by Chris Wiltz
“Ah, but where’s the woman?”
“What woman?”
“Cherchez la femme, Pascal. Look for the woman. You’re lonely. That’s why you choose to live up here, above the action. I hope I live long enough to see the woman who thaws your heart. She will have to be an amazing creature.”
“Hm. But we were talking about you, James. Perhaps you avoid the real question—did she tell you her name?”
Jimmy’s smile, always playing with his lips, broadened enough for face-lift effect. He reared back slightly on the leather sofa, making it creak comfortably, then sat forward to snip and light the cigar he’d been fondling. The smoke trailed from one side of his mouth, drifted toward the ceiling and left its quality cubano fragrance in the air.
“I know I will tax the outer limits of your credulity by saying this, but it’s the gospel. It’s the first thing she told me after we got to the table and had a drink in front of us.”
“You’re right. I’m taxed here. She what?—and why?”
Jimmy rolled his port around the glass, took a sip, put it on the table. He tapped his temple with his forefinger. “You weren’t thinking, my friend. She’s too sharp not to have inquired as to why I hang around here a lot and take my liberties coming upstairs. We sat down, she said she knew I was your business partner, and from that she deduced that I most likely already knew her real name. She wanted it out on the table, so to speak.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Jimmy put two fingers up in the air, wiggled them, then pointed at the coffee table. Pascal shook his head and lifted his hips to get to his wallet. He put several bills on the table in front of him, got up, unlocked a desk drawer, counted out another several, came back to his club chair and lightly tossed the wad to Jimmy’s side. It disappeared into the inside pocket of Jimmy’s jacket.
“Where do you want to go from here?” Jimmy wanted to know.
Pascal crossed his ankle over his knee and the motor in his foot began to run. “There is nowhere to go. I assume—” he tapped his temple “—that she’ll go out with you any time you ask now. After all, you’re the boss.”
“Oh, come on, Pascal, use your imagination. This is too much fun. Where do we go from here?”
The foot stopped and Pascal took a couple of sips of port before he answered. “You really want to do this? Okay, I’ll bet my gold Eldorado you can’t get her to marry you.”
“That old piece of shit?”
“That’s my favorite antique car. Well, almost. Next to the Spider.”
“Bah, antique. All right, I’ll take it, but even if you like it, it doesn’t wave my flag. How about LaDonna Johnson’s note and the Cadillac? I’ll throw in the Silver Shadow.”
“You’re bluffing. No way that girl’s going to marry you.”
Jimmy shrugged. “Are you in or out?”
Pascal’s foot started going. He drained his glass. “Fuck it. I’m in.”
***
Raynie sat on the sofa at Karen’s apartment. Jimmy had dropped her off an hour earlier. She knew he wanted her to ask him in, but she wanted to be alone. No, not alone—she didn’t want to be with him any longer. It wasn’t anything he’d done; he’d been charming and sympathetic when she’d told him about her family and Daniel and how she couldn’t be the wife of a rice farmer, help in the fields at crunch time, keep house, haul kids to school in a truck for nine months of the year, look after them and cook frogs all summer. He’d told her he could see she was made from different stuff than that. He said nothing to put life in the fields down, and for that she gave him credit.
Talking about it all had left Raynie homesick, the worst since she’d left Mamou. She didn’t want to go back, but she missed her friends and her father. She missed Daniel, being in love. She didn’t miss Raymond though, with his pinching and loud, curse-filled abuse. Talking to Jimmy, she’d said she missed the people, not the place, and he’d said he was sure they missed her too. It was what anyone would have said and never should have said, and no one should have said it the way he did—looking at her, his face without its usual amusement playing with it, but battered and soft, his words quiet and kind, as though he knew just how badly she felt about what she’d done, leaving the way she had, yet understanding it was the only way she could get out. He understood too that she had to do something about it before too long, let them know she was still alive, anyway, but he hadn’t said anything about that, hadn’t tried to give her advice.
