Читать книгу A New Orleans Detective Mystery - Ken Mask - Страница 6

Friday, late afternoon ...

“I like what you’ve done here.”

“Thanks to Rosalind and Celia, they put nice touches on the place. Just like back at the apartment. But most of the tasteful art and stylish layout are all me. All these selected pieces from around the world,” Luke gestured with false humility.

“A ham, huh?”

“Yea. Like my old man used to say, ‘Yes, a ham, a country ham!’”

Matt ‘Smooth’ Harris exited the front secretarial area and headed down the three concrete stairwells of the building. As always, he moved with little effort and insisted that anyone who knew him for longer than a day call him ‘Smooth.’ He had been onboard to assist the new private investigator and had stayed on course and out of real trouble for the past six months.

Their badinage lasted through any given day until some work was placed on the desk. It was the typical type of interaction among friends who had gotten from the point of solid commitment to steady resolve to be cut buddies after only a few weeks together. The teacher-preacher-pupil-church member relationship blossomed and brought the two in sync at a time that both needed it.

Luke Jacobs’ character is best described as a mixture of a tamed, less extravagant James Bond and a not so ‘academically’ intelligent, pipe-smoking, chin-stroking Sherlock Holmes. He’s smart, clever, book wise, street wise and in shape. The qualities that he borrows from those famous sleuths are nicely balanced in a ‘fella’ with the warmth and sensitivity of a Southerner trapped in a keenly fit, sculptured body with the agility of a cat, given that he practices the modern-day Brazilian martial art, Capoeira.

Luke’s office is in New Orleans’ very busy Mid-City section, adjacent to Bayou St. John. His office building is on the corner of Moss and Orleans, across the street on a diagonal from the American Can Company building, which was just bought and remodeled into condos. The neighborhood is in the central section, a mere ten minutes from the French Quarter, ten minutes from the airport, and fifteen minutes from the eastern section of New Orleans. It’s a mixture of homes, businesses, grassy neutral grounds, and waterways consisting of bayous and canals.

Old ‘shot-gun’ double houses dot the major part of the landscape with the character of old-country, European influence. Luke converted one of those homes into his office, using one side of a double along its entire length, with the front areas devoted to secretarial space and the back two as his private eye area. The style is hard-nosed detective inlayed with high-tech modern posturing; i.e., computers, monitors, police scanners, large screen televisions, and video equipment. A 1930s Remington typewriter sits in the middle of his large oak desk, something he uses for reports with the taste of standard, hard-boiled investigations. He places the data on the desks of clients, police officers, newspaper editors, and television producers, as needed and required.

“Got some work to do on that bayou case?”

“Yes. They’ve asked that I look at the data. I’ll let you know what kind of role we’ll play ...”

“Alright, captain.”

“Going to meet for practice Sunday?” asked the lawyer-former assistant district attorney.

“Sure thing, guy; that is, if you have the time and all ...”

Luke had recently enjoyed some good press for solving a few high-profile police cases and figured his small team needed a weekend break. He had been happy to share some of the recent fame with his go-to guy. They had been working on strictly private matters, but were thrown into the limelight with coverage of their work by the Times Picayune staff team of Joe Sway and Swift Gardner. ‘Swift,’ is his given name, but Joe goes by his nickname, ‘Fingerprints,’ that he picked up while he lived and worked in New York. He’s said to have the uncanny ability to arrive at crimes scenes to gather information before the lab folks. The two have been jousting at the paper recently, competing for lead stories and steadily doing battle with words. Swift has the home court advantage, given that he was born here and has been doing the damn thing here the longest. ‘Fingerprints,’ a literary wunderkind, was brought down by his college buddy Luke to add some New York style to the place and to hang.

The Luke Jacobs PI team was just now settling into a steady volume of cases, a few at the request of the police department. The mentor and mentee now actually enjoyed working and playing together. It hadn’t been like that from the start.

“Can’t wait to see what Curtis has in store for us,” ‘Smooth’ responded as he continued motions to leave.

“Yeah. Can’t wait. I’m going to head over there right after the morning paper comes. And, let’s play some chess in the afternoon.”

“Hey, you’re gonna meet me for brunch at the Foundation Room tomorrow though, right? Saturday morning detectives’ brunch? Williams stressed that we go!”

“Oh, yes. Almost forgot … ’round 11:00, eh?”

Luke plays high stakes chess for fun (at a closed, almost secret, underground circuit at Harrah’s), runs daily (training for the upcoming first annual New Orleans marathon), works out by practicing Capoeira three days a week, chases and catches women, and gets chased by and caught by women. And, he is levelheaded about it all — levelheaded, that is, until this set of cases came his way. This match, however, gets personal when a friend is a victim!

