That Old Devil Sin

by W E DeVore

  He walked over to the thick hydrangea bush next to his house and pulled out a small bottle. He glanced around before draining what was left in it and replaced it with a full one from inside his suit coat pocket. He casually strolled to the other side of the driveway, dropped it into the neighbor's recycling bin, and walked up his front walkway and into his house: Dennis, the secret drinker with a rabidly Pentecostal wife and the best cared-for flower beds on the street…each with a little bottle of sin nestled safely within the blooms.

  Dennis wasn’t alone. The neighbor to the left of her had a home office that shared a window view with Q’s music room. As far as she could tell, he spent eight hours a day with a small window of hard-core pornography open in the lower right corner of his second screen while he churned out endless spreadsheets and circuit diagrams for his telecommute gig. He also was either oblivious to the fact that his neighbor’s window was less than six feet away from his own, or got some sort of thrill at being caught. Regardless, as soon as his wife and eight-year-old returned home, the computer screen went dark, and his surreptitious porn addiction was hidden safely away.

  Alcohol and pornography were at least understandable secrets to keep hidden from view, what Q could not understand was the upstairs/downstairs neighbors in the duplex to the right of Dennis, the Secret Drinker. The two were obviously single, obviously screwing, and obviously hiding the latter for absolutely no reason that she could decipher.

  Eventually, Q set down her guitar and gave up her neighbor spying. She watched the moon rise through the live oak branches before going back inside the house. Retrieving her phone from the bottom stair, she called Ben, nervously tapping her finger on the foyer table.

  “Evenin’, darlin’. How’s rehearsal going?” Ben’s gravelly voice sent a wave of comfort through her.

  “It’s not. We called it a night. I’m home. Where are you?” she asked.

  Q had expected to be assaulted with loud voices and throbbing music distorting the speaker on Ben’s phone. The uptown club that Ben owned was never that quiet on a Friday night.

  “Fucking Beth texted me an hour after she was supposed to be at work. Said her car broke down way the hell down in the ninth ward and she was waiting for a tow. I jumped in my car to go get her. Now I’m sitting in front of the vacant lot that should be the address she gave me and no house, no car, no tow truck, no Beth.” Ben sounded annoyed.

  “Maybe she sent the wrong address?" Q guessed.

  "Yeah, maybe, but she could answer my damn calls,” Ben complained.

  "Her phone probably died by the time the truck came,” Q said trying to keep him from getting too upset. The last thing she needed was Beth Hunter and her mildly obsessive, school girl crush on Ben adding to an already crap day.

  “I don’t know, maybe. That girl’s been little Miss Unreliable lately. Joe thinks she’s strung out on somebody, but this is straight up bullshit. Josh is ready to fire her. Gonna have to give her a talking to tomorrow.” He paused and sighed before continuing, “So what did I do right to get a call from you?”

  Q tried to think of something pithy and flirty to say and apparently waited a beat too long.

  “What’s wrong, darlin’?” Ben asked gently.

  Fucking timing. God Damn.

  “Nothing. I’m fine. I just…Terrance called. Gus Multer copped a plea bargain. That low-life is only getting charged with two counts of sexual assault and one for covering for that crazed bitch of a wife, who, incidentally is the one who’s going to do the hard time. And to add insult to injury, one of Niko’s exes is our sound guy tomorrow night. Can you believe my luck?” she whined as casually as she could.

  “One of Niko’s exes is your sound guy?” he asked with serious concern.

  “He’s harmless, Ben. But he followed me from the club and all the way up Canal on my way home. Probably to apologize, it’s nothing…” Q glanced at the clock on her phone. “Damn, baby, it’s almost ten thirty, you better get back to work.”

  “He was following you?" he asked, more serious still.

  She quickly replied, not wanting him to worry, "Like I said, he probably just wanted to apologize. The Beasts and I weren’t exactly subtle when he..."

  "I’m coming home,” Ben interrupted.

  “I’m ok. Seriously, it’s nothing. Go to work so I don’t have to hear Josh bitch for the next two weeks. I’ll come to you.”

  “Fuck that. Lock the damn doors. I’ll be home as quick as I can. Just let me call in some help for Josh,” he said, panic rising in his voice.

  “Ben, you’re overreacting,” she soothed.

  “The hell I am!” Ben yelled back. “Some creepy ex-boyfriend of Niko’s suddenly turns up as your sound guy, and follows you halfway through the Quarter to Canal? I find him within a mile of our home and I’m gonna beat his ass.”

