Shoot the Money

by Chris Wiltz

  He scraped at it until he couldn’t stand it any longer. Little green specks were embedded in his pores. His nose was the worst. He looked raw, and without his eyebrows, insane. He put on a pair of Pascal’s boxers, loose-fitting gym pants and a t-shirt, and went into the office.

  Pascal handed him a mug of coffee. “Sit down, Avery.”

  “Don’t give me any shit, Pascal.”

  “Not my intention.”

  Avery sat carefully on the sofa. “All this goddamn leather,” he said. “I could use a down pillow.”

  Pascal got up, went to the bedroom and returned with a pillow.

  “Thanks.” Avery got adjusted. “Excuse me for being suspicious, but you’re being nice to me.”

  “I can see you’re in trouble.” With his index finger he tapped his own face.

  “You think I’d do that?” Avery shifted around as though he was thinking about getting up, storming out, but pain made sitting still an easier choice.

  “Have a conversation with me, Avery. Two adults. Two brothers. To answer your question, no, it never crossed my mind that you would give anyone drugs to rape them.”

  Avery’s forehead wrinkled in shocked outrage. “I didn’t give anyone drugs.”

  “But someone gave you drugs. Isn’t that what happened?”

  Avery nodded.

  “So someone’s got it in for you?”

  Avery’s brain was in overdrive. He wasn’t about to tell Pascal he’d given that bitch of a girl a roofie. It was the only roofie he’d ever given anyone; mostly he paid for it when he was in Vegas. He hadn’t seen the girl last night. The last thing he remembered was Jack O’Leary standing over him at La Costa Brava, asking him if he wanted a toot. Had he gone to the bathroom? If he couldn’t remember did that mean someone had doped his beer before Jack got there? It plain hurt to think.

  “Yeah,” he said, “but not because I did it to anyone.” He drank coffee, wouldn’t look at Pascal.

  “Then for what?”

  Avery didn’t answer, kept looking in his coffee.

  “Don’t clam up, Avery. This looks like a prank, something a bunch of kids would think up. They really wanted to be vicious they would have super-glued your penis to your testicles. But the question is, are you safe? Was this Act I?”

  “Why do you suddenly care?”

  “I don’t care. Drink up. Go home. Don’t come back if you need help.”

  Avery didn’t go. He didn’t like orders. “You suddenly want to help me?”

  “I thought I already did.” Pascal knew he wouldn’t get any acknowledgment. “You want to tell me what’s going on, I’ll listen.”

  Avery smirked. “The good brother. And what do good brothers do after that?”

  Pascal took a sip of coffee. “I can get in a work-out before things crank up around here.” He leaned forward to put the cup on the coffee table.

  Avery said, “You know Jack O’Leary?”

  Pascal sat back in his club chair. “Cardsharp. I heard he was in Miami.”

  “He was, but he’s back, and he brought Little Havana with him.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Avery jiggled eyebrows that weren’t there. The small spotlight in the ceiling above him caused his nose to glow an alien green. Pascal suppressed an urge to laugh. He reached for his coffee cup.

  Avery said, “How do you know him?”

  Pascal hesitated. If Avery was in deep enough to O’Leary, he might be forced to let Pascal buy him out of the building. “Johnpier and I caught him cheating at a poker game one night. Jimmy made it very attractive for him to leave town.”

  “How much does he owe you?”

  “Nothing. We took what we came with and told him he was finished here.”

  Avery grinned. “Shit. I didn’t know you and the Phantom went slumming.”

  Pascal wanted to put the worm in his proper place, but that wasn’t the object here. “Hm. Slumming. I suppose we do sometimes. Jimmy likes the characters.”

  “Judas. That uptown swell?”

  “Quirky. Like a lot of them.”

  “O’Leary either thinks he’s done enough penance or he brought his own thugs back. I took him and his coo-bano podna the other night.”

  “Little Havana—that’s who you mean?”

  Avery nodded, smug, know-it-all. “Whole table full of coo-banos. Everyone except O’Leary.”

  “And you’re supposed to go back?”

  “For the big rip-off.”

  “So what was last night all about?”

  “I was supposed to go back last night. I blew it off. The woman bartender looked interested. I thought I’d stick around.”

  Pascal let his eyes get wide. No big buy-out in sight. He needed to find another angle.

  “Who knows,” Avery said. “O’Leary’s demented. His idea of fun maybe. Like you say, a prank.”

  “That sounds right. Was the Cuban with O’Leary last night?”

  “No.”

  Pascal sat in thought. “I’d say that means it’s not O’Leary you need to worry about. The one who runs the show is careful about when he appears. I think, Avery, you need to watch out for the Cuban.”

  “You think I don’t know that? Shee-it.”

  Twenty

  Karen woke up at two in the morning. A lamp was burning in the living room and she could hear low muffled voices. Raynie and her friend Peter. She lay there until something uncomfortable, like regret, got the better of her.

  She called Luc’s cell. When she got voice mail she hung up. He would see that she’d called. An hour later, when he would have closed La Costa, he still hadn’t called. She had a spell of agitation, which she talked herself into cutting short, and fell asleep around four.

