by Laura Childs
Typical of Shamus, he was a good twenty minutes late. Finally, Carmela spotted him, cutting a handsome swath through the dining room, heading back toward the sunny outdoor courtyard. Along the way, Shamus glad-handed a number of acquaintances while surreptitiously sneaking peeks at the occasional good-looking woman. No surprises here, thought Carmela. A leopard never changes its spots.
When he reached Carmela’s table, Shamus offered her a dazzling smile, then bent down to kiss her. At the last moment, Carmela turned her face, so Shamus’s lips just grazed her cheek. It ended up being a quick and chaste kiss. One that said, We’re so over.
“Lookin’ good, babe,” said Shamus as he sat down across from her. That was Shamus’s standard greeting, and it hadn’t changed from the time they’d been dating until now. Carmela didn’t let it bother her, because Shamus pretty much greeted all women that way. Though his words were obnoxious, he considered them charming.
Peering at Carmela’s empty wineglass, Shamus said, “You’re drinking. I guess I better order one, too.” He crooked a finger, brought a waitress scurrying over, and then spent the next five minutes specifying exactly what kind of bourbon he wanted, what type of water, and how he wanted his drink precisely mixed. Then he glanced over at Carmela. “You want another . . . what? Glass of wine?”
“Please,” Carmela told the waitress directly. If she let Shamus do the ordering, it would take forever. And she had business to conduct.
“So,” said Shamus, settling back in his wicker chair and crossing his long legs, “you are involved in a murder.”
“Not really,” said Carmela. She’d set up this lunch for the sole purpose of discussing the divorce settlement. No way did she want to get sidetracked.
“Yes, you are,” Shamus insisted. “I hear things. In fact, I have my finger on the pulse of this city.”
“No, you don’t, Shamus,” said Carmela in a calm, slightly bored tone. “You live in a completely insular world that’s dictated by your family and a relatively small stratum of New Orleans society. Which means you all eat at the same restaurants and attend the same parties. And you, I know for a fact, still hang out with your old frat-rat buddies. The only difference is that now you’re all ten years older and have moved up a notch from toga parties to the Pluvius krewe.” The Pluvius krewe was the bad-boy Mardi Gras krewe that Shamus belonged to.
Anger flashed in Shamus’s eyes. “You think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?”
“Yes and no,” said Carmela. “I pretty much know how you’re going to react to most things, but once in a while you change things up and really surprise the crap out of me.”
Shamus brightened. “I do? That’s good, huh?”
Carmela reached over and patted his hand. “Of course it is, Shamus.”
Their drinks arrived and they perused menus. One of the best things about lunch at Glisande’s Restaurant was their grilled pompano. The fish always arrived steaming at the table, tender and succulent, drizzled with buttery caper sauce and accompanied by a golden mound of sweet potato French fries.
Carmela snapped her menu shut. “Grilled pompano for me.”
“Me, too,” said Shamus. He motioned the waitress back over, managed to communicate their order without too much extraneous direction, then smiled lazily at Carmela.
Carmela narrowed her eyes and decided to parlay Shamus’s considerable banking connections into cadging a few bits of information. “Have you ever heard of a real estate developer by the name of Sawyer Barnes?”
Shamus studied her. “Is that who you’re dating now?”
“No!”
“Then who is it?”
“None of your business.”
“Sure it is,” said Shamus. “You’re still my wife.” He smiled to himself. “My little wifey.”
“Not for much longer,” said Carmela. She hoped the amendment she wanted to tack on to Shamus’s proposed divorce settlement wouldn’t bring their already slow progress to a screeching halt. “Sawyer Barnes?” Carmela tried again.
Shamus scooped a croissant from the bread basket and slathered on an inch of cheese butter. “He’s a real estate guy. A real player.”
“How so?” asked Carmela.
Shamus took an enormous bite of his croissant. “Mmm, good.”
“And so heart healthy,” said Carmela.
