The sun rose at exactly 5:47 a.m. Six minutes later, LaStanza donned his dark, gangster sunglasses and readjusted himself in the driver’s seat of the Maserati. Jodie, who wore shorts for the first time since teaming up with LaStanza, put on her sunglasses too. Even though the 1400 block of Erato Street was narrow, with tall houses on both sides of the street that kept it in semi-shadow, it provided no relief from the bright heat of an early summer morning in the subtropics.
There were no front yards in the 1400 block. The houses stood sandwiched together on skinny lots that left no side yards either. Most of the homes were beat up and in dire need of paint. Most were single family dwellings with small front porches and gingerbread overhangs. Once, they housed the upper middle class of a city just sprawling out from the French Quarter and Central Business District. Now, it housed low lifes.
Jodie yawned and stretched, catching LaStanza’s eye with her movement. She wore a short sleeve, khaki shirt with her white shorts. She looked like an uptown shopper, especially in her white Ellesse tennis shoes. As usual, she looked crisp and unaffected by any lack of sleep. LaStanza wore jeans and a red LaCoste shirt. His magnum was in an ankle holster.
At one minute after six, Violet Clay, known to her friends and neighbors as Bunny, rounded the corner of Erato from Coliseum Street. She wore a baby blue sun dress and black spiked heels. After taking three steps, she spotted the Maserati and stopped. LaStanza leaned out his window, tucked his chin down and gleeked her. Bunny mouthed the word “Shit” and put an aggravated hand on her hip and waited.
LaStanza started up the car and eased over to her. Smiling, he asked, “How about some breakfast?”
Before she got in, he made her hand over the twenty-five, which he unloaded and tossed back into her purse. Bunny didn’t speak until they were settled at an outside table at the Café DuMonde.
“Beignets?” he asked.
Bunny nodded. Jodie also nodded and yawned again. LaStanza ordered three cups of café-au-lait and two orders of beignets and watched the young oriental waiter walk away. The clock at St. Louis Cathedral chimed out the half hour. Pigeons rose in a swarm from Jackson Square to circle the lower Pontalba Building. Behind the café, a boat’s whistle moaned, as it made its way along the river.
“So,” Bunny finally said, “What you want this time?”
“Though we could have a nice coffee together, that’s all.”
“Bullshit.”
The waiter dropped off their orders, picked up the five LaStanza had placed on the table and walked away.
Bunny went right to work on her beignets. Jodie took a casual bite of one of the hot, solid donuts with powdered sugar sprinkled over it. LaStanza poured two teaspoons of sugar into his steamy coffee and stirred.
“When was the last time you saw Sam Brooks?” he asked casually.
Bunny closed her eyes in defiance as she took another bite of beignet. She chewed it a couple times and then said, “’Bout a week ago. He was passing in his short. He didn’t see me.”
“Was he with anyone?”
“He works alone.”
“What makes you think he was working?”
“He always works. Like you.”
Turning to Jodie, Bunny asked, “You two ever get it on together?”
Jodie was caught with a beignet in her mouth. She glared at Bunny, a small cloud of powdered sugar rising around her nose, which caused her to sneeze. Which sent more sugar billowing. LaStanza thought she was gonna punch the whore. He’d never seen such a look in his partner’s eyes before. But Jodie did nothing except snarl at Bunny and furrow her eyebrows all the way to the top of her nose.
Bunny turned to LaStanza with an inquiring look. He wasn’t about to even answer. He knew what she was doing. She was avoiding the subject.
“You ever have a black woman?” Her eyes grew large and innocent looking.
He took another sip of coffee.
“You don’t know what it’s like until you get some black pussy.”
The waiter was approaching with LaStanza’s change, but must have heard Bunny’s remark because he pirouetted and walked off quickly.
“Come on,” Bunny goaded LaStanza, “you wanna talk to me, don’t you?”
“Brooks,” he said, “Talk to me about him.”
“I told you all I know.”
LaStanza put his cup down and looked out across Decatur Street to Jackson Square at a tall woman artist who was setting up shop along the wrought iron fence of the square.
“Bullshit,” he said. “You hear the same thing about Italian men. Being good lovers. Believe me. It ain’t so.” He looked at Bunny again and added, “And you ain’t begun to tell me all you know about the wonderful Mr. Brooks.
Bunny picked up another donut and started in on it.
