Pegasus Descending Part 18

We went downstairs to a small room that contained a computer, a fax and Xerox machine, and a television set that we used to view surveillance videos. I shoved J.J.'s ca.s.sette into the VCR. A collage of meaningless scenes appeared on the screen-a crowd of revelers at a sports bar, Mardi Gras floats, a kid mooning from an upstairs window, a wedding party emerging from a church, the bride in white, her face glowing with happiness.

I pushed the fast-forward b.u.t.ton.

"Stop! Right there, back it up," J.J. said.

I eased back to footage of a touch football game, then eased forward and froze the frame on a lawn party in progress. The St. Augustine gra.s.s was in full sun, live oaks and towering slash pines and a blue sky backdropping the dancers. From the lack of shadows, I guessed the video was shot close to noon.

"That's her, isn't it? Right in the middle," J.J. said.

I pressed the play b.u.t.ton and Yvonne Darbonne came to life on the screen. She was barefoot and dressed in a sleeveless blue tank top that exposed her bra straps, and a beige skirt that stretched tight high up on her rump as she raised herself on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet and lifted her hands into the air. John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" was playing in the background.

The lens swept across the crowd but quickly returned to Yvonne Darbonne. She looked absolutely beautiful-sensuous, innocent, filled with joy, in love with the world.

Then the music stopped, the camera swung across the tops of the trees, and for just a moment I heard a popping sound and the ringing of metal against metal, like a flag and chain blowing on an aluminum pole.

I reran the scene three times and wondered if the footage was of any value at all. She was not wearing the clothes she had died in. There was no time or date indicator attached to the footage, and to J.J.'s knowledge none of the guests he could identify was linked personally to Yvonne.

"I was right, huh, waste of time?" he said.

I stared at the image of Yvonne that I had frozen on the screen. Her eyes were closed, her pug nose lifted into the sunlight, her exposed shoulders red with fresh sunburn.

"It's hard to tell, J.J. Can I keep this?"

"Sure, it was being thrown out."

"Stay in touch. We'll entertain the ba.s.s one of these days."

But he didn't get up from his chair. He picked at his nails, his brow furrowed. "There's one other thing I didn't tell you. I'm in premed, just like Tony was."

"Yeah?"

"Tony had the tests for a bunch of my science cla.s.ses, including the finals for chemistry. I think he got them from Slim. Tony offered to let me use his copy of an anatomy test. He said it wasn't cheating. He said the test was just a study guide. But another guy told me Slim paid him to break into a file drawer in a professor's office."

"Were Slim and Tony selling the tests?"

"I didn't ask."

"Okay, partner. Thanks for coming in." But before he went out the door, I had one more question for him. "Did you use the help on the anatomy exam?"

"No, sir. I made a D on it," he said, grinning self-effacingly.

I gave him the thumbs-up sign.

A few minutes later I called Koko Hebert at his office. "Was the Darbonne girl sunburned?" I asked.

"Why you want to know?"

"Because that's my job."

"No, your job is being a full-time compulsive-obsessive neurotic pain in the a.s.s."

"If you don't like the way I do things, take it up with the sheriff or the D.A. I sympathize with your loss of a family member, Koko, but I'm not going to be the target of your anger anymore."

The receiver was quiet for a long time. "Koko?" I said.

"I heard you. I'm pulling up her file. Yeah, there was a certain degree of erythema on her shoulders and the back of her neck. It probably occurred a few hours before her death."

"But she was wearing a T-shirt at the time of her death, wasn't she?"

"Right," he said.

"Would the burn be more consistent with someone wearing a sleeveless tank top?"

"Probably."

"I didn't mean to be rough around the edges a minute ago," I said.

"Anything else?" he asked.

"No, that's it. I just-"

He hung up.

Chapter.

13.

C LETE PURCEL WAS NOT sleeping well these days. His shoulder ached where Lefty Raguza had driven a steel tool almost to the bone, and, worse, he could not think straight about Trish Klein, nor was he any longer sure about his own motivations in getting involved with her. Was he just an aging fool trying to regain his lost youth? Was she playing him? Were the sounds she made in bed manufactured?

