by Jessie Cooke
Lester Thomas didn’t grow up in Louisiana. When Blackheart met him, he was a recent transplant from the big city of New York. He’d been riding with a club out there called The Sinners, but he’d exited quickly when he realized their new president at the time was looking to get into a war with the Southside Skulls out of Boston. The Skulls were run in those days by a man named Doc Marshall. Blackheart had met him once, years before. Blackheart was young then, and had only been riding with the Jokers for a few years. Doc had come to New Orleans to meet with their then president, a guy they called Chewy. Blackheart wasn’t privy to what the two men talked about, but he remembered how the energy in the club changed just as soon as Doc Marshall walked in. The man exuded the kind of confidence that Blackheart strove for, and over the years, until Doc’s untimely death in 2002, Blackheart had kept track of him and his club. He knew that he and his VP had a falling out and that man was the one who had rallied the Sinners in New York, moved them back in on Doc’s territory, and started a fight that there was no way they could win. Even after Doc’s son, Dax, took over the club, they’d had no chance and Lowlife had been smart as hell to get out when he did.
Lowlife lived on the outskirts of New Orleans. It took Blackheart about twenty minutes to get there. As soon as he turned onto the quiet street he could see the lineup of Harleys on the street and in the driveway in front of the garage. He rolled up and killed the engine of his bike alongside the garage where the door was rolled up and half a dozen Jokers surrounded the open hood of the GTO Lowlife had been working on for so many years that his wife referred to it as his “other woman.” As Blackheart walked up, the men all popped their heads out from underneath the hood and greeted him. He fist-bumped most of them and then gave Lowlife a half-hug. “Sixteen, huh? You got the shotguns ready?” Blackheart wasn’t exactly kidding. After his Ma died, his three little sisters went to live with his grandmother in Florida. They stayed there until she passed away and then Blackheart brought them back to New Orleans. By that time he was twenty-five and had already made enough money through the club to buy them a nice house in the French Quarter. The oldest, Mandy, was eighteen at that time and had just finished high school. She enrolled in LSU and Blackheart hired a middle-aged woman to live in and care for the other two, Amy and Bridgette, who were fourteen and fifteen at the time. Back in those days he hadn’t let a day go by when he didn’t stop to check in and see how they were doing. He monitored everything they did and everyone they spent time with. He’d scared off plenty of their dates and now that they were all grown, they liked to blame him for the fact that none of them had ever had a relationship that lasted.
Lowlife chuckled. “Boss, I’ve had ’em ready since she was twelve. Luckily most of their balls shrivel up as soon as they meet her daddy, and I ain’t had to use it yet.” Blackheart laughed and Lowlife said, “Thanks for coming, boss. I know things have been shit lately. It means a lot to us that you took time out.”
Before Blackheart had time to respond, the door from the house to the garage opened and Tara, Lowlife’s wife, walked out. The men immediately stopped talking and Tara smiled and looked at Blackheart first. “Blackheart, I’m glad you could make it.” He went over and bent down to kiss her cheek. Tara was only about five feet tall in the heels she was wearing. The guys speculated that it made Lowlife feel taller to have such a tiny wife.
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” he told her. “Where is the birthday girl?”
“She’s inside,” she said, stepping out of his way, “But be careful, the room is full of hormone-infused teenage girls.” Blackheart laughed again and went inside. He found Sissy, as they called the young girl, sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by at least five other girls around her age. As soon as they saw him come in, the room fell dead silent. Sissy got up and Blackheart greeted her with a hug and quick kiss to her cheek. As he did, he heard one of the girls giggle and say:
“She’s so lucky!” He chuckled inwardly at that. Sissy had never thought of him as anything other than an uncle of sorts, but over the years a few of her little friends had actually come on to him. Blackheart had nipped that in the bud immediately. He had no respect for any man who would go there, even with a sixteen-year-old.
“Happy birthday, doll,” he told her. Sissy let go of him and took a step back so she could look up at his face. She was tiny like her mom and Blackheart towered over her.
