French Quarter

by Stella Cameron

  “I guess he isn’t gonna want to give Charmain Bienville a hickey, huh?” Jean-Claude said.

  “JC,” Dwayne said severely. “Not in front of Celina.” Jean-Claude actually turned a little pink. He said, “Sorry I forgot. You sure that’s where Cyrus is?”

  “Absolutely,” Celina said. “He made arrangements to meet her again today, and he said he refused to let some small-minded gossipmongers stand in the way of his counseling a needy soul. He thinks Sally is sincere in wanting to make her peace with God.”

  “Difficult to believe,” Dwayne said. “But I’d never argue with Cyrus if the subject was God.”

  They all laughed and the atmosphere lightened. Jack asked, “Where are they meeting?” but Celina shook her head and said she didn’t know. The less she shared Cyrus’s plans for claiming Sally’s soul for the Lord, the better.

  “Do stop flitting about,” Dwayne said. “All of you. We’ve got a wedding in three days. I have a lot to do and I need the cooperation of the happy family.”

  “I thought we wouldn’t have to do anything,” Jack said. “Dwayne the expert is taking care of every detail.”

  “As long as you agree to everything I’ve arranged, you don’t have to do anything. I’ve looked at your parlor several times, Jack. It’s going to be a fairy tale by the time I’ve finished. I rendered a design and there’ll be a lowered ceiling like a striped big top made of silk streamers with painted flowers twining up the streamers. The painted flowers will be echoed with the real thing. There will be urns standing in every corner of the room, in the windows, everywhere we can put a stone urn. I’ve been promised I can do roses and have plenty to choose from, so it will be roses. I thought pale pink and cream. Celina?”

  “Very pretty.” She couldn’t imagine preparing for a wedding, least of all her own.

  Α knock at the door silenced them all and Jean-Claude went to look. He came back with a tall, clearly very expensive crystal vase filled with long-stemmed red roses.

  When the delivery boy had left, Jack asked if he could see who Celina’s secret admirer might be, and she told him to go ahead. She couldn’t stop him indefinitely anyway.

  Α card said, Forgive me, please, but wasn’t signed.

  “A secret admirer no less,” Dwayne said. “How romantic.” He caught Jack’s eyes and said, “Sorry.”

  “Not so secret,” Jack said, his lip curling.

  Celina let the comment pass.

  “I didn’t want to bring this here, but I’ve got to,” Jean-Claude said, pulling a folded sheet from an inside pocket of his jacket and handing it to Jack. “By tomorrow this is going to be all over the city. Cyrus’s name will be dragged back into it. See if it isn’t. He’s going to need some advice.”

  Jack took the sheet from one of the city’s sensationalist rags. Celina looked over his shoulder. She sat upright on his lap so abruptly, she butted his jaw with her brow, and he grunted.

  Α lurid photograph on an inside page showed a woman apparently in the throes of sexual ecstasy. The back of a man covered much of her, but one breast—slightly fuzzed out of focus but crowned with what appeared to be a blossom—was revealed. She clung to some sort of bars and her legs were wrapped around the man. No imagination at all was required to visualize what couldn’t be seen.

  “Hell,” Jack muttered. “Seems like taking freedom of the press a bit far.”

  “That’s Sally Lamar,” Jean-Claude said. “Some employee of Lamar’s talked out of school to a reporter. I’ve got a hunch he probably also arranged to have that shot taken. I bet the little creep cleaned up. Her friend in the picture is unnamed. Now ain’t that justice?”

  “Insatiable Senator’s Wife,” Jack read the headline aloud. “Senator’s bodyguard speaks out about victimization by his boss’s wife. He told the reporter, ‘She made it clear that she expected favors, and if she didn’t get them, you were likely to lose your job.’ Bull. I don’t like Sally Lamar, but I don’t think she’d have to stoop to this.”

  Celina didn’t analyze that statement too deeply. Sally was a lovely, desirable woman, and Jack was a sexual animal himself.

  “So,” Dwayne said, “what’s the punch line?”

  Jack read on and suddenly crumpled the paper in his lap.

