One stand for independence was enough for now. “Apart from inside information about your sexual prowess, I don’t know what she wanted.”
Her statement had the desired and very satisfactory result. Jack stared, and for once he was at a loss for words.
A tap on the door heralded Tilly. “Excuse me,” she said. “But your parents are here to see you, Miss Payne.”
“Here.” Celina felt disoriented. So much in so short a time. “Well—where are they?”
“In the parlor. We don’t use it much, but I thought...” She looked at Jack, who made an approving sound. “The wedding will be in there, so that Dwayne LeChat told me on the phone. He’s coming later to decide on the decorations.” If she was delighted, she exhibited enthusiasm in an unusual manner.
“I’m sure Dwayne will make things very pretty,” Celina said.
Tilly drew herself up. “I certainly hope so. He’s hired a photographer. Amelia’s all atwitter about having a new dress and flowers and so on.”
“We’d better see your parents,” Jack said, steering Celina forward. “Please keep an eye on Amelia, Tilly. Under no circumstances is she to leave this house.”
“No, Mr. Charbonnet,” Tilly said, and Celina thought the woman turned a little paler. “Should I offer Mr. and Mrs. Payne tea or something?”
“They’ll have a drink,” Celina said, knowing her father would be well into the drinking hours by now. She dreaded facing whatever his mental state might be.
Very deliberately, Jack took her by the hand and led her down the hall to the parlor, a large, airy room opposite his study. The French windows were open to the gallery over Chartres Street, and sheer white drapes drifted in a slight breeze. Bitsy Payne in a pale pink knit with military gold braid, hovered beside her husband with her pink purse handle gripped in both hands. In a cream blazer and navy slacks with a fine cream stripe, Neville lounged in a rattan armchair, one white buckskin shoe propped on the opposite knee. Light caught silver streaks in the man’s overly long, sandy hair. He was the consummate society dandy, all the way to his diamond pinky ring and the navy and cream polka-dot cravat he wore tucked into the neck of his shirt.
“Hello, Mama, Daddy,” Celina said. She held Jack’s hand so tightly, she crunched his fingers together. “Who told you I was here?”
He shouldn’t like the feel of her skin on his as much as he did. but what the hell, he was sinking into this thing with her all the way up to his neck and he didn’t want to climb out anymore.
“We figured it out, girlie,” her father said, sniffing, and eyeing the drinks cart. “I could use a drink before we deal with all of this.”
“Help yourself,” Jack said, and Neville heaved his large frame from the chair and did just as he was told. He didn’t ask if anyone else wanted something, and no one made any attempt to follow his example.
“What’s going on here, then?” Neville asked, swaying forward and waving his overfilled glass of scotch. “Between the two of you. We didn’t bring up our girl to be promiscuous, Charbonnet. You might not understand that kind of moral standard, but then, you aren’t one of us.”
“Daddy,” Celina whispered.
“Hush,” Jack told her. “It doesn’t matter.”
“The hell it doesn’t,” Neville said. “Don’t you suggest you don’t need to take what I say seriously, you upstart. And you can get your hand away from my daughter now.”
Bitsy twisted the handle of her little Chanel bag, but said nothing.
“If you can’t be civil, Daddy, I think you should leave,” Celina said. “This is Jack’s home. He doesn’t have to listen to anyone insulting him here.”
“It’s also Celina’s home,” Jack said. “We’ll be married on Friday. We’d like you to be here, but we’ll understand if you can’t make it.”
“Speak to her, Neville,” Bitsy moaned. “She’ll be the end of us. Make her understand.”
“You can’t marry him,” Neville said, drinking the pariah’s scotch with no apparent ill effect—other than getting drunker by the second. “He’s not one of us. I’m not saying we’re snobs. We aren’t. Far from it. But—”
“You are snobs,” Jack said. “But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? Why don’t you explain it all to us?”
Neville choked on the liquor. Wiping a hand across his mouth, he said, “Don’t have to explain a goddamn thing to you, Charbonnet. Father was a hood—a gangster. Not our kind. Keep to your own.”
