Читать книгу A New Orleans Detective Mystery - Ken Mask - Страница 7

Saturday, early morning ...

Rural Mississippi. It hasn’t rained in weeks. Caldwell is in the midst of being attacked by ragged men in overalls, sackcloth clothing, musty and hungry, drunk and crazed. They grab arms and legs, held by loose clothing, and attempt at a better grip on flesh, but his meat fails them. He twists. The sweat and mixture of alcohol in the pores of his attackers sicken his core but gives him energy. He falls to the dusty ground and rolls over, over, over, and over, away, down a small hill and into bushes. He is dizzy but steadies himself. The wind carries laughter, howls, yells, jeers. Dogs held at bay by chains and commands bark. He hustles, crawls on hands and knees, hands and feet, crouched, sweat pouring down his back, down the middle of his chest, breathing heavy and deep, his heart racing, head pounding, limbs numb. But he is completely full of life — from fear, which fuels his escape.

Charles Caldwell takes off into a set of small trees. It is almost dark. It is dusty, dry, and a bit cold, and the comforts of home are a distant memory. The small trees and brush become a large, thick-barked, dense, impersonal, insensitive, cold, hard forest. Its branches block his way. The ground is unsure, unfamiliar. The rustling of leaves beneath gives away his position with every step. Why couldn’t it have rained last night? Now the dogs bark angrily with whoops and hollers. The group can be heard approaching. Men yell, “Uppity black, ya can’t kill a judge’s son and get off, talking those big words and thangs.”

A stream is just above the ridge. Once there, he’s past Lincoln’s farm, Kingston’s Bottom, and Al’s place, back behind the fence. Instantly shots whistle within the branches, and one piece of metal, hot and piercing, grazes his right ear. Blood, warm and smelly, trickles down his neck and the numbness in his heart returns ... Think about it—he had his day in court!! The events had been heard and told with elegance. He was found not guilty! By an all-white jury! But the time was now for Charles. Acquitted, but not free from this mob! He had defended himself in the courts. The young man had shot first. He had returned fire in self-defense ... Everyone knew that. Acquitted! In rural Mississippi. Now, almost Christmas. 1868. The cold, late afternoon, early evening breezes that announce the cold, insensitive nature of man raced across his face, neck, chest, and arms, cooling the blood trail and the whelps of his flesh stung with each motion as he headed for what he thinks is safety: an open field, houses, and someone to help!

The sweat rolled down his forehead into his eyes, down his temples, and into his ears. The back of his neck was damp. His pillow case was soaked again. Tossing and turning, the uncomfortable headrest he had rolled into brought him to attention. Luke abruptly sat up in bed and stared into the sunlight breaking through the window shades. The lady resting across his Doer king-size oak bed, supplied with a pillow top Sealy mattress and large pillows, sighed, rotated, and straddled his lap. But she didn’t awaken.

His dreams were usually triggered by something that happened throughout the day. However, this recurring dream had a particular meaning on a personal level.

At 8:00 a.m. Saturday morning, the sweetness would sleep in, he would awaken, get up, read, run, work out, and head for the office.

Ophelia Roche had been his steady for a few months, but the two had an understanding. She did her own thing, which was quite a bit, and he as well, which was more. The magnificent, pecan-brown, young CPA met Luke a couple of months after his father, Luke Sr., passed away. That was several years ago and she had helped with a few matters to set up his job with the city in the DA’s office as a junior prosecutor. It kept him extremely busy, the kind of busy needed to remove him from the sorrow of his father’s death. But often, the busyness of the job, which generally was putting young men in jail for incidents which often were the result of children’s play, had been draining.

The senior Luke Jacobs had been a highly-decorated officer of the New Orleans Police Department NOPD). He had been the center of the very close four kid, uncle-in-law live-in, solid, stoic family for all of Luke’s life up to college. Luke Jr. was impressionable and meeting Ophelia gave him a bit of direction and distraction that he needed to keep occupied in order to forget the hurt of his father’s death. Ms. Ophelia Roche helped him find that space.

Just as Luke was finishing law school, his father suffered a heart attack and died in front of Luke in their backyard. The trauma of the event played in his mind almost daily.

The ole man had been very close to his family and early on took care to spend time with Luke and his brother, Al. They hunted, fished, went to the dog races in Alabama (he felt that the horses were a bit too much gambling-oriented even though the dogs were as well, only less intense in appearance), threw sports balls every season, and laughed most of the entire time. His father had large, sad, brown eyes which sat beneath a set of long, full eyebrows. The six footer was stocky and in shape. And he cared and looked after his family with diligence and sincerity.

