Orleans,” Ben countered, laughing. “What I find strange are the transies we've seen tonight who damned sure ought to've gotten out of this area till we catch this creep.”
Ben, always the voice of reason, did make sense. Alex still felt compelled to say, “Yeah, but what if the little bastard knew more than he was telling?”
Ben next breathed in a deep breath of night air and gave his best patience-in-action glare as he said, “Listen, Sincy, let me pose a slim but possible theory here, okay?”
“ Shoot! Be my guest.”
“ Supposing our dim-witted Pigsty-chosen, mind you, as a snitch for his fine propensities in ratting out his friends and selling his mother on the street-just supposing this piece of human filth got some sort of Phantom of the Opera syndrome, and with-”
Alex's laughter cut Ben off. “Phantom of the Opera syndrome? Is… is that something you got from Dr. Longette?''
Ignoring the interruption, Ben continued. “And with all of New Orleans his stage, Gilreath suddenly lashes out and strikes back at some festering cancer within him and-”
Again came Alex's laughter, turning to tears with a mental image of Pigsty in tights and cape.
It was then that Alex pulled the car to a stop across from the third gay nightclub they'd visited that night, The Warm Fuzzy.
Ben just kept rattling on as they stepped from car to bar. “Striking out at his own gayness, maybe… or the fact he was powerless, always the puny runt, pushed aside by life, people, siblings, always of no consequence, always sucking hind tit.”
“ You think he sucked hind tit with Vicki Surette?”
“ Last one on, last one in… I'd bet my last dollar on it.”
“ Maybe you've got something, there, Ben. But I'm having a hard time seeing Gilreath in the role of-”
“ Don't you get it? Maybe Gilreath decided to be of consequence for once in his miserable life, to prove a villain since he can't prove a hero, so to speak, another Lee Harvey Oswald, only his anger is directed toward those resembling him.”
“ You maybe ought to become a shrink, Ben.” Alex stepped through the doorway and into The Warm Fuzzy, his eyes instantly alert and searching. He was also instantly made as a cop along with his nervous, fidgeting partner beside him. But Alex also spotted a known male prostitute and sometime snitch known among his street friends as Ricky Aspen for his physical attributes. He was tall, slender and firm, but the aspen in Aspen was a mere willow at the moment. If anyone knew anything about Pigsty's whereabouts, it might be Ricky. Alex's thoughts were now brought to a jarring halt when finally the officiating grave-keepers started up the noisy back-hoe, which began to hungrily, greedily chew at the huge stone over the aboveground city plot paid for and maintained by the taxpayers. Here lay Victor Surette's body as it had rested since the year before.
Jessica Coran, holding together like a person bound in baling wire, no doubt had popped a Valium, Alex decided staring across at her. But she was tough, strong, even in her voice as she spoke to Landry.
“ Given the conditions of the cemetery and the fact he was buried by the state in a pine box inside a moldy old above-ground crypt with cracks about the seal,” Jessica began, “I wonder at the possible condition of the body.” She had obvious plans to run her own tests and make of this a chance to autopsy the man whom Sincebaugh had become convinced was the first victim of the Queen of Hearts killer.
The umbrellas were of little help, the rain slanting inward as if it consciously knew it must work around the obstacles to get at people. It beat a soft chorus against them. The crypt, thankfully, did not have to be pried from the earth as might be expected in most any other place, because in New Orleans the eternal rest for all souls was aboveground, due mainly to the fact that the water level was so close to the surface and the city itself was below sea level. Cremation was often the first choice in cases involving unclaimed bodies such as Surette's; however, for some unaccountable reason, the authorities had chosen burial instead in this case. When Jessica asked about this, no one seemed to know the reason why, until Alex Sincebaugh reminded them that Dr. Frank Wardlaw had suggested the arrangement in the unlikely event that an exhumation might become necessary should someone claim the body at a later date, or if further forensic review of the body became necessary-as coincidentally it had.
The crypt opening was, however, taking undue time, the graveyard attendants noticeably delaying. During this delay, Jessica Coran asked about the seal, which looked to have been broken before they had arrived.
“ We knew you were coming,” replied the chief caretaker, a wizened little man named Oliver Gwinn whose liking for the bottle was well illustrated in his complexion and nose. “So we started early.”
When finally Captain Landry blared a few obscenities into the man's ear, the lid was further pried loose by the backhoe, and a second cemetery caretaker signaled the man in the machine to shut it down. The two attendants worked with thick gloves, crowbars and a butane torch, which burned off the final remnants of the seal. Inside they found what the city of New Orleans called a coffin, a simple unfinished white pine box discolored by a grimy, green mildew on all sides, microscopic life having taken up residence on the wood long before it was sealed and now growing in complete darkness.
“ Pop the lid?” asked one of the attendants.
“ No, we'll take it to Morrison's nearby,” said Landry to the men. “Just load it in the van, okay?”
The two attendants, with Gwinn backing off and looking on, lowered thick, coiled ropes through metal brackets on each side of the coffin and worked the ropes below it with some difficulty. The problem was the lack of space between coffin and crypt sides. Soon, however, the box and body were up and straddling the crypt, and in the next few minutes loaded on the waiting van.
Alex's mind wandered again to the previous night. Could Ben have been right about Gilreath? Pigsty was the product of a dysfunctional home, his father ever ready with a belt and a backhand. Maybe something inside the weasel did snap. But Alex had pursued Aspen, who'd attempted to leave via a back door down a passageway. Alex caught the boot-licking, freckled creep just as he was about to exit, and he got rough with him, shoving him against a bathroom door and then into the room itself.
“ Whataya want from me? I ain't done nothing.”
“ Shut up and listen! I want you to tell me how to get in touch with Pigsty.”
“ Pigsty, hell, man, Sincebaugh! I ain't seen that mother and he owes me a hundred and-”
Alex lost his cool at that point, bodily picking Ricky up and ramming him into the wall, making him cry like a little girl. Ricky also lost it in his pants, and Alex was disgusted at the same time that he was taken aback. He let the other man ease down the wall, but he kept the pressure on by pulling out his. 38 and shoving it into Ricky's cheek.
“ Don't hurt me, please, man! Don't hurt me,” Ricky pleaded, his face a mask of fear now, wet all over.
“ Then tell me what I want to hear.”
“ I don't know where that fag is, man! I swear it on my mother's grave, God! God, I hate you! God, I swear, 1 don't know!” he pathetically blubbered.
Alex felt a moment's weakness and was about to relent, but instead screamed, “Then who the hell does know?”
“ I don't know!”
“ Give me a name now, Ricky, or I do your pretty face. You'll be marred for life.”
“ You… you can't threaten me like this. It's not right. I know my rights.”
“ In here you don't have any fucking rights, Ricky! They're all flushed down the toilet! Now give it up!”
“ Sue Socks, man… go see Sue.”
“ Where?”
“ She… she works at the Pink Anvil.”
“ Who is she to Gilreath?”
“ I don't know. They're… they're family or something… cousins, I think. Now, let me outta here.”
Alex let go of the man, who stank now of urine. Ricky wiped at his tears with his sleeves, speaking like a woman, saying, “I just hate you. I hate you.”
“ Here, take this for your troubles,” Alex replied, pushing a pair of twenty-dollar bills at him.
“ I don't want your fucking money.” Alex tossed the bills at him and watched them feather-fly toward the urinals. When he looked back, Ricky was snatching the bills from the floor. Alex found Ben outside, waiting in the car, talking to his wife on the radio, something about bringing home some groceries and a lottery ticket. Alex told
