‘J’,” I said. “The letter ‘J.’ I was named J-A-G-D after my German great-grandfather, but no one can pronounce it, so I just call myself ‘J’.”
He decided to ignore that. “You’re staying at the Hotel Maria Theresa?”
“I haven’t stayed there yet, but I’m registered there.”
“Just so we know where to find you. Better plan on sticking around for awhile.”
“I’ll be here a lot longer than that,” I promised.
Tosche and I trudged back to his jeep. Fortunately it had stopped raining.
“This pretty much nails down the rumor about DeVarnay being seen down here, doesn’t it?” Tosche asked as we drove off.
“The police certainly will take it that way,” I said. “To me, it’s just one more damned complication. The fact that a man’s suitcase is there doesn’t automatically prove he arrived with it. It would help to know what was found in the cabon in the way of fingerprints, but I’ll get that eventually. If DeVarnay left them all over the place, that, of course, settles it. If not, there are other possibilities, and all of them will have to be looked into. The most urgent problem right now is to find out what could have taken a millionaire antique dealer down to Pointe Neuve in the first place. According to his personal history, it wasn’t hunting or fishing, and from what I saw of Old Jake and his cabon, it couldn’t have been business.” I thought for a moment. “I’ll have to talk to a customs officer.”
“You mean—he could have been smuggling something?”
“It’s a possibility. I don’t know enough about the sources of antiques to know whether there would be any profit in smuggling them. Or in smuggling something else, such as drugs, under the guise of importing antiques. I’ll have to ask about it. A customs officer is the logical place to start.”
“You’d want a special agent,” Tosche said. “My brother knows one.”
“A special customs agent?”
“Yeah. Dick—that’s my brother—sometimes comes up with tips for him.”
“What’s your brother’s business?” I asked.
“That’s hard to say. Mostly he buys and sells. He knows where and how to dispose of things. You show him something, he knows who might be interested. He sells some of the stuff himself in the flea market at the New Orleans French Market.”
“Can he make a living that way?”
“He seems to. He isn’t getting rich, but he gets along all right, and he enjoys what he’s doing. If you have any investigating you want done in the French Quarter, he knows it inside out. He can arrange for someone else to look after his tables at the market when he’s busy with other things, and it’d give him something different to do. My brother gets bored easily. Until he started this buying and selling kick, he never held a job long.”
“If he’s available, I’m sure I can use him,” I said. “Just for a start, I’d like to meet this special customs agent as soon as possible. If DeVarnay has stuck his foot in something, I want to know about it.”
“I’ll call him now,” Tosche said.
We stopped at a gasoline station, and he called his brother. When he came back to his jeep, he announced, “He’ll give his friend a call and see if he’s available tonight. Either way, he’ll be waiting for us in your hotel lobby.”
Neither of us had much to say for the remainder of the ride. Eventually the lights of New Orleans appeared on the horizon, and we crossed the Greater New Orleans Bridge and plunged into them.
The streets of the New Orleans French Quarter are not the world’s best-lit thoroughfares. Streetlights are infrequent and sometimes oddly placed—they may be located some distance from intersections where one would expect to find them. The French Quarter’s numerous galleries, or balconies, further complicate the lighting. If the lamps were located at the height common for them in most cities, French Quarter sidewalks would be deeply shadowed by the galleries. Perhaps this is the reason the lights are placed lower than usual, but that further reduces their effectiveness.
The principle streets are well-lit despite this because each business establishment lights its own store front and the adjacent sidewalk with floodlights attached beneath the building’s second floor gallery. On side streets, however, such as the one where the Hotel Maria Theresa was located, gloom may prevail.
Although the hotel was small and family operated, its security was commendable. The lobby’s outside door was kept locked at all times. One rang the bell; the duty clerk pressed a button that sounded a buzzer and released the lock. Then he checked to see who was entering. We passed the test and left the dim street for a small, warmly lit lobby, where we found Tosche’s brother, Dick, waiting for us. If it hadn’t been for Dick’s height and sturdy build, he would have looked like a high school kid. His blue eyes, slow grin, and rugged good looks echoed those of his brother. The only clashing note was produced by his long hair, which made him look like an exceptionally robust hippy. He gave his brother an affectionate hug, and then he very politely shook hands with me.
“He’ll tell you all about it,” Charlie told him. “I’ve got to run.”
They exchanged hugs again, Charlie turned at the door, gave us a wave, and disappeared into the gloom outside. I hadn’t offered to pay him. He had made his deal with Raina, and I had no idea what it was, so I left the obligation for her to settle.
In that casual fashion, I found I had switched guides. Dick said, “The customs agent will be waiting for us in a bar near here.”
“Does the bar serve food?” I asked. Since the skimpy airline breakfast, I’d had only the sandwich in the Pointe Neuve café and the three stolen bottles of Blackened Voodoo Lager Beer I consumed while I waited for the deputies.
He said of course.
“What about jambalaya?” I asked.
He thought jambalaya would be straining the bar’s resources at that time of night, but probably it could manage almost any kind of Po-Boy sandwich I could think of.
“Good,” I said. “I’m hungry enough to take on a live alligator, but I may never be able to face jambalaya again.”
The thought of food made me feel immensely better. I asked for my key at the desk, discovered that neither Raina Lambert nor anyone else had left a message for me, and invited Dick Tosche up to my room while I changed.
I’d had adventures enough for one day. All I wanted was a bite to eat, a quiet talk with the special customs agent, and then a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, Fate had my future programmed differently.
As I mentioned earlier, my room was on the second floor with a gallery overlooking the hotel’s charming courtyard. Because I have lived in hotel and motel rooms much of my adult life, I know all the quirks there are concerning locks and doors, and when I left my luggage that morning, I had found out which sort I had to contend with at the Hotel Marie Theresa. As a result, I unlocked the door and opened it in one smooth movement, at the same time motioning with my head for Dick Tosche to enter first.
He did—at a run. He tore into the room
