DR09 - Cadillac Jukebox Read Online Free PDF Page B

Dave. I believe you mean no harm," he said, and walked back among his
guests.
          I stared at the red
sun above the sugarcane fields, my face burning with embarrassment.
     
     
     
     
     
CHAPTER   4
     
     
    I T was raining hard and the
traffic was heavy in New Orleans when I parked off St. Charles and ran
for the colonnade in front of the Pearl. The window was steamed from the warmth
inside, but I could see Clete Purcel at the counter, a basket of breadsticks
and a whiskey glass and a schooner of beer in front of him, reading the front
page of the Times-Picayune.
          "Hey, big
mon," he said, folding his paper, grinning broadly when I came through the
door. His face was round and Irish, scarred across the nose and through one
eyebrow. His seersucker suit and blue porkpie hat looked absurd on his massive
body. Under his coat I could see his nylon shoulder holster and blue-black .38
revolver. "Mitch, give Dave a dozen," he said to the waiter behind
the counter, then turned back to me. "Hang on a second." He knocked
back the whiskey glass and chased it with beer, blew out his breath, and
widened his eyes. He took off his hat and mopped his forehead on his coat
sleeve.
          "You must have
had a rocky morning," I said.
          "I helped
repossess a car because the guy didn't pay the vig on his bond. His wife went
nuts, said he wouldn't be able to get to work, his kids were crying in the
front yard. It really gives you a
    sense of purpose. Tonight I got to pick up a skip in the Iberville
Project. I've got another one hiding out in the Desire. You want to hear some
more?"
          The waiter set a
round, metal tray of raw oysters in front of me. The shells were cold and slick
with ice. I squeezed a lemon on each oyster and dotted it with Tabasco.
Outside, the green-painted iron streetcar clanged on its tracks around the
corner of Canal and headed up the avenue toward Lee Circle.
          "Anyway, run all
this Mingo Bloomberg stuff by me again," Clete
    said.
          I told him the story
from the beginning. At least most of it.
          "What stake
would Bloomberg have in a guy like Aaron Crown?"   I said.
          He scratched his
cheek with four fingers. "I don't get it, either. Mingo's a made-guy. He's
been mobbed-up since he went in the reformatory. The greaseballs don't have an
interest in pecker-woods, and they think the blacks are cannibals. I don't
know,
    Streak."
          "What's your
take on the murdered scriptwriter?"
          "Maybe wrong place,
wrong time."
          "Why'd the
shooter let the girl slide?" I said.
          "Maybe he didn't
want to snuff a sister."
          "Come on,
Clete."
          "He knew she
couldn't turn tricks in the Quarter without permission of the Giacano family.
Which means she producing a weekly minimum for guys you don't mess with."
          "Which means the
guy's a pro," I said.
          He raised his
eyebrows and lit a cigarette. "That might be, noble mon, but it all sounds
like a pile of shit you don't need," he said. When I didn't answer, he
said, "So why are you putting your hand
    in it?"
          "I don't like
being the subject of Mingo Bloomberg's conversation."
           His green eyes
wandered over my face.
          "Buford LaRose
made you mad by offering you a job?" he asked.
          "I didn't say
that."
          "I get the
feeling there's something you're not telling me. What was that about his wife?" His eyes continued to search my
face, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
          "Will you stop
that?"
          "I'm getting
strange signals here, big mon. Are we talking about memories of past
boom-boom?"
          I put an oyster in my
mouth and tried to keep my face empty. But it was no use. Even his worst
detractors admitted that Clete Purcel was one of the best investigative cops
NOPD ever had, until his career went sour with pills and booze and he had to
flee to Central America