Cajun Waltz

by Robert H. Patton

  R.J. drew his pistol from under his shirt. He studied it scornfully, as children do when they discover that something supposedly dangerous is not. With an air of attempting a casual experiment, he pointed the barrel at his father’s face.

  What can Richie have made of this? There wasn’t much going on inside anymore, no reflections sorry or bitter, no thoughts beyond a dull animal sense that he was caged with no way out. His children’s agitation around his bed must have seemed like a television playing snowily across the room or a weird flutter in the room’s flowered wallpaper. Something hard and cold touched his lips. Like a baby tonguing a sharp pencil, he recoiled in reflex as it was pushed inside his mouth.

  Bonnie watched aghast as R.J. bent over their father and stared into his wide eyes from inches away. Gagging on the pistol barrel at the back of his throat, Richie clutched at his son’s wrist. R.J. cocked the hammer back. Bonnie lunged across the bed and shoved her brother off.

  “Relax. Little scare, is all.” Of himself, R.J. meant.

  “Daddy?” Her rubbing of Richie’s arm became frenzied, as if scouring a hole to retrieve something inside. “Daddy!”

  “He’s asleep.”

  He looked too asleep. The thought that he was dead struck them simultaneously. Bonnie’s face took a classic pietá expression while R.J.’s had the aspect of child’s after committing a hurtful prank, disbelieving the very bad thing he’s done.

  Richie stirred. His son strode from the room in relief he disguised with a smirk. Bonnie had seen enough. Her appalling brother could not be trusted to stay dead and out of trouble. She must end this once and for all.

  * * *

  ON THE WARPATH now, she subjected Alvin Dupree to such a grilling about R.J.’s activities in exile that he cracked like a sorority snitch. Alvin did his best to mix in believable lies with the unbelievable truth. His biggest lie was to reassert that R.J., not he, had shot Freddy Baez; the next biggest lie was that R.J. had assaulted another girl recently, Ethel Somebody at the Section Eight Gun Club. On the true side of the ledger, Alvin told her that R.J. was using the dead man’s name as an alias and was dating the daughter-in-law of one of Richie’s former business partners. Lastly he informed her of Abe Percy’s extortion attempt on the family. Bonnie accepted Alvin’s excuse that he’d deceived her out of protectiveness. She would take charge from here.

  On her order, Alvin arranged to meet Abe at the same diner where, by coincidence, Abe had met Hollis Jenks three months earlier; the old lawyer, desperate for straws to grab, took it as a positive omen. “Thirty thousand dollars,” he said as they slid into the booth across from each other, “is all I require to go away happy. My word is gold on that.”

  “It can be done,” Alvin said, “providin’ you come through for us.”

  “Us. Aha!” Alvin’s insinuation, at Hollis Jenks’s wake, about drowning the Chief had filled the lawyer with dread of the Bainards doing him likewise. Leaving the note with Delly about Tarzy Hooker had been an attempt to establish a fail-safe.

  “You’re right,” Alvin conceded. “R. J. Bainard is alive.” Still smarting from Bonnie’s tongue-lashing, he was antsy with the nervousness that comes when a dream so near resists coming true. “You told me there’s another person out there could confirm the fact.”

  “There are, yes.”

  “More than one?”

  Abe was mortified by his loose mouth. “I shouldn’t say.”

  “I shouldn’t give you a pile of money.”

  “If I tell, what’s left to protect me?”

  “Honor. Yours and mine.”

  “We may have a problem in that case.”

  Alvin glanced around as if to summon a waitress. It was a signal. A young woman with the presence of an Amazon queen joined them from two booths away. “May I introduce Miss Bonnie Bainard,” Alvin said with formality.

  She extended her hand. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Percy.”

  “You know him?” Alvin asked her.

  “My mother’s best friend.”

  “Dear Esther,” Abe said.

  Bonnie’s smile was sweet. Alvin, from experience, knew the lawyer was in for it now. “If you’re broke,” she told Abe, “I wish you’d have come to us. You’re practically family.”

  “Please. Your father never liked me.”

  “He never liked anyone, so what? I decide things.”

  “A lady of stature now?”

