by Tony Dunbar
“Like who?”
“Well, let’s see. The Drifters…” He got a blank look. “And Tina Turner.” A flicker of recognition.
There was a crowd of politicians and well-dressed well-wishers in the palatial lobby.
Tubby shook a few hands and introduced his daughter around. His Honor himself was in the grand room at the epicenter of a loving swirl of people. He was laughing at jokes and slapping backs. One could not tell, looking at him, that he was living in fear of a grand jury indictment.
Tubby snagged some Cokes, and they waited their turn for an audience with the judge.
“Is this my main supporter?” Hughes cried and parted some shoulders to grab a hand. “And who is this dazzling beauty? Collette? Looking fine, honey.” He kissed the top of her head. “Anybody here not know Tubby Dubonnet, illustrious chairman of my reelection effort?” Tubby was mentally awarding the judge big points for acting ability.
“Glad to meetcha,” said a red-faced man in a yellow suit. “My name’s Lucky LaFrene, know what I mean?”
“You’re the car salesman,” Collette said, delighted. She liked anybody who was on television.
“That’s right, my little pootsie. I’ve got more cars than dogs have bees, and every one of them’s a steal. Let’s do a deal.”
“How do you do,” she said and giggled.
“I’m doing great. Judge Hughes is elected and all’s right with my pearl. It’s lovely to be with a winner. When are you gonna start singing, Judge? He’s got a voice like Pepperoni,” LaFrene promised.
At that moment there came a drum roll and Deon Percy, whom Tubby recognized as the Hughes campaign manager, hopped onto the stage and grabbed the microphone.
“The moment we’ve all been waiting for is here,” he proclaimed with screeches and whistles. “A tribute to a great man”— screech— “talents without equal”— whoooo— “now let me introduce Judge Hughes.”
To enthusiastic applause, Judge Hughes vaulted to the stage, bowed, and took a seat at the piano. He fiddled with the microphone, grinned at the audience, and broke into a rendition of “Hello, Dolly, this is Alvin, Dolly…”
Collette’s eyes swept the room, absorbing details about how adults comport themselves. The judge’s sister and some other campaign insiders began what appeared to be a mambo line. A barrage of balloons cascaded from the ceiling.
Tubby’s gaze settled for a second upon Lucky LaFrene.
The colorful personality had moved to the side of the room and was bracketed by two guys with square shoulders in gray suits.
LaFrene was gesturing wildly, but he did not seem to be enjoying the music. His face was purple and his eyes were angry.
One of the men put a hand on him, and LaFrene shook it off. The man put his hand back, and LaFrene left it there. A pained look spread over his face.
Despite himself, Tubby started to move closer, for no reason but prurient curiosity. The altercation abruptly stopped.
“Hot-cha-cha, oh, baby, yeah.” The judge signed off to thunderous applause.
“Dad, is this for real?” Collette wanted to know.
“I’m afraid so,” he replied and looked over her head. LaFrene had gotten lost in the crowd.
Mrs. Al Hughes jostled into Tubby, who, when he recognized her, planted a kiss on her cheek.
“We’re so glad you’re here,” she said, and squeezed his hand.
“This is my daughter Collette. Olivia Hughes.”
“So nice to meet you, dear. I hope you’re having as much fun as I am.”
“It’s splendid,” Collette said enthusiastically. “very chic.”
“I’m so glad you think so.” The hostess’s eyes sparkled. “You’re a good girl.”
She patted Collette, too, and continued on her errand.
“Oh, cool! Now they’ve got a conga drummer.” Collette stood on her tiptoes. “How seventies can you get?”
When Tubby looked to see what Olivia Hughes had pressed into the hollow of his hand, he found a small plastic horseshoe— a campaign token. He knew the slogan by heart: “Hey, Pal. Vote for Al. A Man You Can Trust.”
“Oh, man,” he complained.
Later, Tubby dropped his daughter off at his old house and watched her run up the walk. It had been a really nice evening, he thought. He almost called out to her. She waved at the door and was gone.
