Hurricane Willie and the Swingers
by Gary Clifton
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
Cellular Hell shrieked loud enough to be heard by the residents in Saint Rita’s cemetery a block down. I’d just hit the bed. There was a fair chance it could be a Higher Authority telling me to avoid boozing until 3:00 a.m. while losing four hundred bucks in a damned pool tournament.
“Kratzert,” I groaned. It didn’t take much effort to show genuine contrition.
“Mr. Kratzert, it’s Willie Romano. Hope I didn’t getcha outa bed?”
Who the hell is Willie what-ever-he’d-said? I swung upright. The clock read 5:05 a.m. I tossed out a buffer, just in case my initial Divine Suspicion had merit. “Naw, just layin’ here reading the Bible. Who’d you say this was?”
“Willie Romano, Mr. Kratzert... Hurricane Willie. Usta run Hurricane Willies in East Houston. Now I operate a marina by the same name, Hurricane Willie’s down in Goat Center on Trinity Bay. You remember, you and a pair of fine-lookin’ ladies rented a boat from me last summer and spent two nights in one o’ my cabins. Y’all went skinny-dippin’ in the bay.”
My brain cranked partially out of its five a.m. stupor. “Yeah, Willie, What’s up?” Willie was a hard character to forget. I remembered the visit to his marina very well. I didn’t catch any fish, but the ambiance had been satisfying.
“I’m in a hell of a fix, Mr. Kratzert.”
As he’d just said, Hurricane Willie Romano had operated a low-rent dive for years: Hurricane Willie’s, near the Houston ship channel turning basin. I’d handled a couple of murders in the place. Willie had blossomed into one fine snitch before he departed for the sunny Gulf Coast some years earlier. I’d taken my business to his marina in Goat Center the summer before, expecting and receiving a discount.
Houston PD Intelligence had Willie’s mugshot on a wall with so-called “connected” Mafia thugs from all over hell. Truth be told, if the mob was hard-up enough that they needed to enlist Willie, they were essentially screwed. He’d drifted into Houston from somewhere north of Lake Pontchartrain, the origin of many New Orleans mob guys, but no way Willie could even spell “mob.”
“How’d you find me, Willie?”
“Retired Houston PD Sergeant put his rig in at my boat ramp couple weeks past. I asked him if he knew ya. He tol’ me you’d took one to the leg and they’d medically retired you. He said you was in the private eye bidness. He gimme your card. Thank God I stuck it in my wallet. I’m in up to my ass down here.”
“Where and why?”
“Man, I’m locked up in jail by the local po-lice over here in Daylight, down from Port Arthur. Me’n Harriett had put up for a little R and R at a marina and puke joint south of Daylight on Smith Point called Blue Mama Marina.”
“How deep, Willie?” Daylight, Texas, slouched in the swamps between Beaumont and the Gulf of Mexico at the far southeast corner of Texas in an area called the Golden Triangle. Known for poverty, crime, bad-ass inhabitants, the odor remaining from what once had been a chokepoint for voracious KKK activity was rank twenty miles away.
The town name, “Daylight” was a blatant scar of a town originally named a hundred and fifty years before to warn blacks and anyone else lacking lily-white skin not to be caught in town after the sun went down. And damnation, Willie was a man wrapped in very dark, possibly part African-American skin. The Klan-clown paraphernalia was now all hidden in closets and the like, but the racial hatred was alive and well. His needing help was an understatement.
“Found two nekked dead folks in my boat last night jes’ before midnight, damn near floatin’ in blood. Mr. Kratzert, you recall I got a little record but, man, I ain’t got no idea about no bodies They got me charged with first-degree murder.”
“You know who the vics are, Willy?”
“Yeah, they been stayin’ in cabin number one of the Blue Mama Marina here at Smith Point on Sabine Lake. I was in number two. Married couple from Houston got kilt. Damned nice folks. Butcher’s knife a foot long stickin’ outa the lady’s chest.”
