Putty in Her Hands

by Lynn Shurr

  When everyone was full as tick on the ear of a Catahoula hound, they stretched out to watch the sun set over the bayou and the silhouette of the Queen. Marv insisted on cleaning up and putting the meager leftovers away. The rest polished off the last of the wine and beer.

  “Great feed, Remy,” Sammy acknowledged.

  “Yes, you are a man of many talents,” Julia agreed.

  “Not so much. Mostly I grill for company.”

  “Now you wouldn’t think it, but Julia is a great cook. Learned at her Sicilian grandmother’s knee since her mother is Irish blood,” Sal boasted about his niece.

  Todd fingered a soul patch so light as to be unnoticeable in the dent of his chin. “The Rossi clan is Sicilian?”

  “You bet, from way back,” Sammy said.

  “Are you connected?” Todd swallowed hard without taking a sip.

  “Connected to what?”

  “You know, the Brotherhood, the Mob, the Mafia. I heard they used to be pretty strong in New Orleans.” Todd’s light eyes widened. Obviously, he’s seen all the Godfather movies.

  “Everyone in Little Palermo is connected in some way or other,” Sammy said, punctuating that statement with a belly laugh. “Better watch out for us, Remy.”

  “I’m connected to the Broussards,” he answered, for better or worse. He thought he’d spied Slick’s dark SUV next door at NuNu’s trailer, but a lot of those vehicles looked the same.

  “I don’t think they bat in the same league, son,” Sal replied.

  “Cut it out! You’re scaring Todd. We have a full day of work tomorrow and need to get rest. I’m calling this very nice evening to an end. Thanks for having us, Remy. If you open the gate, we’ll find our way out.” Julia made shooing motions at the men in her life and got them moving through the office and out the front door.

  Remy followed, pushing the button to open the gate along the way. His eyes tracked Julia’s truck, his mind regretting what might have been. He heard feet hit the ground as someone jumped his pole fence. Slick materialized out of the dusk dressed all in black like the thickening night. “You fraternizing with the enemy again, Remy? NuNu gave me a call about your party. You didn’t invite him.”

  “Just trying to bring the Rossis around to our way of thinking,” he lied. “They plan to finish the plaster work and return to New Orleans until it cures within a week or so. Only Julia will be back to see to the final details. Once she’s gone, some of the pressure will be off tearing down the Queen since she’s the motivating force. We can wait until then.”

  “Yeah, well, the old man ain’t happy. He saw in the paper you cut a deal to meet with Hartz to get your culverts finished. You caved to a bunch of old ladies tied to trees.”

  “I won’t be tempted by whatever Hartz has to offer.”

  “Better not be.”

  Remy groped for some protection no matter how imaginary. “The Rossi family might be connected to the mob.”

  “The mob won’t be your problem if Black Diamonds doesn’t get built. Get moving!”

  “As soon as my demolition permit comes through.”

  “That’s what your nonc wants to hear. Have a nice evening.” Like a Cajun ninja, Slick disappeared into the night and thudded to earth on the other side of the fence.

  A nice evening was what he’d had until Slick showed up. Now, it promised a lack of sleep and maybe a few bad dreams about what happened to people who crossed the Broussards—or the Mafia.

  Chapter Sixteen

  One thing Remy could move on, and not Julia, was a new dock for the Queen, or rather his property. The rotted boards and pilings need to be pulled out and replaced by stout new timber. He put the demolition crew he had waiting in the wings on that. The new culverts supported the pile driver and other heavy equipment as the machinery carefully skirted the oaks and rounded the Queen to begin pounding away along the bayou. Remy envisioned his well-heeled condo dwellers fishing off the pier or tying up their boats after a recreational cruise down the bayou.

  Unfortunately, the reverberations shook the earth for miles and called attention to the project. They came, the oak tree ladies and the preservationists, and left once they were sure the destruction of the hotel wasn’t the reason for the noise and not a leaf had been lost. The thumping brought Julia racing from Alleman in her plastering gear. She clamped her hands over her ears. “How long is this going to continue? You’ll open the cracks we just sealed at the plantation.”