***
Not many blocks away Sultana watched the car lights slowly approach on the quiet street. She edged farther into the shadows of the bushes when the car swerved into the driveway, and she tightened her grip on the long knife.
The car rolled past her and she saw that awful tall man behind the wheel. It rolled to a stop fifteen feet away. When the door opened and the man started to get out, she rushed from cover.
“You violated me,” she cried, brandishing her knife. Surprised, the man fell back into the driver’s seat.
He raised his arms to protect himself from the blade glinting in the streetlamp, but he was the one she intended to kill.
With a defiant grunt Sultana brought the knife down and drew it across her own throat. Strangling, she fell into the car on top of the man.
Blood spurted over him as in horror he struggled to free himself from a tangle of arms and hair. He pushed her away with such violence that she landed on the lawn in a heap. He stood above her panting, covered in blood, wondering what his neighbors might have seen.
***
It had been a great evening, but driving home, Tubby couldn’t shake the fact that he was on his own again.
There had been women in his life, of course, since his divorce. There had been a misguided affair with Jynx Margolis, best described as the flashy ex-wife of a rich gynecologist. There had also been a short but promising relationship with Marguerite Patino, a rather larcenous tourist from Chicago, but he had no idea where she was today. And his current prospect was Faye Sylvester.
In the weeks following the softball game he had searched high and low for an excuse to visit Buddy Holly’s mission, just to see her. He had found it two weeks before when, out of the blue, the phone rang and it was Mandino Fernandez, a client who owed him more than twenty thousand dollars in legal fees for successfully resisting a foreclosure on Mandy’s mother’s home in the Garden District. The case was complicated, but Mandy’s reason for not paying was simple. He was a spoiled brat. A charming spoiled brat. Tubby figured he would eventually have to sue the guy to get paid, which was a major pain in the neck, so he was immediately aroused when the first words he heard on the phone were, “I’ve got your money.”
“Bless you my son. Where are you? I’ll come get it.” Such haste might be unseemly, but this was business.
“I’m killing the blackjack tables at the Coconut Casino.” He wanted Tubby to share in his good news. “Come on over and join me for a few drinks. I’ll flip you high card, double or nothing.”
“I’m gone for the day,” he called to Cherrylynn as he raced out the door. No time to mess around. He’d take his pay in chips— same as cash.
Tubby covered the seventy-five miles to Bay St. Louis in less than fifty-five minutes.
The cruise gave him a chance to go over in his mind the advantages he might enjoy by moving to the suburbs versus the disadvantages of commuting. There would be peace and quiet on the Northshore, and low crime, of course, though honestly the noise of trains and ships and a little big-city tension had never bothered him much before. There were pine trees and acre lots, too, but the main thing he imagined was clean living. He might have to get through another forty or fifty years of life, after all, and that would be better with pink lungs and liver and the kind of serenity a country person enjoys. He would be an hour away from his only grandson, little Bat, but maybe he could entice Debbie and Marcos to migrate north with him. Abita Springs, or Folsom, maybe, would be good places for a little boy to grow up, what with public schools and everything.
Before he knew it, he was breezing into the vast parking lot of the Coconut Casino, now the prin
cipal landmark of a once-sleepy town by the Gulf of Mexico. The casino itself was in an estuary, miles from open water. Since only “dockside” gambling was legal in Mississippi, the monumental structure technically floated, though it was locked firmly in place by concrete pilings.
He slid his blue LeBaron between a Winnebago from Oregon and a Jeep from Texas, and set off hiking toward the palatial front entrance. The last time he had been here was to watch his client, Denise Boudreaux, fight Roseanne Spratt, the Nashville Bomber, in the casino’s boxing arena.
The security man nodded to him like an old friend, and Tubby was swept inside with the steady stream of gamblers arriving for action at the cocktail hour.
As soon as he entered the chilled lobby he spied Mandy sitting alone on a bench. But the pasty-faced man with the tousled hair seemed to sag, even as he stood up. He turned his palms skyward and displayed a forlorn expression. Tubby was too late. What the Lord had giveth, the Lord had already taketh back.
