John Raven Beau Read online

  “Dey laugh wit’ you,” he told me, “and dey feel good and dats not a bad ting, no.”

  I look out as a large brown pelican floats by on wings that have to be four feet across. The bird glides above the inlet canal, folds its wings and dives into the water. It rises a moment later, its bill gorged and I tell myself again, how much I like living in Bucktown.

  •

  “I hate this fuckin’ place,” Felice says as we walk into the homicide squad room.

  “What?” I feign surprise. “It’s so ... warm.” I wave my hand at the cold, gray metal desks. “And smells so nice.”

  The air reeks of cigarette smoke and stale coffee. I lead Felice to my desk and point to the chair next to it. Tonight, she wears a white cotton blouse, blue jeans and white tennis shoes. She could pass for a classmate of Angie.

  Her face, void of make-up, looks younger than the hard nineteen years she’s spent in the city that care forgot. Beneath the bright fluorescents, her brown eyes look lighter than usual and it occurs to me that her eyes are the same color as Sandie’s. Deeper set, Felice has cautious eyes, leery eyes, street-wise eyes.

  “So,” she says as I plop in my gray metal chair. “You got some money for me, or what?”

  I’d told her that to get her here. It’s the truth at least. I open my briefcase and dig out a brown envelope. After she signs the receipt, I pass her two hundred in twenties. She makes a face and stuffs the money into the front right pocket of her jeans. Leaning back in the chair, she looks at the homicide vulture and shakes her head.

  “Our day begins when their day ends,” she reads the homicide slogan next to the vulture. “Some goddamn place you have here.”

  “So, how’s it going on the street.”

  She turns back to me. “I thought you’d never ask.” She folds her arms and says, “I have something for you.”

  I try not to look excited.

  “Word on the street is that a fat-ass white boy who stays uptown is the killer. He hangs in the Ninth Ward.”

  I wait but there doesn’t seem to be more. I almost ask her if the guy supposed to be a biker, but catch myself. I’m not here to give information, but get it.

  “Where did you hear this, exactly?”

  She goes about it in a roundabout way, but apparently it’s almost common knowledge among the criminal element.

  “Whoever he is, he’s bad.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Every bad-ass brother I know don’t want no part of him.”

  “Jesus, nobody knows his name?”

  She gives me an impatient look. “I didn’t say that. I just don’t know it.” A beat later she says, “Yet.”

  Any more questions?

  Just when I thought it couldn’t get more complicated, the Task Force, after careful interviewing and re-interviewing witnesses, has come up with two different descriptions of our killer.

  Three witnesses from the Cochran murder scene describe a tall, thin white man with salt-and-pepper hair. He fled the scene as the shots were still echoing. Four witnesses, two in a passing car, describe a heavy-set white male with black hair standing over the corpse of Patrolman J. P. Stevens. The fat man had a silver pistol in his right hand.

  More than one killer? Our firearms experts are positive the same .357 Colt Python was used.

  Sitting in the hall of the Criminal Courts Building, I examine Bob Kay’s memo again, reading the descriptions from each witness. One gun, but two killers. What the hell is this? I know. I know. A good homicide detective doesn’t speculate. We go with the facts. But two different descriptions? Two killers? Twice the chance for them to shoot off their mouths and yet we’re hearing nothing.

  The courtroom door next to me opens, and a black-clad Orleans Parish Deputy steps out and calls my name. I close my clipboard, rise and follow him into the nearly deserted courtroom. Some murder cases attract as much attention as a Saints game near the end of another losing season. As I pass the D.A.’s table, I lay my clipboard on it and move to the witness chair. Passing the jury, I look at each juror. They stare back at me with a jury’s typical glazed look. Where do we get these people?

  Still standing, I take the oath, sit and look over at the defendant. Seated between his two lawyers, the defendant looks like a middle-class business man in his nice dark blue suit. When I arrested him seven months ago, he was a severely fucked-up part-time roofer and part-time marijuana dealer. He killed his best friend with a hammer. Over a woman.