Jack knew an instant of uncertainty. The overdressed fool spoke a degree of truth. Their backgrounds were very different. Jack never wanted to be the cause of trouble for Celina, but they were too enmeshed now. Even if he could make himself let her go, which he doubted, it wouldn’t stop his enemies from using her to get at him.
He looked sideways at her. Her cotton shirt rested softly on her breasts, like a coat of violet paint. He sucked in his gut. He’d been somewhere between vaguely tumescent and fully erect ever since he’d discovered what it could mean to be with this woman.
“Jack and I are getting married,” Celina said quietly. “At three on Friday afternoon. Will you come?”
“Show her, Bitsy,” Neville said. “Go on, show her what we’re already having to put up with.”
Shaking visibly, Bitsy opened her little bag and removed a piece of newsprint folded very small. She unfolded it, fumbling badly, until she could attempt to smooth the paper and hold it out to Celina.
Jack looked over her shoulder and let out a whistle. “Well, I’m damned. Is that…? It is, isn’t it?”
“How can they say stuff like this?” Celina said. “They don’t know Cyrus. It wasn’t like this.”
“You want to say how it was, girlie?” Neville said, even more slurred. “Just how was it?”
“It says—”
“Oh, don’t say it out loud,” Bitsy said tearfully. “I can’t believe it. Imagine the questions we’ll have to deal with. The shame of it.”
Celina said, “So this is what Charmain was calling about, and wanting me to comment on. She writes this column under a pseudonym. Everyone in town knows she does the gossip.”
“Gossip,” Bitsy moaned. “That kind of gossip, no less. Where is Cyrus?”
‘‘He’s probably at the diocese,” Celina said, her patience wearing thin. “He isn’t going to be amused by this. But he’ll be less amused if he hears your attitude.”
“What member of the Catholic Church was seen entering a well-known New Orleans hotel with a well-known senatorial candidate’s wife?” Jack read aloud. “Spurious stuff.”
“Look at the picture,” Neville said. “Tell me if that isn’t my son following that slut into the Maison de Ville.”
“It could be,” Jack agreed. “But I don’t see him naked in bed with her, do you? Were you aware that she had asked him to give her spiritual guidance?”
Neville guffawed nastily. “Is that what they call it now? In my time it was cutting around.”
“Sounds as if you might know, Mr. Payne.”
Bitsy turned her back, and Jack regretted his quick tongue. “Look, I’m sorry, but this is classic stuff on a slow day in gossip land. Forget it.”
Celina gave him the cutting. Α photo showed Cyrus looking back while Sally Lamar held open a door into one of the guest wings of the hotel. Celina’s glance into Jack’s eyes spoke reams on how damning the shot looked.
“I’ll talk to Charmain if you like.” Jack said for Celina’s sake, not the Paynes’. “One good thing to remember is that she never stays on one topic for long.”
“Read on,” Neville said. “The suggestion is that because of our son, the Lamars may be heading for a divorce. Says Wilson’s devastated, but that he doesn’t intend to give up the race.”
“Touching,” Jack said. “And effective. Should be good for a large female block of support.”
Celina was oddly silent, and stiff-lipped.
“Well,” Bitsy said. “I must say, you’ve been kind, Jack. Maybe we mi
sjudge you. Would you forgive us if we stole Celina away from you for a couple of hours? We’d love to have her with us for lunch—for old time’s sake. It doesn’t look as if there will be any more opportunities for us to be together again before she’s married.”
Jack stopped himself from remarking that Bitsy made their marriage sound like a death.
“Oh, Mama—”
“Don’t disappoint your mother,” Neville said. “I’ve reserved a table for us at Galatoire’s. You know how your mother loves it there. It used to be such a treat for you and Cyrus when you were growing up.”
Jack didn’t want her out of his sight, but he couldn’t risk making too much of a deal in front of the Paynes. Surely she’d be all right with them, and once they’d left, he’d follow at a distance.
Celina was watching him. He felt her looking at him but didn’t look at her. This time he’d let her make up her own mind.