If Karen had been home, Raynie would have told her everything, but Karen would probably spend the night at Luc’s again, like last night. If this kept up, Raynie would feel as though she had her own apartment. If it kept up too long, Raynie would likely end up without an apartment. Everything seemed to be changing too fast, although as she sat there in the living room, only the silence crowding her, she realized she was resisting anything changing, and if she did that, she was bound to be unhappy. Whatever happened, she had to go along with it, consider it another chapter in her new adventure. She would control what she could, which meant all she had to do was make the right decision when a choice presented itself. She hoped she could do that.
She picked up the TV remote, held it a moment, then put it on the sofa seat next to her. The picture was too bad to try to watch anything. She was tired but not tired enough to go to sleep. She could listen to music or read one of Karen’s thrillers, but the music wasn’t going to stop her from thinking and the books required too much effort.
She got out her phone. Sometimes during the week some of the aspiring musicians would have jam sessions at Savoy’s in Eunice. If one was happening tonight, Peewee would be there.
The phone rang then stopped, and she said, “Hello?” into a lot of white noise. She said it again and started to close the phone, a little relieved, when Peewee said, “Earlene? Jesus Christ, is that you?”
Such a dork. Her eyes filled with tears. “Hey, Peewee, how you doin’?”
“Jesus Christ, Earlene, I thought you’d never call. I’m coming down there. Just wait till I tell you…”
Raynie sat up straight. “You’re what? No, Peewee, don’t come.”
“I have to, Earlene. I waited for you to call, but I finally gave notice here at work. I’m packed up and I’m leaving tomorrow after I close the store. Tell me where you live. God, I can’t believe you called tonight.”
“Peewee, you can’t stay here, you can’t…”
“Don’t worry, Earlene, I won’t bother you or anything. I just gotta get out of here.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I went and knocked up Alice Roy, that’s what.”
“You…Alice Roy Pendergast?”
“Anyone else named Alice Roy around here?”
“But how could you knock her up that fast…you mean, since I’ve been gone?”
“No, she’s, like, almost 3 months. I mean, we were foolin’ around, but I, uh, you know, uh, pulled out…”
“Spare me the details, Peewee. How can you run off and leave her? That girl’s life won’t be worth living.”
“What about mine? I need to think, Earlene, and I can’t do it around here. All this bitching and yelling, I can’t take it. I’ve locked myself up here in Savoy’s. I’m afraid to walk too close to a church. If her parents don’t push me in, mine will, and Father Crotty will hold me hostage until Alice Roy can find a dress and hire a limo.”
Raynie smiled. “She wants to marry you, Peewee?”
“Well, yeah, but, I mean, I’m not sure…I’m not sure about a lot of things.”
“You need some help thinking?”
“I really do, Earlene. Please let me come see you.”
“Okay, but don’t you dare tell anyone where you’re going. I’m not ready yet.”
“Don’t worry. I told ’em I’m going fishing out of Venice. And, listen, Earlene, when I get there? Do you think you could call me Peter?”
Raynie laughed at that. When she got off, she was wide awake and thinking her
problems weren’t so bad. Poor Peewee. He could run, but he’d never be able to run away. And what was she going to be able to tell him?
She was agitated. She picked up the remote, put it down, picked it up and flicked on the TV. The picture was as bright and clear as…she noticed what she’d been too distracted to see before, the black box on the shelf under the TV. Karen hadn’t told her she’d decided to put in cable. They really couldn’t afford it.
Raynie surfed the guide. “Friends” was on, three in a row, reruns, but that didn’t matter. She’d seen them all more than once. She got the pillow from her bed and settled in, not a care in the world for the next hour and a half.
***
“That was pretty good,” Karen said. She pulled the light blanket up, feeling a little chilled in the air conditioning with her bare shoulders exposed.
“Just pretty good?”
“No, really good.”
“Let me show you this other move.”
“Okay.” She plumped the pillows and lay back on them.
