Big Kiss-Off Read online

  The more Cade thought about going to New Orleans the better he liked the idea. He wanted to meet Mimi’s “husband.” He wanted to talk to Janice. Perhaps one, or both, could explain why he was being pushed around.

  7 The Royal Crescent

  In a sheltered cove a few miles above Buras, Cade cut his motors long enough to drag Laval’s body out of the cabin. If a Coast Guard boat should stop him, he didn’t want the dead man aboard. After two years in Pyongyang, he had all he could stomach of prisons and prison camps.

  In this instance he had played it smart. This way he might be suspected of killing Laval but no one could prove anything.

  Cade considered weighting the body but could find nothing aboard the cruiser he could spare. It had taken every penny he’d had to buy the boat and outfit it as meagerly as he had. In the back of his mind he supposed he’d reasoned that if he ran too short of cash he could always put a small mortgage on the old home place. Now the old house was gone. Tocko had bought it at his price, with Janice thrown in for lagniappe.

  Mimi eyed the dead man with feminine distaste. “You knew him?”

  Cade touched his swollen nose and the adhesive tape under his eye. “Very well. He gave me these last night. At least, he had his deputy do it.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t say. He did order me to be out of town by noon.”

  “I see,” Mimi said with quick comprehension. “This is why you wouldn’t go.”

  Cade heaved the body up on the transom of the boat. “Let’s say one of the reasons.” It was hot and still in the cove. Cade was panting just from the effort of lifting the body. He still had a long road to travel before all of his strength returned. He glanced at his watch as he rested. It was eleven o’clock. Joe had made his deadline stand up, after all. Not that it mattered to Joe. The gaunt Cajun was through taking orders from Tocko, through with throwing his weight around, finished with doing Tocko’s dirty work. Cade squeegeed the sweat from his face with the side of his hand before Mimi could use the tail of her shirt. Now that he’d had time to think, Tocko sacrificing Joe Laval just to get rid of him didn’t make good sense. Joe had been invaluable to Tocko.

  Cade leaned against the side of the cruiser. But then, nothing made sense, nothing made sense since, lousy and dirty and half-starved, he’d called on his last ounce of strength to stagger across the line under his own power at Panmunjom.

  “Rest and quiet, that’s an order,” one of the big-shot medics in Tokyo had told him. “I see you come from the Delta country, Colonel. When you get back to the States, buy a boat, take it easy, crawl into the bunk with your wife and a jug of rum and don’t get out of the sack for two months except to eat.”

  Mimi watched him warily, wetting her naturally red lips with the pink tip of her tongue. “What are you thinking?”

  “You might be surprised,” Cade said, wryly. “Then again, you might not.”

  He heaved Laval’s body over the edge. The splash sounded unnaturally loud in the hush of the cove. The body bobbed several times like a swimmer treading water, then was caught in an eddy and floated off down river.

  Cade dropped a bucket overside and sloshed the transom and the cockpit with water. It was a minor matter to make the cockpit shipshape again. The cabin was another affair. The mattress on which Laval had been killed was sodden with clotted blood. Blood had dripped down onto the deck plates and seeped in between the cracks. Cade scrubbed the deck as best he could but there was nothing he could do with the mattress except throw it overside. When he’d finished, his trousers and shirt were sodden with sweat. Cade thought of going for a swim and thought better of the idea. The sight of Mimi in a pair of his shorts and a makeshift halter would only add to his problem. The girl liked him. She trusted him. He wasn’t completely a heel, he hoped.

  His sour mood stayed with him, as he started his motors again and continued up river. He hadn’t been smart in running. He had acted on impulse, instead of reasoning the thing out. If the law couldn’t prove he’d killed Laval, now that he’d disposed of Joe’s body, he couldn’t prove that he hadn’t killed him. What evidence there was, was in the river. If he was suspect, and he would be, his sudden flight, the missing mattress and the blood that had seeped into the cracks would all be against him. Any half-smart lawyer, using his threat to kill Joe and the three pieces of evidence as a foundation, could build a good case against him.