  “Regardless of the fate of the hotel, a new dock is needed. As soon as it gets done, how about cruising up the river with me from my place? We can have a moonlight picnic here—just the two of us this time. Will you still be around this weekend?”

  “I think so. Okay, fine.”

  “Saturday, my place around seven.”

  After Julia went back to her job, he re-assigned some of the crew lounging around on the piles of timber and waiting for the pile driver to finish. “I want you to go up to the second floor and clean the ballroom of debris.”

  “Why, boss, if you are just going to tear the place down?”

  He started to say none of your business, but thought better of it. “I want to see if any of the parquet is worth salvaging.”

  They accepted the task with minimal grumbling. It did make sense to take any profit out of the old wreck that he could. Remy’s mind moved on to thoughts of Saturday and Julia, a woman unafraid of ghosts. The thud of the pile driver matched the beat of his heart. If only he could convince her of the merit of his plans and make her part of them.

  ****

  Julia arrived precisely on time dressed as she had for the barbecue except for the more practical sneakers. When on a job, she didn’t drag a lot of wardrobe with her, and on this visit to the Queen, had no brambles to fight. They had been shorn to the ground. She supposed they’d picnic on the new dock and not enter the premises unless she could persuade Remy take her inside after they ate. She’d put that on her agenda. He simply had to fall in love with the place, and their conflict would be resolved. Then, they could move on to their strong mutual attraction.

  Her date wasted no time on chitchat or trying to persuade her into ditching the picnic and spending the time instead in his bed under the zebra skin, though she thought she’d seen that invitation in his dark eyes. Instead, he led her directly through the office to the dock where the speedboat, as sleek and black as his tower, waited stripped of the tarp that had covered it the night of the barbecue. He’d named her the Cormorant after the black seabirds that knifed through the water to spear fish with their serrated beaks.

  Remy helped her aboard the already stocked vessel. Julia noted the necks of two bottles of white wine poking from the picnic basket and a couple of padded mats rolled tight under a seat. They pulled slowly out into the current, passing his shiftless neighbor who wore a wife beater and sat in a plastic chair leaned against the backside of the sagging trailer. The guy saluted them with the Bic lighter he’d just applied to his cigarette.

  Remy didn’t drive directly to the Queen’s new dock. It wasn’t that far, and he seemed determined to give her a thrill ride first and get her adrenaline pumping. Once out into the deepest part of the bayou, Remy opened the engine and sped, bow-up under all of Chapelle’s bridges until turning the Cormorant back toward their destination. People dining at On the Riverside stared at the performance and little boys ran alongside the bank in excitement until easily outdistanced. The wind loosened the clips holding the hair off Julia’s neck. She surrendered to the breeze and removed them, letting them plink into the bottom of the boat. Remy smiled his approval.

  He slowed as they approached the new dock smelling of the fresh timbers and tied up the boat. Remy jumped off first and helped her ashore, then went back to retrieve the basket and the mats, which turned out to be sleeping bags he unrolled with a flourish.

  “I guess I could have asked Todd to lend me his yoga mat, but these will be more comfortable. I ordered the food from the Riverside. It will be good, b
ut not dainty.” He followed that statement with a white smile and a glint in his eyes, maybe reflected off the water, maybe not.

  “I’m not a dainty kind of girl. Like my uncles, I work hard. Bring on the eats.” She sat cross-legged on one of the bags while Remy unpacked the feast: cold fried chicken, individual containers of potato salad and slaw, the famous white bread pudding for dessert. He uncorked the wine and poured it into glasses rather than paper cups even though they’d be eating with their fingers and plastic utensils.

  Remy let her have her choice of the double-breaded chicken pieces while he talked about the new dock. “All cypress so it won’t rot. We don’t have the guardrails up yet. I wouldn’t want any of the occupants of the condos tottering off the edge. I plan on a few built-in benches too and some other nice embellishments, maybe decorative caps for the tops of the piles and of course, a gate from the water in case anyone wants to visit by boat. It will be a gathering place to watch the sunset.”

