I can’t tell you more, even if you ask.”
Durnella took a washrag and started to wipe down the kitchen table, cleaning off the damp rings left by the coffee cups, and spoke slowly as she worked. “You think I sit in my kitchen and tend my garden and don’t know there’s something unusual going on? You think I didn’t know W.T. took his shotgun with him to New Orleans? You think I
didn’t worry myself sick about that until he came home? You think I didn’t see the truck missin’ from the driveway last night and know that W.T. must have known that it wasn’t stolen, or the police would be here taking down his statement?”
She folded the washrag carefully, placed it on the edge of the table, put her hands in her lap, and faced me. “You think I sleep so soundly I didn’t hear that phone ring last night? Knew it was you. Knew it must have been about the truck. But I thought all along it was bad sinnin’ you was doin’, and that W.T. was somehow tryin’ to protect me from that, knowing my blood pressure would just shoot way up.”
She looked pointedly at Washington. “As if it hadn’t already, what with all this commotion goin’ on.”
She stood up and went over to the stove and poured herself another cup of coffee. “Why would you not want to use your car? Why would you not want to sleep in your
house? Why would W.T. be oiling his shotgun before dawn this mornin’?” Washington looked at his wife in amazement.
I started to speak, but she wagged a finger at me and said, “Now, you hush up, you hear. Don’t say nothin’. If it was somethin’ you could tell me, it would be somethin’ you could have told W.T., and if you told him, I’d have sure known about it. But W.T. has said nothin’ to me.”
She looked at her husband again. “Nothin’!”
She leaned against the counter. “So, you don’t tell W.T. nothin’, and yet he could see you were in some type of trouble, and he was tryin’ to help.” The irritation was gone from her voice.
She affectionately rubbed Washington’s bald head, and he squirmed with pleasure in his chair at her touch. “That’s the kind of man I married. Sixty-odd years ago. If someone needs help, W.T. can’t say no.”
Washington craned upward to give her a kiss, “Woman, you amaze me every day.”
She pushed him away playfully. “Get on with you, W.T. You and I are too old to go and start sparkin’.
Washington had a glint in his eye. “I don’t know 'bout that.” “Too late in life and too early in the mornin’ is what I say.” She took a seat at the table again and became serious. “Now, what I want to know is, Attorney Schexnaydre, do you really need to involve W.T. in whatever it is you’re doin’? 'Cause we’ll help you as neighbors all we can, but I don’t like the idea of W.T. takin’ his shotgun out. I don’t like this all-night stuff, whatever the reason is for borrowin’ the truck. And if W.T. ever came home in the condition you’re in,” she said, pointing to my bandaged arm, “I’d just . . .”
She stopped as her voice cracked. She reached into her bathrobe pocket, grabbed a wadded piece of tissue and held it to her nose a second while she composed herself.
Washington stood up, went behind her chair, and started massaging her shoulders.
Durnella put her tissue down and held on to one of Washington’s hands while staring directly at me. “Look, if you need someone to be big and strong and young, I’ll go call my grandnephew. He’s a strapper. Had army experience. But don’t involve W.T.
Please don’t.”
“Woman, no need to involve Joleese or anyone else. Nothin’s goin’ on here that I can’t take care of. I take care of you, don’t I? Not gonna let nothin’ happen to you or me.”
I tried not to change expressions when I heard them mention Joleese. There couldn’t be more than one person in the area by that name, and since he worked for Rad, there was no way I wanted Joleese involved.
“Miz’ Durnella, you’re right. Washington shouldn’t be involved in anything. No more nighttime dealings. And I won’t need his truck anymore.”
I had figured out what to do next. I had to talk to Taylor. I could ask Lolly to set up a meeting at George & Beebo’s Bar and Grill. I could walk there.
I looked at my watch. It was going on nine in the morning. Even with Frankie and Ribeye out there looking for me, I didn’t think they would try anything in broad daylight on a workday. “I’m going to take my leave, Miz’ Durnella, and go back home and clean up. I think it’s safe there right now, at least before nightfall. And by then, I’ll have other arrangements made.”