Luc stood naked at her side of the bed so she could see him do the yo-yo tricks. He walked the dog, and now he was doing something that looked complex with the string, circling the yo-yo around, and all the while his balls and penis bounced and swung as he moved. If he thought that Karen could watch a yo-yo with that show going on…she was getting a little stirred up again. He was adorable, a word that didn’t occur to her much to describe men, with his hair messed and falling over his forehead, his smooth skin and his nearly hairless chest, which she found quite appealing. He was good in bed; she might be saying great in bed in another week or two. He was sweet too, without being a sap, and smart. He liked to talk after they made love. She assumed it wouldn’t be long before he fell asleep the moment the act was over, but for now, it was from start to finish a pleasurable experience. But here was the downside, right in front of her. He liked to play and he wasn’t too concerned about anything else in life. He was, maybe, a little too easy going for her. And he liked to drink more than she did.
So what? It wasn’t forever. She didn’t want anything forever, remember? Not even for very long. Enjoy the moment. Her mother liked to say carpe diem, seize the day. Yeah, yeah, all that crap. Yet, there she lay, telling him he was a genius with a yo-yo while wishing for a little more—what would you call it? Fire? She pulled the covers closer, and he jumped over her and under them in one fluid movement. He wrapped his arms around her then pulled away.
“What?” she said.
He reached way down, near their feet, and came up with a Nerf ball. He threw it into a little goal hanging on the wall across from the bed. A perfect 3-pointer. Then he started kissing her, his mouth and hands always where she wanted them to be. She felt weak until he got inside her. Here was the fire. It turned her wild, trying to keep things under control…until she couldn’t. She went first. He raised himself on his hands and smiled at her. “Ready?” Talk about moves. She came again and still he waited, then they came together. She’d never come at the same time as her partner. Who needed a week? He was great. What had she been thinking earlier, complaining because he liked to play with yo-yos and Nerf balls.
***
Avery Legendre broke out in a sweat. His zebra-print shirt was sticking to him. He needed some fresh air, but that was in short supply here. They were in one of the old corrugated steel boathouses out by the lake on S. Roadway, only a string of them left standing after the storm. This one was under repair. Upstairs, where they were playing, the wall that should be doors to a balcony overlooking the owner’s boat and the marina was boarded up. The rest of the place smelled as though it had been finished moments before they walked through the door—the noxious smell of new carpet and paint, a vague odor of sawdust. The eight bodies in the room had begun to reek of dirty animal, and three of them were heavy smokers, but nothing cut the underlying stink of mold. Four hours in the place and he hadn’t gotten used to it. He was feeling sick to his stomach and headachy.
He couldn’t get up from the table either. It was what he liked to call the truth-or-dare moment, though his nerves wouldn’t stand for any joking around. He signaled to the dim-wit spic who stood by the door. The guy could get a job at Buckingham Palace he stood so still. But he caught Avery’s look right away and came over, bending his head down, asking, “Sí,” and adding the stench of refried beans into the diseased air. Avery asked him for ice water with a twist of lime.
He hadn’t liked the setup to begin with, the isolated boathouse and all of them spics except Jack O’Leary. “Cubano,” the one named Solo—stupid fucking fake name—told him. Cubano, whatever, they were all spics to him. He’d let O’Leary drive, a mistake he’d never make again. The rest of them, four other players and the dealer, spoke Spanish to each other before the game, but as soon as they started playing, it was all English, unless they were begging mercy from God after a bad hand, thanking the Almighty for a good one, or cursing, all of which he understood. If they’d kept up with the spic talk, he’d have made O’Leary take him home. He had his little gun strapped to his ankle just in case, about the only thing making him feel good at the moment.
The game was Texas Hold ’Em, last game of the night, ten-twenty stakes, two thousand ante. Avery stood to lose better than forty grand if he lost this hand. He’d have to hold up Pascal again if that happened. But if he won, he walked out with close to eighty, not a bad night’s earnings. He held a jack and king, which gave him two pairs with the three-card flop the house had showing. O’Leary and the spic on the other side of the dealer had folded, but the player next to him had bumped to twenty so Avery thought he had something, a possible straight, or absolutely nothing but a bluff. The other two guys had stayed in but hadn’t raised. It went to Avery now, ten large to stay. He put it in and checked.
