House of the Rising Sun

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Ray rode the elevator up to his car.

It was just past one o’clock in the morning. Ray had to wait a few minutes for a group of drunks, out for a boys’ night at the casino, to climb into an SUV and drive away. Then he popped open the trunk of his Mustang and unzipped Tony’s leather carryall. He scanned the parking lot to make sure he was alone.

He took out most of the money and stashed it in the well beneath his spare tire. There was maybe $50,000 left in the bag, give or take. Ray dropped the blood-spotted pillowcase and the Smith amp; Wesson into the bag and zipped it shut. He pulled the bag out of the trunk and slammed the lid closed.

Ten minutes later, Ray strolled past Shorty’s parking lot on Decatur, the handles of Tony’s leather carryall clutched in one hand. Tony’s green Lincoln was parked at the back of the lot. Shorty worked days, and his twenty-year-old nephew, a kid named Milo, worked nights. Milo’s face glowed inside the booth from the light of a television screen.

Ray walked through the parking lot past Tony’s car. It was parked in spot number fifteen. When Ray circled back to the booth, Milo was still staring at the TV. Ray tapped on the glass. The kid jumped.

“Can I help you?” Milo stammered.

“I came to pick up my car, but I noticed my buddy’s Lexus over there.” Ray pointed to an ivory-colored sedan parked half a dozen spaces away from the booth. “Looks like somebody hit it.”

Milo stood up. He started shaking his head as he stepped through the door and ambled toward the car.

Ray hung back next to the booth. When Milo looked over his shoulder, Ray pointed toward the car. “Right there on the fender, just above the right rear tire.”

Milo looked at the Lexus from a dozen feet away. “I don’t see nothing.”

Ray said, “Guy’s kind of a hothead, and if somebody smacked into his car, no telling what he’ll do.” While he talked, Ray reached inside the booth and grabbed the keys that hung from peg number fifteen.

Shuffling closer to the car, Milo mumbled, “For sure nobody hit any cars while I was here.” The kid’s oversize jeans hung halfway down his ass, flashing his red and white boxers and making his shuffling gait look more like a duck’s waddle. When he reached the Lexus, Milo dropped to one knee and examined the back right fender. After several seconds he said, “I don’t see no damage at all.”

Ray had the keys palmed in one hand and Tony’s leather bag in the other as he walked back toward the Lincoln. “I’m sorry,” he said, nodding toward the pole-mounted halogen light standing over the parking lot, “must have been a trick of the light.”

Milo shook his head as he walked back toward the booth. “Man, you making me miss my show.”

Ray stopped beside a blue Mercury parked two spaces down from Tony’s car and sneaked a glance at Milo. The kid stood outside the booth watching him. Ray set the leather bag on the Mercury’s trunk and made a show of searching for something in his pockets.

Milo lost interest and crawled back inside his booth to watch TV.

Ray opened the Lincoln’s trunk and tossed Tony’s leather bag inside. Fifty grand in the trunk of a car sure made it look like someone was about to run. The pistol was linked to four homicides: Dylan Sylvester, Carlos and Vinnie Messina, and Tony’s wife. Plus, it had been fired during the robbery at the House. Fired at Ray, which cleared Ray of any connection to it.

Ray walked back to the booth. Milo’s face was buried in the glow of his television. He jumped when Ray knocked on the glass. “Man, what are you doing sneaking up on me like that again?”

Ray used his forearm to nudge Milo out of the way. Then he reached behind the kid’s back and hooked Tony’s keys back onto peg number fifteen. “I forgot something,” Ray said, “I’ll be back for my car in a little while.”

“Customers aren’t allowed to touch the key rack. In fact, no one is allowed inside the booth except me.”

Ray backed away. He held up both hands. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

Milo turned and looked at the Peg-Board. “What hook did you put your keys on? I want to make sure you did it right.”

Ray turned and walked away, calling over his shoulder, “My usual spot.”

“Yeah, but which one is that?” Milo yelled after him.

Directly across Decatur from the parking lot was a hole-inthe-wall skank strip bar called Rhapsody’s. Ray crossed the street and strolled down the dark sidewalk past the strip bar to the next intersection. He turned the corner and circled the block. He didn’t want Milo to see where he went. The walk also gave him time to think.

By the time Ray made it back around, Milo’s face was once again glued to his tiny television screen. Ray ducked inside the strip joint.

Behind the bar was a narrow stage on which a skinny white girl danced. The floor beneath the bar was sticky. Ray ordered a Budweiser. When it came, he gave the barman five bucks, then moved to a table where he could see out the door.

Tony’s car was still in the parking lot.

A skank in too-high heels traipsed over to Ray’s table. She pulled an empty chair up real close to Ray and dropped into it. She rubbed her hand along his thigh and asked if he was interested in a private dance in the back. Ray told her no thanks.

It was 2:00 AM when Ray finished his beer. He found a pay phone by the men’s room. He dropped in some change and called the Eighth District station. The deskman rang him through to the detective office.

Like every detective squad, the one in the Eighth District handled the usual assortment of rapes, robberies, and murders, but the Eighth District squad, because of its location in that sea of vice known as the French Quarter, also worked a lot of organized-crime cases. And organized crime was Detective Carl Landry’s passion, because it was through organized crime that he got to dirty cops.

Landry was still working nights.

“What do you want, Shane?” Landry barked into the phone.

“Is anybody looking for Tony Zello?”

“Why?”

“Just a hunch.”

“Cops have hunches,” Landry said. “What you have is probably gas.”

“Forget it, Carl.”

“Wait!” Landry said. “What’s the hunch?”