LaStanza noticed that his partner never took another bite.
After they dropped Bunny back off on Erato, Jodie finally spoke.
“You know, I’ve been a cop for five years. I’ve had lots of partners but you’re the only one I ever had where every single person, police and civilian, wants to know if we’re fuckin’”
“Well, don’t look at me.” He was tired of hearing it too. “You wanna work with Snowood? Nobody’d asked you about him because nobody fuck him!”
“Hell no!”
It took a while but he was sure a hint of a smile came to her lips, just a hint.
•
Abby Marshall identified Sam Brooks as the man who left George’s Love-In with the two Pams. LaStanza immediately cut a search warrant for Brooks’ Oldsmobile.
“Now,” he told his partner, “we gotta find where he lives.”
They spent the rest of the day in the Sixth District, talking to Freddie and then Shelby, the occupants of the House of the Lamb and finally, Marid the French-Algerian.
Freddie had seen Brooks around, so had Shelby, but neither knew anything about the man. No one at the House of the Lamb recognized Brooks’ face from the mug shot. One of the transsexuals wanted to see it again, making a yummy sound, but LaStanza left the creature drooling on the front porch of the mission. Marid had never seen Brooks before, but asked to keep one of the mugs, just in case.
“We can’t pass them out,” LaStanza told him.
Jodie gave one to the smiling French-Algerian, along with her card.
“Call me,” she said, “anytime.” She wasn’t flirting with the old man, exactly, but her statement had the same effect. Marid’s dark face turned a shade darker with excitement as he tried his best to get them to stay for lunch, coffee, anything he could think of. Jodie left him longing.
•
At dawn, on the following morning, they snatched Bunny from the corner of St. Charles and Melpomene. Like a bad cliché, she was leaning against a light post. This time he took her purse away and cuffed her before shoving her into the back seat of the ford. She was in a blue, body snug, jump suit, so he didn’t bother frisking her.
“Hey,” she complained, “you’re hurting me.”
“Good.”
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked as they sped off.
He turned around and said, with a cold smile, “Fun time’s over, young lady. Sam Brooks murdered those girls. I know it and you know it. And we’re gonna have a nice long talk about it.”
Cutting her off as she was about to answer, he growled, “I don’t’ care if it takes a fuckin’ year, you’re gonna tell me. Period!”
They put her in an interview room with the cuffs still on and let her cool it for an hour. LaStanza made coffee. Jodie started up a daily.
When Snowood came in a half hour later, both looked up at him in surprise.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” LaStanza had to ask.
“I’m in my wife’s shit house again,” Snowood said as he reached for some coffee.
“What’d you do this time?”
“Who has to do anything? She’s a woman, ain’t she?”
Jodie closed her eyes and pretended to take a nap.
Snowood pulled a chair up next to LaStanza’s desk and continued his soliloquy, “She told me I’d have to kiss her ass hard enough to leave a bruise to get outta the shit house this time.”
“Look,” LaStanza cut in, “we go an important interview. We were gonna bring her out her, but if you’re gonna whine.”
“I’ll be quiet,” Snowood promised. “Just don’t leave me out her all alone.” He had such a haggard look on his face, LaStanza gave in. Snowood had not only left his western accent at home, he left his western clothes too. He wore a regular suit. LaStanza pretended not to notice the fact that he, Jodie and Snowood were all wearing gray suits.
Against his own good sense, LaStanza brought Bunny out of the interview room, took off the cuffs and sat her on the chair Snowood had pulled up next to his desk. Snowood quickly pulled another chair up against Jodie’s desk.
LaStanza put a hand up in Bunny’s face when she started to talk. He had something to say first.
“You’re not a suspect. You’re just a witness. I don’t have to read you your rights, don’t have to get you a fuckin’ lawyer, don’t have to book you or let you make a phone call. And I can hold you as long as I like.
“Now,” he said, settling back in his chair, “Tell me what Brooks did to put the fear of the Lord into your black ass.”
“You the one who should be afraid,” she shot back. “Sam knows all about you and blondie. He’s looking for you two.”
LaStanza laughed, “We haven’t been hard to find.”
“He said you were one stupid white boy. Don’t have enough sense to forget about two stupid nigger whores.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“And when did you talk to him?”
She looked away. He kicked her chair so hard, she fell flat on her ass. He could see his partner and Snowood both standup. LaStanza never blinked. He just kept starting at the whore.
