by W E DeVore
“Tom doesn’t want to go on the road anymore,” Q said.
Ben let out a low whistle. “Who’s going to tell Charlie?”
Camilla sat down next to Tom on the leather couch. She sipped her drink and replied, “The extra money’s been great, but Tom’s killing himself. JJ’s supposed to be in college. Y’all want to start a family…”
Still standing behind Q, between the baby grand piano and the door that led to the kitchen, Yvie wrapped her arms around her sister-in-law’s waist in sympathetic solidarity before speaking up. “I thought you wanted to make the Burlesque more permanent, use the Dark Harm angle.”
Q squeezed Yvie’s hand and moved to sit down in the chair across from Tom. “We need a real manager. We said we needed one years ago and then the Burlesque started….”
“Gonna cut into profits,” Tom said. “No one wants that.”
Ben shrugged. “I already said I’d do it. No charge. Couldn’t be much different than running a club.”
“And Charlie already put a bullet in that idea. He thought about putting one in me, just for bringing it up,” Q replied, sarcastically. “Besides, no local club owner is going to want to negotiate our rate with you.”
Ben sat on the arm of her chair and leaned over to kiss her head. “That’s because I always win.”
The doorbell rang, and everybody turned to Yvonne.
Q looked around Ben at her sister-in-law. “You want to get that?”
Yvonne mutely shook her head and primly sat on the edge of the adjacent chair, smoothing out her dress over her lap. Q rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically as she stood up, languidly draining her glass on her way to the door. Upon opening it, the pithy greeting she had planned, stuck in her mouth. Sanger was wearing a crisp, dark blue shirt that made his gunmetal grey eyes more striking than normal and his fitted charcoal grey slacks showed off more than just his trim waist. For once, his head of dark curly hair wasn’t slicked back in perfect order, and for the first time, Q understood why Yvonne Bordelon could talk of nothing but Detective Aaron Sanger.
“I’ll give you this, Sanger,” she said. “You brought your ‘A’ game.”
He leaned in and kissed her cheek, saying in a low voice, “I’m under instructions to round third, remember, coach?”
Q flushed and quickly recovered herself as she was reminded that her best friend most definitely did not need any help attracting a woman when he put his mind to it. She led him into the living room to say hello to everyone, carefully ending with Yvonne.
“…and of course, you remember Ben’s sister, Yvonne,” Q said.
Yvonne stood up and nervously straightened the few wrinkles in her dress. “Hi, Aaron.”
Sanger flashed his easy smile and put his hand low on Yvie’s hip before placing a lingering kiss on her cheek just to the side of her mouth. “Nice to see you again, Yvie. It’s been too long.”
Q made the mistake of looking back at Camilla and Tom on the couch to mouth, “Day-em!”
Camilla and Tom instantly dissolved into adolescent giggling. Ben stood up and clapped Sanger on the shoulder.
“Easy there, cowboy,” he said. “Come on, let’s get you a drink.”
◆◆◆
They sat outside during dinner in the small flagstone courtyard behind the house. Yvonne had put her professional party planning skills to use, and illuminated the table and the vegetation surrounding them with small lights and lanterns.
Good food and more than several drinks loosened everybody’s mood. After dinner, Q relaxed against Ben, having abandoned her chair for his lap. Thankfully, two glasses of vodka, and Sanger’s more than polite attentiveness had calmed Yvonne back down to her normal level of neurosis. And, so far, the evening had been a success in Q’s considered opinion.
Sanger sat back and crossed his legs, sipping his wine. He turned to Tom and said, “Clementine says you used to work for Mike Ackerman when you were a kid.”
Q threw her napkin at him. “No working, Sanger. It’s Shabbat, for fuck’s sake.”
Sanger laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure that line’s in the Talmud somewhere verbatim, Clementine.”
Genuinely interested, Yvonne asked, “Really? Which part?”
“It was a bad joke,” he explained. “I’d bet even money that no Jewish scholar has ever uttered the words ‘it’s Shabbat, for fuck’s sake.’”
“Then you should never bet,” Q said. “My father has uttered that exact phrase on numerous occasions and he loves studying Talmud. You get anywhere with the case?”
“Now who’s working?” Sanger chided.
She stuck out her tongue and said, “It’s just a hobby for me, Sanger. Hobbies don’t count. House rules.”
“Potluck Jew,” he teased.
“Dati,” she pushed back.
Sanger slowly clapped his hands. “Very good, Clementine. That’s an actual Hebrew word.”
“Thank you very much. Now tell me about the case.”
“What case?” Yvonne and Camilla asked simultaneously.
Q reminded them about finding Mikey’s Music Emporium closed during business hours and how she’d called Sanger, who interjected details to flesh out some parts of the story that Q didn’t know. They both left out any mention of her miscarriage that had led to her rethinking of what had happened to Mike.
After they’d finished explaining, Tom said, “Q’s right. Mike hated whiskey. But it wasn’t because he got alcohol poisoning as a kid. His dad used to get whacked out on it and beat the crap out of him and his mom.”
