Charlie Hustmyre - House of the Rising Sun

“You’ve got just as much to lose as me.”

“You’re wrong again, Jimmy.” Ray pointed to the kid seat again. “You’ve got a lot to lose. I got nothing.”

LaGrange reached for his attache case and stepped out of his battered Dodge. “Give me an hour.”

It took an hour and a half, but LaGrange slid a plain white envelope across the table to Ray. They were in the same yuppie coffee shop on Canal Boulevard. Inside the envelope Ray found two sheets of paper stapled together. It was an incident report about a car burglary. He asked LaGrange what this had to do with anything. LaGrange held up his hands. “We’re finished.” Then he got up and walked out of the coffee shop.

Ray lit a cigarette and read the report. This time the waitress didn’t bother telling him to put it out. When he finished reading, he was smiling.

Tony stood next to the pay phone at the corner of Saint Peter and Bourbon, drumming his fingers against the side of the aluminum booth.

He looked at his watch. It was eight p.m.

Patience wasn’t Tony’s style. He hated to be kept waiting. This was even worse. He felt like he had a target on his back. This whole setup stank. The waiting was just making him more paranoid. He kept looking around, waiting to catch someone spying on him.

An hour ago he was walking out of the House when a ten-year-old street urchin ran up to him and handed him a note. The kid was one of those tap dancers from Bourbon Street who danced with an upside-down hat on the sidewalk, tapping for tips. Tony took the note, gave the kid a buck, and told him to get lost. The kid said, “The man who gave me this said you would give me ten bucks.”

Fucking ten-year-old trying to hustle him. Tony crumpled up a five and tossed it in the gutter, told the kid if he didn’t get lost right now he would drag him up to the roof and throw him off. Did he think he could tap his feet fast enough to fly?

Tony unfolded the note and read the message scrawled in pen across a torn piece of notebook paper. Go to the phone booth down from Pat O’s. I’ll call you there.

When? Stupid bastard didn’t even say when he was going to call. Then there was the question of why. Why should Tony go to the phone booth? What kind of jerk-off sends an anonymous note? Who uses pay phones anymore? If the guy wanted to talk, why not call the House or Tony’s cell phone?

Unless my phones are tapped.

Tony and Rocco strolled through the Quarter toward the phone booth on the corner of Bourbon and Saint Peter, a half block from the door to Pat O’Brien’s. While they walked, Tony kept glancing around. He knew the guy had to be watching him.

The French Quarter was bustling with people. The tourists-some sober, most already bombed-and a handful of locals flowed through the streets looking for a good time. The air was alive with the sounds of jazz, blues, R amp;B, Cajun, and rap that poured from the bars, restaurants, and souvenir shops along Bourbon Street. The sounds of the French Quarter were unique. So were the smells: red pepper, Crystal hot sauce, shrimp, oysters, Tabasco, po’boys, Lucky Dogs, beer, urine, and vomit.

Tony felt like cracking somebody’s head, or having Rocco do it for him. Then the pay phone rang. Tony snatched the handset off the hook and barked into the mouthpiece, “Who the fuck is this?”

A man’s voice said, “How you been doing, Tony?”

The voice didn’t mean anything to Tony. Maybe he had heard it before, maybe not, but the guy talked like they knew each other. “Who is this?”

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” the voice said. “We’re going to do this my way.”

Tony’s fist tightened around the handset. “I got news for you, pal. I’m not a man who likes to be jerked around, and when I find out who you are, I’m gonna cut off-”

“I got a proposition for you.”

Tony took a deep breath to calm down. “People come into my office all day long with propositions for me. I don’t do business over a fucking pay phone.”

The man didn’t say anything. Finally, sick of listening to the hum of the phone line, Tony said, “What kind of proposition?”

“I’ve got some information for you.”

“And you want something for it, right?”

“Of course.”

“What kind of information?”

“Meet me at Fat Harry’s in an hour.”

Tony snorted. “Fuck you.”

The voice remained calm. “Believe me, you want this information.”

“I’m not meeting you anywhere. I don’t even know who the fuck you are.”

“An hour, Tony.”

The balls on this fucking guy, telling him, ordering him around like he was some sort of lackey. What kind of information could this clown possibly have that would interest him? “How am I supposed to recognize you?”

“Don’t worry,” the voice said. “I’ll recognize you.”

“How?” Tony asked, a tingle of anxiety beginning to creep up his spine. “Do we know each other?”

“Hey, Tony,” the voice said.

“Yeah?”

“Leave your lapdog at home.”

The line went dead.

An hour and a half later, Tony Z. sat at a rough wooden table in a back corner of Fat Harry’s Saloon on Saint Charles Avenue. He had left Rocco at the House. The big man hadn’t liked it at all. “What’s the matter with you?” Rocco had whined. “This guy, who the fuck knows who he is, is setting you up for something. Someone’s looking to hit you, Tony.”

But whatever it was, it wasn’t a hit, at least not a hit from inside the family. This wasn’t how they operated. They didn’t pass notes, didn’t call you on a pay phone with a lot of vague bullshit. When they wanted you hit-Tony knew, he had done it twice before-they got your best friend to call you up for a meeting, maybe invite you for a beer. Then when you least expected it, something brushed the back of your head, and in that moment you knew, you knew you had breathed your last breath. Then came the POP! as the. 22 went off and the little bullet, smaller than an aspirin, blasted into your brain and the lights went out. Forever.

Both times Tony had wondered what it felt like, in that split second, microsecond really, as the bullet left the barrel and blew through your hair, your scalp, your skull. Did you feel it? Or was it all too quick to register?

Tony sat with his back to the wall, sipping his second scotch, when a guy walked in wearing jeans and a dark blue sport coat over a gray golf shirt. Tony recognized him. Not sure whom he had been expecting, but knowing he hadn’t been expecting this guy.

“Buy me a drink,” the guy said as he sat down on the wooden bench across the table from Tony.

Tony knew he was a cop. He was a dirty cop, but what other kind was there? He just couldn’t recall his name. Not right off. The name was there, creeping along the fringe of his memory. The guy was Vice, or used to be, which made him double dirty.

“Who the fuck are you?” Tony asked.

The guy laughed. “That’s just like you, Tony, such a big shot you don’t remember the little people who put you so close to the top.”

If the guy wasn’t a cop, Tony would have smacked him right then. Instead, he drained his glass and started to stand. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re running, but I don’t have time for it.”

The guy held up his hand, gesturing for Tony to stay. “My name is Jimmy LaGrange. I used to be in Vice. Ray Shane was my partner.”

Now, Tony remembered him. He was the one who didn’t end up in prison.

The cop signaled for the waitress. When she came over, he ordered a drink on Tony’s tab and told her to bring Tony a refill.

The balls on this guy. When the girl left, Tony said, “You got sixty seconds.”

The cop opened his mouth to speak, but Tony cut him off. “First, why all the cloak-and-dagger bullshit?”