Never corrupted by the ease of police access to crime, Luke Sr. managed to secure a good life for them all. His passions included wood carving, chess, and jazz music. He was a part-time, weekend tenor sax player, though mostly an appreciator of the art form. Luke Jr. inherited the love of chess and carving from his father. And integrity. The many summers they had spent together in the woods after a day of hunting, the time selecting the correct type and age of wood to use for carving practice and later to make pieces they would sell in the French Market were Luke’s most memorable experiences. Luke still keeps a few of the awkwardly carved pieces from their initial efforts in a large, well-lit showcase on the table adjacent to his bed.

Luke gently moved, placing the lady’s head on the adjacent pillow, and rolled out of bed like a tiger stalking game, easy, and with deliberation. The two were off and on lovers, playing ‘rent’ toy with each other for fourteen years. She was a fiercely competitive accountant, weekend athlete, smart and brightly engaging, all in all a ‘pretty thick thang.’ And she was a good friend who would do anything to see him succeed. Luke could bounce topics of importance off of her and get substantive feedback.

The young lady enjoyed Luke’s romance and company. She knew when to pretend to sleep and let her lover enter the realm of his weekend morning routine. Giving him a little deep, sleep-like breathing, she remained motionless on the large goose down pillows spread out on the mattress.

This crisp, cool spring morning would be good for his meditation. It was time to reflect and understand his position in the world, in life, and the place he would take in society as a private eye, as a man, as one who could have inscribed onto his tombstone, ‘Here is a man who loved mankind.’

The bedside clock read 7:05 a.m. The orange-red morning light danced against the large trees surrounding his place and shone over his windowsills before striking the bright white walls of his library. Streaks of shadows and light beams landed on the North Carolina pinewood. OK, enough. Get moving.

He would stretch, wash, shave, pack a workout bag, then clothe himself for a day of work, wearing a suit, pressed shirt, tie, and polished shoes. Again he grabbed the copy of Man’s Fate on the nearby table, walked a few paces over and sat on the leather armchair in the adjacent den/library near the window’s natural light of the morning and flipped to the spot where he had left off reading. His mind was still racing from the light images which had awoken him. Lost in the words, he sat a bit on edge, like gathering the material in a bowl so as to not let any spill or slip. It was late for him; it might as well remain late. The cases would still be there. For anything of importance, he would be contacted on the phone or on his Jupiter.

He read on.

Moments later, he thought, Malraux would have to wait; gotta get going! But hey, I’ve got all of this literature to read ... Hemingway, Descartes, Plato, Greene, Ellison, ohhhhhhh, Invisible Man! Ohhhhhh, Ulysses!!! OK. 9:33 a.m. Saturday was just like any other day. Cases would come along with calls from folk needing help with missing loved ones, tracking disputes, trailing money, valuables, and property searches. His mind continued to race; he couldn’t help it.

Get up and go. Go to the Foundation Room and meet Matt for the standard weekend brunch. Then head to the office by noon.

As if prompted to do so by the director of a play, the telephone rang. It was just the thing to get him started. He answered it with a bit of indignation, sounding busy, as if he was being disturbed from something.

“Jacobs!”

“There’s been a murder in the park!” The detective’s voice quivered as his tone registered a plea for the private investigator to assist with the case. Luke recognized the intonation.

“Don’t think I can help. Got too much other work to do.” He paused, the phone receiver dangling in mid-air. It wasn’t M.L.C.; Luke would wait for his call. Anyone else on the New Orleans police force could kiss his ass.

He smiled at the realization that the police, independent of his buddy M.L.C. Williams, thought enough of his skills to have that detective call. Must be something unusual. Perhaps it’s related to the bayou murder or that set of crooks from Austria, the Von Tepp international gang of shipping thugs! There’s some unfinished business with those cats. After all they’re the ones who set Jake up and caused him to spend four years in jail!

“Call Swift and Joe at the paper, plus the folks at Channel 6 and have them meet me there ... but rope ’em off; you know how to do it ...”

“Got ya, Fourrdey ...” The detective’s happiness crossed the wires and landed in Luke’s consciousness. That’s all he really requires — courtesy and respect. Being called ‘fourrdey’ sealed the usually loose bond between them (‘them’ being the police or anyone calling and interacting with L.J.) and provided the impetus for the private eye to put on his best eyes ...

The tunes keep flowing into the consciousness of my existence:

“Southern trees bear strange fruit ...”