Why would a woman with her looks, money, and education mess around with a disgraced ex-policeman who skated on the edges of alcoholism and criminality? The question implied an answer he hated to even think about. Was that exactly the kind of man she was looking for, or rather needed, to perpetrate a vendetta on Whitey Bruxal for her father's murder?

Her retinue was made up of pretenders. The horse jockey ate hamburgers like potato chips. The prizefighter had sticks for wrists. The country songstress carried a tune like a piano falling down a stairwell. The Hollywood screenwriter admitted his only experience in the industry had consisted of running a film projector at a neighborhood theater in Skokie, Illinois. As grifters scamming casinos, they weren't bad. But did they actually boost banks? The answer was probably yes. And that's what disturbed Clete most.

He had known their kind back in the late 1960s. They came from traditional blue-collar and middle-income homes, and became imbued with a political or social cause that allowed them to justify criminal acts normally a.s.sociated with Willie Sutton or Alvin Karpis. The irony lay in their level of success. Most criminals get nailed in the aftermath of their crimes, largely because of their lifestyles and their a.s.sociations. But the sixties bunch was not composed of junkies, degenerate gamblers, wh.o.r.emongers, or p.o.r.n addicts, nor did they hang out with recidivists or network with professional fences and money launderers. Instead, they lived in the suburbs, felt no guilt whatsoever about their crimes, jogged five miles before breakfast, and considered themselves patriotic and decent. In custody, they didn't attempt to defend their actions any more than they would have attempted to explain the nature of light to a blind man.

Clete sat on the side of his bed, his electric coffeepot bubbling on the counter in his small kitchen, the early sun glowing through the closed slats of his blinds. He knew Trish liked him, but that didn't mean she loved him, nor did it mean she wouldn't use him. He had learned in Vietnam there were three groups of people who got you killed-pencil pushers, amateurs, and idealists. Trish didn't fit into the first category but she qualified for the other two. So far, his involvement with her had cost him a visit from the FBI, a stab wound in the shoulder, and possibly a warrant for the fire hose caper and bomb scare at the casino on Ca.n.a.l. How big a bounce was he willing to take in order to feel he was thirty again?

He ate four scrambled eggs and a slab of ham in his skivvies, shaved and showered, then dressed in a new suit, fitted on his porkpie hat, and went outside to greet the day.

The previous night he had pulled a vinyl cover over his Caddy to protect it from bird droppings. But someone had unhooked the elastic loops from the b.u.mpers and folded back the cover in a neat stack on the ground, then had tiger-striped the paint job with acid. There was also a silver indentation the width and flat shape of a screwdriver tip under the gas flap, and Clete guessed the flap had been prized in order to pour sugar or sand into the tank.

He used his cell phone to call Triple A for a wrecker, then called me at the office. "I think Lefty Raguza paid me a visit last night," he said, and described the condition of his car.

"You should have pressed a.s.sault charges against him when you had the chance, Clete," I replied.

"You know how much business that fire hose situation probably cost the casino? I'll be lucky if I don't have to blow the state."

It was pointless to argue with Clete. Besides, he was right. His history of mayhem and environmental destruction both inside and outside the New Orleans Police Department preempted any chance of his being presumed innocent in a conflict between Clete and a business enterprise that brought millions of tourist dollars into Orleans Parish. "You'll need an investigative report for your insurance. I'll send somebody out," I said.

"Thanks. Raguza didn't do this on his own. Whitey Bruxal had to give his approval."

"You don't know that."

"Wake up, Streak. These guys have used the state of Florida for toilet paper since the 1920s. You're spending your time on people at the bottom of the food chain. Fraternity p.i.s.sants and black street pukes aren't the problem. The word is Whitey Bruxal has bought juice with a televangelical lobbyist who closes down Bruxal's compet.i.tion. Like Trish says, you hurt the big guys in their pocketbook."

"Stay away from that woman," I said.

But he had already closed his cell phone.

