Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 02 - City of Beads by Tony Dunbar Page B

explained things. Marcos was a boyfriend. He was a permanent student, on sabbatical from his family estates in Mexico, with an interest in biology. He was good-looking, well off, always polite, spoke English beautifully, and Tubby was running out of reasons not to approve of him.
    “The main objectives,” Debbie continued, “are to get the river cleaned up and to catch the major polluters.”
    “That’s kind of hard,” Tubby said, “since we are at the tail end of a two-thousand-mile open drainage ditch that starts in garden spots like Pittsburgh and the copper mines of Butte, Montana. And along whose shores any ship or barge that wants to can just flush its hold and send a highly toxic surge toward New Orleans. How are you going to police that?”
    “You have to try, don’t you? A lot of that chemical waste comes from right here, so we’re responsible. For goodness sakes, we drink that stuff.”
    Shocking, but true. Over the levee at Oak Street, there they were. Big pipes sucking in the brown muck of the river, happy with fish and swirling with an occasional rainbow, all pumped into the treatment plant. There it was given a rest, laced with chlorine, treated to sunshine, and sent out to fertilize the populace. Those who could afford it drank bottled water from some less urban aquifer up north, or drank wine.
    “It’s a big problem, to be sure,” Tubby hemmed.
    “Couldn’t you help, Daddy? I know you’re busy, but I bet you could make a big difference.”
    Actually he was not very busy. If he didn’t get motivated he was going to find himself without any clients.
    “What do I have to do?” he asked.
    “Just be a lawyer. I’ll tell Twink Beckman. He’s the president. I don’t know the details of the case since I just joined the group. I’ve only been to one meeting actually, and I heard them say they needed lawyers. I’m sure he’ll call you soon.”
    “I’m sure he will, too,” Tubby said. “Are you finished?”
    “Yes. It’s time I was getting back to my apartment. I have to study.”
    “No dessert?” he asked mournfully.
    “Oh no, I couldn’t. But I’ll sit here if you’d like to have some.”
    “No, I guess not.” Tubby patted his stomach virtuously.
    He paid up and drove Debbie back to her new apartment on Hampson Street, the one she shared with two other girls.
    “Thanks a lot for dinner, Daddy,” she said when she got out. “And thanks for offering to help save the river. And, oh, I’m so sorry about Mr. Aucoin.” She shuddered and was gone. He watched her get inside the door, then drove away cautiously, the street made narrower by all the students’ Jeeps and Japanese cars parked along both grassy curbs.
    The mystery of Potter Aucoin’s death took an interesting twist the next morning. Kathy Jeansonne, the newspaper reporter, called.
    “You’re a real butt,” she said, by way of hello.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Real cute, ditching me at the morgue.”
    “You writers always talk that way?”
    “I watched two more stiffs get wheeled in before I figured out the Aucoins weren’t coming back.”
    “You’ll probably get some good stories out of it.”
    “Sure, watch for my byline.”
    She asked Tubby if he knew anything about the Aucoin drug connection. He wanted to know what she was talking about.
    “Did you know the police found a package containing more than a quarter-pound of cocaine in his office?”
    “No.” Tubby couldn’t believe it.
    “That’s right. They’re keeping it, a secret, but not from me. So how do you think this figures into the murder?”
    “I don’t know. It’s news to me. If Potter was shipping drugs I’d be shocked.”
    “And wild-eyed, no doubt,” she said, unable to resist a dig.
    “Yeah, well, thanks for calling me.”
    After she hung up, he conceded that it might be true, considering what he knew about Potter’s past. Maybe you never could really give up cocaine once you started. Maybe the lure of big money had just