Now Let's Talk of Graves (29 page)

“Mardi Gras afternoon?”

“Day before, I think. That's it. This Jimbo and Maynard were real palsy-walsy. Maynard buying him drinks.”

“Honey, Maynard would buy a golf cart a drink, once he's got going.”

“You know what I mean. They were cozied up to each other. Could that have anything to do with what you think Maynard's up to? His little Wednesday meetings over to the cemetery?”

“Lordy, honey, I don't know. Wouldn't it just be the living end if Maynard had turned queer too?”

Chéri shook her head. “I don't think Maynard's the type.”

“Why not? He gave up screwing me long time ago—must be screwing something.”

“Maynard's not cute enough to be queer.”

“Not all gayboys are cute, Chéri. Child, where have you
been
?”

“Not cute as you, that's for sure.”

Marietta squinched up her shoulders, pushing out her own pretty chest. “I'm no homosexual, darlin'.”

“Unh-uh, girl. You sure ain't. You just like to—”

Howard couldn't help himself, leaned over to catch the rest of that as he was passing by with a club sandwich heavy on the mayo for fat ol' Miss Boudrant, who couldn't even wait till lunch.

“—be with me.” Chéri fluttered her eyelashes at Howard, then winked.

“Well, whatever it is, I think we ought to check up on it,” Marietta said. “I think the time to divorce that silly son of a bitch is drawing nigh. And God knows, I want to do it to him. Put it to him. He's gonna have every divorce lawyer in the state of Louisiana on his side.”

“Yeah, that's right. But like I told you, Joey's got lawyers'll make them little boy attorneys cry out in the night. Scream for their mamas.”

“I know you keep saying that, darlin'. But I can't believe mob lawyers do divorces. Nobody Italian ever
gets a
divorce. Especially your type of Italian. They just make people disappear.”

Chéri's eyes were as clear and blue as the sky out over the Gulf right after a big blow. She looked dead at Marietta. Smiled. Blinked once. Twice.

Twenty-Four

SAM, WEARING HER new Reeboks, turned smartly out of Ma Elise's gate onto the sidewalk. That's what her body needed—to clear her brain—a good shaking up. Eight glasses of water a day, seven hours' sleep, forty-five minutes of sweat.

What she'd had here in the past few days had been more like coffee, coffee, and more coffee. Last night she'd tossed and turned, dreaming about Harry holding out a french-fried rat, saying, You're so smart, Ms. Know-It-All, howsa-bout
this
? Rich sauces and fat, fat, fat were marshaling forces to set up camp in her thighs, not to mention her brain.

Exercise. Exercise. Watch me do my exercise.

And a meeting wouldn't hurt a-tall. She'd call AA and find one.

Picking up speed, she swung her arms race-walking fashion as she headed toward St. Charles.

Who the hell did Church's ridiculous attorney Preston Peacock think he was? It truly was a wonder more lawyers weren't assassinated.

Oh, no, Miss Adams, darlin',
darlin'
,
he'd said on the phone, there was no point in her comin' in. He was far too busy, goin' to spend the whole week in court, she'd just caught him by his coattails runnin' out the door, but he couldn't tell her a thing about Church, his finances? Oh, no, that was privileged info, but his client was dead, well, that made it even more privileged, didn't it? And questions were, well out of the question, didn't matter that she was a friend of the Lees, no, no, no, no, no.

She wanted to rip out Mr. Peacock's tailfeathers.

She hit St. Charles at a fast clip, turned left, heading Uptown.

She waved at an ancient lady all in violet who had just stepped out on the front porch of a particularly splendiferous mansion. The woman stonily stared down her salute.

Quite likely she was one of those
grandes dames
Ma Elise had been telling her about—who never shopped, had everything sent. After all, it was
common
to go out in the street. You'd run into people you didn't know.

Like, she thought, picking up speed, heading toward General Taylor Street, Jimbo King.

The streets flew by: Washington Avenue, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Pleasant, Toledano, Louisiana, Delachaise, Aline, Foucher, Antonine, Amelia, Peniston. General Taylor was next.

And Jimbo King—who lived next door to G.T. on that very street.

Jimbo's name had popped to the top of her list of must-sees after she'd slammed down the phone on Preston Peacock. Now she remembered that she'd made that list of people to see talking with Harry in the Royal O.

Harry. She shoved him right out of her mind.

But then his pretty face popped right back up. She ran faster, working up a sweat now. Harry would go away. But wouldn't it be great to have him around now—to follow up on Billy Jack while she went after Maynard Dupree? Maynard was next, right after Jimbo King.

She and Harry could have danced through this investigation together, if only Harry hadn't wanted to lead.

Who
wanted to lead, Samantha? a little voice inside asked.

Okay, okay, so I
was
a little controlling, I'll give you—
kersplat.

Sam sprawled on the sidewalk, done in by a live oak tree whose roots had made cookie crumbs of the concrete. “Owh!” she cried, afraid to touch her scraped knees.

“Help you, ma'am?” A yardman was coming toward her, holding a bunch of red-hearted caladium in one hand. He turned off his Walkman and said, “You best come with me up on the porch.”

“No, I'm fine really.” Except her knees hadn't hurt this much since she was five and bounced off her bike in the middle of Peachtree.

The old man paid no attention to her, taking her arm, pulling her up, leading her to the porch. He settled her into one of a pair of rocking chairs.

“You stay.” He pointed a finger, talking to her just like she did to her Shih Tzu, Harpo, who was back in Atlanta pouting right this minute.

