Gator Aide (31 page)

“Any particular reason you chose this place, darlin’, or did you just miss being away from the swamp?”

“I thought you did your homework on Global Corporation, Santou.”

“Obviously you did it for us. This is Sabino’s?”

“Along with everything else Buddy Budwell owns.”

Santou smiled and took a drink of his scotch. “One of which was Valerie Vaughn.”

Valerie Vaughn. Her face was conjured up before me, turning in slow motion again and again with a conspiratorial wink.

“Have you ever been to New York, Santou?”

Chewing on a piece of ice from his glass, he shook his head no. “Why? Are you thinking that maybe I’m tied in with Sabino?” His eyes narrowed in on me and then he grinned, taking pleasure in the game of reeling me in.

“I just wondered if you’d ever been to Times Square. I suppose in some ways it’s New York’s equivalent of Bourbon Street. I’ve developed a fascination for Bourbon and the people who work there.”

“Like Terri?”

“Yes.” Terri, a transvestite performer and my best friend in the world.

“And Valerie Vaughn?”

Especially Valerie Vaughn. I wanted to know what made a girl from the bayou go bad, and what saved a city girl like me from falling into the same trap.

“Be careful,
chère
. Bourbon Street and its characters should scare the hell out of you. It’s seductive from the outside, but that’s one shit world, and the people are pure trouble. Believe me, even your friend Terri is eventually going to hit rock bottom.”

A glass of white wine was placed in front of me.

“And what about you, Santou? You have no vices?”

His eyes pierced through me from under heavy lids. Hickok liked to say that Cajuns had more than their share of secrets. Santou was full of secrets. Secrets about Kroll and Williams and Valerie Vaughn. When he spoke again, his voice was so soft and low, that I found myself leaning forward to catch his words.

“I’ll tell you a vice I had, Rachel, because I want you to know how dangerous getting involved in that world is. I used to be with the DEA, working undercover on the strip.” Santou swirled his glass and stared into the liquid with all the desire and despair of a parched man confronted with a mirage.

“I loved that work—the life, the excitement, and the danger. It wasn’t long before I also fell in love with the nose candy. Hell, it’s part of the package. It comes with the lifestyle—free and easy for the taking. You just had to know the right places.”

He looked at me so intently that I felt like a prize butterfly about to be pinned to a mount. “I made mistakes, got caught, and was kicked out of the agency. They said I couldn’t be trusted.” A telltale muscle twitched under his eye. “I’d sniffed my life right down the drain.”

This was a revelation I hadn’t expected. The admission made him seem all the more human, and more seductive than ever. My voice barely came out in a whisper. “What did you do?”

Santou finished his scotch and motioned to the waiter to bring another. “I felt sorry for myself, until I realized that it wasn’t doing me any good. So I went and got cleaned up. Then I got lucky. I was offered a second chance, and joined N.O.P.D.” He ran a finger along the inside of one palm, as if searching for an answer to his future. “The strip is a fascinating place,
chère
. But sooner or later, it will suck you under; and the price you pay is to lose your soul.”

Santou’s melancholy was almost a visible throb as he continued to stare at his palm. The spell was finally broken when he looked at me and grinned a lopsided smile. “But don’t you worry. I’ve still got plenty of vices, sugar. They’re even fun to share.”

I flushed as Santou’s innuendo hit home. Without a doubt, the man knew how to get to me. My pulse began to race once more, and I took advantage of the moment to compose myself by going in search of the ladies’ room.

I followed the curve of the wall down the stairs to the first floor landing, and past the swinging doors of the kitchen. A second set of steps appeared to lead down to a cellar. The ladies’ room was just around the corner, in a hallway as dimly lit as the dining room above. Walking into the room, thoughts of Santou raced through my mind like an X-rated film. I once again felt his fingers trace the line of my face and slide along my skin, teasing with soft caresses. The more I tried to push such thoughts away, the more explicit the scenes became. I studied myself in the vanity mirror. The flimsy dress, my bare shoulders, the care I had taken with my hair, the receding bruises painstakingly covered over with makeup, were all unmistakable signs. I had a bad case of desire.

I walked out of the bathroom and was about to turn the corner, when footsteps echoed up from the basement below. The sound of voices drifted to where I had stopped. They were voices I had heard before. Peering around the corner, I was in time to see two heads bobbing up the stairs—one the size of a large melon, carpeted with thinning blond hair, the other draped in a bad toupee. Buddy Budwell and Clyde Bolles came into view together, just as they had been only a few days ago. I pulled back, unable to make out what was being said, but hearing enough to know they were headed in my direction. Sliding back inside the ladies’ room, I kept my ear pressed to the door as they entered the bathroom on my right. Then I eased out and quickly turned the corner, heading for the unlit stairs.

I climbed down the dim steps, using the palms of my hands to guide myself along the rough wall of stone, until I reached the bottom. A heavy metal door closed off whatever lay beyond. Deciding to risk a look, I grabbed the handle, pushing as hard as I could, but the door refused to budge. At the same moment, I heard the two sets of footsteps again, coming around the corner from the men’s room. I knew that my timing had failed.

