On Archimedes Street (14 page)

M
IMI
RECOGNIZED
them instantly. Shit! She’d known it would happen one day—that someone from Redemptorist would stroll in—but she’d never dreamed it would be Dutch. The same ungrateful Dutch she had personally transformed from a stick figure into a Greek god. What was
Dutch
doing in a low-rent dump like this? His councilman father had half of New Orleans in his hip pocket.

A smarmy Carlton welcomed them effusively and steered them toward one of Sandra’s tables. Mimi didn’t bother nursing the hope that she wouldn’t be discovered. But first she’d have the fun of watching Sandra put them through the wringer.

Sandra approached insolently, as always. Googs openly ogled her pasties.

“Your pleasure, boys?”

“Coke”—from Dutch.
Lightweight.
“Dixon”—from Googs.
Horse-piss-drinkin’ local moron. Ever hear of Arbiter beer, fool?
Sandra then turned her contemptuous glance to Flip.

Flip didn’t have much experience drinking. “Scotch?” he offered tentatively. “And Diet Coke?” he added.

Oh, delicious. Hay still sticking to the hair of this rube.
“Miss fucking the cows, farm boy?” she sniggered as she pranced off.

Flip cast an embarrassed glance at Dutch, but for once Dutch didn’t ridicule him. Thank God for that, anyway.

As she gathered the drinks from Eusebio, Sandra hissed at him and Dora. “Don’t miss the show with these three. They’re green as grass. Run interference with Carlton.”

She sauntered suggestively back to their tiny table, balancing her tray expertly.

Googs spoke as she placed the paper napkins and deposited the drinks. “You’re sure good at handling that tray. Bet you never spill.”

“It’s not all I’m good at, handsome.”

Flip looked at Sandra nervously. Well, did he want to get laid or not?

“You can do other tricks?” asked Googs. Flip listened attentively.

Sandra tucked her tray between her knees and propped her chin on the backs of her hands. “Oh, yeah. I can even do magic tricks.” She fluttered her eyelashes exaggeratedly.

“Like what?” Googs was mesmerized. Flip was uncertain.

“Well, for one, I can make things disappear.”

This was not the answer Flip or Googs had expected.

“Want me to show you? You got a bill, preferably a hundred-dollar bill? Don’t bother with ones, fives, or tens.”

The beginnings of a smile were playing at the corner of Dutch’s lips. He quickly withdrew his wallet, removed the bill, and handed it over. Sandra in turn motioned to Dora to come over and handed Dora the tray she’d tucked between her knees. Dora positioned herself so Carlton’s view of Sandra was partially blocked.

Sandra rolled the bill up like a straw. Her eyes never left Googs’s. She lowered her hand to her thong and let one finger play along the elastic at the top. She dropped her eyelids to half-mast. Finally she inserted her hand into the thong, threw her head back, and writhed and moaned as she found herself with her hand. Googs watched, rapt. Flip, too, was rapt, but perhaps for a different reason. Finally Sandra let out a soft “oohh.”

Her eyes snapped open abruptly. Leaning in to the table, she whispered. Her words, though not crude in and of themselves, struck Flip as perhaps the most obscene he had ever heard.

“It went,” her whisper was steel, “up the ho-o-o-le.”

Dutch, spluttering, tipped his bentwood chair onto its back legs and leaned into it. “Googs, your face! Fucking priceless! And yours”—he pointed at Flip—“Hee-haw! Haw!” His laugh ended in a bellow.

“Slumming, boys?” Mimi had moved silently to the table. “I know these clowns, Sandra, leave them to me.” Sandra flounced off.

“
Mimi
?” Dutch’s baritone deserted him in favor of a squeak.
“What are
you
doing here?”

“Paying tuition. What about you, hotshot? What’s your excuse?”

“But
here
?” Dutch circled one arm to encompass the sordidness of Glitz. “Surely there must be something else.”

“Oh, it’s all so easy for you, isn’t it, Dutch? Dutch, the golden boy, who never had to lift a finger in his whole life. Bet someone still wipes your ass for you. Have
you
tried to get a job lately? Oh, excuse me, I forgot. If you wanted a job, your daddy would snap his fingers and the limo would appear out of thin air to drive you to it, wouldn’t it?”

“Mimi, that’s not fair. Why didn’t you tell me? We could have found something. What about your personal trainer gigs?”

“You and Say-Say were my last personal trainer gigs, and you sure didn’t spread the word about me, did you?”

“You had a
personal trainer
? And it was
Mimi
?” Flip couldn’t suppress the glee from his voice.

