POPPING THE SHINE (Book 6 of the Jay Leicester Mysteries Series)
SPECIAL PREVIEW EDITION
by JC Simmons
Copyright 2012 by JC Simmons
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PUBLISHED BY NIGHTTIME PRESS LLC
Copyright © 2012 by JC Simmons
All rights reserved
Check out all ten books in
The Jay Leicester Mysteries Series:
Blind
Overlook
Icy
Blue Descent
The
Electra File
Popping
the Shine
Four
Nines Fine
The
Underground Lady
Akel
Dama
The
Candela of Cancri
(Book 6 of the Jay Leicester Mysteries Series)
By JC Simmons
SPECIAL PREVIEW EDITION
(This edition includes the first 9 chapters for FREE)
***
PROLOGUE
One week earlier
The one-legged hooker, who worked the Bourbon and Royal street area, limped along the pavement with a heavy-set redheaded Catholic priest holding an umbrella over her. He always saw that she got home safe. It was near four a.m. on a hot muggy night, and rain had been falling for two days. The silver, square-shaped, H2 SUV rolled slowly along the damp, fog-shrouded street in the New Orleans French Quarter. The driver watched the two hunched-over figures disappear into a small courtyard, then continued easing along the narrow paved cobblestone street humming a tune he'd heard on BET television during Black History Month:
Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves
Blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the walnut trees
At the corner of Chartres and St. Anne, with the three spires of the St. Louis Cathedral looming out of the mist, the driver stopped the car and looked carefully around the deserted streets and Jackson Square. Satisfied, he said, "Do it."
Two men exited the SUV, dragging a semi-conscious young man. They laid him face down and spread-eagled in the middle of the intersection. One held his limbs as the other drove Bridge Spikes through them, nailing him to the scum-covered pavement. The young man groaned, not sure what was happening.
One of the men, a short, stocky, bald, ex-con, said, "It's done."
"Cut him. Send a message," the driver said without emotion.
Lifting the chin of the young man, the ex-con ran a knife from one side of his ear to the other with practiced proficiency. Blood gushed onto the street. Both men jumped back into the SUV, and it slowly faded away into the fog that enveloped the Vieux Carré.
The young man, as he was bleeding out, thought, “I do not know what it is that I am supposed to do." Then he was dead.
CHAPTER ONE
The Pileated woodpecker broke the silence of the woods with a staccato sound starkly reminiscent of an AK-47 on full auto. I unconsciously ducked and reached for my magnum that was inside the cottage in my ditty bag. Still jumpy from a terrible nightmare about my last case, I cursed the pair of birds that lived in a dead Live Oak in front of the small cottage I keep on a two hundred-acre farm near Union, Mississippi. It is my retreat from humanity, and it is God's country. People left you alone, and if I felt the need for intellectual company there was always the cattleman whose land joined mine. Not only is he better read then me, but he is, for some obscure reason, a World War Two naval historian, and I had learned, early on, not to argue with him on any tactical operation of the South Pacific Theater.
Unrolling my day old copy of the Clarion-Ledger, a newspaper published in the state capital where I keep my office, I sat down with a cup of coffee on the front porch of the cottage. An early morning fog slowly burned off, revealing the trees, hollers, and growing briars that sorely needed my attention. It was a scene straight out of the "Deer Hunter," and was one of the things that makes the farm special to me.
Bold lettering on the front page of the newspaper caught my eye: BLACK TEENAGER NAILED TO FRENCH QUARTER STREET, THROAT CUT--KLAN SUSPECTED. Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ" may be the catalyst.
Good God, I thought. What's the matter with journalists today? The Klan hasn't been active in New Orleans in twenty years and I don't seem to remember Jesus being nailed to the pavement. Disgusted, I started to throw the paper away, but a familiar name flashed out at me. The teenager was the grandson of a local celebrity, "Shine" Garner. No, I thought, couldn't be…
I read the rest of the article with renewed interest. The murder sparked national coverage. Anytime a young black person dies under suspicious circumstances in the south, outrage and accusations soon follow. Quotes from black special interest groups including the NAACP, Rainbow Coalition, Nation of Islam, and others, however well meaning, start with the inflammatory rhetoric, and racism is the watchword of the day. Television appearances by Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and maybe even Jim Brown are all but guaranteed.
The dead teenager was in fact the grandson of Willy 'Shine' Garner. Willy gained fame back in the sixties at the New Orleans Airport, known then as Moisant International, where he ran a shoe shine stand on the "A" concourse. He could, literally, make music with a shine rag. While not the only one, nor the first, to perform what was called "Popping the Shine," Willy was simply the best, and possessed a personality that transcended southern segregation in all its ugliness. No one thought of Willy as black, he was simply a musician who shined shoes, and when the National Football League formed the expansion team known as the New Orleans Saints, Willy was adopted as the official Saints 'Shine' man and became a local celebrity.
'Shine' Garner was much more to me than a man with a talent for entertaining people, he was a man who helped raise me from an infant on our eight hundred-acre family farm near Osyka, Mississippi, where he share-cropped with my grandfather, a local judge. He taught me much; how to hunt, fish, field-dress a deer, milk a cow without getting slapped in the face with a shit-filled tail or have a bucket of hard earned milk kicked over. He showed me how to plow a stubborn mule and skid a middle-buster back to the barn without digging the plow point into the ground, and how to pick cotton and harvest corn, all under the watchful eye of the judge. I first tasted homemade buttermilk biscuits and country ham at his house and learned to love turnip greens and corn bread cooked on an old wood-burning stove.
