Free Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 01 - Galveston by Kent Conwell Page A

with Frank Cheshire. I was hoping you might know what he was doing at the wharf so late at night.”
    Morrison chewed on his lip in concentration, but I sensed that he was making a show for me. “I never really had much to do with Cheshire. I really have no idea what he was out there for.”
    I couldn’t blame him for being close-mouthed. He was playing a dangerous game with Sam Maranzano and Pete Abbandando, but he was also hammering nails in my coffin.  I placed my elbows on the snack bar and leaned forward. I spoke softly, almost casually. “Look, Ted. I … no, we know you worked with Cheshire; we know you contacted a fence by the name of Ho Lui in Philadelphia about some diamonds; your telephone number was found on Cheshire’s quick call list; and your number is listed more than once on the records from the phone company.”
    The last two assertions were blatant lies, but they worked.
    A crimson flush rose beneath the smooth tan on Morrison’s face. He sputtered over his reply. “How … But, I … ”
    I tossed in the fence’s address to nail down the validity of my assertions. “Ho Lui’s office in Philadelphia is on the corner of Market and Forty-sixth Streets, the Ninetieth Police District.” I paused, staring at him.
    He stared at me like a cornered animal, his eyes darting about, frantically searching for a way out. “No. No, you’re wrong about that. You’re way off base.” He chewed on his bottom lip, this time out of nervousness.
    It was at that very moment that I knew he was not a Morrison. His cousin, Janice, and I knew each other intimately, and I knew his Aunt Beatrice, the matriarch of Chalk Hills Distillery. I knew her well, not as well as Janice, but well.
    While I sometimes sneered at their money and social posturing, I had always admired their cool aplomb in the middle of crisis. Plop either of them on the stool across the snack bar from me and they would have greeted this same accusation with a steel backbone and a look of defiance in their eyes so cold as to bring about a new ice age.
    I shrugged. “Then if I’m off base, you won’t mind if I turn this information over to Abbandando and Maranzano.”
    His face paled. He swallowed hard. His hand trembled as he fumbled in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. “I … ah, I wish you wouldn’t,” he mumbled. “I … I think there’s some kind of misunderstanding here.”
    “Tell me about Cheshire then.”
    Hands shaking, he touched a match to his cigarette. His face sagged in resignation. “Not much to tell. I ran into him at Sandy’s.”
    “Sandy’s?”
    “Yeah.” He gestured over his shoulder with the cigarette. “A bar down on Post Office Street. Cheshire gave me five big ones and a round trip ticket to ask that Ho Lui guy about some diamonds. The Chink wasn’t interested. That’s it.”
    His story stunk worse than Virgil’s feet, but I went along with him.
    “And that’s the only time you had anything to do with him?”
    “Just that once.”
    “How did you come to meet at Sandy’s? I mean, did you go to him or did he look you up? Who contacted who?”
    I could see the wheels spinning in his head as he fabricated his story. He frowned, a little too dramatically.  “As I remember, I mentioned to the bartender I was running short on money. I asked him to keep an eye out for something.”
    I played along with him. “You don’t work with the law firm anymore?”
    The question surprised him. “Law firm? Oh, yeah, yeah, the law firm.” Morrison was a terrible liar. He had no idea what I was talking about.
    I grinned and gave him a break. “You remember. The one you were at when you discovered your cousin and your aunt.”
    His face lit in understanding. “Oh, yeah. The law firm. No. I don’t work for them any longer. I did some investigative work for them, but the contract ran out. I’m sort of between jobs you might say.” A smug grin curled his lips.
    “You and Cheshire must have done a lot of talking about the