  I don’t remember him having gray hair along his temples. His drawn features are pale. Jailhouse pallor. Not much sunshine and fresh air in parish prison. His name is William Manesia, but everyone calls him Bubby.

  Assistant District Attorney Peggy Stuart rises from the prosecution table. She’s a big woman with short, light brown hair and large, dark brown eyes. She wears a dark green suit. As she picks up her legal pad, I notice Bubby taking off his suit coat.

  Stuart starts my way and Bubby loosens his tie. Bubby places his tie next to his coat on the defense table. Stuart asks her first question. “Please state your name and rank.”

  Normally I look at the jury when I answer, but I’m too busy watching Bubby unbutton his shirt. No one else seems to notice.

  “John Raven Beau, Detective, NOPD Homicide Division.”

  I glance at the judge, who’s busy staring at the pen set on his desk. Judge Donald Lister has to be pushing eighty. Bubby’s lawyers are too busy staring at me to notice Bubby removing his shirt. I look at the jury and twelve pair of eyes are looking right at me.

  “Now, Detective Beau, on the afternoon of November seventeenth, did you have occasion to be called to the twelve hundred block of Upperline Street?”

  “Yes.”

  Bubby drops his shirt on the defense table and his lawyers finally notice. Bubby stands and starts unfastening his pants. The lawyer on his left tries to grab his hand and Bubby slaps him sharply, which brings the judge out of his coma.

  “Now wait just a minute,” the judge says.

  Bubby shoves his lawyers aside and takes a step back.

  “You!” The judge points to the same deputy who escorted me in. “Stop that man.”

  Bubby has his pants down before the deputy can grab him. Thank God he’s wearing drawers. Bubby howls like a wolf and tries to bite the deputy. Another deputy rushes over and grabs Bubby around the neck.

  “Fuck you!” Bubby screams. “Fuck all of you! ‘Specially that pork chop eatin’ D.A.!”

  The deputy tries to put his hand over Bubby’s mouth. Bubby bites the hand and the deputy howls. “Fuck the jury! I wanna ...” Bubby’s voice fades momentarily.

  “I wanna ... ”

  The deputies pull him to the floor.

  “I wanna ... fuck that little blond in the jury!”

  I glance at the petite blond woman seated at the far left end of the jury box. She bows her head as others look at her.

  “Fuck all of you!”

  The deputies lift Bubby and start carrying him out. He’s handcuffed now.

  “I want that blond to suck my dick!”

  They slam into a railing and then into the wall before one of the deputies opens the a door and they fall through it.

  “I wanna fuck that fat D.A. too!”

  The door slams shut.

  Peggy Stuart lets out a long sigh and starts back for the prosecution table.

  “Um,” my voice breaks the silence. “Any more questions for me?”

  •

  Seated at my desk, I go over the seventy-seven pages of print-outs of arrests and incidents at Bywater and Ninth Ward Bars. I use a yellow highlighter and after three hours, I wonder what the hell I’m highlighting. It’s all so fuckin’ random.

  No name seems to dominate any of the incidents. Only a couple are repeated and most of the perpetrators are black. Rubbing my eyes, I go over what Sandie told me that evening at Café Du Monde. She said she was in a bar, probably in the Ninth Ward. Some bikers came in.

&nbs
p; I reach into my briefcase and pull out my note pad. She described them as ‘greasy-looking’ men wearing leather vests and tattoos on their hairy arms. One of them said the murdered police officers were missing something. She let ‘the big one’ feel up her tits and he told her the cops were missing their badges.

  Bikers. She was sure, back in that drunken stupor, that they were bikers. I pick up my phone and punch in the number to the Intelligence Division. The clock tells me it’s after five so I don’t expect an answer.

  “Intelligence. Jones.” A deep voice answers.

  “This is Beau in Homicide. You got a minute?”

  •

  Detective Felicity Jones is seated behind his own gray metal desk. Pushing forty, Fel Jones is still in pretty good shape. Like me, he played a little college football at LSU. He has the darkest complexion, so black his skin seems almost blue. Smiling as I approach, he waves me to the chair in front of his desk. I try not to show how surprised I am that he’s talking to me.

