Now, down at his end of the bar, Harry signaled for a Dixie draft. Chéri gave him a quick glance with nothing on it, then turned back to the barman, who was named Calvin. “You would not believe what happened at the airport. Here, at Moisant, I mean. My friend picked me up, and just as his car, his limo, pulled in, this little bitty guy who was crossing the road on foot, like, took offense. Thought the limo had cut him off. Beat his little tiny hand on the window. My friend’s driver, who is this gigantic black dude, got out and I thought, Oh, Jesus, sucker’s bought the farm now, driver’s gonna turn him into mah nez. Then right next to us this car backfired, and that little dude, he—”
“Crapped his pants,” said Calvin.
“No!” Chéri shrieked, getting high off the telling of it.
Harry looked around the room. The whole bar’s attention was focused on her, which it would have been anyway considering that she was the only pretty woman there and certainly the only one in a too-tight white jumpsuit unbuttoned to East Jesus.
“No! Lissen! What he did was, he fainted. Fell out right there in the middle of the road. Thought he’d been shot, I guess. The driver just picked him up like he was a little old kitten and held him in his arms till this cop car made it on around the circle and they called an ambulance. I tell you, the traffic was a mess. We stayed there, couldn’t get out till the ambulance came.” Chéri flopped her red mane. “Hit me again, Calvin.” She paused for a moment, downed the drink. “Did you know,” she continued, “they have women ambulance drivers? I didn’t know that. But this one was. Pretty black woman, young, about my age give or take a year or two.”
“You thinking about getting yourself a job driving an ambulance, honey?” asked a portly, red-faced Uptown lawyer whom Harry knew to be Maynard Dupree.
“You think I ought to, Maynard?” Chéri dimpled.
“I don’t know. You did, casualties might get up off their stretchers and walk on into the emergency. Healed by the sight of you.” Maynard let his eyes drift down slow to her bosom, like he was being cool, forgetting that his wife, Marietta, sometimes played tennis with this woman, a fact that, when he thought about it, was a puzzlement indeed. “You know what I mean?”
“Oh, Maynard,” laughed Chéri, twisting and posing on the barstool like a beauty queen, “can’t you just see me racing through town with that siren blaring?”
Harry pushed his duffel bag with the hidden camera a little closer, getting what he hoped was a good shot of her long neck preening, with the front page of the Times-Picayune he’d dropped on the bar in the picture. With the date showing. Yep, Uncle Tench was gonna be proud of him all right, all the money Harry was saving him and Preferred Reliance Insurance on Chéri’s claim.
Just about then a tall, lanky man in a pearl-buttoned shirt, sitting down the bar from Maynard piped up. “You say the woman driving that ambulance out at the airport was a skinny black bitch?”
“Now, watch your mouth in front of the lady,” warned Calvin.
“Sorry, ma’am. No offense,” he said.
Harry had seen this man—long, tall, looked like a cowboy in his jeans—where? Yes! When he was working rigs off Grand Isle. Pipe-handler. One of those nervy, macho bastards fitting new lengths of pipe onto old while the end was still drilling, whirling a couple hundred miles an hour.
“No offense taken.” Chéri dimpled at the tall pipe-handler, proving she was a good ol’ girl who could hang with the best of ’em. “You’re right though. Driver was skinny. Skinny, light-skinned woman.”
“Bet it was G.T.”
Calvin nodded. “Bet it was, Jimbo.”
Jimbo. Harry knew he’d seen him before. Jimbo King.
“That G.T.’s Jimbo’s neighbor, lives in the other half of a duplex, double shotgun, over on General Pershing, right off St. Charles,” Calvin was explaining. Jimbo’s always bellyaching about her. Messing in his bi’nis.”
“Who’s bellyaching?” Jimbo leaned into it. “And the street’s General Taylor, not Pershing.”
Calvin jumped back as if he realized a good bartender never would have stepped out that far anyway. “Hell, Jimbo, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, well, you’d be griping, too, some bi—somebody wouldn’t even let you have a fight with your wife without sticking her nose in.”
“You ought not to be fighting with your wife in the first place,” Chéri put in.