  “I always had stature. Shame no one noticed before.”

  “I noticed,” Alvin said. Her cutting glance said don’t be pathetic.

  Abe ventured, “I saw you at your brother’s funeral.”

  “Yet here in my grief you’re blackmailing me?”

  Abe winced at the change in tone. “But your brother isn’t dead—rather the point of this meeting, I’d thought. You want him protected, right?”

  “I want him incarcerated, Mr. Percy.”

  Abe’s dream of a windfall vaporized. “Then why am I here?”

  “To earn your reward for helping me bring him to justice.”

  “Your own brother?”

  “Are you passing judgment?”

  “It’s just for years you obstructed the search at every turn.”

  “My father did, not me. Now you’ll get paid for catching a crook instead of protecting one.”

  Abe already was spending the thousands in his head when Bonnie asked for the names of others who could testify to R.J.’s being alive; she would pass the names to the police and demand they reopen the case. Abe named Delly Franklin and Tarzy Hooker. He almost expected to get his cash right there. “I gave her a note about the boy’s importance to the case.”

  “I want that note,” Bonnie said. “Does she keep it with her? This…”

  “Delly’s her name.” Abe elaborated, “The former Adele Billodeau.”

  “From my brother?”

  “The same.”

  “Little troublemaker, that one.”

  Alvin said to Abe, “You’ll take me to this Tarzy?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to know what he knows.”

  “Sure.” Spoken with barely a twitch.

  Alvin nodded. He was more comfortable now that matters had moved to the A-B-C stage, when steps proceed one at a time to their destination. “Might gain you your first installment.”

  Abe’s mouth had gone dry with the inkling that he’d just sold his soul. He didn’t know what Bonnie and Alvin would do with the information he’d given them. He didn’t want to know. He would get his money and they’d get whatever; later he could contact the authorities and turn in the Bainards for their foul ways. The rationalization helped him slide out of the booth with an air of confidence despite the table edge creasing his gut.

  Bonnie fished a hand into Alvin’s lap as they watched the lawyer leave. Her manipulations weren’t for his pleasure. She was piggybacking one stirring event on another. Had she been fond of tobacco or alcohol, now would have been the moment to light up or pour. Alvin was the only vice she’d ever known, until today’s little caper. She mused, “He would’ve taken less.” Her hand stayed busy under the table.

  “Man won’t get a dime.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “My clever Sergeant Dupree.”

  “At your service.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  “We should go now.”

  “Maybe not yet.”

  She withdrew her hand after a moment and he looked down at his tented trousers. “Lordy.”

  Bonnie stood with aplomb that to Alvin signified genetic refinement and supreme femininity. She was bright but provincial, hence clumsy in her quest to catch up with the fast life she’d missed. He indulged her quaint notions whatever they were, so gamely rose and followed her out of the diner. Patrons and waitresses regarded him with a range of reactions. He kept his eyes ahead, a sentry at his post.

  * * *

  CORINNE MEERS’S SCHEME to get her cousin to dr
op the charges against R.J. was a long shot to say the least. Beyond the legal release, she wanted Delly’s blessing on her and R.J.’s affair. Seth Hooker was the key. Corinne thought if she could fix up him and Delly together it would soften the sting to her cousin of watching Corinne become happy and rich on the arm of her nemesis.

  It was her son’s last day at the hospital. Seth had kept his distance since being snubbed by Delly outside Georgia Hill, but Corinne pressured him to come say good-bye. She and Delly were packing Joey’s things, the boy lying sullen on the bed as they worked, when they heard Seth’s cane clacking in the hall. Entering, he put on a front of ignoring Delly and handed Joey a leather-bound Bible. “The Jesus words are in red. Easier to follow that way.”

  Joey, though much improved, was anxious about returning to home and school. “Did you mark the dirty parts at least?”

  “Don’t be pissy,” Delly said. “It’s a nice gift.” Protecting Seth’s feelings was a sisterly reflex that he, still hoping for more, didn’t appreciate.

  “This place gets comfortable,” he said to her. “It can be scary to leave.”

  “You know from experience?”

  “As someone who stayed, yes.”