“Hope the private cases continue. It’s been nice doing some safe, steady work for regular folks.”

Our PI has been asked on several occasions to assist with cases that the police have found to be particularly difficult. A buddy on the force, Detective M.L.C. Williams, usually makes the call.

Luke’s best assistant, Matt Harris, is a hard-nosed, streetwise, tough guy, college dropout who does a great job of keeping the boss in check. He is both a friend and a close confidant. The two men both pack Lugars in the middle, lower parts of their backs, and they both have a few tricks up their sleeves for any rough business. A jousting of topics from current politics, social conditions, and world events in general, to Proust, Tolstoy, Kant, Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner, Wright, Ellison, Murray, Crouch, and others who have come before us to deliver original or refried thoughts keeps the two close cut. They are never in want of a sparring match or a superior opponent.

Before Matt left the yard space in front of the office, his boss announced, “Got this for you and I expect you to respect it and your parole!” Luke followed him down the stairs and slyly handed Matt a gun. It was an older gun with a new look, a polished Lugar.

“No easy task, I suspect.” ‘Smooth’ examined the weapon and continued, “OK, but I won’t really need it. Gonna use my mind, man. But I’ll keep it, just in case!” Grinning while looking around and shrugging his shoulders, he tucked the weapon into the back of his belt.

Luke smiled in agreement and sat down on the front porch top stair, pointing his right index finger, gun-barrel style, at the young man. Yes, the guns are registered. The two are a team, a modern-day dynamic duo. They work out together, practice at the firing range, and delve into mind-puzzle games to keep sharp. Between playing chess and doing crossword puzzles, the hard kind — the ones that make the New York Times pieces look like child’s play, the ones from the Borders’ collection, the Mensa Society, and the ones used to test the best of the best—they are sharp, indeed.

“Close your eyes!” Luke yelled across the street as ‘Smooth’ entered his car. Before the door could be closed, Luke had leaped and hopped the twenty-foot distance and stood near the corner of the street near the bayou. “Tell me the color of the four cars in the parking lot at the EZ Server gas station.”

“Man, it’s dark out here ... ain’t do—”

“Alright now ...” Luke raised his eyebrows and tilted his head 30 degrees to the left in the offensive look of challenge.

‘Smooth’ countered, “Close yours and tell me! Behind you!”

“No deal. I obviously know because I asked. I already cased the entire place … I’m not going to let you off.”

“OK, a blue Ford truck, a white Camry, and a black Lexus, two door.”

“Good. That’s three; and the forth?”

“There is no other car.”

Jacobs checked to make sure that his buddy had not peeped, then responded, “Good! Very good!” Then he added, “What’s the make of the Ford?”

“Got me. 5.0, late 90s?”

“That’s fine!”

“What do you have going?”

“I’m getting together with Rosalind. We’re gonna have a midnight picnic in the park.” Twice-raised eyebrows comunicated more than words could.

Some police officers hate them for their efficiency and crooks respect them for their wisdom. They’ve gain a reputation in the city as a steady force with which to be reckoned.

The Tulane law graduate private investigator now lives in a modest three-bedroom apartment, stylishly decorated with the kind of sparse elements reminiscent of the 50s. He traded a very comfortable existence in a large 4200 sq. ft. home in the Eastover section for the place, which, he felt, would provide him with a more manageable space for his private investigative work in a nearby office. The place is large, sporting full-length bay windows, a large kitchen, an adjacent dining area/drawing room which overlooks a side yard garden/workout space and a concrete basketball-court-size area.

He mostly hangs out in the French Quarter at few select establishments (Showcase, Snug Harbor, Cafe Brazil, Beckham’s Bookstore, The Louisiana Music Factory, Tower Records, House of Blues, Cafe Giovanni, Foundation Room, Donna’s, Le Bon Temps, The Funky Butt), reads superior literature (based on suggestions by a few close, well-read friends and foes), watches sports (boxing, basketball, and world cup soccer), and entertains company in the living room that serves as a game room and library. The 20x30-foot space houses a pool table, an L-shaped sectional sofa set, and a huge, 120-inch flat-screen television and Bose wave system, all of which fits out the area quite nicely. The Jacobs’ home is modest, stylish, uncluttered, clean, tasteful, yet masculine with solid firmness. It’s a bachelor’s pad and playpen.

Luke tries to keep the business of private eye work separate, at a location not too far on Bayou St. John, on the corner of Moss and Orleans. The work, however, sometimes finds its way into his private space.

Music plays in my head ...

Can’t quite shake these tunes ...

A stick, a stone, it’s a little alone ...

It’s a sliver of glass, it is day it is night ...