by W E DeVore
Q smiled to herself as she watched the two of them together, remembering the first magic weeks with Ben. She closed her eyes and felt his arms around her, whispering her name into her hair as he sighed in his sleep the first morning she’d woken up next to him. Looking around the living room, she was overcome with wonder at the life they’d built together. It was never something that she’d wanted or expected to have. She’d been happy on her own. Content within the brick walls she’d built to isolate herself from emotional and physical intimacy. Now, she couldn’t imagine a world without her husband in it.
She opened Tom’s beer and slipped out of the room, eager to curl into Ben’s arms in the warm evening breeze.
“Well?” Ben asked as she handed Tom his beer.
“Looked good from where I was,” she said, resuming her position on his lap. “They’re on the porch, so the coast is clear if anyone needs the facilities.”
“How good?” He pulled her back to rest against his chest.
“You and me, good.” Q turned her face to kiss his cheek.
“If you get one of my sisters married this year, you’re going to be Ma’s new favorite,” he said.
“One step at a time, baby,” she scolded. “What is with you Bordelons jumping from first date to forever?”
He brushed his lips over her shoulder. “We just know a good thing when we see it.”
Chapter 5
That’s What You Get for Snooping
Q took the steps up to Sanger’s compact, grey house two at a time, quickly knocking on the door. After her successful fix-up, she’d cornered Sanger before he’d left the house the night before, and used her newfound leverage to get him to agree to let her into Mikey’s Music Emporium, so she could finally retrieve her nephew’s guitar.
She pounded out the rhythm to ‘Lady Marmalade’ and waited for him to answer. Her knuckles had just finished Mocha-Chocalata-ya-ya-ing and were about to suggest something scandalous to the door, when he opened it, shirtless and barefoot in his jeans.
Regarding his abdominal muscles in mildly amused interest, she made a vague gesture at his well-defined torso. “Jesus, Sanger, this just isn’t natural. Cover up, will you? We’ve talked about this.”
He folded his arms in annoyance, intentionally flexing his biceps for emphasis, in Q’s opinion. “Is there something I can help you with, Clementine?”
“Yeah, you said you’d get me into the Emporium this morning to get B3’s guitar,” she reminded him.
“You could have called first,” he said flatly.
“You could have remembered that you told me to come to your house at eleven. ‘Eleven sharp,’ I believe were your exact words because quote-unquote, you have more important things to do than help me commit misdemeanor trespass,” she replied. “So here I am, and you’re half-undressed. What gives?”
Yvie’s voice came from inside the house. “It’s okay, Aaron; I really do have to go. I have an appointment at one.”
Sanger opened the door the rest of the way to reveal Q’s sister-in-law, wearing the same dress she’d worn the previous evening, albeit a little more disheveled than it’d been twelve hours earlier. Sanger wrapped his arms around Yvie and kissed her for several long moments. Q turned away uncomfortably, waiting for them to finish.
Yvie quickly hugged Q on her way down to the street. “Morning, sweet sister.”
“Yvonne Bordelon, I’m going to tell your mama on you,” Q teased.
Her sister-in-law ignored her and waved goodbye to them both as she made her way barefoot to her car, a six-inch heel in each hand.
After Yvonne had gone, Q put her hands on her hips and gave Sanger an annoyed look.
“I told you to round first, not run all the way home,” she admonished.
“Third,” he corrected. “Besides, you gave me the condoms.”
“And was she pleasantly surprise?” she asked with feigned, wide-eyed interest.
Sanger shook his head and laughed, gesturing for her to follow him back inside his house.
“Nothing happened, Clementine,” he said as he closed the door behind them.
“Oh really? Is ‘nothing’ how you ended up shirtless, and Yvie looks like she was rolled through a half-dozen hay stacks?” Q sat on his sagging sofa.
“We just talked, mostly,” he said, walking down the short hall to his bedroom.
“In my experience, Sanger, talking does not lead to bite marks on pectoral muscles,” Q called.
He walked back in, pulling on a t-shirt. “You want some coffee?”
Q nodded and stood up to follow him into the kitchen. He poured them each a steaming cup. She helped herself to some milk from the refrigerator, pouring some into his outstretched mug as well.
“Since when do you take milk?” she asked.
“Ulcer,” he said. “It’s nothing major, but black coffee and me don’t get on too well these days.”
“You’re getting old, Sanger,” she goaded, sipping her coffee.
“Not too old to make a stand-up triple with your sister last night.” He winked at her.
Q covered his mouth with her hand. “Oh my god, stop talking. Stop talking, like now.”
He removed her hand from his mouth and said, “Hey, it was your idea.”
“No, it was Yvie’s idea,” she corrected.
“So was going to third.” He grinned.
