Dead End (27 page)

“What’s it to you?” Chauncey hauled on the waistband of his pants. “I believe in helpin’ out the little people.”

“It’s nothing to me,” Spike said. “Just like to be sure where to find folks if I need ‘em. Would you mind if I asked a few other questions? There’s been quite a lot going on around town lately, and since you’re a man in the know, you might have something useful to share—without knowing it, of course.”

“Thirty miles,” Chauncey said, looking at Dante through narrowed eyes and as if he’d forgotten Spike was there. “How d’you get there? Take off the shoes and socks. I want to see your feet.”

“
Chauncey,
”
Dante said.

“Oh, yeah.” Chauncey remembered Spike again.

“Can we get back to those questions?” He glanced at Chauncey’s drumming fingers. “Have you been a participant in, or a witness to, any fights in the past few days?”

Dante’s gape matched Chauncey’s, who said, “What kind of question is that? The answer’s
no.
I’m a respectable businessman. This town looks up to me. I ain’t got time for that kind of irresponsible behavior.”

“I didn’t think you did.” Spike kept on looking at the drumming fingers. “You better get your lovely wife to buy you some good garden gloves. You’re ruining your nails—and I bet you don’t use hand lotion before you go to bed.”

Chauncey checked out the backs of his hands, then the palms. His Adam’s apple rose and fell several times. “Precious takes one look at these and she’s gonna be mad. I’d better get some dressings on.” He did a Basset House imitation with his eyes. “How’s a man supposed to curb his natural urges. I learned my trade from the ground up. I still like to get in with my men and do what I know best.”

“I like a man who works with his hands,” Spike said. “It’s manly. By the way, I got a message from a woman. On the phone. I think it could have been Precious disguising her voice.”

Chauncey found a metal file in a desk draw and went to work smoothing his nails.

“Hear what I said?” Spike asked.

“Women,” Chauncey said. “Who understands the stuff they do?”

“I don’t know, but this one could be a problem to you, so you might want to do something about what she’s saying.”

Dante, who stood in front of a small, distorted mirror hanging on a wall, had bent his splayed knees while he restored his hair to its usual pomaded elegance. He stopped pushing the front forward in a shelf and stared at Chauncey in the mirror.

The nail file spun through the air, hit Dante’s back, and landed on the floor. Chauncey said, “Not hard enough. I’m losing my touch.”

“Want to know what the lady said?” Spike said.

Chauncey shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.”

“That’s a good thing.” Spike told him. “Easier on the nerves.” He backed toward the door.

“On the other hand, I guess I’m sorta interested.”

Spike made a dismissive gesture. “Had to be malicious. Couldn’t have been anything to take seriously. She suggested that all the cars you get in here aren’t on account of wrecks. She reckoned you do what she called
elective plastic surgery,
whatever that means. Something to do with new paint jobs and changing plates. But you wouldn’t do things like that. Dealing in stolen cars is against the law.”

Chauncey’s mouth had dropped open, and Spike could hear him breathing.

“Nice to spend time with you two.” And he had enjoyed the occasion. “Doesn’t Chauncey ever put you to work for your supper, Dante? How come you didn’t mess up your hands?”

“I wore gloves, Officer.”

Chauncey thudded back and forth on the linoleum-covered floor.
“
I wore gloves, Officer,
”
he said, and switched to a mincing step. He flapped his hands. “I wore fucking gloves. You did what he wanted you to do—you admitted we did something together with our hands. Why didn’t you just up and tell him we had a hell of a time getting the slab off that tomb with only two of us.”

“I’m sorry, Chauncey.”

“This is what I get for bein’ good to my friends—and to my wife. You all turn against me…Wait till I get my hands on that woman. I’ll kill her.”

“Don’t do anything hasty,” Dante said.

Chauncey took a good look at his so-called loyal friend. “Where is she? You were supposed to follow her and make sure you knew where she went. Every day you’re supposed to follow her. You’re doing a lousy job.”

“How good would you do, following a mark in a Jag on foot? I gotta have wheels.”

“And run ‘em over some little old lady? You need that surgery.”

“Nobody’s touching my eyes. Forget it.”

Chauncey’s head felt like it would split in half. “She don’t go far. She don’t know any place but around here.”