“Oh, shut up,” said Dutch.

“Yeah, and you shoulda seen him, honey, before I worked on him. Can you say ‘adenoidal scarecrow’?”

Dutch frowned in annoyance. “But Mimi”—he motioned vaguely at her uniform.

“Yeah, so they can see my tits.” She shrugged. “Well, not
all
my tits. And yeah, some of these ding-dongs try to paw me, but that doesn’t mean I’m easy. Dutch, I’m the first person in my family ever to go to college, and I swear I’m going to graduate if I have to dig ditches!”

Flip and Googs, enjoying this exchange immensely, traded glances.

“Mimi, I’m an asshole,” said Dutch. “I’m sorry.”

Eyebrows flew up, both Flip’s and Googs’s.

Not expecting this from Dutch, Mimi had the cunning to summon sudden crocodile tears. She swept her hand over the small table, and the glasses crashed to the floor. “Dutch, I fucking hate it!” she sobbed.

Carlton winced at the crash. His profit margin was reed-thin. All he needed was for that stupid Myrtle—he relished the name on the income-tax forms she’d filled out and never called her Mimi—to break every glass in the place. That girl was determined to bankrupt him!

He rushed to the source of the noise. “You stupid girl, what are you doing? You think I’m made out of money? Now clean up this mess. This is coming out of your salary, you bet your pretty bootie.”

His words enraged Dutch. “Leave her alone!” he yelled. Hearing the commotion, Cleanhead had come inside, ready to give these clowns the bum’s rush. But he stopped short when he heard Dutch taking Mimi’s side. Cleanhead had always liked pluck, and Mimi was made out of pluck.

Anger, mostly at himself, burned in Dutch. He strode to the bar. A cowering Eusebio ducked. Dutch swept his beefy hand over the glasses lined in front of the bar mirror, sending them flying.

“My barware! My barware! Cleanhead, do something!”

Dutch gathered himself. “That won’t be necessary.” He dropped a handful of bills on the table. “If that doesn’t cover it, please send a bill to my father, Councilman Achille Abbott.”

Carlton’s eyes grew wide.

“C’mon Mimi, you’re coming with me. Fellas, let’s blow this pop stand.”

Googs and Flip were both thinking what a great time they’d had at Glitz. Dutch dragged Mimi out by one hand.

“Hey!” Googs called out to Sandra as they left. “Can I snort some coke with that bill later?”

“Anytime, jockstrap, anytime. In your wet dreams.”

“Wasn’t that
romantic
?” swooned Dora to Eusebio and Sandra. “Just like Richard Gere and Debra Winger at the end of
An Officer and a Gentleman
,” she sighed.

“Hhmmpff. And what a shit piece-of-crap that movie was,” said Sandra.

“Well,
excuse
me
for living,” replied Dora.

Oh shit shit shit.
Carlton’s mind was abuzz.
That big goon was Achille Abbott’s son? He could pull the liquor license out from under Glitz in a heartbeat. Shit shit shit shit.

Chapter 19

O
UT
ON
the street, the four of them blinked, disoriented. Mimi’s outfit and trim body drew immediate attention. It started with wolf whistles and catcalls, and a bold few looked like they were in the mood to cop a quick feel.

“Uh-oh.” No one knew who said it, but all four shared the sentiment. It was Googs, of all people, who had the presence of mind to act.

“C’mon, Mimi! Horsie!” Googs bent his knees and motioned for her to straddle his shoulders. Mimi took the hint and scrambled on top. As he unbent to reach his full height, Mimi wrapped her legs under his arms and scrunched her feet against his back. Astride Googs’s shoulders, she was visible now to everyone in the crowd, but safe from pawing. The crowd let out a cheer.

“C’mon, Flippie, you too! She can’t be alone up there. You’ll be like the prom king and queen!” Dutch bent his knees and Flip hopped on. As he rose next to Mimi, the crowd cheered again. Flip reached out for Mimi and they linked arms to steady themselves.

“I feel like a carnival float,” Mimi said to Flip. Flip, in his turn, was enjoying himself like never before. First that scene in Glitz—he especially savored the thought of Mimi putting Dutch through his paces—and now a sea of people cheering him and Mimi. He was grinning so hard it was beginning to hurt his face. This was the New Orleans he’d left Ohio to experience!