“Know their names?” He did, and I switched on a lamp to scribble the info.
“I’ll pay you whatever you charge.”
“Seventy an hour, Willie, a thousand up front. But it sounds to me you need a lawyer, not me.”
“No, sir, I’m needin’ you. Harriet has plenty of cash and she ain’t arrested. Can you come quick?”
If Harriet had cash, she sure didn’t earn it cashiering at Jiffy Mart. “It’s probably the big part of two hours, Willie, but I’m on the way.”
* * *
Willie hadn’t said it, but he’d play hell in getting any sort of lawyer at my prices, and certainly not one willing to drop whatever they were doing and drive down to the coast, chancing that Willie didn’t have the cash. And, unlike a lawyer, I wasn’t about to ask Willie why he happened to be so close to Daylight. The answer was probably smuggling something, which would be left unasked for the time being.
For Willie to reach Sabine Lake by boat, he’d have needed to put in at his place at Goat Center on the east side of Trinity Bay, thread his way out into the Gulf at Bolivar Peninsula, hug the coast eastward and turn into the Sabine Pass and into Lake Sabine. The Texas-Louisiana border ran through the center of both. The trip was probably forty miles, some in rough water.
From my place in Houston, the trip was actually farther, but I wasn’t paddling a boat.
I gave the toothbrush a quick try and found a clean shirt. In minutes, I was taking turns at a large 7-11 caffeinated and a dash-powered razor while pushing my F-150 through the still light morning traffic east on Interstate 10.
Rose, my former secretary from Houston PD Homicide always went in early to beat traffic. I called and asked her to run the names of the two victims Willie had given me, Jason and Michelle Jenkins. As usual, she grunted that I was no longer a Houston cop, then promised the info promptly. We were kissin’ close.
As I exited I-10 onto Texas 73, she called me back. The victims, Jason and Michelle Jenkins, were a childless married couple, both employed by a downtown Houston insurance firm.
“Dave, the husband, Jason has two arrests for possession, but get a load of this crap: their car was stolen while they were attending a swingers’ party in West Houston several weeks ago. Responding officers noted several occupants of the house from where the complaint was reported were standing around naked.
“The occupant of the house, guy named Morgenthau, got physical with the responding officers and got himself arrested for disorderly conduct. Speaking of swingers, Kratzert, this will earn me a nocturnal visit from your big carcass.”
“Yes, ma’am. Hey, Rose, who is this Morgenthau?”
“Damned if I know. I’ll dig some more.”
Barging into a viper pit like Daylight and trying to impersonate an officer of the law wasn’t going to work. I need help from the real police. I dialed Texas Ranger Don Bell, stationed in Beaumont. “Bell, you toad, do I have to remind that you owe me your useless life?”
Several years before, in a dusty Fifth Ward Houston junkyard, I’d managed to deflect the aim of a dirtbag intent on blowing off one or both of our heads. The slug had grazed Bell’s skull, an often very defining moment in a man’s life. Bell, although a man who might have harbored a few flaws, ingratitude was not in the mix.
“Kratzert?”
I explained the circumstances.
“And I’m gonna do what?”
“They have an old snitch of mine locked up for murder. Seems they found a couple of bodies in his boat parked at a marina down at Smith Point, south of Daylight. I’m about to brace Daylight’s finest. It would call in a favor to have a real cop show up.”
“Daylight. A murder down there is my jurisdiction. They shoulda already called. Probably busy stealing the victim’s property. I’ll be at police headquarters in forty minutes. Don’t touch any plumbing fixtures unless you’re inoculated against warts, vampire bites, and bubonic plague.”
I worked through Port Arthur’s version of morning rush traffic and turned south on Texas 87. A real hurricane, Ike, had devastated the area in ’08, but people had rebuilt like ants, creating the modern Early Shabby motif of monstrosities of architectural dysfunction that made up Daylight.