Folding the newspaper, I lay it on the blue marble table and leaned back in the chair, watching a spring warbler fight with a house sparrow for a perch on the feeder swinging from a post oak near the porch of the cottage. It had been ten years since I'd seen Willy and I was suddenly ashamed, but sometimes life and the living of it gets in the way of the important things. It was time for me to pay a visit to Willy 'Shine' Garner.
***
At sun up, I packed my ditty bag with a change of clothes, a box of Charlemagne cigars, my old trusty .357 S&W magnum, and a new tool, a laptop computer. Locking the cottage, I threw my bag into the pickup truck and drove to the small grass airstrip near town where I keep my restored 1941 Stearman bi-plane; a gift from an appreciative client. I'm an ex-airline pilot and run my own aviation consulting business. Companies hire me to set up aviation departments, audit existing flight operations, and help pilots who are headed for trouble with drugs or alcohol. Insurance companies use me to recover aircraft from businesses or people who default on loans, and the government hires me in clandestine operations that I cannot discuss. It mostly involves the drug trade or terrorism.
The weather is clear today and, as I preflight the Stearman, I carefully check for golfers who use the small runway as a driving range. Located next to the local country club, the airport is seldom used, so one cannot blame the folks for taking advantage of the open space. Still, a golf ball or duffer hitting a spinning propeller is not a good thing.
Taking off to the west and climbing to six thousand-five hundred feet, I talked with Jackson approach control and then Memphis center and took up a heading direct to New Orleans International Airport. It is a halcyon day for a pilot, and is hard to put into words the thrill and exhilaration of being airborne. Having some twelve thousand hours aloft, not a lot of time for old aviators, though enough to qualify me as an experienced airman, I never tire of the sights, sounds, and smells of flight. There are days when one does not want the landing to come, and then there are times when one wishes desperately to be somewhere else when things are not going well with the engines or there are rocks or fire in the clouds, but a true airman never tires of flying his craft through the footless halls of air.
It is early summer and everything is green. Fresh plowed fields etch the landscape and seem to breathe in the sunlight. Patches of fog still lay eerily in valleys and pine forests seem to stretch on forever. Thousands of tiny ponds and lakes glinted in the east like raindrops. This is one of those unexpected mornings when everything under nature's cloudless blue sky has become exactly the way it should be, but almost never is. The spring just passed was cool and rainy, and perhaps for that reason the surrounding farmland has taken on those heart-bursting effusions of color that are almost more than a soul can comprehend or contain. Nature is being kind without knowing it, as nature can be cruel without knowing it. At such a moment, it seems as though no other day will ever attain the impossible splendor of this one. Already, I feel nostalgia for this time even as I live it. There is an urge to memorize everything I see because I know its blazing flourish will begin to fade as soon as I land, and never appear precisely like this again. It is a day that should be seen so clearly, and held so dearly that one will never forget how it looks and how it feels, for one's existence is finite and always in danger of ending unexpectedly.
Now, up ahead of the Pratt and Whitney radial engine, I can see Lake Pontchartrain lying like a big silver dollar and, joining it to the west, a quarter-sized Lake Maurepas. Located at the bridge separating the two lakes sits Middendorff's Restaurant, a place that serves the absolute best thin-sliced fried catfish. The twenty-four mile long causeway across Pontchartrain suddenly appears, white and straight, as if a child has drawn a dividing line through the water.
New Orleans approach control cleared me down to two thousand feet, gave me a heading for a straight in to runway one nine, and asked that I keep my speed up as long as possible due to a Delta 767 five miles in trail.
"Delta 3742, New Orleans, we are gonna have to widen you out for slow moving traffic ahead five miles and descending through two thousand."
"Roger, New Orleans. How about switching us to runway 10, we're running late this morning?"
"Negative, Delta 3742. The east-west is closed for maintenance."
Keying the mike, I said, "New Orleans, one Juliet Lima, I'm in no hurry today. Why don't you give me a heading to circle around and come in behind the Delta running late. He's burning a lot more fuel than I am."
"Roger, one Juliet Lima, fly heading zero nine zero and maintain one thousand-five hundred. Delta 3742, New Orleans, the little airplane is gonna come in behind you. Continue descent to two thousand, report the airport."
"Delta 3742, down to two thousand with the runway. November one Juliet Lima, that wouldn't be old Jay Leicester, now would it?"
"Yeah, who's this?"
"Webb. Thanks for the help this morning. I owe you one."
"Hello, Captain Webb. You owe me a lot more than one. Talk to you later."
"November one Juliet Lima, New Orleans, fly heading three six zero, report the 767 in sight. You are cleared to follow him. Contact tower on one one nine point nine."
"One Juliet Lima, I've got the Boeing in sight. Good day."
Bobby Webb and I flew together back in the late seventies. He was a natural aviator and a good friend. I was glad for him when he was hired by Delta Airlines. We had kept in touch over the years. It was good to hear his voice over the radio.
Coming in behind the big Delta Boeing 767, I was careful to land beyond his touchdown point on the runway to avoid that deadly, unseen turbulence referred to as 'wingtip vortices.' It is simply two horizontal tornadoes trailing behind each wingtip of a jet aircraft and the cause of many landing accidents and upsets at altitude. In the early days of aviation we did not fully understand the phenomena of wingtip vortex as we did not understand the 'microburst' associated with thunderstorms until several aircraft full of people were lost. We, in the aviation industry, have a 'tombstone' mentality, meaning we had to bury a lot of souls before researching and solving a problem. This 'bureaucratic idiocrasy' was one of the varied reasons I did not fly for a living anymore.
Ground control cleared me to taxi to the general aviation ramp on the west end of the airport. It was over a mile away, and I had to 'S' turn my way along the taxiways. Since the Stearman has no nose wheel, one cannot see forward when taxiing, hence the 'S' turns.