  Julia sipped her wine and left greasy marks on the glass from the chicken. “It’s in the same place as the original steamboat landing. Imagine how many hundreds of people must have used it to stay at the Bayou Queen.” She wiped her prints from the glass with a napkin, but sucked her fingers clean one by one. Though they’d fed well, Remy watched her with hunger.

  “More will enjoy this dock in the future. We’ll have a pool and a clubhouse for celebrations.”

  For the moment, Julia declined to argue with him. They spooned up the bread pudding so sweet it made the fragrant Riesling seem sour as the sun began to set. Remy didn’t immediately turn on the two battery-operated lanterns he’d brought along. He repacked the basket sitting between them, all but the wine, and returned it to the Cormorant. After he came back, Remy moved his sleeping bag next to hers and put an arm around her waist.

  “This is a wonderful spot and will be great again in a new way. Stop trying to prevent progress, Jules.”

  She didn’t shove him away, even if she did briefly consider pushing him into the bayou. Two could play this game. “A clubhouse and a pool will never replace the grandeur of that ballroom. Have you actually taken a close look at her interior? If we put a marble dust finish coat on the walls, they’d gleam in the light of the chandeliers. Replace the gilding on the coffered ceiling, maybe create plaster pilasters along the walls highlighted with gold, and the Queen would be magnificent again, no other like her.”

  “I’ve looked at her many times—from my teens on. Used to be my second favorite make-out place, but most of the girls were too afraid to go inside, ghosts, they believed. I’ve recently gone over the whole place looking for things we could salvage. They built her of brick and cypress and a good slate roof, otherwise, she would have fallen down decades ago. We’ll save those bricks and slates, maybe move that mahogany bar to the new clubhouse, give new life to old things.” Remy moved in for a kiss as if he were still that randy teenager.

  When she pulled away, he dropped his arm, stood, and began rolling up his sleeping bag. “Okay then. I guess we should go. Unless you are brave enough to spend the night here.”

  “Maybe if we did, you’d feel the spirit of the place and change your mind.”

  “I’m willing to give it a try.”

  The way he glanced at her with his head cocked, Julia realized she’d fallen in with his well-laid plans. He rolled up the other bag, tucked both under his arm, and made her custodian of the remaining bottle of wine and the glasses. Each grabbed a lantern. They moved to the portico and the regal front doors, twelve feet tall and so substantial no vandals had been able to enter that way. Intruders like Julia always forced the flimsy door on the shabby annex, he said. “I’ve blocked the original rear entrance. No more creeping inside through the kitchen.”

  Funny how he’d brought the massive key to the front doors and how easily it turned in the lock as if recently oiled. As the doors creaked shut blocking out the twilight and leaving them in darkness, they flicked on their lanterns. Julia observed the prints of many feet in the dust, obscuring her own from her earlier trespass. They moved to the staircase, the treads cleaned, the mahogany handrail waxed, and up to the ballroom with its three entries standing open. Stepping inside, the parquet floor gleamed as if it, too, had been polished, all the debris and dry husks of insects gone.

  Remy dropped the sleeping bags in the center of the dance floor. “It’s stuffy in here. I’ll open the windows for some air.” He applied some muscle to a lower sash, but it swung upward easily. After he’d opened all three, he spread the bags out to full length and offered her a seat. “They zip together.”

  “I noticed. It’s too hot to crawl inside right now. Wine?”

  “Absolutely.” They sipped in silence as the dusk thickened, wrapping the Queen in a black velvet cloak of night.

  The bottle finished, Julia stretched out full length and contemplated the magnificent ceiling. “Not as much work to restore that as you’d think. I’d give you a rock bottom price simply to be part of it.”

  “I’ll bet you would.” Remy lay down beside her, his arms cushioning his head.

  “You must be considering the idea since you went to the trouble to damp mop and oil the parquet floor. Even the windows are clean.”

