Shoot the Money

by Chris Wiltz

  Luc sat so that the light from the living room lit one side of his face, leaving the other in shadow, mysterious. If Karen had still been into romance, she would have thought he looked dangerous. That alone would have sparked her interest. It didn’t now; if anything, it put her off, though in the light, the setting, he was better looking than he’d been the first time she saw him. The only reason that didn’t put her off was that except when he was behind the bar, performing, he didn’t seem to be eaten up by his own looks.

  She put a drink in front of him and sat, turning the chair so she faced him more directly. “Tell me about Avery Legendre.”

  “Pretty much a nut case, given what he did to Raynie.”

  “And before that?”

  “A whack job no matter how you look at him. I never thought he’d do anything like that, though. He seemed pretty harmless, likes to dress up, came in the bar one night in an old Confederate uniform jacket he found on Royal Street. He’s got to be loaded. He and Pascal own the building Le Tripot’s in, and I think there’s other property too. He lives in the Quarter and he hangs around. That’s about it.”

  “What about Pascal?”

  “Never met him, never even seen him. He doesn’t hang around. He’s all about business from what I’ve heard. The restaurant was a huge success before the storm and one of the first places to open after. Raynie says it’s full almost every night. The talk is he’s thinking about another theme place downtown. He’s one of the guys we should all be afraid is going to turn the French Quarter into Disneyland.”

  Karen twirled the ice in her Ginger Ale. “Raynie likes him. He gives her responsibility, lets her work the best shifts. Since she’s never seen Avery there, he must not have much to do with the restaurant.” The finger in her drink stopped. “Maybe Pascal doesn’t want Avery around.”

  “So…what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just thinking.”

  “You want to get him, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’m getting an idea. Don’t have the details yet. How often does he come to La Costa?”

  “Irregular. Maybe three times a week, then I might not see him for a couple of weeks. He says he goes to Vegas a lot.”

  “So he doesn’t work?”

  Luc shrugged. “Never says anything about work.”

  “For Christ sake,” Karen said, “the guy’s that rich, why doesn’t he pay for it?”

  “Maybe he craves the excitement.”

  “Excitement? Anyone who gives a woman drugs? They’re like fucking necrophiliacs.” She uncrossed her legs, crossed them the other way. “You know anyone who can get those drugs?”

  “Is that what you’re going to do? Dope his drink?”

  “That’s just the beginning. Do you know anyone?”

  “Little Joe would’ve been the one to ask, but I don’t guess he’d help me out after I chased him down the street the other night.”

  “He might if there’s a few bucks in it for him, but I’ll ask Jack. It used to be he could get anything he wanted around here.”

  “It might not be so easy since he hasn’t been around. Times have changed.”

  “But Jack hasn’t. He connects to the sub-strata by instinct.”

  Luc moved his chair closer, the metal legs scraping on the bricks, so his knees were almost touching Karen’s. “Tell me more about Jack.”

  “What do you want to know that isn’t fairly obvious? How I could have fallen in love with him?”

  Luc leaned back, put one ankle over the other knee. Karen noticed that whenever she fired a question at him or took a certain tone, he moved to put distance between them.

  “Who can explain love?” he said. “I guess the worst part is falling for someone then realizing they’re not who you thought they were.”

  “That’s not what happened with Jack. I knew who he was, and if I didn’t LaDonna was there to tell me. I decided not to pay attention. I let his looks and his age be more important than what he was doing with his life.”

  “Were you looking for daddy?”

  Karen lowered her eyebrows. “If you want to talk psychobabble, I’ll introduce you to my mother. She’s much better at it than I am.”

  He held up a hand, similar to Jack’s “calm down” gesture, but he said, “Okay, I’ll lay off. What was he doing with his life?”

  “Gambling, drinking, drugs—the same thing he’s always done and what he’s going to do till…whenever.”

  “You stayed a long time. You said something—remember?—about it being like jail.”

  His eyes were steady on her, interested. Jack had once looked at her like that, but she’d realized too late that he had very little interest in her. He either wanted her to do something he knew she wouldn’t want to do or he wanted to do something he knew she wouldn’t want him to do.

  “It was fun at first, all the big parties, Miami heavies, plenty of beautiful people, lots of drugs, but cocaine made my heart race, pot put me to sleep, and too much to drink gave me a two-day hangover. I liked watching for a while.” She shrugged with her lips. “It got boring.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?”

  “I wanted to…” She had to think about it. “I thought if I left I might miss something.”

  “Something…” Luc rolled his hand.

  “I don’t know what. It was the first time I’d been away from home, the first place I’d ever had that wasn’t a dump. I didn’t like to think about where the money for it all came from, so I decided not to think about it. I wanted to leave Jack, but I didn’t want to leave my things and I couldn’t afford to move them.” She stopped and he waited. She flipped a hand. “You know how that is. Lack of money almost never stops anyone from doing what they really want to do. Maybe I thought I’d miss my things.”

  Luc stuck out his lower lip, considering what she said. Her insides jumped when she had a thought to bite it.

  “Maybe,” Luc said, “you thought you’d miss something…exciting. The lifestyle sounds pretty risky. Maybe you liked that.” He surprised her, saying that.