Not only did the wonderful folks at General Aviation take care of securing the Stearman; they loaned me a car for as long as I needed it. They do this for all flight crew whether they arrive in a forty million-dollar Gulfstream corporate jet or a 1941 World War Two training plane.
Leaving General Aviation, I drove along Airline Highway, taking in the familiar sights. Metairie, Louisiana, where the airport is located, was once my home. I lived behind the Candle Light Inn on Airline Highway and flew for a regional carrier named, appropriately, Southern Airways. Memories came flooding back, and I thought of the last time that I'd seen Willy Garner. It was on the 'A' concourse where he operated his shoeshine stand and the same day Levon Posey was killed. It was the day I learned fate is indifferent. It makes no distinction between good and evil.
It was ten years ago and I'd walked out of the gift shop located on the main concourse of Moisant International Airport absent-mindedly thumbing through a two-inch thick mass-market paperback book of the short stories of Leo Tolstoy. Levon Posey, a longtime friend and pilot for Delta Airlines, insisted that I read one of the stories titled, "THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH."
The airport was void of people as all the morning flights had departed, and none would arrive until mid-afternoon. In the distant, midway of 'A' concourse I could see Willy with a customer. Flipping through the pages of the heavy paperback like a Cajun playing an accordion, I walked toward the shine stand hoping to get there before Willy finished so I could listen to his performance with the shine rag. To my surprise the customer was Levon Posey.
"Jay Leicester, God's gift to aviation. Heard you made Captain last year. I hope you remember all the things I taught you, and that you treat your co-pilot with the same dignity as I did you." His smile was infectious. A lanky, six foot-two inch frame hid the power the man possessed. He farmed trees when not flying, and could skid a log with a mule and run a chain saw all day without breaking a sweat. Thick lips and curly hair accentuated dark, intelligent eyes.
"Hello, Levon. You still riding sideways on the DC-8?"
"I am. How's that old Martin 404 treating you? We couldn't afford to operate them, so we sold them to Southern Airways."
"Gets us there and back, so I can't complain."
"You know Mr. 'Shine' Garner?" He said, factiously, knowing our background.
"Hello, Willy. How's Martha and the boys?"
"We all fine. Martha says that if you don't show up next Sunday to watch the Saints, she will shoot you with that old scatter gun she keeps in the kitchen."
He was a short stocky man so black his skin seemed to shine like polished ebony. Bald since his twenties, his head bore the scars of a harsh life on the farm. His shoulders and arms were thick and powerful, and reminded me of the Spanish fighting bulls. Willy had a third grade education, but possessed an inherent intelligence that far exceeded mine. A voracious reader and sports fan, he prided himself in sending all of his children, with the exception of one, to college. One had died in a shoot out with police and happened to be the father of the young man slain in the French Quarter.
"Tell Martha that I'll be there Sunday."
Levon stepped down off the shine stand. "You working today?"
"Yeah, we push back at four o'clock. You got a trip?"
"Just came in off a three day to Seattle. We got a training flight going out in about an hour, a Captain upgrade, and a new flight engineer who's checking out. I'm going to ride along."
We shook hands and he walked away toward Delta's flight operation. It was the last time I would see him alive. At exactly ten minutes after four p.m., while we sat at the end of the runway waiting to depart, the Delta DC-8 Levon was riding in slammed into a railroad embankment a quarter mile short of the airport, then careened into a motel, killing all six crew members and thirteen civilians on the ground.
The airport was immediately closed, and we taxied back to the gate. I thought that I knew everything about flying, but what I didn't know then was that airplanes sometimes killed your friends. Willy Garner and I spent an hour together that afternoon talking and crying about the loss of Levon Posey, a man close to us both.
The cause of the crash was determined to be that the Check Captain had shut down two of the four engines and, unfortunately, they lost a third due to mechanical failure, and were unable to get the others restarted in time to prevent impacting the ground. Sweeping changes were made in the way training would be conducted, ground based simulators were vastly improved, and in-flight engine shutdowns, simply for training, were banned.
Sometimes, even to this day, when the night is sinister and things are not going well with the weather or my aircraft, or both, I can hear Levon Posey growling in my ear, as he was wont to do, "Remember, Leicester, if your ass gets there, so will your passengers."
Now, today, ten years later, Willy and I would cry over the loss of his grandchild.
CHAPTER TWO
Continuing along Airline Highway, I took Williams Boulevard out to Interstate 10 and headed east. Passing Fat City, I thought about stopping at Café Du Monde for coffee and beignets, but decided against it. Passing over Causeway Boulevard, I was glad to see that wonderful old four-engine Lockheed Constellation had been removed. Someone trucked it to the location and turned it into a restaurant. The business failed. Old aircraft, like a good cigar, should be left to die in a dignified manner, not used for something for which they were never intended.
Staying on I-10, I intercepted Hwy 90 and continued around the south side of the Superdome to the Saint Charles exit and went around Lee circle, working my way over to Magazine Street. An old friend owned a restaurant where it intersected Poeyfarre Avenue. If anyone in the city knew the details of Willy's grandson's killing it would be him.
"Jay Leicester, it's been awhile."
"Hello, Gladden, you still serving bad food with good wine?"
He laughed and we shook hands. Gladden was a pale, energetic man with a vast knowledge of the food and wine business, having trained at Martin's Wine Cellar and the kitchen of Commander's Palace. His personal venture into the restaurant business was a struggle, but he was still making ends meet.
"You're here because of Shine's grandson? I figured you'd show when it hit the national news."
"What can you tell me?"
"It was a brutal murder by some evil people, and if you are thinking my friends are involved, you are wrong."