The desultory accumulation of low-rent dives, each bearing a sign claiming marina or barroom tavern status, hugged the waterline. Permanent residents were sprinkled about in houses built on stilts in a fervent disregard for the next hurricane, which would blow them several miles inland. The early morning August swelter was just ginning up the daily stench of rotten fish, rotten buildings, and even rottener people.
The road was narrow, had no shoulders, and was flanked on each side by water filled, green fungal slime covered ditches. If a vehicle slid off in the right spot, I had a vision of that slime parting, then re-forming, and the vehicle lost in the bottom. Running a drag line along those ditches might turn up some unusual stuff.
* * *
I drove around the dingy surroundings for fifteen minutes before Bell’s Dodge roared up. He stepped out, far too clean for the surroundings in his Texas Ranger white Stetson atop his six-foot-four frame. We shook hands. The Sig Sauer .40-caliber pistol strapped to his side was as clean as he was.
“You’re walking better than last time I saw you.” He gave me an up and down. His handsome blond ruggedness and movie-star looks were deceptive. Ol’ Bell was one tough, smart customer when circumstances demanded.
“Limp’s gone. No more pain meds. Damn near good as new,” I lied.
“Can you make ends meet in the PI bidness?”
“Some days. And I get a half-pay pension.”
“Dave, you do recall the Chief down here?”
“Hadn’t asked. Expected the worst.”
“Spot on, dude. It’s ol’ Fats Smith, your former co-worker. Got fired from Houston Vice couple years ago for copping freebies or a cut of the take from whores in the Third Ward.” He grinned. “You carryin’?”
I raised my loose shirttail, showing the S&W .38 in my waistband. “Barely, and yeah, I remember the mope.”
Chester “Fats” Smith had avoided prosecution only because two hookers had ended up at the bottom of the ship channel after trying to swim across with cement blocks wired to their feet. And I’d worked the case. No conviction meant he could land another job — not much of one — but as a cop in crap city. Reunion time.
“How many officers do they have down here, Don?”
He shrugged. “Three, maybe four. Hard to find many ex-cons and pedophiles to move into a swamp. Any of them show up, I’ll ask them to take a seat and wait.” A battered white Ford with a red light tossed on the dash was a clue we’d found the right place. The old car was unmarked except for remnants of the words “and Serv” legible on the driver’s side rear quarter panel. The rest of the decal had been devoured by salty humidity.
The morning heat was already past ninety. The humidity was competing for a similar number. The smell was mildew and dead fish; nature’s garden spot had definitely not settled here.
* * *
A graying female in a graying uniform at a once gray, now beat to hell lobby counter managed, “Y’all cain’t—” as Bell and I walked around the counter.
A gray uniformed Chester was halfway to his feet behind a cluttered desk in what had to be the quickest move of his lifetime. I wasn’t sure if he meant to run, faint, or go for the long-barreled revolver at his ample waist. His facial countenance was incredibly similar to a giant monitor lizard, but dumber. A one-foot diameter perspiration circle decorated the area below the armpits in his gray uniform. I figured he’d listened to Willie’s phone call to me.
“Keep your seat, Chester,” I said. His yellow eyes radiated with hate, reptile-like, as he settled back.
“You a bit off yer grease down here, ain’tcha, Kratzert? Thought somebody let the air outa you finally.”
“Bullet bounced off, Chester.”
“Too damned bad.”
I pointed my chin. “You remember Don Bell, Texas Ranger.”
He ignored Bell. “Kratzert, we got yer dago black-assed buddy by the short rows. Next stop, death row up to Huntsville.”
I would have wagered he couldn’t spell Huntsville. He certainly couldn’t tell an African-American from a South Louisiana Cajun.
“Wanna see your evidence, Chester. Photos, the crime scene, witness statements.”
“You ain’t no damned po-lice, Kratzert,” he snarled through fat jowls. Beads of liquid obesity sweat appeared on his upper lip.