In a low voice, he finally said, “Pick up the fuckin’ chair.”
Bunny obeyed. But when she sat, she was still defiant, refusing to look at him.
“Sam’s a fuckin’ coward,” LaStanza said. “He picks on women. He ain’t about to go face-to-face with the police and you know it.”
“Yeah! You think you bad, huh?” Bunny was looking as him now, her lower lip shaking as she went on, “Sam is bad. Know what he likes to do? He likes to hurt people. He gets off when he hits people. He gets it up when he beats people.”
“You finished?” he asked disgustedly.
“Yeah.” She folded her arms and leaned back.
“Slapping women around ain’t bad. Tying women up and shooting them ain’t bad. Bad is facing someone man to man and shooting it out with him eye to eye.”
“You oughta know, Wyatt,” Snowood injected. He was grinning now.
“Sam gonna kill you,” Bunny added, her arms still folded.
“Others have tried before. And they’re all dead.”
“Yeah?”
“Paul, you still carry that eight-by-ten of the Twenty-two Killer around in your briefcase?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Snowood jumped up and opened his briefcase, pulling out a large envelope. LaStanza nodded to Bunny when Snowood arrived with the envelope.
Snowood was enjoying this. He pulled out the close up photo of the Twenty-two Killer’s head after LaStanza blew the cocksucker’s brains all over a magnolia tree in Audubon Park.
“Yeah,” Snowood drawled, “Ole Wyatt here don’t miss, does he?”
“Gross!” Bunny snapped, shoving he picture away. In a voice dripping sarcasm, she told LaStanza, “You said others, as in more than one. What happened to the others?”
“Tossed them in the river,” he answered dryly.
Snowood was really enjoying this.
•
Three hours later, LaStanza switched gears. He was tired of butting heads with a hard headed whore so he put her back into the interview room for another wait.
Entering with two Coca-Colas, he sat across from her and said, “It’s just you and me now. There aren’t any people outside anymore. Just you and me, girl.” He passed her one of the Cokes.
She took a sip, her shoulders slumping as she looked down at the cod. He didn’t ask any more questions. He just started talking. He talked about himself, about growing up on North Bernadotte Street next to City Park and about his big brother. He told her about the werewolves of City Park and the vampires of the Canal Cemeteries. Then he told her about Vietnam, about the women, the whores that seemed to be everywhere, even in the jungle. He told her about the war, about American boys with balls as big as Southeast Asia, about fire fights he’s witnessed as a combat photographer, about one particular battle where blood clouded the thick tropical air in a fine mist that coated his lens.
He told her about the Michelon Plantation. Not far from Ben Cat in the Iron Triangle, east of Saigon, the Viet Cong had assembled a hundred captured GIs. Lining them up in neat rows next to shallow graves, they put a bullet in the head of each American boy. What he remembered most were the hands. Their hands were tied behind their backs.
“Some of them were still teenagers,” he said. “nineteen years old, bound and slaughtered.”
She said nothing, but he could tell she was listening as she finished off her Coke.
Then he told her about the Sixth District, about Camp Street skid-row buns singing the Keebler Cookie Man song, about an obese woman name Mama Love who used to sit on the St. Charles Streetcar tracks when she got mad and block the streetcars, about the Dryades Street Shootout.
“I was there,” she said when he stopped.
“You were?”
“Yeah, I remember all the police and I saw the dead guys on the sidewalk. Y’all sure blew the shit outta them. I was in the crowd that watched y’all.”
She didn’t look sultry anymore. She didn’t even look street tough. Her face looked like the young girl she described watching the police process the scene of an ambush that blew three armed robbers to the promised land. She looked tired and small. She looked at him with her purple-brown eyes, now ovaled and big and wet.
He could feel a tingling along the back of his neck. He knew he was close. If you wait long enough, he told himself, if you work at it hard enough, if you persist, it will come together.
“You want another Coke?” he asked softly.
She shook her head and looked down at his revolver on his hip.
“What kinda gun is that?” She wiped her eyes with her hand.
“A .357 magnum. Smith and Wesson model 66, stainless steel, with a two-and –a-half inch barrel.”
“Sam’s guns are both black,” she said. “He’s got a .38 and a .22.”
LaStanza nodded slowly.
“He used the .22 on the girls.”
