by Sandra Hill
Her mother was wearing another of her Spanx outfits, purple and lavender today. Simone also noticed the black heels she was wearing. Not stilettos, but heels nonetheless, mid-height and strappy. Surely not recommended for a lady with two new knees who was still going to rehab twice a week.
“Hello, hello, everyone,” her mother said, even though Simone and BaRa were the only ones around. “Beautiful day outside.”
“Mom! Do you really think you should be wearing heels?”
“It’s okay. I take them off when I get here. I have slippers in mah purse . . .”
Oh, great! A receptionist in fuzzy duck slippers.
“. . . but I wanna wear ’em when I go out later t’day.”
“Out where?”
“The casino. With Frank Lanier and Tom Dorsey.”
Oh, Lord! Adam’s father and the Santa/painter? “You’re going on a date with two men?”
That was a little weird, even for her mother.
“Not a date, exactly. Tante Lulu is comin’, too. And Sabine’s mother, and Aunt Mel from over at Bayou Rose Plantation. She’s visitin’ her nephews Daniel and Aaron LeDeux. She’s a less-be-an, y’know. I’m not sure how I feel about that. She better not hit on me. Oh, and Sam Starr from Nawleans, a friend of Tante Lulu’s. He’s the guy from the Starr supermarket chain, Samantha Starr LeDeux’s grandfather. He’s so cute, looks jist like Colonel Sanders, with a mustache.”
Her mother and men with mustaches! And a lesbian! Would wonders never cease? “And you’re all going to a casino?”
“Yep. Dinner first. Early bird special fer seniors at the Rumpus Room on the Lazy Dazy Steamboat in Lake Charles. They have an all-ya-kin-eat buffet with two hundred dishes fer only ten dollars. After that we’ll do a little gamblin’. Of course, I’m not quite a senior citizen, but I think I kin sneak in. Would be the first time I tried ta look older.”
“Why would Sam Starr need to get bargain dinners? I hear he has money out the wazoo.”
“How you think he got all that money? Bargains! We’re all goin’ t’gether in one of the Starr Foods vans. He offered a limo—we would have all shared the cost—but that’s too fancy-pancy fer us. And what’s a wazoo, anyhow?”
“I have no idea,” she said, and walked off to prepare for her day. Why had she ever imagined that her mother was lonely living alone while she’d been in Chicago? It appeared she had more of a social life than Simone did.
Thoughts of last night’s phone conversation came suddenly to mind. That was the extent of her social life.
But she was smiling again.
Her meeting with Sabine and Gabe went well.
Sabine looked ultra-feminine this morning in a blue-and-white polka dot sundress and nude sandals, unlike her usual biker girl, leather attire, even though the floral tattoos up her arms and around her neck were even more prominent. No piercings showed, except for tiny pearl post earrings. Her blond hair, which had been all spiked and edgy last time they’d met, was now loose with subtle waves about her face. A surprising beauty!
Sabine reported that her target had engaged in a conversation with her at Swampy’s and had bought her not one, but two drinks. However, all he did was talk about his wife who was ruining their marriage with her jealousy. Sabine ended up giving the guy advice on how to make his wife feel more secure. So, that was a good news/bad news case. The wife would, or should, be pleased with the results. But short and sweet, meaning not much cash for Legal Belles. But that was okay. They’d done their job. Case closed. That one, anyhow.
Gabe amused them by arriving in his IT tycoon persona. In fact, with his hair neatly parted, he looked like Bill Gates with black framed glasses and geeky clothes . . . a vee-neck sweater over a button-down dress shirt and tie. He even threw a bunch of Internet-savvy words into their conversation, like encryption, gnutella, kibibyte, qwerty, and optical media, which had Simone and Sabine staring at him in wonder and thinking they needed to buy a modern dictionary for the office.
“It’s all part of acting,” he told them. “Just like writers toss in a word or two to give their books authenticity, such as in police procedurals, actors do the same with technical words or accents or attire or body language.”
Once again, Simone and Sabine just stared at him. Gabe was either smarter than she’d realized or a really good actor.