“Here you be.” The yardman was back, handing her a wet washdoth. “You dab that off good. Then we put some peroxide on it.” He pulled a brown bottle out of his khaki pants pocket.

“Thanks.” Sam smiled. “You make me feel like a little girl again.”

“What you look like, too, running around in your bitty shorts.” The old man laughed, his face crinkling up—the same color as a pecan pie. “Ought to be staying out of the sun, anyway. Or carry you a parasol like Miz Villère.” He jerked a thumb toward the mansion's front door.

Sam couldn't believe her luck. Church's wife had been a Villère before she'd married.

“
Madeline
Villère live here once?”

“Nun-unh. She be gone a long time.”

“But she lived here?”

He pointed his chin downtown. “No, ma'am. She growed up down the street. Other side. This here's her cousin's house.”

“But you remember Madeline?”

“Shore do. Pretty girl.”

“You know what happened to her?”

The old man scratched his head. “Nawh. I shore don't.”

“Didn't she marry Church Lee?”

“Unh-huh. She liked shoes.”

“What?”

“Lots of shoes, I 'member that. Like that Imelder. Imelder Marcos. You know her?”

“Sure, I know who you're talking about.”

“She made a record album. You know that?”

“Imelda Marcos made a record album?”

“Shore did. My grandbaby played it for me. I tole him ought not to spend money on trash like that. Woman ought to be strung up.”

“Imelda Marcos, you mean?”

He gave her a look. “'Course. You think I mean Miz Madeline? Nawh.” He shifted what looked like a wad of chewing tobacco. “Miz Madeline be an angel.”

“What else do you remember about her?”

“Liked black brassieres. 'Course, I always did think those was kind of nice myself.” The old man tee-heed.

He couldn't fool her with that one. “Imelda, you mean.”

“Shore. You know, there's another woman on that album named Imelder too. Guess that's a popular name over in the Philippines. My son was over there in the war. Shore was. Left a hand. Guess it's buried there somewheres. Mine blew it clean off.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Do you know if Mad—”

“That Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan did that too, you know.”

“What?”

“Made an album together. My grandbaby played that one for me. He shore keeps up on white folks' music.” The old man laughed, showing a full set of brilliantly white teeth. “Excuse me.” He spit off the porch into the camellias. It was chewing tobacco all right. “I saw him last night. He tole me he was moving up to Virginia. I said, Sweet baby, I don't unnerstan' why you want to be moving out of the South. He said it still was.”

“Said Virginia's the South?” Sam laughed. “Well, we know it's not.”

“Where you from?”

“Atlanta.”

“Yep.” The old man nodded. “That's the South.”

She couldn't resist. “Where do you think it stops?”

Old man scratched his head under his straw hat. “Well, Texas ain't the South. On the left side.”

“Right.”

“And Arkansas is. 'Cept that part up there in the left-hand corner got mountains. I been up there onct. Visited a cousin in Little Rock. We drove up in them mountains. That ain't the South. People's different in the mountains. And there ain't no black peoples, so how could it be the South?”

“Mississippi?”

“Shore. 'Bama, Georgia, South Carolina.”

“Florida?”

“Well, I ain't ever been there, but they tell me it's a lot like New York.”

“The southern part is, around Miami. What about Tennessee?”

The old man shrugged. “Yeah. Mostly. But—” He shook his head. “You know they got mountains too, I hear. I ain't never been there either. 'Cept to Memphis.”

“And that was sure Southern.”

“Graceland.” The old man spread his hands, pale palms up. Need he say more?

“What about North Carolina? Kentucky? West Virginia?”

“Prob'ly North Carolina, but not them others. I think you stop at South Carolina, you got it. What you think?”

“I think you ought to go on TV in New York. On the ‘Today Show.' Explain it to folks.”

That
tickled the old man. He bent over, raised a knee like a little old flamingo, slapped himself on the rear right near the white handkerchief hanging out of his pocket. “Wouldn't that be something? Shore would.”

“Would.” It was hard not to copy his style.

He thought about that for a few minutes. “New York,” he said under his breath. Staring out into the yard, he seemed to focus on something that needed doing, then said, “You want another glass of water?”

“Don't mind if I do.” The longer she stayed, she figured, the better chance she had of getting him to talk about Madeline.

“Well, hold on. I'll—” But as Luther turned, a shadow appeared at the door.

“Luther?” The voice was a tremulous soprano.

“Yes'm, Tante Marie.”

“I'll be needing you to help me soon on the east gallery.”

“Yes'm.”

Sam caught a shadowy glimpse of a tiny little old lady in a long black dress that came to the tips of her shiny black patent shoes. A cameo caught the ruffle at her neck.

Her white hair was a coronet of braids. A pale hand fluttered. Then she disappeared.

“Who's that?”

“Tante Marie.”

“Villère?”

Luther shrugged, of course.

“She looks so old—old-fashioned.”

Luther laughed. “You can say that again. Tante Marie's kind of a throwback even for the Villères. Old-maid aunts like her used to live forever with the Creole fam'bly.”

“Creole. That means her family's—?”

“Don't mean what you think.” Luther shifted his chewing tobacco, then sat down on the edge of a step. “Don't mean no café au lait. Ain't none of us. Means descended from the French and, no, make that
or
the Spanish settled here before the Americans.”

“When Louisiana was a colony.”

“You got that right. Creoles the best people. The finest. The
old
blood. My fam'bly, we always worked for Creoles. For Villères, that matter, since before the war.”

“The war?”