Shamus ignored her remark. “Crescent City Bank did a little business with Barnes. From what I understand, he started out developing small apartment buildings over in Kenner. You know, like four-plexes, maybe an eight-plex. Shitty little deals. Recently, however, Barnes made the leap to dabbling in upscale condos. Sawyer Barnes buys . . . what would you call them? . . . unusual properties and converts them into very designer-type condos. In fact, he just did some really gorgeous two-story condos in an old cotton warehouse on the edge of the CBD.” CBD was the Central Business District.
“Okay,” said Carmela, “what else do you know about Barnes?”
“I just told you,” said Shamus. “He’s a developer. Oh, and he had that hot decorator chick, Suzi Wanamacher, do up the models in a super contemporary style.” He paused. “S-curved sectionals and digital art, what more do you want? Go over and take a look at the places yourself if you’re so darned interested.” Shamus smirked. “But watch out for Barnes. He’s a good-looking guy, lots of dark, curly hair. And, from what I hear, quite the hound dog.”
“Duly noted,” said Carmela.
The waitress brought their drinks, and they each took a couple of long gulps. A cooling-off period, Carmela decided. Or maybe they were fortifying themselves, working up to the big discussion.
“Hey, guess what,” said Shamus.
“I don’t know, Shamus,” said Carmela. “What?”
“Something really cool happened. Take a wild guess.”
“Glory finally went into spin-dry,” said Carmela. Glory Meechum, Shamus’s crazy big sis, always seemed in desperate need of an alcohol detox program.
“Don’t be silly,” scoffed Shamus. “The big news is that I’m gonna have some of my photos on display at the Click! Gallery this Saturday night during Galleries and Gourmets.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Carmela. “It only took you . . . what? Four years to get a show together?”
Shamus frowned. “Photography’s hard, babe. You of all people should know that. You deal with that shit at your scrapbook shop.”
“Yeah,” said Carmela, “that’s how we refer to it, too.”
Shamus rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“So these are your bayou photos?” Carmela forced herself to be polite. After all, she wanted Shamus in a good mood, a receptive mood.
Shamus nodded. “Mostly photos I shot at the camp house.” Shamus’s family had a camp house in the Baritaria Bayou, a creaking, sagging cabin with a spacious front porch and tin roof that was an utter delight when rain pattered down.
“I’m happy for you, Shamus,” said Carmela, in a half-hearted manner.
“You gotta stop by Click! and see ’em,” said Shamus proudly. “I’ve got great photos of sunsets on the bayou, flocks of ibises, and even some wild nutria.”
“Will your photos just be on display?” asked Carmela, “or will they be for sale, too? Is this a real gallery show?”
“For sale, for sure,” said Shamus. “Hey, I see this as a lifetime calling. So I sure as heck want to make money at it.”
“Mmm,” said Carmela, as the waitress and another server arrived at their table with their luncheon entrées. The two servers stood poised for a moment, then set the entrées down in front of them in one choreographed movement.
“Excellent,” said Shamus, grinning at the cuter of the two women.
Carmela took a bite of her pompano. Crispy on the outside, tender and moist on the inside.
Shamus dug in, too. “So good,” he marveled.
“Shamus,” said Carmela. “I read through the settlement offer you sent over.”
“Mnnuhh,” sai
d Shamus with his mouth full. “I knew you’d be amenable to everything. Sounds like we’re finally making progress.”
“No,” said Carmela. “Not really.”
Shamus’s eyes went wide, and his fork clattered noisily to the table. “What?”
Carmela gazed across the table at him. “I want the house, too. The Garden District house.”
Now Shamus’s shocked look turned to puzzlement. “The house? What house? You mean Glory’s house? Or the one Uncle Henry lived in?”
Carmela shook her head. “Neither.”
Understanding suddenly dawned in Shamus’s eyes. “You mean my house?” His voice was an outraged screech.
“Technically, it was our house,” said Carmela.
“You didn’t live there that long!” said Shamus.
Carmela fired back immediately. “Neither did you, Shamus. In fact, you were the one who slipped into his boogie shoes at the first sign of trouble and left me all by myself.”
“You had Boo,” said Shamus, looking sheepish.
“And she was the only one I could count on,” Carmela pointed out. “Because when you made no effort to come back, Glory took devilish delight in kicking me out!”
