10

Dante, aka Harvey Mertz, didn’t look dangerous. Dressed in quantities of baggy silk and an oversized wool coat, he had a young smooth face, round surprised eyes, and standup blond hair. With practice, he kept his soft mouth sardonic, but he didn’t have to practice the cold glow in his pale eyes. That came naturally. As did his affinity for criminal activity.

He’d started out with an illegal gambling operation and then expanded into anything that offered a profit—except drugs.

“Drugs lack artistic appeal,” he told Max, his assistant-in-crime. “Besides, you either have to go national or wind up dead.” Neither of these options appealed to Dante. It was nice staying alive. And staying local it was easier to watch his back. He knew where his friends were if he needed to kill them.

When he wasn’t figuring ways to amass tax-free funds, he designed and constructed Mardi Gras floats. It served as a useful cover, being located in the warehouse district where comings and goings were hard to monitor, and gave him an outlet for his creativity.

Dante also liked being atypical.

Because of the revolving nature of his friendships, Dante kept close to what family he had, particularly to his Aunt Cloris, who had assumed his upbringing when his mother got tired of her husband being in jail and caught a bus out of New Orleans when Dante was eight.

Their relationship was almost Oedipal, until Cloris married a year ago and moved to Miami with her new husband, Arvin Maxwell. Arvin had taken a powder with all her money just six months later.

“Still no word on Arvin, Mr. Dante.”

Dante turned from his perusal of a recent float design and frowned at his assistant, Max.

“That’s not acceptable, Max. It’s been six months.”

“I know, Mr. Dante, but the guy’s dropped off the earth.”

“Even rats have to go to ground somewhere. He’s out there, Max. I want him.”

“I’ve got everybody looking, Mr. Dante. We’ll find his hole.”

Dante nodded, his face brooding. “You arrange for Cloris to get picked up at the airport?”

“Yes, sir. Cain and Abel are going. You want them to take the limo?”

“Yeah. Have them get her some candy and flowers. Daisies. She likes daisies. And tell them to have lots of tissues on hand. She’s still upset.”

“Right.”

Max didn’t leave, just waited until Dante asked, “Was there something else, Max?’

“Benny the Book’s here. Wanted to know if he could talk to you.”

“Benny? Am I angry with Benny, Max?”

“No, Mr. Dante.”

“Is Benny angry with me?”

“No, Mr. Dante. He says he has something to show you.”

“If it were anyone else, I’d have you just kill him, but Benny is innocuous. Send him in. Let’s see what he wants to show me.”

When Max ushered Benny into his office, a sardonic humor lit Dante’s pale gray eyes. Benny was “old school” criminal, back in the days when underlings cringed into the “Boss’s” presence. He even had a satchel clutched to his chest. He removed his cap and fiddled nervously with it.

“Park it, Benny, and tell me what’s agitating your bone box.”

“Huh?”

Dante sighed. Why couldn’t henchmen have intelligence, a little humor? It would have been nice to have a little give and take, a tiny clash of minds. But that just led to nasty power struggles and dead bodies to hide. He sighed for lost opportunities as he indicated a chair with a movement of his head.

Benny perched obediently but uneasily.

“So what’s on your mind?”

Benny’s eyes bulged. Perhaps he wasn’t aware he had a mind to have anything on? He licked his lips several times, his fingers playing with the handle of the satchel as he began to sweat and talk.

“Ya know I pick up a bet or two around the old-timers bins, boss? Oldsters, they like to play the odds now and again, but they can’t get out, so I go in when I can. Pick up a pretty good sum there. Honest.”

“A bookie that makes house calls. How quaint.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” Another sigh. “Please, go on with your fascinating story, Benny.” He leaned back in his chair with a discreetly concealed yawn.

“Uh, right.” Agitation always made Benny breathe heavily through his nose, so his words came out nasal and accompanied by little puffs and grunts. “‘Bout a year ago I meets this broad, calls herself Jane, but I figure she made it up. Some do, when they know somebody won’t like ‘em to bet. Me, I don’t worry none, cause most pays cash anyways and they’s easy enough to track down if they don’t. You know, Boss.”

“That’s right, Benny. I know. You’re obviously a prince among pedestrian bookies. So what’s the problem, if it’s not a bad debt?” It was amusing to toy with Benny, but not for very long. No challenge to it.

“This Jane, she brung me somethin’ strange today. To place a bet.” Benny popped to his feet, opened the bag, and extracted a shoebox. Then another and another until there were six of them on the desk. When blank looks met his efforts, Benny opened one box and dumped the contents onto the desk, creating a mini-money-snowdrift.

Max looked at Dante, then popped the lids off the other boxes. “Holy shit!”

“Indeed.” Dante leaned forward, caught a handful of the bills and fanned them in his hand. “That’s a pretty big Christmas package, Benny.” He looked closer, then up again. “Ones, Benny? Are they all ones?”

“All of ‘em, boss. Jane, she never placed this big before. Small bills, small bets, but not this small.” He looked bewildered by his own logic and added, “But not this big, if you know what I mean.”

Dante gave him a quick resigned look, his long fingers playing with the pile. “These good? They aren’t queer?”

“I never been suckered with no queer bills, Boss. Not now, not ever.” Benny spoke with a seedy dignity.

Dante let the bills flutter back to the pile, then leaned back again. “What’s the bet?”

“Saints. Sunday.”

“Excuse me?” Dante straightened again. “She bet on the Saints?”

Benny nodded mournfully. “To win.”

“Sucker bet,” Max said.

Dante nodded, leaned back in his chair and stared at the money. “Why all single digits? Kind of bulky.”

“Dunno, Boss. But... “ Benny looked even more mournful. “They’s more where this come from.”

“Really?” Dante’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”

“Cause she tole me so.”

“She told you?”

“That’s right, boss. Said it were too many to carry all at once.”

“Well, well.” Dante picked up a handful of the bills and let them shower back down while Max and Benny watched. “That’s very interesting, Benny. Very interesting.”

“You got something, Ross?” Delaney topped off his coffee cup then relaxed back in his chair.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Mickey sat back, arching his back to relieve the stiff area, his fingers beating a tattoo on the table. They’d been going over their notes and the statements collected by the uniforms canvassing the neighborhood while they waited for Unabelle and Velma to return. “Since we don’t know who, I’ve been trying to concentrate on why. Why hose him? Why put him in the freezer? Why keep him at all? Why a gazebo?”

“A gazebo?” Delaney gave Mickey a skeptical look. “Would you like some more coffee?”

Mickey grinned, albeit tiredly. “Stay with me on this. I think I can tie it all together. We agree he was probably stripped and hosed to remove forensic evidence. But then why freeze him? The smart thing would be to get him decomposing as fast as possible, right?”

“Right,” Delaney agreed, “unless you’re a wacko—”

“Or you don’t have a good place to stash a body. This is the middle of the city. It’s not that easy to find bare ground and bury someone. Unless you have a garden and just happen to be putting up a gazebo.”

“Ah, I see where you’re going. You think Reggie planned on inserting our John Doe into the foundation?”

Mickey shrugged. “Him or someone in the neighborhood. There are mostly old ladies on this street, but we’ve got three possibles also away right now. Jacob Arthur supposedly is visiting his daughter. Arthur Will is away on a singles cruise. And Arturo Degas is visiting family in Mexico.”

Delaney looked amused. “Three Arthurs? Pretty unlikely sounding suspects.”

“Yeah, but my scenario could stretch to include them. We’ve got a perp who kills, probably unpremeditated or the body would already be stowed. If it was Reggie, he talks Miss Hermi into installing a gazebo for him to stash the body under, but gets sidetracked when he has to go to Cleveland. If it was a neighbor, same thing, unplanned killing. Sees Seymour ladies starting a gazebo, but then the work is interrupted so he stows the body in the unused freezer.”

“And then leaves town, too? Pretty thin, Ross.”

“Hey, I didn’t say it was a good scenario. Just that it was one. Personally, old Reggie’s got my vote. Everybody we’ve talked to expects Reggie back for the party this weekend. A local perp would know that and could plan for it. What they couldn’t plan for was Miss Theo deciding to restart the freezer for her cakes.”

“True. Hey, if nothing else, it gives us something to plump up this report to the Captain. Hopefully Miss Velma will be able to tell us more about Reggie. I’ll admit he’s got my vote, too, and if she doesn’t, well, if she doesn’t, maybe her muse—or whatever it is psychics use—will be able to—” Delaney grinned.

There was a knock on the door and a uniform poked his head in. “Captain’s been trying to get a hold of you two. “

Mickey and Delaney looked at each other, then checked their cell phones.

“Mine’s dead,” Mickey said.

“Mine, too,” Delaney said.

“He wants a progress report before PR issues a statement to the news boys.”

“My suggestion would be a brief, succinct, no comment,” Mickey said.

“To the news or the Captain?” Delaney asked.

Mickey thought for a moment. “Both. No one’s gonna like what they hear anyway.”

Captain Henry Pryce was an erect, stern-featured man with dark, graying hair, hazel eyes and a straight, humorless mouth. Fortunately for the men under him, it was only the mouth that lacked humor. A healthy sense of humor was a necessary ingredient for surviving the roller coaster that was the New Orleans Police Department.

While Delaney delivered their Laurel and Hardy report, Mickey prayed for that sense of humor to surface. Delaney finished and the silence stretched beneath the Captain’s cool assessing stare.

Mickey tugged at his tie. Delaney swallowed, the sound echoing around the silent room.

“You call this a report?” Pryce looked at Mickey.

“A—preliminary report, sir.” Mickey punctuated this with a large swallow of his own.

Pryce turned to Delaney.

“An extremely preliminary report,” Delaney added.

“Really?” He wheeled to stare out the window, his hands clasped behind his rigid back. “And which part do you think we should share with the press?”

“As little as possible, sir,” Mickey said with heartfelt conviction.

Pryce wheeled around. Mickey flinched back—until he saw the humor melting the ice in the Captain’s eyes.

“Had an interesting time with the Seymours, did you, gentlemen?”

Mickey and Delaney exhaled at the same time.

“Yes, sir,” Mickey agreed. Interesting was the non-profane term for their time with the Seymours.

“We do have a viable suspect, sir,” Delaney pointed out.

“I hope so. The Seymours have connections all over this state. They helped arrange or were present at a lot of prominent weddings. Some for people presently sitting on the bench.”

The significance of this allusion was not lost on the two detectives who were well acquainted with the dangerously complex nature of political connections in Louisiana. Mickey shifted uneasily as Pryce frowned, one hand fiddling with the papers scattered across the top of his desk.

“How are the ladies?”

“They seem to be fine, sir,” Delaney said, giving Mickey a puzzled look. Mickey shrugged.

“Upset over this business?”

“If you think they are upset, you must not know them, sir,” Mickey said.

The edges of Pryce’s stern, straight mouth twitched, his version of a grin.

“Any connection between this murder and the shooting last night? I understand their niece was with you at the time?”

“We don’t think so, sir,” Delaney said. “Why?”

“Quite a coincidence. Sure it’s one?’

“We can look into it,” Mickey offered, wondering how they’d do that. They knew so little about both incidents. Which was a connection—of sorts.

Pryce shook his head. “Just keep it in mind, in case a connection does emerge. What about Eddie? His fiancée clear?”

“Well, we can’t rule out anyone,” Delaney pointed out. “We’ve found no connection, though we’ve received information she might know something without realizing it. She wasn’t home when we left, but we’re planning on questioning her as soon as she gets back.”

“If you’re worried about conflict of interest, sir—” Mickey began hopefully.

“If I worried about that, Ross, I’d have to disqualify most of the force from every case we have. Just mind how you go. The Seymour’s’ political connections go way back. It’s a—tricky situation. The department will support you, of course, even if you step on some toes. As long as you don’t step unnecessarily.”

“Yes, sir,” the two men chorused. Mickey stirred restlessly. The mandate to investigate was double-edged. But, this was New Orleans. Double-edged mandates were invented here.

“What’s your case load look like right now?”

Heavy to impossible, Mickey wanted to say, but he didn’t. “We’re putting in a lot of time on the Dante thing.”

“You got something on him you haven’t told me about?”

“No, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“Just twenty or so on-goings that aren’t going anywhere right now,” Delaney admitted.

“Then give the Seymour investigation top priority. It could easily go high profile and we want to be ready. But don’t neglect your other cases, of course.”

“Of course.”

Mickey and Delaney exchanged glum looks as they shuffled out. It seemed ironic, Mickey decided as they drove past the prison, to know that the people they arrested would get more rest tonight than they would.

Artie got out of his car, adjusted the Pizza Party shirt he’d lifted from the back of the store and then picked up the pizza he’d bought from the front of the store. The old ladies didn’t like technology, but they loved pizza. The whole situation was costing him way more than he counted on, but inside the house was all the fruit of his scamming labors. Now, when it was too late, he could admit it had been stupid to put all his dollars in one attic, but it had seemed so safe, so secure. And he hadn’t been lying when he told Fern no one wanted to launder dollar bills.

He hadn’t counted on that or that he’d get so many. They’d just flooded in and continued to flood in, one at a time, no matter how fast he spent them. Already he had a trunk full. When he’d seen the nearly empty attic, the urge to fill it had been irresistible.

He hadn’t counted on Luci, of all people, coming here, of all places. The one person on the face of the earth who could bring scrutiny upon him—a scrutiny that would bar him forever from Helen.

It was unfortunate they’d found Hermann, but they didn’t seem to have found the money. Somehow, someway, he had to start moving it out. But to do that, he had to get inside. The pizza would be his calling card. Louise always left people standing in the hall. Once he was alone...

He started up the steps, but was only halfway up when he heard a car stop behind him. With deep foreboding he turned and saw the cops getting out of the car. His turn became a dive into the shrubs by the steps. No, not shrubs. Ivy.

“Ouch,” he said before he could stop himself.

When the sun beats down on New Orleans, it’s easy for outsiders to think it’s just another frenetic city with the requisite old buildings and a swamp for contrast. But with the creeping dusk comes, not a cooling down, but a heating up of the other New Orleans as the night-lifers heed the siren call to pleasure. For the street cops, it’s the siren call to pissed off as they struggle to keep the peace against increasing odds. Night, and the strange allure of the yellow moon, makes their job harder, enhancing what is worst in the violent, the dishonest, and the insane.

Mickey was thinking about the insane as they once more pulled to a stop in front of the Seymour house, which was dark and quiet, except for bits of light that crept past the heavily curtained windows.

The frat house was quiet, too, though light streamed abundantly from each of its uncurtained windows. Mickey shut his door and looked at Delaney over the roof of the car. “Did you hear something?”

Delaney listened for a moment, then shrugged. Together they used the light from the frat house to pick their way toward the Queen Anne house where Velma Verlain, presumed psychic and girlfriend to “business interests in Cleveland” Reggie Seymour dwelled.

The name and the legend were exotic. The lady wasn’t.

Short, pear-shaped, a bit nearsighted, and attired in a polyester pantsuit, she had intense gray eyes that peered at them from under the gray fringe of her plainly cut hair.

Totally concerned citizen, she ushered them into a room that was homey-scented and even more ordinary than she was. She maintained the sensible facade through the opening gambit. Stayed with it throughout a careful perusal of the photo of their John Doe from the freezer, who she felt she should know, but didn’t. Even offered to show the photo around. Her calm facade showed its first crack when Mickey broached the subject of Reggie.

“You surely don’t suspect Reggie? That would be ridiculous! He’s a businessman with interests in-”

“Cleveland,” Mickey interposed. “We’ve heard. No one’s been able to pinpoint the exact time he left, or when he’ll be returning. We were hoping you’d help.”

“If you’re going to involve Reggie in this, I’ll have to ask Hugo,” she informed them, her sensible face turning mulish.

“Hugo?”

“My channel. He’s my conduit to the space/time continuum. He’s a little upset by all the police cars and sirens because he was a criminal in a past life, but I’m sure he’d cough up something to help me. Though I won’t mention it’s for Reggie. He doesn’t like Reggie. Claims Reggie is a con artist. It’s absurd, of course. Reggie is a businessman with interests in—”

“Cleveland.” This time Delaney finished it. “That seems to be about the only thing we do know about Reggie. We’d really like to know more.”

“Why? So you can bully and brutalize him? He’s sensitive. Kind, caring. But why should you care about that? You just want someone to pin this murder on.”

Mickey and Delaney shifted uneasily. It was hard to summon a credible protest when they had been hoping to bring it home to Reggie. Pinning it on him would be unethical. And difficult. Though not impossible.

Mickey opened his mouth to say something soothing, but lost his train of thought when the lamp next to Velma began to spin in a slow circle. Next to him, Delaney stiffened as he, too, caught sight of the lamp.

With some difficulty, Mickey collected his thoughts, which wanted to spin faster than the lamp, and managed a question. “It’s helpful to get your...views of Seymour, Ms. Verlain. The others—”

“Oh, I know. They think he’s next to useless! They have no conception of the damage they do with their lowered expectations! Reggie has been marred, marred I tell you, by this ridiculous dysfunctional family thing! So, he finally manages to rise above it, and then the police come sniffing around. It’s an unjust world. An unjust world, indeed.” She tipped her head back, looking at them through lowered lids while the lamp began to spin faster.

“Yes, well.” Delaney cleared his throat, his eyes fixed with horrid fascination on the lamp. “We really need to ask him a few questions. When he calls—”

“He doesn’t call. Reggie and I are connected by something better. Something deeper than mere wires and signals. Our souls joined the moment our eyes met—”

With a vicious jerk, the lamp spun across the room and crashed into the opposite wall.

Velma shook her head, leaning forward to say, confidentially, “I’m afraid Hugo has descended to unbecoming jealousy.”

As soon as she came in, Luci could tell her aunts had searched her room. They had tried too hard to leave things as they were, so of course, they had failed. Luci had anticipated this move and hidden the photograph between the two mattresses. Even if the aunts had suspected this move, they wouldn’t have been able to lift it up. Luci had barely managed it.

With some difficulty, mostly caused by the sling and the elastic bandage on her left arm, Luci removed the photograph and held it up to the superior light by her bedside. The face still eluded her efforts, but she could see the medals in strict rows across his chest and the way his hand gripped Lila’s.

Not too surprising he’d gotten what he wanted, even from an elusive Seymour, Luci decided with a slight smile. Though he hadn’t gotten all he wanted. Lila had eluded him in the end, taking her secrets with her.

The frame was a heavy one, not really suitable for the photograph it housed.

“I wonder...” Luci turned it over, removed the back and freed the photograph from confinement. With rising excitement she realized there was faded writing on the bottom right hand corner. She held it up to the light—

“To love cheeks from your pooh bear?” She lowered the picture and stared at herself in the fading mirror. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

There was no middle ground in this investigation, Mickey decided morosely. The participants either had too much personality—or too little. His uncle’s fiancée came in on the too little side, possessing less animation than Velma’s lamp. This seemed symbolic somehow, but Mickey was too weary to figure out why.

Medium height, medium build, straight brown hair, blank brown eyes, late fifties to early sixties, with no distinguishing marks whatsoever. Sitting opposite them, she stared at the wall. The one with nothing on it.

Mickey had long ago decided his uncle was marrying Unabelle because he knew only the personality-less could put up with Eddie’s powerful personality. It still didn’t make much sense. Zero times zero was still zero. But if Eddie wanted to marry the equivalent of a slightly warm, inflatable person, that was his business. And if she kept Eddie from messing about in Mickey’s life, so much the better.

In an attempt to ease her non-existent unease, Mickey gave Unabelle a false smile. “I don’t know if you remember me, Miss Fraser? I’m Eddie’s nephew, Mickey Ross.”

Her blank gaze got, if anything, blanker. After what seemed like a long time, she asked, “Eddie?”

He looked at Delaney and saw the same desperation in his eyes that he felt in his own.