“You really need to stop talking,” Q said, holding up her hand and stepping back from any more revelations Sanger might be ready to share.
“Last night was fun,” he began.
“Like now. Like stop talking now,” she repeated.
Sanger pulled himself up to sit on the counter and sipped his coffee. “No, I mean dinner. I had a really good time. It was nice not being the third wheel for once.”
“It was nice you not being a gloomy, black raincloud that swallows joy for once,” she teased. “Look, while you were making out with Yvie on the porch last night…”
“We were just talking,” he corrected.
“Whatever. Tom told us Mike had some money troubles. Looks like maybe I was wrong.”
Sanger pretended to choke on his coffee. “I’m sorry, what now?”
“I was wrong,” she repeated, annoyed. “Jesus, you and Ben act like I never say that.”
“There’s a reason for that. You don’t.”
“Fuck you,” she said. “He had some investors looking at buying the Emporium, but was holding off, trying to sell guitars on the Internet to get some of his business back. But maybe he was going to have to sell it anyway and giving it up was too much for him. That place was his whole world.”
Sanger pondered her theory for a moment and asked, “How much do you think that place is worth?”
“The business wouldn’t be worth much, but the property should be worth a ton. That building is almost half the block.”
“Maybe his heirs got impatient.” His face fell as his mind drifted to darker places.
“What heirs?” she interjected. “He had no one, Aaron. Just the business. That’s what I mean. If he gave that up, what would he have left?”
“So, you don’t think he was killed?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of Mike Ackerman dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Doesn’t sit well,” she said, sadly.
“Never does,” he agreed, and the memory of Sanger screaming, rocking Tori Gerard’s lifeless body swallowed Q’s vision whole for a moment. She quickly swallowed a sip of coffee and willed the panic attack that was brewing behind her left eye to dissipate.
“So, are you joining us for Sunday dinner at the Bordelons tomorrow?” she asked, changing the subject before her mind linked arms with her anxiety disorder to do a line dance in her skull.
He rolled his eyes and slid his feet back down to the linoleum. “Come on, let’s go commit some misdemeanor trespassing.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” she said, following him to the door.
Sanger s
tepped into the pair of athletic shoes laying where he’d kicked them off at some point and knelt down to tie them. “You’re right, I didn’t.”
◆◆◆
After a quick stop at the precinct for Sanger to retrieve the keys and alarm code from the evidence locker, they arrived at Mikey’s Music Emporium. Sanger let them in through the front door and turned off the alarm, while Q looked around for the lights. She searched for the light switch for several futile minutes before Sanger reached around her to flip a switch above her right shoulder that she hadn’t seen. A dozen sleepy florescent lights flickered on overhead.
“Where would your guitar be?” he asked, looking around at the wall crowded with guitars, basses, and various stringed instruments.
Q moved to find B3’s guitar on the same wall, standing on a small combo amp to double check a ‘SOLD’ tag on a similar looking purple Stratocaster. When the name on the back wasn’t hers, she jumped back down.
“It must be in the luthier room,” she replied, threading her way through the crowded hallway to the room under the stairs.
Sanger followed close behind her, reaching inside to turn on the light. As they entered the small room, he regarded the complement of guitar cases on the shelves along the far wall, each with a name on its bright blue tag.
“I put it under ‘Bordelon,’ but look for ‘Q’ or ‘Toledano,’ too,” she instructed as they searched through the cases.
Sanger grabbed a guitar case.
“Found it,” he said, pulling it out and setting it down on the carpeted workbench.
“Wait until you see it,” Q said, excitedly. “B3 is going to freak. He thinks Ben and I totally forgot his graduation.”
She popped the latches and was disappointed to find an empty cutout where a shiny, new, purple Stratocaster headstock should have been.
“What the fuck?” Q exclaimed in irritation.
Sanger pushed her back, gesturing to the Glock 19 resting in the center of the body cutout inside the case.
He picked up the tag and Q stared in horror at her husband’s family name in big block letters.
She turned it over and read, “‘Bordelon, Joe. $1400 cash.”
“Relation of yours?” he said, derisively.
“Why is there a gun in that guitar case?” Q asked, confounded.
“We’ve got bigger trouble than that. I don’t actually have probable cause to be here,” he said, slicking back his hair into its usual formation.
“Want me to throw a rock through the window?” she asked, only half-joking.
Sanger laughed. “No, it’s not as bad as all that. I already said I was pursuing a lead I got last night to get the key and the code.”
“I’m serious,” Q said, meaning it. “I could break in to get my guitar. I don’t mind.”
“And I appreciate that,” he said, pulling another case off the shelf. He opened it to reveal a semi-hollow body Gretsch. “But you and Tom already told me that story about Mike selling drugs. That’s plenty enough reason for me to come poking around again. Why do you think we held onto the keys in the first place? Worst case, I’ll get a tongue lashing from my lieutenant for believing a stupid rumor. No sense in you sullying your spotless reputation.”