I HAD ALWAYS BELIEVED Colin Alridge was far too complex a man to be dismissed as a tawdry charlatan. His father had been an insurance executive who mixed pleasure with business in both Fort Lauderdale and New Orleans, his mother a survivor of internment by the j.a.panese in the occupied Philippines. After the father drank up the family money and shot himself, Colin attended a poor-boy Bible college in South Carolina, wandered around the Upper South as an encyclopedia salesman, then became a regular on a Sunday-morning religious program that was broadcast out of Roanoke, Virginia. Colin quickly learned that his good looks, corn-bread accent, and family-oriented Christian message were a combination that could ring like coins bouncing on gold plate. More important, he discovered that beyond the television camera there was a huge political const.i.tuency hungry for conversion and affirmation, provided that it was conveyed by someone they could trust.

It's inadequate to describe him as handsome. It was the totality of his appearance that charmed his audiences and made him an iconic figure sought out by political and religious groups all over the country. He was clean-cut, immaculately groomed, straightforward, his face marked with an ever present serenity that was obviously born of inner conviction. Working-cla.s.s women who touched his hand called him "G.o.dly." When he whispered his message of love and redemption into a microphone, their faces crumpled and their eyes swam with tears.

He returned to his birthplace and bought a modest home on Camp Street, in the Garden District, and often appeared at shelters for battered women and the homeless. But there were stories about a second home outside Bay St. Louis, one with a breathtaking view of the Gulf. The deed was in the name of the incorporated ministry that others administered for him, but the rich and the powerful were often seen dining on the deck with Colin at sunset, the blood-streaked skies and rustle of palms a triumphal backdrop to those who had successfully managed to give unto both G.o.d and Caesar.

Colin Alridge had remained free of the type of scandals that had brought down many of his predecessors. If there was a repressed libertine inside him, no one ever saw it. He was devoted to his work and I suspect sincere when he often mentioned his mother as the source of his political and spiritual convictions. Even I sometimes wondered if the rumors about his ties to casino gambling were manufactured by his political enemies. Why would anyone who had achieved so much risk it all by involving himself with a Miami lowlife like Whitey Bruxal?

Clete Purcel had his Caddy towed into the shop, then drove in a rental to Whitey Bruxal's business office on an oak-shaded stretch of Pinhook Road near the Lafayette Oil Center. But Whitey Bruxal was not there and his receptionist said she had no idea where he was.

Clete looked around at the deep carpet and heavy, ornate furniture in the reception area. The office was located next to a motel built of soft South Carolina brick, and through the windows he could see the shadows of the live oaks out on Pinhook Road and the sun winking on the motel swimming pool. "You got a nice location here," he said. When she didn't respond, he added, "Whitey just blows in and out but doesn't tell his employees where he is?"

"Would you like to leave your name and phone number?" the receptionist said. Her hair was platinum, her tan probably chemically induced. She picked a piece of lint off her skin and dropped it in a wastebasket.

"Is Lefty Raguza around?" Clete asked.

"I think Mr. Raguza is at the track."

"Too bad. Tell Whitey Clete Purcel was by. He doesn't need to call. I'll drop by another time. Or maybe catch him at his house. He goes to his house sometimes, doesn't he, when he's not blowing in and out of the office?"

Her eyes drifted up into his, her expression as bored as she could possibly make it.

"That's what I thought. Thanks for your time. Give Lefty my best. Tell him I'll be getting together with him soon," he said. "Could I have one of those business cards?"

She nodded her head toward a container on her desk, her attention concentrated on her computer screen.

Clete wrote on the back of the business card and handed it to her. "Give this to Whitey, will you?" he said.

She took the card with two fingers and set it beside her keyboard without looking at it. Then she glanced down at the message written in a tight blue calligraphy across the card. It read: The guy your people capped in Opa-Locka had the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. Why don't you give me a call, s.h.i.tbag? I'd like to chat you up on that.

The receptionist's face sagged slightly, then she picked up her purse and walked into the restroom, her eyes focused far out in front of her.