  “What?” Dwayne and Celina asked in unison.

  “According to this, Sally Lamar says she’s been trying to find peace in other men’s arms, men other than Errol’s since he died. She says she’s going to give Wilson an amicable divorce because he deserves it.”

  Celina bowed her head.

  “Jeesh,” Dwayne said, his eyes huge. “What d’you suppose is going on there?”

  Jack shook out the paper and read again. “Mrs. Lamar tearfully admitted to having sex with dozens of men, influential, well known men in New Orleans. She says she’s insatiable and will seek treatment, but that it isn’t fair to burden her husband with her troubles at a time when he’s seeking election.”

  He looked up and around the room. “She says she hopes he’ll find someone else to marry, someone who’ll be the helpmate she couldn’t be. And the parting shot is that she’s going to offer herself to the police for questioning because she believes she was the last to see Errol Petrie alive. That was while they were having sex in his bath.”

  Thirty-three

  It was all over now. Sally walked rapidly down an aisle in the dark church until she reached a small side-chapel lit by guttering candles suspended on heavy chains. There was a smell of old incense, and it sickened her, but she had known the only way to get Cyrus out to see her at this time of night would be to meet him on the kind of turf he understood best.

  It was all over unless Cyrus could come up with a way to help her.

  She entered the chapel and wasn’t surprised to see a tall man in clerical garb seated to one side of three kneelers. In the flickering gold light from the candles, he was painfully handsome.

  “Cyrus,” she said, her voice breaking. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Come and sit down. We must be careful we’re not seen or heard. No one followed you?”

  “No one. I was very careful. I left a party when no one was looking and took a very circuitous route here.”

  He indicated another chair, and she moved it close to him. Cyrus said nothing, but she felt him draw back inside himself. Her sexuality frightened him, but then, it always had. “I wanted to see you as soon as that horrible picture came out in the paper,” she told him.

  “Yes. Fortunately, although my superiors are displeased with the publicity, they choose to accept my version of what happened. And since my job is to aid the troubled, I cannot be chastised for trying to do so.”

  She sat down so close their knees touched. “Did you see what was in the paper about me today?”

  “I was shown by my archbishop.”

  Sally shuddered with genuine horror. “How awful. It was a setup, you know.”

  “That isn’t any affair of mine. Do you want absolution?”

  “No! No, thank you.” She wanted to scream at him to be a man just this once, and react with a man’s emotions. “It says in the paper that I’ve agreed to divorce Wilson.”

  “Have you?”

  She slid from her chair and went to her knees beside his thighs. “I don’t believe in divorce.” Careful to make no sudden moves, she stroked his hard thigh, then rested her head there. “Please make me feel better, Cyrus. Comfort me. I’m so alone. He made me say those things because he was angry. Tell me what I should do to save my marriage. Should I bring Wilson down if it will keep us together? I can do that, you know. I’m not stupid. All the tricks he’s played are obvious to me. He set me up because there’s another woman he wants, but he’s got to have public sympathy before he can get rid of me without losing enough votes to finish him.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  “Because you’re involved in a way. It’s your sister Wilson wants. He’s always wanted her. And if he can get rid of me and
have the world think I’ve done him some terrible wrongs, they’ll rally around him when he marries your gorgeous, squeaky-clean sister.”

  “Sally, my sister isn’t interested in your husband.”

  She sighed and brushed her cheek back and forth on his leg. “You are a wonderful man, Cyrus. But you don’t understand some things. You could be right and Celina may not want Wilson—yet. But she could change her mind when the chance comes along and she sees what it could mean for her in the future.

  “I’m sure you’re wrong about that.”

  Sally sighed again, and said, “You’ve got so much more wisdom than I do. You’re probably right.”

  Cyrus shifted in a way that assured her he was reacting to her touch. Sally maneuvered herself between his thighs and sat on her haunches, looking beseechingly up at him. “Will you help me?”

  “I’d like to,” he said, and she felt his sincerity. “I’m just not sure what I can do.”