“Well, I’ll tell you, pretty lady, you may know what you talking about when it comes to your life—fancy clothes, talking about limos and showfurs—but not my life. Times ain’t been this bad in the oil bi’nis since, shit, since things was powered with steam. That’s why wimmenfolk is acting so uppity.” He turned away from Chéri now, addressing the other men. “Wimmen’ll do that when you got so much weighing on you you cain’t hardly see over it. Just keep pushing and pushing. Trying to wear the pants.”
“That’s what you were saying before,” said Maynard. “When you were talking earlier about your wife. What was it you said to her?”
“You mean after she got back up off the floor?” Jimbo grinned.
Harry looked away, stared out toward the door. Slime-balls like this made his flesh crawl.
Jimbo answered Maynard. “Said, ‘Cain’t you see I’m carrying a heavy load here, woman? Man out of work don’t need none of your shit.’” Then he paused for a sip, following his shot of bourbon with a slug of Diet Dr Pepper. He ignored the pout growing on Chéri’s face like she’d been popped by a bee.
Harry didn’t miss it though. Then he looked back at Jimbo. Mean sapsucker—sucking his diet soda through his crooked grin and his bad, white-trash teeth. Yeah, a man like Jimbo would think diet pop was just the thing when he was out of work. Laying up, his lean would turn to blubber when times were bad. But Harry could see Jimbo had lost neither lean nor mean.
“So what’d she do then?” asked Maynard.
“After she picked herself up off the floor? She commenced to screaming.”
“And then?” Maynard asked, then looked around, hoping he didn’t sound like he was getting off on this tale—which he was.
With that, Chéri pointed her pretty nose in the air, picked up her soft suede bag and said, “’Scuse me, gentlemen,” coming down hard on that last word, then wheeled back to the Ladies.
Jimbo didn’t miss a beat. “Why, then, she got up on her high horse and started badmouthing my plans.”
“What plans are those, Jimbo?” asked Calvin.
Maynard turned his big bright meaty face to look at Calvin, who sneaked him the tiniest of winks.
“The plans for my getting on the ‘Tonight Show.’” Jimbo paused, then belched. “With the lawn chair.”
“The lawn chair?” Maynard repeated, asking the question in that way lawyers do.
“Whyn’t you tell our friend here about it?” Calvin poured Jimbo another shot. Gave Maynard another little wink.
“Well,” said Jimbo, “I’m gonna fly out to my old rig in a lawn chair so’s to show them dumbasses in Washington what a man can do iffen he’s got some ingenuity. What they ought to be doing, they wasn’t so busy jerking off.”
“Ought to be flying in lawn chairs, you think?” said Maynard.
Harry could see the effort it was costing Maynard to keep a straight face.
And he was right. Maynard was wondering, what the hell was this redneck talking about? And, more important, was there any action in it for him? Maynard hadn’t gotten to be where he was—senior partner of his law firm, chairman of the United Way, not to mention captain of Comus (a not-very-well-kept secret)—by just sitting around snapping at flies, not knowing how to figure the percentages. That was for damned straight.
“Yep. I read in this paper about a guy flew a whole long way out in California tying a bunch of helium weather balloons to a lawn chair. Got up to sixteen thousand feet. Got on Letterman, too. And he didn’t even have anything to prove. But I do, see?”
Maynard said, “You think it’ll make a statement to the
gov’mint?”
“Yeah, that’s my plan. That’s her, all right.”
Jimbo kind of hunched himself forward on the bar for a minute, then leaned back and looked Maynard up and down. Taking in his thousand-dollar gray wool suit with the little chalk stripe, fitting just great over his prosperous belly. The fat, well-barbered cheeks. The short, dark hair. The almost-handsome face, the muddy brown eyes a little too close together. The buffed black calf lace-ups. The gold cuff links. The serious watch.
“Well, fuck a duck, man.” Maynard leaned over and slapped Jimbo on the back. “I think that’s a damned great idea.”
Jimbo’s pale eyes shifted just a tad. “Whut is?”
“Your plan. It’s fantastic.”
Jimbo considered that for a minute. Harry could see it in his eyes: Fantastic was a word used by sissies who usually slugged their single-malt Scotch at the hoity-toity Bombay Club. “You do, huh?”
“Sure, I do. Might even be willing to get behind it with you.”
