Fat Man Blues: A Hard-Boiled and Humorous Mystery (The Tubby Dubonnet Series Book 9) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the boss.”
    With E.J.’s money, Angelo built a new shed and installed a pump to pipe the water to it. He hired some guys from the neighborhood who dramatically spruced up the grounds and hauled the junk out the gate and around the corner to someone else’s abandoned lot. E.J. also oversaw the production of a slick brochure promoting “Angelo’s Elixir” which had an impressionistic drawing of the tonic’s medieval-looking source. E.J even had some scientists come to take samples. They concluded that it was just plain water, with a lot of mineral additives and some particulates derived from sediment and mud, but not especially dangerous to consume.
    Business took off. Angelo hired hip street people to deliver his product on bicycles towing cute little “Elixir” carts behind. The newly designed bottles were decorated with a bold “Angelo’s Elixir” logo and a smiling caricature of the proprietor himself. Sister Soulace wasn’t jealous of the competition. Angelo was working a different market, and he wasn’t offering anyone psychic advice. She even dropped in to see the well and was so impressed that she blessed the place. Angelo let her put up a small shrine to some little known Asian deity on a tool shelf, and she began coming over by cab on a regular basis to spread her positive spiritual vibes.
    One day a man came to see Angelo, wanting to buy the company. Angelo was singing along to Link Davis on his ear buds, loud enough to rock the yard, and he didn’t hear the intruder come into the shed.
    “I got sixteen chicks, sitting in a tree,” he belted out.
    “Hey, hey little chick, tell me what’s on your mind,
    You got me walkin’ and a talkin’ and laughing just to keep from crying.
    I knew some day that the tide would turn,
    We all got a lesson that we got to learn,
    Hey, hey, little chick, tell me…”
    “Don’t we all learn a lesson from those chicks,” the man joked to get Angelo’s attention.
    The music lover was none too pleased about having his groove time interrupted. His delivery boys all knew not to bother him when he was into the mood.
    “Are you making fun of my Swamp Pop music?” Angelo asked in the menacing tone that came naturally when addressing anybody other than Sister Soulace and Aimee.
    “Not at all,” the man assured him. “I don’t even know what Swamp Pop music is.”
    “Ever heard of Clint West? How about Bill Matte? Rod Bernard?”
    The visitor looked blank.
    That was even worse as far as Angelo was concerned. Trying to regain control of the conversation, the man quickly let it be known that he was there with an offer to buy Angelo’s Holy Water business.
    Angelo told him to get lost, and pronto, which the man did. But he tossed his card on the pump on his way out the door.
    The water innovator went back to his music and quickly broke into “This is How We Trawl.”
    “This is how we trawl,” he sang.
    “For white shrimp or brown
    And when we reach the end we just spin the boat around
    Yeah you know we’re gonna go
    Each and every night,
    And if you go with me,
    You know we’re gonna do it right.”
    “La Pair O De,” Angelo screamed.

CHAPTER VI
    Nordie soon made his connection through Tommy Riego, a guy who owned the Golden Flapper, a “gentlemen’s club” on Decatur Street where they had met before. Nordie was hoping that Riego had need for some no-nonsense muscle, but Riego wasn’t hiring at the moment.
    “Lately business is slow and everything is pretty tame,” Riego told Nordie. “I wish I had a place for a man like you, with talent, but right now I just don’t.”
    Riego was drinking Grey Goose and watching two naked girls slide down poles that glowed a gentle purple from lights hidden within. “I did hear of a guy, though.”
    “Yeah? Who’s that?”
    “You ever run into Frenchy Dufour?”
    No, but his reputation had preceded him. Dufour was infamous for building an armored panel van with gun slits cut into the sides. He said he’d built