“Thank you for coming. Does Mom know you’re here? She said we had to wait for you before I could have my present.”
He smiled and was suddenly glad he came. Being with “family” was what he’d needed to calm his nerves. “She knows,” he said. One of her friends squealed and jumped up and grabbed Sissy’s hand.
“Let’s go get them! I’m dying to see what you got!” The girls skipped off, and when Blackheart saw the way the ones left were looking at him, he nodded politely and slipped out the glass doors to the back. There he found Gabriel, the little nurse he’d started dating since he got out of the hospital, Le Singe, and Le Pirate. They were kicked back on the patio, passing around a tightly rolled joint.
“What the hell’s going on out here?” Gabriel nearly knocked his new girl off the edge of the chair as he shot to his feet, Le Singe stayed seated, and Le Pirate, who was already standing, offered Blackheart the joint. He declined, gave Gabe a handshake and half-hug and then said hello to his girl, and tried to remember her name. She was a pretty little thing with light blue eyes and dark hair...her features were a lot like his own and he wondered if thinking she was pretty had anything to do with that “arrogance” of his that Sally likes to point out every time they had an argument about anything.
“Hi,” the girl said, shyly. She was still perched on the side of the chair when Gabe said:
“Take my seat, boss.” Blackheart chuckled when the girl stood up.
“Gabriel, we’re going to have to teach you how to treat a lady. Please sit back down, young lady. I’m just fine here. Where’d y’all find that beer?” he asked Le Pirate.
“In the fridge over there. I’ll grab you one, boss.” Le Singe went over to get the beer and out of the corner of his eye, Blackheart caught Gabriel’s girl watching him. He’d caught her a few times at the party the night he first met her too, just watching him, but quickly looking away when his eyes caught hers. His ego automatically assumed it was for the same reason other women watched him, but in his defense, it would be impossible for him to not know how good-looking he was. He avoided eye contact with the girl and took the beer from Le Singe back into the house to find Lowlife and get the present out of the way; it was a 1965 Mustang that Lowlife, along with help from most of the club and financial support from Blackheart, had restored for her. The candy apple red sports car, with black leather seats and so much shiny chrome it would attract every cop in the parish, was sure to delight the girl. She was a good kid, though, so Blackheart and all the guys in the club believed she deserved it. Mostly he wanted it to happen, so he could get back to Sally’s place. He was hoping by then the blue sports car would be gone, but truth be told, he wasn’t absolutely sure what he was going to do if it wasn’t.
Lucien lay in the dark hoping Sally couldn’t see the huge smile on his face. Of course he wanted her to know how incredible it had been...finally getting to touch her, making love to her, hearing her whisper his name...but he knew his face was probably overkill, even for a man lucky enough to be with her. His body had never felt so alive, and he could barely keep up with the thoughts of what their life together was going to be like, now that she felt the same about him as he did her. Her head was in the crook of his arm and he turned just slightly so he could inhale the sweet scent of her silky hair. Seconds later he heard her let out a little sigh, like a contented kitten, and she snuggled deeper into his embrace.
They’d had dinner and Sally had opened a bottle of wine and they drank it while they watched the movie he’d brought over. He hadn’t wanted to be too obvious, so he’d picked out an a
ction/mystery movie with Bruce Willis...but one where the hero and heroine would end up together, passionately, just like he was hoping he and Sally was. He’d already promised himself he wasn’t going to push. He knew what she’d been through in her past with that fucker Christoff, and he’d never want to frighten her like that. He was pissed off when he found out that Blackheart had beaten him to that son of a bitch...but he celebrated Christoff’s death anyway...and allowed himself the pleasure of doing some mutilation to the body. Then, as tempted as he’d been when he moved the corpse to insert something into the body that would prove Blackheart had killed him, it was more fun to watch the big asshole sweat out having the police buzzing around his club. Lucien wanted Blackheart dead, but he wanted him to suffer. He wanted him to spend one horrible minute for every time he’d put his filthy hands on Sally, and unfortunately that was a lot. He also wanted to be the last face Blackheart saw as he took his last breath, so he knew who it was who’d finally beaten him. He couldn’t wait for that day to come.
