Even tourists who weren’t expecting such a display would get caught up in the fun, buying inexpensive feather masks and boas to join in the festivities. It was often referred to as a Mardi Gras for locals.
Griffen, however, took advantage of the opportunity to retreat back to his own apartment for a quiet night alone. Even though the conclave, for the most part, was running smoothly, he found it was still wearing on his nerves.
He refused several invitations to dinner or for bar-crawling on the vague excuse of “got to take care of something” and made his escape. On his way home he considered calling Mai or Fox Lisa for company but decided against it. Simply put, he realized he was just “peopled out,” and wanted to be by himself. As a final, defiant gesture, he turned off his cell phone. Let them struggle through for one night without him. Tonight was going to be just for him.
Kicking back in the quiet of his apartment, he ran through the assortment of DVDs he had available. With the approach of Halloween, he had stocked up on an array of horror movies. Somehow, though, after what he had been going though at the conclave, the thought of watching a werewolf or vampire movie just didn’t ring his chimes. Finally, as a sort of compromise, he settled on
It was classic Mel Brooks, and silly to the extreme. He had seen it dozens of times before, however, and as the story unfolded, he found his mind wandering.
Slim had not attended any of the conclave events that day. What was more, when Griffen stopped on the way home to ask some of the various street entertainers if they had seen him, no one was able to give him any specific information. It seemed Slim was making himself scarce for the moment. At some point, Griffen would have to decide if he was going to take time off from the conclave to run him down and clear the air, or if he should simply wait until the event was over and things had calmed down.
Then there was Tammy. She was still alternating between glaring daggers at him and looking like a kicked puppy every time their paths crossed. Despite Tink’s reassurances that this was just Tammy being Tammy, Griffen still felt he should apologize or at least say something to her but was at a loss to know how or what. Then, too, there was the chance that if he was successful in dealing with her, she would take it as encouragement and decide to stay on in the French Quarter. He tried to envision his normal routine with Tammy bouncing in and out of it. His mind flatly rejected the image.
Heaving a sigh, he tried to focus on the movie.
A loud knocking on his door made him sit bolt upright, and he realized he had dozed off. Blinking, he tried to focus his eyes and mind as the knocking continued.
“All right. Coming,” he called, moving to the door.
Valerie burst into the apartment as soon as he opened the door.
“Your cell phone is off,” she said accusingly, as she looked around the apartment. “I thought I heard you moving around up here earlier. Are you alone?”
“Hello, Val. Good to see you, too,” he said, sarcastically.
“And, yes, I’m alone. Why?”
“Hold on to yourself, Big Brother,” she said, grimly. “I’ve got some news, and it ain’t good.”
He started to make a wisecrack, but looked at her face and abandoned the thought.
“Okay. What is it?” he said.
“Slim is dead,” she said. “Somebody killed him.”
“What?!?”
“But that’s not the bad news.” Val sighed.
“It isn’t?” He blinked. “Then what is? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“Word is going around that you did it… or had it done,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to know if you were alone. It would be nice if you had someone to alibi your whereabouts and actions tonight.”
“But how could anybody think that?” he said, genuinely stunned.
“Well, let’s see. Word is that you’ve been flexing your muscles at the conclave. ‘Don’t get me annoyed. I play for keeps.’ Sound familiar?” Valerie said, looking at him hard. “It’s also common knowledge that you and Slim went sideways to each other the other night. Then you take off from the conclave tonight, saying there’s something you have to take care of, and then are asking around on the street about where Slim is. You tell me what that sounds like.”
“This just keeps getting better,” Griffen said, putting a hand over his face. “What’s next? A visit from the cops?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” his sister said, sweetly.
“Nobody’s saying anything to the cops. Everybody at the conclave and on the street is afraid of you. They think you’ll go after them next if they cross you.”
Forty-four
If one wants information about a crime, instead of reading about it in the newspapers, it’s better to go directly to a cop. Lucky for Griffen, Harrison’s suspension had ended, and he was back on duty. He’d be the ideal source.
Griffen considered calling Harrison on his cell phone but decided against it. Doing that would call too much attention to himself and his interest in the case. This would be particularly bad if he was, indeed, a suspect. Instead, Griffen did what all good predators do. He staked out a water hole.
He knew Padre, the bartender at Yo Mama’s Bar and Grill, where Harrison often went to indulge in their hamburgers or have a few beers. That let him drop in casually and, if Harrison was not there, to hang out for a bit chatting with Padre without it being obvious that he was looking for the detective.
As might be expected, much of the conversation in the bar centered around Slim’s death. Everyone knew everyone else in the Quarter, if only on sight or to nod to in passing. While New Orleans had a bad reputation for murders, that was mostly in the outlying areas and usually involved the drug gangs fighting it out over territory and supply lines. A murder in the Quarter itself, particularly one involving a local, was rare, and therefore prime conversation material.
No one seemed to have much detailed information other than that Slim had been found on the Moonwalk, the stretch of pedestrian sidewalk that ran along the Mississippi from the French Quarter to the Aquarium of the Americas. There were a few tasteless jokes about someone really not liking street entertainers, but no real facts. Everyone seemed to like Slim, at least in hindsight, and no one had any ideas about who would have wanted to kill him.
Griffen was about to give up on his mission, at least for the night, when Harrison walked in.
The burly plainclothes detective always had the vague look of a biker to him, but tonight he was looking exceptionally haggard and unshaven.
Griffen waved him over, mentally rehearsing various ways to bring up the subject of Slim’s death. He needn’t have bothered.
“What a night,” the detective growled, sliding into the booth and waving for a beer. “As if the Halloween craziness wasn’t enough, we’ve got to deal with a dead street entertainer… without scaring the tourists, of course.”
“Yeah. I heard about Slim,” Griffen said, waving to add a drink for himself to the beer Padre was bringing over. “What happened there, anyway?”
“Still trying to figure it out,” the detective said. “As far as we know, Slim was clean. No dealing or hustling, didn’t drink all that much, no history of brawling. A couple of women he was dating casually, but no live-in girlfriend to get jealous or mad at him. He just worked hard at earning a living as a street entertainer, and that seemed to take up most of his time. Hell, McCandles, you knew him. He was about as harmless and inoffensive as they come.”
Griffen thought briefly about Slim’s temper when it came to animal control, but kept it to himself.
“How was he killed?” he asked instead.
“Stabbed through the heart,” Harrison said. “No signs of a struggle or fight. Like someone he knew and