“Glory’s always been a little high-strung,” muttered Shamus. “She was just worried about me.”
“Worried about you,” said Carmela. “What a terrific family you’ve got there. You’re like the Medicis, building your own nasty little empire, always trying to thwart outsiders.”
Shamus had abandoned his pompano and was chewing his fingernails furiously now. Chewing, then spitting them out. Chewing. Spitting. Carmela tried not to watch. It had never been one of his more endearing qualities. Then again, what had?
Finally, Shamus said, “If I agree to deed the house to you, then we’d be done with it? A onetime deal, no alimony?”
Carmela nodded. “I could live with that.”
“We’d be finished?”
“Kaput,” promised Carmela.
Shamus grimaced. “I’d have to move.”
“You’re right about that,” said Carmela. “Because if you didn’t, then we’d be roommates again. Really lousy roommates. Even worse than before.”
“Hmm,” said Shamus, thoughtfully. “Not so good.”
“No kidding,” said Carmela.
But Shamus wasn’t through squirming and moaning. “What would I do?” he wondered. “Where would I live?”
“I don’t know,” said Carmela. “Figure it out. You’ve got plenty of money; you’re the scion to a big-assed banking family.”
He peered at her.
“And there are excellent opportunities open to you,” Carmela told him in a very pep-talk tone of voice. “Glory’s always foreclosing on somebody. That’s how she gets her kicks. Maybe you could move into one of her repo places. Someplace closer to downtown, closer to the action.”
Shamus suddenly brightened. “You know, that’s a very real possibility.”
Instead of dashing back across the street to Memory Mine, Carmela swung down Governor Nicholls Street, hung a left at Burgundy Street, and in about three minutes found herself standing outside Byte Head, Tate Mackie’s computer repair shop. It had once been a souvenir shop, and its large front windows had dripped with purple, gold, and green Mardi Gras beads, oversized beer mugs, pimp cups, boxes of pralines, and T-shirts that proclaimed The Big Easy or Got Beads? or Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler. Now the front windows had Byte Head painted in jagged red letters, and the display area was stuffed with used computers, keyboards, and boxes of software.
Inside, Carmela found herself surrounded by even more computer equipment as well as several used computer desks and workstations.
A woman with a notebook computer wrapped in a pink afghan stood at the counter.
“It just crashed,” she lamented to the young man who was waiting on her. “Now all I get is a speckled screen.” She sniffed loudly. “My whole life’s swirling around in there somewhere.”
The young man, who Carmela assumed was Tate Mackie, asked a few technical questions as he wrote up her order ticket. “Leave it here,” he told her, “and we’ll see what we can do.”
“You think you can fix it?” asked the woman, almost in tears now.
“If we can’t fix it, then we’ll at least try to recover your data,” he assured her in a soothing voice.
“My data,” she crooned. “My poor data. Yes, that would be good.”
As the bereft computer user handed over her computer and slipped away, Carmela moved up to the counter. “Tate Mackie?” she asked.
The young man nodded. He was dressed in black jeans and a red T-shirt with a white, oval NOLA logo.
“I’m Carmela Bertrand,” said Carmela, introducing herself.
Tate Mackie stared at her for a few seconds, and then a smile lit his face and he snapped his fingers. “Hey . . . yeah. Olivia Wainwright said you’d be getting in touch.”
“Right,” said Carmela. “My friend Ava and I are going to be finishing up the decorating on Medusa Manor.”
A shadow fell across Tate Mackie’s face. “Melody,” he said. “She . . . she was a very cool lady.”
“Yes, she was,” said Carmela.
“Have you heard anything?” Tate asked eagerly. “Are the police any closer to catching her killer?” He pursed his lips and frowned. “If I could get my hands on the monster who murdered her, I’d . . .” His hands opened and closed spasmodically. Tate Mackie was visibly upset.
“The police are still chasing down leads,” Carmela told him.
“But nobody’s in custody,” said Tate, sounding both angry and frustrated.
“No, not yet.”