  She got up at eleven the next morning after being vaguely aware of movement in the apartment earlier, water running, the toilet flushing. She went out to the kitchen in a tank and men’s pajama bottoms. No one was there. The suitcase Peter had left open on a chair against the far wall was gone. She assumed Raynie had gone to work.

  It was Karen’s day off. She brewed a cup of coffee and stretched out on the sofa with a well-worn copy of an old Henning Mankell mystery she’d picked up over at Beckham’s, the grim story of a murder at an isolated farmhouse during the long Swedish winter. Four hours later she was frozen to the bone. She went out into the New Orleans heat to thaw.

  She walked over to La Costa Brava to see if LaDonna wanted to get something to eat with her. Zachary told her LaDonna and Ramon were shooting in the Lower 9.

  “Where’s Luc?”

  “He’s taking the day off. Just as well. It’s slow even for a Sunday.”

  She thought about calling him for all of three seconds. The kind of boredom she was feeling, it almost always got her in trouble.

  She spied the Panama hat hanging on a hook in the storeroom. She took it with her and walked back into the French Quarter.

  Where she expected to see Raynie at the counter behind the glass entrance to Le Tripot, Karen saw Pascal. His jacket was slung across the end of the counter, the sleeves of his crisp white shirt rolled back. His eyes scanned the computer screen. Karen stood still, staring, and was about to walk on when he looked up. A long couple of seconds passed then he motioned her to come in. She took a deep breath and pulled the heavy glass door.

  He glanced at the Panama as she said, “I was looking for Raynie.”

  “Is that hers?” He nodded at the hat.

  She put it on the counter. “Of course not. It’s your brother’s.” His blue eyes had her. It was like physical labor to say, “He left it at La Costa last night.”

  “He probably doesn’t know that.” He took the Panama and put it under the counter.

  The movement broke the spell. Karen cleared her throat. “Probably not. He was pretty drunk when he left. One of the bartenders found it on the floor.”

  “He was more than drunk.”

  Karen’s eyebrows lifted, involuntary reflex.

  �
�Was he with anyone?”

  She shook her head slowly. “He came in alone.”

  “Did he hook up with anyone? Was he able to walk out by himself? Did he leave alone?”

  Karen’s eyelids dropped to half mast, another involuntary reflex. “We were busy. Is Raynie coming in?”

  He came out from behind the counter. “Look, everyone around here is always telling me not to bark out multiple questions like that.”

  He reached across her back, put his hand on her shoulder, and began to move her toward the bar. When she looked at his hand he dropped it down to his side again. “Let me get you something to drink and I’ll tell you why I’m asking. Would you like a mixed drink, soft drink, beer, wine…?”

  “A cappuccino, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  The restaurant was in that late afternoon lull. Le Tripot served from eleven thirty on, all day, every day, but if there was anyone in the place, they were upstairs. The bartender stopped shining everything to fix them cappuccinos. Pascal and Karen stood patiently, not talking. Karen could still feel his hand on her shoulder, the heat radiating through her. She risked a sideways glance. So did he. They both looked away.

  He shifted his weight, looking at her now. “Raynie isn’t coming back today. Jimmy Johnpier convinced me to let her go after the lunch rush.”

  “Oh.”

  “I think he’s trying to steal her away.”

  “For what?”

  “For himself.”

  The bartender sprinkled cinnamon on the cappuccinos and Pascal picked them up. He led Karen all the way across the large dining room to a four-top in the back and set their cups next to each other instead of opposite. She crossed her legs and bumped one of his. She started to say she was sorry but angled her legs away instead. The heat again, right around her kneecap.

  She started talking, anything to keep him off the subject of his brother. “The first time I saw you, you and Johnpier were talking to LaDonna one afternoon at La Costa Brava.”

  “Ah, that answers that question.” He fixed his eyes on her.

  “I know the two of you bailed her out, not that she told me any of the details. I hope you’re not loan-sharking.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m serious. The hurricane, her money problems—business is slow. It would kill her to lose the club that way.”

  He stopped smiling. “You’ve been friends a long time?”

  She nodded.

  “Let me tell you something,” he said. “I’ve known Jimmy Johnpier since I was twenty years old. He’s one of the good guys. He wanted to do this for LaDonna, and that’s okay. She didn’t share her problems with us…maybe she told him another time…but unless he thought she wasn’t capable of running the place any longer, he wouldn’t think of taking it over. And if she couldn’t run it, he’d buy it from her, minus the loan. I know him. He’s got a sentimental attachment to the place, from when LaDonna’s father was alive. He’s attached to her too.”

  “And if he bought it, you would run it?”

  If she thought he couldn’t look at her any more piercingly, she was wrong.

  “I’d probably let you run it.” Straight face; nothing funny about his tone.

  “I’m already running it so it isn’t going to happen if I can help it. The payback amount is reasonable enough; I just want to know if there are any built-in interest hikes in the deal, like for missed payments, or if they’re late.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “It’s not my place to divulge the terms.”

  Karen put her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. She never took her eyes off his while she did it. “Maybe not, but I want you to tell me anyway.”

  He laughed, leaning toward her. “No,” he said.

