Not Dead Enough Page 16

  “You’re a professor and you dance in a bar?”

  “Oh, my dear. I could pay to go to a dreary gym. Or come here and get an even better workout and be paid for it. I didn’t get a PhD because I’m dumb.”

  I looked at Red and said, “And you’re a trainer for the Saints?”

  “No, the Falcons.” He kept his face perfectly legit for a long second, then broke out with a deep laugh. “No way, not the Dirty Birds.” New Orleans and Atlanta are major football rivals with pet names for each other. “Like the Prof, I like the hours here and getting a workout. I’m a travel writer. Resting here from a week in Rome. Can’t stay in all day starting at a computer screen.”

  “But we saw something strange,” Prof said. “Over the weekend. We were both up on the bar—it gives you a nice view of the room—and these two women came in.”

  “First thought,” Red said, “was they were a couple, although one was young and hot and the other a bit older.”

  “Sugar mamas happen, too,” Prof said. “But they didn’t act like a couple. Looked around a bit, then split up and took up posts in opposite ends of the room.”

  “Like they’re casing the joint,” Red added.

  “Or waiting for someone,” Prof said.

  “We do two more dances; they’re still there. I watch Mary go over and see if they want a drink—asked both—and neither gets anything. I can see that Mary is watching them from behind the bar, so she thinks there is something strange from their behavior.”

  “They hang out for another minute or so, then both leave at the same time, but separately.”

  “Drug deals?” I asked.

  “Not that we could see.”

  “Did anyone else leave around when they did?”

  “Huh, I didn’t notice,” Prof said. “But by then we were on a break and down from the bar.”

  “About what time?”

  “After eleven, but before midnight,” Red said.

  “Let’s go to the videotape,” I suggested.

  We all trooped into the bar office, Mary joining us as well.

  I pulled up the video for around that time. It was only for the outside, but we should see them as they left.

  Tedious minutes of people walking past the bar. I sped it up slightly but couldn’t have it go too fast otherwise we might miss them.

  “There!” Red said.

  I paused the tape.

  “Yep, that’s her,” Prof seconded.

  I stared at the tape then started it again in slow motion. Aimee Smyth. Or Sally Brand. Or whatever her real name was. She walked partway down the block, then paused, now a blur in a dark patch. A man joined her. Maybe it was just his size, but he reminded me of Junior Boy. At this distance he could have been Junior Boy. Except this was from Sunday night, when JB was likely in Atlanta nursing a few bruises. They talked briefly—or waved their hands as if they were talking. She handed him something. And he gave her something in return. But it was impossible to see more than that.

  A second figure emerged from the bar, a brief glimpse of the back of her head, but she knew there was a camera and quickly put on a ball cap and looked down, her features hidden in shadows. She kept her face away from the camera. Taller than the first woman, but I could see little of her.

  She joined them only briefly enough to take something from the man, then kept on walking down the street and out of camera range.

  A minute later, Aimee/Sally followed her.

  The man walked toward the camera.

  “Oh, that’s trouble,” Mary said as he got closer.

  I paused the tape to get a better look at him.

  Nope, not Junior Boy, not even close. Except for the size. “You know him?” I asked.

  “He’s not welcome here and he knows it,” Mary said. “We think he’s the one who sold the cut dope someone almost overdosed on.”

  “Why do you think that?” I asked.

  Rob said, “Saw him doing a drug deal in the bar. Blatant, like this is just a bar, who would care if one more drug is added. I told him to get out and he gave me attitude. I went out to smoke a cigarette—yeah, I know, bad habit I’m trying to break, but being yelled at by a drug dealer was a trigger. He was still out there, taking money from someone and handing him something. He smirked at me, like what was I going to do. So I called the cops on him. That got him to scurry away. Too close to the police station.”

  The major station on Rampart was only a few blocks away.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Mary sighed. “The usual. The police came, but he was gone.”

  “Told us to call again if we saw him.”

  “You’re going to solve the case, aren’t you, private dick Mick?” Red asked.

  “A private dick; I want one of those,” Prof added.

  “Sure, on it right away,” I said. “The case, that is.”

  They drifted away and I started obsessively going through all the video from the last week. Mary was kind enough to bring me a fried catfish plate without me even asking for it. Or she knows me too well. And beer to wash it down.

  Nothing.

  And nothing.

  What did it mean? Aimee/Sally—of the Brande family?—was clearly up to no good. Dealing drugs? Quite possibly. But why the ruse with me and Karen? What did that gain her? Maybe as Anmar said, to throw the family into turmoil. Again, why? If she was running drugs, she was making good money. Unless she was making good money for Ellis and wanted more of a cut.

  But I suspected she’d gone rogue. The Brandes liked the women in the kitchen—and bedroom—not on the streets dealing.

  On the video a large silver SUV drove by.

  A minute later another one. Then another. Everyone is now driving large silver SUVs. I had just started noticing.

  I finally stopped counting large silver SUVs.