  Cade’s resentment against Mimi grew. If it hadn’t been for Mimi, if he hadn’t tried to save her from Tocko, he wouldn’t have run. So Laval had been shot on his boat? He hadn’t shot him.

  Mimi sensed his mood. “Have I done something, Cade?”

  His name didn’t sound so good in her mouth. “No. Nothing,” Cade said, shortly. “Just leave me alone.”

  He sat watching the shore line fall behind the speeding cruiser, swinging wide now and then to give an outbound steamer plenty of seaway, occasionally passing a banana boat or a smartly painted tanker laboring up stream against the current.

  It was two o’clock when he wove his way through the ships riding at anchor in the lower harbor and a few minutes later when he cut his motors and nosed into the private slip of a ship chandler he and his family had done business with for years, not far from the Charbonnet Street Wharf.

  Mimi eyed the gear-cluttered pier with distaste. “Why are we stopping here?”

  Cade told her, curtly, “To get some money. What did you think I was going to do, run the Sea Bird right up Royal Street and help you out in front of the hotel in that outfit?”

  Mimi’s eyes narrowed slightly, “I’m sorry, I am a lot of bother to you.”

  “Yes, you are,” Cade admitted.

  He made fast to the pier, then getting his papers from his strong box in the locker under his bunk, he strode down the pier to the office. The chandler was glad to see him. After a quick glance at the Sea Bird and its registry papers, he was glad to lend Cade a thousand dollars on the boat — at ten percent.

  Cade made the arrangements to leave the cruiser where it was for the time being and returned for Mimi. She refused his offered hand and scrambled up on the pier herself. “I can manage. I don’t want to be any more bother to you than I can help.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Cade said.

  He told himself he would be glad to get rid of the girl. He would outfit her as best he could. He’d take her to the Royal Crescent Hotel and turn her over to Moran. From there on in, she could make out on her own, while he had a showdown with Janice.

  It was almost four o’clock by the time he’d bought Mimi a dress and some hose and shoes and underthings, to replace the wisps in which she had swum ashore. The dress was white, of a waffle weave material, with a square neck cut to show the top rounds of her breasts. It looked well on her but Cade decided he’d like her better in the borrowed white pants and shirt which Mimi insisted the slightly shocked clerk put into a bag for her.

  Back on crowded Barrone Street, Mimi stood so close that Cade could feel her slim body trembling. His sour mood deepened. He’d picked the girl out of the river. He’d fed her and clothed her. He’d saved her from Tocko Kalavitch. He was risking a murder rap for her. And was she grateful? No. She was so eager to get to the stud to whom she’s given her virginity that she was a-tremble with anticipation.

  “Cold?” Cade asked sarcastically.

  Mimi shook her head and tried to smile. “No. Scared.”

  Cade whistled down a cab.

  “The Royal Crescent Hotel. It’s on Royal Street.”

  The cab driver looked from Cade to Mimi and grinned knowingly. “Yeah. Sure. I know where it is.”

  Cade didn’t like his grin. It stamped the hotel. Obviously Janice wasn’t as choosy as she had been when he was paying her bills. Then nothing but the best had been good enough for her.

  Mimi looked straight ahead. “I haven’t much time to thank you. You have been kind, ver’ kind.” She put her right hand to her left breast. “And I will always remember it h
ere.”

  The cab stopped for the light on Canal Street.

  Mimi continued quietly, “I have been beeg problem to you, I know. You are a man. I am a girl. But this I cannot help. I am also married woman. I am no longer free to give what I might like to give. And deep down inside you, you would not have wanted it to be any different than it has been. Some men are not like that. But you are that sort of man.”

  Even in his bitterness, Cade was amazed by the depth of her perception.

  Mimi found and squeezed his hand. “Anything else but as it was would have cheapened both of us.”

  Cade played with her fingers. “You think Moran has been true to you?”

  “That is another matter.”

  “What if he doesn’t want you?”

  “That is my problem.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” Cade said, dryly. He leaned back against the leather seat of the cab, fighting a mild headache, wondering how Mimi was going to react when she found out that her “husband” was living with his former wife.

