Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 09 - The Crystal Skull Murders by Kent Conwell Page B

here?”
    I shrugged. “No idea, but he’s been around the last
few days” I glanced up and down the alley. “If you run
across Downtown or the others, pass word on”
    Spryo scratched his sunken chest, no doubt rearranging his colonies of lice. “Who is this dude?”

    “I’m not sure. Just don’t get nosy. If you see him, let
me know. Don’t get involved with him. He might be
dangerous.”
    Spryo’s eyes narrowed. “He the one who kilt Rosey?”
    I held my hands out to the side. “No idea. He might
have nothing to do with anything. I just want to talk to
him.”
    He nodded and began rubbing his belly slowly. “I’ll
run down the boys for you.” He narrowed his eyes as he
rolled his shoulders and dragged the tip of his tongue
over his dried and cracked lips with great lassitude.
    One thing I had to admit about those tenants of the
street, they had perfected the use of body language. At
the moment his eyes and face and sagging shoulders reflected intense exhaustion, ravenous hunger, and acute
thirst. With a chuckle, I handed him five bucks. “Here.
This will help you find them.”
    Suddenly, the lassitude, the hunger, the thirst vanished as Spryo grabbed the five and scurried down the
alley.
    Doreen chuckled. “That perked him up”
    “The magic healing power of money.” I glanced
around. “Now, let’s get back to the office”
    Just before we reached the end of the alley, the
squeal of tires and the roar of a powerful engine jerked
me around.
    Roaring toward us was the snarling grill of the same
Lincoln that had taken a swipe at me the day before. I
grabbed Doreen’s arm. “Run!”

    We darted around the corner of the building only
seconds before the Lincoln slammed into the corner,
shearing off a chunk of brick, bouncing over the curb,
ripping up a parking meter, and fishtailing into the alley
across the street.
    But not before I got his license number.

     

My luck was running true to form. When I ran the
license number through the DMV, I discovered it belonged to a 2003 Lexus that had reported the plates
stolen.
    I muttered a curse. “That’s twice that joker has tried
to get me,” I told Marty. “I might not be a Sherlock
Holmes, but I’m smart enough to figure there’s more
involved here than just a case of arson.”
    Marty pursed his lips and glanced at Doreen briefly.
Fat folds of a frown creased his forehead. “Look, Tony.
We’re not in the business of getting ourselves knocked
off. We leave that to the cops. I’ll bill Joe Sillery for
what we’ve done and refund the rest of his retainer.”
    Well aware of Marty’s penchant for money, I knew
this decision had been a tough one for him. And I’d be lying if I said at first it gave me sort of a warm feeling,
which began cooling when I realized his concern was
not for me, but his wife’s sister. His wife would never
let him have a moment’s piece if anything happened to
her little sister.

    “Forget that, Marty. Whoever torched the place killed
Rosey. I want to nail that slime.”
    “Rosey? But he was just a bum”
    Whatever warm feeling was left in my chest turned
to ice as my boss once again donned his tried-and-true
insensitive self. “He might have been a bum, but he
never hurt anybody. He didn’t deserve what he got.
Somebody’s going to pay”
    At that moment, my cell rang. It was Danny O’Banion. The information he provided eliminated Patsy Fusco
and Mossy Eisen.
    “Fusco had been interested, but last month, Jack Drapper, who headed up the South Side in San Antonio sort
of woke up dead one morning, and Fusco took over his
territory. Eisen ain’t interested. When Joe Vasco in New
Orleans heard Eisen had been asking questions, he suggested Eisen be satisfied with Atlanta” Danny chuckled.
“Eisen ain’t no genius, but he ain’t stupid either.”
    After hanging up, I shared the information with
Doreen who then reminded me we had still not interviewed Abe Romero.
    I