Gabe’s target, Tammy Allerby, whose fiancé wanted a prenup, was taking the bait, finally, he told them. In fact, he’d taken Tammy to a nearby jazz club for drinks after their health club routines last night. “I should be paid time and a half for all this exercise. Keep it up and I might even get a six-pack. Ha, ha, ha!” he told them, half jokingly.
Maybe I should join the gym. For a week.
“Tammy is very interested in my ‘assets.’” He grinned and adjusted the frames of his glasses up his nose. “My first inclination is to tell her fiancé to not only get a prenup, but to back off completely.”
“Well, keep up the good work,” she advised him, “but be careful you don’t overstep the line into entrapment. And it’s not our job to tell clients what they should do with the info we give them.”
“Got it,” he said. “Appeal, but don’t be aggressive. Gather the news, don’t be part of the news.”
“Right.”
Two other applicants came in looking for jobs then. Legal Belles really didn’t need any more employees in its “stable,” but these two were part of the initial call for applications and hadn’t fit into the first round of interviews. One of them interested Simone very much, a Creole woman of color with a private detective background. She had previously worked for a big New Orleans law firm.
The other applicant, not so much. Not because she wasn’t talented in terms of office procedures, but at this time, in the early stages of Legal Belles, BaRa and Simone’s mother could handle everything that came in.
“I need you to come with me for lunch at Tres Bien Restaurant,” she told her mother at a quarter to twelve.
“I cain’t do that. I’ll be too full fer the all-ya-kin-eat at four,” her mother said. “Besides, I’m about ready ta pop outta mah Spanx as it is. The bloat, dontcha know?”
Yeah, Simone knew about “the bloat.” Women had been blaming it for everything but hemorrhoids since the beginning of time. Eve probably told Adam she was bloated when he commented on the size of her little belly—from apples, in her case.
“You don’t need to eat anything. Just have a glass of tea, or a cup of coffee. It will be less conspicuous for me to be meeting with Angela Rossi before her shift starts if you’re with me.”
“You mean, we’d be sorta like partners. Like Cagney and Lacey.”
“Who?”
“Never mind. Maybe I kin have a little order of Tres Bien’s raspberry soufflé with salted caramel sauce. We could share a plate,” she mused, standing to remove her fuzzy duck slippers and put on her high heels.
Eyeing the shoes, Simone said, “Maybe we better drive over,” even though it was only two blocks away.
They sat in a back booth of the plush restaurant with Angela before her shift started. She wore a black uniform with a tiny white apron and black pumps. Her blond hair was pulled off her face into a neat chignon, and her make-up was minimal but flawless. At only thirty-five or so, Angela was an attractive woman, and Simone wondered about her history, the missing father of Darlene and all that.
“You look so much more relaxed,” she told Angela.
“I am, thanks to you,” she said, reaching across the table to squeeze Simone’s hand. “I don’t think I would have had the nerve to go to the police on my own.”
Simone was touched. “And Darlene?”
“She went to school today, and we’ll just wing it to see how that plays out, but that counselor you referred us to has been so helpful. She’s young enough, about twenty-five, to understand how an adolescent girl could get involved in such a situation. She’s already talked Darlene into joining an after-school fitness program as well as band. Darl
ene used to play the flute really well, but gave it up when some kid said it was dorky. Her counselor convinced her that flutes were cool, and a good flute player could even get a college scholarship. Please, God!”
“No misgivings about Luther Ferguson’s arrest?”
“None that she mentions. That lawyer friend of yours has been an angel.”
“Luc . . . I mean, Lucien LeDeux?”
“No, the one you brought over to our house. Adam Lanier.”
Adam, an angel? “How has he been helpful?”
“He’s offered to represent us if we have to go to court. But even if we don’t, he says he’ll be our representative with the police. He told us not to talk to anyone, including the cops, unless he’s present. Isn’t that nice of him?”
“It sure is.” And Simone’s suspicious mind wondered if Adam’s offer had anything to do with the attractive Mrs. Rossi. Which was grossly unfair of her, she knew. But then, he was always quick to jump to conclusions about her, as well, just because she’d been married a few times.