By his 'friends,' Gladden meant the local Mafioso that was much reported to have killed John Kennedy.
"You've saved me a lot of time, Gladden. What else?"
"Whoever did it killed the wrong boy."
"Mistaken identity? Nah, come on, that was way too sophisticated a hit, with too big a message being sent for them to kill the wrong person."
"It's true."
"Are
you going to tell me what you know or am I gonna die of old age
sitting here in a cheap dive on Magazine Street in the Big
Easy?"
"Only tourists or hack writers refer to it as the
Big Easy. You been away chasing bad pilots too long, Leicester."
"Well, I'm back now."
Gladden leaned forward in his chair and ran long, delicate fingers through his blond, thinning hair. "Word on the street is some cops are involved, and a gang of up and coming thugs calling themselves the Abe Lincoln Brigade, who are attempting to control the heroin and cocaine trade over the entire city. These are your main players."
"Cops? I thought they cleaned up the N.O.P.D. back in the nineties?"
"They did, but God, Leicester, to keep the hiring quota a lot of bad apples can get in the barrel no matter how careful the screening process. There's just too much money involved with the drugs, simply too tempting. When the public finally gets enough, politicians, at least those not on the take, move to have it cleaned up. My friends got out of the drug business ten years ago. The Blacks, Latinos, and the Asians were just too hard to control and exposure is something these people don't want. Look what happened to the 'Dapper Don' and the 'Chin' up north. One was running around in four thousand-dollar suits, smiling for the camera, and talking to the press. The other one was wandering around the streets in a bathrobe muttering to himself and pretending to be crazy. You know their fate."
"I'm on the way over to see Willy. You want to come?"
"Shine's in the hospital. Had a heart attack yesterday. I'm sorry, I thought you knew. He's not doing well. This thing with his grandson was too much."
***
Ochsner Clinic and Hospital; simply the best medical facility in the south. With four hundred and seventy-eight beds and six hundred physicians, it was the first to go wireless in 1998. Using laptops and high speed networks, it enabled healthcare professionals instant access to vast arrays of medical knowledge, including the latest data on individual patients, even during surgical procedures, and in the Emergency department where speed is the bottom line.
I could have retraced my route back along the interstate to get to Ochsner, but it had been a long time since I'd driven through the Garden District. I went back to Lee Circle and worked my way around to St. Charles, then to Jackson Avenue and up to Claiborne where I headed west to the Orleans Parish line where Claiborne would become Jefferson Highway. The hospital sat on the banks of the Mississippi River south of the Huey P. Long Bridge and directly across from Ninemile Point.
Everyone seemed to know 'Shine' Garner was in the cardiac care unit. It was easy to find his room. The first person I spotted in the hall was Willy's wife, Martha. She saw me and almost ran to greet me.
"Oh, Jay, I'm so glad you came. Will is resting, but you must stay until he can see you."
She was a small, neat woman, used to tragedy in her life and family. I noticed her face, which gave one at first the impression of high spirits, had also an expression peculiar to herself, bright at first and then more and more attentive and rather sad.
"How is he doing?"
"The doctors say he has blocked coronary arteries and an aortic ballooning, whatever that is. They are making a decision about surgery."
"He is in the best of hands, Martha. Try not to worry. I'm so sorry about your grandson."
"Yes, and you will find out, won't you? Will had already mentioned that he wanted to contact you."
"It's why I'm here. I didn't know about Willy's heart until I talked to Gladden this morning at the restaurant."
"The funeral is tomorrow. Come to the house tonight. I want you to stay with us."
"No. I need the freedom to come and go; besides you will have enough company."
"The nurses are in with Will at the moment, Jay. Let's walk down to the cafeteria and get a cup of coffee." She turned and looked at a man standing next to the door. He nodded at her with some secret understanding. Martha did not introduce me.
Paying no attention to him before, I gave him a careful look. He was squat of torso, bandy-legged, and he affected a defiantly shaped goatee in addition to a mustache of guardsman's proportion. Neatly dressed, including coat and tie, he wore highly polished shoes from a bygone era. His skin was light colored, but he was obviously of African descent. In spite of his overall appearance, which reminded me of a grievously offended rooster, he radiated immense dignity.
We sat in pleasant silence for a moment sipping the hot, chicory-laced coffee. Martha looked tired. She peered up at me with a sadness that made me want to weep.
"Oh, Jay, my son is dead; my grandson is killed by some animals. Now Will…"
Yes, I thought, the sole solution to all the riddles of life and death is something quite impossible. I stared into her eyes, but they merely looked, they said nothing in return and a veil seemed to cover them from me. Her face appeared to have grown suddenly old and disagreeable.
"Who was the man standing at Willy's door?"
"What?" She seemed to suddenly return to her old self.
"Outside the room, who was the man you didn't introduce me to?"
"A friend of Will's. He appeared at the house the day after our grandson was killed. Will said he could be trusted. His name is Clarence Denson, lives on Louisiana Avenue, next to the housing projects. I think he's retired from the military. He hasn't left Will's side since he arrived. I don't know when the man sleeps."
There was a page for Martha to return to Willy's room. We hurried back to find the doctors had made a decision to operate. It was going to be a dangerous procedure; however he could die at any moment, so it was necessary.
Willy was awake and smiled weakly at me. "I knew I could count on you, Jay. You'll find out who did this terrible thing to our grandson, and if this goes bad," he pointed to his chest. "You'll see to Martha?"
Denson shuffled his feet, looked at the floor, and Martha sobbed.
Walking over to the side of the bed, I took his feeble hand in mine, the same hand that taught me how to start at the top of a cow's teat and squeeze downward, squirting the warm stream of milk into the pail. Then laughed at me when I tried to aim at my mouth for a drink and missed, wetting my face. His hand was cold and weak. I feared for my old friend's life.
