Homemade Sin (6 page)

With Stinky at the bar Roland found himself alone with Dee Dee, stealing glances at her legs. She was a looker, strawberry blonde hair, a svelte body and sparkling blue eyes. He could see something behind those eyes. Passion? Insanity? He knew there was a fine line and the combination could be deadly.

“Thanks for the drinks and dinner,” said Dee Dee, “I'm flat broke. My landlord is threatening to put my stuff out on the street if I don't give him some money. Now I'm out of a job too. I'm a mess.”

“You are the most beautiful mess I've ever seen,” said Roland. “I'm sure you get this a lot but you are absolutely breathtaking, stunning.”

“Halifax hot,” said Dee Dee. “I used to be called Halifax hot.” She was smiling at him, her eyes sparkling mischievously.

“That's a term I've never heard,” said Roland, “but if it means knock-out, you are it.”

“I'm from South Boston,” said Dee Dee. “It's a little gnat's ass of a town in southwest Virginia. South Boston is the home of teetotalers, religious zealots and NASCAR. When I was growing up, a lot of things were forbidden, drinking, smoking, cussing, fooling around; not a fun place to grow up unless you happen to have an Amish idea of fun.”

“Was it an Amish community?”

“Southern Baptist,” Dee Dee said. “I think we did have one Amish family. At least they had a black carriage up on blocks in front of their mobile home. No, South Boston is a typical southern Baptist town, probably part of the reason I have Intermittent Tourette's syndrome. I wasn't allowed to cuss or drink or fool around as a girl. Now, I'm trying to make up for lost time. I guess it's sort of like a preacher's kids the first week in college, they go hog wild. Only my first week has been going on for five years.”

Roland watched Stinky hop off the bar and saunter back to the table and leap into a chair.

“The zombie drink didn't work,” Stinky said in Roland's head. “That stuff didn't turn the guy into a zombie.”

“It's a just drink,” Roland said. “It's got cherry brandy, rum, lemon, lime and orange juice and a little grenadine.”

“And it doesn't turn people into zombies?” Stinky sighed, manifestly disappointed.

“Of course not,” said Roland. “There's no such thing as zombies. That's only in bad horror movies.”

A condescending grin played at the corners of Stinky's mouth. “'There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'” Stinky's voice was redolent and Shakespearian in Roland's head.

“Now I suppose you knew Shakespeare?”

The waiter arrived shortly after Stinky returned and placed drinks before the couple and the saucer of cream and brandy in front of Stinky on the floor. Stinky's grin widened enigmatically as he bent down and began lapping up the creamy concoction.

“You're doing it again,” said Dee Dee. “Having a one-sided conversation with that cat. Are you a little crazy?”

“Well, that's debatable,” said Roland. He thought about his running telepathic conversation with Stinky.

Dee took a sip from her glass. “Here is to fucking South Boston.” As she ran her tongue over her lips, she slipped off a sandal, stretched out her foot and brushed her toes against Roland's ankle.

Roland smiled. “Tourette's?” he said. “Isn't that where you can't control what you say, you cuss a lot?”

“Yeah, but I don't have it all the time. It comes and goes. Anyway,” Dee Dee said, “the next town over from South Boston was called Halifax. It was smaller but, for some reason, the girls who grew up over there were a lot prettier than the girls in South Boston, so when a South Boston girl was hot she was called ‘Halifax hot'. I was called that a lot growing up; about forty-seven times, actually. That's how many guys were in my graduation class. ”

“How did you get to Key West?”

“You mean why did I leave South Boston?” Dee Dee said. “Besides the dogma, the moralistic oppression, and the boredom? I was asked to leave when I was nineteen. Actually, the town was nice enough to buy me a one-way bus ticket to Key West, as far south as they could send me.”

“You actually got run out of town! Why?”

“I was dating this guy and the town didn't approve. He was easily the richest guy in town. I think it was mostly his wife who objected, but the town agreed with her so they sent a town deputy to my house one day with a bus ticket.”

“That's the meanest thing I've ever heard,” said Roland, trying not to smile. Impressive, he thought, I've never known anyone who was actually run out of town.

“They could have been meaner and sent me north.” Dee Dee grinned. “Actually it a good thing, it got me here. I'm doing better here.”