Here came the little mirror with the coke. He knew he shouldn’t do another line, but he thought maybe one more and the ice water the rancid spic was putting in front of him might clear his head.
He tooted up and looked to the dealer. The turn was a deuce, no help at all for anyone. It was back to Avery now.
So Avery sat there sweating, bathed in sweat. He kept wiping his forehead to keep it out of his eyes. The other three guys were sweating too. He kept looking at the player next to him, the one he thought most likely to have something, but the spic’s eyes seemed glued to the table. Everyone else, though, was staring at Avery. Coke juice roared around his arteries. He took a gulp of water. The cold hit him in his chest and head. His left arm felt heavy, maybe going numb. Judas Priest. His throat was closing. Avery thought he was having a fucking heart attack.
Sixteen
Karen and Luc managed to get their hands off each other and around cups of coffee. The only thing that had gotten them out of bed was a huge hunger that seemed to hit both of them at the same time. They were getting dressed to go to Coffea around the corner from Luc’s in the Bywater.
Luc showered then toweled off as he walked into the small cluttered living room where Karen sat. He was laughing.
Karen stopped turning the pages of the latest issue of offBeat. “What?”
“LaDonna and the gangster. Do women often have that effect on…what’s his name?”
“Solo Fontova.”
“As in, I’m going solo?”
“His mother almost died in childbirth and his father named him Solo because he was going to be the only child. As he tells it.”
“Sort of sad.”
“Hm.” Karen went back to the magazine.
“Anyway, he’s got the hots for LaDonna and he’s got Ramon pissed. Serious pissed. Said the Cuban dissed him and that wasn’t gonna be the end of it.”
“Nothing much will come of it. Solo probably won’t be in town much longer.”
Luc tossed the towel over his shoulder. “That’s good. Maybe he’ll take Jack back to Miami with him.”
Karen closed the magazine and smiled up at him. “That would be convenient, although Jack manages, without
ever thinking about it, never to do anything convenient. He’ll take risk over convenience any day. Now Solo, that’s a different story. Solo hates inconvenience. He’ll always take risk over inconvenience. It’s part of his machismo thing.”
“I think you lost me somewhere.”
Karen pulled her legs up on the ratty couch, tucking them under her. “It’s easy, really. It’s why they’ve made such good partners. No matter what the circumstances, one or the other of them has a feel for the risk involved, so they’re usually pretty successful at whatever scam they’ve decided to run.”
Luc ran both hands through his wet hair, pushing it back. “Does that mean they both might go back to Miami?”
“It only means they’ll do whatever they find either convenient or inconvenient to do.”
Luc looked exasperated. “Mumbo-jumbo.”
“Or another way,” Karen said, “they’ll go wherever the smell of money and danger is the strongest.”
“That I get. I vote for Miami. We’re small potatoes here.”
“Yeah, maybe, but Jack’s still got his connections and that’s what counts. When he came by the bar last night he brought me two roofies.”
Luc came over to the couch and sat next to Karen. “You’re really going to do this, whatever it is you’re going to do to Avery?”
“Definitely. He gets a taste of his own medicine, right? You don’t think he deserves it?”
“I don’t have a doubt in the world he deserves it. But I have a lot of doubt about pulling it off. So you knock him out with a roofie. Then what do you do with him?”
“You’ll see. I’ve got a few things to line up first. Like a public place that’s private for a few hours. And a car. I need a car on no notice since we have no idea when he’ll show up. And not LaDonna’s car. And Buddha. I need Buddha.”
“The public place, I don’t know about that. But the car—Buddha has a car.”
“He does? I can’t imagine Buddha driving a car, can’t imagine him fitting in a car. What’s he got, a Hummer?”