"Don't worry, Willy. These guys here at Ochsner are the best. You'll be back to normal in a month."
"Go to the funeral, Jay. See who comes to the graveside. Promise me. Clarence will be there." He closed his eyes for a minute then, snapping open his lids, said, "Let me have a moment alone with Martha."
Denson and I went outside and stood in the hall. He walked to the end of the corridor and stared out at the river. Easing up beside him, I said nothing.
"Will told me he taught you how to shoot. Can you hit anything with that pistol you carrying in that shoulder holster?"
Whatever else Denson was, he was observant. "I've managed to stay alive for the last ten years."
"You gonna need to know how to shoot that thing and hit what you shoot at." He turned and walked back into Willy's room.
***
Willy's surgery was scheduled for seven a.m. tomorrow, his grandson's funeral at four p.m. It would be a long day for everyone. Needing a base of operation, I drove back out to Metairie on I-10, took the Causeway Boulevard exit, and pulled into the La Quinta Inn. It would be a good location and I knew they gave flight crew discounts. At the front desk, I handed the lady my old Southern Airways employee card that had been expired for ten years, not to mention the airline was now a part of Northwest. It worked; the room rate went from sixty-three dollars a day to twenty-five. The restaurant and bar were better than usual for a motel of this type. I'll never forget the first time I stayed here. On a two-day layover early in my career, the staff at General Aviation arranged a room for me at the newly opened Inn that agreed to discounts for corporate flight crews.
Entering the bright, friendly bar at two o'clock one afternoon, I ordered a cognac, wishing to try a new type cigar with that wonderful nectar. The bartender picked up a bottle of Martel XO Special that I knew cost over four hundred dollars. "Whoa, old son, how much you charging for a glass of that?" Seemingly oblivious to what he was holding, he looked at the bottle, then at me. "How about a dollar a glass?" Two days later, I was still hung over from drinking until I fell off the barstool. I would never be able to afford that cognac again. The bottle now sells for over ten thousand dollars.
The rooms were big and clean with king-sized beds. I was on the backside of the complex, away from traffic, which suited me fine. Unpacking the ditty bag, I thought what Willy said about attending his grandson's funeral. Who did he think would show up, the killers? Why was Gladden so sure this kid was whacked by mistake? Who could be that stupid? Crooked cops and the Abe Lincoln Brigade, what was this all about? Who was this Clarence Denson character? Pulling out my laptop computer, I hooked up on the free wireless. It was time to go to work.
***
CHAPTER THREE
If Clarence Denson existed, there was nothing in any database I could access. This made the man all the more intriguing to me. Placing a phone call to Lt. Hebert at the N.O.P.D. resulted in a young-sounding desk sergeant promising to forward my message and no, he would not give me Hebert's cell phone number.
The Lieutenant and I went back several years. I'd saved his brother's flying career. The Chief Pilot of the company where he was employed called me expressing concern over his drinking habits after one of his copilots refused to fly with him again. We were able to get him into a rehab program, which he completed with success. Lt. Hebert sent me a box of Cuban Cohiba cigars confiscated during a drug raid. It was a nice gesture, however illegal. I was hoping Hebert would run Clarence Denson through their computer, maybe he had a record.
The only thing I could find out on the Abe Lincoln Brigade dated back to the Spanish Civil War where from 1936-1938 2,800 American Volunteers went to help the Republic fight against a military rebellion led by General Franco and aided by Hitler and Mussolini. They were the first racially integrated military unit in U.S. history and were the first to be led by a black commander. They were also 60 percent communist and socialist. The legacy of the Lincoln Brigade has been a romantic vision of idealistic volunteers fighting for justice and freedom against Fascism in a nation far from their own. How this related, if it did, to the Abe Lincoln Brigade in present day New Orleans was yet to be determined.
The phone rang immediately after logging off the Internet. "Leicester."
"Hello, Jay, Bob Hebert. What brings you to the Big Bend in the river?"
"Bob, good to hear from you. Willy Garner asked me for help with this thing on his grandson. I need you to run a name for me."
"Yeah, the kid they nailed to the street. It's high profile, with the press and all. I'm not in homicide, but I can put you in touch with the two detectives working the case. This doesn't have anything to do with airplanes, what's your interest?"
"Willy is an old friend of my family."
"I owe you one, Leicester. Give me the name."
He took the information on Clarence Denson and said he'd get back to me tomorrow. I asked that he not tell anyone I was looking into the case, not at the moment, anyway. If he could deliver on Denson, then I'd push him for info on the Lincoln Brigade. In the meantime, I could nose around on my own.
An hour later there was a knock on my door. No one knew I was here, so who…picking up my magnum and easing up to the door, I listened carefully but heard nothing. Another knock came, this time harder and louder. Peering through the peephole revealed two well-dressed men. Cops, I thought, probably clued in by Lt. Hebert.
"Come on, Leicester. We know you're in there. Open the door."
"State your business."
"We have a message to deliver. Open up."
Leaving the safety chain hooked as if it were a deterrent, I cracked the door. "Who are you?"
"You did us a favor over in Biloxi last year. The boss wants to inform you of some facts."
Now I knew who they were. In the room, I got a good look at them. Both were over six feet, two-thirty to two hundred-fifty pounds, with thick, muscled necks. Probably spent all their spare time working out in a gym. Slick, black hair, sport jackets, dark tee shirts, and slacks; these guys were Italian. Mob flunkies working their way up the ladder to becoming made members, if they weren't already. Rumor has it you have to kill someone in order to take the oath. I was glad they were simply delivering a message.
