Run Baby Run (13 page)

Her eyes sparkled. "I just got back too. About six months ago. I went to school in Baltimore. Lived up there for a while. I was ready to be away from New Orleans, but you know what? After ten years, I was surprised that I really missed home."

He was feeling more comfortable. "I've been away since I was nine. Listen... ." He started to stumble a bit. "You're really striking and I... sorry, I'm talking under your clothes."

She smiled again. This time her mouth was closed for the wordless reply.

He tried again. "I'd like to see you again. Could I get in touch by email?"

She softly passed along her email address, which began with the letters "es." Delery jotted it down in his notebook.

"Are the "es" your initials?" he asked.

"Yes. My name's Ellis Smith," she said even softer than before.

Ellis seemed as enigmatic to him as when they first started talking. He still didn't know exactly where he stood, so he said, "Delery's my family name. Bobby Delery. See you, Ellis," shook her hand, and took the twenty-five steps down to the ground floor.

He overheard the bookseller responding to a phone query with, "We're open for another three hours and fifteen minutes. Close up at 5 o' clock on Sundays."

Delery paid for his books, left, and wandered to Decatur, taking it to Canal. His range of emotions for the day broadened further. He kept thinking about Ellis Smith and how he couldn't wait to see her again.

The French Quarter transforms based on time of day, location, and weather. Even adjacent blocks are different from their neighbors. Canal Street's energy reminded Delery of Michigan Avenue in Chicago, but far different. A Caribbean budget version.

In New Orleans, what's called loitering elsewhere is a way of life. It isn't criminalized but instead celebrated. People are public. The concept of streetcorner men means nothing. NOLA is a streetcorner city.

Delery stood at Decatur and Canal, alternating his thinking about how he'd next proceed on the case with thoughts of Ellis. He'd planned to watch the world go by, but the world at hand was stopped and honking. Traffic was backed up for blocks on his side of Canal, while there were very few cars on the other side, heading toward the river.

It was time to walk back to the car, but through the honking he heard a loud raspy coughing. He turned and saw a sight all the way across Canal that gave him pause.

"Wait a minute!" he exclaimed.

Traffic wasn't budging. He darted through the cars, across the neutral ground, and all the way to the sidewalk. The man was now a block ahead of him.

13

H
utch stepped out of the bus. His energy was up. He was ready to get the money.

"No more messin' 'round," he muttered amidst a coughing fit.

He scanned the crowd of people all around him next to the Saenger Theatre. No sign of the lady in white. No sign of the beer case.

"She can't have got too far," he said, turning back toward the direction they'd come from.

All of a sudden, the three dozen or so people milling about erupted.

Hutch turned back to see the sky filled with money. In the wash of the wind, bills were soaring and dipping, fluttering and stuttering.

"I gotta $100 bill!" shouted a heavyset woman who shoved it into her bra and went back to jumping for more.

Cars were stopping in the middle of the street. Their drivers and passengers joined the multitudes running from every direction to Rampart and Canal. A giddy man with a cowboy hat and conference lanyard that read "AICPA; Bounce Sanford; Casa Grande, AZ" said, "What a great place, this New Or-leenz."

Stunned at what he saw in front of him, the bus driver called out, "It's raining money!" as he joined the masses.

Bodies were banging into bodies. People climbing over each other. Arthritis was temporarily healed while the elderly dove and contorted themselves. Children turned into Olympic level gymnasts.

One person moved away from the fray. With commotion behind her, cars stopping around her, and people running past her, she wasn't looking back.

"Jesus, take me to the river," Miss Melba said. Like a little engine that could, she crossed the street slow and steady, holding the heavy beer case. She made a left, heading to the foot of Canal Street and the mighty Mississippi.

She was the source of the mayhem. Like using a smoke bomb to deflect attention, she'd left the bus, taken a few steps, placed the beer case on the ground, kneeled and opened it, pulled bands off of two packets of money, and thrown it all upward with both hands as high as she could muster.

200 $100 bills had gone aloft like that. Before the stampede happened, she secured the box and left the scene, not waiting to see where Hutch was.

By the time he spotted Miss Melba on the other side of the street, she was stepping across Roosevelt Way.

Hutch hobbled after her but was having a worse time of it than before. His banged-up knee had worsened on the bus trip. Now that he was beltless, he had to grab a handful of denim at the pocket and keep pulling up to prevent his jeans from drooping so much he'd stumble. The mold had settled into his lungs, and he had repeated bouts of hacking. Plus, he had to wade through the crowd getting his money, but he let his elbows fly and shoved with his free hand.

He pulled himself across Canal while a party of sorts had developed. Most of the money had been grabbed, and people were gathered talking about it and what they were going to do with it.

"Goddamn. I'm out here grindin' and my money's flyin' away," he said to the clouds.

He kept Miss Melba in general eyeshot, about a block and a half ahead of him.

Canal was a street to shop, to see, and be seen for many black high-schoolers and those in their twenties.

