Now Let's Talk of Graves (39 page)

“Could I buy you a drink?” Harry offered Calvin. “Maybe you could remember something about that young man?”

“Well, that's right kindly of you. Don't mind if I do.” He poured himself two fingers of Glenlivet. Sam watched the lights bounce off the top of his balding head as he leaned forward, tipped the glass back. “Now”—wiping his mouth—“this was, as I said, sometime back in the fall. Pretty late one night. It was still warm. You know how we don't have but one season here in N'Awlins, summer with a couple days of cool—”

Sam choked down the impulse to rush him.

“—anyway, the reason I mention that is Church was sweating like a pig.” He gestured down his chest, under his armpits. “Right through a good suit.”

“That's
some
sweating,” said Harry.

“Well, that's what I said too. Church said he'd been running a race.”

“A race?” Sam echoed, trying to keep the rising hope out of her voice. A bell was ringing in the back of her mind.

“Yeah. Said he'd been chasing this young man he had with him. Then they both laughed. Like it was a big joke.”

Sam grasped Harry's arm. The night Church was mugged. The story Zoe had told her. He'd bought the mugger a drink?

“Was it around eleven, eleven-thirty? Did Church say he'd been to a party?” Of course, that could describe many of Church's evenings—but then, this one had ended differently.

Calvin squinted. “Something like that. They came in, sat down there”—he pointed—“at the end of the bar. Stayed for about an hour. Discussing something serious, it looked like. Kind of peculiar.”

“Because of the young man?” asked Sam.

“Yeah. Like I said, the dude, well, he wasn't, well, he wasn't Uptown, that was for sure. And if he'd been chasing Church, it didn't make sense—”

Sam had been holding her breath. “What'd he look like?”

“Little bitty guy. Not a whole lot over five feet tall. Runty. Blond hair.”

SAM: “The guy at the airport!”

HARRY: “Billy Jack!”

And then they said the words over again a few times.

“Billy Jack!”

“The guy at the airport!”

“The little guy at the airport!”

“Billy Jack!”

“
Is
Billy Jack!”

Finally the light had dawned. Was it possible, the little guy at the airport and Billy Jack were the same?

“It's not only possible, it seems probable, doesn't it, now that you think about it?” Harry said.

It did. It was.

Sam threw up her hands. “Now what?”

Thirty-Three

LAVERT HAD PICKED the Napoleon House for the rendezvous with Harry, thinking the spot would retain some of G.T.'s vibes. That was earlier—long before he'd heard from the lady herself. Now
he
was vibrating.

By the time Harry walked in, Lavert couldn't wait. He wanted to grab and tackle him.

“Man, you won't believe what's happened!”

“Mine's better.” Harry's grin came over his face like dawn.

“Don't give me that Bogart shit. I'm telling you I got the goods. I know the dude's name.”

“Whose?”

“Billy Jack Joyner's, asshole!”

“Joyner? Oh, yeah? I'm telling you mine's better.”

“
And
I saw the little airport dude. I ran right smack into him this afternoon holding up that Pic'N'Pac out on Coliseum with a peashooter.”

“You don't say. Did you get his name?”

With that, Lavert got mad. “Man, what the fuck's wrong with you? You think I said, excuse me, sir, I'm taking a survey, could I have your name right here on the dotted line? You getting me steamed, man.”

“Unh-huh. Draw me a Dixie, please,” he said to the bartender.

“Zack, I'm about to bite a piece out of you. Guess you don't care now Chéri's got Joey pissed off at your Maynard Dupree, Joey wants me to do him.
And
your Joyner. Guess you don't care I just missed the Joyner dude at Kush's a little while ago. Then G.T. calls me. Says
she
passed the other little dude—the one who jumped out of the ambulance that day on the way from the airport—when she's going to pick up her granny. Old lady hangs out there at Kush's. G.T. chased him, but he was too slick, got away from her.”

“Anything strike you funny about that?”

“About what? That we're closing in on both these guys, we know Dupree's in deep shit, been on the case only twenty-four hours.”

“About the fact that Joyner walks out of Kush's, then not too far away G.T. passes the little dude she picked up at the airport? Same time? Same place? Same station?”

“You pissing me off, Zack. Talking to me like I'm stupid. I ain't stupid, man.”

“Nope. But you're not seeing what's right in front of your face. I didn't either for a while.”

Lavert drained the last of his beer, then reached over and polished off Harry's. He narrowed his eyes, exhaling hard through his nose like a winded prizefighter.

Then he got it.

“One dude! We looking for one dude!” Lavert was jumping around now. “And we know the little motherfucker's name! Couldn't be too hard to find out where he lives.” Doing a little victory dance, boogying behind the barstools. “And
I
know where he hangs!”

“You always were my main man.” Harry signaled for a celebratory round. Cuke-cool dude, smiling.

Thirty-Four

MAYNARD WAS HOME relaxing in the tub. Or, at least, he was trying.

He could hardly think, his head hurt him so bad, not to mention the burning in his stomach, the flibberty-jibbities throughout his whole entire body, chills running up and down in little spasms.

Face it, man, he said, staring down at his fat stomach floating like a desert island in the tub of hot water. You've lost it. Bad.

Kids running up and down the stairs, Easter week, cowboy boots, goddamn cap pistols.

Pow! Pow! Pow!

The boots reminded him of Jimbo.

He closed his eyes and moaned.

That fucking Jimbo, holding the best tailor in New Orleans out the window. You could bet your sweet patootie he'd seen the last of Herbert.
That
was for damned straight. The man had made his clothes since he was in school.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Maynard, Jr., came bursting in the door.