  “You sound like Charlie,” she teased.

  Ben let out a growl of frustration and paused to catch his temper. “Q, darlin’, just please lock the doors,” he pleaded. “Please, baby, I don’t know what I’d do if…”

  Q held the phone up to the deadbolt as she snapped it home and set the alarm. “Doors locked. Alarm set. Now get your ass home and defend your woman already.”

  She did a little happy dance and hung up the phone. Ben worked nearly every night of the week at the club he owned in uptown New Orleans. Lafitte’s Cove was a hot spot for the gentrifying masses and was a proud promoter of good jazz, good cigars, and good Scotch. The once shady neighborhood that surrounded it was slowly giving way to hair salons and art galleries. Things changed slowly in New Orleans, but not slowly enough to prevent affordable rentals from becoming half-million dollar condos.

  The fact that Ben and she kept nearly identical schedules during the hectic tourist season was a benefit to their relationship. Ben was busy with the Cove and QT and the Beasts were busy gigging. But during the long, nearly gigless month of August, Q found herself enjoying being alone less and less.

  She poured herself another drink and headed upstairs to run a bath. Pausing halfway up the stairs, she slipped out of Ben’s shirt, leaving both it and her underwear hanging from the banister before going up to the bathroom. She started the water in the bathtub and doused it with bubble bath. While the tub filled, Q stared at her reflection in the oval mirror above the pedestal sink. She wondered at her turquoise eyes, searching for any visible sign of death behind them.

  Most days she could justify the actions she took that led to Niko's death. Her life was in danger. Ben's life was in danger. Over time, she'd come to realize that shooting Niko wasn't the cause of her guilt. It was knowing that her friendship with him had given him safe passage into her world. Louis Falgoust had wanted to be with her, had loved her even, but Q couldn't let him in. Niko used it to get close enough to kill him. And Ronnie, too. Ronnie had even been privy to enough knowledge to realize that Niko was dangerous, but couldn't recognize it because Niko was the gay sidekick of her boyfriend's childhood friend. Right or wrong, Q figured that she had to atone for all three deaths and still hadn’t found the best way to do so.

  Q sighed and shook out her long, dark hair from the single barrette that held it in its upturned twist. Submerging herself in Ben’s larger-than-necessary tub, she lay back and waited for his foot falls on the stair treads. The comfort of the water, with the vodka's kind assistance, lulled her into a fugue state somewhere between dreams and reality.

  “Damn it, Clementine, this was a clean shirt,” Ben said from the doorway, holding up her discarded shirt.

  Some way or another, 'Q' was the abbreviation for 'Clementine' in her late mother’s family vernacular. Most of the people closest to her, including Ben, knew that she preferred her nickname to her given one. This, of course, meant that, outside of her family, she only heard her given name uttered during moments in which she had aggravated someone.

  Q's eyes fluttered open and she drowsily smiled up at him. Ben walked into the bathroom and stood at the side of the tub with his ha
nds on his hips. Q looked up sideways at him. His long, blonde hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail and black cufflinks stood out against his striking white button down shirt.

  “Some creepy friend of Niko's turns up out of the blue, after all this time, and tries to follow you home and you think, 'I'm home alone, how could I possibly make myself more vulnerable,’” he scolded.

  Q stood up in the middle of the bath and put her hands on her hips to mock him. “Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. Did you come home to protect me or to lecture me?”

  “Go to hell, Clementine. I’m going on to work if you’re going to try and get out of talking about this,” he said, his voice full of aggravation.

  As he turned to go, Q reached out and slipped her hand under the front of his belt to pull him to her.

  “You can’t go to work with your shirt all wet,” she teased.

  Ben was not amused. “And whose fault is that?”

  She began to unbuckle his belt.

  “Q, I have a business to run,” Ben said as he tried to gently pull away.

  She used the leverage to pull the belt off and cast it aside.

  “They’re going to be short-handed without Beth,” he insisted.

  She lifted his shirt and kissed the face of the angel tattoo that covered his entire torso before working her way down to its feet. “Thought you already called someone in.”

  “Q, baby, please, I’m the boss. I can’t just not show up,” he said, without moving an inch. "I came home because I thought you were scared and needed me."

  She stood on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his neck. “But I do need you. I’m all alone in this big, old house. Who knows what could happen if I'm left unprotected."

  Ben moaned in mock frustration and picked her up out of the bath. She wrapped her legs around his waist.

  He yelled at the ceiling one more time before grinning and saying in a low voice, “You in for it now, girl.”

  “Promises, promises.”

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