Sex, Love and Murder

by Sandy Semerad

  McIntoch considered his own question as a high school band, in an incessant line, strutted up St. Charles Avenue. He covered his ears with his delicate, yet large hands, hoping to drown out what he considered a funky rendition of I Feel Good. Annie Turner, Gable’s cook and housekeeper flashed him a kind smile and he almost asked her why his boss bought a house on the parade route.

  “Never before have I seen this many clocks in one place.” he said instead.

  “Takes me an hour to wind them. Mr. Gable wants all the clocks to chime at the same time.” She straightened two pictures of Washington and Lincoln hanging side by side over the alcove leading to the dining room.

  McIntoch loosened his red silk tie and returned Annie’s smile, amused that she fussed over what he considered clutter. His grandmother would probably call it stylishly Victorian. Antiques, pictures, clocks, plates, period lamps with fringed shades, brass and silver candleholders, crystal candelabras, gilt mirrors, and mounted pistols monopolized every inch of space.

  After glancing over the bric-a-brac, he sat in one of the ornate chairs. Finding it too stiff for comfort, he walked upstairs to the bedroom where he’d be sleeping that week.

  Stretching out on the twin-size brass bed, his feet overlapping the end, he noticed with horror a cuckoo clock above the mantled fireplace. He could forget about peace and quiet tonight. As if on cue, a bird sprang forward and cuckooed nine times in unison with the other ringing time pieces. It sounded like a death knell.

  “Kern,” Gable’s deep melodic voice resounded over the intercom system.

  “Yes sir?”

  “As you recall, Ms. Lotta Love invited me to her club while I’m in town. Regrettably, I can’t go. Rubio will serve as my substitute tonight. He’s decked out in Mardi Gras regalia. Will you show him out and alert Tim and James?”

  “Sure thing, Sir.”

  “I’m going to bed and don’t want to be disturbed. Rest well, Kern.”

  “You too, Sir.”

  McIntoch walked toward the master bedroom thinking Gable had called him from there. The door was shut. McIntoch tapped on it lightly, then turned the handle. It was locked.

  “Are joo Kern?” McIntoch was startled by the thick, Spanish accent, and the costumed man who emerged from a hallway bathroom. “Hola. I’m Rubio.” He was unrecognizable in the white mask that covered his face. Rubio’s neck was painted white, his lips and the area around his eyes black. His gold hood with green trim matched his costume. McIntoch felt awkward in his grey suit as Rubio offered his white, gloved hand. McIntoch shook it while making eye contact. He noticed Rubio’s eyes were glassy like black marbles.

  “The Vice President said you are his guest this evening. I don’t believe we’ve met. Of course, I can’t be absolutely sure because a man in disguise is a mystery.”

  “You are right, my friend,” Rubio said. “I am a Mardi Gras mystery.” His low guttural chuckle reminded McIntoch of his cigarette smoking Dad.

  After exchanging small talk, McIntoch directed Rubio out back and watched him stroll into the large ferns behind Gable’s house.

  Upstairs, he located Secret Service Agents Tim Martin and James Vanchek. They were in the study watching the televised Southeastern Conference basketball championship, the LSU Tigers versus the Kentucky Wildcats. McIntoch told them about Rubio in a matter-of-fact voice, deciding not to share his thoughts on the Vice President and his strange quirks: Sixty-five clocks in one townhouse and the bizarre Spanish guy, definitely eccentric.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Comeaux sat at his computer and printed his latest e-mail message. “I’ll show you, mutha fucker,” Comeaux yelled at his computer screen. “Don’t tell me not to print somethin’. I’ll do what I damn well please. How the hell are you going to know?” Comeaux rubbed his protruding jaw and felt his blood pressure rise.

  “Sure could a used a piece of ass from that ungrateful, Mississippi bitch I stopped for speeding. Couldn’t believe that teeny bopper’s mouth. Should’ve fined her ass. Pussies. Think they can control the world ‘cause they got a jack-off machine between their legs. It don’t do no good to be a gentleman.”

  He closed his eyes and for some unexplainable reason Lilah’s face appeared. Tried to be a nice guy last night to you, Miss Priss. Did you appreciate it? Hell no. Out on the town. The Cajun tom cat can smell your scent. Just wait, Baby, coon ass king’s gonna get some of your candy before it’s over.