  It could be an interesting scene.

  The hotel was much as he had imagined it would be. There was a dimly lighted cocktail lounge off the foyer. The rusted ornamental wrought iron needed painting. Both the ornamental mosaic tile entrance and the glass doors looked like they could stand a good washing.

  As Cade started to pay off the driver, Mimi put her hand on his arm. “Thank you. Thank you ver’ much for everything. But you do not need to come in with me. After all, it has been a year and I would prefer to be alone when I meet Jeem.”

  Cade gave the driver a five-dollar bill and waited for his change. “Uh uh.”

  Mimi was puzzled. “Uh uh?”

  Cade tipped the driver, put his change into his pocket, then tucked Mimi’s hand under his arm. “That’s American for nothing doing. How about my money?”

  “Money?”

  “Yeah. For the gas it took to run up here and the clothes I just bought you.”

  “Oh, yes.” Her small chin jutted. “Jeem will be glad to pay you.”

  Cade tightened his hand on her arm. “Could be. Anyway, we’re going in together.”

  Mimi glanced at him hotly from the corner of her eye but said nothing. The lobby was in keeping with the outside of the hotel. A half-dozen artificial palm trees grew out of sand pots. The chairs were covered with pastel leather and looked new. It wasn’t the chairs in the Royal Crescent that took a pounding. It even smelled like the sort of a place it was.

  The clerk was young and glib. He looked at Cade’s white captain’s cap and water-stained white shirt and pants and white top-siders, then at Mimi’s ample bosom. “Yes, sir, captain. A room with a bath, I presume? Say something around eight dollars?”

  Mimi blushed. “No. You have a misunderstanding. We do not weesh for a room. I am looking for my ‘usban’.”

  The clerk’s eyes turned opaque. “Oh.”

  “A Mister Jeem Moran. He comes here from Bay Parish.”

  “Oh, yes,” the clerk said. “Mr. James Moran.”

  Mimi steadied her trembling fingers by holding on to the counter. “Would you be so kin’ as to call heem and tell heem that Mimi is here.”

  The clerk was mildly amused. “I’m afraid that would be a little difficult, miss.”

  Mimi looked at the house phone on the counter. “Why would it be dificil?”

  “Because Mr. Moran isn’t stopping with us any more. He checked out a little better than two weeks ago.”

  She gasped. “He moved to some other hotel? Here in New Orleans?”

  “That I wouldn’t know, lady. Mr. Moran didn’t take me into his confidence. After all, I’m only the clerk.”

  Mimi pounded on the counter with her small fists. “But you must know where he is. I have come all the way from Caracas.”

  The clerk wasn’t impressed. “Look, lady. I don’t care if you came all the way from St. Louis. I don’t know where the guy is. Like I said. He moved out a little better than two weeks ago and he didn’t leave a forwarding address.” The clerk pointed to an envelope-choked slot in the key rack. “In fact, if you locate the guy, I’d appreciate it very much if you’d tell him to come pick up his mail.”

  Cade leaned an elbow on the counter. “How about the blonde in the adjoining room? Did she check out, too?”

  Caught off balance, the clerk asked, “You mean Mrs. Cain? Yeah. She and Moran — ” The clerk realized he had been trapped and stopped talking.

  Mimi transferred her anger to Cade. “You knew! You knew all the time my Jeem was weeth some other woman, some she no-good. Who ees thees Mrs. Cain?”

  It was an effort for Cade to speak. “My wife. That is, my former wife,” he told Mimi.

  8 Business Partners

  The barman in the cocktail lounge off the foyer refused to go on record. “Five feet four. One hundred and fifteen pounds. Blonde. Gray eyes. Very pretty. The right side of thirty.” He shook his head. “No, I really couldn’t say, mister. They come and go. Believe me. Good-looking blondes are thirteen to the case in here.” He picked up the glass he’d been polishing and looked at Mimi. “So are big six-footers with black hair. If they drank in here, I undoubtedly seen them. But their descriptions don’t ring no bell.”

  Mimi gnawed at her lower lip.