  Druggie made another pass by, but he was just walking, didn’t stop, didn’t even smile at the camera. I hadn’t gone to great lengths to hide the cameras—part of being a deterrent is being visible, but they weren’t something the average tourist would notice either. I paused the tape to get a better look at him. Big, but a lot of weight in his stomach. He didn’t look in shape. Greasy dirty blond hair, starting to recede. A large square face, jowls beginning to droop that showed how he would age. I guessed him to be mid-thirties, but a hard mid-thirties, drugs, booze, and a few stints in jail. I sent a picture of him to my phone.

  Then back to nothing and more nothing, save for drunken tourists singing off-key. After the fourth bad rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” I got up and got another beer.

  The Prof and Red were dancing on the bar. Both were far better than the average bar dancers, helped by them looking like they were having fun.

  I got my beer, stretched, and then headed back to the office. I had only a little more to go. It was probably only fifty more silver SUVs and off-key singing, but I needed to be sure.

  It was black SUV night. Five in a row.

  Nothing.

  Off-key singing. Someone with a boom box—did they still exist?—playing Big Freedia. Much better taste in music.

  Holly Farmer.

  Wait. I rolled the tape back. Holly, Karen’s girlfriend, was walking down the street, heading this way. It was a brisk walk, as if she was headed somewhere. She looked up, directly at the camera.

  She looked away and kept on walking, going past the bar and into the night.

  I looked at the time stamp on the video. 10:36 pm.

  Not crazy late. This is the French Quarter, and everyone goes to the French Quarter at some point. She walked down the street, that was all.

  But not with Karen.

  Even when Cordelia and I were together, we did things separately. Besides, Holly was a social worker. Maybe she was doing social worker things.

  Maybe I was tired. I finished the last few hours, speeding the tape to get through the drunken tourists.

  Nothing and nothing.

  Saturday night.
Torbin entering the bar in the early evening with a stuffed garment bag of his costumes. Andy, his partner, following with another suitcase in one hand and a wig stand with a long blond wig on it.

  Drunk tourists.

  Some sober tourists for a change.

  Joanne and Alex, bantering and happy, dressed in shorts and T-shirts appropriate to the night. I was used to Joanne in clothes for her job, sensible suits, black pants. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen her knees.

  Danny and Elly joining them at the door, also in shorts, also laughing and happy.

  Joanne looks up at the camera, spots it, has to realize they’re in it. Does nothing. Not worried about it.

  They hang outside several minutes, laughing and talking. I can see the hands and mouths move, but it’s picture only, so I don’t know what they’re saying. “Good thing Micky isn’t here; we can have a relaxed time.”

  No, they are not saying that.

  Joanne looks at her watch, then down the street.

  More talk.

  Danny looks at her watch.

  Alex shrugs. Elly says something to Danny. Then Danny to Joanne, and she and Alex both nod.

  They head into the bar.

  Three gay male couples, holding hands or arms around each other. They enter the bar.

  One nervous straight couple, the man with a death grip on the woman’s hand as if to prove to the world he is straight. I want to tell him we don’t care. They hurry down the street into the night and away from the demon queers.

  More people coming into the bar, transgender, gender fluid, men in dresses, women in fedoras. Yes, even some straight folks. Everyone is welcome here.

  Empty street.

  Drunk tourists.

  Lost tourists, consulting a map that they keep turning around. Probably also drunk. They wander off, still looking at the map.

  A tall woman I recognized even in the dark distance. Her gait, how she holds herself. A shorter woman beside her, one I now recognized.

  They come closer. They also stop outside where Joanne, Danny, Alex, and Elly waited. But don’t notice the camera. The professionals—and the crooks—know to look for it.

  Cordelia looks at her watch, points to it to the woman with her. The woman says something back. They are late, and Cordelia doesn’t like to be late.

  At least when we were together she didn’t.

  She pulls out her phone, texts someone.

  They wait outside.

  “They’ve gone inside; they got tired of waiting,” I say to the days-old tape.

  Cordelia looks at her phone screen, then points inside.

  The woman shakes her head, not a no, but disappointment as if she thought they should have waited, and follows Cordelia into the bar.

  The street is now empty.

  I speed through the rest of the videotape, watching them blur by later as they leave. I don’t slow it down. I don’t care, really, I don’t.

  No more Aimee. No more man she dealt with.

  Nothing.

  I got up and got another beer.

  I took it back to the office, but there was nothing else for me to do. I’d rolled the videotape and all it did was add more confusing details. No, I reminded myself, it gave me more information, and eventually, with enough information, it would make sense.

  Aimee Smyth was not the dead woman in the morgue. That only made it more likely it was Andrea Brande. Too young to die, too young to leave her twin alone in a family that didn’t want her to exist. I both hated and was relieved I couldn’t tell Anmar the hard news. If I were a better person I’d find a way to do it, find a way to be that hero. But I’m just a flawed, fucked-up person, no magic bracelets available. Maybe with enough information, I could save myself—Karen along as collateral benefit. If it was just Karen…no, no hero here.

  I took a sip of beer. Then another. I’d save who I could, and at the moment I wasn’t sure that would include me.

  I finished the beer.

  Aimee Smyth wasn’t the woman in the morgue. But how had her jewelry ended up on the dead woman? Did Karen and I see two different women? Or the same one? How was Aimee involved? She looked like the women in the Brande family, so I was assuming she was part of them. Was she ringleading this? Or the front for one of the men?

