Holy Death (7 page)

This shit. “Lafitte’s back in town, man.”

“Luh who?”

Goddamn, they were young. “Lafitte? One of the cops who killed my brother, man. Lafitte?”

One O Four nodded. “Okay, okay, I feel you, I feel you.”

“So...my brother was BGM.”

Nodding like a bobblehead. “Right, right.”

Jesus, where was that motherfucker Bark at? “I need some extra eyes on him, man. I can’t keep up on my own.”

Big smile. “Thought you already had it covered, what I heard.”

“What’s that now?”

One O Four said, “Something about you giving up some green for those eyes already, I heard, when you could’ve come talk to us first. You done fucked up, so what makes you think BGM will work for free?”

DeVaughn set his jaw. Smelling his own sweat out here now was no fucking picnic. Quick look at Melissa, still standing like a good, respectable lady, Mona Lisa lips, looking off into the water.

“Look, we’re all in this together. This is about family.”

“This is about cash money, nigga. This is about me and these boys with me that will do whatever you want as long as we see your bank roll first. What you got for me?”

“I’m asking for help here.”

“Son, you ain’t asking for shit. You paying. You the one turned your back on the Mob to go play cards. This ain’t family. Your family is long gone. BGM’s got a reputation to protect. So I need to see cash up front, enough to keep all of us happy while we watch for this white boy you talking about.”

DeVaughn thought about the cash in his pocket. He’d already spent more than he could afford if he wanted to play in the New Orleans tournament. Getting Lafitte was more important, but he still had to make a living. “I got a thousand.”

One O Four laughed. “And I got a whole lot of other shit to do.”

“Fifteen.”

“Hundred? Listen, let’s be real here.” Thumb on his chin again. “I know what you rocking. I know about your card game in New Orleans, and I know you got to have at least 10K on you. I’m not greedy, but I also ain’t stupid. You need some change left over to impress your lady here. Shouldn’t take much. Drive her through a Wendy’s and you all set. Listen. Five of us here, we’ll give you the family discount. Fifteen
each
. That’ll leave you enough for some slots, a Motel Six, and three helpings of Long John Silver’s for your whale.”

Whoa, boy, that got them laughing.

Even more when Melissa stepped around DeVaughn and slapped the living fuck out of One O Four. DeVaughn couldn’t tell if One O Four was playing or not, staggering until he nearly fell off the pier before one of his back-up grabbed hold, pushed him in front of the girl again. DeVaughn was ready to take him out if he struck back. But Melissa towered over the wannabe godfather. One O Four was all wiry muscle, tight tight
tight
.

She went, “You disrespect me all you want. I love French fries, I love pizza, I love Mickey D’s, too, and it shows. You’d still ride it if you got the chance, but you’re not ever going to get the chance.”

“Shit, bitch—”

“Did I say talk, boy?”

Ooo, white bitch call him boy.
Got himself a chorus.

“What I am telling you, are you listening?” Hands on her hips, leaning in. “You don’t disrespect your elders. Especially one who can buy and sell your sorry slave ass.”

Before he could react, she lifted her foot without looking at it, pulled off her flip flop, and started slamming it against his ear. This time there wasn’t no play-acting. It really did motherfucking hurt, and he really did try to shield himself as he dropped onto the pier and curled into a ball. She took her bare foot and pressed it hard against his cheek and said, “You going to tell Bark to call DeVaughn. You going to tell him he’s lucky DeVaughn
asked
for help instead of just taking who he needed. And you ain’t getting one goddamned dollar.”

She gave her foot a twist and stepped back. She threw her flop down, flipped it right side up, and she walked past DeVaughn to the car. A diva. Shit, wasn’t nothing else to say. DeVaughn turned to follow her.

One O Four was still seething and saying, “Shit shit shit” but got it together and said, “Got some fat bitch doing his talking for him? Like I got to respect that?”

DeVaughn looked at him and said, “Yeah, I think it would be a good idea.”

He followed Melissa to the Caddy. Should be mad. Like One O Four said, he didn’t need no fat bitch doing his bidding. Wasn’t what no man did. But he was grinning. He was watching her sashay. He would watch her do anything. He’d watch her take a dump and like it. He’d never felt this way before.