  “You’ll go someday.”

  “I just need a reason.”

  “Christ!” Joey said. “Get married you two and be done with it.”

  “He’s too good for me,” Delly said, being nice if accidentally candid.

  Corinne made her move. “Well, I think he’s perfect.” Like a matchmaking aunt, she insisted that Delly and Seth immediately come have coffee with her in the hospital’s basement cafeteria. “Now tell me why,” she said once the three of them were situated around a table, “you two lovebirds can’t get together like everyone wants?”

  “Like who wants?” Delly said.

  “Like anyone with half an eye for love and fate and shit.”

  Seth was humiliated—also heartened. “Suits me.”

  Delly shook her head. “I can’t look at you and not see your brother.”

  “He’s dead. Not even a ghost anymore.”

  Delly wondered if he could really not know the truth. “Might prefer if he wasn’t. So I can kill him myself.”

  “Maybe just cuss him a little,” Corinne said. “Clear the air once and for all.”

  “He’s a monster, you stupid ass.”

  “Just tryin’ to be helpful.”

  “It’ll take a miracle to help me.”

  “And dammit I got one in mind.” Corinne whapped the table. “I’m in love with R. J. Bainard and we’re gonna get married.”

  “You know him?” Seth said. He remembered R.J.’s burial at Orange Grove. “Wait, what?”

  Delly’s hand was already reaching for Corinne’s throat. “You will never—”

  “We’re in love.”

  “He’s evil!”

  “He’d dead,” Seth said. “Isn’t he?”

  “No, he ain’t dead!” Delly snapped. “It’s all been a big goddamn trick.”

  Seth accepted this. It confirmed his belief that he was always the last to know anything. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “’Cause I’m a fucking saint who only knows to bear the whole load. I felt crappy enough about you as it was.”

  “You felt crappy?” A positive sign.

  Corinne jumped in. “Please oh please, Del. R.J. hates what happened, really he does.”

  “Hates what?” Seth said, embarrassed by his ignorance.

  “She accused him of rapin’ her.”

  “She did?” He turned to Delly. “You did?”

  Delly’s glare hadn’t left Corinne. “Please oh please what?”

  “Please let him please say he’s sorry, okay?”

  “Say sorry. To me?”

  “To us,” Seth said.

  “Us?”

  “He owes me as much as you.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I see better than you on this one.” His brother was alive and Delly the one he’d assaulted. That she’d hid all this from Seth made him angry; it also made him adore her, for surely she’d done it for his sake. He wanted to shake her by the shoulders and tell her he’d got the picture at last—and how could they run from the coincidence that had blasted their lives if that same coincidence brought them together? “R.J. is why my mother died,” he told her. “My father thought they were having an affair.”

  “Not true!” Corinne wasn’t sure, but when you’re in love …

  “It’s what he thought.” Seth’s voice was firm. “And it wasn’t completely off base.”

  Delly sneered. “I thought you liked R.J.”

  “I did. I do. Doesn’t mean he can’t be an idiot.”

  Indignant at how the conversation had gone off track, Corinne launched her last best bid. “R.J. wants to meet you face-to-face.”

  Delly didn’t look shocked. “It’ll cost.”

  “Money?”

  “Something he’ll miss, Corinne. You. End it.”

  “We’re in love, honey.”

  “Not if he wants to meet me.”

  Corinne exploded. “Who’re you to give demands? You’re a woman with nothing.”

  “You’re a woman with a wife and kids.”

  “You don’t even like Donald.”

  “I like Joey. I don’t want him hurt.”

  “Coulda fooled me.”

  Seth assured Delly, “Joey will be fine whatever his mother does. He’s pretty clear on that score.” Translation: Joey knew his mom was shallow as paper and counted on her for nothing that mattered.

  “Listen to him, Del,” Corinne urged. “He’s a doctor.”

  “He’s no such thing. He’s one notch from the man with the mop.”

  Seth’s spirits had risen at the prospect that this mess might shake out in his favor. “I think,” he told Delly in a measured tone, “that you ought to sit down with my brother.”

  “Half,” Corrine corrected.

