Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 01 - Galveston Read Free Page A

wrote my name and left a footprint or handprint in every piece of fresh cement I ran across.
    Slowly, I made my way along the orange ribbon, idly looking out over the newly constructed loading dock. The last patch of cement appeared to be the final piece of the construction.
    I had no idea what I was looking for. I was just looking, hoping for an answer to fall out of a tree and land at my feet.
    One end of the orange ribbon was tied to an industrial dumpster. The dock at the base of the dumpster was littered with trash that had fallen from the front-end loaders when they dumped their loads.
    There were broken TV’s from Taiwan, crushed boxes of computer chips from Mongolia, stained and ripped clothing from Thailand. To add to the mix was a conglomeration of detritus such as shattered wooden pallets, broken furniture, a bent and twisted stove, a refrigerator with the door ripped off, and the toe of a wing-tip slipper protruding from beneath a pile of  seed corn spilled from a ripped bag.
    At that moment, the piercing beep-beep of an approaching front-end loader caught my attention. I waved and stepped from his path. Immediately, the driver dropped the bucket and scooped up the trash by the dumpster, quickly depositing it just in time for a Kenilworth tractor to back up to the dumpster, hook a two-inch cable to it, and winch it onto his rig.
    “Some operation, huh?”
    I jerked around at the voice behind me. “What?”
    A freckle-faced redhead who appeared to be in his mid-thirties nodded to the disappearing Kenilworth. “The way these guys operate. They don’t waste no time.” The wind ruffled his hair.
    I looked around as the Kenilworth disappeared around the corner of a warehouse. “It’s a big operation here.”
    He shrugged down into his topcoat. “Yeah. I like to come down and eyeball them ever so often.”
    For several moments, we watched the activity on the docks. Finally, he cleared his throat. “You the guy who shot the cop last night?”
    For a moment, his words didn’t register. When they did, I frowned at him, surprised. “What?”
    Keeping his eyes on a cluster of stevedores unloading a truck, he replied. “The guy what shot the cop last night. That you?”
    I grew wary. “Why?”
    He shrugged. “If you are, Mister Abbandando would like to see you. My name’s Augie.”
    Abbandando? I frowned, then I remembered what Ben Howard had said. Abbandando was the alleged crime boss who settled into Galveston several years earlier and set up what appeared to be a legitimate stevedoring operation.
    What did he want with me? “Were you out here last night?”
    Augie shook his head. “No.”
    “How did you know I was?”
    He shrugged again. “Mister Abbandando knows. He told me to bring you to him.”
    I studied Augie several moments. So ‘Mustache Pete’ Abbandando wanted to see me. I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting to see one of Galveston’s finest observing our little conversation. To my way of thinking, such a meeting would be poor judgment on my part. Extra fodder for the D.A.’s pitch to the Grand Jury.
    “What if I say no?”
    An icy look flashed in Augie’s eyes, quickly replaced with amusement. He grinned. “Then I suppose Mister Abbandando would have to come to you.” He paused and hooked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the warehouses. “But, it would be more convenient for you since he’s up in his office over there. Warmer too.”
    ‘Over there’ was a warehouse that stretched a quarter mile from end to end. Above the white metal building was a bright red sign, Maritime Shippers. A panel of windows spanned the breadth of the fourth floor of the warehouse. A figure in a white suit stood in the window. I couldn’t tell which direction he was facing, but I had the feeling he was watching me.
    I threw caution to the wind. I was in enough trouble now. Meeting ‘Mustache Pete’ couldn’t cause me anymore. “Why not?”
     
    ‘Mustache Pete’ Abbandando was