“I know,” he said, his heart pounding so hard it rang I his ears.
“He tried to shoot me with the same gun,” she said in a voice suddenly deep with emotion. “He just drove by and started shooting at me on my porch. I ran inside and a bullet just missed me. I still got two bullets in my wall.”
When she paused, he picked up the phone and punched out Jodie’s extension on the intercom. Jodie answered and he said, “Bring a tape recorder, tapes and two more Cokes.”
“We got him?”
“The show’s about to begin.”
•
Jodie brought a recorder, three tapes, three Cokes and a folding chair for herself. He helped her and then popped open a Coke for Bunny and passed it to the whore.
Bunny took a long gulp and shook out her hair.
LaStanza put a tape in the recorder, ran a quick test and then started with, “This is the statement of Violet Clay, also know as Bunny, a twenty year old black female, date of birth… ”
“Now,” he said when he was ready, “in your won words, tell us what you know about the murders of Pam Camp and Pam Dillards.”
She began in a strong voice, “Sam Brooks did it. He told me and showed me. Sam runs tees and blues and crack cocaine. He killed Fawn ‘cause she ripped him off on tees and blues. He told me Slow, that’s the other Pam, came with them when Sam grabbed Fawn outta a bar on Prytania Street.
“Fawn was a smart ass. She a young whore and dope head that hung around Sam. Slow was a whore too, but she was really a pussy sucker.
“Sam took their money. He tied them up with the shoe laces from their new boots. He laughed about that after. He took them on the levee across the river and shot them in the head. He said he left his shoes in the car so the police couldn’t get no shoe prints. It was muddy.
“He came home around daylight and woke me up. He was tired and full a mud. He likes to stay clean so he cleaned up before going to bed. He told me about the executions of them girls. First, I thought he was joking. But when he looked at me, I went cold.
“He said they begged for their lives before he shot them. He thought that was funny too. He showed me the gun he used and put some more bullets in it. Them he went to sleep.”
Bunny took a deep drag on her Coke before continuing, “Sam is bold. He likes to hurt people. He told me he shot people before. He always carries a gun. He got a black .22 and a black .38.
“A few days after he snuffed those girls, he took me out there one night to show me where he shot them. He took two hundred dollars from my purse and put the same gun against my head and told me he was gonna shoot me too. But he din’. He just took my money.”
When she stopped, LaStanza started in on the questions, going over every minute detail. He went over everything, particularly about the shoe laces and the stocking feet and as much about the guns as the whore knew. Jodie took notes as the tape recorded the voices. Bunny told them how Brooks was originally from Algiers.
“Where did he take you in the car?”
“To the Lower Coast. To the end of the road by the levee. It was all dark.”
When the statement was finished, he asked her about the Batture Again victim. Bunny insisted she never saw the woman before. She said she left Brooks the day after he put the gun against her head. So LaStanza had his partner pull out the pictures of the crime scene and told Bunny about the exact same spot.
“But no drugs?” she asked, examining the pictures.
“No. It was a sex crime.”
She studied the pictures, one by one, passing each back to Jodie. Shaking her head, she reiterated how she’d never seen the woman before.
“Well,” LaStanza said to his partner. “you start on the warrant. I got something to take care of.” He stood up.
Bunny had a question, “That white woman wasn’t wearing red drawers, was she?”
LaStanza sat back down. Jodie leaned forward.
Bunny went on, “’Cause Sam’s fruit for red panties. He used to have me put them on and he’d get real hot, tear them off. He used to hurt me then and I don’t hurt easy down there. Then he’d go buy me more to wear.”
There was a gleam in Jodie Kintyre’s eyes, a sheen, a well deserved glow on the face of someone who’d just accomplished a feat to be remembered. It was a special moment. He knew he must have a similar look on his face.
•
“Where are we going?” Bunny asked as they headed down Poydras Street away from Headquarters. It was getting dark already.
“Damn,” Bunny said, “I can’t believe we been in there all day.” She was looking back at the Police Building. Then she repeated her earlier question, “Where are we going?”
“To your house.”
“I don’t wanna go there, not ‘till you get him.”
“You’re gonna pack a few things and I’m gonna get those bullets out of your wall, Capish?”
“Where am I gonna go?”
“I’m working on that.”