Miss Melba walked past two of them leaning against a shoe store between Carondelet and St. Charles.

The taller one was chastising the other, who was making sure his hi-top fade was tight.

"Where she at?"

"C'mon, Shoes. Lyric text me. She in one-a them women stores. She be along soon."

"I'ma spit some bars, son. Keep it official. Sixteen bars of my game, these bitches be shakin' they cakes all over the street," bragged Blue Shoes.

"Naw, prolly jes that old lady with her beer box," scoffed Stink, slowly doing a dance move like he was aged.

Blue Shoes came back hard. "Lyric make a nigga nut for a swig-a one-a them beers."

"I'ma pretend you di'n't say that shit."

"Nigga, you need a new thing, new flame," urged Blue Shoes.

"Tha's some Chris Brown shit. Song's old."

They went back and forth for a bit. Eventually Blue Shoes explained his theory of the benefits to having simultaneous East Bank and West Bank women in the stable. Stink elbowed him.

"Lookit. Ain't that bouncer work at the club with Kattrell? His shit got
fucked
up
. Sure di'n't get none-a that stolen paper," Stink said.

Hutch overheard the stage whisper as he lurched and wheezed his way along the sidewalk. He glared at the source of the comment. "Got half a mind to stomp that Kid 'n' Play punk, but I'm on a mission. They knew me, though. That's no good."

A shop door to his right opened, three young women exited, and everyone on the sidewalk paused, rubber-necked, or were otherwise briefly frozen. The texting addicts looked away from their phones with only minor withdrawal symptoms. Even Hutch had a temporary break from soreness, coughing, and existential dread.

"Whoo-ee! She impossible," Stink said, punctuating the pause, and the buzz of life continued on.

"Get it, girl," called out a passer-by.

Two of the three women were regular neighborhood girls. They would likely go on to live perfectly fine regular lives.

Then there was Lyric.

She wore a short tight grey and white horizontally-striped dress, black lace-up sandals, large faux gold earrings, and black sunglasses. She had a number of tattoos on her arms and thighs.

Lyric's weave was attached to the crown of her head, pulled up from the sides, and collected in the middle front by a large black bow. On both sides of her head, instead of hair being entirely shaved off, she had leopard skin patterns. Scalp was the negative space.

She wore it all very well. Stink was at her mercy, and she knew it. Lyric was the kind of woman to make Lazarus raise himself from the grave.

"I might could go for some McDonald's," she floated.

Stink and Blue Shoes fell over each other trying to get to her.

After his instant of joyful paralysis, Hutch decided he needed a disguise. "If these triflin' punks can make me right off, Mr. C's people will too," he thought.

He looked ahead and saw a speck of Miss Melba's white outfit in the next block.

"I gotta do this quick."

Hutch ducked in a tourist shop and grabbed a few items by the front counter.

"Here. These. Hurry," he stressed.

While the clerk scanned them, rung them up, and handed them back, Hutch took off his sweaty shirt and tossed it to the floor. He replaced it with a bright green t-shirt, tossed the strands of Mardi Gras beads over his neck, and placed a Mardi Gras-colored visor on his head.

"Don't have no pants or belt here?" he asked.

The clerk could've had an extensive wardrobe for sale and still would've emphatically shaken his head to the contrary.

"Alright." Hutch left the store and immediately looked to his right to check Miss Melba's progress before he tried to pick up the pace.

"I look like a damn clown, but man's gotta do what man's gotta do," he said. "Time to get what's mine."

A shirtless shoeless smiling man walked past Hutch, proclaiming the same thing he proclaimed all day long, "Don't you dare try to take over the world the same time as me." Hutch crinkled his face while he continued on.

The air on Canal was getting gustier the closer Hutch got to the river. He held one hand on his visor to keep it from flying off his head and used the other hand to keep his pants up as he hustled toward Miss Melba as fast as he could limp.

Once he got to Camp, the American street name on the other side of Canal from the European street name Chartres, he could hear the street preacher's patter from a megaphone amplified by the wind. The bearded zealot with his umbrella hat was set up between Chartres and Decatur.

Hutch was only half a block away from Miss Melba, but with his limp he wasn't making up any more ground than that.

"Where she goin'?" he wondered.

After another block, he had a suspicion, but when he saw her cross South Peters and make a slight right, he knew.

"No. No, no," he coughed.

Hutch was so fixated on Miss Melba that any street smarts he otherwise had were non-existent. He failed to see the man dodging traffic to cross Canal, heading right for him.

By the time Hutch got to South Peters, he saw the woman in white carrying the beer box slowly and steadily up the steps and entering Harrah's Casino.

"Gonna gamble away my fuckin' money," he said.

He was about to cross the street, when an out of breath man came running up to him.

"Excuse me, sir. Are you Raymond Pate? Hutch?"

Hutch panicked for a second but relaxed once he looked squarely at the speaker who was clearly not one of Mr. C's men. He coughed a few times before answering.

"Me? No, I'm, uh, Sam Gibbs. In town from Atlanta."