  “You can speak to Wilson. Warn him that if he persists with his attack on my reputation, I’ll give him away. Ι know how Ben Angel got into our house. It’s all so clear now. Ι found out Ben never had anything to do with servicing aquariums or installing them. That’s what he told me he’d been doing at the house. But someone else did it. That was another of Wilson’s covers to get someone into the house in a so-called legitimate manner.”

  Cyrus leaned forward. “Why wouldn’t he just employ the man? Why go to such lengths?”

  “To flaunt him before me. He knows I’ve been, well, horny. Forgive me, Cyrus, but I don’t know how else to say it. I told you Wilson hasn’t touched me for a long time, but he knows my taste in men, and when he saw this boy he must have known I’d take one look at him and want him, so he made sure that’s what happened. He planned it all, right down to having Ben Angel have pictures taken of us, and then talk to the papers and tell a bunch of lies. Wilson’s always wanted Celina. Now he thinks he’s going to get her.”

  “Ι’ll talk to Celina,” Cyrus said. “But I know she’s going to be amazed at the suggestion.”

  “I don’t really care if she sleeps with Wilson,” Sally told him. “I want to stay married to him, but Ι don’t want him anymore.” Cyrus looked at her without comprehension.

  “You know what Ι want. Ι want you. Ι made a mistake years ago when I pushed myself at you. But I’m older and wiser now.” And the perfect way to push mud in Wilson’s and Celina’s faces would be to knock Celina’s brother off his ivory perch. Also, Sally wanted him. It was as simple as that—and she wanted to bring Wilson down.

  How sweet it would be to have their set rallying behind her instead of her prick of a husband.

  “Please stand by me when I make an announcement to the papers about the kind of things Wilson’s done. He’s an addict, you know. Cocaine.”

  “Please,” Cyrus said. “That’s for him to deal with.”

  “Not if he’s making a play for Celina, surely.”

  “Celina’s getting married.”

  Sally stared at him in the gloom. “You’re kidding.”

  “On Friday. To Jack Charbonnet.”

  Laughter bubbled up inside her. Poor, stupid Wilson would be furious. “Why, that’s wonderful news,” she managed to say. “I’m glad for Celina. Did you know Wilson was insanely jealous of Errol?”

  “I can’t say I did.”

  “Well, he was. Partly because he knew Errol and I were lovers. But he also hated it that Errol found it so easy to gather people’s sympathy. And he thought Errol was having an affair with Celina and he intended to stop it at any price. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Wilson would pay anything to get Errol out of Celina’s life permanently—including the cost of hiring someone to kill him.”

  “No, Sally. This isn’t right.”

  “We aren’t in a confessional. I haven’t asked you for absolution. I’m talking to you as an old friend.”

  He averted his head.

  Gently, Sally slipped a hand over his cheek and eased his face back until he looked at her again. “I made love with Errol the night he died. When I left he was still alive and feelin’ fine. It wasn’t until after I left that he supposedly went into cardiac arrest and had an accident in the bath, or whatever they’re saying happened to him.”

  “Do you expect me to listen to you talking about committing adultery, and not react.”

  “I expect you to react to the fact that I know what happened to Errol.” She rose to her knees and held his face between both hands.

  He didn’t flinch or try to pull away.

  Sally kissed Cyrus. She tried to deepen the contact, to part his lips, but he held as still as stone until she was panting with the effort to make him respond.

  “I’m in love with you,” she whispered.

  “No. But we won’t argue. Please sit on the chair.”

  Rather than do as he asked, she kissed him again and ran her hands into his hair. And once more he sat, wooden and unresponsive.

  “What’s the matter with you,” she hissed. “Aren’t you a man anymore?”

  He smiled. “Oh, I’m a man—a man who takes the vows he made seriously. I’ll help you if I can, but I don’t want this.”

  She sat on the cold stone floor and pulled her skirts around her knees. And she sulked.

  Cyrus leaned forward and tilted up her chin. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, Sally. Use it for something worthwhile. If you can help with what happened to Errol, do it. You’ll be doing a lot of people a service.”