Through circumstances beyond my control, I had inadvertently helped to exonerate one of their high ranking Capos. It involved a political murder that would have had far reaching consequences in the gambling industry along the Mississippi coast. I knew it would probably come back to haunt me, and now it had.
"How the hell did you people know where to find me? Nobody knows I'm in New Orleans, much less where I'm staying." Gladden…, I thought.
"People who do us favors, we keep an eye."
Pointing to his partner, I said, "This friend of yours talk, or is he a mute?"
I don't know why I was being hostile; maybe knowing someone was keeping tabs on me was irritating. There was no reaction from either of them. The room was suddenly permeated by cheap after shave and cigar smoke. I was ready for them to speak their piece and leave.
The mouth started to talk. "Killing of the black teenager has nothing to do with our organization, Mr. Leicester. It involves a dispute between two gangs who deal in narcotics and smuggling of people, mostly Asians, through the ports of New Orleans. We've been out of that market for a long time. When these people screw up it brings heat on all of us and it's not good for business. We are going to stay out of it, for now."
"You've made a denial, big deal. So what's my message?"
Both of their faces remained stoic. It would be hard to goad them into a mistake. They were well trained, almost admirable. Five years ago, I'd probably have taken my shot, but I've learned a lot.
"Our message is this, Mr. Leicester. These people whacked an innocent kid who was totally uninvolved, and you need to watch your back. Someone already knows you are here. If you get too close they will kill you."
"Are cops involved?"
"Cops are always involved, but they are not your problem."
"What can you tell me about the Lincoln Brigade?"
"We've delivered your message. Have a good evening, Mr. Leicester, and be careful."
Sitting on the bed and staring at the red numbers on the bedside clock, I thought about what just happened. Gladden had to have told them what I was doing in the city, and they simply wanted me to understand they were not involved, and to warn me that the bad guys were watching. Where did they get that information?
How could someone know I'd come to New Orleans to help Willy Garner find out who killed his grandson? Not even Willy knew I was coming. Only three people were aware I was in the city, Gladden, Willy's wife, Martha, and Clarence Denson. Lt. Hebert knew after the phone call, but that was only a few minutes ago. Organized Crime, probably as a result of Gladden informing them, knew, but how did the killers know? Were members of the Gulf Coast 'family' following me to keep me out of trouble because they owed a favor? Too improbable, still…they knew I was registered at the La Quinta Inn an hour after I got here. They also said two gangs were involved. If the Abe Lincoln Brigade is one, then who is the other?
It had been a long time since I'd been at Willy's house, and I thought about making a drive by to be sure I could locate it, but it was already dark, I was tired, hungry, and frankly, not in the mood to fight the traffic back down town. Tomorrow I could check on Willy at the hospital, then go to the house for the funeral.
After a bowl of gumbo that was much better than I expected, served with wonderful crusty French bread and a bottle of Chateau Bouscaut, a wine from the Graves region of France that not only was wonderful, but cheap, I wandered out of the motel restaurant into the bar and grabbed a stool so I could look over the cognac selection. There was no Martel XO Special on the shelf, only VSOP. That would do.
Cutting the end off one of my fifty-four ring, long filler, seven and a quarter inch Charlemagne cigars, I waved the bartender over and ordered a snifter of the VSOP. Lighting the cigar with a book of matches furnished by the bar, I glanced around the dimly lit room. Three men sat at one table discussing business, official-looking papers spread out on the tabletop. Two couples at another table were laughing and joking like single folks relaxing after a day at the office. A lone man wearing a baseball cap sat quietly in a corner reading a newspaper and sipping a beer. At the other end of the bar, a young woman sat on a stool talking with the bartender.
The cognac and cigar hit the spot and I started to relax. The bartender, a man of around fifty with scars on his eyebrows and a nose that a plastic surgeon could never set straight again on his face, refilled my glass without asking. Wiping at an imaginary blemish on the marble top, he bent low next to me and, with a sideways glance, said, "The lady wants to know if you'd like company?"
Looking at him more closely, I guessed him for a club fighter, getting his brains scrambled for a few hundred dollars a bout so some young hotshot could move up the rankings for a big payday and a try for the title. He still looked in good shape, but age was his enemy. "She a working girl?"
He cut his eyes at me, gauging if I were a Vice-cop and deciding I wasn't, he nodded. "She's a good kid. Old man left her with a baby and she can't find work."
"Tell her thanks, but no. Give her a drink and put it on my tab."
He walked over and sat another drink in front of the young woman. She shrugged, looked at me and nodded. A half-hour later she got up to leave. Passing by me she said, "Thanks for the drink, mister."
"My pleasure, good luck."
"Yeah, that's all I need, a little luck."
"Hey, bartender, come here for a minute." He walked over and stood in front of me, said nothing. "You looking out for the girl, or what?"
"I'm not her pimp, if that's what you're asking."
"She seemed like a nice person. Could use a friend like you."
"Lives across the highway with her aunt who keeps her baby. They're having a hard time, on welfare and the aunt's got an eye problem. I feel sorry for them and let her hang around, that's all."
"What's your name?"
"Tony Poli." He stuck out a small hand with callused knuckles and arthritis in every joint.
"Jay Leicester. You used to fight, Tony?"
"Yeah, but I got old and slowed down. Quit before I got punch drunk. You fight?"
"Work out at Frank Hughes's gym up in Mississippi to keep in shape, but no, I'm not a fighter."
He did a sideways move like he was blocking a body shot, laughed and said, "Frank Hughes used to train me. Wish I'd stayed with him, but I was young and wanted to do it my way. How's Franks doing?"
"He's okay. Tony Poli…you fought Jimmy Locke for the city championship back in 1980. I was at that fight. You had a good ten rounds."
