The Art of Sin (22 page)

     “I used to come up here all the time when I was a kid,” Al confessed, leaning against one of the white-painted wood posts topped with scrolled brackets. “Me and Cassie would make plans up here. We dreamed of getting out of New Orleans and having a life outside of the city.”

     “You wanted to leave New Orleans?”

     “Yeah, when I was a kid I couldn’t wait to get away. After Cassie died, I realized the city was a part of me. I couldn’t stand to be away from the heavy, humid smell of the place, the music from the French Quarter, or the eclectic quirks of the people. I knew no matter where I went, I would end up coming home. So, I stayed.”     

     Grady leaned on the rail next to her. “This is breathtaking. I can see why you don’t let your tenants up here. I’d want to keep this for myself, too.”

     “That’s not why I don’t bring people up here.”

     Grady played with the long ponytail of blonde hair against her back. “Then why do you keep this place off limits?”

     She kept her eyes ahead, staring off into the distant French Quarter. “This was Cassie’s favorite place on earth. Whenever she got in trouble, which was almost every day, she used to come up here and hide from my mother. Near the end of her life, she spent a lot of time in this cupola. She was drunk more than sober, those last few months. I always attributed her latest binge to some break up with yet another loser she had attached herself to. It wasn’t until the autopsy that I found out she was three months pregnant.”

     Grady reached his arms around her. “What happened?”                

     “She must have come up here after a show. I had been asleep in my room, but the gunshot woke me. When I got to her, she was already dead. Self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, that’s what the autopsy said, but that wasn’t what killed her. I never understood why a broken heart never qualified for a cause of death in medicine. I think that kills more people than guns, or booze, or drugs. In the end, it’s their heartbreak that does them in; the method they use to finish the job is just a technicality.”

     He closed his eyes and cursed his inability to sense her distress. From the beginning, he had known her sister’s death still grieved her. He had never imagined that after seventeen years the reason still ate away at her soul.

     “I should have known.” He squeezed his arms tightly around her. “I should have guessed there was more to it than you let on.”

     “It’s been over and done for a long time, Grady. I should put it behind me.”

     “‘There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.’”

     “Who said that?” she asked, gazing out to the French Quarter.

     “C.S. Lewis.”

     She ran her hands up and down his thick arms, teasing his skin. “Where did you learn all of these quotes of yours?”

     “I used to read a lot as a kid. I remember things that make sense to me.” 

     “You’re not a stripper, Grady. You’re too smart to be dancing on the stage for a room full of drunk housewives.”

     “You know, they’re not all housewives,” he cheekily returned.

     She shook her head. “You know what I mean. You need to get back into business. I think you need to feel useful to be happy.”

     “Perhaps, but it’s going to take a lot of knocking on doors and handing out a ton of resumes to find a job in this economy.”

     “Is there something else you can do?”

     He remembered Doug’s suggestion at the bar. “Doug told me I should become a talent agent and book strippers on the circuit. God knows, I’ve been in damn near every club there is to dance in for men.”        

     She circled around to face him. “I think that’s a great idea. I can help you get clients. I’ll call a couple of my father’s old friends who still have clubs on Bourbon. We can have your clients stay here at the house. I can help you get started.”

     He was stunned by her reaction. “You would help me?”      

     “Absolutely,” she affirmed, looking happier than she had been in the past twenty-four hours.

     “Perhaps I could give it a try, but I would have to fit it in around dancing at the club. I’ve still got bills to pay until that takes off. I have to keep a roof over my head.”

     She rested her head against this chest. “Maybe we could work out a payment plan on your rent, so you could stop dancing and spend all your time working on getting clients.”

     “What did you have in mind?”

     The ringing of her cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans made Al instantly pull away. She anxiously grabbed for the phone and answered the call.

     “Hey.” She spun away from Grady. “Now is not a good time,” she softly said into the speaker. “I need some time off. I’ve got—” She shook her head and frowned. “No, I don’t need you to come over.”

     Grady grew enraged when he realized who was on the other end of the line. He debated taking the phone from her and telling Geoff to shove his job up his ass, but Grady was reminded of the last time he had done that. He was too emotionally exhausted to go down that road again and decided not to interfere.

     “I’ll call you later.” She hung up her phone.

     “Geoff?” Grady glowered at her.

     “Don’t look at me that way. He was worried and wanted to know why I called in for the next few days.”

     “You didn’t tell him?”

     “No. How can I explain about Doug? Geoff wouldn’t understand.”

     Grady angrily folded his arms over his chest. “Why not?”

     “Geoff thinks I get too involved with the people who live under my roof. He’s been begging me to get rid of my renters for years.”

     Grady turned away. “Then you would be even more dependent on him to be able to keep your home.”

     “I know that, and that’s why I keep telling him no. I’m trying to lessen his grip around my neck, not add to it.”

     Grady barreled up to her, his eyes filled with rage. “How can you stay with a man you feel that way about? Obviously, you don’t care about him.”

     “I shouldn’t have said that. It came out the wrong way.”

     “No, it didn’t, Allison. Can you stand there and tell me you actually have feelings for Geoff?”

     “You don’t spend ten years with someone and not have feelings, Grady.” She shoved the cell phone in her back pocket. “How long after you knew it was over with your wife did you stay?”

     Grady was taken aback by her question. “I told you, I caught her—”

     Al moved toward the opening in the floor. “In my experience, affairs come after two people have given up, not before. Otherwise, there would have been no affair in the first place.” She started down the steps back into the house.

