Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03] (4 page)

“You and Me time” was a tradition with them. Even when she was working two jobs and attending classes, the first thing she did when she got home was lie down with her baby and chat about little nothings. On more than one occasion, she’d fallen asleep along with her baby. “It’s just you and me, kiddo,” she’d repeated often, especially when the loneliness became almost overwhelming.

Now, her “baby” blathered on about worms and butterflies and dogs and swing sets and birthday parties. She told him about the bread pudding she’d had for lunch, though no mention of his father, and the peacock feathers she’d seen in a French Quarter shop, and how they needed to go to the mall soon to buy him some new athletic shoes, and, yes, he could get the light-up ones.

Giving him one final hug, she said, “Now take off those dirty clothes so we can go downstairs and eat dinner. I bought some praline ice cream for dessert.”

He brightened at a combination of his punishment being over and his favorite ice cream. While he changed his clothes, chattering the whole time, she watched him closely. Something became apparent . . . something she had tried her best to avoid seeing in the past but being so close to John today made it impossible to ignore.

Except for his pale blue eyes, he looked just like John. Even worse, she suspected he’d inherited his father’s rascal gene.

John was sitting on Tante Lulu’s back porch with his three half-brothers waiting for the first meeting of the Pirate Project team to start. The out-of-town folks were down at the banks of Bayou Black admiring Useless, René’s pet alligator.

For all of them, the bayou was a touchstone. They could leave for short periods, but the swamp mud in their blood drew them back every time.

Tante Lulu’s cottage was built in the old Cajun style . . . an exterior of
bousillage,
or fuzzy mud mixed with Spanish moss and crushed clam shells . . . but in this case, the stucco had been covered with half-logs and white chinking. There was a stretch of lawn that led down to the water’s edge, centered by a spreading fig tree heavy with fruit. Rock-edged flower beds surrounded the house, and a wire-mesh fence enclosed neat rows of her vegetable garden. John and his brothers took turns helping to keep the place in shape, a real pain in the ass since everything grew at warp speed in the bayou, but this place had been a refuge to each of them at one time or another from their father’s alcoholic binges. Besides, how could anyone say no to Tante Lulu?

Since he was on “suspension,” John had decided to join the Jinx team once again, but he had to do it surreptitiously, especially since the witness list had been given to the defense this morning. Once the project started, he would stay at René’s remote cabin. Luckily, the project site was located at a spot not too far from his brother’s property. In the meantime, he wore disguises whenever he was out in public and drove his sister-in-law’s puke green VW bug, a comedown from his red Impala convertible, that was for sure. He hadn’t been specifically identified in the article, and Tante Lulu was only a silent partner; so, he should be safe here. Still, he was taking no chances.

“You look ridiculous,” remarked René from where he was sitting on a rocker next to his. René, who used to be an environmental lobbyist, ought to know; some of his tree hugger friends were the most ridiculous-looking in the world. In fact, they ate so much twigs and bark, aka granola, that John once told René that they looked like bushes themselves. Not René, of course; he had to be a good-looking dude to get a babe like
Trial TV
lawyer Valerie Breaux for his bride. René was going to act as part-time consultant on the job. Nothing visible. Ever since Hurricane Katrina, folks in Louisiana were more concerned about protecting the coastal wetlands and the bayous which fed into the Gulf of Mexico. René would make sure the Jinx team toed the environmental line.

“What? You doan lak me in blond hair,
cher?
” He touched the blond wig he was wearing under a baseball cap—borrowed from Tante Lulu—and removed the black frame glasses.

“You look like a dork. And you talk like a dork when you use that fake Cajun drawl.”

“That’s the point.”

“Bet it cramps your style with women.”

“What women?”

René’s left eyebrow rose just a fraction, a trick he’d never learned himself. “Not getting any action lately, bro? Tsk, tsk, tsk. You need some advice?”

“Not from you.”

Remy and Luc, sitting on the remaining rockers, laughed at the verbal sparring. They were going to help but not actively participate in the Pirate Project. Remy would be taking lots of equipment along with the project members out to the remote site in his hydroplane, in several different trips.

His brothers were here today for no reason other than to be pains in his ass, enjoying his most recent notoriety. All of them were draining cold Dixie longnecks, the best thing on a warm Louisiana day.

