“Nothing. The good news is I’m over Sawyer. The bad news is I have a schoolgirl crush on a guy who won’t give me the time of day.”
“Oh, honey. He’ll come around. How could he resist a package like you?”
“Same old story. I am so messed up.” Greer gave her best friend a crooked smile. “Hey. Maybe I should call Erica. I bet she could help me feel connected and fix me right up.”
“Ha!” CeeJay flipped the lid on the pizza box, looked inside, and shuddered. “Enough of this moping around about boys. Let’s go get some real food. I’ll even buy.”
“I can’t,” Greer said with a sigh. “I’ve got a ton of paperwork to do before the demo scene.”
“Bryce is really going to blow up that cool old casino, huh?”
“That’s what he says. Thanks to Sawyer, it looks like it’s going to happen. Vanessa is calling the shots. Eb signed the permit. Jake Newman is here, checking it out for the big blow.”
“What about Sherrie Seelinger? I thought she was threatening to shut off the money fountain.”
“As far as I know, the blow is a go.”
* * *
The yellow fluorescent light in Eb Thibadeaux’s office in the Hometown Market flickered and buzzed. He had a stack of invoices to check, and e-mails about city business that needed to be answered, but instead he’d been researching historic preservation guidelines on the Internet, grasping at some straw that might help save the casino.
“Eb?” Bobby Stephens, the store’s assistant manager, stood in the open doorway. He was young, not even thirty, but Bobby was a local kid who’d worked his way up from bag boy to management. Right now he looked supremely uncomfortable.
“Hey, Bobby. What’s shaking?” Eb motioned for the manager to sit down, but Bobby darted forward and placed a stack of cash register receipts on the desktop, each with a hastily scrawled signature on the bottom.
“What’s this?”
“Uh, well, your brother Jared’s been coming in this week, buying groceries, and he, uh, said he’d cleared it with you to just sign the receipts. He said your family always had a house account here. Roseanne, she didn’t know any different, so she’s been letting him do it, but I thought maybe I should check with you.”
Eb leafed through the receipts. His brother’s purchases came as no surprise. Four cartons of cigarettes, lunch meat, bread, Doritos, deli stuff, and three cases of beer. Imported beer. In all, Jared had managed to charge nearly three hundred dollars’ worth of supplies in just a few days’ time.
He felt a slow burn in his gut.
“Thanks, Bobby,” he said finally. “I’ll handle this. But let Roseanne and the other girls know, the next time Jared comes in here, we don’t have house accounts, and there’s no credit. If he has any questions, tell them to send him to me.”
“Right.” Bobby nodded and backed out the doorway.
* * *
He was in the back room, using a box cutter to open cases of canned goods that had come in on the delivery truck earlier in the day, when he heard his cell phone ringing in the office. Eb hurried to the desk, and he felt a flutter of happiness when he saw the caller ID screen. Allie Thibadeaux.
“Hey, Al,” he said.
“Hey, bro. Sorry, it’s me, not Allie. How ’bout giving me a ride home?” His brother’s voice was thick, the words slurred. “The damned golf cart ran out of juice and I’m kinda stranded.”
Eb’s first impulse was to disconnect. If Jared was stranded, let him stay that way. Maybe he’d wander away and never find his way back.
“Where are you?”
“Aw hell, I’m not sure. Lemme see. It’s been a long time since I was home, you know? Okay. Yeah. I’m standing in front of Old Man Crowley’s house.”
“Crowley? You’re over on Palmetto? What are you doing way over there?”
“Shit. I dunno.”
There was a pause. Eb heard the phone drop, and the line went dead. A moment later, Jared called back.
“Sorry. Had to take a leak. Look, if you’re gonna get all pissy about it, I’ll just call Gin.”
“No. Stay right there,” Eb said. “I’m on my way.”
* * *
Palmetto was a narrow street, and the live oaks on either side made a thick canopy of branches that threatened to blot out what little moonlight seeped through the leaves.
Eb’s headlights picked up the shadowy image of a golf cart pulled over on the dirt shoulder of the asphalt. He parked the truck behind the cart and walked over. Jared was draped over the steering wheel, passed out, snoring.