I hadn’t figured out yet what those arrangements would be.
Durnella’s entire body looked grateful. The tension went out of her face. Her shoulders relaxed under Washington’s massaging hands.
“Woman, you were gonna take a mornin’ bath after you washed the greens. Well, the greens are washed. Why don’t you do the same for yourself? I’ll just go take Luther out for a walk. We’ll be back by the time you’re out and dressed.”
Washington closed the kitchen door as we walked onto the back porch. Only after the door shut did he reach around the corner and pull his shotgun out of the closet. “Let’s go check out your house together.”
Chapter 62
Washington and I carefully inspected the perimeter of my house and the locks. We examined the driveway and ligustrum hedge and the street. Nothing unusual. We searched the interior of my home. The mess was untouched. No one was there.
I called Lolly’s office. She wasn’t around but I spoke to Beau and told him to give my message to Taylor. He didn’t ask why, and I didn’t tell him.
I didn’t plan to be in my house for long. Just time for a quick shower and to grab my cell phone charger and another few days’ worth of clothes in case I couldn’t come back again for a while.
I let the showerhead water cascade down my back, being careful not to get the bandages on my arm wet. I soaped up, rinsed off and grabbed a towel. “Washington,” I called out, “I’m done. Thanks for staying.” No response.
“Washington?”
No answer. That was troublesome.
I wrapped the towel around my waist and pressed my ear against the bathroom door. No sound. That was even more disturbing. I had thought we were safe here in my house, with cars passing by every few minutes, with the sun shining brightly. Maybe this was another instance of my having deceived myself.
I opened the door cautiously. No one was in the bedroom.
As I moved into the hallway I saw, through the windows on the front door, shadows on the porch.
With my pulse quickening, and my brain frantically trying to figure out what I was going to do at this point, dressed only a towel, I pressed my back against the wall and started to inch back to the bedroom.
The front door partially opened. I froze.
Washington stuck his head inside and, seeing me holding the towel in place, couldn’t suppress a grin. “You got a visitor, and I’ve got to get back to Durnella. I’m sure you can handle this on your own.”
He held the door open and Millie Sue came inside. She was squeezed into a tight skirt and wore a tank top that seemed to have been shrink-wrapped on her torso. She flaunted pink high heels.
As he took his leave, Washington said cheerfully, “Now, y’all have fun!”
Chapter 63
I pulled my towel tighter around me.
Millie Sue gave my body the kind of scrutiny I had given hers when she first appeared with Guidry. “I approve. You’re in good shape, except for the nasty, nasty cut on your arm. You know, I tried to call you a couple of times last night. But there was only this silly answering machine. I didn’t want to leave a message for you because I really had to see you.”
Each time she pronounced the word ‘you’ she touched my chest with the long, red fingernail of her index finger.
“Yes I did. I had to see you. In person. I even came by late last night and knocked on the door, but there was no answer.”
She came closer and I backed my way down the hal
l.
She kept moving toward me. Suddenly, she snatched my towel away.
“See, I told you I had to see you. All of you. And, you are,” she said, as she gazed at my crotch, “impressive.”
The last thing I needed was Millie Sue making advances. I went into my bedroom, closed the door, and quickly started getting dressed.
“You’re so modest.” She rapped impatiently on the door. “Are you decent yet . . . or do you want to stay indecent?”
She didn’t wait for an answer and came on in. I was getting into my khaki trousers. I turned my back to her, yanked up the pants, and pulled up the zipper, but it got stuck in my underwear and I struggled to free it.
“Need some help? Something I can hold?”
“No!” I finished up and found her sitting provocatively on the edge of my bed.
She eyed the pillows on the floor and the sheets pulled free from a corner of the mattress. “A night of passion?” She rose and gently stroked my reddened neck where the wire had cut me. She examined the bandages on my arm. “Must have been some passion.”
