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CHAPTER 1
THE QUARTERS
Orleans Parish, October 3, 1998
It all started eight years earlier, on the kind of day when you needed to take a shower to get dry. That's how hot and humid it was.
The unusually high temperature in the low eighties and the 80 percent humidity made it very uncomfortable. Ronald J. Dominique's damp T-shirt clung to his back. He did not rate a second glance from any of the hustlers, tourists, pickpockets, addicts, and strippers crowded into the streets of the French Quarter.
Short and stocky, five feet five inches tall and 160 pounds, he had a straggly black mustache and an unkempt black goatee on the lower part of his thin lips. Puffy cheeks and deep-set green eyes rounded out the picture of just another anonymous, slightly overweight, balding thirty-six-year-old American strolling through the French Quarter at twilight.
Dominique thought of the neighborhood as "the quarters."
To get out of the house, he had started going to the quarters. It was a good place. The trumpet notes of New Orleans jazz drifted out of the clubs onto Bourbon Street. He liked the music, though it did nothing to relax him. He went into a few of the raunchier clubs and tried a few draft beers. They didn't take the edge off either.
Sex. He needed sex.
There was something else that he couldn't easily define, something he felt that was more basic and that, even had he tried, he couldn't give words to. It just was time to troll. That's why he had parked his car, outside the quarters in a dark spot and gotten it ready. Inside his car, he had placed what he needed to satisfy his insatiable craving.
I know what I want. I need a guy to play around with, Dominique thought.
He knew that he wasn't an attractive man. Even when he did his Patti LaBelle impersonation all dressed up as the singer, nobody liked him. Making friends had never been easy. He'd also never had a long-term relationship with another man. It wasn't for lack of trying, but just as when he had been growing up, Dominique was laughed at, called a slob, a fag, a loser.
This wasn't San Francisco. Louisiana is a lot more conservative and, like many places in the United States, had not been so accepting of a gay man trying to come to grips with his sexuality. Dominique may have looked roly-poly, but that belied his strong upper body.
Trolling or fishing requires bait that attracts the fish to the hook. It's a simple, businesslike proposition. He had learned early on that it was easy in Southern Louisiana to buy sex. Lots of people did. Oliver LeBanks knew it too. And LeBanks also needed something — money.
The twenty-seven-year-old would sometimes pickpocket a tourist, maybe sell some drugs, or just hustle. No strong-arm stuff. Just a little bit here and there to make ends meet. Like Dominique, he had been strolling through the French Quarter enjoying himself, his brother and a couple gay friends by his side.
"I don't get it," said his brother. "What you with these guys for?" "There are these old guys that like young guys like us. This is a way to make extra money," LeBanks explained reasonably. He was a businessman, about to make a proposition.
LeBanks, his brother, and his friends later went to 740 Burgundy, the location of Rawhide, a local gay bar popular with hustlers. With its constant flow of tourists, Rawhide was a great place to hustle sex, the kind of gay bar most gay bars fantasize about being. It was known as a leather-and-Levi's place where older guys cruised younger guys.
Time to get to work.
Throwing the door open, the music and boisterous laughter hit LeBanks like a hurricane. A jukebox in the back was blaring out some Patti LaBelle song. LeBanks's close-set dark eyes adjusted to the dim, smoky interior. He saw a pool table with guys using their cues to bang the balls into the holes.
On the right was the long teak and mahogany bar that curved around the room. The walls were decorated with multicolored license plates from all over the United States. Three sets of two supporting wooden pillars, six in all, were staggered down the bar, seeming to hold the whole place up. In practice, they divided the bar into cozy warrens of six-man sections, where intimate conversation and other mature things were possible.
It was already crowded-to-overflowing, with shirtless men sitting before cold bottles of beer. Many were middle-aged with paunches hanging down over their belts to their Bermuda shorts. There were a few men dressed in leather, brandishing whips with the idea of using them in ways Indiana Jones hadn't even thought of. However, for LeBanks, the place was the Temple of Doom.
The older leather boys mingled with younger guys in Levi's, boots, and Stetsons. LeBanks hung back a little, eying the customers at the bar, sizing them up. The upside down U-shaped aluminum handrails reflected the occasional flash of a tourist snapping a picture. LeBanks's friends took their shirts off to join in. He noticed a guy at the bar who wanted to blend in but could not.
Dominique wasn't about to expose himself in public, not with his portly frame. Too embarrassing; he'd had enough of that. He was sick and tired of his family ridiculing him for being gay. Their taunts made him ashamed at first, and then angry.
He kept his shapeless T-shirt on, figuring the money in his pocket would do the talking when the time was right. He kept busy drinking a cold bottle of Purple Haze, an American-style wheat beer with a slight raspberry taste that was lost on Dominque that night.