  She made up her mind rapidly. If nothing else, she’d get back at Wilson. “He knew I was sleeping with Errol,” she said. “He didn’t want to sleep with me himself, but he never has liked it if someone else got part of me. Like I told you, Errol was alive when I left him. And he wasn’t in the bathroom. We’d been in the bath, but we moved to the bed, and that’s where he was when I left him.

  “Errol knew something about Wilson. He said as much. He told me I should put distance between Wilson and me because there was going to be a lot of unpleasantness.

  “Cyrus, Errol said he would be seeing Wilson later that night. He said someone else had arranged the interview and that Wilson would be withdrawing his senatorial candidacy afterward. He also said he was afraid for his life, but couldn’t step back from what he intended to do.

  “Find a way to tell the police—some trustworthy police. Get them to question Wilson about that night. I think Wilson waited until I left Errol. Then he killed him.”

  Sally left the church and walked rapidly toward the side street where she’d left her car. Wilson had tried to destroy her, and he’d probably succeeded. But she was going to take him down with her.

  Moonlight slid in and out behind swags of a thin, yellow-tinged pewter cloud. One moment there was an eerie light on the scene, the next, near darkness.

  Her heels echoed on the sidewalk.

  Since Ben Angel was so quick to tell lies to some scandal rag, why shouldn’t he be just as quick to demonstrate some of the behavior he’d told them she foisted on him.

  She’d find Ben and demand a “surprise.”

  Cyrus’s strength to deny her warmed her in an odd way. He must be the last honorable man left alive. She’d chosen her ally well. He’d make sure Celina had nothing to do with Wilson.

  In a building to her right, a lone horn played. It wept in the night and turned her heart. She loved this city, every facet of it. It was sometimes almost prayerful in its spirituality, sometimes so steeped in sin, it smelled of rot.

  Her car was on the next corner. She speeded her step and fished her keys from a pocket in her skirt, selecting the one to open her door as she went.

  Once beside the Mercedes, she aimed the key and remotely unlocked the combination that also turned on an interior light. She smiled. There were so many things Wilson would have to do without soon. After all, she was the one with the money.

  Sally reached to open the car door. She didn’t see the hands shoot from beneath the
front end of the car. They closed on her ankles and yanked, bringing her crashing down in the gutter and smashing her head on the curb.

  The horn drowned her scream.

  She did see the yellow moon on the blade of the knife, and opened her mouth to scream again, but a hand, pushed into her mouth, cut off the sound.

  Weight thrown on top of her knocked the wind from her body. A sweating face leered down. How well she knew that face.

  The pain, when it came, shot from the point of her chin to her crotch. The gurgle from her throat was blood escaping through a wound on the outside. Then the stabbing began.

  Thirty-four

  La Murena didn’t draw suburban couples looking for late-night dining after a show and before returning to the kiddies.

  Jack entered the windowless front door with only a glance at the inch-high red neon name above a bell to the left.

  He was jumpy, which meant he was a wise man—or at least that his basic instincts were good. This was not a good place for him to be, but what he needed couldn’t be found anywhere else. He had to get Win to call off his watchdogs. It no longer mattered if the man paid for the death of Jack’s parents, not in the way Jack had originally visualized. Win Giavanelli was old and sick, and his power was dwindling. Jack just wanted out; he wanted to turn his back on the past and protect those he loved.

  He wasn’t a fool. These people didn’t take kindly to goodbyes. His task was to sever all connections without appearing to sever them at all.

  “Slummin’, Jackie boy?”

  Sonny Clete got off his bar stool the moment he saw Jack.

  Jack affected a bored countenance. “One of those nights, Sonny. You know what I mean. The ones when you know you need sleep but can’t get any.”

  Α martini in one hand, Sonny sauntered up to Jack. “Sleep like a baby whenever I need to myself.” He talked around a toothpick clamped between his teeth. “Guess that comes from knowin’ the rules of the game and stickin’ to them. Avoidin’ steppin’ on toes that could make me real miserable.”

  No translation of Sonny’s message was needed. “I envy a man who sees life in black and white,” Jack said. “There isn’t a shade of gray on your horizon, is there, Sonny?”