Before arriving on Erato Street, LaStanza called for the Crime Lab and a Sixth District Unit for security. The narrow street was especially dark, when they arrived. Two of the three street lights out on the small block were out. The only illumination came from the headlights from the cars climbing the ramp up to the Mississippi River Bridge at the end of the block.
Bunny’s rented house was completely dark. She passed him the keys and watched out for their backs. He handed her his flashlight after fumbling with the keys. Once they were inside and the lights were on, Bunny let out a relieved sigh.
“Take your time,” he told her, “pack as much as you need.”
She headed for her bedroom. He headed straight for the two bullet holes on the front room wall, next to a painting of an emerald lizard on black velvet. They were small caliber all right. He raised his radio and asked for the Crime Lab again.
The Sixth District Unit arrived first and LaStanza positioned the two patrolmen out front. The Crime Lab technician finally arrived fifteen minutes later. LaStanza had the man photograph the exterior of the house and then the front door and then the bullet holes from the open front door and then close-ups of the holes. Then he had them dug out.
One of the bullets struck a stud and was in bad shape. But the other went through the sheet rock and imbedded itself in the sheet rock on the other side of the wall. It was in good shape.
“I need these compared to the bullets from my double thirty,” he told the technician.
“First thing in the morning,” the man said on his way out.
“Thanks.”
Bunny called out from the bedroom, “Where am I going? China, I hope.”
“I’m working on it.”
He looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock. He called Lizette.
“Hey, Babe,” she answered cheerily.
“Hey, yourself. What are you wearing?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah, I hope it’s sexy.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in a house on Erato Street and I need something.”
“Want me to talk nasty on the phone?”
“No,” he said, “I need to know if that rental property your family’s been renovating on Mystery Street is ready to be occupied.”
“Two of the apartments are ready,” she told him.
“Think I can stash a witness there for a while?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I’m gonna need you to meet me with the keys in a little while, OK.”
“OK, I’ll go to the estate and pick them up.”
“Thanks, Babe.”
“By the way, didja eat?”
“No.” They hadn’t eaten all day!
“Good, I’ll bring that too.”
“Bring enough for four.”
“Who’s the fourth?”
“It’s a surprise.”
•
The building at 1414 Mystery Street was nestled on the corner of Maurepas Street, a block from the Fairgrounds Racetrack. It was well lit by the street lamps on the corner. It was a typical Mid City building, stucco painted yellow with a tile roof. A Japanese Laundry occupied the first floor with unoccupied offices above. The apartments were in back.
“I’m gonna stay here?” Bunny asked anxiously.
“It don’t get any safer than here,” he told her.
“You sure?”
He looked back at her and had to smile, “Just keep your ass off the streets and you’ll be fine.”
LaStanza had made sure they weren’t followed, but continued to scan the area while he and his partner and Bunny waited for Lizette.
Jodie read the application for the arrest warrant out loud to him. It sounded fine.
“Who’s the duty judge?” he asked.
“LeBeau.”
“Good, he’ll sign anything. And he don’t get pissed off it it’s the middle of the night.”
Lizette was late. When she pulled up in her burgundy Maserati, she wore sunglasses. She rolled down her window and gleeked them and then said, “I hope Chinese is all right?”
Not only had she brought supper, she brought groceries. “Your witness has to eat,” she said as LaStanza introduced his wife to Bunny.
Lizette wore faded jeans and a matching jacket with a red dress shirt beneath. Her hair was in a pony tail. She left the sunglasses in her car.
“Come on,” she said, leading the way. “The best apartment is on the left side.
The apartment was not luxurious but it was probably better than any place Bunny had ever lived. The off-white sofa looked new, along with everything else, including a brass bed and a complete kitchen where Lizette quickly dispatched their dinner. LaStanza attempted to lend a hand but was shooed away by the three women.
He sat with them but he might as well have not been there. The women tuned him out completely. Jodie was still riding a natural high. She didn’t even seem to dislike the whore anymore. Bunny was so relieved she could hardly eat through the perpetual smile on her face. Lizette was at ease, naturally. She was genuinely friendly enough to get along with a street tough like Bunny without even a hint of a glitch.
He had other things to think about anyway. They still had to get the warrant signed and put out a A.P.B. so some dumb patrolman didn’t stumble on Sam Brooks and get a rude surprise. For a minute, near the end of the meal, he gave himself the pleasure of reliving the scintillating moment when it all came together, when she said, “He used the .22 on the girls.”