Dominique was too busy thinking about other things, like the slim black guy who sat down in the empty stool next to his, ordered a beer, and started to talk to him. After a few minutes of chitchat, the hustler got down to business.
"You like to have a good time?" LeBanks asked, drinking his beer casually.
"I like to fool around," Dominique replied.
His Southern Louisiana accent betrayed him to LeBanks as a native. Probably from up in the Houma area. That part of Terrebonne Parish was crisscrossed with bayous, a rural place centered around a small town. Locals referred to the town as "up," though in fact it was fifty-five miles southwest of New Orleans.
But that made no difference. Local was all right with LeBanks. Money was money.
"Sure," LeBanks said.
"I ain't got no money for no motel or nothing," Dominique explained.
"I don't have none either," answered LeBanks.
Dominique had a ready solution: instant intimacy that had worked for many couples since Henry Ford had invented the Model T automobile in 1908.
"Come on, we'll go to my vehicle. It's parked nearby. You need money?" Dominique asked.
LeBanks knew what the guy wanted. He'd done it before. There was only one more thing that needed to be said.
"How much you got?"
"About twenty or thirty dollars," Dominique responded.
The price was fine with LeBanks. That was the rate for a blow job. Sounded good. It was a business transaction, plain and simple: step out to do it, and then come back to make some more money with some other guys. Names weren't needed; just cash.
"Why don't we go to my car? It's parked right near here," said Dominique, slipping off the bar stool.
LeBanks eyed him again. He saw nothing out of the ordinary — green eyes and round, placid face. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, Dominique looked like any other guy wanting to get his rocks off on a handsome young hustler like LeBanks. Dominique led the way out. Outside, they turned down St. Ann Street and continued walking.
If LeBanks had been paying attention, the first tip-off would have been that the guy's car wasn't as close as he'd said it was. They had to keep walking through the pools of light that distinguished the Quarter, past the old balconied buildings that were young in corsair Jean Lafitte's time. Lafitte had been known as the "Pirate Patriot."
Without Lafitte and his pirates fighting alongside him, General Andrew Jackson — Old Hickory — would have lost the Battle of New Orleans, where he defeated the English in 1815. Dominique and LeBanks passed Lafitte's old blacksmith shop on Bourbon Street, where he and his brother had first started their criminal enterprises.
The men walked out of the Quarter, to quiet, dark side streets where shadowy hulks were parked by the curb.
"I'm over here," Dominique gestured, "where that new shopping thing by the Jax Brewery is."
It was late and the parking lot next to the Jax Brewery was mostly empty. Dominique opened up the back door of a ten-year-old tan Chevy Malibu station wagon, with a luggage rack on top. Dominique got in and LeBanks piled in on top of him. He was all ready to go, really wanting some action.
Dominique watched as LeBanks pulled off his T-shirt, exposing a muscular torso. Dominique stripped down quickly, pulling his pants and what he thought of as his "drawers" all the way down. Not wasting any time, LeBanks went down on him. LeBanks sucked Dominique's penis until Dominique twisted LeBanks around so that they sucked each other simultaneously.
"Now lay on your stomach," Dominique instructed.
He had not negotiated for that; fucking would be more. But before LeBanks could say anything else, Dominique got on top of him, his weight crushing him down on the seat.
"I was hurt before. I was split," said Dominique.
The comment had no context to LeBanks because he wasn't a mind reader. He didn't know that Dominique had been raped, and how determined he was to never have that happen again. With LeBanks struggling to get out from under the big man's weight, Dominique pushed his penis into the man's rectum. LeBanks protested he was being hurt, but Dominique was relentless. He pushed harder and harder and harder, until finally he ejaculated.
"Now get on top of me and rub your thing on me," Dominique ordered.
LeBanks got on top of Dominique and began rubbing his penis against the guy's flabby ass. Dominique thought he felt some penetration. And that was it.
"You was just supposed to rub it."
He'd had enough, and he'd been forced to put up with too much to stop there. The ridicule, the stone glances from his family, and now just thinking someone was about to violate him again made him want, finally, to do something about it. It was an intoxicating combination of fear and retribution. And he had prepared for just such an eventuality.
Reaching down to the floorboards, he felt the cold metal of the tire iron in his strong hand. He brought it up quickly and slammed it into the side of Oliver LeBanks's head. He brought up the iron and hit him again. As the smaller man's brain began leaking out blood inside his cranium, the struggle seeped out of him. His limbs stopped pushing, then twitched, finally going slack.
Physicians call it a concussion. Unless LeBanks were operated on immediately, the twin concussions he had sustained when the tire iron impacted his head would soon kill him. Dominique showed no mercy. He got on top of LeBanks and began to choke him.
Already unconscious from the blows, LeBanks started twitching again, and then Dominique heard the death rattle, the last gasp of the life that he had just violated. He took off his belt, wrapped it around the now unmoving figure. Putting his weight on top of him again, Dominique pulled the belt tight, so it bit into LeBanks's skin.