“Okay,” she said. “But I can’t be gone long. I’ve got too much to do.”
“Wonderful!” Bitsy clapped her hands. “Oh, this will be lovely. Quite like old times. We’d better go, Neville, or we’ll be late for our reservations, and you know how it can be there.”
She needn’t have prompted. Neville pushed upward from his seat, took a quick step to steady himself, and offered an arm to his wife. Waving Celina ahead of him, he proceeded to leave without another word to Jack, who waited only five minutes—long enough to give Tilly safety instructions, before setting out himself.
Galatoire’s was busily elite. Some said it was the best seafood restaurant in the Vieux Carre. The maitre d’, dapper in black evening dress, bowed graciously and showed Neville and his party to a round table in one of the restaurant’s more secluded corners.
On a small table apparently produced for the purpose, a silver vase containing dozens of perfect red roses was flanked by two bottles of champagne iced down in buckets, and several dishes of caviar surrounded by tiny crackers.
In the center of their dinner table, a low crystal bowl displayed a mass of fragrant, floating gardenias.
As Celina and her parents approached, conversation dropped to a mild buzz, and all eyes were upon them.
“Daddy,” Celina said quietly. “This is very lovely, but you shouldn’t have gone to so much expense.” She also wanted to say that it would have been a perfect opportunity to show Jack that they accepted him into their family.
Α chair was held for her, and she sat down.
Mama and Daddy took places also. That’s when Celina realized there was a fourth place. “Is Cyrus coming?”
Bitsy raised her chin as if determined to be brave. “We won’t speak of that now.”
“May not be able to avoid it,” Neville commented.
The level of conversation rose again excitedly, and Celina looked up to see Wilson Lamar coming into the room—alone. He was beautifully dressed in dark gray with very white linen. His handsome, perfectly tanned face held a remote expression. Of course, he was the wronged husband today. How could she have forgotten?
He crossed the room without making eye contact with any of the many who looked his way. Sympathy etched every face. Celina marveled at the man’s ability to work an angle.
It was then that she realized where he was heading.
Wilson arrived at their table and went around to the vacant chair, the chair that allowed a view of him to most restaurant patrons. He smiled wanly at Neville, who said loudly, “My dear fella. Terrible day for you. Terrible day. I can’t tell you how responsible we feel. Our son, and so on. Join us, why don’t you?”
“You aren’t responsible.” Wilson shook his head. “But I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very good company.”
Celina doubted there was a person in the restaurant who wasn’t hanging on every word—even if they did have to be repeated for some of the more distantly seated patrons.
“We insist,” Mama said severely. “It’s at times like this that you need your friends. And we won’t believe you don’t blame us if you turn us down.”
Wilson sighed, managed another weak smile, and sat down. He smiled at Celina and said, “I see this is a celebration for you and your parents. It’s nice of you to let me crash.”
“Nonsense,” Mama said. “You’ve always been among our dearest friends, hasn’t he, Celina?”
She was forced to nod.
A champagne cork popped and glasses were filled. Celina ignored hers, but her parents drank deeply of theirs. Wilson took a sip and set the glass down. Then he bowed his head, and, to Celina’s total, sickened disgust, fumbled across the table until he could clasp her hand in his and thread their fingers together.
“We think of you as a member of the family,” Neville said. “You can always turn to us.”
Celina was helpless to stop Wilson from taking her hand to his mouth and kissing her knuckles. “Thank you,” he said in a voice loaded with emotion. “You have been the sister I never had, Celina. I shall never be able to thank you and your parents enough for being there whenever I needed you.”
With his free hand he pushed his napkin aside, pushed it toward Neville, who slid it into his lap with as much nonchalance as he could muster.
After an interval, Celina saw her father fumbling below the table. His lips moved. He was counting. Then elation made his eyes glitter. He pushed a bulky envelope into the inside pocket of his jacket.
