Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 06 - Extracurricular Murder by Kent Conwell Page A

Tacos. Could it be he was meeting another woman out there?
“Who were the guys you talked to?”
    She looked at me in surprise. “Forget it. I ain’t ready to lay
my head down to sleep.”
    With a wry grin, I shook my head. “Come on, Carrie.
Without some names, just how do you figure I can verify your
story? I’m not handing any cash over just on your word. For all
I know, this could be one big scam.”
    Her eyes flashed, but she remained silent. I could see the
wheels turning in her head, slowly, but still turning. The anger
gave way to indecision. “Look, Mr. Boudreaux, I could get bad
hurt if I tell you too much.”

    I sensed a quiet desperation in her tone. I pulled out my wallet and slid her some bills. “Here’s fifty. If I find out you’re
telling me the truth, there’s another one-fifty. Okay?”
    Her shoulders sagged. “I suppose I don’t have any choice.”
Her eyes lit. “Hey, I could send you to-” She grimaced. “No,
that won’t work.” She chewed on her lip in concentration. “Let
me think a minute. Hey, maybe if you go see … “
    She glanced past my shoulder and her heavily powdered face
contorted with a grimace. “Oh, jeez,” she muttered. She turned
her head and gagged. “Gross.”
    I glanced over my shoulder to see what had distracted her.
On the street beyond the front window, a slender black man, his
features accented in harsh relief by the garish neon lights, was
hunched over, puking his guts all over the sidewalk.
    I froze, every muscle rigid. I blinked in disbelief. When I
looked again, he had disappeared, but I would have sworn the
guy was Stewart Wayne Thibodeaux, my cousin.
    I jumped up, knocking my chair over.
    Carrie exclaimed, “What-”
    “I’ll be back,” I called over my shoulder.
    Borgia’s was jammed, the tables so close the backs of the
chairs touched. I shot a glance at the window. He had disappeared. Muttering hurried excuses, I forced my way through,
leaving a trail of acid-tongued women and cursing men behind.
    A hand reached out to grab me, but I threw it off and lurched
for the door, jerking it open and racing into the rain splattering
on the sidewalk and soaking my legs. Several dark figures staggered down the sidewalk ahead of me, heads pulled down into
their collars against the driving rain.
    “Stewart!” I raced to the first cluster of three.
    I grabbed the first one’s arm. “Stewart?” I cocked my head
to look into the man’s face. A stranger looked back.
    The second wino grabbed my arm. “Hey, buddy. How about
a buck for some coffee?” The third one looked at me hopefully, his thin, bearded face reminding me of the pictures I had seen of those poor Jews caught up in the Holocaust of World
War II.

    All three were strangers. Hurriedly I pressed a couple of dollars into someone’s grasping fingers and looked around frantically. The streets were empty.
    I grimaced. Could I have been mistaken? The rain sheeting
down the window distorted images like the House of Mirrors at
the carnival. Maybe I had imagined it. Still, I would have
sworn I had seen Stewart, but if I had, where in the blazes had
he disappeared?
    Ducking under a portico of a closed bar, I called his cell
number. All I got was voice mail, so I told him to call me. After
punching off, I glanced back up at Borgia’s. I’d finish with
Carrie as fast as I could and then swing by his place down on
Festival Beach Street.
    I headed back up the sidewalk, peering into darkened doorways, inside smoky bars. Nothing. At the corner, I made out
three or four silhouettes stepping from the penumbra of light
cast by the streetlamp and disappearing into the shadows of the
alley.
    “Stewart!” I yelled. “Wait!” I broke into a run, but by the
time I reached the alley, the wraith-like shadows had vanished
into the darkness.
    I stood in the middle of the circle cast by the mercury streetlamp and stared into the night. The rain fell in torrents. I called