  “Maybe. I think back, it seems like I was a lot younger. Living in Miami—it was really different. I had this thing, I don’t know, like I’d come up in the world, that I was more sophisticated than I was living here, that I was better than I had been because I hadn’t gotten stuck in my home town.”

  She was talking too much, telling too much. She said, “Have you ever lived away from here?”

  “I was a ski bum for a few years. Aspen, Park City, Sun Valley. It was outdoors, healthier—a lot colder—but in some fundamental way it wasn’t all that different from here. I waited tables, tended bar, and didn’t have an ambition in the world except getting out on the next slope.”

  “What do you do when there’s no slope?”

  “Follow the action. The music, the next party, the next festival.” He moved his crossed foot to the bricks and put his elbows on his knees. Then he softly tapped the back of her hand that rested on the chair arm. “You know what? I think I’m getting bored.”

  He picked up her hand and she laced her fingers through his. She saw Raynie cross in front of the French doors.

  She brought her eyes back to his. “Boredom’s dangerous,” she said. “It either makes people do crazy things or it makes them think they want to grow up.”

  “Does that mean not wanting to live in a dump, wanting nice things?”

  “That might be part of it.”

  “Or maybe wanting a woman who wants all that.”

  “You think? I’ve never known a man who grew up because of a woman.”

  “It’s been known to happen, though.” He pointed to the living room with his chin. “Are those your things from Miami?” She nodded. “So how did you get them here?”

  She looked down at their intertwined hands, moving them back and forth. The light went out in the living room. Raynie going to bed. She heard something rustle in the banana leaves that wasn’t the br
eeze, probably one of the real Quarter rats, and she leaned forward, away from it, closer to Luc. “I stole money from Jack.”

  He shook his head, not getting it. “To move? He wouldn’t give it to you because he didn’t want you to leave?”

  “It was money he’d stolen from…this is where it gets complicated. Let’s just say he stole the money from a gangster in Little Havana…”

  So she told him about it, leaving out a few things, like the man who had the heart attack, the blonde, her fingernails…

  “He came here to get the money back?”

  “He says he doesn’t want the money back.”

  She could see the breath leave him. “No problem, then,” he said.

  “Not quite. The gangster wants it back. He’s on his way as we speak.”

  “How much money did you steal?”

  The question made her uncomfortable. She was going to lie to him and it didn’t seem right after giving him what to her was a close look inside. “Five thousand dollars.”

  “That’s all? I mean, it would be a lot to me, but to guys like that…”

  “Just pissing money as Jack says. There’s something between him and Solo Fontova. They’ll get it straight, run a few gambling scams while Solo’s here in town, and be best friends again.”

  “You’re talking real lowlife here, aren’t you?”

  “Does it bother you?”

  She waited for him to take his hand back, but he leaned closer, his face an inch away. He shook his head, bumping her nose with his. “Is it going to get scary?”

  “I don’t think so…you can let me know.”

  “I will…”

  He kissed her and she got into it, a deep, good kiss, no holding back. When they broke from it she had a second’s worth of misgiving, that she was going back on her promise to herself to be alone long enough to know what it was like, and not to get involved with any more immature men.

  Then Luc said, “Let’s go to bed, Karen.”

  She glanced at the darkened living room before she led him through the door behind them. She forgot any second thoughts soon enough. He was a careful lover, unzipping her dress, pushing it first to her waist then to her feet, keeping her back to him as he managed to hit every erogenous zone from her shoulders to the back of her knees, inventing new electric places as he went. He put on a condom—it pleased her that she didn’t have to ask—and lay with her, finding her eyes in the dark, stroking her hair, whatever he could reach as she explored him. Once they got into it, there were no first-time hesitations, no awkwardness. Karen lost herself in it, unaware of anything around them until Luc lifted himself and fell beside her, and she heard sounds in the hallway, water running, Raynie awake and prowling, and she wondered how loud they’d been at the end.

  ***

  Raynie slouched behind the counter at the restaurant. The end of her double shift was near; it couldn’t happen soon enough. The restaurant had only one lag during the late afternoon, which had made Raynie more tired than all the running earlier. Pascal came down before the dinner rush and said this was probably—how had he put it?—“the last gasp” before things started to slack off during the slow summer season.

  It had alarmed her when he talked about the tourists dropping off. They had a good local following, but the tourists fattened everyone’s take-home. She was afraid he’d give her fewer shifts, that her tips would drop off too.

  That was only part of it, though. Last night—it was like a week had happened last night. The money club, Jack O’Leary knowing Avery Legendre, all her flirting with Luc, her shame at realizing he had no interest in her. It had all left her drained. How could it be that yesterday, before it all started, her life had seemed so good? Now it was lacking in both the work and love departments.