The man persisted. "Okay, but here's the thing. My name's Bobby Delery. I'm helping NOPD on a case. Just interviewed a guy named Cavallari at a club on Bourbon Street."

At that, Hutch's eyes triggered recognition. Delery caught it and continued.

"Cavallari gave me a description of an employee. You fit the description. You're dressed exactly like him. Limping like him. Have a bad smoker's cough. Look physically like him. I doubted the description, frankly, but then I saw and heard you across Canal."

Hutch brushed Delery off and crossed the street. It was obvious the man wasn't NOPD and didn't have any real power. But what did he mean about Mr. C describing the clown outfit? "He'd-a had my ass on the ground before asking a question if he was NOPD," Hutch thought. "Gotta get to Harrah's."

Delery walked with him. "I could call Commander Jones right now, but something's off. I think this is Raymond Pate, but he obviously doesn't have the money on him," he thought.

"Sir, sir... ," Delery said.

Hutch scowled at him. "Let a man be. Can't a tourist see the sights and do a little gamblin'? Whatchu think I did?"

Delery was stuck. "Uh, Cavallari's place, Club Big Easy, uh, something's gone missing," he said sheepishly.

Hutch as an indignant Sam Gibbs shook his head and twisted his mouth as he limped along.

"Mmm hmm, that's how it is? See a black man, see a thief. We all look the same, all guilty to you crackers. Get outta my face."

"C'mon, that's not the way it is at all. In fact, I, uh, anyway, there are a lot of men out here, but I came to you for a reason. You're not Raymond Pate?"

Hutch laid it on thick. "I told you. Sam Gibbs from Atlanta. Let me be. Slowed me down enough already. Placate me, man."

They were almost at the steps leading up to Harrah's front door.

"I'll let him go in and then call Commander Jones. Maybe he's meeting an accomplice," Delery thought.

"Okay, okay. I'm just doing my job," he said. He stopped and looked up at the flags flapping in the breeze to the left of the casino. Hutch was now intent on making his way up the steps.

They both had their focus broken by an ageless man in drag screaming at a group of women wearing business suits. "Y'all a bunch of low down whores, skeezers, loose women," he ranted.

"Damn," said Hutch as he climbed.

"Reminds me of a lyric — "Preposterous like an androgynous misogynist,'" thought Delery. "Was that by Talib or Mos?"

The screaming brought a few bored glances from across Canal, where traffic was still backed up.

All of them turned away, except for the back seat passenger of an SUV in the right lane. The vehicle had pulled out of the Canal Place parking garage and was on its way back to the area near the Robertson overpass.

"Guys, hey. Look over on your left. Quick. That's Hutch. He's still in town," Johnny said.

"Johnny, you are desperate. That tourist cleaned out the safe? I do not think so," Pavel said.

"Pavel, I swear to you. I'd know him anywhere. Dunno why he's dressed like a fucking Mardi Gras float, but it's definitely him."

Kostya, the front seat passenger, scratched his ear. "If you are wasting our time, Mr. Yevchev will make you pay." In Russian he said, "Pavel, get over in the left lane and cross the street. You wait with the car. I will go in with shithead Johnny."

While they were stuck in traffic, Delery hunted through his pockets and shoulder bag. He finally found his phone, but it was broken.

"How the hell?" he wondered.

It took a few moments to realize that when the cops had him on the ground at Clouet, they must've broken it. "Fucking assholes," he fumed and started up the stairs.

Back when Bobby Delery unsuccessfully confronted Hutch in the guise of Sam Gibbs, Miss Melba Barnes accurately revealed for the first time that the large Abita Amber beer case contained money. She was not so forthcoming about its source.

The Harrah's greeter inside the second set of doors looked at Miss Melba quizzically as she came walking up with an irregular item.

"Ma'am, I need to see what's inside the box."

"Oh, mercy, of course," Miss Melba said, flipping the lid open. "The Lord told me this morning in church that I better bring my dead husband's pension here and increase it tenfold. Today's my lucky day." Her prayers had made her feel alright that a few of these light lies were necessary and harmed no one.

The greeter was a freckled man who didn't miss any tanning booth appointments. "Who knows?" he thought. "If she wants to bring in all that cash, who am I to say anything, considering." He'd seen money come in many ways, so this didn't surprise him much.

Miss Melba left the top of the beer box open, took a few more steps, and entered the bleeping, blipping, chiming world of slot machines to her right.

"I must act quickly," she said.

While Hutch and Delery did their dance outside, Miss Melba was involved in a flurry of activity. She'd planned it out in advance, and the first part went as expected. The security team watching the eye-in-the-sky cameras were curious, considered it unorthodox, but ultimately to the casino's benefit, so they let it go.

She next found her way back to a walkway and followed it around to her right, through the craps and roulette tables, past the cashiers who had a growing line of people, right by the entertainment area in the middle, and finally to a short line. Four people separated her from an occasional secret treat she'd indulged in back when she worked at the Marriott a few blocks away.