Chapter 30
Wilson Lamar’s chauffeur—Jack thought he’d heard Lamar call him Ben—clicked off his cell phone and dropped it into his pocket. The man drew back into a doorway not far from the entrance to Galatoire’s, and remained there until he saw what he’d obviously been waiting for: Neville and Bitsy Payne hurried onto the sidewalk and immediately entered a waiting taxi.
When the taxi had pulled away, the chauffeur started toward Lamar’s silver Mercedes parked at the curb. Jack, with his head behind a newspaper and feeling like a character in a bad movie, prepared to go to the restaurant. He’d known Celina was already there, and he’d seen Lamar enter. There was no doubt that she didn’t like the wanna-be senator, yet Jack would wager a good deal that the man had gone to Galatoire’s to seek out the Paynes.
Α dark-haired woman, more running than walking, hurried to cut Lamar’s chauffeur off from entering the Mercedes. Jack had a better angle on the woman than on Ben, but there was no mistaking that the man’s body tensed, and muscles in his jaw jerked.
The woman gripped his arm and clung on despite his efforts to dislodge her. “Did you think if you ignored us we’d just go away?” she said, her voice carrying clearly over the few feet that separated her from Jack. He leaned against the side of the building and kept the paper high. “You are just like your dreadful daddy.”
“Go home,” was the terse response. “And take that man you live with. And don’t come back. You’ve already gotten more out of this than you had coming.”
“If it hadn’t been for us, you wouldn’t be here. We gave you your opportunities.”
“I was in the right place at the right time and I took my opportunities.”
“If that man hadn’t come snoopin’ around, tryin’ to find out some dirt about Errol, you’d still be passin’ the basket in Baton Rouge.” The words were issued on a hiss.
“Keep your voice down,” Ben said. “This isn’t the place for this.”
Jack noted that the man’s voice had lost its Cajun inflection.
“Don’t you tell me what to do. You came back to me because you couldn’t make it on your own. Just like that no-good daddy of yours.”
“Whatever happened to him, Mama? Was he another step to your success—such as it is? Gettin’ rid of someone never did bother you, did it? Not as long as someone else did it for you.”
“Shut your mouth, boy,” the woman said, sounding close to hysteria. “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. We got a lot comin’, Walt and me, and you’re goin’ to make sure we get it.”
“Or?” Ben said calmly. “What will you
do if I don’t?”
Jack turned a page and risked looking at the pair. He raised the paper again immediately. Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Reed with dark hair graying at the temples and pulled back into a band at her nape. He should have known the blond do was a wig, only he hadn’t taken much notice. She was Ben’s mother. And Ben was Lamar’s chauffeur. And the Reeds had been Errol’s supposed guides to salvation. And Mrs. Reed was waiting not only for the reading of Errol’s will, but for some sort of payoff from Ben. Who did she mean when she said someone had gone to Baton Rouge looking for information on Errol?
“Wilson Lamar’s got the most to lose,” Joan Reed said. “What d’you think the newspapers would make of a man who took a fancy to a boy half his age, then brought him to New Orleans and pretended he didn’t know him?”
Wilson Lamar.
“Mama, shut your mouth.”
“You won’t hit me here, boy. What would the people who vote make of the candidate arranging for a pretty boy to work in his house, to be his constant companion? Are you helpin’ him get over his wife carryin’ on with that pagan priest? And then there’s the dead man who led your sugar daddy, Lamar, tο us in the first place. There’s a lot here that’s worth good money, boy, and we’re gonna get us that money.”
“You,” Ben said, his voice so flat that Jack looked at them again, “you will do nothing I don’t tell you to do. You understand?”
The big, too smoothly handsome boy “held” his mother’s hand. Her face contorted and Jack was certain that if he stood closer, he’d hear bones grind together.
“Do you understand?” Ben repeated.
She had the guts to raise her chin defiantly. “If we go down, you go down with us, Ben Angel.”
“If I go down the way you mean,” Ben said, his voice husky and menacing, “they’ll need a mass grave for the victims, but I won’t be one of them. I’ve got myself a woman who can hardly wait to help me bury the rest of you.”
Chapter 31
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