“Whadd’ya mean?” Jimbo’s eyes moved slowly, considering, the way country people do.
“Put some cash into it. Help you get some publicity.”
“Why’d you wanta do that?”
“’Cause I think the U.S. gov’mint sucks. Letting this city go down the tubes, that’s for damn sure, selling our oil bi’nis out to the Ay-rabs.”
“Damn straight,” said Jimbo. He lowered his shot glass to a spot on the bar which Calvin had just wiped clean. Let it sit there for a minute. Empty.
Maynard didn’t get to be chair of the United Way being stupid.
“Calvin.” Maynard signaled with a forefinger. Two more.
One for him. One for his buddy—the wife-beater. “I can’t believe your wife doesn’t think it’s a fantastic idea too.”
Ah, Harry thought. Now we’re getting back to the part of the story that interests old Maynard.
“Hell, you know how they are. Women never appreciate a damn thing you do, are always trying to get things their way.”
“So what happened?”
“Happened? I slapped her ’round some more. Didn’t really hurt her. Tiny little ol’ trickle of blood coming out of her mouth. That’s what really set off that colored girl we wuz talking about. The ambulance driver, my next-door neighbor, that G.T.”
“What’d she do?” asked Maynard.
“Banged on the door. Called up on the phone. Said she’d already called the cops. Said she was getting Teri out of there if I was gonna beat her bloody. Like it wuddn’t Teri’s house. Teri’s bi’nis. Our bi’nis.”
Teri. Harry’s mind flicked back to the necklace on the chunky blonde he’d seen earlier in the airport. The gold letters spelling out TERI, her name. The shiner starting to come on, purple and blue. The wet baby squalling. Teri watching Sister Nadine. Waiting for a plane to get the hell out of Dodge or just waiting?
“The cops come?” Maynard asked.
“Yeah. They come. It was all over then. Nothing for ’em to see.”
“Teri’d shaped up?”
“Nawh. She went on over to that bitch’s. I let her go.” Then Jimbo revised that. It didn’t sound right. “I told her to go. I said, ‘Get the hell out of here. And don’t come back either.’”
“Unh-huh.” Maynard shook his head.
“Hell, I had enough truck with the cops. Don’t need no more. Besides, it’s better that way. She’ll be sorry soon. Come crawling, begging me to take her back in.”
“I wouldn’t count on it if she’s staying with that G.T.,” Calvin said. “Everybody knows she’s a witch, practices that voodoo. Dyke too, prob’ly. She’s gone have your Teri turned queer, Jimbo, you don’t hurry up and get her back.”
“Shee-it.” Jimbo dragged the word out so long you could see it like a smudge of paint, then slapped his empty shot glass down on the bar again.
Maynard gave Calvin the nod.
“You know,” Jimbo said, turning his glass this way and that, staring into the amber liquid as if it could tell him things. “I been thinking seriously about stringing up that little old voodoo queen.”
Maynard laughed nervously. The way little boys do, Harry thought, when they realize they’ve wandered into a big boys’ game.
“Nawh. I ain’t kidding.” Jimbo shook his long blond hair back out of his eyes, stared right at Maynard. “What you think about killing her?”
“What are we talking about here, Jimbo?” Maynard’s voice climbed an octave.
“We ain’t talking about nothing, man, ’less you decided you want a piece of this action too.” Then he got real slow and real sly, giving it some. “Along with my flying-lawn-chair deal.”
Calvin laughed. Harry allowed himself a little smile since nobody was paying him any attention anyway. Jimbo, he thought, wasn’t as dumb as he seemed.
“I don’t think you ought to talk about killing people,” Maynard said, “Even joking. It’s just not good bi’nis. You can’t never tell what might happen. I mean, something might happen, and then people’d remember what you said.”
Jimbo leaned across the bar and slapped Calvin on the shoulder. “You see, Calvin. That’s why this man here’s wearing the fancy suit and I’m busting my butt and wearing these raggedy jeans. Man knows how to think.”
“That’s right,” said Calvin. “That’s what lawyers get paid for is thinking.”
“That’s right,” said Jimbo. “So what you’re telling me you’re thinking, see if I got this right, is that if you were fixing on killing somebody, you wouldn’t say nothing about it? That right, Mr. Dupree?”
