“Or even if he had believed us,” Luc continues, “he’d have twisted everything and delivered us up to the hangman just like that girl from St. Bernard Parish.”
He’s right. I know it now like I knew it back then. And yet every fiber of my being rejects keeping our secret. For ten long years, it’s been a blight at the core of my being, the thing that comes back to torture me in the quiet moments.
“Since we’re on the subject”—he lowers his voice—“whatever happened to Sullivan?”
As with any bad news, it’s best just to get it out there. “He’s still here,” I say. “Still superintendent.”
Luc’s jaw drops open. “No way.”
“Yes way. He keeps getting appointed.”
“No big secret how that’s happening.” His upper lip curls in disgust.
I shrug because there’s nothing to say. New Orleans has a history of corrupt government. George Sullivan isn’t the disease. He’s simply a symptom of it.
“He ever try to drag you in for more questioning?” Luc eyes me curiously.
“Every year on the anniversary of Dean’s…disappearance,” I say. Not adding that every year it takes everything I have not to spit out the truth and unburden my soul.
“Good God Almighty, Maggie May.” He rakes an agitated hand through his hair. “I had no idea.”
“How could you?”
When his expression crumples, I’m quick to reassure him. “No. Don’t do that, Luc. Don’t blame yourself. You were right to go. With you and Cash out of the picture, Sullivan only had me to harass.”
Now his expression hardens. “He’s been harassing you?”
Dang it. I wasn’t going to tell him this. Not yet anyway. “Not in recent years, no,” I admit. “But he sicced his cops on me all the time at first. I got so many traffic tickets, I nearly had my license suspended.”
I don’t mention that the look on George Sullivan’s face anytime he sees me around town says he’s trying to determine if the top of my skull will make a good ashtray. Nor do I mention how much sleep I lose at night knowing he has every right to look at me that way.
“Can we talk about something else?” I beg. “After ten years, surely we can come up with a happier topic.”
I can see Luc doesn’t want to drop it. But he does because…well, he’s Luc. The kindest boy…er, man I’ve ever known.
“Okay.” He nods. “But first, how about popping the top on an Abita for your old friend, huh? I’m not sure I ever understood how thirsty a walk through the Vieux Carré can make a man.”
“It’s called not-so-subliminal advertising,” I tell him. “You pass enough bars, see enough people strolling the street with a beer in hand, and voila! Suddenly, you’re bellying up to a bar yourself.”
Under the guise of getting his beer, I rake in a few deep breaths. I don’t remember every detail about what happened in the swamp that night. Moments like that leave something deeper than a memory. They leave a feeling. A horror you never get over, and talking about it with Luc has made that horror rise to the surface. But by the time I set the bottle of Abita in front of him, I have myself well enough in hand to appreciate the look of wonder and satisfaction on his face as he checks out the bar.
“This place is amazing,” he says, and I feel a kick of pride. “Just like we always talked about. I can’t believe you actually did it.”
“How could I not? You and Cash made it sound like the best thing in the whole wide world. I had to find out for myself.”
He eyes me quizzically. “And is it everything we thought it’d be?”
“And then some. Joie de vivre every day.”
“Laissez les bon temps rouler every night,” he finishes with me.
It was the slogan the three of us repeated many times when we sat and dreamed of how our adult lives would be. We were determined to remain connected at the hip forever. Open a bar together, buy side-by-side Creole cottages—Luc in one and Cash and me in the other—and watch each other grow old and gray as the world went by.
Clearing my throat, I look around like it’s suddenly occurred to me Cash isn’t here. We both know that’s a lie. His absence was the first thing I noticed when Luc walked through the door.
“Where’s your sidekick?” I try to keep my tone light.
He pretends to catalog the bottles of booze behind my head. “He had some things to take care of at the new house. Said to tell you he’s sorry and he’ll stop by another time.”
“That’s the biggest load of horse hockey I ever heard.” I point to his face. “You still can’t look me in the eye when you’re lying.”
