“No idea.” She sighed. “Oh, well. We tried. Let’s go.”
“Come on, Nat. Think,” I cajoled. “You must’ve had it Wednesday, right? There’s no way we could’ve gotten in anywhere without it. Do you remember the last time you saw it?”
“Do you remember Wednesday night at all?” she countered. When I didn’t reply, she groaned. “Look, it’s almost nine. On a Friday night! We’re in NOLA. We should be partying, not hanging out here. C’mon! Let’s go!”
“I don’t know, Nat—”
“Ugh, seriously? When did you become so old and boring?”
My mouth dropped. “What? I’m so not—”
Crossing her arms, she cocked her head to the left. “You sound like an old lady.”
“No, I don’t!” I sputtered. I was embarrassed by her accusation. It didn’t help that I realized yes, I actually did sound pretty lame. “All right, fine. Just do one more once over and if you can’t find it, we’ll go, okay?”
“Whatever, Grandma.” She rolled her eyes.
Groaning, she yanked open a few dresser drawers, tossing bras, socks, and underwear everywhere obnoxiously. She then grabbed the last remaining purse on the bed, a cute, black Kate Spade handbag, and turned it upside down. Along with peach-colored lip-gloss, a hairbrush, and random credit cards, I watched as a single photograph floated down to the bed. She stared at it like she was afraid by moving, it might attack her.
Unable to hide my curiosity, I kicked aside a pair of black heels. I made my way over to the bed. The photograph showed Natalie and a man in his mid to late thirties with pale skin, long, flowing brown hair, and a trim goatee. He had his arm around her and they both wore sunglasses, smiling at the camera. He wore jeans and a dark, navy blue sweatshirt with the initials “WSC” and the words “Meie meri” beneath it. The landscape behind them was gorgeous. It reminded me immediately of Tuscany with its bright colors and rolling hills.
“Who’s that?”
“Biggest mistake of my life,” she muttered, crumpling the picture. She tossed it into the nearby trashcan. It made a sound as it hit the bottom, making me fairly certain that was the only trash in the can. I wanted to pull it out for a closer look, but something told me to leave it. Still, my curiosity was not quenched.
“Is that . . .? Was that . . . your husband?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She brushed past me and opened the doors to her huge walk-in closet. She hurried inside and flipped on the light switch.
“Are . . . are you okay?”
“Not talking,” she called back, throwing yet another handbag into the mix.
I watched several blouses fly out of the closet and land on a nearby pile. She continued to toss clothes on the ground, making the piles grow higher and higher. I thought about asking if she was planning to donate her entire wardrobe to the needy. If so, I was definitely in need of some new designer jeans and a certain Gucci purse. But I thought better of it.
“Uh, Nat?”
“Hmm?”
I ducked as a pair of platform pumps sailed past my head. This is getting ridiculous. “Uh, whatcha doing?”
“I was just looking for . . .”
“You need any help?”
“No, I just . . .”
“What in the hell is this?”
Startled, I turned toward the voice. There, in the doorway, stood a woman, no older than thirty-five, with cropped raven hair, light blue eyes, and pouty lips. She was wearing a revealing black silk nightgown. Something told me that she was no stranger to the surgeon’s knife, but at that moment, her aftermarket parts were not my main concern. What was, however, was the 9 mm gun in her shaky hands.
“Who the hell are you?” she sputtered, blinking to focus her glazed eyes as the gun remained trained on me.
“Whoa!” I held up my hands defensively. I’m not embarrassed to admit I was not happy to see a gun. My shoulder throbbed at the mere memory of my last encounter with such a weapon. The bullet that struck my arm last summer became lodged in the tissue. I had to have it surgically removed. In London. As in London, England. But that’s another story. My parents were less than thrilled to see my hospital bills from across the pond. To make matters worse, I had to have extensive physical therapy and even now, still had residual pain from the incident. I definitely did not want to have a repeat performance because of a stupid misunderstanding. “It’s okay. I’m—”
“What are you doing in my room?” Natalie barked, placing herself between me and the gun. “Get out!”