“Bummer,” said Tate. Then he gazed at Carmela with a mixture of wonder and horror on his face. “And you were there when it happened. I saw the report on TV.”
“Unfortunately . . . yes,” said Carmela.
Tate shook his head vigorously, like a dog shaking off water, then said, “Must’ve been awful.”
“It was pretty upsetting,” said Carmela. “Which is why I agreed to finish the decorating. Help finish out Melody’s pet project.”
“For her memory,” said Tate, nodding. “Kind of a testament to her. Yeah, I get it. It’s . . . it’s what I want to do, too. Melody came up with some really great ideas for Medusa Manor.”
“And you already implemented some of the computer gadgetry,” said Carmela, digging into her bag. “I’ve got the plans Olivia gave me.”
Tate shoved the silver laptop off to the side so Carmela could roll out the plans. Then, for the next ten minutes, Tate recounted what he’d already installed in Medusa Manor and what he had planned.
“That all sounds good,” said Carmela. She’d been furiously jotting notes, asking questions, nodding at his answers. Finally, she straightened up and looked around Tate Mackie’s shop. “You repair computers,” she said, “but you also do special effects.”
“I gotta earn a living,” he told her. “But I’m really a frustrated special-effects guy. My dream is to someday work on feature films. But . . .” He glanced about his shop. “This is what I do for the time being. Pick up the pieces when people drop-kick their laptop or their Dell goes into deep freeze.” He grinned. “What kind of computer do you use?”
“An iMac.”
“Do you back up?”
“Sure,” said Carmela.
“You’d be surprised how many people don’t,” said Tate. “Then they come crying to me and expect magic.” He glanced about his shop. “Anyway, it’s all pretty much the same thing, isn’t it? Magically repairing hard drives, creating special effects and doing CGI?”
“CGI,” said Carmela. “I keep hearing that term. What exactly does it mean?”
“It’s short for computer-generated imagery,” explained Tate, grabbing a silver Toshiba from the table behind him and setting it on the counter. “Pioneered years ago at Industrial Light and Magic on the coast, perfected by some of the best and wackiest minds. There
’s lots of ways of using it. To bring dinosaurs to life, simulate outer space, whatever. I’ve already created several special-effects images for Medusa Manor—a howling banshee and a ghostly face, on computer.”
“Okay,” said Carmela.
“Then I project the image, larger than life-size, using video equipment.” He pushed a couple of buttons and a crone’s face appeared, the eyes glowing like red coals, the tongue waggling like a serpent. “It’s pretty cool. What I was thinking, for the Morgue of Madness, was taking the crematorium thing to the max, creating some very realistic effects with licking flames.” He pushed a couple more buttons, and the image on the screen flickered from the crone’s face to a wall of dancing flames.
“Wow,” said Carmela, amazed and a little in awe, too. “You can really bring that to life? Make it look like it’s really happening?”
Tate nodded. “If you want . . . I can make it crackle and leap like the fires of Hades.”
Chapter 12
“THEY brought keys for you,” said Gabby, dropping a miniature stack of shiny brass keys into the palm of Carmela’s hand. It was midafternoon and she’d finally made it back to Memory Mine. “Apparently someone jammed the lock with superglue.”
“Yeah?” said Carmela, wondering briefly if Sidney St. Cyr had been the culprit. “So . . . the door’s fixed? Already?”
Gabby raised her eyebrows and glanced at her watch. “You’ve been gone for hours.”
Carmela felt an instant pang of guilt. “Oh no, I have, haven’t I? Was the shop terribly busy? Did I heap everything onto your capable shoulders once again?”
Gabby shook her head and waved a hand. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. Gee, I didn’t mean to lay such a heavy guilt trip on you.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to be gadding all over the French Quarter, either,” said Carmela.
“You’ve got a lot on your plate right now,” said Gabby. “I know how close you were to Melody. Garth, too.”
Carmela glanced around the scrapbooking shop. Two customers were in back, perusing the display of rubber stamps. Another was halfway down the center aisle, picking out various sheets of paper. “Gabby,” said Carmela, “when Garth came in this morning, you didn’t get any sort of, uh, feeling about him, did you?”