Eb shook him by the shoulder. “Jared! Wake up. Let’s go!”
Jared raised his head slowly. A trickle of drool made a trail down his meaty chin. “Hey. Gimme a minute, can you?” He yawned expansively, and Eb had to step back from the blast of beer breath.
He grabbed Jared by the elbow and pulled him from the cart. Jared stumbled on a tree root, cussed, regained his balance, and pushed away the arm Eb offered. “I’m fine. Just a little tired is all.”
“You’re drunk is all,” Eb shot back. He opened the truck’s passenger-side door, and Jared stood there, not moving.
“Come on, dammit. I don’t have all night.”
“What about the golf cart? Who’s gonna drive it?”
“I’ll come over in the morning with a new battery and Gin can ride it back to the motel.”
“No, man,” Jared protested. “Somebody will rip it off.”
“Just get in the truck, okay?”
Eb went around and got behind the wheel and Jared finally followed suit.
“If somebody rips off that cart, I’m not taking the blame,” he persisted.
“This is Cypress Key, not the Starke correctional institution,” Eb snapped. “The only person ripping anybody off around here is you.” He started the truck.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jared said.
“It means you managed to charge three hundred bucks’ worth of beer, bologna, and smokes in my store this week,” Eb said.
“Hey, I’m good for it,” Jared said, leaning back against the headrest. “We’re family, right?”
“Right,” Eb said, glancing at his brother.
Jared had the window rolled down.
“Where were you going tonight?” Eb asked. But he had a feeling he already knew.
“Just for a ride. Change of scenery. Fucking boring hanging out all day at the motel.”
“Maybe you could try actually working, instead of lounging around sponging off Gin and me,” Eb said.
“Whatever. I am working on something. Something big.” Jared brought a cheap steno notebook from his hip pocket and waved it at his brother. “It’s all right here.”
“Oh yes,” Eb said, his voice dripping sarcasm. “The Jared Thibadeaux Story: Justice Denied.”
“Fuck you, bro.” Jared pointed. “Do me a favor, turn here.”
For reasons he couldn’t fathom, Eb made the turn. He slowed down, and finally, in the middle of the next block, he pulled to the side of the road. It was after ten. Most of the houses on the street were dark, but behind some windows he could see the blue-white blur of a television screen.
The houses on this block were modest cottages, wood frame with asphalt shingles and single-car garages. They’d been built after the war, by returning veterans who were starting families and building new lives. It was not the fanciest street in Cypress Key, but it wasn’t the worst, either.
He turned and looked at his brother, who was hanging halfway out of the window, staring into the dark.
“You were trying to find the old house?”
Jared’s shoulders lifted briefly. His voice was muffled. “Yeah. I guess.” He turned and looked at Eb, and tears glittered in his bloodshot eyes. “Those were good times, you know? The old man burning steaks on the grill on Sundays? Mom, you know, cooking. Me and you throwing the ball around in the front yard. I miss that.”
Jared gestured toward their old house. “Would yo
u look at this place? It shrunk!”
The house needed paint and the yard needed trimming. A bicycle and a yellow and red plastic ride-on toy leaned against the front porch. The vehicles in the driveway were at least twenty years old—a white Toyota Corolla and a rusting brown pickup with a boat trailer hitched to it.
Jared started to open his door, and Eb reached across the bench seat and hauled his brother back by the belt on his pants.
“What?’ Jared protested. “I just wanted to see the old house. Man, it’s gone to seed. Remember, Pop would make us mow every Saturday, come hell or high water. I wonder what kind of white trash lives here now, lets it get like this?”
Eb clenched the steering wheel with both hands. He started the truck and eased down the block.
“Place looks like shit.” Jared was still looking backwards at the old home place.
“The new owner is a clammer. His name is Sosebee. He’s got three kids and he’s also a volunteer fireman.” Eb said. “I sold him the house, if you want to know.”
“Maybe I’ll buy it back, when I sell my screenplay. That’d be righteous, huh? Surprise Mom and Dad, get their old place back for ’em?”
