“Tubby,” Jason pressed his hands together as if in prayer. His bearded chin bobbed up and down and his black glasses jiggled, “that shows how important this is to me. It may be a matter of my life or death.” He touched his heart. “And I know you could use the money. Who couldn’t? And it would solve everything. I’m desperate.”
“No.” Tubby stood up. He was looking for an opportunity to snatch the briefcase, but Jason hastily drew it into his lap and popped the clasps open.
Tubby had a gun of his own in the house, but unfortunately it was upstairs in the nightstand by his bed.
“I was afraid you would say that, my friend, and you might as well have signed a death warrant. But, hell, Tubby. That’s just the way you are, right? You never were a crooked man.” His tone changed back to friendly. “I suppose we must just let the chips fall where they may. A pesar de las consecuencias, as they say in the old country. It may all work out. This is the twenty-first century after all, not the 1970s. I’ll give you my special device anyway. Come sit by me.” He indicated the sofa, where Tubby’s book still lay, spread open to the page he had been enjoying.
“I’ll stand, thank you,” Tubby said warily.
“Okay, but my invention is not so big.” Boaz pulled a mobile phone from his case. “The screen will be hard for you to see.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Tubby said.
“This is a new Samsung I just bought, and I programed it with this very ingenious app I invented. Here’s what you can do.” He clicked it on. “Now, speak loudly.”
“You are an extremely bad client!” Tubby said with considerable volume, while Jason aimed the phone at him.
“Excellent,” the inventor said. “Now let’s see what you can replay here.” He did some scrolling around and then held up the screen for Tubby to see.
He beheld himself, a chest and head shot, with his Rodrigue print hanging behind him on the wall, nervously yelling, “You are an extremely bad client.”
Jason demonstrated with his finger that today’s date and time, and a running count of the decibel level, all appeared below the video. Tubby’s voice had measured from 60 to 75 decibels.
“It’s very simple,” Jason said proudly. He gave the device to Tubby.
“That’s the way it works. That’s the only thing it does. Use it in good health.”
The visitor latched his case and stood up.
“I feel quite a relief,” he said. “I have neither shot you nor spent fifty thousand dollars.”
He made his way to the door quickly, with Tubby close behind him.
“If I live through all this,” Boaz continued, “maybe I will make some money from this invention.”
Tubby let him out and promptly double-locked the door.
He tossed the phone on the chair and went directly into his kitchen for something straight and serious.
“Christ,” he said out loud. “This town is completely full of insane people.”
XVIII
Raisin had put away a few at the bar. Feeling bulletproof, he thought he might just prowl around the neighborhood and be friendly, so he went outside.
Right next door to Janie’s club was a shotgun house with a hand-painted sign outside that said “KEEP OFF STEPS. CLEAN UP DOG MESS.” On the curb in front of the house were a pair of homemade “NO PARKING” signs stuck in paint cans that had been filled with cement. Raisin had noticed these when he arrived and obligingly had parked in front of an adjacent empty lot. Certainly this was a promising house if one were looking for prickly neighbors.
He rapped on the glass pane of the front door. In a moment the door cracked open a few inches, constrained by a safety chain.
“What you want?” The man inside was a stocky African-American in a T-shirt. His round head was bald except for a fringe of white hair.
“No problem,” said Raisin. “I’m asking about the bar next door. I heard there were complaints about the loud music.”
“What’s it to you?”
“I’m a friend of the owner,” Raisin said. “I’d like to see what can be done to make the situation better.”
“Y’all can clear out of this neighborhood. That would make the situation a whole lot better.”
“I’m not sure who this ‘y’all’ is, but…”
“All you rich honkies think you can run over people who’ve been here all their lives.”
“Hey, do I look white to you?”
The man tried to see better through the crack. It was dark outside.
“Not too sure,” he admitted.
“I am of French extraction, primarily. Maybe some Creole. But what’s the deal? Half the musicians who play at that bar are black.”
“I don’t care if they are. I don’t care for that music.”
“Tell the truth, I don’t either.”
“It rattles my walls.”
“What do you do at night?”
“What do you do? I try to sleep.”
“You work during the day?”
“I was a longshoreman at the Louisa Street wharf for twenty-four years.”
“But you don’t work now, so you can get up late in the morning if you want to.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You can have a belt or two at night if you want to.”
“What’s a belt?”
“A shot. A hit off the bottle. A Jack and Coke.”
“I could if I wanted to.”
“Let’s have a belt.”
“I ain’t got Jack. Maybe some Coke, but I don’t keep whiskey in the house.”
“No worries, babe. I got a bottle right here in my car. What if I bring it in the house and we just sit down and savor?”
“Maybe.” The man was interested.
Raisin’s car, the red Miata, was only a few yards away. He fetched his load from the trunk where it was stored judiciously out of the driver’s compartment.
“Sorry, dude,” he called over his shoulder. “It isn’t Jack Daniel’s. It’s Maker’s Mark.” He displayed the red-capped bottle.
The homeowner opened the door and waved him inside.
“My name’s Raisin.”
“Monk. Ashton Monk. Come on back.”
They went through the man’s living room, full of old furniture and with pictures of Jesus, JFK, Robert, and MLK on the mantle. And through the bedroom and another bedroom, to the kitchen.
“Pardon all this mess. I’m a bachelor. Take a chair. I’ve got some glasses somewhere.”
XIX
It was a Code 10-30, a burglary in process.
“This is what we live for,” Ireanous Babineaux said to himself. To the dispatcher he said, “Five-O-Six, on it.”
“Unit Seven-O-One and Four Ten, are you responding?” was the dispatcher’s dry question.
Babineaux killed the radio when he was a block away, and snapped off his lights.
Cruise in swiftly and silently. Double-park outside the shuttered furniture store on Chartres Street.
Probably a false alarm. Not much to steal here. He relaxed.
On the other side of the levee, a docked container ship’s tall sparkling towers gave more illumination to the street than the city lights did. It was a nondescript old-time store with dark alleys on either side. Somewhere in the back of the store an alarm was ringing. No one was on the street. The other cars hadn’t come yet.
Babineaux heard someone or something scrambling about in the back alley. It sounded to him like the perps were trying to get away over a fence. His instincts to catch the bad guy overtook his good sense.
“Give it up! Police!” he cried and took one step into the darkness.
Two shots cracked out, but he only heard the first one, the one that put a hole in his forehead.
Footsteps peppered down the sidewalk. A car started on the next block. A ship sounded its horn. Lights out, another police cruiser crept down the street, while Babineaux’s life slipped away.
* * *
The downed policeman’s Glock lay beside his outstretched hand on the pavement. The safety was still on. That’s what the responding officer, Victor Argueta, noticed first. He had the alley cordoned off with yellow tape, and they brought out some lights. No sign of forced entry in any of the buildings in the immediate vicinity.