Gator Aide by Jessica Speart Read Free Book Online Page B

of rumors float around here. Hell, I’ve already heard some about you.”
    I skipped the bait. “What about Marie Tuttle? Why hasn’t anyone been there to question her yet?”
    “You just covered that for me, Porter.” Santou gave a flat laugh. “Besides, she’s small potatoes. I haven’t got the time to waste.”
    I took the dig without bothering to respond. I wasn’t about to make any snappy comebacks that might prompt Santou to rescind his offer. Getting off the phone, I headed into Hickok’s office to inform him of my meeting with Marie, and let him know that my dance card was filled for the afternoon.
    He sniggered at my report on the events of the morning.
    “That gal’s one little charmer, ain’t she? Could make the snakes jump right out of their baskets and head back into the swamp quicker than a .45. You gotta watch that woman with both of your eyes.”
    The homilies were great, but I wanted to know fact from fiction. Sometimes down here it was hard to tell one from the other.
    “Is what she told me about Hillard Williams true?”
    Charlie took a sip of ginger ale that had the waft of bourbon to it—a vice he’d acquired soon after the discovery that he was minus a wife.
    “Well, that man never could learn to keep his pecker in his pants. In the old days, when he was raking it in poaching gators, he was one tough little dude. He’s a little bitty shit, too.”
    Getting information out of Hickok was like trying to pull on a strand of taffy.
    “Marie said he was the head of the Nazi movement down here. Is that right?”
    Hickok pulled out a nail clipper and began snapping at his fingernails, one after the other. I was beginning to understand why his wife had left home.
    “That’s what they say, Bronx.”
    “What do you say, Charlie?”
    “I say, every time you take a step, before you put your foot down, check exactly where it is you’re going.”
    The top of his thumbnail whizzed past me. I was getting nowhere fast.
    “Listen, Bronx. Politicians down here are as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, and Hillard is just about as crooked as they come. He’ll do or say whatever it takes to get himself elected, and he sure as hell seems to speak for a lot of the folks around here. He says he’s no Nazi. I ain’t gonna argue with him on that.”
    “I hear he used to have a partner from New York that Marie described as a hoodlum.”
    Charlie gave a slight laugh. “She was being charitable on that one.”
    “I don’t understand why the police haven’t checked out Marie Tuttle. They must know about Valerie’s relation to her.”
    Hickok popped open a box of Raisinets, his nod to nutrition. “It’s a bottom-drawer case, Bronx. Back-burner stuff for when their case load gets low, which is never. Ain’t nobody in N.O.P.D. gonna lose any shoe leather over a French Quarter hooker.”
    The answer irritated me. “Well, maybe I’ll be able to find out some more for myself. If it’s all right with you, I’m going to be meeting with Hillard Williams at four o’clock this afternoon.”
    For once Hickok was caught by surprise.
    “You want to fill me in on how you managed to pull that off?”
    I didn’t really, but there was no way around it. “The detective in charge of the Vaughn case invited me along. He wants us to pool information on this one.”
    Hickok didn’t bother to look up as he emptied the box of Raisinets into his mouth. “And just who is this detective you’re talking about?”
    “Jake Santou.”
    Hickok’s eyebrows shot up as he went back to clipping his nails. “I’ll give you some leeway on this one, Bronx, but just make sure it’s the case you’re working on. I know that Cajun coonass, and I can guess what he’s really interested in. And it ain’t your investigating skills, neither. You just remember, you’re still working for me, so I get your reports. That also means hauling your rear end back out in that bayou and working this case in between everything else.”
    I