Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 02 - City of Beads Read Free

had seemed older and wiser in some way, though he wasn’t really either. But Potter had men working for him. He moved big barges up and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and shipped tons of vegetable oil out of the country. Nobody else Tubby knew did that, or understood how to do it. Tubby sure didn’t understand how Potter did it.
    He had known Potter from college, and even then he was in business—selling T-shirts that advertised a list of “BEST BARS” on the back and featured announcements like “I Fear No Beer” on the front. Master Potter wholesaled to the bars and retailed to the students, and he still passed his courses. He organized private parties at the Lions Club hall at which the Irish Rovers or Ramblers or Renegades, Tubby couldn’t remember, played, and he collected a substantial cover at the door from kids who would get carded other places. He was a great hustler, and the remarkable thing was he pulled his crazy deals off.
    They lost track of each other for a few years after college. Then Potter called one day and they had lunch at Copeland’s on Napoleon and St. Charles. Tubby fondly recalled the crisp little popcorn shrimp, with that tangy sauce. Potter’s idea then was to get a group of inventors, innovators, and daring businessmen together to improve the city’s business climate.
    “The chamber of commerce is just a bunch of old guys,” he said. “They don’t understand that this is already the twenty-first century, and we’re just part of a world economy.”
    “How would you know?” Tubby asked. “I didn’t think you were a member of the chamber.”
    “I’m not, actually,” Potter had to admit, “but I want to start something new.
    So Tubby had gone to the first meeting in the living room of Potter’s house on Henry Clay. He took along Jason Boaz, a client of his who was the wild-haired inventor of Fruity Swizzles, with which you could stir a Coke and turn it cherry, as well as Men’s Total Body Spray, which you could use to deodorize yourself from chin to toenail. Jason made big money off his ideas, in sudden spurts, then he would lose it all at the track.
    Potter also had recruited a couple of others. One was a guy named Farron, who had a growing business designing T-shirts and posters with your basic New Orleans themes—jazz, booze, and seafood. Another, named Booker, owned a jazz bar where he served booze and seafood. Booker and Farron got along fine. In fact, everybody had a good time swapping stories and knocking back the drinks that Potter’s wife, Edith, kept serving them. Then someone brought out a deck of cards with pictures of Earl Long on the backs, and they had to teach Farron how to play bourré. The evening ended well, though expensively, for Tubby, who dropped about $80.
    The project never really developed. Tubby incorporated the Progressive Business Alliance, and Potter printed some stationery, but basically the group played cards. Potter sometimes used the stationery to write letters to the editor of the Times-Picayune condemning higher taxes and social welfare programs, which was a little embarrassing to Tubby.
    “What’s all this reactionary BS you’re spouting these days?” he asked Potter once after seeing some outrageously bitter broadside in the newspaper flailing at the City for supporting its minority business forum.
    Potter was insulted.
    “Reactionary, hell. I’m standing up for free enterprise. The government has no business getting involved in these causes. And I’ll tell you, the closer you work with the government, the more you see that scares the hell out of you.”
    Potter was not interested in fishing, and Tubby probably might have let him lapse as a friend if he hadn’t once seen another side of Potter’s nature.
    Before they got divorced, Tubby’s wife, Mattie, orchestrated a pretty active social life. She invited Potter and Edith over a few times for dinner, and the ladies hit it off. Potter was an entertaining guy, and he