Sally stirred next to him once more and he smiled again and brushed his lips against her hair. He was still smiling as he drifted off and maybe even later when he woke up to the sound of a motorcycle cruising by out front. Blackheart was checking up on them, and now he knew that Sally wasn’t his any longer. All of Lucien’s hard work and patience had finally come to fruition...Life. Was. Good. Finally.
13
Everything went red. Blackheart’s vision blurred while the flames curled in the pit of his stomach and spread heat through his chest. His brain was on overdrive and he was imagining every way possible that he could kill the man who was still inside Sally’s house after midnight, the man he was sure was in her bed. That thought bade the rage in his stomach and chest curl like smoke through his veins and as he drove his bike through the streets of the Quarter, he gripped the handlebars so tightly that his hands and fingers actually hurt. He wondered if the people out on the streets could feel the waves of fury rolling off him as he passed by, and he wondered if the man he was going to see could change his mind about busting into that little house and painting the walls with Lucien’s blood.
He parked the bike in the alleyway behind the little run-down shop. He hadn’t been where he was going for a long time. He grew up under an umbrella made up of half conventional religion and the other half almost as unconventional as one could get. His mother was a devout Catholic, and little Evan Babineaux had listened to mass every Sunday morning and prayed to Jesus every night before bed. But his Paw, Jean Luc, had been raised on the virtues of a different kind of religion. His religion came from a place in the Caribbean, along with his ancestors. It’s a mostly misunderstood religion in most of the United States, but in places like Louisiana, especially Cajun country, voodoo is very real. Combined rites of the Catholics along with traditional African magical and religious rites characterize that religion. Sorcery and spirit possession are as believable as the crucifixion of Christ, and although Blackheart had never completely bought into most of it, he wasn’t an absolute denier either. He’d seen too much in his half a century on Earth to completely deny those things existed, and much of what he’d seen that had made him a believer came in the form of a century-old man who was as blind as a bat in the medical sense, but saw things in places, souls, and dimensions that most people didn’t believe possible.
Blackheart knocked three times on the red door and seconds later, as if it weren’t after midnight, Pops, fully dressed in his signature black shirt and trousers, pulled open the door. He smiled and his teeth lit up the darkness around Blackheart. Whatever oral hygiene routine the old man followed put men decades younger than him to shame. Unfortunately most people didn’t notice the old man’s smile, as frightened as they were by the startling white of his eyes. Blackheart didn’t know how Pops had lost his sight, or if he ever had it, but as a kid, he’d been as frightened of those white eyes as everyone else in the parish.
“Evan Babineaux!” the old man said in a surprisingly booming voice for his age. “I knew you would come.” Blackheart let the old man wrap him up in a hug that smelled like Cajun spice as he said:
“Of course you did, Pops. You know everything.”
“Not everything, son,” he said, stepping back to allow room for Blackheart to step into the cramped little kitchen. Pops was a pack rat, or maybe even a hoarder. The place he lived was built as a storeroom for the store in front that he used to run himself. When he sold it many years before, he’d put a rider on the contract that allowed him to live in the back until he passed. Blackheart thought it was a safe bet that Pops would outlive the fifty-six-year-old, obese Cajun woman that ran the store that specialized in all things “black arts,” since she also smoked three packs of Marlboros a day and hacked up a lung several times a day. “Sit. Tea?”
“No thanks, Pops. Advice.”
Pops chuckled and took the only seat at the small Formica-topped table that was empty. Blackheart moved a few books and statues off the one opposite him and sat down. “Is this about your Sally?” Pops asked, and it was things like that which had made Blackheart a believer.
“I’m worried about her, Pops.”
The old man laughed. “Remember who you’re talking to, son. It’s not worry I feel in this room, it’s anger. You’re angry, but not with Sally...someone else close to her?”
“She’s started seeing this man...he’s...I don’t know, he seems harmless on the surface, but I get a bad feeling about him, Pops.”
