Dead Man Talking

by TM Simmons

  Chapter 27

  At the door, I remembered my jacket and saw it still hanging on the barstool. “My coat.”

  Jack dropped my arm to go get it. Max stretched over the bar, grabbed it, and tossed it at Jack, who caught it and turned back toward me.

  That’s when Tildy screeched and lit out through the ashtray and bottle-covered tables toward the dance floor. Jack didn’t see her at first, but he turned when Tildy screamed, “You bitch! Payback’s hell!”

  I gasped, recognizing that voice. But Tildy grabbed a beer bottle and broke it as she passed the next table top, leaving me no time say anything to Jack. Bar fights, especially women catfights, aren’t my thing. I tugged Jack’s arm and sidled toward the door. He muttered, “Shit,” and took off my hold.

  Tildy headed for Red and Uncle Clarence. One of the pool players swiped for her as she barreled past, snagging her shirt. Tildy swung around, dagger-sharp bottle raised, and he ducked. He warded her weapon off with one arm, hanging onto her shirt with his other hand.

  Tildy didn’t let that stop her. She half-dropped to the floor and skinned out of her shirt in two seconds flat, the broken bottle in her fist ripping through the fabric. Waist-up naked, she surged upright and dove for Red, who gaped around Uncle Clarence’s protective stance.

  “Stop it, Tildy!” my uncle commanded. He and Rick converged on Tildy, Rick reaching for the broken bottle, Clarence for Tildy’s waist. Red screeched and unfortunately raced for the new protection of the pool players.

  A bare instant before Rick grabbed the bottle, Tildy ducked and swiveled in a move an Olympic gymnast would have been proud of. Rick missed, but Uncle Clarence managed to clasp a breast — and drop it just as fast. He tottered, and Rick steadied him.

  Red tried to hide behind the largest pool player, but he warded her off with his cue stick, laughing uproariously. “Uh-uh, sweetheart. Fight your own battles!" He and his partner backed over against the wall, as Red raced around the table, Tildy hot on her trail.

  By then, Jack was across the room. He paused to check on Uncle Clarence. Even through the hanging clouds of cigarette smoke, I could see the white strain on my uncle’s face. I broke out of my fascinated trance and hurried towards him as Jack shoved a nearby chair at Rick, indicating for him to get my uncle into it. And swiveled just in time to clutch Tildy by her jeans waist as she raced past after a screeching Red.

  I have no idea where Tildy learned her moves. She didn’t try to jerk away — instead, she dropped, a dead weight, but Jack hung on. On her way down she must have unsnapped her jeans, because she wiggled out of them like a slippery eel and rolled away from Jack like a fish in water through the sawdust and peanut shells. Jack stood, jeans dangling from his grip.

  The pool players pounded their cue sticks on the floor and chanted, “Fight, fight!" Several other bikers picked up the call. Longnecks in hand, they wandered over to line the wall as Red circled the pool table, passing Jack, who crouched, arms spread to tag Tildy. But the bleached-blonde fooled him again. She tumbled onto the pool table, rolled once and surged to her feet. Naked except for a pair of booty-type white socks, sawdust particles, and a few red-hull peanut skins, she brandished the broken bottle, swiping at Jack when he reached for her. The chants and cue-stick thumps mingled with ear-splitting, thumb- and finger-in-the-mouth whistles and rebel yells of “Eee-haw!”

  She wasn’t a natural blonde. You could see that from the dark patch of hair at the apex of her legs. She had a fairly decent body, though, despite the white stretch marks testifying to child-bearing marring her poochy stomach.

  Red headed for the door like her pants were on fire, shoving aside tables and chairs blocking the shortest path to her destination. I knelt by Uncle Clarence, and his white, strained face and shaky breathing overshadowed any interest I had in a titty-bar show on the pool table. Someone thrust a glass of ice water into my hand, and I nodded gratefully to Max, but he headed straight back to the bar.

  Cupping my hands around Uncle Clarence’s trembling ones, we lifted the glass to his mouth. To my left, Jack lunged again for Tildy — and jerked back barely in time to miss a jab at his face from her bottle-knife.

  “My pills,” Uncle Clarence gasped. He held a prescription bottle out. I opened it and shook out a pill, which he stuffed in his mouth and swallowed with a sip of water.

  The crowed roared as Tildy tried to jump off the far side of the pool table and two men surged forward, blocking her. She sprang back, and one of the pool players hefted his stick — then swiped it in an arc, catching her behind the knees. She splatted down on the table amid hoots and cheers from the crowd, but kept a firm grasp on her beer-bottle weapon.

  Jack leaped onto the table. Wild-eyed, breasts bouncing with her gasping anger, Tildy scrambled up to face him. He didn’t try to approach. Instead, he aimed a kick at her hand. The beer bottle sailed off the tip of his cowboy boot at the same instant a shotgun blast split the air and bikers belly-dived, longnecks and cue sticks flying. Some woman screamed, but it wasn’t Tildy. She ignored the shotgun and, shouting, “You sonuva bitch!” lunged for Jack.

  He caught the spitting, snarling woman, spun her around and, with a deft move, swept one foot in front of her ankles and yanked backward. With a screech of rage, Tildy went down again. Jack didn’t take any more chances. He went down right on top of her. Straddling her bare butt, he grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her.

