Now Let's Talk of Graves (42 page)

“But you did tell her. And you told me,” Kitty said. “I don't know why we didn't listen to you, why we didn't know there'd be hell to pay one way or the other. Poor Zoe. Oh, God, we've made such a mess of Zoe.”

“Whole family's stubborn,” said Ida. “Always has been. Streaks like that go in families.” She paused, stared off at nothing they could see. “It does make you wonder, don't it, what that Billy Jack got from his mama.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked. “His mama?”

“It gives you pause, don't it?”

“What, Maw Maw?” asked G.T. “What you talking about?”

“Billy Jack's mama.”

“Who
is
Billy Jack's mama? What you saying?”

“Joyner. Billy Jack Joyner?”

“Yes, Maw Maw.”

“Well, nobody ever told me that scrawny white boy you been talking about's name before.”

“And now that they have?” G.T. was barely holding her impatience with her great-grandmother under control. “So what? So what about his mama?”

“Well, don't it make you wonder how a sweet angel like that could raise such a troubled boy?”

“Who?”
G.T. and Sam and Kitty chorused.

“Sister Nadine. Sister Nadine Joyner. Now that you told me who Billy Jack is, don't you see the family resemblance? That's got to be her son. I'd bet money on it.”

“Sister Nadine
Joyner
?”
Sam cried. Her last name had never been mentioned before. And Sam had never asked.

She leaned her forehead against her fists, banging her head softly.

Billy Jack—Zoe's supplier, who, it looked like, had mugged Church and then gone with him for a drink at the Pelican, who'd put on that show at the airport, who'd done God knows what else—was Sister Nadine's son? Sister Nadine, who was Church's lover.
Probably
Maynard Dupree's, too, if things were running true to form. Sure. Oh yeah. Uh-huh. Why not? Throw one more stone in the soup, one more mess of shrimp in the gumbo pot. It was too bad she didn't still drink. Disaster like this just cried out for a snort.

Nope, nope, she'd learned to look at it the other way. There was nothing so bad that a drink wouldn't make it worse. And this was bad.

Give her your basic garden-variety homicide any day. She still didn't even know whether Church had been killed with malice or if this was your basic hit-and-run.

This was terrible.

This was nuts.

Now, from across the room, she felt G.T.'s gaze on her and she looked up. G.T.'s golden eyes were ablaze, trained on hers as if she were willing Sam to see what she saw. And she was saying, “'Member how short I said that guy was driving the Buick that night, Sam? How he could barely see over the wheel? You know, that Billy Jack Joyner is an awful tiny little dude.”

Thirty-Seven

“I STILL THINK their oyster po'boys are far superior,” said Marietta.

“And that's why this is a free country.” Chéri was taking a big bite out of her own French loaf loaded with shrimp.

They were sitting at the bar in D.J.'s, one of two or three big brawling family seafood places in Bucktown, right out on the south edge of the lake.

“Sometimes I think you could eat shrimp six times a day,” said Marietta.

“Well, you know, sugah, you think that, and you'd be right on the money.” Chéri ticked items off on her long fingers tipped with a bright orange manicure. “Yesterday I had Manale's shrimp barbecued, for dinner I was at the Bon Ton had the remoulade, lunch today I had me a big shrimp salad I made myself to my house.”

“Erasers.”

“I beg your pardon.” Chéri's eyes got real big though she knew exactly what Marietta was talking about. They'd had this conversation more than once.

“Shrimp these days taste like rubber erasers. They've gone and bred the flavor right out of 'em,” Marietta said. “And you're telling me oysters are different.”

“I am.”

“Honey, you ain't got a drop of Cajun blood in you. What do you know?”

“I know I'm about to be one of the happiest widows in the state of Louisiana.
That's
what I know.”

“Shhhhhh. What are you—”

“Oh, darlin'”—Marietta winking at the big man to her left who was working on his sixth Dixie, but talking to Chéri—“don't you even know when I'm joking?”

Suddenly Chéri perked up. “Would you look at that?” she said, pointing past Marietta's shoulder.

“What?”

“Is that Paul?” Pointing at a hugely fat man getting up from a table covered with what looked like the wreckage from a Tulane football banquet.

“Prudhomme? Honey, what would he be doing eating somebody else's cooking? I swear to God, I think you've lost your senses. Besides, that man idn't big enough to be Paul. And where's his cane?”

“In the movie,” said the tattooed man around a gargle of Dixie.

“What?” Chéri batted her eyes.

“He played Paul in the movie.”

“What movie?” Now Chéri gave him a little cleavage. She couldn't help herself, would flirt with anything that was warm and could crawl.

“
The Big Easy.
You see that movie?”

“That's right!” said Marietta with a snap of her fingers. Then waggling them in Chéri's face. “That's the man played the chef in Tipitina's.
Looks
like Paul. But anybody could see it
ain't
Paul.”

“Well, fuck me very much,” said Chéri, who didn't like to be wrong.

“Well, ma'am, I'd be happy—” grinned the tattooed man with the Dixie.

“Not you, honey.” Chéri took back her cleavage, giving him her shoulder instead, then slid her eyes to the TV that was always on up behind the bar. “And who you think
that
looks like, sugah, you so smart?”

“Who?” Marietta was trying to figure out if she was mad at Chéri or not, flirting with that old boy when she ought to be flirting with her.

“You think that man talking on the TV looks like the man you married to? Your about-to-be-dearly-departed Maynard?”

“Lord, would you look at that!”