“Oh, it’s you.” Rolling her eyes, the woman lowered the weapon. She proceeded to give Natalie one of the snidest glares I had ever seen. That look alone made me not like this woman. “What are you even doing here? I thought you left.”
“It’s my house. I have more right to be here than you,” Natalie retorted. No longer worried about the gun, I realized that I was looking at Wife Number Five. They continued to argue. I felt like I was watching two sisters fighting instead of a stepmother and stepdaughter. Finally, I couldn’t take anymore.
“Okay, okay. Hey!” Still eyeing the weapon, I waited until they stopped. Wife Number Five glared at me, but my attention remained focused on the 9 mm. Angry Drunk Shoots Visiting PI was not the headline I wanted to see in the morning paper. “Um, hi. Yeah, I apologize if we’ve disturbed you—”
“Don’t apologize to this cow!” Natalie snapped. I shot her a warning look. She ignored it. “This is my house!”
“Not for long,” her stepmother mumbled beneath her breath.
“Again, we were just leaving.” I walked past her to the door. “Natalie?”
“Get . . . out . . . of . . . my . . . room . . .” Natalie’s eyes narrowed as she gritted her teeth. Wife Number Five glanced at me, then Natalie, suddenly amused. Swinging the gun as if it were a stylish accessory instead of a loaded weapon, she sauntered past me to the door. Just as she stepped across the threshold, she paused.
“Might want to keep an eye on your friend here. Got a bit of a temper.”
At this, Natalie picked up a shoe and threw it at her. Wife Number Five went to deflect it but instead of using her hand, she used the gun. And she pulled the trigger. And it went off. The sound of gunfire echoed along the large room, leaving a ringing in my ears. For a moment, I was too stunned to move.
My heart skipped a beat. It then began to pound so rapidly, my vision blurred. Terrified, I looked down. When I realized I hadn’t been shot, I swallowed the knot in my throat. I forced myself to survey the room.
I quickly discovered, thankfully, Natalie had not been shot either. It didn’t take long to find the bullet’s path. It ricocheted off the floor before lodging in the far wall beside the bed. Before either of us could react, Wife Number Five muttered something, turned, and stumbled out of the room, the gun still in her hand.
“What the hell!” I was shaking. “What the hell was that?”
Natalie scratched her head and cursed.
“You don’t seem surprised by this.” My voice began to rise. “Natalie, your stepmother just shot at us!”
Still, Natalie didn’t respond. Taking deep breaths to calm my nerves, I stared down at the heel Natalie threw. I noticed something sticking out of it. I reached down and picked up the thin object. It was Natalie’s license.
“Oh, you found it,” Natalie said absently, snatching the ID as she pushed past me. She reached for the door. “Good. Let’s go. Now I really need a drink.”
8
Natalie’s encounter with her latest stepmother did nothing to lighten the mood of the evening. Wife Number Five was so inebriated, by the time she made it back downstairs, she passed out on one of the white linen sofas. The gun lay on the floor beside her. She was snoring so loudly I was kind of surprised the chandelier wasn’t shaking. Natalie didn
’t hide her contempt as we hurried past the woman, whose right arm was suspended in space and whose mouth hung open with her tongue draped out like a dog’s. Still spooked by the gunshot, I used my foot to move the gun beneath the sofa, just out of her sight. Natalie also didn’t bother being quiet as we left, opting instead to slam the door shut with such force I feared the glass inside it might shatter.
It wouldn’t take a mind reader to realize Natalie was upset. Hell, I was upset. It’s never fun to be shot at. I knew from past experience it was best to let Natalie sort things out on her own. We were alike in that way. If I’m upset, the best way to let me get over it is to let me get over it. It was for that reason I didn’t try speaking to her when we got inside the car. She sped off, making the holiday lights that lined the exquisite houses on those suburban streets look like one bright white blur.