“You’re going to have to elaborate, Tommy,” Q said. “I’ve heard so many crazy stories about Mike over the years; I can’t remember which ones were his and which ones weren’t.”
Tom took a sip of beer. “Mike grew up poor. His dad worked at the Hubig’s plant; his mom was a nurse or a pre-school teacher or something. But any money they had went to his dad’s drinking.” He nudged Sanger. “Dude had a fucked-up idea of a Friday night dinner, too. Used to start drinking while Mike and his mom went to Temple, and be good and drunk by the time they got home.”
“Mike Ackerman was Jewish?” Sanger asked.
“Yeah, but not practicing,” Q replied. “He told me once that religion never helped anyone. It just made them feel better about the world being a shit hole. Thought it was harsh at the time. Guess I can’t blame him now. When did he tell you all this, Tommy?”
“That Mardi Gras a couple years ago, after he poured my bottle of whiskey down the drain in his kitchen sink,” he said. “He got good and drunk and told me why I should never drink that shit. After hearing what he told me, can’t say as I’d ever want to again.”
Sanger asked, “He say anything else?”
“Nothing that I’d care to repeat. Let’s just say his dad wasn’t going to win any husband or father of the year awards.”
Q asked, “Mike ever do drugs, back when you worked there?”
He shook his head. “Not that I ever saw. Besides weed, I mean, but I don’t count that. I trust people who smoke, more than people who drink. His ex-wife had a bad problem though… pills, I think? But I’m not sure. Sweet lady, though,” Tom said. He paused for a minute before saying, “You know, he got me high for the first time? Right after I graduated high school.”
Ben reached for his wine and Q handed it to him.
“This I have to hear,” he said. “Tom Wills’s first joint.”
“Not much to tell.” Tom smiled. “We were closing up the store. I’d graduated high school like two, maybe three days before. Mike asked me if I’d ever tried drugs. Just like that. Out of the blue.”
Tom eyed Sanger suspiciously.
Sanger drained his wine and said, “Don’t worry, I’m homicide. Unless you kill for or with an illegal substance, I don’t really give a shit.”
He winked at Q, making her laugh. Yvonne’s eyes widened, knowing that Sanger’s ex-girlfriend doing the latter had led to her undoing.
Q quickly intervened and unceremonio
usly used her bare foot to shove her sister-in-law’s chair closer to Sanger’s with a loud clank. Sanger smirked at Q and diligently stretched his arm around the back of the relocated chair, making its occupant flush in appreciation.
“Come on, Tom. Now I’ve got to know,” Ben prompted.
Tom continued, “Alright. So, he takes me over to the luthier room and we smoke a joint.”
“Luthier?” Sanger interrupted.
“The place where they fix guitars,” Tom explained before continuing, “Anyway, so he gets me good and high, and then makes me promise him I won’t ever snort a powder or shoot up. He says ‘acid, ‘shrooms, even X, are all alright, but if you ever start thinking about white powders, you come to me first.’”
Tom picked up his beer and set it back down without taking a drink. “The funny thing is, it stayed with me so long, that when I finally did try coke, all I could do was feel guilty because I’d broken my promise to Mike.”
Camilla back-handed his chest and said, “Tom Wills, you never told me you tried that shit.”
“Well, I didn’t like it,” Tom whined. “Besides, it was Charlie’s idea. He loves that shit.”
Q put up both her hands to stop him from continuing, afraid that he’d remind the table that Charlie’s love of cocaine had given Sanger’s late girlfriend the tool she needed to kill her stepson. “Woah, we don’t need to delve any deeper into the drug habits of anyone here, especially not Tom or Charlie’s. Can we please focus on Mike? Get Aaron some useful information?”
“What about your friend’s dad?” Sanger took his arm from around Yvie to lean forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The one who said he bought drugs from Mike in the nineties. Could be an angle.”
Tom rolled his eyes and let out a loud whistle. “Is Tony Senior still saying that Mike sold speedballs with every purchase at the Emporium back in the day? That story’s so old, it has grey pubes and balls down to its knees.”
Camilla hit him. “Stop being vulgar, for Pete’s sake, Tom.”
“I love it when you reprimand me, Mrs. St. Jean-Wills,” Tom sing-songed, giving his wife an obediently dopey smile.
Q laughed and winked at Sanger, who grinned back at her, clearly enjoying himself.
“It’s Charlie,” he said, looking from Q to Tom. “Y’all know that, right? The longer Clementine spends with him, the worse her swearing gets.”
“Two words, Sanger,” Q replied, sticking her tongue out at him and he flipped her off, knowing exactly which two words she had in mind. “Sorry, cowboy. I told you some of the stories about Mike were greatly exaggerated.”
“Honestly,” Tom said. “And Mike would tell you this himself if he were here, the way he died is probably the most interesting thing he ever did.”
Sanger laughed out loud. “In my line of work, you can say that about a lot of people.”
