The rest of Thursday and all of Friday passed without incident. Business was picking up; the warmer weather was bringing more people out to the Quarter. On Friday, I returned some hardcovers to their publishers. In any other retail business, you mark items down until you can move the inventory. This is not the case with books. Book retail is the only business where you can actually send your purchases back when they don’t sell. I always hated doing it because many of the books were likely to be destroyed. Some would be remaindered and sold for a quarter of the original asking price. Play your cards right, and if you don’t mind waiting, you could sometimes get a hardback for less than the mass-market paperback. The return process was worse with paperbacks. For those, the publisher just wanted the covers back and the books destroyed. It felt wrong on a visceral level to rip the covers off books; I could swear I heard them screaming. Unfortunately it was either do it or eat the cost. If a book were first in a series, I would usually have the store buy the copy and add it to the used books. It’s a lot easier to sell someone on a new author if you have his or her earliest work.
Feliz hadn’t worked on Friday night, so she had come in extra early to take the previous night’s deposit down the street to the bank. I was downstairs before she returned on Saturday morning. I wasn’t concerned; it was only a little bit after eight. Most likely, she also stopped at the Post Office on the way back. While more and more correspondence was done by email, we still needed stamps on occasion.
At eight-thirty, I grew concerned. At eight-forty, I had a reason to be. Feliz stormed in, long cyan skirt flying behind her, fire in her eyes, and talking a mile a minute on her cell phone.
“No, I will NOT come down to the station! I am a citizen and I am a taxpayer and if you people can’t keep the streets safe in broad daylight, then you can damn well come down here to get my statement. And give me some protection! I gave you the address where I work, now you get off your ass and do something!” She ended the call and nodded a hello.
“What happened?” A lame question, but I had to start somewhere. It wasn’t like I was going to get a word in edgewise once she was fully into her story.
“In broad daylight, not ten feet from Hibernia National, I get attacked. Two big idiots—the kind they call palookas in old movies—come up on either side of me, just behind me, so I can’t get a look at them. One of them sticks something in my ribs, tells me to keep walking, eyes front. So I can’t see their faces. The other one tells me it’s not nice to mess with Nana Mouth. Then he cuffs me in the back of the head, sends me spinning, knocking over about five people in the process. I get to my feet; of course they’re gone. I call the cops, they’re backed up, since I wasn’t seriously hurt, I’m not an emergency, could I please come down to the station. Ha! They can come down here. We got a business to run. What kind of muffins today?” She finally paused to get a breath.
“Pecan.” I said, handing her one. “The state’s official nut.”
“I thought that was you.”
“Me? I’m not the one who got accosted and started making demands of the cops. I did enjoy the show, by the way. You should get a few days out of this one. Coffee?” I held up the pot.
“Please. Is there a drawer in the register?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I put four sugars in her coffee and passed the cup over.
It was a comfortable routine, one we’d been doing for almost seven years. Feliz turned around the sign just after nine, and got behind the register. I poured myself another cup of coffee and prepared to do the same for the incoming patrons. When the morning rush calmed down, I went back upstairs, ostensibly to do housework.
Besides the housework, which I considered a necessary evil, I also had to keep an eye on an auction and that was easier without interruptions. John Drake, my favorite eccentric client, had decided he wanted a first edition copy of Lord of the Rings. The bidding was up over three thousand dollars after four days on the block. Tonight, it would get fast and furious when the auction finished. Until then, I needed nearly instant notification if I was outbid so I could go higher, budget permitting. This meant my laptop came upstairs with me and was always in earshot. Auctions could get tricky, sometimes. I didn’t want to offer too much if I could get it for my client for a lower price. On the other hand, I also didn’t want to be bidding in such small increments that I had to pay constant attention. While it wasn’t half as thrilling as catching a politician in a lie, it had its rewards--like a ten percent commission.
I kept myself occupied dusting, cleaning the kitchen, and paying bills for a couple hours. For lunch, I found some salad fixings in the fridge and topped them with asiago cheese. That prepared, I settled in to watch Harrison Bergeron somewhere on cable. It was a nice lazy Saturday afternoon, until James appeared on my threshold.
“Zo, could you come downstairs? The cops are here to talk to Feliz and it’s getting a little crowded.”
“Spectators?” I grabbed the laptop.
He nodded grimly. “Why can’t I get this kind of attention for my band?”
“You want a dead body on your doorstep?”
“Not particularly. I might trip over it.”
I followed him downstairs.
I told the uniformed cops that they could go into the back to ask Feliz their questions. An enterprising young black man with a cell phone held tightly to his ear tried to follow, but I beat him to the back door. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. When he saw me he gave me a smile meant to be disarming. It only annoyed me further. “Hold on,” he said. “Miss Smith, how does it feel to be mixed up in another murder?”
Almost as annoying as dealing with reporters who won’t stop asking questions about it. The name still didn’t come back to me, but I remembered who he worked for. “Time-Picayune, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Nate Dodson. I’m flattered you remember me.” I reminded myself that ma’am was meant to be polite. I still didn’t think I was old enough to warrant it, even in the south.