He takes a swig of beer.
I know he won’t broach the subject, so I suppose I have to. “Earlier, his breath stunk of whiskey and I…saw the flask in his back pocket.”
He glances out the window, a muscle working in his jaw. When he turns back, he shakes his head. “He’s not a drunk, Maggie May. Leastways not normally. It’s just this thing with his head.”
I would say the scar above Cash’s temple matches the old one cutting through his right eyebrow, but the old scar is flat and faint. This new scar is raised and red. Painful looking. My own temple throbs in sympathy and my silly heart folds in on itself at the thought of Cash hurting.
“He said he took a blast to the head. Does that mean…” I have to swallow. “Was he shot?”
Luc watches me closely.
“Come on,” I cajole. “It’s me you’re talking to. I can keep a secret. You know I can.”
A wordless acknowledgment passes between us as our shared past makes another unwelcome appearance in the conversation.
“Suicide bomber infiltrated our ranks,” he finally says. “Cash was one of the lucky ones. He was far enough outside the blast radius that he lived, but close enough that he was thrown back about ten yards. His head smacked the concrete corner of a building. He was in a coma for three days with a hole drilled in his skull to let the blood drain off his brain.”
My hand flies up to cover my mouth. Oh, Cash. The thought of him lying broken and bloody cuts at all the tender places inside me. “He said he got a disability discharge, so that must mean he’s still suffering side effects. What’s his prognosis?”
“Might be right as rain someday,” Luc says, and relief rushes through me. It’s short-lived, however, when he adds, “And he might not.”
“Lord have mercy,” I breathe.
Luc’s face is wreathed in worry. “It’s the pain that’s dogging him. It’s like living with a migraine twenty-four seven. He self-medicates with the whiskey.”
“Doesn’t he have a prescription or something?”
“I reckon he does both, the pills and the hooch.”
A fist tightens in my belly. “He shouldn’t. It’s dangerous.”
Luc laughs, but it’s devoid of humor. “You think I haven’t said that exact thing a million times? I hate to tell you, Maggie May, but he hasn’t changed much. He still does exactly what he wants and damn the consequences.”
Again, we fall into silence. Again, Luc doesn’t seem eager to fill it.
The music on the jukebox changes. Someone’s put on a song about lost love, and the melody even more than the words sounds sad. The singer goes on in a minor key, and the chords move slowly and morosely.
It all hits too close to home, so I clear my throat and ask, “What will y’all do with yourselves now that you’re civilians?”
He picks at the label on his beer with the edge of his thumbnail. “The nice thing about army life is that room and board are taken care of. Most of our paychecks have gone straight into the bank. I reckon I’ll take some time off. Help Cash get his house fixed up because right now it’s barely livable. Then…who knows?” He shrugs. “We’ve talked some about opening a security firm.”
“I expect y’all would be good at that given your backgrounds.”
He shrugs again.
“You could always open a bar together,” I venture.
“You
already got the perfect place here.” He gestures around. “Besides, I think the last thing Cash needs is to be surrounded by an endless supply of booze.”
A hard kernel of sadness lodges under my heart and pricks the organ until it begins to bleed. “Isn’t there anything the doctors can do to help him? I mean, maybe there’s something—” I’m interrupted by a rowdy bachelorette party. They stumble into the place and instantly besiege my poor barback with drink orders.
“I better go help Charlie,” I tell Luc.
Before I know it, an hour and a half has come and gone and I’ve barely managed two more minutes of conversation with him. The noisy, dancing bachelorette party attracted the attention of strolling tourists. And now, with the band setting up, the locals have begun to pour in and the place is packed to the gills.
While I’m pulling drafts of Dixie Beer, I glance down the bar to see the leggy blonde has left Earl’s side to sidle up to Luc. If the look on her face is anything to go by, she’s in love. Or, at the very least, in lust.
Luc curls the ends of her hair around his finger, and I’m shocked to feel a stab of… What the heck is that? Jealousy?