  And why the fuck were Karen and I involved with a family feud in a crime family in Atlanta?

  Time for another beer.

  My phone rang.

  Joanne.

  I debated not answering, but I had called her. And she needed to know Junior Boy was in town.

  The beer would wait.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry to be calling so late,” she said.

  “I’m up, and it’s well before midnight.”

  “And you’re at home,” she said, hearing the music from the bar.

  “Work. Security for a bar.”

  “Which one?”

  “R and F—Riley and Finnegan’s,” I say but she should know that; she was just here.

  “You did the security there? The camera setup?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are no cameras inside,” Joanne, the police officer, says.

  “The owner didn’t want them. He wanted it to be a safe place for the people that come inside. We’re covering the outside, back garbage and delivery area. Plus a panic button under the bar that goes directly to the police as well as a switch that can remotely lock all the doors.”

  “Okay, that’s not too bad. But if something happens inside…”

  “Like police detectives in ratty shorts and a T-shirt that says ‘Suck the heads and pinch the tails’?”

  “I do not have a T-shirt that says that.”

  “A video camera and a little editing and you could,” I pointed out.

  “So, you called me?”

  “Remember that mob goon from Atlanta I told you about?”

  “Yes?”

  “He was at my office doorstep earlier.”

  “What?”

  “Yep.”

  “What happened?”

  “I told you he was stupid, right? Too stupid to do any research. Somehow he had my office address so was hanging out in the doorway to the coffee shop. But he didn’t know I’m M. Knight, private detective. He thought it was a guy.”

  “But he’s seen you before.”

  “Oh, he recognized me. Only as the woman at the party who kicked him very hard in the groin. I threatened to call the cops; he was instructed to find M. Knight, so he showed a gun and threatened back.”

  “Glad to know you’re still alive.”

  “One of the coffee shop workers has a shotgun. She explained things to him.”

  “Hope it’s licensed.”

  “She did two tours in Afghanistan.”

  “Close enough,” Joanne agreed.

  “I warned Karen,” I said. “If he’s visiting me, he might be visiting her.”

  Joanne sighed. She was still working, and the info I was giving her meant she would work longer. “I’ll have a car drive by her house on a regular basis. And yours.”

  “I doubt he knows my home address.”

  “Maybe not, but not a risk I’m willing to take.”

  I didn’t argue. I’d fought Junior Boy once; I didn’t want to fight him again. Surprise wouldn’t be on my side this time. “But there is more. I was reviewing the videotapes from the bar. I saw the same woman who was in my office meeting with a known drug dealer.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I can be, short of seeing her face-to-face. The reason Rob, the owner, wanted additional security was that someone in his bar almost overdosed from fentanyl and he wanted to keep that out of his place.” I told Joanne what the dancers had told me, seeing her and another woman in the bar, catching her on the camera as she left and meeting with someone who had been banned from the bar for selling drugs, possibly the overdose one.

  Joanne was silent for a moment. “Not sure how this fits, but eventually we’l
l figure it out.” She asked for the videotape. I said I’d make a copy as soon as we hung up. I’d make sure to include some drunk tourists so she could enjoy what I enjoyed.

  “More information is always better than less,” she added.

  I wasn’t so sure; there were things I didn’t want to know.

  “Any progress on ID’ing the body?”

  “Sent to the PD there for records; haven’t gotten them back.”

  “Could they be on the take?”

  “No. Or not likely. These things take time across jurisdictions. Any more great revelations?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “More than. Let me get on with it. I’ll update you when I know more.”

  She was gone. I put the phone down and stared at the live feed. An empty street.

  There were raucous cheers from the drag bingo going on in the bar. I found the section of tape, made a copy, and sent it to her.

  I stared at my empty beer bottle. Stood up to get another one.

  Then sat down again.

  I didn’t need another beer; it wouldn’t solve anything. I needed to use the skills I had developed over the years as a private detective and my brain to solve this, to save somebody, maybe just me. Maybe Karen—and Holly—they seemed happy. Maybe Anmar. Andrea was probably already lost.

  I stood again and left without looking at the video feed, took my empty bottle back to the bar, waved good-bye to Mary, and exited.

  The night was sultry and close, the air either an embrace or a ghost wrapping itself around me. It had cooled to barely bearable, fine for sitting outside with a cold drink in hand. But I had none, only the blocks to walk home, and the air weighed me down.

  The sidewalks were empty, traffic on Rampart was busy, people cocooned in the comfort of their cars. The new streetcar jangled by, a slow blur of red in the humid night, few people riding it.

  How do I even save myself, I thought, one step after the other, only me walking this deserted street. Maybe that’s the answer—one step at a time, with the desperate hope that I’d have time to take all the steps needed before… Before what? It might have been easier if I knew we were in danger. Yes, they were killers—Andrea Brande in the morgue proved that. But me? Karen? Were we pawns already used and we’d soon be left out of it? Pawns about to be played, killed, or brutalized? If I knew we were in danger, that would give me direction and action. I needed to know, and right now I didn’t know and couldn’t know.