Eb clamped his lips together. It was a waste of breath to explain to a drunk that nearly all the proceeds from the sale of their parents’ home of thirty years had gone to paying off Jared’s legal bills. Why point out that their dad could no longer push a mower or wield a paintbrush? Or remember his sons’ names.
He heard a soft snore. “Yeah, bro,” Eb muttered, glancing over at his slumbering sibling. “Keep on dreaming.”
51
“Jared!” Eb stood beside the open passenger door. His brother slumped sideways onto the seat. Eb shook him by the shoulder. “Wake up! Come on. We’re home.”
“Huh?” Jared sat up and yawned another blast of stale beer breath.
Eb yanked at his brother’s arm. “Out! We’re back at the motel.”
Jared jerked his arm away. “I’m coming. Ease up, would you?” He swung his legs out of the truck and had to hold on to the truck bed to get his balance.
“You ease up,” Eb said tersely. “I’ve had a long day, and I’ve got a longer one tomorrow. And I’m tired of babysitting you.”
“Fuck you, asshole!” Jared yelled. His voice echoed across the empty parking lot. “Just go the fuck away, okay? I don’t need a babysitter!”
A moment later the light snapped on in front of the manager’s apartment and Ginny Buckalew came flying across the parking lot. She was dressed in a cotton bathrobe and slippers, and she had fire in her eyes.
“Quiet down, Jared,” she ordered.
“Sorry, Gin,” Jared said in a loud stage whisper, giving her a dopey grin. He looped an arm around her shoulders. “You’re not mad at me, are you, Gin-Gin?”
She shrugged off his embrace. “You’re drunk,” she said flatly. She glanced over at the truck, and then at Eb. “Where’d you find him? And what did he do with my golf cart?”
“Out of juice!” Jared hollered, leaning against the pickup bed. “No more juice for Gin!”
He started to walk away, but Eb grabbed him by the belt. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Left my cooler over by the pool. I need a beer, man.”
“It’s not your beer, it’s mine. And you’re done for the night,” Eb said. He turned back to his aunt. “He ran the battery down. I had to leave the cart over on Palmetto, a couple blocks from Mom and Dad’s old place. We can take a battery over there in the morning and bring it back here,” Eb said. “In the meantime, let’s get him to his room before he wakes up everybody in the motel.”
He turned to take his brother’s arm, but in that moment Jared danced away, just out of his reach. He took off fast, in the direction of the pool and patio.
“Go get him, please, Eb,” Ginny pleaded.
* * *
Jared stood over the large red cooler, up to his elbow in ice water. “Hey, man,” he hollered, his voice echoing over the pool and the concrete patio. “Who took my last beer?”
A light snapped on three doors down, and a head popped out the door. “Shut up, asshole,” the man called. “People are trying to sleep.”
Eb caught up to Jared and clamped his arms on the big man’s shoulders. “Come on, Jared, let’s go. No more beer tonight.” But Jared was bigger. And drunker.
“Hey, motherfucker!” Jared shook him off and started down the walkway toward the man who had called. “Did you take my beer?”
The door slammed and they heard the metallic sound of a dead bolt ramming home. Jared pounded on the door. “Talking to you, asshole!”
The voice from inside the room was muffled. “I’m calling the cops.”
Eb threw an arm around Jared’s neck and tightened it across his windpipe. He put his lips against his brother’s ear. “When the cops come, I’m turning you over to them. Drunk and disorderly. You can go back to jail, and I’ll be damned if I’ll bail you out.”
He squeezed and Jared gasped for air.
“Okay,” Jared wheezed. “Leggo.”
Eb released the pressure, but shoved his brother away from the door.
Ginny hurried down the corridor. “Get him out of here,” she said, keeping her voice low. Suddenly, the fight had gone out of Jared. He slumped against the block wall.
“Jesus,” Eb said, his voice thick with disgust. “He’s passed out cold again.”
* * *
Greer heard the commotion coming from the courtyard. She opened her door, looked down the corridor, and saw Ginny Buckalew and Eb half walking, half dragging the unconscious Jared Thibadeaux in the direction of the laundry room.