Nah. Can’t be. I’ve never wanted that sort of thing from him. Or…almost never.
There was the time before Cash when I thought maybe. And then there was that dance under the moonlight when I was tempted for just a minute… But no. Nothing ever came of either situation because all Luc and I have ever been are friends.
Whatever this weird emotion is, it’s definitely not jealousy.
In fact, when Luc pushes back from the bar and slings his arm around the blonde’s shoulders, I tell myself I’m happy for him. I’ve always thought he deserves a good woman. Not that I’m saying the blonde is a good one. It’s hard to tell good from bad in a bar. But still… I’m glad he’s on the lookout.
“What d’ya say to meeting me and Cash for coffee at Café Du Monde on Sunday morning? Ten hundred for old times’ sake?” he shouts above the din of tonight’s lead singer doing a mic check.
“Is that like ten o’clock?” I yell back.
He nods as he and the blonde head for the door.
“Well, let me check my schedule!” I pull my cell phone from my hip pocket and pretend to bring up my calendar. “Tonight after I get off work, I have drinks with Ryan Reynolds! Tomorrow night it’s dinner with Justin Timberlake! Sunday I have a lunch with Chris Pratt! But, yeah! Look at that! I’m free Sunday morning! I’ll see you there!”
When he throws back his head and laughs, the sound is deep and throaty and…okay…never thought I’d say this about Luc, but sexy. The blonde’s eyes go wide. Then she smiles and glances around the room like she’s in possession of the winning Powerball numbers.
Luc blows me a kiss and ducks out the door with the blonde in tow.
After setting full pint glasses on the bar for two regulars, I watch him walk by the front window and wonder if he plans to take the blonde back to Cash’s or drive her all the way out to the bayou. Part of me hopes it’s Cash’s. I don’t like thinking of him all alone in that dilapidated house. In pain. Suffering.
“I should probably stop by after work to check on him,” I mumble. Then I shake my head and remind myself that’s the last thing I should do.
This afternoon proved that when I’m near him, he’s the moon and I’m the ocean. His gravitational force affects me whether I want it to or not. And that’s not something I’m ready to deal with.
Not yet.
Then again, there’s nothing wrong with leaving a care package on his front stoop, right? Luc said his place is barely livable. Some bread and cheese and maybe my old iPad, which has a gazillion movies downloaded onto it, would go a long way to making him feel more at home.
Besides, how could I call myself a genuine Southerner if I ignored the rules of hospitality?
Chapter Six
______________________________________
Cash
Human beings are born with an equal capacity for good and bad. Who we become in life depends on which aspect of our nature we cultivate and nurture.
Take Luc, for instance. He’s good because he chooses to be good. Maggie? The same. Me? I’d like to say the struggle isn’t real, but it is. The two sides of my nature are constantly at war. I blame part of that on the man who has pulled his gray Mercedes up to the curb outside the bought-and-paid-for hunk of junk I currently call home.
“Hello, darkness, my old friend.” I squint through the open front door. Can’t see who’s inside the car. The tinted windows make that impossible. But I know it’s him.
“What?” Luc comes to stand beside me. He’s sweaty and disheveled. A morning of pulling up old carpets and tearing out sagging cabinetry will do that to a guy.
True to his word, he arrived at zero nine hundred with coffee and beignets in hand—and the gift basket Maggie left on my stoop at some point during the night, because despite the hurt I caused her, the woman is still the epitome of grace and tenderness. My headache had ratcheted down to a manageable level. And once again, I’d psyched myself into moving forward with The Plan.
It was shaping up to be one hell of a good day.
Should’ve known it wouldn’t last.
“Stay frosty,” I warn Luc now.
“For what?” he asks even as he adjusts his grip on the hammer.
I hitch my chin toward the Mercedes. “Daddy Dearest.”
The bastard still hasn’t gotten out of the car. He’s probably sitting in there making pacts with the devil.