“Are you trying to be sarcastic?” Q asked. “Because it doesn’t suit you.”
He winked at her and pointed to the guitar resting in its case. “Maybe it was just that one. Maybe he was selling a personal weapon with a guitar as a package deal. There’s nothing illegal about that.”
She looked at him, dismayed. “I don’t know if I like what one night with Ben’s sister has done to your level of cynicism. Who are you and what have you done with the real Aaron Sanger?”
He grinned and elbowed her in the ribs as they proceeded to pull every guitar case off the wall, opening each one. Of the thirty or so cases, less than half held the guitars for which they were designed. Inside of each of the others was a serial-numberless firearm awaiting its new, nefarious owner.
Q sat down on the floor, her arms wrapped protectively around B3’s guitar bag, which thankfully, had contained the purple Strat that she had purchased.
“Mike was running guns,” she stated in shocked horror.
“Mike was running a lot of guns,” Sanger corrected, gesturing to the shelves in front of them. He sat down beside her on the floor. “Clementine, what have you gotten me into?”
She rested her head on his shoulder in apprehension. “Don’t look at me, I just wanted the guitar I bought and paid for, so that I could win the title of ‘Best Auntie Ever.’”
“This is bad,” he said.
“Like ATF bad, FBI bad, or Department of Homeland Security bad?” she asked.
Sanger abruptly stood up and pulled Q to her feet. “Take your guitar. Get the fuck out of here. You didn’t see this. You weren’t here. I already told Evidence I was following a lead. Suspicious activity at the store. We’ll go with that. I thought he might be dealing drugs, based on what you and Tom said at dinner last night. But you can’t be within a mile of this place when I call it in.”
He started pushing her to the front door.
“Wait!” she protested. “How much trouble are we in?”
Sanger put his hands on either side of her face. “I’m going to keep you out of this. You need to stay out of this. Please, Clementine. Let me do my job and keep you safe. If Ackerman got mixed up with illegal gun sales, he’s involved with the type of people that make the Multers look like some quirky relatives you see once a year at Passover.”
If this new type of people made the same Louisiana power couple that had tried to kill Q, and had a fondness for raping under-aged prostitutes, look quirky at best, she didn’t want to be within a hundred miles of Mikey’s Music Emporium.
She nodded and moved to the door.
Q turned brusquely and kissed Sanger’s cheek. “You do not have my permission to get yourself killed, do you hear me?”
He smiled and cupped her face in his hand. “It’s not as eminently dangerous as all that. Besides, I’ve got a pretty woman waiting on me to pick her up for dinner tonight, thanks to you. So, I think I’m gonna keep on breathing,” he said. “Now you, get your ass out of here and don’t say a word to anyone, not even to Ben.”
“Ben’s going to know something’s up, Aaron,” Q said. She held up the guitar. “How am I going to explain how I got this?”
Sanger thought for a minute before saying, “Tell him I already had a uniform run over and get it for you. Tell him about me and Yvie. Say anything, but this isn’t something either of you are supposed to know about. You understand me? This could get you both killed.”
Q slung the gig bag over her shoulder and folded her arms in protestation. “As opposed to all the other times, I suppose.”
“Don’t argue. Please, just go, Clementine,” he begged.
She slipped out the front door of the Emporium and walked down Tchoupitoulas towards the Cove. Something tickled her neck and she saw the bright, blue Mikey’s Music Emporium tag hanging from the guitar case on her back.
Fucking great.
She quickly yanked it off and shoved it into her pocket.
As she headed to Napoleon to turn towards the streetcar line on St. Charles, she heard dozens of sirens scream nearby. She quickened her pace. Realizing that she probably wouldn’t make it to the line unseen while carrying a guitar bag, she sought a convenient means of escape. Luckily, one presented itself on the next corner. She ducked into Sun Nails and sat in the nearest massage chair.
A young Vietnamese man sat on the low seat in front of her and began to fill the basin at her feet.
“You get a new guitar from Mikey’s?” he asked, gesturing to the case leaning nearby. “I thought it was still closed.”
“Oh,” Q said. “It’s still closed. My husband owns Lafitte’s Cove. I left my guitar there the other night. Had to go pick it up. Thought I’d walk over to the Emporium with it and get some new strings, then I remembered...”<
br />
Liar, liar pants on fire.
“I can’t believe Mike is dead. You know him well?” he asked.
“Yeah. This city’s never going to be the same.”
He poured some Epsom salts into the water and tested the temperature. “Hate to lose a regular customer, but I’ll be glad not to have to work on those bunions of his anymore. I don’t suppose you’ve heard if his wife’s decided what she’s going to do with the place?”