I TRIED FOR FORTY-FIVE MINUTES to talk to a human at this super-conglomerate bank in the CDB about Teddy’s account. I held Teddy on the cell for most of the wait to get someone to release the information on the transfer. But after being shuffled around to, no lie, eight people, I was finally told by a vice-president returning from a very late lunch that this was now a police matter, and Teddy’s accounts were confidential, even to him.
The woman wore white makeup, making her almost look like a spooky clown with her dyed black hair, and her face cracked with the stress when she forced a smile on me. I just winked at her and pushed out onto Carondelet where I’d left Annie in the truck with the windows rolled down. I thought about letting her shit in their lobby but decided to take the higher road. Besides, even with all the account information in the world, I didn’t think I’d be able to decipher it. I’d need an accountant to work out the details.
Since it was a police matter and there was someone investigating, I knew I could get access to them through my old roommate at Tulane who was now a detective in homicide. I called Jay from the cell, got voice mail, and heard him give out his beeper number. I beeped him and five minutes later, as I was already headed down Canal toward Broad Street and police headquarters, he called back. A second afternoon shower hit my windshield and I turned on the wipers. Toward the end of Canal I could still see the sun shining.
“Detective Medeaux? I have information on the Fatty Arbuckle case of 1921.”
“Is that right?” he asked, a slight edge in his voice. “Oh yeah, I remember. Asphyxiation by farting.”
“I have some beans and rice that need to be questioned,” I said. My arm was hanging out the truck window and I had on sunglasses looking into the late-afternoon sun. It was almost four.
“You sure? I heard it was
“You ever work a homicide like that?”
“No, but when I was on patrol in the First District, I once saw a homeless dude humping a burrito.”
“Hey, it’s Nick.”
“No shit.”
“Listen, man. I need a big favor. You remember Teddy Paris?”
I told him the whole story in about thirty seconds. I asked him to make a call and put me in touch with whoever was in white-collar crime and was pushing the paper on the ALIAS con.
“Guy named Hiney.”
“Really.”
“Don’t make fun of him. He’s really sensitive about his name. Tries to pronounce it Hi-nay, like he’s fucking French or something.”
“What’s his deal?”
“He’s our Bunco guy, bra,” Jay said in his thick Irish Channel way. “Works all the hotel cons. Real pro, even if he is kind of a dick.”
“You’ll call?”
“When you want to come down?”
“I’ll be there in two minutes.”
“I’ll try,” he said. “If this Cash guy really wants Teddy bad, we can send someone over. Or why doesn’t he just hide out awhile?”
“Good questions,” I said. “But Teddy won’t have it. Says it’s all about rules he laid down.”
“That’s bullshit,” he said.
“Well, if something happens to Teddy, you won’t have to look far.”
I hung up. Five minutes later, I walked the steps to the gray concrete building down by the parish jail. The cell phone rang and Jay said to give my name to the officer at the front desk. “The Hiney is waiting for you.”
“Thought it was Hi-nay?”
“Fuck him. He’s an ass any way you say it.”
A FEW minutes later, Detective Hiney walked in – short dress sleeves and clipped black mustache – and asked me what I knew about these black shitbags in the Ninth Ward. I presumed he meant Teddy and Malcolm. Then the conversation with this guy somehow veered away from the theft of the $500,000 and into his theories on race. I drank a cold Barq’s root beer and watched his eye twitch.
He’d actually divided the blacks of New Orleans into different tribes, and according to him – as I was unaware he’d received a degree in sociology or history – most blacks were the same as they’d been in Africa.
I felt I’d wasted the drive over to Broad Street to his little cop office that he’d had decorated with Norman Rockwell prints and awards he’d received at law enforcement conventions.
“How do you know Medeaux?” he asked.
