5 Crime Czar by Tony Dunbar Page A

explained. “She has a key and shows up when she’s least expected. Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll get you something to drink.”
    Christine pressed a button and put the phone down.
    “Hi, Dad,” she said.
    “Daisy, this is Christine. Christine, this is Daisy.” He smiled at them.
    Christine stood up politely, then they both sat down on the sofa.
    “Daisy is, uh,” Tubby began. “Well, why don’t you explain while I put on a pot of coffee?”
    Daisy pulled her blue sequined chop top down to cover more of her rib cage.
    “A country girl from Alabama,” she said tensely. “And I should be getting out of here.”
    “Nonsense,” Tubby said. “You need to clean up your face, and I need a drink.”
    The phone beeped. Christine dug it out of the crack in the cushions and handed it to her father with scolding eyes.
    “It’s probably for you,” she said prettily.
    He took it and headed for the bar.
    “Hello?” he said, spooning ice.
    “It’s me.” The voice belonged to Marguerite Patino, and his mind raced back to a hotel room in the French Quarter they had shared for one special rainy night.
    “Hi, Marguerite,” he said slowly, his ice cube dripping on the rug. He had neither seen nor heard from the woman since she had departed on the day Dan got shot. She had been on his mind though.
    “Am I interrupting anything? Is someone there?” she asked.
    “Well, no, not exactly.”
    Dead silence.
    “My dog is with me,” Tubby said, recovering quickly.
    “I didn’t know you had a dog.”
    “He’s visiting. Listen…”
    * * *
    Tubby woke up with the sunrise and tried to figure out how he had ended up all alone in his house.
    The first one to go had been Christine. She had made an early departure after failing to elicit much information from Daisy.
    “You look a little tired, Daddy. You ought to get some rest,” had been her parting shot.
    He had gotten Marguerite off the phone right away. She had sounded more than a little angry about the brush-off and had not called back even though she said she would.
    Then, over coffee and a couple of shots of bourbon, Daisy had told her story to Tubby.
    “So, what do you plan to do now?” he asked.
    “Same as before. Kill LaRue.” She shrugged.
    Tubby explained his theory that there was a central crime boss over LaRue and Courtney and all the crooks. He would prefer it if Daisy waited until he had entrapped that person before she offed anybody. Daisy, however, made no promises. Tubby suggested that, perhaps, in some way she could help bring the “big guy” to justice. Daisy said she would like that, but she had a program of her own. Stay in touch, she told him.
    And then she was gone, too. Tubby urged her to stay the night. She could have the spare room, but she was already out the door.
    “Where can I reach you?” he asked the miniskirted figure crossing his yard. She apparently had no qualms about prancing around like that in his fairly sedate neighborhood.
    “I’ll have to let you know,” she replied and kept moving until she was lost in the shadows of the oak trees that shrouded the broken sidewalk.
    So he woke up alone. It was shortly after the sun came up, when he padded barefoot downstairs to pour himself a good morning grapefruit juice, that he discovered he was not alone after all.
    “Sheez,” or something like it involuntarily escaped Tubby’s mouth when he walked into the kitchen and found Willie LaRue, cowboy hat on his head, sitting at the round table at the window, like a scene from a Greyhound station. LaRue was calmly building a stack of wooden matches.
    “You’re a late sleeper,” LaRue said. He demolished his miniature log cabin with the careless tap of his pinkie finger.
    “If I’d expected you to visit I would have gotten up lots earlier,” Tubby said, trying to get his breathing back under control and his bathrobe cord tied. Any residual sleepiness had fled.
    “I thought I might catch that whore here,” LaRue said. He