  “I also think,” Seth went on, “you should postpone any demand about him and Mrs. Meers breaking up. If your meeting with R.J. doesn’t satisfy, I’ll help you call the police.”

  “Maybe I’ll call them ahead of time, set me an ambush.”

  “R.J.’d come anyways,” Corinne said, “goofy way he talks about you.”

  “Goofy how?”

  “Halfway nice, I suppose.”

  The tidbit hit Delly with unlikely impact. It introduced a new angle into this three-way debate whose meaning Corinne could never have fathomed and whose repercussions, as indicated by Delly’s imperceptible shudder, Seth could not have imagined.

  * * *

  ON JUNE 24, 1957, a mass of cool air in the western Gulf undercut a pocket depression of humid, warmer air and set the outer winds whipping in a classic cyclone style. It was in the Bay of Campeche off the Yucatán Peninsula—where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit 65 million years ago, its crater now a vast undersea teacup whose crosscurrents of water and wind have spawned storms for countless millennia.

  The first sign of trouble was a radio message from a Mexican shrimp boat that described heavy swells and wind gusts topping fifty miles per hour. After half a day fighting the elements, the men on shipboard bid exhausted good riddance to the storm plowing north to the gringos. People in southwest Louisiana were relieved when the Weather Bureau advised that it was four hundred miles away and veering toward the Texas coast. Somewhere else, that is.

  On that same Monday, Donald Meers bought a Smith & Wesson revolver at Block’s Home Supply. Donald was the son of the Lake Charles construction magnate, Burt Meers. Neither bright or accomplished in his own right, his ego rested entirely on faith in his virility—faith shattered, needless to say, by his wife’s affair with a Mexican vagrant. His purchase of a handgun was equivalent to buying a Porsche or a hairpiece in response to some similar setback.

  The next day, Tuesday, June 25, he returned to the store to buy a box of ammunition. It was about
the same time that a government reconnaissance aircraft reported that winds of the Gulf storm were approaching a hundred miles per hour. The newly named Hurricane Audrey was projected to make landfall late Thursday near Corpus Christi. The Weather Bureau advised area residents to secure their homes and businesses and to think about moseying inland.

  * * *

  ALVIN DUPREE AND Abe Percy headed for Hancock Bayou early Wednesday morning with a plan to be back before the weather turned. Breezes were freshening ahead of the hurricane that the radio said would hit Texas about a hundred miles west of Cameron Parish tomorrow evening. Warm rain fell in a drizzle. Roads were decent. Alvin drove, Abe the passenger in more ways than he knew. They bore southward toward graying skies like storm-chasers after a funnel cloud.

  Conversation was spare but useful in sharpening Alvin’s dislike of the lawyer. “So desolate,” Abe said of R.J.’s choice of Cameron Parish as his hideout. Thinking Alvin wouldn’t know the word, he added, “Nothing to do for entertainment, I mean.”

  “Lieutenant Bainard ain’t about entertainment,” Alvin said.

  “Everyone needs a little.”

  “Entertainment done him with that girl. Entertainment done him with Angel.”

  Abe cackled. “His father’s wife. Classic.”

  “All in his mind.”

  “I doubt that. And I told his father as much when I telephoned him after Frank Billodeau came forward.”

  “So you the one set Richie off that day?”

  “He needed no help.”

  “But you gave it anyway.”

  Abe smartly stopped talking for a while. Then he got stupid again: “Where are you from originally, Alvin?”

  “New Orleans.”

  “No kidding? I was born in the Garden District. I used to practice—”

  “In the Ninth Ward.”

  “How did you know?”

  “When I was a boy you put me up after my father got convicted, before they moved me to the foster home.”

  “Where was your mother?”

  “Was a murder conviction.”

  “Oh.” Abe hesitated. “I don’t recall prosecuting such a case.”

  “He confessed, got life. You came around only after.”

  “After.”

  Alvin shifted in the driver’s seat. Abe thought the conversation was making him uncomfortable; along with the .45 automatic under Alvin’s coat at the small of his back, it was. “Gave me a bed for a time,” Alvin said. “Tide me over. Guess you did that a lot.”