  “So what’s up?”

  I tell him everything, about Sandie’s statement, about my futile search for the correct bar, about us coming up with nothing, zippo, a big fuckin’ blank.

  “Y’all gather intelligence on gangs and bikers, don’t you?” I ask.

  “Yeah. But there isn’t much here.” He goes on to explain there’s no biker gangs in New Orleans. No real gangs. There used to be a couple back in the eighties, but not any more.

  “It’s not like La Cosa Nostra, who’ve been open for business since before the turn of the century. You know we had the first Mafia family in the U.S. right here.”

  I think I heard that. Probably from Jodie.

  Fel moves to a file cabinet, reaches in and pulls out two folders. He puts them in front of me and tells me to take a look. As I look at pasty mug shots of grubby-looking men, Fel explains how the biker mentality is one of rebellion, but not serious rebellion.

  “No Marxists there. Most have driver’s licenses, live in houses – albeit filthy houses sometimes. They just like to look different, dress different, ride bikes. You know, typical teen-ager mentality. Let’s piss off the folks, tattoo our bodies, let our hair grow and don’t wash.”

  Then he explains that it isn’t all that simple really, but more like that than like a street gang. “We picked up word a week ago on the street that a biker might know something about Cochran’s and Steven’s murders.”

  Can’t believe what I’m fuckin’ hearing.

  “In whispers. Nothing specific. No real intelligence. We have every informant trying to find out more.” Fel leans back in his chair and lets out a weary sigh. “We put in long hours up here too, sometimes.”

  I go back to the mug shots, reading the descriptions next to some. They all sound the same.

  “I sent a memo to Bob Kay this morning about it. But it’s just a rumor at this point.”

  Some of the biker women look as rough as the men.

  “People are so damn tight-lipped. There’s so much heat from us on the street, it’s frying them. We’ve got ‘em scared. Got everyone scared. They’re more scared of us than any cop killer.”

  It’s my turn to let out a weary breath.

  “I bet,” Fel says, “I can count on one hand the number of cops who want to catch this killer. Everyone else is hell-bent on shooting him. This department is an armed camp of trigger-happy cops. It ain’t healthy.”

  I have a hollow feeling in my stomach. He’s right, of course. And I know, in the pit of my belly that I’m the one everyone thinks is the most trigger-happy.

  Fel reaches over and taps the newspaper folded at the edge of his desk. “Glad to hear Costanza’s was a good shooting, even though you’d never know by the press.”

  “I don’t read the fuckin’ paper.”

  “He’ll fade some of the heat off you.”

  I look into Fel’s brown eyes and see it there. Again, he’s right on the mark. Why isn’t this guy on the goddamn task force?

  He taps the paper again. “They dug up some old Internal Affairs beefs against Costanza. They’ll milk it for all it’s worth. Make his life miserable for a couple weeks.”

  I close the folders. “Is there any way I can bring someone in here to look at these pictures?”

  “Informant?”

  I nod.

  “Better if we bring the files to her.”

  Her? He’s sharp all right.

  “When?” I ask.

  He looks at his watch and says he’s got a dinner appointment at seven. Maybe we can do it on the way. I dial Sandie’s number and get her machine. There’s a knock on the door behind me.

  “It’s never fuckin’ locked,” Fel calls out.

  Gonzales peeks in and tells me, “Kay’s looking for you downstairs.”

  Before leaving Fel agrees to meet me with the file as soon as I get Sandie lined up. I thank him.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  I turn to leave.

  “Seriously.” Fel’s voice deepens. “Don’t mention it. We’re not supposed to dispense this shit without an act of Congress.”

  He points a finger at Gonzales. “That goes for you too, Zorro.”

  As soon as we get into the elevator, Gonzales asks what the hell was all that. I figure the truth’ll work here and explain that Fel’s siphoning intelligence information to me and probably wouldn’t like every swinging dick to know.

  “Cool.” Gonzales nods.

  Bob Kay, all decked out in black, stands with three other black clad Task Force members. Jesus. Not another search warrant. Kay pulls a sheet of paper from his clipboard and hands it to me.