  Comeaux studied the page he’d printed, reading again the instructions from his newest client: “Visit Dan Duffy in the hospital. Get a detailed medical report. Talk with the doctors and nurses at Charity. Keep me posted on any changes in Duffy’s condition. Locate the person driving the truck Duffy was riding in. Find his suitcase and other personal items, but don’t waste time researching his lack of family, father’s suicide, mother’s death, etc. Also, keep an eye on Lilah Sanderford. Find out what she knows and keep me posted.

  “Look for another mailbox payment. Additional recompense will be forthcoming, following the receipt of Duffy’s luggage and other items.

  “And leave no paper trail.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Mama, I’m wasted. Please don’t drag me along to an old folks club,” Angela pleaded. “I’d rather stay here and watch a movie with Melissa.”

  “I noticed how you hit it off with Javier, during dinner,” I said. “Where did you say he’s from?”

  “Leon, Mexico. He’s cute, don’t ya think?”

  “If you like the tall, dark, Latin type,” I said.

  “And I do.” Angela batted her eyes playfully.

  “I suppose he’ll be watching the movie, too.”

  “Maybe.” Angela kissed my cheek. “Have a good time, Mama. And don’t act like a fish out of water.”

  “What are you talking about, Little Missy?”

  “When you go out, everybody else has a good time but you look like you’re dying.” Angela drooped her head, imitating an old lady.

  I lifted Angela’s chin, then eyeballed her. “I don’t like your analogy.”

  “Oh, Mother, forget it. I just want you to enjoy yourself. And don’t worry about me. I’ll be practicing with Javier.”

  “Practicing what?”

  “My Spanish,” Angela said, turning away.

  ~ * ~

  As I drove bumper-to-bumper to the French Quarter I decided Billy Joe was right when he’d advised me to take a cab.

  There was no parking spot until a Dodge Caravan pulled out of a space at the corner of Bourbon and Canal. I quickly snatched it up, praising my good fortune.

  Bourbon Street was a six-block amalgam by mid-evening. The smell of beer and oyster shells mixed hypnotically with the musky colognes of strangers and sweating mules from carriage tours. A cool breeze freshened the night.

  In my simple, black-ribbed cotton polo dress, I hoped to blend in with the crowd of casual tourists, scantily clad transvestites and costumed members of various krewes—which are clubs that mount Carnival balls and parades.

  “You gimme a dollar if I tell you where you got your shoes?” a street hustler asked me. I rushed past him toward Lotta Love’s purple and pink neon sign.

  Inside, I introduced myself to the tall doorman, an Eddie Murphy look-alike. He guided me to a small corner table near the band stand where a brass band jammed on the last verse of Bourbon Street Parade. The trumpet player’s cheeks extended like two balloons. After the band blended a final chord, the drummer rolled a loud fanfare. A white spotlight surrounded Lotta. She strutted center stage, tapping her stiletto heels as she belted out When the Saints Go Marching In...

  I clapped, adding to the appreciative applause for a legendary entertainer who, at sixty, looked twenty-five years younger. “Lotta, as Bourbon Street itself, is ageless and erotic, definitely a New Orleans landmark,” I wrote in my reporter’s pad.

  Fifty revelers, some in costume, snaked around the bar room in a “second-line” dance. Several waved white handkerchiefs. “A New
Orleans tradition,” I wrote. “Began in the 1800s during jazz funerals. Mourners who trailed behind the coffin were called second-line.”

  I focused my camera. It captured the way Lotta’s raven hair made her ivory skin appear delicate and angelic. Her long locks were pulled back in a sleek chignon. She wore a flowing, low-cut burgundy dress made of see-through chiffon. A side slit displayed shapely legs. Strategically placed sequins on Lotta’s dress hid her large bosom. For any age, Lotta was a beautiful woman. How does she outwit the ravages of time? What was her secret? If Sam had been there, he would have said, “She has a good plastic surgeon.”

  Remembering Sam made me feel sad and alone. I longed for his presence across from me at the small table as I tried to focus on Lotta’s high-kicking vigor. For forty-five minutes, she performed nonstop.