  How could she have missed all the signals between Luc and Karen? At the bar she thought he’d been interested in her, not Karen. She searched her memory for anything she’d done that gave her away. She was too tired to remember, tossing and turning in the daybed after she’d heard the chairs scraping on the patio and sat up to see Karen leading Luc to her bedroom. A little later she’d gone to the bathroom. Just in time for the finale. Damn it, she thought. How could she live there if Luc was going to be around all the time, if she was going to hear that every night? She was fairly certain it had been the first time, and if it had been good…

  She mentally slapped herself. One foot in front of the other. Too busy thinkin’, cain’t hear oppo’tunity ringin’. That was one of Uncle Dudley’s ditties, as Raymond called them…then she was thinking of Raymond, Daniel, her father, Peewee, and most of all Bernie. What she wouldn’t give to talk to Bernie…

  And now, look, here came Jimmy Johnpier.

  “Hi, Jimmy. You’re a little late tonight. Want me to call Chef? Pascal?”

  “No, dear. I just ducked in to say hello. I’m coming from K-Paul’s. Dined with the competition tonight. Don’t tell Pascal.”

  “Between you and me, Jimmy.”

  He took up his position, elbow on counter, one foot crossed over the other and on point. “What’s this? Not your usual lively self tonight, Raynie.”

  “Beast of a double today. I’m tired.”

  “And last night? A little too much on your night off?” He mimicked drinking, hand to mouth a couple of times.

  “That’s not usually my problem.”

  She wished he’d go. She’d been deliberately abrupt, hoping he’d get the message, but he stood looking down at her with that crooked smile that gave his bone-ugly face a lift, and resistance faded. She sighed and put both elbows on the counter, holding her chin in her palms. “No, Jimmy, it wasn’t a night for partying. It turned out to be a night of revelation.”

  “Uh-oh, that sounds dire indeed.”

  She stood up straight. “No, I’m just tired. A good night’s sleep and all will be well.”

  Johnpier switched his crossed feet and pivoted so he faced her. “Now, now, you know that kind of talk won’t get Uncle Jimmy to go on home.”

  One of the last parties, a group of eight, left one behind the other, all of them laughing boisterously. Raynie didn’t bother telling them goodbye. Behind the wall she heard Harley singing “Happy Trails.” He looked around the corner, saw Johnpier, called out hello to him and disappeared.

  Jimmy watched until the door closed behind the last one and turned back to Raynie with a question on his face.

  “They wouldn’t have heard me,” she said. “They’ve been so loud they’ve given me a headache. I promise I’ll be better tomorrow.” Glasses and silverware clinked and clanked with a near echo effect in the large dining room. Raynie put a hand to her temple.

  “Not the old headache excuse. I want revelation.”

  He wasn’t going to go away unless she said something. She started to just say it, that she had no future here. She’d almost forgotten he owned part of this restaurant.

  “I was just thinking...”

  “Yes? Thinking’s good.”

  “Not according to my Uncle Dudley, but that’s another story.”

  “A real uncle? I guess there is a family somewhere. I’d like to hear that story.”

  “I was thinking about the future, wondering if going back to school would somehow make me more useful to Pascal.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, Raynie. You don’t want to be behind this counter forever, and a girl with your looks and smarts—you shouldn’t be. You know, I might have some ideas. Why don’t I take you to the famed Commander’s Palace for dinner—you need to see the competition too—and we can talk. Have you ever been there?”

  She shook her head.

  “Work the day shift tomorrow. We’ll go tomorrow night.”

  “But Pascal…”

  “Pascal can do without you tomorrow night. It’s early in the week. He mostly does what I tell him to do, about the important things, anyway.”

  ***

  Earlier that day Ramon set up the lights for a shoot inside the
nightclub. “No, no, LaDonna, turn it this way.”

  LaDonna had called Karen and Luc, their phones vibrating one after the other on Karen’s bedside table, leaving them both messages to get to La Costa Brava pronto, Ramon wanted them for a scene before they opened for lunch.

  “This way?” LaDonna had the light turned toward the bar.

  “No. Jesus. Put it on him, directly on him.” He meant Luc.

  “It is on him.”

  “No it isn’t.” He walked over to her, snatched the pole out of her hand and said, “This is on him. This—” he turned the light back where she’d had it “—is on the liquor. Do we fucking care about the liquor, LaDonna?”

  “Okay, that’s it. I’ve had enough. Find yourself another star, Ramon. You are an asshole.”

  She stalked off toward the stairway. He ran after her.

  “Please, LaDonna, bambina, I beg you, come back. I’ll try to be more patient, really, I’ll try. I know, I know. I am an asshole.”

  She’d been slouched, weight on one foot, arms folded, looking anywhere but at him. Now she stood up and tried to get in his face, which was difficult. Ramon was a tall man, six one or two, and LaDonna seemed to be speaking into the big gold medallion around his neck. “Ramon, honey, I’m going to give it another go, okay? But if you ever speak to me like I’m your goddamn lackey again, I’ll quit on the spot and you go find yourself another fucking movie—because Buddha will sit on you if you ever step foot on this set again.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said and went back to getting the light on Luc.

  She moved off muttering something about fucking killing him.

  Karen sat at one of the tables on the sidelines. Ramon had decided he didn’t need her after all. She and Luc looked at each other, smiles playing at their lips, but they knew they better not let LaDonna catch them at it. She’d turn her desire to kill Ramon on them.