I take the flask from my back pocket, needing fortification. I’m on my second swallow when the driver’s-side door opens and out steps the man who sired me.
I won’t call him “my dad” or “my father.” He’s never been either. The only connection we share is the lucky sperm that made its way to my mother’s egg one night when he was too drunk to pull out.
I know this is how I was conceived. He made sure to tell me every chance he got.
I’ve been using a four-pound sledgehammer to tear out drywall. When Luc wrestles it out of my hand, I realize I’ve raised it like a weapon.
“Best not to brain him, doncha think?” he says. “It’d be a shame to trade the army for an eight-by-ten.”
“Will you get a load of this guy?” The sight of my sperm donor makes me feel physically ill. Or maybe that’s the combination of whiskey, beignets, and coffee. “He’s put on sixty pounds. At least.”
Luc hitches a shoulder. “Years of indiscriminate butter use will do that to a body.”
Like me, Richard Armstrong has always been a sizable man, rangy and big-boned. Strapping, some might say. Unlike me, now he’s nearly as wide as he is tall.
His pinstripe suit cries out for mercy, and his leather monk-strap loafers groan as he lumbers up the five steps outside. Then he’s here. Inside my house.
Should’ve paid a Voodoo priestess to ward the place against evil spirits. Maybe it would’ve been enough to bar Rick’s tar-black soul from crossing the threshold.
“You’re not welcome here.” I hate that my words don’t sound as firm as I’d like.
“Guess the army couldn’t beat the smart-ass out of you,” he says, barely sparing me a glance before letting his eyes wander around my house. The timbre of his voice makes my hands clench into fists.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I tell him. “Oh, wait. No, I’m not.”
He pulls a short, thin cigar and a Zippo from his breast pocket. After he shoves the stogie into his pie hole, I wait until he gets the lighter’s flame a few inches from the tip of the cigar before saying, “No smoking in my house.”
“Not much of a house, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t think some smoke will hurt it,” he goes on, ignoring me. “Might even help. You know, cover up the smell of rot.”
He lights the cigar and takes a deep puff, making a show of blowing a huge cloud of smoke in my direction. It’s the first volley in a new battle of an o
ld war.
“Maybe I wasn’t clear when I said you’re not welcome here. So let me break it down into small words you’ll understand.” I pull back my lips into a parody of a smile. “Get the fuck out.”
“Fine by me.” He holds up his hands. “Seen everything I came to see anyway. I was curious when Linda Gilbert over at Union Savings and Loan said you did a big purchase through them.”
Luc and I exchange a glance.
Years ago, Rick was a well-to-do New Jersey contractor. But about twenty months after Katrina hit, his reputation as a lowlife got around town and the jobs dried up. So, like the other buzzards, he descended on the carcass of New Orleans, determined to take advantage of the fat government contracts still being handed out.
Thriving in the city’s chaos after the storm, it didn’t take him long to go from being a ne’er-do-well contractor to a filthy stinkin’ rich businessman with multiple interests and enterprises. Now he’s a big fish in NOLA’s small pond. Of course news of my arrival found its way to his ear.
“I figured you’d have gotten more out of ten years of military service than this.” He waves a hand to indicate my place, taking another long, leisurely drag. “Sorriest piece of property I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, but what it lacks in curb appeal it makes up for with something else. Something I’m not surprised you don’t recognize, since you’ve never had any of it yourself.”
“And what’s that?” His bloodshot gaze lands on my face. I feel its presence like the touch of a diseased finger.
“Character.” I make sure to enunciate each syllable.
His face mottles red. He pulls the stogie from his mouth and takes two menacing steps in my direction. Luc grips my shoulder, holding me in place.
“Big talk from a guy who ran off to be a dumb grunt instead of facing the life his father built for him,” he snarls.
“Don’t kid yourself, Rick. You were never building anything for me. Anything and everything you’ve ever done has always been for you.”
Volume One: In Moonlight and Memories, #1 Page 5