  She sat up straight. “No, you won’t tell me, or no, LaDonna’s not going to get ripped?”

  “Um, both.”

  She smiled. “I’m taking you at your word. I will find out.”

  “And I quake to think what you’d do.”

  Karen frowned. “Why’s that?”

  “I just do.” He leaned away, pulling his legs out from under the table, then turning the chair more toward her, his arm draped over its back. He crossed his legs. “Let me tell you what happened to my brother last night.”

  ***

  Pascal did not know quite everything that had happened to Avery the night before, and neither did Avery until he got back to his condo, ordered take-out from Fong’s, and rubbed his face and body down with an expensive lotion he’d bought at a Las Vegas spa.

  When he looked under his bed and saw that the aluminum case was gone, his brain fired off a series of images: Jack O’Leary in the Costa Brava; the keys to the condo in his buff-colored linen pants pocket; and strangest of all, a clear image of O’Leary bending over his unconscious body, removing the keys, and dangling them in the air with that goddamned look of self-satisfied amusement on his face.

  He got up from the floor, his whole body flushed, luminous with the fire that was going on in his head. He punched out the mirror over his dresser. He fell back on the bed then sat up and watched his knuckles bleed all over Pascal’s sweats.

  He knew who had his money, all right. And he was going to get them…and that’s when he thought, Fuck! His shiny little Smith and Wesson. Fuck a duck!

  He pressed the back of his hand into his thigh, rocking back and forth, telling himself it was okay, he’d get the Walther PP out of the safe deposit box tomorrow and blow them to kingdom come. O’Leary and that smug son-of-a-bitchin Cuban.

  But first thing, he better get over to Fifi Mahoney’s as soon as they opened in the morning and see if they could fit him with a new pair of eyebrows.

  ***

  Jimmy Johnpier said he wanted to take Raynie to his house on St. Charles Avenue where they could have a couple of drinks until the Upperline opened for dinner. He said he’d had grits and grillades and greens on his mind all day.

  They passed the front of the house. She could see the tan stone mansion, not exactly a house, on palatial grounds through a black iron fence set in concrete. She noticed video cameras at each side of the wall, which enclosed almost the entire block, and at the front drive-through gates. But Jimmy drove his Mercedes around the corner and into a garage in the back and he took her in via the garden. Raynie told him it was the most beautiful, most fragrant garden she’d ever been in. Large gardenia bushes bloomed throughout the lush landscape. They flanked a screened summer house tucked into the back of the property, which was surrounded by a high concrete wall. It could have been the only inhabited property for miles—no views of other houses, no street noise, only a pervading quiet punctuated by bird and insect sounds and rustling leaves. It could have been rural except that the landscape was clearly planned not to look too planned.

  When she told Jimmy gardenias were her favorite flower, he picked a large one and put it in her hair over her ear. She closed her eyes and breathed in the heady smell. Jimmy kissed her on the cheek, quick, before she could protest, then he opened the door and let them into a glassed-in den, though Raynie thought it would be called something like the garden room or the south sun room.

  He took her through to a room with a bar and a large flat screen TV on a wall.

  “Let’s get a drink for the tour,” he said.

  Glasses in hand, he guided her from room to fabulous room. So many rooms. He named each of the rugs for her, fancy names like Sarouk and Tabriz, gave each antique’s time period, pointed out the important art—the only name she recognized was Picasso—and showed her the issue of Architectural Digest that featured the house. He was proud of his house but it was more than that; he loved it and everything in it, which he had picked personally, even travelled to find.

  As they went up the curving staircase Raynie said, “I’m just a girl from Mamou, Jimmy. I’ve never seen anything like this place.” Gorgeous, all right, nearly ove
rwhelming. All Raynie could think was if her mother could only see her now.

  “I suppose it’s sort of like living in a museum. I love looking at it, being surrounded by all this beauty. I don’t use but maybe four or five rooms and the kitchen isn’t one of them, unless there’s a party.”

  The kitchen was huge, full of white Italian marble with large pots hanging over a chopping block island that had one of the stoves built into it. The kitchen at Le Tripot wasn’t as big.

  Upstairs seemed more livable. She liked the iridescent-blue leopard wallpaper in one of the bathrooms and the sitting room next to it, one of the rooms Jimmy used, with big comfortable chairs and a sofa she sunk into when she sat on it.

  “And this is the master bedroom.” He pushed open French doors and guided her in with his hand on the small of her back.

  She resisted his pressure, turned to him and said in a mocking tone, but serious too, “This isn’t some kind of seduction scene, is it, Jimmy?”

  “Oh, dear Raynie, that isn’t one of my better roles, though I won’t say it isn’t in my repertoire. But no. I’m saving the seduction for later, when we’re relaxing in the summer house with a fresh drink.” He put pressure on her back again. “I’m giving you the tour for a purpose.”

  He pointed out a piece of furniture here and there, more art, and Raynie took in the king sleigh bed that looked as though it was made up in silk. She imagined how it would feel to float into it every night.

  She almost had to shake herself out of it. “Is this the end of the tour? I’m ready for that fresh drink.”

  “There is a third floor, but we can do that another time. Please tell me, though, that you like my house.”