  A stage hand carried out a gold chaise lounge. Lotta draped her tall slender body over it. “For Rubio,” she said in a deep sultry voice, motioning with an elegant sweep of her hand to a costumed spectacle standing beside the bar.

  As Lotta sang Unchained Melody several couples got up to dance. I watched them, recalling the last time Sam and I danced to the well-known love song.

  A hand gently tapped my shoulder. I jumped, then turned to see Rubio, the costumed man to whom Lotta had dedicated Unchained Melody.

  “Buenas noches, guapa. May I have the pleasure,” he said, bowing and holding out a gloved hand, an invitation to dance.

  “Thanks but no, my feet are tired,” I said, smiling.

  “‘Music gentler on the spirit lies, than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes.’”

  “Tennyson?” I asked, not absolutely sure.

  “Si. Please, un baile is all,” Rubio pleaded with a soft, Spanish accent.

  I relented. Rubio gracefully guided me around the crowded bar room floor, keeping a respectable distance and staring at me with the blackest eyes I’d ever seen. This man seemed to possess a mysterious, absorbing power that bordered on the hypnotic.

  “Gracias,” he said, kissing my hand after the music stopped. I turned away and walked back to my table, pleased to see the doorman waiting there. As instructed, I followed him backstage to Lotta’s dressing room.

  I sat on a rose-colored love seat and observed the pink-mirrored room until Lotta breezed in as if riding a wind gust. Before sitting next to me, she inspected herself in a wall-to-wall mirror and pressed a powder puff to her glistening face. Close-up, Lotta’s heavy makeup made her look like a porcelain doll.

  “Hello, I’m Lilah Sanderford. I enjoyed your performance very much.”

  “These shoes have got to go.” Lotta said, kicking off her burgundy heels. “Thanks for coming out to see the show, sweetie. Hope you’re not planning to interview me tonight, I’m pooped.”

  “No, not tonight.” I smiled. “We’ll get together Sunday as planned.”

  “Listen, sweetie, I know you want to take me out to lunch. But I’m out more than I care to be. Why don’t you zip over to my place in Bayou St. John around elevenish.” Lotta patted her face with a lace handkerchief. “I’ll scare us up a bite to eat.”

  “I’d enjoy that very much. Let me write down your address.” I took the pad and pen from my purse as Lotta reached for a card in a crystal case on her marble makeup table. Grabbing my pen, she wrote down the address on the back.

  “You’re tired. I won’t keep you,” I said, noticing the weariness in Lotta’s violet eyes as she shook my hand in a parting gesture.

  “Thank you, sweetie. Call me Sunday and I’ll give you a short cut to my house from wherever.”

  Back on Bourbon Street, I started back to my van when I noticed the Green Door club across the street. I remembered it. Jay Cascio worked there, according to Dan Duffy’s address book.

  It was still early, enough time to find out what Jay knows about Dan and the money.

  Inside the club, I found a smoky hodgepodge of tourists, hustlers and drunks. I located a vacant bar stool and ordered sparkling water but had to settle for club soda.

  “Could you tell me if Jay Cascio is playing tonight?” I asked the fortyish blonde bartender.

  She leaned forward across the bar. “Jay’s the good looking hunk on the keyboards. Where ya from, Honey? Not from around here ‘cause everybody in N’Awlins knows the Jaybird.”

  “I live in Sea Grove Beach, Florida.”

  “Where?” The bartender curved her hand around her ear and leaned in close.

  “Sea Grove Beach. It’s on the Gulf of Mexico between Panama City and Pensacola. I drew a picture of Florida in the air and pointed to the general location of Sea Grove.

  “You live on the beach?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Must be nice,” she said while mixing a scotch and water for another customer.

  “We like it. It’s peaceful, except during a hurricane. The sand is white, like sugar crystals and the water is the color of green emeralds.”

  “Lucky you. So, you heard about Jaybird and you come to see him?” she shouted now, trying to be heard above the loud music and chatter.

  “We have a mutual acquaintance. It’s a personal matter.” I sensed she wanted to gossip, and I could have taken advantage of the opportunity, but didn’t.

