Big Easy Bonanza

the next Tubby Dubonnet book, CITY OF BEADS, go to www.booksBnimble.com

Other Books by Tony Dunbar
    Our Land Too, Pantheon Books (New York, 1971); Vintage Books (New York, 1972)
    Hard Traveling: Migrant Farm Workers in America, Ballinger (Cambridge, 1976; Co-Authored with Linda Kravitz)
    Against the Grain, University Press of Virginia (Charlottesville, 1981)
    Delta Time, A Journey through Mississippi, Pantheon Books (New York 1990)
    Where We Stand, Voices of Southern Dissent (Editor), NewSouth Books (Montgomery 2004), Foreword by President Jimmy Carter
    American Crisis, Southern Solutions: From Where We Stand, Promise and Peril (Editor), NewSouth Books (Montgomery 2008), Foreword by Ray Marshall



 
    Crooked Man: A Tubby Dubonnet Mystery
    Copyright 1994 by Tony Dunbar
    Cover by Kit Wohl
    eBook ISBN 9781617507236
    www.booksbnimble.com
    Originally published by:
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
    All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
    First booksBnimble Publishing electronic publication: April 2012
    This book is fiction. All of the characters and settings are purely imaginary. There is no Tubby Dubonnet or Sheriff Mulé, and the real New Orleans is different from their make-believe city.
    Digital editions by eBooks by Barb for booknook.biz

PREFACE
    The pain that said he was drinking too much started creeping up behind Tubby’s ears. Raisin Partlow, his drinking buddy, had given up trying to make conversation with him and was puffing on a cigarette in the exaggerated way that irregular smokers do. The dusty, barely lit tavern was thinning out, leaving just a few whiskered pool players chalking up a last game and a pair of busty girls sharing confidences with the even heftier dame behind the bar.
    “Never screw a client and never lie to the judge,” Tubby said abruptly.
    It took Raisin a second to break through to the surface.
    “What’s that?” he asked.
    “That’s all of the so-called legal ethics that make sense to me. The rest of it is just so many little rules you can twist around to suit whatever you want to do.”
    “Well, you know, Tubby, I lied to a judge just last week.” Raisin expelled a wobbly smoke ring and smiled in satisfaction. “Old ‘Fuzzy’ Baer appointed me to represent the fool who shot a fourteen-year-old girl, after he raped her and her mother. He asks me, ‘Mr. Partlow, can you put aside your personal feelings and represent this man to the best of your goddamn abilities?’”
    The bartender broke off her conversation to look in their direction. Tubby raised his fingers an inch off the scarred oak surface, so cool to the touch, and shook his head, no. The familiar pain of too much whiskey and too much sweet Coca-Cola had already spread over to the top of his skull.
    “What did you tell him?”
    “I told him, ‘Yes, Your Honor. The man deserves his day in court.’ I should have told him, ‘Fuck no, Judge. I hate this guy. Take him away where I don’t have to look at him. Christ, sir, I’ll be embarrassed to admit to my godchildren that I was even in the same room with the guy.’ But I knew that was the wrong answer to the question.”
    “You should have told him the truth,” Tubby said.
    “Like what?”
    “You should have said, ‘Heck no, Judge. But I’ll do a better job than anybody else you’re likely to get.”
    Raisin shrugged and waved at the bartender. Tubby slid off his stool and grabbed the bar for support.
    “I’m out of here,” he said.
    Raisin looked concerned about being left alone.
    “Let me buy you one more,” he said. “The night is still young.”
    “No, I’m good. Tomorrow is a school day.” Tubby let go of the bar to test his footing. So far, so good. He laid two dollar bills on his wet napkin and waved goodbye to the barmaid. He patted Raisin on the back and suddenly found himself on the sidewalk outside. A DIXIE BEER sign blinked and crickets sang in the weeds sprouting from the curb. All the houses were closed up tight, and the only people around were a couple of shadowy heads in a parked car down the street. Tubby located his own car, but had a hard time getting the key into the door lock. His head was pounding and he bent over to rest it on the smooth metal roof, misted with dew, until the night air restored his vision.
    He conceded to