Ben grinned and elbowed Q. “Aaron, that was almost a joke. Like two-thirds of the way there, at least.”
Yvonne looked around the table with a horrified expression on her face and abruptly stood up.
“I know I’m the new person here, but a man has died. A man who you all seem to have cared about,” she said before looking pointedly at Q and Sanger. “How can y’all talk so casually about this?”
“Sissie, it’s Aaron’s job,” Ben soothed.
“What’s your wife’s excuse, then, Bubba?” Yvie demanded. “We’re supposed to be having a nice time and y’all are talking about drugs and murder.”
“Lord, Yvie, you’re supposed to be dialing back the crazy, remember?” Q interjected. “What the fuck is with you today?”
Yvonne put her hands on her hips and turned her face up to the sky. “You’re right. I’ll go. This was a mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She walked back inside the house, slamming the screen door behind her.
“Nice,” Ben said, rising out of the chair, and displacing Q, to go after his sister.
“Sit back down, will you?” Q said. “She doesn’t want you.” She pointed to Sanger. “She wants him.”
Camilla reached over and gently shoved Sanger towards the edge of his chair. “You want another date, or you want to cut your losses? I’m with Q on this. She wants you to go after her. It’s a test. You didn’t see her face when you moved your arm off her.”
Sanger stood up, replying, “I guess I’ll go fall on my sword. I shouldn’t have brought up the case. I still don’t believe any of you that she’s not nuts, though.”
When Ben started to defend his sister, Sanger held up his hand to stop him. “You said Gracie was the dramatic one, brother. You and your wife are a couple of damned liars.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Sanger. She just wants to be alone with you,” Q scolded. “She’s been waiting to be alone with you for a year. Stop being such a cock-tease and go do something about it.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and scowled at her. “Nice language, Clementine. You really have been in that van with Tom and Charlie too long.”
Tom grinned and said, “For the record, I wouldn’t have said ‘cock-tease’. I would have said ‘douchebag,’ pahdna. Yvie’s good people. So, stop fucking around with her heart, man.”
Sanger flipped him off and turned to walk into the house.
“Just use that sexy brain of yours!” Ben called, as Sanger disappeared inside.
Camilla drained the last of her bourbon and leaned against Tom. “God damn, I’m glad I’m not single anymore.”
“Amen,” her three companions chimed in at once.
Tom reached for his wife’s hand and brought it to rest on his knee.
He sipped his beer and said, “You know, Q, if Mike was going to do something illegal to bring in extra cash, it wouldn’t have been in the eighties. It’d have been in the last five years or so.”
Q gave him a puzzled look. “You think Mike was doing something illegal?”
He shrugged. “Not really, at least not after until you and Aaron started talking about it. His business had really fallen off since that whole recession mess. That chain store that opened up in Metairie, and all those places on the Internet was really doing a number on him. He was thinking about closing up the place.”
“What saved him?” she asked.
“Nothing, as far as I know. He was talking to some investors about selling the place. Didn’t get too much into details,” Tom said, finishing the last of his beer. “But he found a way to stay open. Something about selling guitars online, I think.”
Q felt helpless and wished Sanger was present to ask the right follow-up questions.
“When did he tell you this?” Ben asked.
Tom thought for a minute. “Not long ago. Right before we went on that last stretch on the road. I was helping him out in the store. Came in for sticks and he was up to his eyeballs in alligators, so I worked the counter for old time’s sake.”
Camilla spoke up, “I remember that. You came home all worried about him because those bankers were stressing him out so much.”
“Bankers? At the store?” Ben asked. “Mike must have been doing more business than you think if bankers would come to him instead of making him go crawl on his knees to them.”
“You sure they were bankers, Tom?” Q asked.
“Looked like bankers to me,” he answered. “I think that’s what Mike told me while we was boxing up some guitars to ship out. Or maybe it was backers?” He paused, trying to remember. “Anyway, his Internet business must have been great. Who knew so many people would want to buy their guitars from New Orleans?”
“What kind of guitars? Mike had a lot of inexpensive ones on the wall when I was there with B3,” Q said.
“They were in cases, on hold, all ready to go, and waiting back in the luthier room. But they were twelve, fifteen hundred a piece, getting ready to be shipped out to parts unknown,” he explained. Tom eyed the back door of the house. “Think it’s safe to go inside? I got another Purple Haze calling my name.”
Q stood up. “I’ll get it.”
She walked into the house, carefully opening the back door so that she wouldn’t disturb anything, providing there was anything to disturb. She quickly grabbed Tom’s remaining beer in the refrigerator and unsuccessfully tried to locate the bottle opener, realizing that it was most likely on the bar in the living room.
Shit.
She glanced into the darkened room and spied her objective, as she expected, on the edge of the bar. Not hearing any voices, she strode into the living room to retrieve the bottle opener. As she picked it up off the bar, she saw them through the window facing her. Yvonne was leaning against the brick column on the front of the porch, laughing. Sanger rested against the porch railing next to her, his hand near her waist.