Читать книгу Mardi Gras Madness - Ken Mask - Страница 4

“Let’s talk about Jake now.”

The receiver went dead.

“Hello, hello, hello!”

He finished the call with a quivering-voiced young man and blew a deep sigh into a smile. Then in-out, in-out through pinched nostrils. This was the person who had witnessed the encounter that day four years ago, when Jake was stopped by the police in deep country Louisiana. The witness they’d all had been desperately waiting for, needing! Tossing his head back, closed eyes shopped darkened eyelids for a script.

Excited, heart racing, his breathing deep and rapid, with striking determination, Luke whisked the keys off of the cluttered desktop and proceeded out of the door. The move was reactionary though. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. He had nowhere to go, really. Where would he start? Should he head down to the precinct to see if the police had talked with the boy? Should he go to the laboratory and corroborate the poisoning story of ‘the new case,’ the Funky Butt Club murder? Should he get down to the jazz club and see how things are playing out there?

Perhaps he should visit Jake in the Orleans Parish Prison and let him know about the boy's recovery. Maybe let him know that the boy would be available to testify.

Sweat appeared, rolled downed his upper brow. Halt. Hold on private eye! Is this a full recovery or a temporary break? The doctors said this could come and go.

And, how was he able to put together the pieces with last night’s Funky Butt Club murder case? The details were on point! How could he relay the events- of Iris French’s scheme and subsequent murder with such precision and clarity?

He blew whale spouts through his mouth-spinning as he proceeded out of his Bayou St. John private eye office. The keys he’d grabbed weren’t familiar. Frowning, he’d left the apartment just before he’d met Swift in the yard. No, he had been with Margaret, but they were at the apartment-they’d had their nooner. Oh, yes, then he had come here to the office. The Times Picayune rag Swift Gardener (hopelessly preoccupied with feisty waitress, Jan) would be no real help at this point. Whew. Did he? Nagh.

Strange keys? He scratched his temple, reached around his left ear into the short cropped hair with a wave of fingers. He surveyed the two-room office space for his set of keys. The bunch he’d mistakenly scooped must have been Felicia's, his secretary. But where would she have gone without them? This set clearly looked strange, different. Never did pay attention to keys?

He placed the unfamiliar keys on the desk, sat on an adjacent stool and scanned the area: desk, sofa, clutter boxes, bookshelves, and cabinet tops. Ah, there beneath a notepad on the end table. A slow sigh melted into a one-sided smile.

Maybe Phelps had actually been pulling for Jake after discovering his status in New Orleans-after realizing their police officer's story was incoherent, that he’d been lying to the jury, wouldn't he see it that way? Eventually? They were the good old boys down in deep Louisiana south but had quilt, aye?

He glanced up, down, left, right, around. Shiiggt. He’d need a stenographer from the DA’s office to get down to the country, find the boy’s folks, get a statement. No, he should start an appeal process, get the criminal court office to send someone, a detective to talk with the boy.

Luke sat in the comfortable sports car parked beneath large live oaks on the Moss Street sloped banks of Bayou St. John. His eyes drooped in the late afternoon Spanish Moss shadows. He daydreamt next moves.

Wooirriee. Woooirrrieee.

"Ya,ya. Ya ya?"

"Jacobs?"

"Yayayaya. Yes! Yes?"

"You heard about the boy?

"What? Who’s this?”

“Parker, Fifth Ward. Can ya meet us down ‘ere?”

"Hold up now. Hold up. What cha’ll want from me?"

"Come on Luke.”

“Don’t need cha. I’m handin it Parker.”

“Williams’sa be here.”

“OK and? Tell ‘im I’m on.”

"Yeah, says you’re our point guard.”

“Don’t gemma nagnna of that punk-ass flattery detective.”

“Sorry.”

"Late teens, New Orleans Sound Studio guy; from the conversation we had."

"Know that part. But who is he?"

"Look, chill I gotta handle a matter first. See ya’ll at the station. We can talk.” Luke abruptly ended the call with his thumb.

The engine lion-like roared, gears sliding gracefully as he drove off of the grassy embankment. The late afternoon orange sunlight shone in his rearview mirror, having first shopped in the treetops of City Park grand oaks, cypress, cedars, pines.

A rabbit chase indeed. Varrrrrrrrrrrrrroommm.

He exited the vehicle, walked around several corners, down Barracks Street, over Decatur, through and adjacent to the French Market down to the Mississippi River wharf.