When he caught up, he said, “You could’ve got yourself beat.”

She tossed her hair. “Him? I’ve been hit harder by bigger men.”

“Baby, Goddamn! You can’t be all up in my business, understand?”

She stopped in front of the Caddy and turned to him. Her stomach pressed against his as she smoothed his suit coat and fixed his shirt collar. “Something a man should know. The less he has to say, the stronger he is. There ain’t one of those assholes thinking bad about you right now. They thinking bad about One O Four, though. Let’s go get something to eat and wait for Bark to call you.”

“Yes ma’am.”

But before they stopped to eat, he pulled in behind a liquor store, put the car in park. He turned up the radio a little, commercials right now.

He gave her a look. She looked back, a little pissy. “What?”

He gave her a chin. “Girl...”

Melissa got it then, teethed her bottom lip. “What?”

“Lay your seat back.”

Grin. “Oh yeah? Again?”

“You better do it.”

She let her seat drop all the way, set her right foot on the dash, hiked her left leg up so DeVaughn could crawl over on top of her, then she braced her left foot against the steering wheel. He was already unbuckling. She took over while he helped push her dress up past her hips.

They fucked nice and hard and quick, didn’t even get to the next song on the radio. He lay there on top of her, her fingers grazing the back of his neck.

He was breathing hard, but asked her, “Damn, what is it ’bout you?”

She said, “You already know. No need to put it into words.”

Good enough for DeVaughn. When he was soft again, he slipped out of her pussy and said, “So, Long John Silver’s?”

She shook her head. “You and me, we need to be
seen
. Someplace nice, with waiters and shit.”

So that’s what they did.

––––––––

T
he patient’s mother always stayed later than she should’ve. The nurses had stopped warning her because whenever they did, they got a cold stare in response, enough to put them off asking again, let alone wanting to mess with that type of Jesus she worshipped, the old-style Pentecost. Everyone else at the facility was convinced, even though the woman proclaimed she loved Jesus and her screwed-up daughter, she sure as hell didn’t love much else.

Mrs. Hoeck took her time, and the staff waited her out. It took Ginny a while to settle down after visits from her mother. They’d explained to her mother over and over, “She’s very anxious after your visits.”

But her mother always said the same thing. “I’ll pray with her. That should make everything all right.”

It never did. Made it much worse. Made her daughter believe wishes might come true. And so Ginny would wander the room, waiting up all night for the man who would never come. No use telling her mother, though. It was almost as if she wanted Ginny to stay this way instead of helping her get better. Maybe it was why Mrs. Hoeck kept reminding Ginny about her suicide attempts, about Ginny’s own daughter, Savannah, asking about Mommy, and the news about “that man,” the one she would never call by name, as if keeping him alive in Ginny’s restless mind was supposed to be healthy. The nurses thought she did it to keep her hooks in.

When the doctor finally confronted Mrs. Hoeck about it, she said, “He’s a demon. The moment she forgets he’s there, torturing her spirit, is the moment he wins.”

Jesus Christ indeed. But as long as the insurance kept paying to keep her, the doctors and nurses would do their best to undo the damage while Ginny’s mother would come rip their stitches out the next afternoon.

But the one thing Mrs. Hoeck had never told Ginny, the one thing she had
forbidden
the staff to tell her about under threat of lawsuit and pulling her daughter from the facility, was that her son, Hamilton Lafitte, had died. A ten-year-old boy, killed in a prison riot in North Dakota. As far as Mrs. Hoeck was concerned, regardless of how much it held back her progress, that information would never, ever be given to Ginny.

The funny thing was, Ginny had forgotten she had a boy at all.

So another visit, another three hours of nearly wordless Ginny, listening to her mother ramble on, judgmental, sarcastic, indignant, as she kept Ginny up to date on the family, the church, and the awful state of America thanks to “President” Obama. It’s not that Ginny wouldn’t talk. She would, sometimes. She answered questions during the day. Simple things—what she wanted to eat, what she wanted to watch on TV, what music she wanted to listen to—but not much else. Never on her own initiative. Only yeses and nos, nods and shakes. But to Mrs. Hoeck, it was as if she was carrying on a full conversation with Ginny, never stopping for a response. The woman must have
imagined
her daughter was talking to her, making more than a few nurses wonder if they were taking care of the wrong family member.

