Six Crime Stories Volume One

Who Unkilled Johnny Murder?-2

I’ll admit, when I first got the word about Johnny coming back, I thought it was a big rip of swamp gas. I never figured that a week later, I’d end up with the man himself poking a gun in the fat rolls on the back of my neck. Not quite the man himself, I should say.

The daily rain shower had just eased through the Quarter that Sunday afternoon, and I was at my spot on the corner of Royal and Toulouse, not far from the backend of St. Louis Cathedral. Just as the last cloud rolled away and the sun flowed down like fine white wine, I stepped out from under Father Sees-All the bone reader’s big beach umbrella and started playing “Blue Skies” on my tenor sax.

I nudged the sax case out on the wet sidewalk with my toe, and sure enough, within a minute, a young couple tossed a dollar bill into it. I knew more would follow; playing songs about blue skies and sunshine after a shower always brings in the tips.

I love Royal Street, because it’s one street down from the commotion on Bourbon, but it’s so quiet it might as well be a world away. Not only that, but the acoustics are perfect. A tenor sax in the right spot–-my spot-–can carry all up and down the street, straight from Canal to Esplanade, reeling the tourists right in as they stroll out of the antique and jewelry shops. I can make a couple hundred bucks in an afternoon if I’m lucky and the weather holds.

And if some squawked-up hoodoo mama like Queen Elizabitch doesn’t come bouncing up to bother me, which she did that very afternoon right smack in the middle of my blue skies number.

“He’s back,” said Elizabitch, all out of breath and not even having the courtesy to wait till I’d finished playing. “I saw him, Po’Boy. I just saw him.”

Irritated, I stopped in mid-chorus and lowered the sax from my lips. “Can’t you see I’m workin’ here?” I said, giving my sax case a kick on the pavement.

Queen Elizabitch--chosen name Queen Elizabeth, or Q. Liz for short--just kept rattling on like I couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say next. “Johnny Murder,” she said, flicking open the Chinese hand fan she always carried and waving it in front of her round, sweaty face. “I saw Johnny Murder down the French Market not fifteen minutes ago.”

Now, in addition to being just the pushiest human steamroller in the Quarter and a b***h in every sense of the word, Q. Liz was always claiming to see ghosts and the like, so I didn’t really take her seriously. She used to swear ol’ Jean Lafitte himself came by her apartment once a week to play dominoes, and sometimes he brought along Jelly Roll Morton.

“Well, ain’t that something?” I said seriously, shaking my head. “How long’s he been dead now? Five months?”

“Six,” said Q. Liz, tugging the dashiki away from her enormous breasts and fluttering the bodice to circulate some air down her front. “Now he’s back, an’ I guess it’s my fault.”

“How you figure?” said Father Sees-All, joining the conversation now that the latest customer had left his table.

Q. Liz looked off to the side. “I guess I resurrected him,” she said, a note of sheepishness worming its way into her voice.

“Dumb b***h,” said Father Sees-All with a chuckle. “How many times I told you, don’t go messin’ like that?”

“I heard he’s got some loot stashed,” said Q. Liz, fanning herself faster with annoyance. “Thought I’d call him out an’ ask where it is.”

“Or maybe,” said Father Sees-All, tipping the bowler forward on his floppy gray dreadlocks, “you wanted him to do some killin’ for you.”

“Too bad I already cursed you so damn much,” said Q. Liz with a sweaty glare. “I’d do it again if I thought it’d make any difference.”

Father Sees-All laughed loud, but I didn’t crack a smile. For one thing, I was burning daylight and losing business standing there listening to her nonsense. For another, I didn’t much care for having the subject of Johnny Murder brought up again.

He killed my girlfriend, Cherry, after all.

“So why you bringin’ this to me?” I said impatiently.

“I thought you better go get him,” said Q. Liz. “Seein’ as you’re the ‘Sociation’s constable an’ all.”

“You know I quit six months ago,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Nobody else wants the job,” said Q. Liz. “You can’t quit till we get a replacement.”

Angry, I bent down and dropped my sax into its case. For a loose group of iconoclastic street performers, the French Quarter Open Air Artists and Psychics Association was forcefully united on one issue: they refused to accept my resignation as constable. I swear, they kept me busier after I quit than they had before I gave up the job.

“Maybe you better get busy an’ find one,” I said, snapping my case shut and tucking it under my arm. “I’m outta the constable game.”

“Now you listen,” said Q. Liz, stepping forward and flapping her fan in my face. “After what happened to Cherry, you oughtta be beggin’ me to follow up on this. You owe her.”

Q. Liz stood so close to me, her breasts touched my chest and her breath fogged my specs. For a long moment, I held her gaze, staring daggers through her retinas and right into the back of her head.

“Don’t you ever say her name to me like that,” I said finally. “You want help, you call the cops from now on.”

Then, I brushed past her and marched off to find another spot where I could play my sax in peace.

“You best be careful, Po’Boy,” she hollered after me. “You wouldn’t wannna end up with a curse on that bald head a’ yours.”

I snorted and kept walking. I already had a curse on my head; what kind of voodoo woman was she, if she couldn’t see that?

About as good as I am at being an ex-constable, I guess, since she turned up dead twelve hours later. Even an ex-constable wouldn’t let that happen to a friend...which I guess is what she was after all, now that I think back on it.

* * * *

After Q. Liz was killed, no one had to ask me to get involved anymore. I put my sax playing on hold and stepped right back into my role as the ‘Sociation’s constable like I’d never given up the job. No one said a word about it, either, not even Yolanda the fire-eating flamenco dancer or Scabby Earl the scar-tist.

The cops were looking into it, they said, but that’s a hit-or-miss proposition. It’s always better when you’ve got one of your own looking out for you, and I won’t deny that’s what I was to Q. Liz.

Plus which, I thought maybe she’d’ve still been alive if I’d gotten past getting my feelings hurt and taken her seriously.

So I started asking questions around the ‘Sociation and hitting up my cop contacts for dirt...and things got complicated fast. Q. Liz surprised me from beyond the grave, which was something she was extra good at back before the grave, too.

It turned out she took my advice, after all. About finding a replacement for me, that is.

Sometime between talking to me and getting killed, she hired some whackjob over the Internet to come to New Orleans and do something about Johnny Murder.

And I do mean whackjob.