“What the hell you think this is, son, Grand Central Station?”

The boy stopped, cap gun drawn. “What?” The finger of his other hand was creeping up toward his nose.

“
What
what, son?”

“What's Grand Central Station?”

“I pay eight thousand fucking dollars a year, more than it cost me at the University of Virginia, to keep you in private school, and you don't know what Grand Central Station is?”

“Ma! Ma!” the boy wailed, wheeling out of the room.

Great. Just what he needed. Marietta coming in here, giving him one of her holier-than-thou you're-such-a-terrible-father lectures.

He reached up, dried his hands on the thick white towel, plucked a cigar from the glass shelf. Clipped the end of it with his gold knife. Flicked his gold lighter. Was there anything as satisfying as gold? Lit the cigar—ah, God bless those little Cuban bastards.

Then he leaned back and tried to pull himself together.

But he came all unraveled again—queasy like he had a bellyful of grease. What the fuck was he going to do?

After Jimbo'd left his office day before yesterday, he'd called a car for Herbert, sent Sally Jean home squalling when what he'd wanted to do was smack her, sat alone in his office for a long time—long past dark. Wondering where it'd all gone wrong.

Hearing his father calling him a pantywaist. Goddamn pantywaist, son. Should've killed Church right out. Always told you that. Sperm run out, weak when it got to you, always said that to your mama. That and her letting your curls stay so long, you wuz a kid, made you think like a girl. Think you
wuz
a girl. Still do.

God, how he hated the old bastard!

When Maynard was barely a pup his dad had said, That Church Lee, Davenport Lee's son, is twice the man of you.

That's why he went after Peggy Patrick, that fat little girl he and Church had first fought over as boys—to prove the old man wrong.

Now look what it had come to. He may or may not have killed Church. Jesus, he couldn't remember. May or may not have hired Jimbo to do it for him. Oh, God.

And now Jimbo was really leaning on him. Taking his money was one thing. Hanging his tailor out the window another.
Now
there was this mothering lawn-chair business, Jimbo strong-arming him into getting him on TV. Calling in celebrities! Was there no end? No end to his suffering? Oh, Jesus.

They were gonna laugh him out of Comus. Laugh him out of the Pickwick. Laugh him out of the Club. His name linked with this cockamamy scheme and this redneck.

Never again would he get to ride on the big horse in the parade. Never again would he be captain of Comus.

But wait a minute.

Maynard sat up.

What the fuck was he worried about?

This was New Orleans, the only town with a sense of humor in the whole United States.

He'd just laugh it off. They would too.

He reached for the towel again.

He'd make the most of it!

Hell! Maynard was getting excited now, he'd make himself a kind of eccentric hero, producer of the wildest stunt since Mardi Gras, if this goddamn lawn-chair sucker flew.

See. It was only a matter of attitude.

What the hell had he been pissing and moaning about? Maynard reached for the wall phone. He could
do
this! Never let it be said Maynard Dupree wasn't wired, didn't have the juice. Could he get Jimbo King and his Flying Lawn Chair on TV? You bet your sweet ass he could! Knew just the sweet patootie could do it for him too.

“Maynard.”

He slammed down the phone and rolled an eye at Marietta, who was standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“Yes, darlin'?”

“Don't you darlin' me, you son of a bitch. What'd you say to Junior?”

“I merely reminded him that he might take better advantage, given the cost, of his schooling.”

“Humph,” she snorted.

Maynard wondered what had happened to all those fine manners the young Marietta had learned in finishing school.

“I bet that's what you said. You gonna stay in here till you turn into a prune?”

“Why, Marietta darlin'. I didn't know you cared about my poor old body anymore.”

“Well, you got that right.”

“Now, sugah.”

Marietta closed the lid of the toilet. She sat down, pulling one tan leg up, inspecting a scab on her knee where she'd fallen on the court. Playing with Chéri. A little chill ran down her spine. That Chéri—she'd told Marietta what she'd said to Joey about Maynard. Marietta cast a cold eye over to her pudding of a husband. They used to murder Caesars in their tubs, wasn't that right? Marietta's notion of history was a little shaky, but she knew she was on the right track here with the Italians. Caesars were Italians, right? And so was Joey. Mob Italian. And Chéri had made sure Joey was pissed as hell at Maynard.

Chéri'd said it was like putting in an order. It was only a matter of time now till she'd be free of this fat bastard.

In the meantime— “I hear you got yourself a new boyfriend,” she said.

Maynard damply tongued his stinking cigar to one side of his mouth. “What?”

“You gone deaf, honey?”

“I don't know what you're talking about, May-retta.” He waved his arm and his cigar. “Get on out of here. Leave me alone.”

“I bet you wouldn't say that to Jimbo.” She slid it in like a dagger.

Maynard thought his heart had stopped. Suddenly the bathwater felt like ice. “Jimbo who?”

“Now, darlin'. Don't be coy with me. I hear you been keeping steady company with that old boy. I think it's kind of cute. I always knew you hung out long enough you'd figure it was boys you liked anyway.”

Maynard stood, the water pouring off him, splashing out of the tub onto the tiles. “Out! Get out of here, you bitch!” He was waving his arms.

“Okay,
darlin'
.”
Staring pointedly at his little thing flopping. “You don't have to shout. I'm going.” Sashaying out with a twitch to her cute butt. She knew it still was—cute, that is. Chéri told her so every chance she got. “But I'd be careful, playing around with trash like that, hon, I was you.” She slammed the door behind her.