Okay, someone’s got some news about Jake’s case. Good. The lead or link needed to bring it all to a head.

***

“That him?”

The smaller of two humongous, muscular men eagerly asked. He was leaning awkwardly on a greenish-gray pillar at the Governor Nichols Wharf pier, adjacent to the meandering brownish-tan Mississippi River.

“Ah, yeah.”

Placing a hook blade, illegal in the States, in his left hand, he positioned the majority of the weapon inside his leather jacket sleeve, gripping the handle in his palm. At that moment, the larger big fella nodded toward the end of the dock as the dance began. The two stood side by side, angled a bit like defensive guards taking on a basketball player driving down the center of the paint lane.

“You the guys here to talk about Jake?”

The smaller henchman took a wide, clinched-fist hook, swing at Luke’s head. In reaction, he ducked back, bending his torso and rotating.

Luke quickly placed his left hand firmly on the cool, irregularly contoured wood of the pier, ignoring the debris, and followed with his right, keeping his eyes fixed on his six-foot, two-inch, 220 pound, full-throttle, muscular antagonist, spiraling into the air with mountain cat agility. You’d think he was attempting to escape the onslaught yet the action picked up a bit when he twisted, his legs held minimally flexed like a horse would in order to kick with its hind legs, the animal force on board, adrenaline flowing, and paused in mid-air, quickly landing a solid strike on the rib cage of the big fella. Knocking the brut against a firm oak pillar, crackling of bone resonated in the air, drowning out sounds of existing seagulls whose peace had been interrupted.

Ok.

He thought back to his instructor-all of the years they’d Practiced, how the energy will always stop short of actual contact, the years of training, sweat in morning or afternoon sun near the New Orleans Lakefront in the Capoeira roda- playing pandeiros, drums, atabaques berimbuas, and reco-reco tambourines-sounds rising falling with the intensity of the lead singer. He thought of their play under the majestic Marconi Meadows oaks- bright dogwoods seemingly always in bloom resting in dark brown Mississippi basin mud..

In a defensive, crouched posture, hands between his knees, fingers spread wide, loosely slapping the wooden planks, he waited for one, both, more to advance, bring on a weapon. Another knife? He pivoted, swinging his left leg six inches from the ground, balancing himself on his crouched right leg and hands, motioning like a manta ray; he landed a solid lick on the side of his opponent’s ankle. Next, a thunderous strike on the gun hand, at the wrist, caused the silver-steel gray weapon to fly over a railing into the river, bouncing first on moss-covered rocky slopes.

The crunch of bone echoed along the pier with each kick. The other attacker, now limping, garnished a hook blade knife but abandoned the idea of continuing as he looked and acknowledged that the contortion of his mate seemed surreal.

“I’m done.”

"Mutherfuchker broke my ankle."

"This ain't worth it...”

"Damn. Foaauck!”

"Ya see that mutheurfuckr move?"

"See im? See im? Yeah.”

“Mutherfuhin’ Von-mutherfoucker can keep his itty bitty bread. Fuock dis shiiet.”

Luke took off at a steady pace, his five-foot-eleven inch 210 pound solid frame flowing down the pier, rabbit pace hopping over large lead chains separating the pillars-down two blocks to his car.

Over down Chartres Street to Esplanade then left racing forward, away from the riverfront through the 7^th Ward, Mid city past the Degas house toward Bayou St. John.

The setting sun shone intermittently, in and out, flickering like an old picture show through oak branches of the sprawling mid-city via way. He flipped the visor for shade. Blood filled his neck, face, head. He grinned into the beams all the way.

Ok. Let’s see now. Damn. Shiiet! S’on the answering machine, transfer to the Jupiter for voice reck. Ok. Ok. Let’s see.

He pressed ‘PLAY.’

“Jacobs. Come to the Esplanade pier near the river at sunset. The Governor Nichols Wharf, by the docking station; got new news on Jake. Six." The voice was causal, foreign proper-English-type slow, deliberate.

Palms cupped his face, fingers strumming his nose; with a long sigh his posture straightened. Sweat rolled down his right temple, breathing increased then settled into slow deep rolling hums, tug boat hums of echoes. After a few moments to reflect on then ignore the trauma, he laid back on the sofa. Bleeding wounds had ceased, aches resolved, fight debris dusted off.

‘Fuoock. Damn Jake? Damn!’