     “You’ve never been married, Allison,” he called, following her into the stairwell. “Having an affair with a married man for ten years does not give you the right to pass judgment on those of us who have been married.”

     Halfway down the dark stairwell, she turned to him. “Maybe it is because I’ve been involved with a married man that I have a better perspective on marriage than you, Grady. Don’t think just because you were married that your emotional commitment is any different from mine. I know a lot of married people who are a hell of a lot more miserable than people having affairs.”

     As Grady struggled down the narrow staircase to keep up with her, she popped out of the doorway below and into the house. When he emerged in the office, he caught sight of the back of her jeans heading into the laundry room adjacent to the kitchen. Fast on her heels, he reached the kitchen and grasped her arm, stopping her.

     “Why don’t you ever talk about leaving him?” he bellowed.

     She shirked off his arm. “I told you, I can’t walk away until I can either get him off my note or pay it off myself.”

     “I said I would give you the money.”

     She threw her hands up. “You just don’t listen, do you, Grady?”

     Marching through the archway from the kitchen to the living room, Al headed to her apartment door.

     “Where are you going?” he shouted.

     She opened the door. “I’m not going anywhere. You are.” She pointed outside to the hall.
     “Are you going to throw me out every time we have an argument?”

     “Sounds good to me.”

     Grady’s cell phone in his back pocket began ringing. When he pulled the phone from his pocket and saw the local number, his heart came to a standstill.

     “Hello?”

     “Mr. Paulson, this is Dr. Rotolo at University hospital. I needed to call you about Mr. Larson.”

     Grady locked eyes with Al. “How is he?”

     “I’m sorry, Mr. Paulson, but the blood loss was just too much for Mr. Larson’s body. We did everything we could … but your friend passed away about an hour ago.”

     Grady closed his eyes, trying to hide the truth from Al for a moment longer. “I understand.”

     “The police were never able to find any next of kin. The only phone number they could dig up was disconnected,” Dr Rotolo explained. “We have his effects here, and since there is no family to take responsibility for him, I wasn’t sure if you wanted—”

     “I’ll come down to the hospital right away,” Grady told him, his voice cracking under the weight of his emotions.

     “There’s no rush, Mr. Paulson. You can go to admitting and take care of everything when you’re ready.” Dr. Rotolo paused. “Again, I’m very sorry.”

     “Thank you,” Grady whispered, and then hung up the phone.

     When he found the courage to raise his eyes to Al, he saw a single tear streaming down her cheek. He watched the teardrop trickle along her pale skin and remembered how Doug had once called her “a tough nut to crack.” Grady wondered if his friend would have reconsidered his statement, seeing the fragile woman before him.

     Al wiped her tear away. “I’ll go with you to the hospital.”

     Grady’s arms went around her. He suddenly needed to feel her warmth. He felt cold, colder than he had ever been.

     “You stay here,” he breathed into her hair.

     Al eased away from his tight embrace. “You need me with you.”

      In her eyes, he saw the change. She had gone from vulnerable to stalwart in a matter of moments. Her strength deepened his affection for her.  

     Patting her shoulder, he put on a brave half-smile. “I’ll go and get his things. I need to do it. Besides, the doctor said they were never able to get ahold of any family. There is no one to take responsibility for him.”

     “I’ve never left any of my tenants for the city to bury before, and I won’t start now. I can make the funeral arrangements while you’re at the hospital.”

     He pulled away from her. “You’ve done this before?”

     “A few times. A lot of people in your business don’t have any family to speak of, and I figured someone should see to their funerals.”

     Grady rubbed his thumb along her tear-stained cheek. “You’re a kind soul, Allison.”

     “No, I just believe that even if someone has lived a not so wonderful life, they deserve a dignified end.”  She stepped back from him. “They’ll want a funeral home preference when you go to the hospital to sign for his body. Tell them Lake Lawn in Metairie.”

     He shook his head. “I’m sorry about before. I just want to—”

     “Later, after we have dealt with Doug, we can argue, yell, talk, whatever you want.” She waved at the open door. “I’ll be here when you get back from the hospital.

     He kissed her lips. “I’ll cook us dinner when I get back, and then we can get good and drunk. How does that sound?”

     Her smile was mixed with warmth and sadness. “Sounds like something Doug would have appreciated.”

     “Yeah, he would at that,” Grady agreed.

     Her gray eyes were on him and her small brow furrowed. “What about the club? Aren’t you supposed to dance tonight?”

     “I’ll stop by the club on my way and talk to Matt. We need to have a chat.”

     Al tipped her head to the side. “About what?”

     He shook his head, trying to appear casual and not wanting to tell her about all that the detective had inferred. Grady wanted to protect Al for as long as he could.

     “I just think he should hear about Doug from me,” Grady lied.

     Al stepped toward the door. “Then, I guess I’ll see you when you get back.”

     He put on an upbeat smile for her. “You can count on it.”

     Grady left her apartment and headed to the stairs, feeling the heaviness in his heart cutting off his air. The walls were closing in, but he fought to remain calm, at least until he was away from her.  He did not want to let Al see what Doug’s death had meant to him. He had never watched someone die. Holding Doug on that sidewalk, as they waited for help, was the closest he had ever come to death. Images of Doug’s bloody body had never been far from the forefront of his thoughts. Making his way across the landing, he could feel the bitter taste of fear rising in his throat. Choking back the rush of emotions, he concentrated on the task at hand. He needed to get to the club and find Matt.