After that meeting, during which her mother had in fact eaten the entire soufflé while Simone had been talking, they went back to the office where Max Salter, the detective friend of Adam’s, was waiting to speak to her. In the meantime, he’d been speaking with BaRa. He and her ex-husband, Ozzie had worked together on a shrimp boat when they were teenagers.
“Maybe I could do a little work for you guys, on the side,” Max said, once they were in her office. He grinned as he added, “I have a pair of tight black jeans that my wife says make my ass look hot.”
“And you think hot asses are a criteria for employment at Legal Belles?”
“I’m jist sayin’.”
Simone couldn’t be offended. The guy was just teasing. “So what’s up?”
“I need your signature on some documents, giving us permission to use those photographs and the audio you recorded of Luther Ferguson.” He took some folded sheets out of his pocket and slid them across the desk to her.
“Do I need my lawyer to look this over before I sign?”
“You mean Adam?” he asked with a smirk.
She couldn’t help but blush, knowing what he’d witnessed in the Swamp Tavern parking lot. “No, not Adam. Helene Dubois, my partner, is a lawyer, and my half brother Lucien LeDeux is, too.”
Max shrugged. “It’s a fairly simple release, but you can have it looked over first if you want.”
“How’s the case against Ferguson going?”
“I can’t really say, but your work and the evidence from the Rossi girl will go a long way to putting this guy behind bars. Where he should have been a long time ago.” Those last words were a hint to her that they had other girls lined up to testify, as well.
“Good working with you, Simone,” Max said before he left. “I expect it won’t be the last time. Other cases, and all that.”
That was probably true.
Simone signed on two other clients after that. One of them involved a woman who wanted a divorce and just wanted a female attorney to represent her. Helene could handle that one easily. The other was the usual Cheaters-type case. Saffron Pitot of New Orleans whose husband Marcus Pitot was the wealthy owner of Cypress Lumber, a generations’ old company, as well as numerous other businesses. Saffron wanted the goods on her husband who had been engaged in some kind of perverted sex club for years.
“Why come all the way from Nawleans to hire an investigator?” Simone asked. “You have plenty to choose from in the Big Easy.”
Saffron, a former soap opera actress of no particular fame, was in her forties, but with enough work done on her face and body to make her look ten years younger. “I read about your agency in the feature section of the Times-Picayune, and it struck a chord with me. I checked my horoscope and then double-checked with my astral advisor, and Madame Bouche said Legal Belles was the place I should go for help.”
Ooookaaay. “What exactly do you want us to do, and what is your ultimate goal? Do you want a divorce?”
“I don’t think so. The old fart leaves me pretty much alone, but I’ve gotta get evidence of his activities, just in case.”
“In case . . . what?”
“In case some sweet young thang in his orgies gets her claws into him, and he tries to push me out the door. You know how men are once a woman hits forty. They start looking for sweeter, younger meat.”
Whoa! Lots to chew on there. First of all, Simone took umbrage at being lumped with the over-forty crowd. Second, what was it with the meat references today? And third, orgies?
“Tell me about the club. What’s its name?”
“I don’t think it has a name. Just a group of men and women who get together and have orgies at their different houses. Lots of times they use Marcus’s lodge up on Lake Pontchartrain.”
“What makes you think it’s a club? Which people? Can you give me names? Has it been going on for a long time?”
“At least ten years. And mostly the same group of about ten people. They only add new people when someone drops out, or dies, like Adam Lanier’s wife, Hannah, did two years ago.”
Sirens went off in Simone’s head. “What? Who did you say? Adam Lanier?”
“Not Adam. His wife, Hannah. What a piece of work that one was! All respectable married woman, a psychologist or something, with a child and a husband most women would die for, but a slut underneath. She was the organizer of lots of these ‘events.’ I think Marcus wanted to hire Adam to handle some of his legal business when he moved from the prosecution to the defense side of the bench, but I don’t know if that ever panned out. Adam was never involved in the clubbing, as far as I know. I mighta wanted to join if he did.” Saffron waggled her obviously tattoo-enhanced eyebrows at Simone at that jest.