I wriggled away and grabbed a shirt. “It’s not what you think. Get up and let’s go into the conference room.”
Millie Sue flung herself back on the bed, kicked off her shoes, and leaned against the headboard, letting her skirt ride up to her crotch, revealing her powder-pink thong. “Oh, I don’t know. What I have to say is pretty private stuff. Maybe this is the best location for private stuff.”
I went over, meaning to pull her off the bed, but she rose willingly into my arms.
I was not in the mood. Not with her. Ever.
I disengaged, slung her over my shoulder, and carried her into the conference room where I plopped her down on a chair.
She was not the slightest bit annoyed. “I rather enjoyed that. I like a man who’s a little bit rough. Let’s do that again!”
She could pull her wiles on G.G., but not me. I snapped at her. “What do you want?”
“Why, I want you to be my lawyer,” she cooed, batting her eyelashes and ignoring my brusque tone. “You’re the only lawyer I know, and if G.G. used you, you must be a good one. I bet you’re real good. In this room, and,” she said, pointing to the bedroom,
“in that one.”
“Out!” I pointed to the door.
She didn’t move from the chair. “Pleeeease,” she purred. “I signed all those papers the last time I was here, and G.G. said I was a real president of real companies. Well, G.G.’s gone. Promised me lots of money. Said he was going to give it to me, in cash. But he didn’t. Scoots off on me and gets shot and ass-fixed or ass-fixiated or whatever you call it. Serves that fat bastard right, I guess, running out on me like that. I told him real clear; no money from him, no more fun from me. Being a paper president was fine, but money is so much finer.”
Millie Sue had joined the ranks of those whose only grief over G.G.’s death was that they didn’t get the riches they expected. I guess I was part of that group too.
“I want you to be my lawyer,” Millie Sue said, resuming her seductive tone, “and tell me what all those companies do and how I can get paid for being a president.”
“Didn’t you understand? I’m not going to be your lawyer. Out! Now!”
“I know what you’re thinking.” She stood up, much too close to me, and opened the top four buttons of her blouse. She wasn’t wearing a bra. “You’re thinking that if I don’t have a job, and if I need to hire you to tell me what to do and how to do it, I won’t have any way to pay you.”
She reached out and put my hand on her breast. “I can think of lots of ways to pay you.”
I pulled my hand away. “Let me explain it to you very simply. First, I’m not going to be your lawyer. Second, I don’t want to be your lawyer. Third, I can’t be your lawyer. That’s it. So go.” I pushed her toward the front door.
She went out onto the porch, but as I got ready to close the door behind her, she said, “My shoes.”
I retrieved her pink high heels from the bedroom, but when I handed them to her on the porch, she grabbed my crotch. “Are you sure that there’s no way I can pay you to represent me?”
I jumped back. “Get out!”
“Are you some kind of faggot?” Gone was the purring and breathiness and seduction. “I’m not stupid. I’ll get what I want when I want it! I got G.G., didn’t I? Got to be a president, didn’t I? I’ll get those businesses or papers or whatever it is I signed, and
I’ll get someone to get me the money that’s got to be there.”
She ran down the steps barefoot toward her car, threw her high heels in the back seat, and, as she started her engine, rolled down her window and yelled at me through the opening. “No wonder G.G. was your client. You’re just like him. Can’t get it up!”
Her car raced backward out of the driveway, almost hitting a BMW that was pulling up at the curb in front of my house.
Millie Sue continued yelling, “You kick me out of your bedroom? You kick me out of your house? Well, screw you! Go try to get it up for someone else!”
As Millie Sue’s car screeched down the street, the door of the BMW at the curb swung open.
Taylor emerged.
Chapter 64
Taylor stood in the yard, hands on her hips, her face so red with anger that it almost matched her lipstick. “You and that tramp! First she’s with G.G. and then with you! That’s why you couldn’t meet me at your house this morning! That’s why you wanted to go to George and Beebo’s! How could you stand to be with that slut? How could you do this to me?”