“Says you.” Dante hitched at his own pants and exercised his neck. “You want to know what happened with her? You got it. I followed like you said. Suddenly she’s walking beside me, mouthing off about you—and me. She goes to the Jag and I go with her. In she jumps and she’s swinging past me when I manage to jerk open the door and throw myself inside. Coulda killed myself, but nothing’s too much to do for my friend Chauncey.”

An imagination wouldn’t be something Chauncey would accuse Dante of having, but this heroic picture didn’t fit the man. “Go on.”

Dante pushed back his jacket, revealing his piece. “You aren’t going to believe this.”

Probably not.

“She drove so fast I couldn’t believe some cop didn’t stop us. Don’t ask me where we went. You know I don’t got no sense of direction. She drove and she started cryin’. Sheesh, she wouldn’t stop.
Chauncey doesn
’
t understand me. I love him more than my life, but I got to fight all the time just to make him notice me.
”

“Garbage.”

Dante pushed out his chin and nodded. “Who knows what makes women tick? Anyway. It don’t mean nothing. Forget the whole thing.”

“She’s drawn attention to my business. Devol’s going to be watching, which means I gotta cool it till he loses interest.”

“Just let it go,” Dante said. “It’ll all pass over.”

“Everything passes over in the end,” Chauncey said, lowering his voice and taking pleasure in the clicking sound that came from Dante’s throat. “Don’t forget I’m as good as protecting you. You came here with a job to do.”

“And I did it.”

“It got done, more like it,” Chauncey told him. “You just about fucked up before I looked after things. If your boss in New Orleans finds out about that, you’re a dead man.”

Dante looked belligerent. “He’s never going to know.”

“Not if your luck holds and I don’t tell what I know. Now quit blowing smoke, and finish with Precious. She was driving around, bawling, and you were sitting there praying she didn’t drive up a tree. What else? Did she call Devol in front of you?”

“No, she didn’t. D’you think I wouldn’t have stopped her? She drove till I didn’t know what state we was in. Then we went off the road and way into all these trees. She seemed to know where she was going, but I can’t swear to it.”

“Then what?”

“Precious stopped the car.”

“And?”

Dante blushing was an unnerving sight. “Aw, don’t make me spell it out.”

Chauncey’s gut clenched. He took Dante by the lapels of his jacket and slammed him against a wall. “Answer the question.”

“It’s embarrassin’, that’s all. She told me she thought one of her tires was going down and asked me to get out and check it.”

Chauncey rested his forehead on Dante’s chest. “You stupid shit. Let me finish this for you. Precious waited until you were out of the car and she drove off, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. I ran after the car so I could try to see which way she went, but—”

“Shut up,” Chauncey said. He was going to have to give up on delegating from now on. “Just—shut—up.”

Marc stood behind Reb in front of the bathroom mirror and made it as tough as possible for her to apply first aid to her wet hair. But she didn’t get mad, just kept on smiling and pretending she didn’t feel a thing.

“If we can get out of here without anyone noticing we’re damp, we’re in the clear,” he told her and kissed her neck.

She kept skewering pins into a topknot. “And if we
are
seen?”

“We behave as if nothing’s happened.”

Reb looked from her own ruined appearance to Marc’s. “That should work. Especially if we run into Cyrus. If he notices at all, he isn’t worldly or smart enough to figure out what we’ve been doing. He’ll probably think we’ve been in the pool?”

“With our clothes on?”

She snorted. “That would make it harder to explain, that and there being no pool.”

He wasn’t going to visualize the scene. “What you’re really saying is, you didn’t like it. Not the way it was. It didn’t feel right and it wasn’t romantic. I feel bad about that.”

An elbow landed in his unprepared solar plexus. “Oof.” Marc pretended to be incapacitated. Then he grabbed her around the waist. “Your place or mine.”

Reb turned in his arms and blew gently on his lips. “You are not original. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Not until now. Do that again. The blowing thing.”

She obliged.

Shivering, he told her, “You are so sexy.”

“Let’s go,” she said. “Fast. First, be quiet and listen.”

They stood nose to nose, each with an ear to the door. Reb shut her eyes and squinched up her face in concentration. Marc listened, too, but couldn’t handle her expression. He lost it, and when she caught him by the ear and twisted, just a little, he laughed harder and she couldn’t stay serious any longer.