“All I’ve got left are two five-dollar chips,” Mandy moaned. He fetched them from his pockets. “And I know you haven’t got the heart to take those.”
Tubby grabbed the red candies, took three steps, and fed them one at a time into a million-dollar payoff slot machine, which just as promptly ate them. The lawyer was too disgusted even to snag a free drink.
Roaring out of the parking lot, he decided on impulse to turn north toward where he figured Buddy Holly’s mission was, thinking maybe he could salvage something from this trip.
The narrow blacktop quickly took him into a more pastoral environment. Neon gave way to brick ranch-style homes from the sixties, then mobile homes with pulpwood trucks in the front yard, and then fields occupied by solid black cows and realtors’ signs. He braked hard when he spied a board nailed to a tree on which was painted CHAPEL BY THE BAY, with an arrow. A gravel road curved off into a field.
He crested a small rise and could glimpse, across a meadow overgrown with grass, blue water and white clouds.
“It’s pretty out here,” Tubby admitted to himself.
Almost blocking his path was a crooked billboard announcing that a Bayside Golf Community and Resort would one day occupy this acreage.
Tubby rolled down the windows and looked around, trying to imagine homes and streets rising from the woods and brambles. He couldn’t.
The road snaked through what once might have been a pecan orchard, and then the bay suddenly appeared again across a wide marsh. The road turned to follow the shoreline and stopped at a ramshackle two-story farmhouse hugging a high spot of ground. A few old cars and a new van were scattered around the farmhouse yard.
Tubby parked in tall grass beside an old red Chevrolet with a sticker on its rusted bumper advising the world to DRINK NAKED.
Birds twittered in the branches of the cherry laurel tree by the front porch. Somewhere rock and roll music was playing, a door slammed, and there was distant laughter.
Tubby mounted the wooden steps.
He could see the narrow hallway dimly through the screen door. Tacked to the frame was a mezuzah and below that a cheap plastic plaque with the message JESUS WILL LIGHT OUR WAY. For some reason, Tubby explored them both with his fingertips before he pressed the buzzer.
“Someone’s up front!” a woman upstairs shouted.
“I’ll get it,” someone replied, and presently a young man popped into the hallway and peered at Tubby through the screen. He had bright blue eyes, a fuzzy chin, and a T-shirt that said I’D RATHER BE MASTURBATING. Tubby thought that was funny.
“Where’d you get your shirt?” he asked.
“In Florida. My girlfriend gave it to me,” the boy answered suspiciously.
“Really? Is Buddy Holly here?”
“He went to town.” No move to open the door.
“What about Faye, uh, Ms. Sylvester? Is she around?”
“Uh-huh. Who should I say is calling?”
Surprised at the politeness, Tubby gave his name and sat down on the porch steps to wait. The boy slipped away into the interior.
“Hello.” Her voice made him jump.
“Oh, hi,” Tubby said, getting up and brushing the dust from his behind. “I was in the neighborhood.”
“That’s nice,” she said. “Did Buddy forget you were coming?”
“No. I didn’t know myself.” Tubby was losing himself in her eyes. They were green. “I mean, I didn’t call ahead. I’m just dropping in.”
“I’m happy you did. Would you like to look around?”
“Oh, sure. Buddy said to come over anytime. I was down the road at the casino. Not gambling, of course. I don’t want to interrupt anything. Am I?” He gave her his most hopeful expression.
Something about it struck her as funny.
“Come on in,” she said, laughing. “I’ll give you the cook’s tour. After all, I’m the cook.”
With appreciation for the way she moved in blue jeans, he followed her into the hall.
“This is our formal dining room.” She pointed through a plaster archway at a vast table. “That used to be in the boardroom of a bank that went out of business. We eat supper together every night. Right now there are twelve kids staying here, so with the staff we’re feeding fifteen or sixteen.”
“Where is everybody?” Tubby asked.
“School, work, shopping. We try to keep them busy.”