After all, Mrs. Hoeck was the one who had watched her grandson die in a cold, soulless prison. She was the one who had been nearly raped by an inmate. She was the one who had been forced to escape through a hole in the wall and climb a fence topped with razor wire during a blizzard. She was the one who cradled Ham’s broken head in her lap as they raced to the hospital, far too late.

Who could blame her for having a screw loose? Who could blame her for embracing the Old Testament’s God of vengeance rather than the Jesus she wouldn’t shut up about?

Who could blame her for passing along her hate and despair to her only daughter now that Lafitte had been responsible for the death of her son, her grandson, and her daughter’s sanity? Ginny’s father had shut himself down, married to his wife in name only. The only reason he stuck around was because he was too old to divorce her, and because he wanted to help raise Savannah, somehow shield her from her grandmother’s influence.

After another marathon visit, the nurse waiting at the station reading Rachael Ray’s magazine until the frigid Jesus-bitch passed by, not even a “thank you” or a “good night,” the nurse counted to ten and then walked down to Ginny’s room. She found her as expected, in her cozy chair, wrapped tight in her satin robe, wide-eyed and rocking.

“Saw your mom today?”

Ginny nodded. Didn’t look at the nurse.

“Did you have a nice visit?”

“Yeah.”

The nurse gathered the wrapping paper from the floor. Always wrapping paper, always gifts. Slippers and magazines, gospel CDs, Christian novels, ones Ginny never read. They had told Mrs. Hoeck to stop bringing so much stuff. But she kept on, and the nurse kept collecting it all, adding it to the box in the closet.

“Are you tired? Need a nap?”

Nothing. The nurse had her back to Ginny, though. She looked back over her shoulder. “I said, are you tired?”

Eyes closed tight. Ginny shook her head. She had petulant little-girl face.

Great, another long night
. “That’s okay, hon. That’s okay. Whenever you’re ready.” The nurse was forty-two, a single mother of a twenty-year-old son with two DUIs already, a maxed-out credit card with another one getting fuller by the month, and she hadn’t had any sex she could remember in two years—and only one time she couldn’t remember, but it must not have been any good, from the look of him the next morning.

So fine, another night of pretending to be Ginny Lafitte’s best pal, all the while hoping she would fall asleep, because having to talk to her like she was a helpless child was the top indignity in a job full of indignities. Even more so than cleaning up piss, poop, puke, and jizz. At least those sorts of duties were expected. But something about Ginny...always on the verge of attempting to end her life unless everyone tip-toed, and even that didn’t always help. It was exhausting. The nurse wanted to ask her, “If I hand you the knife, will you do it right this time?” And Ginny would surely nod, eager. But she’d never get it right. She didn’t really want to. She wanted to throw a tantrum and make a mess.

What a bitch.

Instead, the nurse sat on the stool opposite Ginny and asked, “Any music today? Your mom brought a new CD.”

Ginny shook her head, a little grin. Her way of saying,
I hate the CDs Mother brings
.

Not even a thank you. Day after day. The nurse let out a sigh and said, “Okay. I’ll drop by later. You know how to buzz me.”

Back to the station. Back to the rotation. She had a handful of other patients to check on before she could get back to her magazine. There was nothing in it she cared about, but it gave her something to do to keep her out of trouble. There was a patient, a nice man, maybe close to fifty, still with all his hair, thick, dyed-brown. He flirted with her, even though he was in for some sort of alcoholic psychosis episode. Nothing would ever happen. She didn’t want it to happen, and was ninety-seven percent positive she could will her way out of it happening, but she could still fantasize about it. She could still...

The nurse continued her rounds after Ginny’s room. Around the corner. She passed a delivery man. She was off in her own world, not even thinking about him, but she shook herself out of it and turned. “Excuse me?”

He stopped.

“It’s just me right now. I’ll take it.”

He nodded. Grinned. Walked back over and handed her the envelope.

“Do I need to sign for it?”

“No. It’s fine.”

“Thank you.” Big big smile. A mouthbreather. She checked the label. The envelope was for another department. Idiot. She looked up, but he was already gone.