The merriment subsided, leaving Reb with the hiccups.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she clapped a hand over it. “Not another word,” she whispered. “You’re enjoying this. Danger excites you.” She hooked a thumb toward the door. “Out.”

“You first.”

“Uh uh.” Her hands were on her hips. “We don’t know what may be out there. You have to protect me.
You
first.”

“Toussaint’s most emancipated woman suddenly wants a big, strong man to protect her. If someone comes, you want to lock the door on me and leave me hanging out to dry.”

She looked innocent, then smiled. “You’ve got it.”

He opened the door. Reb’s hand was in his by the time he led the way into the corridor—and confronted Cyrus and Madge outside the sitting room.

If only he hadn’t knocked the shower on. There was no disguising the wet patches all over their clothes. “Hey, you two,” he said to Cyrus and Madge. Reb hiccuped and eased her fingers from his. “Did you settle anything with Ozaire?”

Much too much time went by before Madge said, “I saw Cyrus leavin’ and made him take me along. Ozaire’s okay sometimes, but he can be a mean one.”

Cyrus turned the corners of his mouth up. “Madge had to protect me. She’s good at it. Maybe we should settle down for a chat…or probably not. You probably have to get on. Do other things.” His voice faded away.

“We came because we’ve got a lot to go over,” Marc said. Cyrus’s discomfort added to his own. “That hasn’t changed.”

“That hasn’t changed,” Reb echoed. Trying to swallow her next hiccup didn’t work.

Cyrus coughed. “Yes, well—Madge and I have been going over everything we know about Bonnie. Four heads are better than two, and you’d want to be involved anyway, Marc.”

He’d been handed some hope that there might be support forming for his conviction that it had been Amy who died in the church. He stood back for Reb to enter the sitting room ahead of him. Cyrus and Madge would have to be deaf not to have heard the two of them laughing in the bathroom. Appearing the way they had told the story anyway.

“Would you like some water?” Madge asked Reb.

“Drink it backward,” Cyrus said, apparently serious. “From the far side of the glass. And hold your nose.”

Reb said, “The scientific approach.”

“Gotcha!” Marc grabbed the back of Reb’s neck. She jumped madly and spun around.

Marc’s lips twitched. Cyrus and Madge watched Reb expectantly. She didn’t tell Marc what she thought of him—and she didn’t hiccup.

“See?” Marc said, feeling reckless. “Science gets the job done every time.”

“Thanks for bringing in a little humor when things are so serious,” Reb said. “I’ll try to do the same for you sometime. Cyrus, did Ozaire come to his senses?”

“Lil’s getting a raise,” Cyrus said with a faint smile. “That seemed to make him happy. Just as well, because I couldn’t have let him sell fish outside the church—not unless I let everyone in town set up a stall and sell their wares. But he didn’t even mention
goings on
in the parish. It’s hard for some folks to make a living around here.”

“It is,” Madge agreed. She looked good in jeans and a yellow shirt. “There isn’t much left over, but we do a good job of keeping costs down and helping people, don’t we?”

Cyrus frowned. “Maybe too good in some areas and not nearly good enough in others.”

Marc didn’t know what that meant and knew better than to ask. He realized they all stood stiffly in the center of the room. “It isn’t my place to suggest it, Cyrus, but could we sit down?” His legs were still rubbery, but he doubted mentioning that would please anyone, least of all Reb.

“Sit, sit,” Cyrus said and waited until Madge, Reb, and Marc had perched themselves on the comfortable furniture before planting himself on an ottoman. He smiled and slapped his knees.

“Um, what’s happenin’ in Toussaint is really weird,” Madge said, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Sure is,” Reb agreed. She looked sideways at Marc, and he winked at her.

“Spike’s spread too thin,” Cyrus said. “He’s got two part-time deputies who are wet behind the ears, and he doesn’t earn enough to keep his family without having another business. He’s industrious. Not being able to give every criminal case his full attention must kill him.”

“I know it does,” Reb said, leaning forward from the couch. “And he works with one hand tied behind his back. He has to answer to people he rarely sees, and ask permission for every move he makes.”

Marc wiggled his toes inside his shoes. His socks were damp. “So he’s in the same position most people are who work for someone else.”