Luc pulled out the newspaper again, pointing to the infamous article. They’d been razzing him about it for the past hour. “Me, I’m just a dumb ol’ Cajun, but is this article really sayin’ you’re a cop whose job it was to have sex for money?”

“My name wasn’t in that article. How do you know it referred to me?”

“Puh-leeze! Man, you’ve been in some scrapes before, but this one beats them all. Talk about!” Luc, one of Louisiana’s most successful lawyers, was anything but dumb, and he was enjoying the hell out of what he called John’s latest “scrape.”

“Scrape? Shit! You guys act as if I’m ten years old and still gettin’ into
scrapes.
”

“Earth to Tee-John. Ten-year-olds don’t sell their bodies for money. At least, most of them don’t. Did you?” Luc blinked at him, as if his question was serious.

“Get real! And stop callin’ me Tee-John. I’m not little anymore.” He inhaled deeply for patience, a lost cause with these three. “Not that I’m admitting that article was about me, but the undercover cops didn’t actually have sex with anyone at that club.”

“Oh, great! Ruin a married man’s fantasy.” René pretended that he lived vicariously through John’s life, but it wasn’t true. Although he and Val, who used to be a
Trial TV
lawyer, had two preteens, Jude and Louise, and they’d been married for almost twelve years, a person only had to be in their company for a minute to see that they still had a hot sex life.

“
Mon Dieu!
I couldn’t believe it when I saw the newspaper,” Remy added. “In fact, I was still in bed when Rachel brought the paper up to me. She was laughin’ so hard she practically peed her pants.”

“I live to make women pee their pants.”

No one paid any attention to him.

“I for one would be really pissed if I was sent undercover and didn’t get any of the
undercover
benefits,” Luc said.

“I’d like to hear you repeat that in front of Sylvie. She’d roast your balls over one of her bunson burners and serve them to you in a hot gumbo.” Sylvie was a chemist, and the love of Luc’s life. About fifty, they’d been married forever, but were devoted to each other, like all the LeDeux men were once they settled down with their women, except for their father.

“Ouch.” Luc pretended to hold his crotch.

“Well, I’ve had enough of bein’ your joke pin cushion.” John got up from the rocking chair and walked down to help Tante Lulu and Charmaine set out some food. To his back, one of his brothers muttered, “Spoilsport.”

Charmaine was arranging food on the folding tables set about the back lawn. Every couple minutes she swiveled her hips and sang along in Cajun French to the zydeco music playing softly from the boom box near her feet. It was René’s band The Swamp Rats singing on a CD demo they’d made several years back.

He smacked Charmaine on the butt.

She yelped and jumped back. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Sex-for-hire, bless his heart. Tell me, sweetie, what did you charge for . . . ” Charmaine mentioned something so explicit she almost made him blush. Almost. Then she wagged a long-nailed, red-enameled forefinger at him. “Tsk, tsk, tsk! Y’all better stay away from Tante Lulu. She’s been rehearsin’ a few words for you on the subject.”

“She already told me what she thinks.”

She smiled, knowing exactly what he meant.

“My name was never mentioned in that article, ya know.”

“Puh-leeze!”

“Why does everyone keep sayin’ that?” he complained.

Charmaine wouldn’t be working on this treasure hunt; she had more than enough to do with her dude ranch/beauty spas, and her three-year-old Mary Lou, who was a female clone of her daddy, Raoul Lanier. Everyone said that Rusty . . . or Raoul . . . was so good-looking women stopped on the street to gawk at him. He couldn’t see it himself, but then he was a guy. It was probably because he was a cowboy; women went apeshit over cowboys.

“You oughta let me dye your hair blond and stop wearin’ that silly wig,” Charmaine offered. “Where’d you buy it? Wal-Mart?”

“No way! You are not touchin’ my hair. No offense, but you’d probably throw in a perm or dreadlocks.”

“You need long hair for dreadlocks.”

“See, you would’ve actually considered it.”

She slapped his arm. Then she turned serious. “Are you really in enough danger that you need a disguise?”

He shrugged. “These are bad guys.”

She squeezed his shoulder. “You be careful, hear?”

Charmaine wasn’t really a blood relative of Tante Lulu; nor was John, but they were both children of Valcour LeDeux, as were Tante Lulu’s three natural great-nephews, Luc, Remy, and René. To Tante Lulu they were all kin, blood or not.