I nodded at Bell to close the door. It was a chance to perform a public service I had been denied up in Houston. At only one step around the desk, I didn’t get a real good grip, and my bad leg was some hindrance, but Chester landed, like a great wounded water buffalo in a corner, shattering the sheetrock just above the baseboard. It appeared he got the message: I didn’t much like the man.
From the heap, he tried to snatch at the pistol, but the angle of his gun arm, pinned behind him, saved his life.
Bell stepped around the desk. “Evidence, Chester,” he said softly, his penetrating blues eyes lasering Chester against the sheetrock corner. “And we need the prisoner on a Down and Out.”
“Down and Out” was a provision in Texas law whereby investigating officers could temporarily remove a prisoner from jail custody for investigative activity as necessary. Bail was not an issue.
I said, “First, photos and directions to the crime scene.”
Chester struggled back into his chair. “Y’all cain’t jes’ come down here and screw over the po-lice.”
I grinned. “Don’t bet your life on that, Chester. What makes you think Willie is your killer?”
“Them corpses was in the bastard’s boat. He’d been drinkin’ beer with ’em on the marina patio couple hours before the bodies was found.”
“What’s his bail?”
“Ain’t set yet. City judge jes’ said hold his ass.”
I doubted any city judge had seen Willie, let alone mentioned bail.
Chester and crew had only taken five photos with what appeared to be a Polaroid. I didn’t know Polaroid film was still available. I copied them onto my cell. Bell did the same. There were no witness statements or other reports of any kind.
“Bodies will be up at County in Beaumont,” Bell said.
* * *
We stepped away from the lady clerk. The photos showed a slaughterhouse. Michelle Jenkins’ shapely body had been tossed in first, on her back. She lay bloody and nude, blue eyes focused in death. Her hands were extended upward above shoulder level, a remnant of duct tape on one. She had been stabbed repeatedly over several areas of her body.
As Willie had said, a large kitchen knife protruded from her chest. Duct tape was wound around her mouth and nose. She’d managed to tear her taped hands free. Had somebody not butchered her, she would have suffocated from the tape.
Jason has been thrown face down across her legs and lower torso. A gaping bullet exit wound had taken out half of the rear of his head. I leaned closer. The flesh on the left side of his face head was freshly disfigured.
“Whadya think?” Bell tapped a finger on Jason’s death photo.
“Chemical burn. Perp or perps mighta doused him in the face before or after they put a bullet in his head. Killer or killers managed to carry Michelle first, who weighed the least, and dump her into the boat. Somebody ran outa gas while carrying Jason, sixty or more pounds heavier, and dropped him short of the boat ramp. Hence, the drag marks. I’d figure the plan was to steal the boat and dump them out in the bay. Passing car or something spooked them off, leaving the evidence in Willie’s boat tied up at the bottom of the boat ramp.”
He nodded. “Jason is black with a white wife. Why the hell would they be down here in KKK-ville tempting some screwball?”
“My guess? Dope deal or something close.” I studied the gory photos. I repeated my theory of Michelle being carried first, then Jason dropped. “Bet both were killed inside the same cabin. Someplace around there are bloody drag marks.”
The uniformed lady handed us a key and pointed. Willie was locked up in a little room across from the counter, the door secured with a flimsy hatch and padlock. Had he leaned on the door, they could have charged him with escape. The odor that followed him was evidence the little room had no plumbing. So much for any soul they figured was black in the City of Daylight. I swallowed the urge to go back and kick Chester’s ass again.
Willie bounded out like a scalded dog. “Hailfire, Mr. Kratzert, I never was so glad—”
“Let’s talk elsewhere, Willie. This is Texas Ranger Don Bell.”
Willie nodded to Bell. “Damn, Mr. Kratzert, he bigger’n you. Man, they was gonna lynch me.”
“Willie, there isn’t a tree within forty miles. Maybe they’d just strangle you.”
* * *
Copyright © 2025 by Gary Clifton