T
HREE
SETS
of world-weary eyes regarded Mimi and Flip with a combination of mild professional interest and bored detachment. One set, the brown set, belonged to Officer Clement Ratto. They were under strict orders when it came to the French Quarter, the economic lifeblood of the city. Turn a blind eye unless it looked like somebody was going to get hurt, keep ’em happy and spending. But if drunks pass out on the sidewalk—straight into the lockup.

He recognized Mimi from Titz, of course. What was she doing out on the street in that get-up, away from her tables? But Officer Ratto had a greater cause for concern. If he wasn’t mistaken, the guy in the pink shirt, straddled by that guy linking arms with Mimi, was the fruit of Achille Abbott’s loins. “A-sheel the big wheel.” Officer Ratto, like everyone else on the police force, knew better than to mispronounce the fat cat’s name. “Lord. I’d better keep a close eye,” he told himself.

The other two sets of eyes were pitch-black. “Dey the ones tonight,” said Loo-loot. At age eleven, he had a keener appreciation for the main chance than his brother Dennis, thirteen, and he led Dennis around by the nose. “C’mon. We get dis right, we outta here oily.”

Loo-loot started a riff on his snare drum. Dennis shook one of his two tambourines, and the crowd parted for the beat as the two boys made their way to the main event for tonight.

“Hey, mistah!” said Dennis. “Bet you five dollars I can tell you where you got dem shoes.”

Flip’s size-fourteen shoes were hard to miss across Dutch’s shirtfront. This kid couldn’t possibly know that he got them at the Shoe Shack in Columbus, Flip knew.

Googs and Dutch exchanged amused sidelong glances. Mimi wished she could catch their eyes. The three of them knew this old stunt.

“Kid, I don’t want to take your money—”

When Dennis spoke, Mimi, Googs, and Dutch parroted in chorus:

“You got dem shoes on yo’ feet, here on Bourbon Street, in Noo Orlenz, Lou-ee-ziana!”

“On dat pretty man’s ches’, dress’ in pink,” added Loo-loot.

Dutch drew out his wallet, almost toppling Flip and Mimi, who clung to each other to regain balance. He pulled another hundred from his roll and handed it to a disbelieving Dennis. Loo-loot quickly snatched and stowed it.

“What’s your name?” asked Dutch.

“Loo-loot.” The younger brother took charge.

“Loo-loot, can you give me a riffing beat?”

“You got it.”

Loo-loot used only one stick on his snare drum to begin with.

Drrratttt-tat-drrrrrat-tat-tat.

The other stick soon joined in syncopation.

Drrrrrr-Drrrrr-Drrrr-Drrrr-Drrrrr.

Dennis shook one tambourine softly, holding the other one out to accept coins. There weren’t many natives out on the street, but the few who were recognized what was going on.

“Second line!” a native shouted. An umbrella sprouted open in the crowd.

Loo-loot mentally surveyed his inventory of rhymes, but to his delight, Dutch took over, singing in a booming, surprisingly melodious baritone:

“We’re gonna party all night long on Bourbon Street.

“We’re gonna party all night long on Bourbon Street.

“We’re gonna daaaannncce.

“Sssiiiiinnnnnngggggg.

“Do the dirty thing!

“We’re gonna party all night long on Bourbon Street.”

Drrat-tat-tat. Drrat-tat-tat.
As he sang, Dutch began to dip and strut. He looked over at Googs.

“C’mon, Googs! Shuffle!”

Then he and Googs began a strut that incorporated a backstep and a dip. Mimi looked behind them and saw a few valiant umbrellas bobbing up and down with them, in a second line, but most of the crowd was from out of town. The crowd took up the shuffle, though, and the street dance was on.

J
ACKY
,
HER
maid of honor Lydia, and her three other bridesmaids had made a night of it. They’d started out with dinner at Admiral’s Castle and then headed down to the Quarter for dessert at Booboo’s on Bourbon. The food had been good, but right from the first course of turtle soup there had been considerably more drinking than eating. Dessert had been Ramos gin fizz cocktails for five, served in “go-cups”—plastic champagne flutes allowed on the street. After all, it was a bachelorette party, and Lydia’s last chance to make Jacky see what a big mistake she was making with Jack. Jacky and Jack?
Please.
Lydia didn’t know how to tell Jacky that Jack had put the moves on her once or twice. Not in any overt, honest way, but in a suggestive, sneaky one. Lydia should have spoken earlier, but she really had nothing concrete to report, just the certainty of his intentions. She had a
very
bad feeling about this marriage.

The tipsy bachelorettes stepped out onto Bourbon just in time to see Flip and Mimi riding over the pulsing crowd. Dutch’s baritone rang out over the drumming: