At noon, he woke to an empty bed. The bright sun of a hot summer day filled the room. Lizette had pulled open the heavy curtains on the French doors before leaving. He sat up, stretched and then climbed out of bed. After brushing his teeth, he climbed into a pair of gym shorts and went downstairs.
On his way to the kitchen, he picked the newspaper up from its usual place on the dining room table. Lizette had tacked a note to the paper which said she was going shopping. Yawning, he walked into the kitchen to find Jodie sitting at the counter, sipping coffee. He stopped and blinked but it was his partner all right.
“Good morning,” she said, turning around to face him. She wore a plaid, button shirt and jeans.
“Uh,” he said, “did I miss something?”
She smiled broadly and said, “Your hair’s a mess.”
He heard the doorbell ring and turned around. Stepping back through the dining room he heard Lizette letting someone in. When he saw it was Carolyn Snowood, he figured it was time to beat feet.
He went back through the kitchen and asked Jodie to tell his wife he was upstairs.
“I like those shorts,” Jodie teased.
He went up the back stairs to the bedroom. Lizette peeked in a minute later to explain.
“We’ll be shopping,” she said. “We’ll probably be late.” She was also wearing a button shirt and jeans.
He reached over, unbuttoned the center button on her shirt and said, “I’ll tell your husband when I see him.”
She pursed her lips and blew him a kiss goodbye.
He locked the door and took a shower before going back down to the paper.
Three bored hours later, he parked his Maserati on Camp Street and strolled across Coliseum Square. He’d brought popcorn for the pigeons. Sitting on one of the wrought iron benches, he fed the birds and talked to anyone who would talk to him.
An hour later, he spotted a man heading straight for him. The man didn’t look like a drunk. He waked too straight. Wearing a dark blue jump suit, the man sported a full beard as dark as his face and bright brown eyes.
The man asked if he could sit next to LaStanza.
“Sure.”
“You the police workin’ on the murder of that girl named Pam, ain’t ya’?”
“Yes, I am.”
The man extended a hand calloused from overwork. LaStanza shook the hand as the man said, “I’m Jose Brown. I’m a janitor for Mister Joseph who owns six building along in here.”
LaStanza knew Joseph. He’d met the landlord once when he was a patrolman. Joseph’s buildings were a cut above the regular tenements in the area.
“Well,” Brown continued, “a couple days ago a white man in a Mercedes flagged me down and asked about that Pam girl, the one called Fawn. I told him I ain’t seen her around. I wrote down his license number.” Brown handed LaStanza a slip of paper with a Louisiana license plate number on it.
“Thought you might like to know about it,” Brown added.
LaStanza thanked him and then asked if there was anything else the man knew about the Pams that might help. Brown shook his head. Then LaStanza pulled out the photo of Margaret Leakes. Brown took his time looking at the picture but swore he never saw her before. “Officer, if I knew any more about any of this, I’d tell you.”
“What did this Mercedes man look like?”
“Blond hair and blue eyes. Clean shaven. Looked like a lawyer.”
“What did he say, exactly?”
“I don’t remember the exact words, but he was looking for Pam.”
“You know what for?”
“Pussy.”
“He say that?”
“He didn’t’ have to.”
LaStanza thanked the man again and then asked Brown what size shoe he wore.
“Nine.”
“Too small.
•
The Mercedes was registered to a Dr. D. K. Duke on Conery Street,, a half block off St. Charles Avenue, two blocks from Commander’s Palace. It was a Garden District address, still in the Sixth District. The Bloody Sixth not only had four housing projects, it also had the Garden District. In New Orleans, it didn’t matter what neighborhood you lived in, it was which house you lived in.
Nestled between an estate that faced the avenue and a mansion twice the size of LaStanza’s Exposition Boulevard address, Dr. Duke’s mini-plantation home sported seven white columns and a gazebo in the side yard and it’s own cut glass front door. The doctor answered the door himself. He was about six feet tall, medium build with blond hair styled in a wave across his forehead. He wore a white sport coat, gray pants and a blue dress shirt that matched the color of his eyes. He also wore brown sandals.
LaStanza introduced himself, showing his credentials and asked to speak to the doctor alone. The doctor’s face lost the smug, comfortable look it had when he answered the door. He led LaStanza into a study and closed the door.
LaStanza had Fawn’s pre-autopsy picture out and showed it to Doctor Duke.
“Ever see her before?”
The doctor gulped and nodded slowly.
“This girl was murdered. I want you to tell me everything you know about her. It’s important.”
The doctor sat down and began to shake his head. When he started speaking, his voice was faint. LaStanza asked him to speak up. The doctor shook his head harder and pointed up, “My wife’s upstairs.”
LaStanza took a step closer and waited.
“I’m a podiatrist.” Duke passed a business card to LaStanza who noted the doctor’s office was on Prytania near Napoleon Avenue.
“I met Fawn while crusin’ around Coliseum Square about a year ago. She works,” he caught himself and said, “worked the square. I called her over and she propositioned me. She wore a yellow dress that day. We went off and I dropped her back.”
The doctor’s voice, still faint, was rattling nervously. “I paid her forty bucks each time. I never took her anywhere. We did it in my ar. I never screwed her either. It was always fellatio.
“Last time I saw her was in February, right before Mardi Gras.” Duke gulped again and stopped talking.
“OK.” LaStanza said and then rattled off a series of questions. Who did Fawn hang out with? Did he ever see her with anyone? Did she ever tell him she had a pimp? Did she eve tell him anything? Were drugs ever involved in their relationship? How many times did he meet Slow?
Duke answered every question ‘no’, except the last one. He guessed he’d seen Fawn maybe twenty times.
“Do you ‘see’ any other girls?”
The doctor blinked once, slowly and said, “I have a girl over in the night ward.”
“What’s her name and where does she stay?”
The doctor’s shoulders sank. He only knew the girl by her street name of Stilt. She was about six feel tall, about twenty years old. She was a very dark skinned black. He always found her hanging out in the park near St. Roch Cemetery.
LaStanza finally sat and wrote out some notes. The doctor offered him a drink which he turned down. Pulling out pictures of Pam Camp and Margaret Leake, LaStanza asked f Duke had ever seen them. The answer was no.
“What size shoe do you wear?”
“Huh. Um, size ten.”
Still too small, LaStanza thought as he stood up and asked one final question.
“Know anyone else who was a client of Fawn?”
“No, sir.”
LaStanza nodded and passed a business card to Duke. “What does the D. K. stand for?”
“David Keith.”
Another fuckin’ Keith. LaStanza forced back a smile as he turned to leave.
“Um, Detective. Is there any way to keep my name out of this?”
“I’m not a reporter, doc. If you’re not involved in murder, I don’t care what you do and I’ll do you a favor.”
“What?”
“Your story checks out, I won’t even write a daily on it. It’ll be between us.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you.” Duke extended a nervous hand to shake. LaStanza remained polite and shook it.
“You think of anything else,” he told the doctor, “call me.”
“Oh, I will. And I appreciate the favor.”
LaStanza smiled and said, “One day I might call in the chip, doc. Remember.”
Duke’s face looked puzzled.
LaStanza loved pulling his Sicilian out every so often. At the front door, when Duke put a friendly hand on his back and tried lighting up the atmosphere saying that it sure was a strange world, LaStanza nodded and fought the urge to tell Duke that maybe he should switch to sheep.
On his way home, LaStanza put A Hard Day’s Night in the tape player and made a mental note that he had to spend more time around Camp Street, much more time.
•
It was dark when he opened his own cut glass front door and walked into his house. There were shopping bags on the dining room table and more on the kitchen counter. Moving around the counter he could hear the Jacuzzi running. Peering out the French door he saw Jodie climbing into the tub. She was in her bra and panties.
She didn’t hear him come out, so he moved closer and said, “Hey partner. What’s up?”
Jodie sank quickly into the churning water.
“Jesus, what are you doing here?”, she snapped, sinking all the way to her chin.
“I live here. Where’s my wife?”
“She went upstairs for towels.”
He looked back toward the kitchen and nodded. Then he kicked off his penny loafers.
“What are you doing?” Jodie asked anxiously.
“Getting in.” He started removing his socks.
“Oh, not you’re not!”
When he began to unbuckle his belt, she put her hands in front of her eyes and turned away, which made him laugh. He left his belt buckled but rolled up his jeans, sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi and stuck his feet into the water.
Lizette came out of the kitchen with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She patted him on the head on her way into the tub. “Hey, babe,” she said, “want some wine?” She was also in her bra and panties.
He shook his head. Jodie, as far away from her partner as she could get, peeked out between her fingers and then pulled her hands away.
“That was cute, LaStanza!”
He leaned over and kissed his wife on the mouth and then settled back down.
“So, you girls had fun today?”
Lizette answered, “We sure spent enough to have fun for ten. What’d you do today?”
“Had a nice talk with a doctor who used to get regular blow jobs from Pam Dillards. He was a real charmer.”
“You serious?” Jodie asked.
“Yeah, on his lunch break he cruises Coliseum Square in his Mercedes for blow jobs. He did confirm that Fawn was an independent.” Narrowing his eyes, he added, “Come on, panda. Stand up and le’s see what you look like in wet panties.”
Lizette reached over and pulled his toe but didn’t say anything.
“Go get me one of the towels in the kitchen,” Jodie told him.
“Oh, I don’t think so. I’m just getting comfortable.”
Jodie turned to Lizette who put her hands up and said, “Don’t look at me. A good police wife doesn’t get between partners.”
He threw back his head and really laughed at that one, especially with the strange look Jodie gave his wife. Then, after catching his breath, he stood up and went into the kitchen for the towels. He put them on one of the chairs next to the tub, grabbed his shoes and socks and turned back to the kitchen.
“Be a darling and go get us some Chinese for supper,” Lizette called out behind him.
“Why not?”
He grabbed the Chinese menu from the cabinet and went out to the Jacuzzi.
“What do y’all want?”
“Surprise us.”
It took almost twenty minutes to get through on the phone to their favorite Szechuan place up on Carrollton Avenue. After ordering he went back outside. The girls were both sitting up now and laughing hysterically. He turned right around to go back in. Lizette managed to catch her breath long enough to ask for another bottle of wine.
He brought it to them and turned down then heat on the Jacuzzi before going back in. Glancing back, he saw Jodie sticking her tongue out at him.
Forty-five minutes later he was back with their dinner in neat, little white cartons. The girls were still at it, laughing uncontrollably. They were out of the tub now sitting on the edge, soaking their feet. Their hair was now wet.
He opened the door and said, “Supper’s on.”
They both stood up and came into the kitchen. Lizette moved up against him and planted a long, wet kiss on his mouth and then headed him her bra. Putting a hand on his shoulder she pulled off her panties and then draped them over his head before grabbing a towel and heading for the counter.
Jodie moved up against him, put her hands on her hips and said, “Turn you on or what?”
Lizette started laughing so hard behind him, he thought she’d fall out of the chair.
He raised an eyebrow at his partner and then gave her a good looking over. The bright kitchen light hid little of the wet body standing in front of him. Jodie had larger breast than he imagined and round nipples that were pointing at him like loaded popguns, right through her bra. Her small, white bikini panties were extra cheer when wet and were pasted against her, revealing hair a few shades darker than the hair on her head.
Looking his partner back in the eye, he shrugged. But he was thinking, Oh Shit!
Jodie took another half step forward and raised a finger in front of his face. “Eat your heart out. Mister.” Then grabbed a towel, wrapped it around herself and went into the small bathroom just off the kitchen.
“Bring me another towel for my hair,” Lizette called out to her.
Jodie came out a moment later with a towel around her, which barely covered the essential parts of the woman. She also had a towel wrapped around her head. Sitting next to Lizette, Jodie passed her another towel.
LaStanza found himself sitting across the counter, passing the white cartons to a pair of those evil genies from The Arabian Nights the ones who enjoyed playing ticks on mortals. His mind raced He’d been to Vietnam, been inside every major housing project in the city on search warrants in the middle of harrowing, fear filled nights. He’d been in shootouts, been shot, even shot a couple people. But he figured he’d never been in real trouble before that evening. You see, he was thinking of the old police saying that a hard-on had no conscience. He had absolutely not idea what would happen next, much less what he would do if the towels started opening.
“Arc light,” someone should have shouted. The B-52s were overhead and they were open for business. Turning slowly he reached for the coffee pot and extra scoops of coffee-and-chicory.
He had an uncomfortable meal. He wished Lizette would close her towel and that he would stop looking. Most of all, he wished there was an easy way to sit on a bar stool with an armor-piercing erection. No sense in trying to get his mind on tell the hard-on to go away. It didn’t work like that.
Thankfully, the girls barely noticed he was even in the room. They downed their food and the strong coffee and talked about everything from art to literature, from food to wine and back again.
They never spoke to him, until the meal was finished and the coffee was beginning to have an effect on them. Jodie was the first to feel it and began to make sure her towel was closed tightly. Lizette followed suit thirteen minutes later. He was counting.
“I’m going to watch TV,” he said as soon as he finished.
Lizette stretched, which opened her towel to show off her full pair and nipples that stared back at him. “I need more coffee,” she said reaching for the pot. She caught him looking and stuck her tongue out at him. He smiled because he would settle up with her later.
Jodie stood up, put her back to him and re-wrapped the towel around herself. The, as he was leaving, she called out to him, pointed her finger again and said, “Not a word to anyone about seeing me in my panties.”
He let out a long sigh and answered, “Hey, I never squealed on a partner in my life.”
•
Early Monday morning, he walked into his kitchen to find, of all people, Stan Smith standing behind the counter. Lizette was pouring coffee into a mug for his old partner.
“Hey Candy-Ass,” Stan teased, “I was just trying to get your wife to take off her blouse but she wouldn’t.”
Lizette was trying her best not to laugh in Stan’s face. She stepped over to LaStanza, put her arms around his next and kissed him good morning.
“She can keep her bra on, long as it’s one of them French ones where I can see her nipples through it.”
Ignoring the big man in the uniform never worked but LaStanza tried anyway. He reached over and poured himself a cup.
“I’m leaving,” Lizette said as she picked up her books and turned away. She wore a white blouse and a tan, full miniskirt, her hair fluffed out and flowing. LaStanza envied her classmates. He knew for a fact, she wore a low cut, sheer bra and matching panties. He turned to his old partner and grinned.
Stan watched Lizette leave and added, “Bet you didn’t know I been meeting your wife like this for months?”
LaStanza shook his head and thought, here we go again.
“She keeps shooting me out of the saddle, but I’m not giving up,” Stan continued without missing a beat. “I wanna peek. No touching. Just a glimpse. Ever since I saved her life, she lets me drop by.”
“Saved her life?” Son-of-a-bitch was talking about the Twenty-two Killer again. “You guarded her porch while I shot the bastard.”
Stan’s jaw dropped open in mock disbelief, which was followed by a quick retort, “So, sue me?”
LaStanza figured he might as well ask, “All right, what do you want?”
Stan held up the front page of the newspaper’s Metro Section and pointed to a large story. “You made the paper again, big shot.”
Next to the story, there was a picture of the House of the Lamb and Sister Dawn Abigail sitting on its front steps. In her muumuu, she looked like a tent with a head sticking out the top. The title of the article read: Friend Of Dead Women Missing.
LaStanza began reading, “An acquaintance of two murdered women had been reported missing over the weekend. Thomas Lee Butler, an occasional resident of the House of the Lamb, disappeared over the weekend. Butler, also know as Cherry, is a transsexual – ”
The article went on to elaborate how Sister Dawn had spoken to Cherry, who was making inquiries about the double murder. Then the article mentioned the police.
“According to persons interviewed by New Orleans Police Detectives Dino LaStanza and Jodie Kintyre, the two officers have established contacts throughout the lower Sixth Police District, a high crime area that the women were know to frequent.
“The investigation has taken detectives through the run-down community of housing projects, corner bars and flophouses. The detectives have been seen mingling with homosexuals, prostitutes, pimps, transsexuals and transvestites in an attempt to seek clues in the murders.”
God, LaStanza’s mother was gonna love that. His aunts and cousins were probably already on the phone with her.
The article went on to retell the story of how the bodies were found. He read it carefully, and as he figured, the Batture Again case was not mentioned. Margaret Leake might as well have been found in Gretna. That suited him fine.
Sister Dawn described the two Pams as nice girls. “They did some hooking on the side,” the lady from Arizona explained, “but by no means were they wicked.”
Cherry was last seen leaving the House of the Lamb on Saturday. Sister Dawn discovered, Sunday morning, that Cherry had ‘vanished’ from her apartment on Melpomene Street.
Well, LaStanza knew what he’d be doing that day, as soon as he got rid of Stan, which was never easy. He called Jodie as Stan started up another of his stories of gore and glamour in the Sixth District. Jodie was still home, so LaStanza gave her the information on Dr. Duke’s girl named Stilt and asked her to follow it up right away. Then he told he to read the front page of the Metro Section to see what he’d be up to.
“Meet you later at the Bureau,” he told her.
Stan finished his story and poured himself another cup. “Come on,” the tall sergeant grinned, “tell all about them transvestites you been mingling with.”
•
To hell with Sister Dawn, LaStanza told himself. He went straight to Melpomene and parked in front of the Algerian Antiques Shop. Old Marid wore his keffiya, a khaki work shirt and jeans. Grinning at LaStanza, he held out a friendly hand to shake.
“You here about that article in the paper, huh?”
“That’s right.”
Marid began to chuckle, pulling on his red beard. “Well, it ain’t no mystery. I saw Cherry leave Sunday afternoon, about four o’clock. She climbed into a yellow cab with a host of suitcases. She was all dressed up.”
LaStanza leaned on the counter and began to rub his chin, “You didn’t happen to notice the cab’s number.”
“Sure did.” Marid handed him a note with the taxi’s number on it. “The driver was white, about forty-five, and bald. They turned on Coliseum and headed uptown.” Marid was proud of himself and had every right to be.
“You’re still a cop,” LaStanza told him as he shook the man’s hand again.
“Yeah, you right. Want some coffee?” the French-Algerian offered. “It’s Moroccan.”
“I’ll take a rain check,” LaStanza said on his way out.
“Hey,” Marid called out to him, “you need any help?”
“No.”
“OK. But I’d sure love to kick ass with you sometime.”
“All right.”
“Inshallah!” Marid added.
“Same to you.”
•
Across the street, LaStanza found Cherry’s landlady in one of the front apartments. He showed her his badge and then the article. The woman, at first cold, changed when she read the report in the paper.
“Damn,” she said, shaking her large afro. “Cherry never told me nothing.”
“Can I look in her place?”
“I don’t have a key. She put new locks on. If you break in, you gonna have to pay.”
He rubbed his chin again and then had another idea. “You know anything about her family?” he asked the landlady.
“Her mama lives in Mississippi. I think I got her number.” The woman went in to get it. LaStanza stepped around to Cherry’s window and peeked in. The place looked as messy as usual.
“Here,” the landlady said, handing him a note with the Mrs. Butler’s phone number with a Mississippi area code.
“If I need to break in,” he told her, “I’ll let you know first.” He walked back across Melpomene to the Maserati and headed for the Yellow Cab Company.
The cabbie had taken Cherry to Union Passenger Terminal to catch a train. She was alone. “Not a bad looking girl,” the cabbie remembered.
“She’s not a girl.”
“What!”
“She’s got a nine inch dick as thick as my wrist.”
“Shit!”
•
A couple calls from the Bureau located the missing transsexual. LaStanza first spoke to Cherry’s sister at the Butler home in Hot Coffee, Mississippi. “It’s between McComb and Jackson,” the sister explained. Then she told LaStanza how her mama was in the hospital and that Cherry was with her.
Cherry’s mother was dying of emphysema. Cherry answered the phone in the semiprivate room. She was more than surprised.
“Well, hello white boy. What it is?”
He told her about the article and Cherry laughed so hard he could hardly get a word in. He finally managed to tell her he was sorry about her mother and promised to mail her a copy of the article.
Cherry thanked him, still laughing.
•
Stilt was just as easy to find, Jodie explained when she arrived. At six feet tall, the twenty year old girl stood out easily in the small park across the street from St. Roch Cemetery. A native New Orleanian with a sixth grad education, Stilt readily admitted knowing Doctor Duke and anything else, which didn’t amount to much.
“She’s never heard of Coliseum Square,” Jodie explained as she kicked her feet up on her desk. She didn’t have to worry about anyone peeking. She wore pants that day. “She didn’t recognize either Pam or Margaret Leake. Hell, she doesn’t even know where Camp Street is.”
“Did you get her shoe size?” LaStanza asked as an after thought.
“Sure did. Size eight, which makes her feet about nine and a half inches long.”
He nodded and then told her about Cherry and Hot Coffee, Mississippi.
“Such distractions,” Jodie complained when it was time to put Cherry and Stilt out of their minds.
“Gotta cover every base,” he told her.
“Well,” she replied, “I picked up Margaret Leake’s toxicology report on my way back.”
“That was fast,” he said.
“I sweet-talked Dr. Lucy.”
She passed the report to him. It revealed Margaret was legally intoxicated at the time of her death. It also revealed no illicit narcotics.
“We figured that.” LaStanza said as he passed the report back.
He looked out the dirty windows of their office and added, “You didn’t say you’d go out with Lucy, did you?”
“No, why?”
“Because I heard he’ll make you soak in a tub full of ice first.”
“Cute, LaStanza, real cute.”