Free 5 Crime Czar by Tony Dunbar Page B

of Krugerrands, diamonds, and Rolex watches that LaRue and his men had stolen from the safe-deposit vault at First Alluvial Bank. More power to her.
    “It’s not my business, Tubby, but why don’t you just turn LaRue over to the police?”
    “How am I gonna turn him in? You don’t even know where he is. But even if you did, most of the witnesses against him are dead or way out of state. I’m sure he has a convincing alibi, and the people he works for are powerful enough to manipulate the police and the court system.” Truth was, the police were tired of hearing Tubby’s theories about a crime czar.
    “That’s a hypothesis?” Flowers asked.
    “That’s my working assumption,” Tubby said firmly. “There’s some sick, dangerous mind, some menacing force, at the core of our city. That’s what I want to root out, Flowers.”
    “Whew,” The detective gently lowered his pen. He wasn’t positive, but he thought Tubby was serious. “That’s a very tall order. Usually I just bust people for cheating on their wives.”
    Tubby studied Flowers’s face to see if he was being cute, but all he got back was that wide-eyed innocent stare.
    “Yeah, well you got to do something with your life,” the lawyer said. “You can’t just steal widows’ pensions and get criminals off all the time.”
    “So we’re going to do good?”
    “What’s wrong with that?” Tubby tried not to smile. “There may be a way to make some money out of it.”
    “You’re the boss. If you want to clean up the city, sounds like kicks to me.”
    “The first step is to find LaRue. Again.”
    “I’ll find him. He has stung my professional pride.”
    “God help him, then.”
    Flowers got up, and Tubby followed him out. He had a Judge Hughes campaign meeting to go to— another investment in good government.
    He would cash it in one day.

CHAPTER XVI
    The Al Hughes Campaign was excited to locate its cochairman. A meeting of the entire brain trust was scheduled for that very afternoon in the Fellowship Hall of Reverend Weems’s St. Pious the Third Church. Although frazzled by his emergence from the alcohol-based cocoon in which he had dwelled for the past month, Tubby promised to be there.
    The aging brick edifice of the St. Pious the Third Church rose high above the slate roofs of the shotgun houses on Orleans Avenue. Many of the residences needed paint. A stray dog investigated the dented trash cans on the sidewalk. But the church itself glowed with respectable prosperity.
    New black asphalt covered the parking lot, the lines freshly painted yellow. The first half-dozen spaces were reserved, according to neatly printed signs stuck in the flowery border, for the pastor, the associate pastor, the music director, the chairman of the deacon board, the church secretary, and the custodian. The lot was half full, and Tubby saw Deon trotting up the concrete steps to a solid metal door, open at the side of the building. He followed and entered the long pea-green hallway festooned with children’s drawings in time to see the campaign manager huddle with Reverend Weems beneath the framed portrait of a brown-skinned Jesus. He could not hear what they were saying, but his “Good morning, gentlemen,” caused the Reverend Weems to jump.
    “Mr. Dubonnet, so good to see you, so good to see you,” the reverend said warmly and clasped the lawyer’s hand in both of his own. He pumped heartily. “Go right into our meeting room. Have some coffee, and we’ll be underway shortly.”
    Judge Hughes, three men whom Tubby did not know, and Kathy Jeansonne, a newspaper reporter, were standing around a silver urn swapping jokes and grinning like crocodiles. He went to join them.
    There were hellos and introductions all around, and Tubby shook hands with Lewis Pardee of the political action group COMP, Amadee Nesterverne from DINERO, and Johnny Papaya “from the mayor’s office.”
    “And I know this lady. How are you, Kathy?”
    “Fine, Tubby.” The tall