“Stands to reason. Rich folks, huh,” he muttered, squatting and shining his light on the body. “What do we have here?”

“I was standing on the third-floor balcony over there,” I said, pointing to the mansion, “when I spotted three jokers down here. Looked like they were fighting. Next thing, two had split, and this guy was lying right here.”

Wehring looked at the mansion, then up at me in disbelief. “You’re staying there? In that place?”

I frowned. “Yeah. Why?”

He pushed to his feet. The rain pounded on his hat and dripped from the bill. With a crooked smirk, he said, “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve known you for fifteen years, and—well, this just don’t fit you. You’re still with Marty, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” I replied indignantly. “This is a job. They’re our client.”

“OK, I see. What’s the job in a fancy place like this, a food taster?” His smirk grew wider.

I was beginning to grow suspicious. “You been talking to Bob Ray Burris?” He burst out laughing, and I burst out cursing. “I’m going to break that no-good’s neck, I swear.”

Wehring looked at the mansion. “He said it was a regular casbah. Sure looks like one.”

Before I could reply, an unmarked car pulled through the driveway, ending our conversation, but not Wehring’s snickers. Somehow, I promised myself, I’d get even with Bob Ray Burris if it took ten years.

Lieutenant Patrick Fenster, one of the Austin PD’s finest for the last two decades, slogged through the water to Wehring and me. He shined the light on my face. “Boudreaux! What the blazes are you doing here at this place?” He whistled when he saw my forehead. “Looks like someone got the best of you.”

Officer Ross Wehring snorted. “Yeah. Joe Tree.”

I shot him a withering look that was lost in the rain.

“He’s the one who found the guy, Lieutenant. He—”

“Let him tell it,” Fenster interrupted. “Search the corpse, Sergeant.”

So, I related the same story to him that I had to Wehring.

He grunted. “What were you doing up there?”

I knew he was going to ask the question. He had to. Standard procedure. “Just relaxing before going to bed.”

“Bed.” The tone in his voice reflected his surprise. “Here? At this place?”

Wehring stood, holding the dead man’s belongings. With a straight face, he said, “They’re his client. He’s cat-sitting.”

I cringed.

Fenster coughed. “He’s what?”

“Cat-sitting, Lieutenant. Cats. Felines. You know? Purr, purr.” He burst out giggling.

The lieutenant shook his head. “Jeez. You PIs will do anything for a buck.” He turned to Wehring. “Any ID on the body?”

Before Wehring could answer, a meat wagon rolled through the gate followed by another unmarked. Moments later, a couple of criminalists and two paramedics trudged up.

The rain was coming in sheets. The two crime-scene technicians, garbed in rain gear, ducked their heads into the storm and studied the body and surrounding area.

One looked around. “Forget it, Lieutenant. If there was anything here, it’s gone now. Tromping around will just make it worse. We’ll come back after it clears up, but don’t expect us to find anything.”

Fenster indicated the paramedics. While they were loading the body, the lieutenant turned back to Officer Wehring. “What about this stiff? He have anything on him?”

Wehring held up two packets of white rocks and a wallet. “Enough. Name’s Al Guzman and enough crack to take a monthlong vacation to Cancún with all the trimmings.”

I looked around at Wehring in surprise. “Al Guzman?”

Fenster looked at me. “You know the guy?”

“Never met him, but he used to run with a bozo I’ve been hearing about. Bill Collins.”

Fenster glanced at the brightly lit porch. “Collins? I remember him, and I remember this place.” He grimaced. “That was a long time ago. The owner was murdered, a big wheel in the social set, and Collins was a prime suspect.”

“Yeah. That’s what I was told.”

The lieutenant watched as the meat wagon hauled Guzman away. When it turned onto Woodlawn, he looked at me. “I worked
with old Dutch Weiman on that one.” He drew a deep breath. “So, what’s going on here? This don’t look like cat-sitting.”

A thunderous explosion shook the ground, followed instantly by earsplitting crack of lightning. “Let’s get out of this stuff, and I’ll tell you.”

After we climbed into the lieutenant’s cruiser, I related the stories I’d been told over the last couple of days. Sheepishly, I explained, “To be honest, the job is boring me out of my skull. I was looking for anything to occupy my time.”