"Wasn't good enough, I lost. So you remember that, do you? Seems like a long time ago, another era. Never thought I'd meet anyone in here who saw that fight."
"It's a small world."
"So what's your business, Leicester? Let me guess, you're a Vice-cop?"
"Aviation consultant. A friend of mine's grandson was killed; I'm going to the funeral tomorrow. You might have heard about it? The kid was nailed to the street down in the Quarter and someone slit his throat."
"Shine Garner's grandson. Yeah, I read about it. Used to work baggage for Texas International when Shine had his stand at the airport. He's a good man, could make that old rag talk. Sorry to hear he's having trouble."
"Maybe we can find out who did this murder. If you hear anything, I'm staying here at the Inn."
"I'll keep my ears open. You tell Shine old Tony Poli is thinking about him."
Dropping a twenty on the bar, I signed the tab and walked back to the room. It had been a long day; I was tired, and looked forward to getting some sleep.
Swiping the card through the electronic lock on the door, I heard a noise. Turning slowly around, I saw two men lurking in the shadows.
"You Leicester?"
Standing easy, feet apart, I was ready to reach for the magnum. "Who wants to know?"
The nearest one to me held up an I.D. with a gold badge, shiny, even in the dark. "Homicide. Lt. Hebert called us about you. We need to talk."
"Look guys, it's been a long day and I'm tired. Can we do this later?"
Stepping out of the shadow, the detective looked hard at me, then turned to his partner who nodded. "Tomorrow, after the Garner kid's funeral. Downtown at headquarters. You know where that is?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Enjoy your sleep, Mr. Leicester. We haven't had that luxury in awhile."
Closing and bolting the door, I undressed and lay in the king-sized bed, suddenly feeling small and alone. The cognac had the effect of a narcotic. Sleep came swiftly.
CHAPTER FOUR
Martha Garner and Clarence Denson were sitting in Willy's room when I arrived at Oshner's hospital at 8:00 a.m. The surgery had begun at 7:00. Word from the operating room said that everything was going fine.
Martha stood, hugged my neck. She was handsome in a soft, vague, dark-skinned way and looked younger than her sixty-five years. She carried her age well.
"He'll be okay, try not to worry."
"Yes," she said. "I'm praying for him." Her eyes were looking past me at a flat oasis of time that stretched backward as far as she could see.
Clarence Denson had not acknowledged that I was in the room and remained seated. Dressed in a neat, wide-striped suit, he wore a red bow tie he'd tied himself. His short hair, the color of faded straw bristled on his head, but did not match the color of his goatee that was almost white. His old style shoes were highly polished. His expression and demeanor was of a man who had seen everything and not been changed by it.
"I don't know how I'm going to handle the funeral? I must be with Will, he needs me, but who is going to handle all the details of my grandson's burial?"
Denson spoke, "Everything has been taken care of, all arrangements have been made, Martha." He stood, came to her, but didn't touch her. "I'm here to help. All will get done. You think about your husband, leave the rest to others."
Her whole body heaved in the thin dress. She looked at me as if she were afraid. Her fingers were laced together and strained against each other so as to cut off the blood circulation. I noticed that her nails were bitten to the quick. She sat down heavily in the chair.
"Let's give her a minute," Denson said, looking at me for the first time and motioning toward the door.
Following him down the hall to the same window where we stood yesterday overlooking the mighty, muddy, Mississippi River, I gazed across at Ninemile point and waited for him to speak. He did not.
"You called this meeting."
He looked up at me; a slight smirk stretched the beard to one side. "You've been trying to find out who I am."
"If you are a friend of Willy's, I don't care about your background." Glaring hard at him, I said, "Hear me well, old man, Willy Garner helped mold me into what I am today and I care a great deal about him. Whoever murdered his grandson will answer for that, it's the least I can do. I just hope you and I are on the same team."
"We are, Mr. Leicester." A smile broke on his face. It was hard to read. "Quit trying to find information about me, you won't. Use your time for other things."
The sun broke through the fog and glistened off the murky, wide ribbon of water. Cars ran in a steady stream on the Huey P. Long Bridge. A smell of hospital food wafted down the corridor mixed with an odor of disinfectant and denatured alcohol. It was the morning feeding time and orderlies mopped highly polished floors.
"What did Willy expect us to see at the funeral?"
"Mistakes, Mr. Leicester. He wanted us to see mistakes."
"What does that…?”
Martha stuck her head out the door. "They just called, Will's in the recovery room. The doctor is coming to talk with me."
The surgeon was a tall, slim man with kind eyes and long, delicate fingers. He spoke softly and carefully explained the procedure in layman's terms that even I understood. "Mrs. Garner, your husband came through fine. He had four blocked coronary arteries and some damage to the aorta, a large blood vessel going to the heart. We bypassed the blockage and put a sleeve over the aorta. The next forty-eight hours are critical. We'll watch for any signs of leakage. Barring complications, he'll be able to go home in about a week. It will take some time to fully recover, but he's strong and in otherwise good health. The nurse will take you to see him, but for just a moment. There's no need to stay, if serious problems arise, we'll contact you. Any questions?"
There were none and the nurse came and took Martha to see Willy. Clarence Denson said he would see that she got home.
Leaving the hospital, I drove back to the motel to make some phone calls, grab some lunch, and then go to Willy's house for the funeral.
***
The message light was blinking when I walked into the room at the motel. There were two, one from Lt. Hebert and one with a voice that I did not recognize. Hebert left a callback number; the other did not, but said they would try again tonight.
"Lt. Hebert, Jay Leicester."
"Well, we got nothing on your Denson character. If he exists, we never had him in the system. A Social Security number would help."
