Lepeyere collected himself. “Here’s what,” he began. “Melvin and me have our respective spheres of influence in that he collects from certain businesses, and I collect from certain other businesses.”
“Your racket is protection,” Moran stated flatly.
“Whatever.” Johnny made a clown face. “We see that nobody has any problems with the City. It’s insurance, really. And well worth it, I believe, but the main thing is, we do not overlap.”
“ ’Cause that would make trouble.” Dubuisson added in his two cents.
Moran nodded. He understood paying protection.
“Right,” Johnny Lepeyere continued. His fat hands began to wave in the air to help him make his points. “The thing is this. Shoemaker’s Flower Shop over on Dauphine — she won’t pay either one of us.”
“This is America, isn’t it?” Moran asked. “She’s got a right to say no.”
Both men waited to see if he was serious, then laughed in unison.
“Let’s put it this way,” Dubuisson said. “She’ll pay, all right, but me and Johnny are having a disagreement over who gets her.”
“I know Oscar Shoemaker, the florist,” Moran interrupted. “What happened to him?”
“That’s just it,” Lepeyere explained. “He died.”
“I didn’t know,” Moran said, a hint of sadness in his voice. “Well, who was he paying?”
“Nobody, so far as I know.” Lepeyere appeared to be mystified. “I think he just slipped through the cracks.”
Moran looked at Dubuisson, who spread his hands flat.
“Beats me,” the big grafter admitted. “He could have been paying my dad, but Pop passed away last month at Hotel Dieu.”
“Anyhow, it’s got to be straightened out,” Lepeyere said, “so we come to you for advice.”
Max frowned at them both. “You guys don’t divide up your territory by blocks or something?”
“In a way, yes,” Lepeyere said uncertainly, “but Dauphine Street, where this shop is, is kind of in the middle. A lot of it is what’s tradition, you know.”
“So I should flip a coin?”
“If that’s what you say, Max,” Dubuisson said, squirming, “but that don’t seem fair. It really should be mine because I got nearly everybody on that side of the street. And there could be more to this. Maybe somebody new is trying to slip into our business.”
“And I say it should be mine because I got two, maybe three other flower shops in the Quarter,” Lepeyere said. “There’s common problems to think about. We’re trying to keep the peace here.” There was menace in his voice.
Moran stole a look at his watch. This was the time of day, before it got too hot, when he liked to tend to his herb garden on the roof.
“I’ll look into it,” he said abruptly.
Upon that promise the meeting adjourned, and the unelected councilmen took their leave.
After lunch, Moran took a walk and visited the shop. On entering he could see a pretty girl behind the counter, clean, kind of, just a little lipstick, with her blond hair pulled severely back. The smell of so many flowers in the confined space, almost as sweet as incense but fresher and far cooler, stopped him in his tracks. The club owner was a fan of fragrances.
“Can I help you?” the girl asked, glancing up. Her voice was as sweet as a finch. Smitten, Moran gave her a little wave.
She returned it without interrupting the work of her busy fingers, which were building an arrangement of variegated tulips and Queen Anne’s lace.
Moran regained his composure and made his way to the counter like a regular customer. He was more than six feet tall, and he had to duck to get under a hanging fern.
“Are you Ava Shoemaker?” He gave her some teeth. It was an engaging smile.
“Why, yes,” she said, eyeing him approvingly while she shook bits of greenery from her fingers. “Did I win the lottery?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid I didn’t bring you a prize.”
“So who are you? I hope you’re not selling a mutual fund.”
“No. Is that rodriguesiana?” he asked, indicating a mass of red and pink blooms surrounding a fountain bubbling in the corner.
“Sure is, but it’s not for sale, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t want to buy it. I’ve just never seen one so large. Hello. My name is Max Moran.” He offered his hand, and she took it. “I knew your father, Oscar.”
“Yes?” she said expectantly. She reclaimed her hand and gave him an inquiring look.
“Yeah, I knew him for a long time. You never heard of me?”
“Maronne?”
“No, Moran.” He was a little hurt. “Anyway, I want to talk seriously to you.” He looked around to verify that there was no one else in the shop. “Johnny Lepeyere and Melvin Dubuisson have both spoken to me about a problem, which is getting paid, you know what I mean?”
Her eyes narrowed and one hand slipped under the countertop. Her expression was suddenly unfriendly.
“You got a weapon down there?” he asked.
“Do you want to find out?”
“Not me. I’m not going to hurt you. Like I said, I knew your father.”
“Then you must know how he died?”
“No, I never heard.” Moran was embarrassed. He hadn’t really known Oscar all that well — just someone glad to make special bouquets for the Pie Pie Club at odd hours, just a man who had sent him a nice evergreen wreath, a respectful wreath, at Christmastime. “What happened to him?”
“They found him floating in the Mississippi River by Poland Avenue.”
“Oh. That’s a shame. He fell off a barge or what?”
“My father? He sold flowers. He was never anywhere near a barge in his life.” Her voice was rising, and her neck went from pale to red. “He didn’t even like the river, and he didn’t fall in. That’s what I told the police.”
“Ah,” Moran said, averting his eyes. He wished she would bring her hand back on top of the counter where he could see it.
“Somebody killed him.” She spat it out like she was accusing Max. Then she took a deep breath and put both hands back to work building her flower arrangement. “So what are you here to bother me about?” she asked.
“It’s a territorial question,” he began. “First, I must ask you, are you opposed to paying protection as a matter of principle?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “But I can’t pay for two. I can barely support myself as it is.” A very nice complexion, he thought, though she was way too young for him.
“Well, we need to sort this out. Who did your father make his arrangements with?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. I was going to school at Tulane when he died. I dropped out to save the store.”
“Did he leave any books or papers behind?”
“Sure, a whole filing cabinet full. I couldn’t make any sense out of them, so I just started over.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking a look at what he left. Would it be okay?”
“What’s all this to you?”
“I’m trying to settle the dispute between Melvin and Johnny without anybody getting out of line. Just keeping the peace.”
“You’re a judge?” Her look was sceptical.
“Not on a day-to-day basis. I run the Pie Pie Club. Sometimes people come to me for advice.”
“I know where your place is, but I’ve never been inside. Sure, if you want you can look at the papers. They’re in the cooler with the roses.”
“That’s a good place to store things,” Moran said. He had also been known to hide things of importance among his plants.
Max and Lana Heart were communing on the flat rooftop that crowned their club, leaning over the low brick wall and watching the evening lights of the French Quarter flicker on. They had a crow’s-nest view of the river, and could see a cruise ship slowly rounding the bend into the port of New Orleans. It was being guided fore and aft by red Bisso tugboats which were churning the water into great muddy waves. Lana extracted a rhinestone comb from her red hair to let it drop lazily around her neck. The evening breezes were warm and carried the scent of salt from the Gulf of Mexico. Throwing back her head to take a deep breath of it, Lana stretched her cobalt blue cocktail dress to the limit.