Watching Charmaine and Tante Lulu bustle around the tables, he had to smile. In some ways, Charmaine, a former Miss Louisiana, could have been her daughter, so much alike were they in attitude. With big black Texas hair, tall as a model, and stacked like Pamela Anderson, she wore tight white capri pants, a leopard print halter top, and high-heeled wedgies.

This was probably the way Tante Lulu had dressed when she was young. Even though she was only five-foot tall and ninety-two years old, the old lady still dressed outrageously. Today she’d dyed her short, curly hair red, and she wore her favorite purple shorts with its matching lavender tank top with a built-in bra. Grandma Moses with cleavage! Her only concession to her age was the orthopedic shoes, but she’d painted red polka dots on them. Lots of people didn’t look past Tante Lulu’s appearance, but those here in the bayou knew her for the accomplished
traiteur,
or healer, that she was.

“Another great adventure, Auntie?” He gave her a hug.

She didn’t push him away, but she didn’t answer him either.

“Givin’ me the silent treatment,
chère?
”

Turning, she glared at him.

“My name wasn’t in that article. It might’ve been anyone.”

She gave him one of her looks. At least she didn’t say “Puh-leeze!” Then she sighed deeply. “How am I ever gonna find you a gal when yer gallavantin’ around with scarlet wimmen?”

Only Tante Lulu would refer to whores by that old-fashioned term.

“I don’t want you findin’ me a
gal
. I can take care of that myself.”

“Doan look ta me like yer doin’ such a good job. Gumbo doan make itself, ya know.”

Whatever the hell that means.

“By the way, I like that hair color on you. Sorta like Tab Hunter.”

“Who’s Tab Hunter?”

Ignoring his question, she went on, “Mebbe ya oughta let Charmaine do yer hair up proper.”

Yep, the two of them are clones.

“And now ya lost yer job,” she said with disgust.

“I didn’t lose my job. It’s just suspended for a while, ’til things die down. Besides, aren’t you glad I’m here to help on the Pirate Project?”

“Well, there is that.” Slowly, a smile broke the wrinkles on her aged face. “But I still say the thunderbolt is headin’ yer way.”

After another hug, he went down to the stream where the other members of the Jinx team were still gazing at Useless, tossing him the occasional gingersnap or cheese doodle. To Yankees, gators were a marvel; to those living on the bayou, they were just everyday pests.

“Hey, John. I’m so glad you’ll be able to join us.” That from Veronica Jinkowsky, owner of Jinx, Inc., the treasure hunting company she inherited a few years back from her grandfather Frank Jinkowsky. Ronnie was fascinated by, but keeping her distance from, Useless, even though the old gator was harmless. Well, fairly harmless, as long as he got his daily allotment of cheese doodles or gingersnaps.

“Hey, it should be fun. Thanks for lettin’ me jump in this late in the game.”
And for givin’ me a hidin’ place.

“Not so late. We haven’t started yet. Besides, having a local diver will be helpful.”

“You again?” said Caleb Peachey, extending a hand to shake. He knew Caleb from two previous Jinx projects he’d been on. Caleb was an ex-Amish Navy SEAL. Talk about oxymorons!

“You can’t get rid of me that easily. Where’s Claire?” Claire was Caleb’s wife.

“She’s back in Pennsylvania, about to run her outdoor farm camp for children.” He rolled his eyes. Caleb had an aversion to farm life, thanks to his early years of hard work in a large Amish family, but Claire, some kind of fancy pancy historical archaeologist (which meant she obsessed over Indians), loved farms. Needless to say, they lived on a farm.

Adam Famosa, a Cuban professor of oceanography at Rutgers University and a diving expert, was on his cell phone, probably talking to some woman. You could say that John and Adam had a little friendly personality conflict. The numbnuts was gonna love John’s discomfort over the Playpen incident.

While Peach managed to overlook his appearance, Famosa glanced up at him and smirked. “LeDeux,” he said, shaking his head. That’s all he said, but he continued to smirk. A big ol’ Yankee jerk of a smirk.

John shrugged and turned to Brenda Caslow, a former NASCAR mechanic, who had just arrived with her husband, Lance Caslow, a NASCAR driver. Lance would be leaving Brenda behind when he caught a plane later today for trial runs in Tennessee. NASCAR racing was big in the South. If Tante Lulu’s neighbors found out Lance Caslow was here, they would be mobbed.