  “I’d like to get personal with him. But he’s too shy, stays to himself. Far as I know, he’s never been hitched. A real waste, if you ask me, ‘cause he’s a doll baby.”

  I listened as Jay sang a song I’d never heard before.

  “The years have gone. I’m still hanging on. My head says so.

  I’d swear I’ve got it made out in the shade.

  But nooo, nooo, noooooooooooooooooo.

  When I feel that old familiar sadness

  It turns my head around.

  I’ve been high up and low down.

  Been burned out and turned around.

  Been so blue I knew I needed to

  Change my mind

  Change my mind.”

  ~ * ~

  I studied him. He was lost in the music, his eyelids tightly shut, his fingers storming across the keyboard. The black silk shirt he wore revealed his muscular arms and neck. He had Elvis Presley’s lips, full and sensuous. Jay’s small nose gave him a little boy look in spite of his curly, prematurely gray hair which he’d combed back, away from his face, except for a stray lock hanging over his tanned forehead. The bartender was right. Jay was a hunk, his face smooth and clean.

  When the band took a break, the bartender motioned him over. I introduced myself as the woman who’d been involved in Dan Duffy’s accident.

  “Smoke’s killing me,” he said. “Mind if we step outside to rap?” He rubbed his eyes and guided me toward the door by placing his hand on the small of my back. Once outside, he took out a handkerchief from his white cotton pants pocket and wiped his face.

  I attempted polite conversation. “Enjoyed the last song you sang. I’ve never heard it before.”

  “Duff and I wrote it,” he said, sadly.

  “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Did you see him today?”

  “Yeah. But he’s not awake yet.”

  “As I told you over the phone, I have Dan’s suitcase.” I watched Jay closely thinking he might know about the money.

  “I’ll get it from you and give it to Duff when he’s back to his old, crazy self.” Looking at Jay, I saw an innocence in his face. His eyes, squinting with pain, were kind. I yearned to know more about him and why his friend would carry a million dollars in a suitcase.

  “If you’re not working one evening, why don’t you come over to the Belle Viella for dinner. My daughter and I are staying there. You live in La Place, don’t you, probably not far away.”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding and smiling. “I’d like to have dinner with you. Friday, I’m not due at the club till ten. It’s Jazz Greats night. That’s when anyone carrying an instrument can come in and jam.”

  “Friday it i
s. How does six-thirty sound?”

  “Tell you what. Instead of my coming over to your place, why don’t you let me fix dinner at my house?”

  “Don’t tell me you think the Belle is haunted too.”

  “No, I don’t believe that stuff,” Jay said smiling. “I was thinking of the box of filets my father brought me today. He loves steak but his doctor told him he can’t eat red meat, and Mother is a vegetarian. And in my back yard is this barbecue pit that I’ve never used...” As Jay spoke, his eyes graced my face tenderly as if I were an old friend he hadn’t seen in years. “What do you like to drink?” he asked.

  “I’ll bring the drinks.”

  We stared at each other for a few moments in silence. “I really should leave,” I said, backing away, “Have to rise and shine tomorrow.”

  “Are you parked nearby or did you take a taxi?”

  “I’m over there.” I pointed in the direction of my van.

  “Let me walk you.” Jay offered his arm.

  “Don’t act like a fish out of water,” Angela’s words rang in my ear.

  I felt secure with my arm through Jay’s as we walked down Bourbon Street.

  A block from Canal, I spotted my van and a shadowy figure sliding something down the passenger window, then opening the door.

  “Stop. That’s my car.” I shouted, running toward the thief.

  “Hey man. Bug off.” Jay ran past me and grabbed the man’s shoulder. I noticed that he wore a mask. Jay popped him in the jaw with a right cross. The thief’s buttocks hit the sidewalk before he jumped up and ran down Canal Street.

  My hands shook while fumbling for my keys and opening the van door. I snapped on the overhead light, pleased to see Dan’s suitcase untouched under the back seat.

  “Anything missing?” Jay asked. He walked around the car, glancing inside.

  “No. I don’t think so. But I’m glad you came with me. Thanks to you, I still have my car. A good thing he wasn’t carrying a knife or a gun.” I