I didn’t try speaking to her when she ran yet another red light. Or when she took the onramp. Or when she merged onto the interstate at such breakneck speed I found myself clinging to the seat and silently reciting “The Lord’s Prayer.” I decided to, finally, try speaking to her after she cut off a Ford F250 doing at least eighty-five. Why did this single event strike me as a greater reason to confront her than the others, you may ask? Well, I figured, when we were close enough that I could see Mr. F250’s teeth through both the darkness and a bug-smeared windshield, I better do something or be prepared to “go home for Christmas” in a very spiritual sense.
“Uh, Nat?”
“What?”
The wind whipped up my hair, knotting it across my face. It made me wish she had put the convertible top back on. Convertibles are great for leisurely, summer drives in the sunshine, not so much for humid, nighttime races to the French Quarter.
“You okay?” I held my hair back with my left hand and braced myself in the seat with my right.
“Why do you keep asking me that?” She glanced at me then jerked into the right lane again, barely missing a poor ‘90s model Toyota Corolla that slammed on its brakes just before a possibly fatal collision could have occurred. “Do I look like I’m not all right?”
“Honestly? Yeah.” I nodded, yelling to be heard over all the loud road noises. Motioning at the car behind us, whose driver had decided the best way to communicate his outrage was to blast his horn for all the Crescent City to hear, I added, “I want to get there, too, but I’d like to do it in one piece. I know you’re upset about your dad’s new wife—”
“Whore,” she snapped, gritting her teeth as she tailgated a silver Mercedes with a personalized New Orleans Saints Super Bowl license plate.
“Come on, Nat,” I called out, my throat sore from screaming above the blaring horns and whipping winds. “Yeah, she attempted to kill us, but that’s no reason to call her—”
“Whore?” She glanced at me sideways then cut over to the right lane again, slamming down on the accelerator. In a flash, we had passed the Mercedes. She cut him off, just in time to swerve onto the exit ramp after a sign informed us this route led to Poydras Street. “Fine. She’s a psycho whore. Daddy met her in one of the strip clubs off Bourbon three years ago.” As we exited the interstate, bumper-to-bumper traffic forced her to pump the brakes. For once in my life, I was grateful for the gridlock. “Some stupid medical convention. She was supposed to be a fling. Whore never left.”
“Is-Is that why you left?” Suddenly, Natalie’s decision to leave the country didn’t seem so spontaneous. A deep frown set on her face. I had hit a nerve. “Nat, I’m so sorry—”
“Why? Because my father married a psycho whore?” Snorting, she shook her head. “Not much worse than the others. At least this one was up front that it was all about the money. Still, I thought . . . three years. . .” She trailed off, shaking her head as she gripped the leather steering wheel. “I can’t believe she’s still here.”
Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I allowed my muscles to relax. They had contracted instinctively when Natalie decided to attempt several stunt moves from the Fast and the Furious film franchise. Resting my back against the well-contoured seat, I took another deep breath, inhaling the muggy evening air and wishing I hadn’t worn jeans. As the car crept forward, I glanced around at the other vehicles. Traffic to the French Quarter is always bad, but somehow it gets worse on weekends. Add out-of-town holidays guests and the extra tourists who come hoping to enjoy a festive “N’awlins Christmas,” and you had yourself a traffic jam that rivaled any given day in Boston at rush hour.
“So, uh, Nat, where are we going?”
“Somewhere I can get a drink,” she said, taking advantage of a break in the traffic to cut over into the left lane. A resounding horn blast followed this action.
“You can pretty much do that anywhere around here.” I paused. “Anyplace in particular?”
She mumbled something inaudible, but was clearly too distracted to bother with me at the moment. Resigning myself to whatever Fate and Natalie Weisman decided would be my evening agenda, I glanced up at the Superdome, the illuminated, circular concrete structure that was home to the 2009 World Champion New Orleans Saints. Growing up in New Orleans, I am proud to be a card-carrying member of the Who Dat nation. We suffered through many trying years between the “Dome Patrol” and the Sean Payton/Drew Brees phenomena. Finally, our time had come.