“Fuck you.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Shane. You called me, remember?”

Ray waited, letting the silence build.

“Well?” Landry said.

“I think Tony is about to blow town,” Ray said.

“Why do you think that?” Landry sounded very interested. Ray guessed he had already heard a preliminary report about the bodies out at Lake Catherine.

“Tony is acting weird and it makes me jumpy,” Ray said. “There’s bad blood between us, has been for a while, and I’m just worried he might try to settle our account before he leaves.”

“I know all about the girlfriend and the bad blood, but what makes you think he’s trying to get out of town?”

“He’s been acting real strange the last couple of hours.”

“Strange how?”

“Like he was nervous. Then I overheard him talking on the phone to somebody about an airline reservation.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know,” Ray said. “I didn’t hear that part.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

A stripper walked past Ray on her way to the can. She tried to whisper in his ear, but he covered the mouthpiece and waved her away.

“Shane?” Landry said.

Ray uncovered the phone. “Earlier today you gave me some information that cleared up something I’ve been wondering about for years. I’m just trying to return the favor.”

“You’re trying to do me a favor?” Landry sounded skeptical.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Do you always keep tabs on Tony?”

“Only recently,” Ray said. “I don’t want him sneaking up on me.”

“When’s he leaving?”

“I don’t know. Must be soon, though. A little while ago I saw him come out of his office carrying a leather bag, like an airline carry-on. He headed outside, so I decided to take a stroll myself.”

“You followed him?”

“I wouldn’t call it that.”

“Bullshit.”

Ray didn’t say anything.

“What did you see?” Landry said.

“He put the bag in the trunk of his car, that big green Lincoln. Then he pulled a pistol out of his pants and tossed it in the trunk along with the bag, maybe inside the bag. I’m not sure.”

“What kind of pistol?”

“I was across the street,” Ray said. “All I know was that it was some kind of big automatic.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Hour, give or take. Why?”

“Where are you?”

“I left right after I saw him put that gun in his car,” Ray said. “I told you, he doesn’t like me. I see him acting weird and carrying a gun, it’s time for me to go home.”

“You’re not at home,” Landry said. “I hear music. Where are you, at a bar?”

“What’s going on, Carl?”

Ray heard a scraping sound in his ear, then muffled voices in the background. Landry had put his hand over the mouthpiece and was talking to someone. After a few seconds Ray said, “Landry, you still there?”

Landry’s hand came off the phone. “What did you say?”

“I asked if there was something going on. Maybe something I need to know about for my own protection.”

“Where exactly was Tony’s car?”

“That parking lot on Decatur, two blocks from the House.”

“Is it still there?”

“Far as I know.”

“How sure are you that it was a semiautomatic pistol you saw Tony put in the trunk of his car?”

“Positive,” Ray said. “Why? What’s going on?”

“Just police work,” Landry said. “Nothing that concerns you.” Then he hung up.

Ray looked at the phone in his hand. “What an asshole,” he said. Then he smiled.

Ten minutes after Landry hung up on Ray, a guy in a suit, who Ray recognized as an Eighth District detective, strolled past Shorty’s parking lot. He crossed the street and set up surveillance two doors down from the strip bar. Ray poked his head out the door and saw another detective standing by a lamppost a block and a half away.

Just past 3:00 AM, an unmarked police car stopped at the curb in front of the parking lot. From his table inside the strip bar, Ray saw two detectives get out. The other two who had been on surveillance walked over to the car and all the cops stood around talking. None of them seemed to be in a hurry to do anything. They ignored Tony’s car.

Fifteen minutes later another unmarked police car screeched to a stop beside the first. Carl Landry jumped out from behind the wheel and another detective climbed out of the passenger seat. They pulled Tony Zello out from the backseat. Ray noticed he wasn’t wearing handcuffs.

Landry handed Tony a legal-size sheet of paper. Ray recognized it as a search warrant. One of the detectives grabbed a set of keys from inside the booth. Then they all walked toward the back of the lot. Tony managed to look cocky despite his beat-to-shit face. He limped along with the cops.

Landry didn’t waste time. He started with the trunk. Even from across the street, Ray could see the detective’s face light up. He pulled the bag out of the trunk and opened it, the bag with a murder weapon and $50,000 cash inside it, the same bag that had Tony Zello’s name printed on the luggage tag.

Tony started backing away and shaking his head. Two detectives shoved him against his own car and handcuffed him behind his back. He kept shaking his head, yelling something Ray couldn’t make out.

Ray watched the cops photograph the car and the inside of the trunk. They put the Smith. 40 caliber into a plastic evidence bag, preserving it for prints. They bagged the cash, too. Landry was never far from the money, Ray noticed. He must be worried that some of it might disappear.

Ray waved to the bartender for another beer.

Half an hour later, Ray walked to Jenny’s apartment. Her car wasn’t parked on the street. He rang the buzzer anyway.

No answer.

He stuck a cigarette between his lips and walked away. Reaching for his lighter, he remembered he didn’t have one. He had been using Tony Zello’s gold-plated “Z” lighter, which was now no doubt in police custody.

Ray put the Lucky Strike back into the almost full pack and was just about to slip it into his pocket when he passed a trash can on the sidewalk. He stopped. A slogan painted on the side of the square trash can said DON’T TRASH NEW ORLEANS.

Ray looked at the pack of cigarettes in his hand. He looked at the trash can. Then he reread the slogan. He had been smoking since high school. What had it done for him? Jenny had said something important. Something Ray was sure was true.

People can change.

Ray threw the pack of Lucky Strikes into the garbage.