“Is the bad feeling jealousy?”
Blackheart chuckled. He couldn’t lie to Pops, it was pointless. “Maybe, in part. But you know I have a good sense about people in general and this guy, Pops, he’s got bad juju written all over him.”
“You have something for me?” Pops asked. Blackheart had taken one thing from the man’s house earlier that day. It was a white t-shirt, one he had so many of that he probably wouldn’t notice was gone. It was a worn one that Blackheart had taken out of the hamper in Lucien’s bedroom. He handed it over to Pops and waited. The old man held it in both of his hands and then brought it to his face and smelled it. He sat still and silent for several minutes and then his entire body began to shake. He was shaking so hard that the table was moving and Blackheart had to force himself to sit still and quiet, and not try to help. He’d made that mistake before. This was how Pops did his thing, and Blackheart had learned how to just wait it out. Soon enough the shaking stopped and Pops literally threw the shirt back across the table, almost hitting Blackheart in the face with it. It took him another several minutes to speak and when he did, fear began to snake through the pit of Blackheart’s stomach. “You get Miss Sally away from him,” he said. “That man has a soul blacker than my skin. He’s pure evil, and Miss Sally is not the only one who’s gonna get hurt. He wants your soul too, Evan. He wants both your souls...”
“Sally! Open the fucking door or I’ll kick it in!” When Blackheart got back to Sally’s house, he was almost disappointed to see that Lucien had finally left. He was ready to confront him to his face and ask him what the fuck he wanted. Normally Blackheart wouldn’t have worried himself over a suit...but after Pops told him the man was looking to take him down, he started thinking about Lucien’s history as a Marine. He’d be trained enough with firearms to unleash that barrage on the club at the marina without accidentally killing anyone if he wanted to, he’d know about the kind of explosives used on the warehouse. Petit had told him whoever had blown it up had used “military grade” C4...and the postmortem cuts to Christoff’s body were in what the coroner called “precise, even lines.” Everything in Lucien’s house had been in perfect order, and aligned almost in obsessive patterns, even all the gray socks in his drawer. Blackheart didn’t have any evidence other than what an old, blind man told him, but suddenly he knew that was why he’d hated the man before he even met him...that, and of course the fact that he was now fucking Sally. He lifted his hand to slam on the door again and almost hit Sally in the face when she pull
ed open the door. She was spitting fire out of her eyes and he knew this was going to be a fight.
“Jesus Christ, Evan, if someone is not dead...so help me God...”
He moved her out of his way, gently, and heard her slam the door behind him. “I need you to listen to me, Sal...”
“It’s three fucking o’clock in the morning. Whatever this is couldn’t have waited a few hours?”
“No, it couldn’t. And don’t pretend like you’ve been asleep more than an hour. I’m sure you walked lover boy to the door after you fucked him.”
She looked at him with a shocked expression and after a few seconds seemed to recover. She reached over and pulled the door back open and said, “Get the fuck out.”
Sally was tough, and strong, but nowhere near as strong as he was. He pushed her hand off the door, closed it again, and then walked into her living room, knowing she’d follow him. When he turned back toward her he noticed she was pulling her short, satin robe closed tighter and it dawned on him she was naked underneath. Another image of that piece of shit touching her made his stomach turn and he had to take a deep breath before saying, “Listen to me, Sal. This guy, he’s not right. He’s out to hurt you...us, all of us...”
“You’ve lost your mind. You really have. I finally do something for myself, finally meet someone that doesn’t treat me like their on-call nurse or their personal whore and you just can’t stand it, can you?”
Blackheart started to argue the “on-call nurse” and “personal whore” comment, but sadly he had to admit that she was right, at least up to a point. Reminding himself to stay on task he said, “You don’t have to believe me, Sal. Go talk to Pops.”
“Oh my Lord! You talked to Pops about my personal business? You know, Evan, being in charge of a ragtag bunch of losers who ride around on motorcycles and intimidate the community does not make you fucking God.”