  “Nope, I had a work crew just sitting around waiting to build the dock. I don’t pay for idleness so I put them to work. This floor is definitely worth taking up and saving. You don’t see this kind of workmanship or the varieties of wood that went into making up each rectangle anymore.”

  Speaking of good quality wood, Julia felt it beneath her hand as she lightly ran her fingers up and down the fly of his jeans. She rolled on her side and gave him the kiss she’d denied before on the dock. She filled it with desire and the force of her will. Her hands stripped off his T-shirt and caressed the definition of his muscles lightly dewed by the heat of the night. He let her take the lead, going down on him as she loosened his erection from confinement and placed her lips on its engorged head.

  Remy groaned. “Not so much of that. I’m too ready for you. I have been all week.” He raised her up to her knees, pushed down her shorts and panties, and seated her firmly atop him. She began the ride slowly as he raised her shirt, discarded her bra, played with her nipples, molded her breasts in his hands. Stimulated, Julia picked up the pace, turned it into a wild ride. The sex became more than recreational to her as her hair flailed about her shoulders. She felt their connection to this place, their union of similar passions, what they could have together if either relented. So much to gain. So much to lose. They went over the top together and parted to lie side by side, too overheated to do any cuddling.

  Julia closed her eyes. “Did you feel it, Remy?”

  “I think we forgot the condom—but it felt great!”

  “On the pill. Forget about that. And not what I meant. I can almost hear the music played in this room, the waltzes and the foxtrots, see the flicker of the candlelight bouncing off the chandelier crystals or the gleam of electric bulbs above the dancers, even the fear of men who might have died here or the dread of those going off to war.”

  “Ghosts, you mean. No, not a bit.”

  “Not ghosts, merely the weight of the past and all that has gone before. We’re part of it now.”

  “I doubt we are the first ones to make love here.” He shook his head against the sleeping bag. “While this was my teen dream come true, mostly I feel sticky. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t advocate swimming in the bayou, but how about a quick skinny dip from the dock to cool off? Not much traffic on the river at night and only a pasture across from us.”

  Despite a twinge of disappointment that what they’d done was still only great sex to him, she took the dare. “I’m game, but I’m wearing my shirt and shoes to get down there.”

  Remy zipped his jeans and shoved his feet into his shoes. He gave her a hand up and an arm around her shoulders as they descended the staircase and pushed out the front doors again. The heavy, humid air did little to cool them. They
raced for the dock, shucked off what little they had on and dived in. Surfacing, each placed a hand on the boat to keep from drifting in the mild current.

  “Much better,” Remy said.

  Julia combed her hair back with her fingers. “Truly, I swore I caught the whiff of ladies’ perfume and the hair oil of the men upstairs. Nothing…you experienced nothing?”

  “Not a thing but your heat. Smoke! I smell smoke.” He stared toward the Queen where a cloud lighter than the night rose from the rear of the building.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Remy catapulted out of the water and groped the pocket of his discarded jeans. A strip of condoms fell out, but he found the phone. Julia followed him, wet and sleek as a seal. She fumbled trying to get her shirt over her head. Remy ripped it away. “Later. Call 9-1-1 right now.”

  He drew up his jeans, stumbling along over shell shards and close-cut brambles as he headed for the temporary water line he’d had installed for the work crew and its pitiful single hose. He turned the tap on full and stretched the line toward the old kitchen as far as it could go, wetting first the shingles, then working down to the ground where the flames licked at the old, grease-saturated boards with relish.

  Julia came rushing to his elbow. She’d had the sense to put on her sneakers as well as the T-shirt that clung to her as if she’d entered a contest to show off her body. Sensible woman had his shoes and phone in hand. No panic about his Julia.

  “The fire department is on its way. Put your shoes on, and I’ll hold the hose.” She directed the water to the outer corner of the wooden annex, but the fire seemed to run completely around its base. The glow penetrated the deep shadows of the oaks. “Do you see him?” Julia questioned. “A man over there watching the hotel burn!”

  Remy peered at where she pointed. A figure, slender and white, light-haired, lurked there. “No ghost,” he said. The form took off, swinging two red gas cans like exercise weights.