  “It’s from Intelligence. More rumors about bikers. I want you to get a hold of Jodie. She’s tight with Felicity Jones. He’s the only solid investigator in Intelligence. He might talk to you through her.”

  I keep my face from revealing anything.

  Kay pulls me aside and lowers his voice. “Otherwise, we’ll have to go through channels. You see, Fel and LaStanza used to be partners and LaStanza broke in Jodie and Jodie broke you in. They’re still pretty tight.”

  It occurs to me that’s probably why Fel spoke to me in the first place. Jodie.

  •

  Gonzales joins me for supper at Flamingo’s the following evening. He’s in another shark skin suit, dark blue with a black shirt and dark purple tie. I wear a gray tee-shirt with the emblem of London’s Jekyll & Hyde Pub emblazoned in black across the front. A gift from an old girlfriend, she said it fit my personality. I don’t agree, but the shirt goes well with the black dress shirt I wear like a jacket and my black jeans.

  Angie is in her white uniform today, smiling as she seats us then goes to wait on the only other two customers near the front of the cafe, fishermen-looking men.

  Gonzales gives her a good stare and says, “Who’s the talent?”

  “Angie and she’s got too much brains for the likes of us.”

  Gonzales grins. “It wasn’t her brains I was looking at.”

  I have to smile.

  When Angie returns I order the usual and Gonzales orders the same without the onions. “Gotta keep my breath fresh,” he tells her. “Never know who I’m going to kiss later.”

  She chuckles and walks away. Gonzales turns to watch her ass move away. I’m not so obvious, but I look too.

  “You got something going with her?” Gonzales loosens his tie as the smoky scent of cooking burgers rises across the cafe. I shake my head.

  Angie returns with our root beers. Her lipstick is more brown than red today and her hair thicker looking than usual. Don’t know what she’s done with it exactly, but it’s fluffier and looks very nice.

  “Since he’s not about to introduce us,” Gonzales says as he extends his right hand. “I’m Mike Gonzales and you’re Angie, right?”

  She takes his hand and nods.

  “So. What you doin’ when you get off tonight?”

  Angie pulls her hand away and smiles at me.

  “Moves fast
doesn’t he?”

  I shrug.

  “He who hesitates, is lost,” Gonzales says.

  Still looking at me, Angie says, “Tell your friend I don’t date cops.” She turns to him. “And if I were to, I prefer the slower moving, quieter type. Especially if they’re part Sioux.”

  And she wheels and leaves and I don’t hide the way I look at her moving away smoothly.

  Gonzales grins broadly. “Well, you know where you stand now, don’t you?”

  I take a hit of Barq’s.

  Gonzales leans closer. “Seriously. A woman turns down a good looker like me, especially decked out in this suit, for the likes of you, you’re in like Flynn.”

  “Flynn? Who’s Flynn?”

  “You know. I don’t know. It’s a saying.”

  I change the subject, going back to the reason for this meeting. Gonzales has been haranguing me to find out if Sandie recognized any of the mugs from Fel Jones’s file.

  “Thought maybe a face would jog her memory,” I explain. “But another big zero.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. Two different killers. Bikers are too disorganized to pull this off.”

  I hear myself repeating the homicide cliché, “Go with the facts, man. Go with the facts.”

  “Yeah? When the facts are slim, where does it leave us?”

  I look out the window. “It’s out there,” I repeat another homicide cliché. “The solution’s out there. We just have to hit the streets until we find it.”

  Angie arrives with our plates and ketchup. She backs up to the counter and sits on the stool next to our table, turning in the stool to face us. I take a bite of burger and look at her.

  She tilts her head to the side and says, “Are you friends with any of your ex-girlfriends?”

  I shake my head.

  “I am,” Gonzales injects. “One anyway. I go back and hit her a lick every once in a while.”

  I have to fight to keep from laughing at the silly bastard. Hit her a lick? What a loon, telling Angie something like that.

  Angie’s face is serious. “My ex-boyfriend wants to be friends. Go shopping on the weekend. Maybe take in a movie, if I’m not busy. Is that normal for a man?”