“I remember having poison ivy when I went to summer camp, too.” He looked wounded, reminding me of a sad puppy. I steeled myself against pity. Yes, I had been in his situation once. Being a reporter is a tough job, especially when you’re new at it. Knowing that was not enough for me to give him any latitude, however. “You’re going to leave, Nate. Unless, perhaps you’d like to buy a book? Have some coffee maybe?”
“I could go for some coffee, I suppose. But really, I’m just here to find out what’s happening. The people of this city have a right to know if there’s a killer on the loose. Is it true you were shipped a dead body?”
“No comment, Nate. Can you spell that?”
“Aw, c’mon Zofia. You used to be in the business, you know what it’s like.”
I reminded myself slugging someone when the store was open would have a lot more repercussions than if I did it when the store was closed. “Nate my friend, I’m going to do you a favor,” I put my arm around his shoulders in a companionable way. He dropped his cell phone. I picked it and noticed the screen. “Arthur Washington. Click to return to call.” Well, well, well.
“Why Nate, I’m impressed.” I said. “You’ve cultivated yourself a bona fide police insider.” I supposed there could be two Arthur Washingtons in New Orleans, but I wasn’t going to bet on it.
Dodson tensed and pulled me behind a display of Sue Grafton books, speaking very quickly. “Sh! It’s not what you think! He’s my cousin, I swear it. He would never do something like that!”
“It certainly explains how someone so young got on the crime beat.” I continued without lowering my voice. “How do you think the police chief would like to know that one of his homicide detectives was a leak to your paper?”
“I’ll go! I’ll go. You can’t tell anyone. Miss Smith, Zofia, you can’t. Please! I’m a good reporter. You know I’ve got the nose for it. I’ll get the story some other way. Just don’t tell them.” He grabbed the phone away from me and answered the call again. “Gotta go Art, it’s just really not a good time.”
“Tell you what, Dodson,” I kept my voice friendly. “I am going to walk you out the door,” I said quietly. “Then I am going to send you on your way. You, for your part, are going to stay out of Bloody Murder unless you are here to buy a book or drink my coffee.”
We approached the exit. I became conscious of some people behind me, so I did lower my voice this time. “Do that and I won’t make any phone calls you don’t want me to make. Are we clear?”
“Just one more question,” he was playing to the crowd now. “Why’d you leave Chicago?”
“Nate, Nate. Didn’t you learn already you can’t trip me up with questions from left field? I know that trick. It’s older than both of us put together. It was probably old when Joseph Pulitzer was born. I appreciate you’re doing your job, kid, but I want no part of your story.” We were out the door on Royal now. “Go, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.” He went, and I watched him until he disappeared from my view before I turned around.
I saw Sam on his rocking chair on his front porch. He looked half-asleep, but I waved anyway. He returned the wave and called out something about being in when the crowd died down.
Two more reporters pounced on me when I walked back in the door. Was I ever this annoying? To a few certain politicians, I probably had been. It made me wonder if there wasn’t something to karma after all. I shooed them out the door, straightened a couple of displays and with James’ help, got the rest of the crowd under control.
“Why couldn’t there be a parade today?” I muttered as a brewed another pot of coffee. Sometimes it seemed like there was a parade in the French Quarter at the drop of a hat. Any hat.
“Because there isn’t,” Sam’s voice replied steadily from behind me. “I think I’ll take my coffee to go today, if you don’t mind. “
I grinned at him, fixed a cup heavy on the cream, light on the sugar and handed it over. “Ducking the reporters are we, Sam?”
“I don’t know what you said to that young man, but he suddenly got this really determined look on his face. As soon as you were back in the store, he doubled-back down the street and headed right for my front porch. He didn’t follow me in here, though. I thought I’d take him on a little walk. I need some exercise anyway.” His eyes gleamed merrily.
“Sam, you devil,” I found the last of the pecan muffins. “Take this for your trouble. On the house.”
“Much obliged pretty lady,” he winked and walked out the door humming something from a musical I didn’t quite recognize, leaving me wondering how I got a good neighbor like that.
“You remind him of his wife,” James said, as is he read my mind.
“Huh?”
“Sam once told me you remind him of Rose. He showed me a picture that he keeps in his wallet. You look a little bit like her, though she had blue eyes.”
“Wow, that’s sweet.” I said, smiling. “That explains why he’s always happy to bring flowers over here. I thought he was just a nice man enjoying a quiet retirement.”
Feliz emerged from the back, alone. She must have sent the cops out the back door. This meant, I assumed, no police protection. I offered to call Jerry to see if he had any bodyguards available, but my partner refused.
“I called José; he’ll come pick me up.”
“Okay. In the meantime, either James or I will take care of the deposits. Don’t argue,” I added quickly as she opened her mouth. “No one is trying to take your job away from you. This is just until Marty the Mouth gets her ass out of town.” God, please let it be soon.
“Stupid bint.” Feliz must be reading a British author. I knew the word meant prostitute, but it didn’t usually come up in casual conversation. “I wish there was a way to get rid of her permanently.”
Famous last words.