After a while — Dominique wasn't sure how long it was — he realized the guy was once and for all not breathing anymore. He threw open the back door and jumped out of the station wagon into the deserted street. Dominique had killed before. He knew what he had to do. He got into the driver's seat, fished his keys out of his pocket, plunged the key into the ignition, and started up the car.
CHAPTER 2
OUTSIDE THE BOX
Dominique began driving down dark streets, not really knowing where he was, looking for the right place to dump the body. He'd know when he saw it. He wound up driving into Kenner, the oldest city in Jefferson Parish, established in 1855. Back then, the place was known by its French name, Cannes Brûlées (burnt cane fields).
It was a landmark on the banks of the Mississippi River. The family of its founder, William Kenner, owned many of the area's larger plantations and farms. Everything changed in 1915 when a commuter rail line was established from Kenner to New Orleans, bringing in manufacturing. That, in turn, brought in new roads and the airports.
A full-fledged suburb, Kenner was connected to the Big Easy by Interstate 10, the major east/west interstate in the southern United States. Interstate 10 goes all the way from Jacksonville, Florida, on the Atlantic Ocean, across the southwestern United States, terminating at Santa Monica on the Pacific Ocean in California.
A few miles north of the busy New Orleans International Airport, Dominique turned his tan Malibu wagon south. He took a left down Airport Road. As he circled the airport looking for a location that he would know instinctively was right, the overhead jets had a bird's-eye view of his travels.
Too many people, too many cars; the place was just too active. What had he been thinking? No place to do it that wouldn't be easily found. But that was part of the kick for Dominique. It couldn't be too easy, he wanted the body to be found. Had he not, he could have easily just gone over a bridge and dumped it into some dark waters.
Or he could have driven to a nearby bayou and let the alligators take care of things, neatly and tastily, without leaving a trace for a forensic specialist to work with. It just wouldn't scratch that itch inside him if he did that. What fun would it be? What pleasure it would give him when the body was found!
The body had to be found.
He was sick and tired of people not giving him credit for things. Now he'd show them. He'd killed again and the body would be proof. Proof.
He took a left onto Airline Drive, also known as Federal Highway 61. Heading east, back toward New Orleans, he passed the Hilton and Lexington hotels again, their entrances lit up like it was Christmas. Dominique was one of those people who loved Christmas all year round. He kept Christmas decorations up full-time in his trailer. But this wasn't the holiday season. Those lights meant people were around, people who might see him and what he was doing, what he had done.
Again, too busy, too many people driving in and out. No, that wouldn't do, and he kept going.
He passed food management and construction offices. Airline Drive is host to a variety of businesses that cater to the airline traveler going through New Orleans. After a few miles, Airline Drive passed into the town of Metairie (pronounced MET-ur-ee).
Dominique saw Providence Memorial Park Cemetery on his right, where Mahalia Jackson, the celebrated gospel singer, had been laid to rest. But he was hardly into gospel. Leaving Mahalia and the cemetery behind him, he continued east toward New Orleans, still on Airline Drive, passing the fast food and chain restaurants, gas stations, and strip malls that dotted the highway.
Passing Little Farms Avenue, he approached Dickory Avenue. Just past the light at the intersection of Dickory Avenue and the end of the Earhart Expressway was a speed trap. Waiting for speeders at the bottom of the elevated highway was Louisiana state trooper Cal Calhoun. His job was to catch and ticket speeders, who would not see his car hidden in a parking lot at the bottom of the exit ramp.
Obeying the speed limit as he always did, Dominique drove right past the cop. Dickory Avenue rose as it got to the six-thousand block of Stable Drive before hitting the railroad tracks. Below Stable was a feeder road into Zephyr Field a quarter of a mile east, where the Triple-A New Orleans Zephyrs minor-league team played its home games.
There was nothing special about the overpass except that it was conveniently there, secluded but accessible to passersby. Perfect for dumping a body. The tan Malibu wagon tooled down Stable Drive, deserted at this hour. Dominique pulled the wagon to the side of the road, hopped out, went around to the passenger-side door, and threw it open.
Pulling LeBanks's corpse by the belt still wrapped around its neck, he struggled until he had it fully out under the overpass. Then he let it go. The body plunked down on the sand, face down. Cutting back quickly to the station wagon, Dominique closed the rear passenger-side door, which made a hollow sound in the empty darkness.
Getting back behind the wheel, he turned the ignition on and put the car into drive. A moment later, Ronald J. Dominique was well away, driving the few blocks north to Airline Drive. This time, he didn't circle the airport, but kept going. Ten miles down the road, he saw the interstate looming overhead.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Bayou Strangler"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Fred Rosen.
Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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