“I thought you said you were broke and about to be evicted,” said Roland.

“It's still better than there.” She took another sip of mango daiquiri. “And I'll find another job, there's lots of call for what I do.”

“What do you do?”

“I cut fish, make sushi,” Dee Dee said. “Maybe you know someone in town who needs a sushi chef, or a roommate?”

“I'm a tourist,” Roland said, “I'm here to reevaluate my life.”

“I do that every day,” said Dee Dee. “How long are you in town?”

“Tonight's my last night. I have to head back to St. Pete tomorrow. I own a little restaurant and hotel back at St. Pete Beach.

“You own a restaurant?” Dee Dee said, with new-found interest.

“Yeah, but I had to close it and come down here to get away from it for a while. My chef recently landed in jail, fourth DWI, and my waitress quit to marry one of my customers. She was twenty-something and he was seventy-something; he was loaded so I guess that was the attraction. Anyway, business has dropped off lately. That's one of the main things I came down here to reevaluate. I need to figure out a way to revamp the bar to bring in customers. Actually I need to remake my life. It sucks lately. I'm no closer to an answer than when I arrived here a week ago. And tomorrow I have to go back and hire a new chef and a new waitress and re-open the hotel and restaurant in time for the snowbirds to arrive. I'm at the point where, unless I come up with something to turn the place around, I'll have to close it down. I never wanted to be a restaurateur in the first place. I've always wanted to be a writer. I've written some stuff … nothing the agents ever liked, but I keep trying.”

“What kind of stuff do you write?” said Dee Dee.

“I've tried a little of everything: Fiction, children's books, chick lit, plays, musicals. I've even posted a play on my website. The play's called Shakespeare in the Trailer Park. Some high school near Orlando actually wrote me asking if they could perform it. I said ‘go for it'. That's the last I heard from them so I guess there were no New York producers in the audience scouting for off Broadway.”

“And the restaurant?” Dee Dee tried to steer the conversation back to his business and an opportunity for her potential employment.

“The restaurant's only part of the operation,” Roland said, “There's also a motel, two floors of rooms facing the beach, and a bar. The view from the dining room is beautiful though, overlooks a pretty strip of beach and the Gulf. The bar is the key. I can generally count on filling up the rooms between October and March, when the snowbirds flock in; they drink at the bar and eat bar food in the restaurant, but summers are tough. The snowbirds take wing in March and when they head back up north, my business goes south. I need to find a way to attract the locals, folks from St. Pete, Clearwater, even Tampa, to keep the place above water during the summer and hurricane season.”

“What kind of food do you serve?”

“Florida fare, fish mostly. We also serve stone crab in season, steaks and chops, stuff like that.”

“Have you ever thought about serving sushi?” Dee Dee envisioned a grand Florida hotel, like the Don Caesar, the Biltmore or the Paradise Hotel with live alligators in fountains in the lobby and rich old men trolling the bar. She could see herself installed in a penthouse, cutting fish in a five-star restaurant, and interviewing potential sugar daddies. She saw Roland as her ticket out of Key West and into the good life.

She decided to be nice to him, very nice to him. She moved her foot further up his calf. “Maybe you need a new image, a theme, something unusual that would attract customers.” She ran her foot higher up his leg, letting her toenails scrape against his skin.

“You mean like a British pub or one of those places that insults the customers?”

“I don't know. It's a Florida beach bar, what is Florida known for?” Dee Dee said.

“Alligators, palm trees, oranges, retirees, snowbirds, Ponce de Leon, hurricanes —”

“How about a hurricane theme?” Dee Dee interrupted. “You could like name drinks after different Hurricanes like Francis, Jeanne, Wilma, Hugo, Katrina.”

“And when someone orders a Katrina, I could keep them waiting an hour to get their drink.” Roland grinned.

“We'll think of something,” said Dee Dee. Her foot was now in Roland's crotch and she was wiggling her toes titillatingly.

Roland caught the ‘we' and smiled. “I'm already thinking of something, but it has nothing to do with the restaurant,” he said, giving her a lascivious grin.

Roland noticed a look in her eye, like a kid scrutinizing an ant before he whipped out a magnifying glass from his pocket. It was a look of lethal curiosity. It unnerved him and excited him at the same time.