She ran down the corridor. Ginny was a head and a half shorter than her nephew, and his body nearly engulfed hers.
“Let me help,” Greer said breathlessly. She took Jared’s arm and slung it over her own shoulder, and Ginny stepped away. Jared swayed and then listed to the right, throwing most of his weight on his brother’s shoulder.
“I’ve got him,” Eb said, frowning.
“Don’t be a jerk,” Greer said. “He outweighs you by at least eighty pounds. Let me help you get him to his room.”
They heard a door opening behind them, and footsteps.
Allie Thibadeaux’s eyes were wide as saucers. She was barefoot, dressed in an oversize Cypress Key High football jersey. “Dad!”
“Allie, go back to the apartment,” Ginny said quickly.
“What’s wrong with him?” Allie darted in front of them. She touched her father’s cheek. “Dad?” She glared at Eb. “What happened to him? Did you beat him up, like you did Kregg?”
“Come on, Al,” Ginny put an arm around her great-niece’s shoulder. “He’ll be okay. He just needs to sleep it off.”
Jared’s head jerked upright. “Hey, Allie baby,” he said softly.
Allie’s body stiffened. “You’re drunk.”
“Naw,” Jared protested. “Just a little buzzed, that’s all.” He straightened. “Your uncle and I were out on the town. We went by the old house, just catching up on old times.” He slid out of Eb’s grasp, and then Greer’s. “Right, bro?”
“Right,” Eb said.
Greer glanced from one brother to the other, holding her breath to see what would happen next. Jared swayed, then righted himself.
Allie leaned in, sniffed her father’s breath. “You reek.” She backtracked a step. She pointed at the crotch of Jared’s jeans, and a large, spreading damp stain. “Oh my God. Did you wet your pants?” She made a soft gagging noise and turned away.
“Go on to bed, Allie,” Eb said wearily. “We got this.”
* * *
Somehow, between them, Eb and Greer managed to drag Jared down the corridor, in the direction of his room.
“Wait,” Jared stopped. He patted his pockets. “Lost my key.”
“I’ve got a master,” Eb said. Jared slouched against the wall while Eb unlocked the door. Greer took Jared’s arm and led him into the d
arkened room.
Eb turned on the light. The room was tiny, with room for a single bed, a desk, a chair, and a dresser. The bathroom had the usual fixtures, plus a dorm-size refrigerator topped with a toaster oven. Greer was taken aback by how neat it was. She’d assumed a sloppy drunk made for a sloppy guest.
There was a single cheap suitcase standing in as a nightstand beside the bed, which was made up with a flat pillow and a blanket. Hooks on the back of the wall held a pair of jeans and a couple of shirts. The linoleum floor was swept clean, and a pair of inexpensive tennis shoes was lined up at the foot of the bed.
Jared sank down onto the bed and turned toward the wall.
Eb stood, looking down at him, shaking his head in dismay. He jerked the blanket from beneath his brother’s feet and draped it over him.
“Let’s go,” he said, turning to Greer.
“You don’t want to try to undress him … or anything?”
“I’ve had enough of being my brother’s keeper for one day,” Eb said. He held the door open, Greer stepped into the corridor, and he snapped the light off and closed the door again.
* * *
They walked down the narrow corridor, just a few inches apart. When they came to the door of Greer’s room, Eb cleared his throat.
“Uh, listen. About what I said earlier today, out at Seahorse Key? That was a really crappy thing to say. I saw your face when you walked in the room and saw that guy. Sawyer the lawyer. You were blindsided. Same as me.”
Greer nodded. “I was. But I understand. He really piled it on you.”
“Looked like he was enjoying himself,” Eb said.
“Trust me. He was having the time of his life, beating you down. It’s just the kind of thing he gets off on.”
He gave her a look that was almost shy. “Would you want to go get a drink, and maybe something to eat? I never had any dinner.”
“It’s after ten,” Greer reminded him. “You Cypress Key folks roll up the streets pretty early.”
“I could probably cook something.…” Eb said, his voice trailing off.
“Tell you what. I’ve got half a cold, greasy pizza in my room, and a bottle of almost drinkable red wine.”
Beach Town Page 33