She came up the stairs, leaping two at a time, and started to pound on my chest with her fists. I pulled her back into the house, slammed the door shut, and grabbed both her wrists. “Stop this. I can’t believe you, of all people, are going to make a scene in public at this point. That’s all you need, to have the neighbors call the police.”
She pulled away and started to hit me again. “You’re a bastard, Schex. You turn away from me when I offer myself but you sleep with her? You fuck her and you want to meet me afterward? You’re probably scheming with her to get my money. You’re disgusting.”
I simply backed away, ducked under her flailing arms, and grabbed her knees and flipped her face down onto the sofa. Then I sat on her back and pinned her arms.
“Are you going to stop?”
“No!” She tried to struggle out from under me, but I held her firmly. She twisted this way and that but couldn’t get free. Finally she stopped trying.
“OK,” she said, breathing hard after her exertions, “get off me.”
“Finished? Truce?”
“Yes.”
I moved off her back and let go of her arms. As she turned over she made a fist and hit me squarely in the jaw. It hurt.
“Now I’m finished,” she announced.
We sat on my overstuffed fraying sofa, each of us in separate corners, like prizefighters between bouts. It was time to have it out with her. “Taylor, I’m going to give you one last chance to level with me. This is it. This is the last time.”
“The last time for what? Meet you at George and Beebo’s, Beau said. That didn’t make any sense. Why not my house? Why not here? Something was up. That’s why I came early. To find out what you were up to. And now I know.”
“You don’t know anything. Least of all about this. But you sure as hell know a lot that you haven’t told me yet.”
“There you go with your lawyer stuff. Evading questions by asking a question and changing the subject. Couldn’t have been clearer.” Taylor mimicked Millie Sue’s voice, “'Go try to get it up for someone else’ she said. Must have been a rough night for you, performance-wise.”
“Now you’re not merely jumping to conclusions, you’re lunging at them.”
“Am I? Well just answer my questions, Schex.”
“You answer mine. You didn’t last time.”
“I told you all you asked.”
“You told me what you wanted, Taylor,
and avoided everything else.”
“What did you learn from Tony?”
“What did you know about Tony that you haven’t told me, Taylor?
“Answer me! Have you found the money?”
“No, you answer me! What about G.G. and Herrington?”
“What about the money, Schex?”
“What about you and Herrington?”
We both paused. This was not getting either of us anywhere.
Chapter 65
George and Beebo’s had few customers during the mid-morning hours. The bar and grill had survived the decline and then the gentrification of downtown. It survived changing tastes and changing fashions by changing nothing.
Beebo presided from a tall stool next to the cash register behind the bar. The only thing that had altered over the years was that Beebo kept getting bigger and bigger. Oversized and clothed in a tent of a dress, with a cigarette drooping from her bulbous lips and a beer in one hand, she was as much a fixture of the place as the scarred wooden tables, as the aluminum-topped bar, and as the faded photographs in dusty frames on the walls, pictures of former LSU football players caught in their moments of glory in long- forgotten games.
The dawn patrol – the fishermen stopping off before heading out across the Mississippi River bridge and into the nearby swamps and bayous, the cops coming off their all-night beats, the fireman from the nearby fire station – had started arriving before 5:00 a.m. and now were long gone. The lunch crowd wouldn’t show up until noon or later and would hang around for hours.
It was almost 10:30 a.m., and Taylor and I sat at one of the back tables in the nearly empty restaurant, finishing breakfast. On my plate the remnants of pain perdu swam in a sea of molasses, the fried French bread turning soggy in the sticky liquid. On Taylor’s plate, cottage cheese and dry toast.
“OK, Taylor,” I said. “Let’s start again. Uninterrupted truth. One question, one answer. No feints. No crawfishing sideways. Just a direct answer to a direct question.
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