Outside, Clete stood in the shade of an oak, wondering what he had just accomplished. The answer was easy: Nothing. In fact, his behavior had been foolish, he told himself. Contrary to his own admonition, he was once again engaging the lowlifes on their own turf, issuing challenges that brought him into conflict with disposable douche bags like Lefty Raguza.

What was it that guys like Whitey Bruxal wanted? Again, the answer was easy: Respectability. The legalization of gambling throughout most of the United States was a wet dream come true for the vestiges of the old Syndicate. The money they used to make from the numbers racket, money that they always had trouble laundering, was nothing compared to the income from the casinos, tracks, and lotteries they now operated with the blessing of federal and state licensing agencies. In fact, not only had the government presented them with a gift that was beyond the Mob's wildest imaginings, they had been able to attach educational funding to gambling bills all over the country, which turned schoolteachers into their most loyal supporters. Was this a great country or not?

Maybe it was time to p.i.s.s in the punch bowl, Clete thought. He looked at his watch, then headed for New Orleans.

En route he called his part-time secretary at the office he still operated on St. Ann Street in the Quarter. She was a former nun by the name of Alice Werenhaus, a stolid pile of a woman whose veneer of Christianity belied a personality that even the previous bishop had feared. In fact, I think Nig Rosewater and Wee Willie Bimstine's bail skips were more afraid of facing Miss Alice than they were Clete. But she and Clete had hit it off famously, in part, I suspected, because the pagan in each of them recognized the other.

She called Clete back by the time he crossed the Atchafalaya and gave him the probable schedule for the rest of Colin Alridge's day.

"High tea at the Pontchartrain Hotel?" Clete said.

"He entertains elderly ladies there. Actually, he doesn't seem like a bad man," she said.

"Don't let this dude snow you, Miss Alice."

"Have you gotten yourself into something, Mr. Purcel?"

"Everything is copacetic. No problems. Believe me."

"The police department keeps calling about this episode at the casino. They say a lot of water damage was done to the carpets."

"Don't listen to them. It was just a misunderstanding. Thanks for your help. Got to go now." He closed the cell phone before she could ask any more questions.

But she called back thirty seconds later. "You take care of yourself, Mr. Purcel!" she said.

He could do worse than have Miss Alice on his side, he thought.

Just before 3 p.m. he drove down St. Charles and parked across from the Pontchartrain. Sure enough, inside the cool, pastel-colored reaches of the hotel, he found Colin Alridge seated at a long, linen-covered table, speaking to a group of ladies who must have been in their eighties. A tea service was set at each end of the table, and Colin sat in the center, turning his head back and forth, his eyes lingering on each face, his sincerity and goodwill like a candle in the midst of an otherwise empty dining room.

It was not the scene Clete had antic.i.p.ated when he left Lafayette. He had envisioned catching Alridge in a crowded restaurant, perhaps among the monied interests that seemed to find their way into Alridge's inner circle. Maybe even some of the Giacano minions would be there, he had told himself. But what if they had been there? What would he have done: pull a fire hose out of the wall and create another disaster for himself like the one at the casino? He stopped at the bar and ordered a double Jack with a beer back. "How long does Billy Graham Junior work the crowd?" he asked the bartender.

"Sir?" the bartender said.

"When does Boy Bone Smoker get finished with the ladies?"

The bartender, who wore a white jacket and black pants, leaned forward on his elbow. He had a pencil mustache and black hair that was cut short and parted neatly, like a 1930s leading man. "I happen to be gay myself. You don't like it, drink somewhere else."

The afternoon was not working out as Clete had planned. He finished his Jack, ordered another, and left three one-dollar bills as a tip for the bartender. The bartender picked them up and stuffed them in a cup on the bottle counter, not speaking, his face without expression. Clete had not eaten, and by three forty-five he was half in the bag. "Sorry about that crack. It's been one of those days," he said.

The bartender poured him a shot and waved off the five Clete put on the bar.

"You know who Whitey Bruxal is?" Clete asked.

"He's a gambler."