When the Saints went to the Super Bowl in 2010, I had just moved to Boston. I didn’t know anyone. Feeling homesick and wishing I could have been home celebrating with my fellow Who Dats in the Quarter, I found my way from the T at North Station to a sports bar on Boston’s own Canal Street called The Four’s. Sporting an Old World look outside and a modern feel within, the moment I stepped across the threshold, I felt at home.
Named the “Best Sports Bar in America” by Sports Illustrated, the Four’s is both a restaurant and a bar. It is highly rated and a very popular place to hang out for any given sporting event, but I digress. That frigid February night, people were not looking for Samuel Adams and clam chowder. They were looking for blood. That year, the Patriots had lost to both the Saints and the Indianapolis Colts in the regular season. I wondered, as I sported my #9 black jersey beneath my heavy, blue parka, if being a Saints fan might result in my being tossed in the Charles River before half time. As it were, the football gods were on my side that night, as were most of the hardcore Pats fans filling that bar.
Now, I would not begin to delude myself into believing for even a second that the majority of Pats fans were as thrilled as I was that the Saints had finally made it to that Super Bowl. They were, however, more than happy to watch Peyton Manning, a New Orleans native and the leader of the Patriots’ rival team, lose to an underdog all the big named sportscasters slated to be destroyed in an embarrassing massacre.
At half time, the Saints were down by four, making it anyone’s game. The bar was relatively quiet as an uncertain fate loomed. It was maddening. I was so anxious I couldn’t even sit still. The moment that risky, unexpected onside kick at the beginning of the third quarter landed the Saints a touchdown, the bar erupted in a deafening crescendo that continued for the duration, leaving my ears ringing for a week and a permanent grin on my face. As exciting as it was to watch the Saints win, I still wished I could have been home for such a victory.
“Jamestown!”
“Huh?”
Blinking, I looked around. We were in a parking lot. To my right was the famous Jax Brewery, a popular tourist locale in the French Quarter that housed numerous shops and restaurants and offered a great view of the Mississippi River. Located on Decatur Street, it was about a block from Saint Louis Cathedral and within walking distance of Bourbon Street. Somehow, during my mental walk down memory lane, Natalie had gotten us here. Lucky for me, it was in one piece.
“You want to just sit there or do something?”
Natalie didn’t wait for me to respond. Instead, she cli
mbed out of the car. She stretched, extending her long arms skyward. She then grabbed the keys and shoved them in her pocket. I watched from the passenger seat as she slammed the door shut and began to walk away.
“Wait!” She paused, glancing back at me. “What about the car?”
“What about it? This is legit parking.” A slight smile crossed her lips. “Not like last time.”
I felt my face flush, but knew the darkness hid it. “I’m not talking about that,” I snapped. “I mean the car’s a convertible. Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, put the top on or something? Just saying, you’re asking for trouble leaving a car like this here.”
“What do I care?” she challenged, crossing her thin arms. “If my father gave two craps about any of his possessions, he wouldn’t keep marrying psycho whores who blow his money and try to end my life.” She got quiet, pursing her lips. She stared out at a ferry as it glided across the Mississippi. Shaking her head as if awakening from a dream, she met my gaze. There was a dark look in her light eyes. “You coming, or not?”
I sat there, debating how to handle this situation. On the one hand, this was not my car. Whatever happened to it would not be my problem. If it were in mint condition or on cinder blocks when we returned made little difference to me. However, as hard as I tried to shrug it off, I couldn’t. That nagging little voice inside my head, the one that makes you throw away trash at a fast food restaurant instead of leaving it for the employees. The one that insists you hold the elevator even when you’re in a hurry. That little voice was not going to let this one slide. I let out a deep sigh. I shook my head.
“Nat, look, I can’t.” Whatever I came up with had to be something that would get through to her. I had a feeling moral obligations wouldn’t cut it. “You’re just asking for trouble leaving the car like this.” She responded with a dubious frown. “I know you’re ticked at your dad or whatever, but this . . . Don’t do this. Let’s just put the top on, okay? All I’m saying is, it’s gonna, like, suck to come back here later and not have a car. Do you really want something like that ruining your night?”
Simple Misconception (Jordan James, PI Series) Page 7