“Oh, excuse me.” A vacant-eyed youngster said, barging into the hall and almost colliding with Faye. “I’m just going outside to smoke.” She slipped quickly away and let the screen door slam behind her.
“Of course, not everybody is ready for the real world yet,” Faye said wryly.
“Is this a church, a nuthouse, what?” Tubby asked.
“A little of everything,” she said. “Buddy can explain the religious side of things. He holds services every day. Some of the kids go. Some don’t.”
“But what’s the main point, I guess I’m asking.”
“Oh, you don’t know that? These are all basically runaways. Buddy picks them up on Highway Ninety, hopefully, before the police do or before they get too hooked on drugs.”
“What can you do for them?”
“Free room and board and a chance to chill out. You know, clean air, clean living.”
Same thing I’m after, Tubby thought.
She asked him about his children, and he made some general comments— about them, about the divorce from his wife.
“Do you still see her?” she asked.
“Mattie? No. We get along better from a distance. She’s got her own life and she’s happy enough with it.”
Faye showed him the grounds, and they took a walk along the sandy shore. She seemed a lot more relaxed out here than she had been in New Orleans. He learned that she had been married before, but she did not offer any details. She made some disparaging remarks about the Big Easy in general, with which he automatically agreed.
“It’s so dirty, you couldn’t clean it with Tide,” she said. He thought she was talking about the litter but later wondered if maybe what she meant was the politics.
“It’s so much better here,” she said, “where you can breathe fresh air and smell the dew in the morning.”
“Sure, that’s nice,” he agreed. “I’ve been thinking about moving out of New Orleans myself. You know, to the Northshore.”
“That’s not far enough, if you ask me. Louisiana just seems like such a hopeless mess. Mississippi is the place to be.”
“Yeah?” He would have to pass a new bar exam to make a living here. Looking at the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled, he almost could believe it would be worth it.
“What are your plans for Thanksgiving?” she asked him.
“I don’t know. It’s kind of funny, with the kids all gone and all.”
“We do a big meal here. You’d be welcome to come, of course.”
“Yeah? Thanks. We’ll see what happens.”
“Country living is not so bad,” she said, nudging his f
oot with hers.
He wanted to think that it was so, but with the moisture of the marsh creeping through his leather soles and the sun beginning to set behind violently crimson clouds he inexplicably had a cold sense of being out of place in this serene spot. The youngsters and their guardians were bonded together in ways that did not include him.
She invited him to stay for a communal supper of white beans and cheese toast, but to her surprise, he said he needed to get back to town. He made up something about a meeting. They shook hands smiling, said see you again, I hope, and Tubby drove away.
It had ended very awkwardly. Apparently he was not quite ready to be happy.
CHAPTER X
Cherrylynn dreamed up a plan, and then she made the bold decision to put it into effect. As soon as she got to the office on Monday, she picked up the telephone and called Gambit, the artsy newspaper.
“I’d like to place a personals ad, please.
“Yes. It should read, ‘SWF, attractive redhead twenty-five (about), knows what she wants and ready for fun, loves parties, meeting new people, likes dinner and dancing— seeking good-looking man with dimples (like Mel Gibson?) Don’t wait. Call me now.”
“I know it’s long,” she told the operator, “but I’m in a hurry.”
She blushed.
***
It was exactly seventeen days before Tubby saw Faye Sylvester again. On the Monday morning after the Judge Hughes victory celebration, the first thing Tubby did when he got to his office was fix himself a cup of coffee and chicory and pour in a little cream. Then he got comfortable at the cypress desk that had once belonged to a North Louisiana undertaker. From his perch on the forty-third floor of the Place Palais Building, he could survey the slate roofs of the French Quarter and watch oceangoing vessels power through the hairpin turn of the Mississippi River at Algiers Point. His mind could wander the world.
While it wandered, he opened mail from his clients and gazed at the steamboat Natchez working its way lazily toward its berth by the Moon Walk, its decks covered with tiny tourists. He could even hear snatches of the music from the boat’s calliope— one of the tricks played by the wind.
Suddenly he exclaimed, “She’s coming today!”