Sure enough, there on a cable station was Sister Nadine in a long silver robe, her blond hair damp and streaming down around her shoulders, shaking that tambourine, singing and shouting those songs. And there beside her, red-faced and sweating through last year's seersucker suit, was Maynard.

“I'll tell you what,” Maynard was saying, his eyes sliding back and forth like he wasn't quite sure which camera was rolling, but going on ahead anyway with his volume turned full up, “you're gonna see the show of the century you come out to Lake Shore Park tomorrow at one P.M. sharp.”

Marietta stared at Chéri. Her lover stared back. The air between them was a blaze of blue. Then Chéri waved her orange fingertips in an easterly direction.

“Right over there, May-retta,” she said. And she was right. Lake Shore was about a half mile away.

“Shhhhhhh.”

MAYNARD: “Now, I know you've seen Mardi Gras. And you've seen the Superdome. And lots of you have been to
New
York and farther. Lots of you've seen the wonders of the world.”

CHÉRI: “And some of you have seen England, France, and little girls' underpants.”

Marietta slapped her on the arm. “Would you hush!”

“But you ain't seen nothing till you have seen Jimbo King and his Fabulous Flying Lawn Chair. Brought to you by Dupree Productions.”

“The
what
?”
said both women close up in each other's faces.

Then Marietta started laughing.

“Hush. Now
you
hush,” said Chéri.

But Marietta couldn't.

“What you are going to see if you come, and I hope you all
do
come out to Lake Shore tomorrow, is something you've never seen before. The mayor's going to be there. The governor's gonna be there. Representative David Duke is going to be there.”

“Owwww. Owwww,” Marietta howled. “Is he going to wear his designer bedsheets?”

“Quiet down, lady,” said the man who was now intrigued by Nadine and Maynard. “George, cut up the volume on that thing.”

“There is no telling who else might fly in for the event from Washington.” Maynard giving it the big wink, lowering his voice to his idea of real sexy.

Marietta howled. “Would you listen to that? Chéri, honey, I think he's been watching too much Jimmy Swaggart.” Noticing at the same time how easy it was for a fat boy like Maynard, get a little worry, little bad times on him, look all raggedy-assed.

“Lady! Would you hush!” The tattooed man was definitely pushed.

“You all really ought to come.” Sister Nadine was throwing in her two cents now. “Sister Nadine's gonna be there. It's gonna be something. Day before Easter, man rising into the sky on a blast of hot air.”

“You can say that again,” cried Marietta. “Jesus Christ and Jimbo King. Can you believe it, Chéri?”

“Gonna fly out over the lake, over the Gulf, why, once he gets over the Gulf Stream, there's no telling where this boy's gonna stop.” Maynard was holding one arm up in the air toward the heavens.

Marietta for sure couldn't stop. Kicking her feet against the bar. Pounding her little hands. Her breath coming short,

“May-retta, honey, are you all right? Is your asthma—?”

“I can't help—I can't—oh, God, get me out of here. I've wet my pants.”

“May-retta!”

Thirty-Eight

“I WISH MY daddy could have lived to see this.”

Jimbo was standing in the middle of his living room in front of the supercolossal TV he'd bought himself last week with Maynard's hush money. Talking to himself, watching Maynard Dupree, attorney-at-law, man-about-town, bon vivant, and generally speaking a pillar of New Orleans society and the bi'nis community talking about him,
Jimbo King,
like he was something. Like he wasn't a redneck. Nor your white trash. Like he was free, white, and twenty-one.

Though he wasn't so sure about this Dupree Productions.

He hoped Maynard didn't think he was gonna take a piece of
his
action when the movie and the TV people came 'round, wanting to move him to Hollywood.

Nuh-uh. No way, son.

Jimbo wishing he'd had a picture taken of himself, Maynard could of been showing it to the folks.

Wait a minute! Why didn't Maynard take
him
along? Put
him
on the TV this evening with Sister Nadine?

Jimbo stepped over a few feet so he could check himself out in the mirror—the one with the seashell frame he and Teri had brought back from their honeymoon in Tarpon Springs. Full face. Gave himself a big grin. Good teeth. His mama had always said that was the one thing she was grateful to her daddy for, he'd passed along his teeth. Now Jimbo had 'em too. They wouldn't even need to cap 'em when he went for his screen tests.

Swiveled his head. Profile. He had a good strong chin. He always hated that, when guys turned sideways, you could see they had wimpy chins.

His was like Michael Douglas's. Michael Douglas in
Fatal Attraction. That
was a chin.

He stepped back from the mirror. Sucked in his gut. Not that there was much. He was still hanging in there.

Hoped Maynard didn't think he was gonna steal from him.

What the hell? The phone was ringing, Hollywood already trying to find him. He wondered if he ought to get his number unlisted. People gonna start bothering him, trying to sell him cars, boats, condominiums.

He picked up the phone. Nothing. Then he realized it was the doorbell.

He threw the door open with his best smile.

“Hi, Jimbo.”

It was Teri!

You could have knocked him over.

“Honey!” Jimbo opening his arms wide. “Come on in.”

“I saw them talking about you on the TV.”

He grinned. “That was something, huh? I bet you never thought you'd see that.” And then he found himself giving her a big hug. And she felt good. What a
surprise
, that feeling.

“Where's Doctor?” he asked, suddenly really wanting to know. “Where's my baby?”

“He's right here.” She reached back out the door and brought in the little boy.

“You left him on the
porch
?”

“Just for a minute.” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I didn't know if you'd let us in.”