Under the table Stinky gazed at Dee Dee's foot in Roland's crotch. He was pleased with the direction things were taking: Perfect and according to plan. Stinky polished off his bowl of brandy and cream, licked his whiskers and jumped up on the table.

“She likes you man.” Stinky's voice sounded in Roland's head. “I think you might get lucky tonight. Why don't you pick up a bottle of wine, some brandy and cream and we can all take a long walk on the beach?”

As Hussey approached Mama's weather-beaten bungalow she spied Obadiah hammering nails into the graying boards of the ramshackle chicken coop. “Hey Obadiah,” she called out, “I came to say good-bye to you and Mama. Is she in the house?”

“Yeah, she's in the house,” Obadiah said, halting his hammering long enough to wipe his wrinkled brow with a ratty looking red bandana. “She's been mixing up potions all morning, putting together a little voodoo travel kit for you. Go on in, she's expecting you.”

As she had done almost every day for the last ten years, Hussey climbed the creaking steps that led up to the sagging porch. The screen door slammed behind her as she entered Mama's front parlor. She found Mama seated on her threadbare couch spreading out tarot cards on her marble-topped table and making notes with a fountain pen. Without looking up Mama said, “I made a batch of that sangria you like. I'll get Bella to bring it.”

Hussey plopped down in the embroidered chair across from Mama as she had done that first day so many years ago. She slipped off her knapsack and let it slide to the floor.

“Bella!” Mama shouted. “Bring some sangria from the ice box and, while you're at it, bring some of those voodoo doll cookies too.” She swept the cards into a stack and stuffed the pen into the pocket of her house dress.

“How's Bella Donna working out?” Hussey said.

“I should have thrown her out on her skinny ass after the first week she was here,” Mama swore and shook her head. “She cooks worse than Obadiah and since she lost her eyesight she either breaks or spills everything she touches … but I don't have the heart to put her out.”

“How long has she been with you now?”

“She showed up on my doorstep about six months ago,” said Mama. “She said she was living on the road and hadn't eaten in days. I can still see the poor thing standing on my porch, so covered in road dirt and mud I thought she was a Golem. She held her sad little paper sack to her chest like it held everything she owned. She had a pleading look in her eyes when she told me she wanted to study voodoo and she had traveled halfway across the country looking for a voodun who needed an apprentice. I didn't have the heart to turn her away. Then, when she went blind all of a sudden, I kind of figured it was my obligation to keep her around.”

“It is a shame how she went blind a few weeks after she came to work for you,” said Hussey.

Mama flipped a card on to the table, changing the subject. “The cards say you can take the girl away from the voodoo, but you can't take the voodoo away from the girl. There's voodoo in your future girl, even if you are running away to that medical doctor school down in Saint Petersburg. I said it the first day I met you and I'll say it again.”

“I don't care what the cards say.” Hussy glared at Mama Wati. “I'm going to be a medical doctor. No more spells, no more charms, no more voodoo.”

“If that's true child, it would be a damned shame, but I know better. You're a voodun, the best apprentice I've ever had, you're a natural at it. I never met anybody who could throw a conjure like you.”

“I just came to say goodbye.” Hussey sighed.

Mama flipped the next card in the deck onto the marble-topped table. “See this card?” she said. “The high priestess. That's you girl, I knew it was you the first time you sat your pretty little behind in that chair ten years ago, and it's still you today, and it will be you until you die. You can't fool the buzzards of destiny.”

“I told you I'm going to be a legitimate medical doctor,” Hussey said, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. “I'm through with voodoo.”

“Voodoo is your destiny, child!” shouted the old woman. “You're a natural born voodun,” Mama said in a much softer tone. “You got the mark, girl, and a strong one too. I saw it in your palm. It's a good thing you found me; you might never have known you had the gift. A voodun growing up alone without guidance is a sad and dangerous child. Takes someone like me to recognize it and help you develop it. And that's just what I did the last ten years. But even after all my training; you're still a sad and dangerous child. Why don't you stay here, take over from me when I'm gone? Be the official voodun of Cassandra. I ain't going to be around much longer. I've already seen the signs, seen a raven at the window, heard a screech owl at midnight and, sometimes, I see those shadow people out of the corner of my eye. Those shadow people are just waiting for me to die.”