  Still, she bucked and snarled curses. He transferred both her wrists to one hand and tangled his fingers in her hair, pushing her head flat against the velvet. Here and there, a few bikers started to rise. The shotgun chambering another shell dropped them back to the floor.

  Credence banged out one final salvo, and the song ended, leaving an eerie silence. Well, except for Tildy’s muffled curses and Jack’s heavy breathing. He glanced at me and flicked his head. “Get my belt off,” he ordered.

  I checked Uncle Clarence as I rose. Satisfaction gleamed on his face as he stared at the pool table, a wry grimace on his mouth. The pill must have worked, because his cheeks were flushed now, not white, his brow unbeaded.

  I crawled onto that damn table — the utter last thing I wanted to do — and reached around Jack to unbuckle his belt. I had to straddle Tildy, too, and she kicked upward from the knees, knocking her heels into my butt. Jack muttered for me to tie the belt around Tildy’s wrists, and I jerked it a little tighter than necessary before I scrambled off the table.

  Max wandered over, shotgun propped negligently on his shoulder, and the bikers started once again to cautiously rise to their feet. He nodded and waved a consenting hand. “Rick, go set up a round for everyone at the bar." Then he studied Jack, still trying to quell a squirming Tildy on the pool table. “You got some good moves,” he drawled with narrowed eyes. “Sure you ain’t had some cop training?”

  “I just keep in shape,” Jack replied. “Hand me something to cover her with.”

  A couple of bikers laughed and hooted encouragement for Jack to leave Tildy naked, but Max’s stare shut them up in mid-hoot. He swiped Tildy’s T-shirt from the floor and tossed it to Jack, then handed his shotgun to me. I gingerly laid it on a table.

  Max climbed onto the pool table and helped Jack pull the T-shirt over Tildy’s head. They left her arms belted behind her, and the T-shirt didn’t cover her tush. She was silent now, still, and tears trickled out from her tightly-squinched eyes. I searched the room for my jacket and saw it on the floor a few feet away. As I retrieved it to help cover Tildy, Jack asked Max if he’d called the cops yet.

  “I don’t need cops messin’ in my business and threatenin’ to shut me down again. She’ll be okay when she sobers up. It’s the tequila.”

  Jack wrapped my coat around Tildy, turning her over to secure the sleeves at her waist and buttoning a couple appropriate buttons. He left her to Max and jumped smoothly to the floor.

  “We need to get Uncle Clarence ho —" Oops. I clamped my mouth shut, but the damage was done. I’d let slip that
we hadn’t just met my uncle tonight. Jack caught the slip and Max’s interest and hustled me to Uncle Clarence. Thankfully, all the other patrons lined the bar, eagerly reaching for the free beers Rick dished out.

  “Let’s go,” Jack said to my uncle. “Alice can drive you home.”

  I grabbed the walking stick from the floor and handed it to him as Uncle Clarence slowly rose to his feet. With Jack on one side, me on the other, we guided him out of the bar, into the starlit night. I told myself not to look back, but my darned writer’s curiosity got the better of me. Max was off the pool table, Tildy cradled in his arms, unwavering frown fixed on our departure.

  Uncle Clarence’s pickup wasn’t locked. We helped him into the passenger seat and I hurried around to the driver’s door while Jack strode over to his bike. I’d have to lead — as far as I knew, Jack didn’t know where my uncle lived now. The keys dangled from the switch, and as I started the engine, Uncle Clarence laid his head back and closed his eyes.

  Oh, God. I reached for him, thinking maybe we needed to get him to the hospital. But a soft snore issued, and I settled for buckling the seatbelt around him.

  Jack followed, the rumble of the bike’s engine and the headlight in the rear window a comfort as I negotiated the rutty trail out to the county road and turned back toward Esprit d’Chene. Uncle Clarence lived near Katy, and I hoped I could remember the way. I’d only visited his new house once, my second trip to Katy’s, when we’d had a crawfish boil.

  Twenty minutes later, I turned into the driveway. Uncle Clarence’s house wasn’t nearly as large as the Esprit d’Chene manor house. A sprawling, two-story brick, with only six white pillars across the front and three elderly live oaks in the yard, a detached garage set off a few yards to the right beside a row of huge cedar. The pickup headlights illuminated the brick sidewalk and hedge across the smaller veranda, the hedge badly in need of a trim job. That wasn’t like my uncle. He hired local help for any work he didn’t feel like doing himself.

  I parked in the drive rather than in front of the garage. Jack and I woke him up, and Uncle Clarence shook us off when we tried to assist him into the house.

  “Ah can make it on my own,” he grumbled. And he did, with me noticing that he hadn’t locked his front door, either. He paused, not inviting us in, though I made my intention to accompany him inside clear.

  “Ah’ll be fine,” he said. “You two go on now.”

  “Maybe I should come in and call your doctor — ” I began.

  “No,” he cut me off. “All Ah need’s some rest.”

  “Well...I’ll check on you tomorrow morning.”

  “If you want." He shrugged and closed the door gently in our faces.

  Jack stuck his fingertips in his back pockets and studied the door contemplatively. I studied Jack, wondering what was going through his mind. But...he didn’t tell me, even after he glanced my way and had to have read the questions on my face.

  “You need to get back?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  “You wanted to talk about the case. Thought maybe we’d drop by my office. Should be quiet there now. Private.”