Simone was not laughing. In fact, if she hadn’t been sitting down, she would have had to, so deep was her shock. Not about the sex club. They were nothing new, and, in fact, were more acceptable today in society as a whole. Live and let live. If no one gets hurt . . . That kind of thing. But this put a whole new picture on Adam Lanier, and the kind of life he’d led before moving here. She’d been under the impression he was the player. But now . . . Hmmm.
She wasn’t sure who she would send to investigate that one. She might have to do it herself.
After that, she and Helene met with Kimly Bien and her sister, Thanh Pham, and Simone was zapped by yet another “connection” with Adam Lanier. She supposed that was the way of the bayou. Forget about “six degrees of separation,” in Cajun land, it was more like three. Not that Adam had anything in particular to do with the complaint of these two ladies. Still . . .
The two women couldn’t be more different. Thanh wore the traditional black silk pants with a frogged tunic, also black but beautifully embroidered, possibly by herself, with multicolored birds. Kimly wore a white oxford collared, fitted shirt over skinny jeans and sandals. Thanh’s black hair hung in a single braid down her back. Kimly’s black hair was piled atop her head with a claw comb.
“Do you want a divorce?” Helene asked Thanh bluntly.
“No! No divorce!” Thanh said vehemently. “We were married in church. No divorce.”
“Well,” Kimly interjected. “Let me argue with that. I believe that Thanh’s husband, Mike, is going to file for divorce once he gets a settlement in this Cypress Oil case. And I believe that Mike is going to screw my sister, financially, once he does. My sister is not so convinced.”
Simone looked at Thanh.
“Minh would not be so cruel.” Minh was Mike’s Vietnamese name.
“Hah! You don’t think twenty years of infidelity is cruel, Thanh? You don’t think twenty years of having you on a pittance of a household budget is cruel, while he drives around in a rigged-out fifty-thousand-dollar truck?”
“I asked him about that, and he said he needed it for the business,” Thanh said to her sister.
“Bullshit!” Kimly exclaimed.
Thanh flinched at her sister’s vulgar
ity.
“What exactly do you want from us?” Simone asked. “Evidence of infidelity?”
“That will be easy enough to get, and it’s probably a good idea to have it on file,” Kimly said, “but we need advice on what Thanh is entitled to under Louisiana law in the event this ends in divorce.”
“First of all, Ms. Bien, as you are probably already aware, getting a divorce in Loo-zee-anna can be difficult,” Helene said. “There is nothing as easy as ‘no fault’ and there has to be a two-year separation first when children are involved.”
“But if he does file, he has two years to hide his assets, doesn’t he?” Kimly noted. “I have friends with horror stories of how their spouses claimed poverty, then suddenly lived the high life shortly after the divorce decrees.”
“That does happen. Of course, he could go to some other state like Nevada for a ‘quickie divorce,’ where there’s only a six-week waiting period.”
“And that’s why I want my sister to be aware of this Cypress Oil court settlement. She has no idea what assets they have now, but—”
“Minh says we have lots of debt. Lots,” Thanh said in her husband’s defense.
Once again, Kimly looked skeptical, and continued with a prediction, “His claiming poverty is just him setting the stage.”
“Why do you say that, Kimly?” Helene asked.
Kimly looked at Helene. “Mike doesn’t even let her have a credit card or checking account. The big man taking care of his little woman. But forget about what they already have, or don’t have. If we learn through public records that he gets, let’s say, a million dollars in the Cypress Oil case, he will have to account for every penny of that, won’t he?” Kimly squeezed her sister’s hand while talking, not unaware of how difficult this situation was for the more timid woman.
“You’re right,” Helene said, “and, Thanh, even if divorce never comes about, you are wiser to know where you stand financially.”
“There’s one more thing you should be aware of,” Kimly told Helene and Simone. “Our parents owned a small fishing fleet on the Gulf. When they died, I took a cash payment from the Pham family, which allowed me to go to college and grad school, and Thanh’s half share was in the form of all the boats and equipment which were just folded into the Pham company. I don’t think there was anything shady about it. The elder Mister Pham was in charge at that time. But who knows how it looks on record now? Is Thanh considered a part owner of their company?”