"No way to get that, but thanks for trying. I wish you hadn't said anything to the detectives working the Garner murder about me. Now they want to talk."
"Look, Jay, these are good men, you can trust them. They have a right to know an outsider is looking into their case. Maybe you can help each other?"
"They didn't seem too happy last night when they paid me a visit. I've got to meet them this afternoon, after the funeral. Should I expect rough treatment?"
"Tell them what you are doing. I can assure you there won't be a problem."
"You ever hear of the Abe Lincoln Brigade?"
"They are a gang of thugs attempting to control some areas of the city. As far as I know, it's mostly narcotics, crack and heroin. Lots of competition out there. I know of three or four gangs, all fighting for the same city blocks. These are not drug dealers who cater to the white-collar crowd. How do you know about them?"
Ignoring his question, I asked, "Have they been involved in much violence?"
"All these street kids know is that Mac 10s and assault rifles are the way to solve problems previously decided with fist fights and knives. Yes, there are a lot of unnecessary killings."
"Thanks, Lieutenant. You think maybe you could put a name to any of the Brigade boys?"
"I could, but your best source would be Bob and Al. Ask'em when you meet this afternoon."
"How's your brother?"
"Still sober and still flying, thanks to you."
"Good to hear. If I run into problems with Bob and Al, I'll be in touch."
"I'm sure you will. Goodbye, Jay, take care and stay alert."
***
Grabbing a quick lunch at the motel, I picked up I-10 and headed for Willy's house hoping it wouldn't be hard to find. The one way streets would be my biggest problem. It had been a long time since I'd driven in the area north of the Quarter.
Intercepting Highway 610, I came back onto I-10 on the northwest side of the city and worked my way to Esplanade Avenue and down to Pauger Street, following it up to Urquahart Street. The Garner house was on the corner. A charming double cottage, with a broad front veranda, whose round, fluted columns supported the sloping roof. The house was painted a dazzling white; the outside shutters, or jalousies, were green. In the yard, which was scrupulously neat, were flowers and plants of every description, which flourished in South Louisiana. They had lived there since moving to the city thirty years ago. The neighborhood was rough; housing projects with all their attendant problems surrounded them, though homes on either side were much like theirs.
Having to park a block away on the street, I locked the car and wondered if it would be there when I returned? Thirty or forty people were milling around outside the house. I felt like a fly in a milk bowl.
Inside the house it was wall to wall with bodies, sitting and standing. The appointments were perfect after the conventional type. Soft carpets and rugs covered the floors; rich and tasteful draperies hung at doors and windows. The smell was a mixture of strong perfume, frying food, and whiskey.
The open casket sat next to two windows that let bright light filter in and play off the polished wood and wreaths of flowers. Heavy cigarette smoke hung like a cloud. It was not a sad room, there was talking and laughing; food was being set up on a long table in the dining room. I looked for a familiar face, but did not recognize anyone and nobody paid any attention to me.
Walking up to the casket, I saw that the young man lay, as dead men always lie, in a specially heavy way, his rigid limbs sunk in the soft cushions of the coffin, with the head forever bowed on the pillow. He was thin, but the face was still handsome, and the expression seemed to offer a reproach and a warning to the living. I thought that this was such a waste, for the power of youth is granted only once in a lifetime.
Feeling someone touch my arm, I turned to face a young woman. Her features could be considered too masculine and almost harsh had it not been for her tall stately figure, her powerful chest and shoulders, and especially the severe yet tender expression of her long dark eyes which were deeply shadowed beneath their black brows, and for the gentle expression of her mouth and smile. She seemed to radiate virginal strength and health.
"Who are you, mister?"
"My name is Jay Leicester. I'm a friend of Willy and Martha."
"I'm his girlfriend." she motioned toward the casket.
"It's a terrible thing. I'm sorry for your loss."
"Thank you." She held out her hand. "My name is Adele Ratignolle."
"Nice to meet you, Adele."
"We was suppose to get married next month. He had his own string of shine stands; took them over from his grandfather. He never hurt nobody."
A small woman in a flame-colored blouse came through a side door that shut behind her. Her bobbed hair was blue-black and fitted her tiny head like a coat of Chinese lacquer. Her eyes, dark brown and experienced, carried a little luggage underneath. She spoke with practiced authority. "It's time. Come on, let's line it up." Calling outside, she said, "Alfred, come and get the casket ready."
A funeral procession of the Creole people in old New Orleans is a thing to behold. It is a celebration much like a Mardi Gras parade. Horns are played, songs are sung, children and grownups alike dance in the street as the deceased is carried through to its final resting-place. As all human rituals, it is done with a sincerity an outsider can barely perceive.
The cemetery was four blocks from the house, and I joined the march at the rear. Martha Garner was not among them, nor did I see Clarence Denson. At one side street I saw whom I thought to be Bob and Al, the two homicide detectives that showed up at my motel door, sitting in an unmarked car, but it was dark when we met, and I couldn't be sure.
As we neared the cemetery, I saw Clarence Denson standing beside a long, black limousine. He opened the door and helped Martha out. Across the street, a block north, I noticed one of those new Hummer vehicles, a military design that was, due to some actor's whim, converted into civilian use by public demand. It made about as much sense to me as a deer hunter who killed with an M-16 assault rifle. But thank God we, as Americans, have a right to possess weapons, for I, too, own an M-16, plus an AK-47, and a .30 caliber carbine, along with several hunting rifles.
The crowd gathered, the gaiety ceased, and the priest began his litany. Behind me, I heard, like soft surf washing upon a beach, the sounds of indrawn sobs of grief. Off to one side standing in a group were several uniformed police officers, both black and white, and several men and women who I took to be city officials.
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