“That’s right.” Maynard grinned, comfortable again with words, terms, definitions.
Yeah, Old Maynard was feeling like a quarterback now, Harry thought. The stud hoss from University of Virginia. Calling the shots. Everybody looking at him. Not knowing they thought he was a fool. “I wouldn’t breathe a word. I’d just do it.” That’s right. Maynard Dupree was a man of action. Sheeeeit.
Jimbo and Calvin slapped high-fives, a salute to Maynard Dupree and his way of doing things.
Slick.
Yep, yep, thought Harry. Slick bullshit.
Just about then Chéri made her way back down the bar, finished in the Ladies, a fresh coat of orange lipstick glistening.
“Well, don’t you look pretty,” Maynard said. “I sure hope we didn’t say anything to offend you, Chéri.”
“You couldn’t offend me if you tried, Maynard Dupree.” She smiled, but with something behind it. Harry thought she’d been cogitating on more than lipstick and hair spray during her trip to the Ladies. “But I was just wondering, seeing as how, you being the captain of Comus and all, running things, and that pretty little Zoe Lee getting to be Queen of Comus this year…”
Maynard gasped. Way to go, Chéri. Harry grinned. Got him. The identity of Queen of Comus was a big secret, the kind Uptown stiffs took more seriously than death or taxes.
Chéri went right on. “I was just wondering if that’s why you were sitting around this bar tying one on like any other N’Awlins trash, if it stuck in your craw that Zoe’s being queen…”
“How do you know that?” Maynard sputtered.
Chéri didn’t even blink. “As I was saying, Zoe Lee’s being Comus’s queen makes her Miss Hot-Shit Society of N’Awlins this year. I mean, what with you being Comus’s captain and seeing as how her daddy Church Lee is not exactly your best friend, it seems to me all you’d had to do was say no, blackballed her. But maybe balls are the question here. Am I right, Maynard honey?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Maynard snapped.
“Now, wait a min—” Calvin started.
“Never mind, darlin’.” Chéri grinned, picking up her orange fox and flinging it over one shoulder pad like she was the linebacker here.
Harry had to give it to her. Hell, if it wasn’t his job to get in her way, he’d be glad to see her screw Uncle Tench out of a couple hundred thousand. She wasn’t his type, but this past half hour he’d warmed consid
erably to her.
“Now that we know who’s who and what’s what, I think I’ll just be moseying,” Chéri said, then sashayed on out like she knew the whole room was watching her rear, which it was.
A few minutes later Harry drained his beer, threw some bills on the bar, and slid out. A couple of other men farther down the bar did the same now that the floor show was over.
As he passed behind Jimbo, who didn’t even give him a glance, the pipe-handler was muttering, “We could do ’em both. That redhead and the nigger. Two-for-one deal.”
“Throw in Maynard’s buddy Church Lee,” Calvin said, “and I bet you got yourself a taker.”
And then they all three laughed. The pipe-handler, the Uptown lawyer, and the barkeep. Booze laughing. Booze talking. Tough guys, Harry thought. Jesus.
Four
EARLY THE NEXT afternoon, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, in a big old house on Prytania Street in the Garden District, blue-eyed Zoe Lee was standing in her candy-striped bedroom, staring at her naked self in a full-length mirror.
She didn’t like what she was seeing.
Of course, no woman ever does. Breasts too large, too small, cockeyed, too low, too long. Then you could move on to waist, bottom, thighs, knees, calves, upper arms. But why bother? It’s always the same song—taught to them by their mothers, their grandmothers, all the way back to Eve, who got it from Adam that she was a little heavy in the keister and ought to try running a few laps around the Garden and laying off the pasta.
Who was Zoe to fight the tide?
Yet her story, like all stories when you look at them up close, was a little different.
Twenty-year-old Zoe Julianna Lee was five feet six inches tall and weighed an even one-twentieth of a ton.
At least that’s how she always thought of her one hundred pounds.
“Gotta get the tons off,” she said to herself, pulling her masses of dark curls atop her pretty head while she turned and squinted at a bulge on her backside.
To anyone else it would have been the beginnings of a cute behind.
She reached for the Ex-Lax. Chocolate. Radical. Yummy-yum.
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