  Cade sipped at the rum in his glass and realized that he was hungry, that he hadn’t eaten since morning. “You serve food?”

  The barman put the polished glass on the back bar. “The best food in town, not barring Antoine’s or Arnaud’s. But only in the booths, mister. The waitress will take your order.”

  Cade carried his double rum and Mimi’s untouched brandy to one of the booths. Her eyes slitted and sullen, Mimi followed him. “You knew.”

  Cade waited for her to sit down. “I don’t know now. But I was told that they left Bay Parish together, after a fight between Moran and Tocko.”

  “Over your wife?”

  “My former wife.”

  “Your former wife then.”

  “So I was told.”

  “Tocko is the fat man who suggested the postmistress could give me Jeem’s address?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The man who was running up the levee when you put out into the river?”

  “That was Tocko.”

  “Maybe he’d just learned Jeem’s new address. Why didn’t you wait for heem?”

  “With a dead man on my boat?”

  “Even so.”

  “Then, let’s put it this way. Did you notice a man with Tocko?”

  “Yes. A man in uniform.”

  “The uniform of the U.S. Immigration Service.”

  Mimi sucked in her breath and held it for a long time. Then she exhaled slowly. “Oh, I see. Again, I have to thank you.”

  Cade debated telling her the obvious reason for Tocko turning informer and decided not to. The girl was keyed to the point of breaking. She had enough to worry her as it was. He said, “After all, a girl as pretty as you are can’t suddenly materialize in a town as small as Bay Parish, especially a point of entry into the country, without having someone wonder where she came from.”

  Her eyes still sullen, her lower lip thrust out in a pout, Mimi sat toying with her glass. Cade was glad when a bored waitress spread menus in front of them. What happened from here on he didn’t know, but that could wait until they had eaten.

  The menu was in French. He ordered for both of them, one of the meals of which he had dreamed during his two-year diet of fish heads and rice: Pompano en Papillote. Poulet Rochambeau. Fond d’Artichaut. Glacé a la Vanille, Café au Lait.

  When the waitress had gone, Mimi asked, “What are we eating, Cade?”

  Cade told her. “That’s easy … Fish baked in paper. Chicken. A salad. Ice cream and coffee.”

  Neither of them spoke again, both preoccupied with their own thoughts. The food, when it came, was good. It wasn’t as good as Antoine’s or Arnaud’s or Mamma Salvatore’s, for that matter, but it was the first meal of it
s kind that Cade had eaten in years and he enjoyed it.

  Mimi’s anger and disappointment seemed to spice her appetite. As the various courses were served, she ate everything on her plate with exquisite manners and Latin enthusiasm. Cade enjoyed watching her eat. Everything Mimi did, she did well. He thought of her as he’d seen her lying nude on the bunk of the forecabin and shook his head.

  “No man in his right mind.”

  Mimi licked the last of the Glacé a la Vanille from her spoon. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Just thinking out loud,” Cade said.

  He ordered a package of Turkish cigarettes and two liqueurs to finish off the meal. It had been a good meal. He’d enjoyed it.

  Mimi sipped at her anisette. “It was nice, ver’ nice. Gracias.”

  Cade lighted a cigarette for her. He wished he knew what to do with Mimi. He couldn’t leave her alone in New Orleans any more than he could have left her alone in Bay Parish. Mimi was a problem. Cade leaned his forearms on the table. “Look, little honey.”

  “Sí?”

  “Now we’ve failed to locate Moran how about you changing your mind and going back to Caracas?”

  Mimi blew smoke through her nose. “No.”

  “But Moran isn’t registered here. You heard the clerk. He checked out two weeks ago.”

  “There is more than one hotel in New Orleans. I will go from one to the other.”

  “But we don’t even know they are still in New Orleans.”

  “They?”

  “You heard that, too. Seemingly, Janice cheeked out with him. At least, at the same time.”

  Mimi laid her hand on his. “Thees girl to whom you were married.”

  “What about her?”

  “You love her?”

  “At one time I thought I did.”

  “How long have you been divorced?”

  “According to the date on the final decree, about as long as since you’ve seen Moran.”