I pressed myself tightly against the door, wishing myself invisible as the lump on the back of my head kicked into high gear, its pain a sharp, searing throb. Time seemed endless as I looked up to see two pairs of feet hovering at the top of the stairs.

I held my breath as I tried to melt into the metal. Closing my eyes, I didn’t dare move. A moment later I heard the swinging of the kitchen doors, and looked up again to see both sets of feet move off in the opposite direction. I stayed pressed against the door for as long as I could stand it, before pulling off my shoes. Soundlessly scurrying up the stairs, I didn’t stop until I had reached our table.

Santou was working his way through his second glass of Scotch as I sat down. “Do you always carry your shoes with you when you go to the bathroom,
chère
?”

Slipping them back on, I didn’t bother to answer. I thought of the dark stairwell and of what possibly lay beyond. Ordering a second glass of wine, I made a conscious effort to relax during dinner, but I found myself jumping at every strange sound. I caught Santou watching me, but he made no further comment as we filled the time with small talk. Midway through the meal, I glanced out the window once again at the swamp below. Barely discernible through the shadows was the outline of a small boat pushing off from behind the restaurant, its destination somewhere deep inside the swamp. The boat appeared to hold three figures, and I felt fairly certain that two of them were Bolles and Budwell. It took the full moon gliding out from behind a cloud, like Salome ripping away the last of her veils, to reveal the third figure of the trio. Connie Kroll sat gazing up at the moon like a loup-garou, the Cajun version of a werewolf, come to life. I smiled as I felt my luck return once again.

Dry lightning danced in the sky, its long, thin fingers reaching down to tickle the ground, while off in the distance the low rumble of thunder sounded a drumroll. Thoughts of Pasta Nostra receded from my mind. I gave in to the wine and laid my head back against the seat of the car, reveling in the sounds and smells of the night as we headed back to New Orleans.

I sensed the warmth of Santou’s hand before it brushed against mine. The rough skin of his fingers slowly explored my palm with the lightest tinge of suggestion. He ran his hand up along the bare skin of my leg, and a surge of heat coursed through me. By the time we arrived back at my place, the air, heavy with humidity, broke like a giant sponge that had been squeezed, and the rain began to fall in a steady sheet. There was no need to question what would happen next as he followed me inside.

I didn’t bother to turn on the lights. Instead, I opened a bottle of wine as Santou grabbed two glasses, and we headed wordlessly into the bedroom. After opening the French doors to the balcony, we slowly undressed as we listened to the rain streaming onto the roof and down the eaves, covering the nude maidens in the fountain below. Santou made love to me as I had imagined he would, with all the slow intensity of a smoldering fire. Afterward, we lay on top of the sheets and drank cold wine, allowing the wood blades of the fan to cool our bodies before turning to each other again to explore even more slowly this time. I dozed off later, hearing his steady breathing beside me, and didn’t mind that for once the only illumination in the room came from the lightning that ripped through the sky.

In the middle of the night, his hand brushed my hair away from my ear and I turned toward him, feeling his body hard and warm against mine. Whispering that he had to leave, he kissed my cheek and told me to go back to sleep. And I did. I floated on my dreams, and felt safe beneath the thin sheet that rustled against my skin from the breeze of the rain and the fan above.

Later on, I felt my hair once more gently lifted off my neck, and I smiled to myself in the secret knowledge that he had returned to make love to me again. As I lay on my side, the sheet slithered off my body and I remained still in the silent anticipation of his touch against my skin. In my semiconscious state, the realization that I hadn’t given him a key rippled across my mind, but I wasn’t worried about such things. Not with Santou. His hand played along my leg and up past my hip, to nestle in the hollow of my waist before moving on to cup my breast. It lingered there, exploring every inch before continuing on with its journey. I gave myself over to the delicious pleasure of his finger lightly gliding along the skin of my throat, as his warm breath brushed tenderly against my ear. His whisper soothed my body like a loving caress, and the gentle sound of the words could have been a baby’s lullaby until their full impact registered like a bullet in my brain, exploding in a firestorm of fear.

“Wake up. I want to watch you die.”

My heart pounded out of control as a sharp nick pierced the skin of my neck, burning as the pain raced through me. Confused as to what was happening, I rolled hard to the left and grabbed my pillow, holding it in front of me with all the conviction of an invincible shield. Struggling to sit up, I reached wildly with my left hand to grab onto the baseball bat that I kept by my bed. But before I could grasp it, a hand grabbed the top of my hair, jerking my head back hard. As my jaw snapped shut my teeth bit into my tongue, and a stinging slash ripped through my neck once again.

Pulling loose, I clutched the wooden handle of the bat and screamed, swinging as hard as I could. I felt the wood make contact, crashing into flesh and bone with a thud, and I struck again as the bite of a blade sliced into my flesh. Still screaming, I heard a pounding outside my door as Terri’s voice shrieked above the din. Words hissed out as I continued to flail at the air with the bat.

“Take this as a warning.”

But I couldn’t be sure if that was exactly what was said, in my terror and confusion.

Then I heard the scuffle of steps on my balcony, as whoever had been in my room climbed over the rail. Terri’s voice was immediately beside me, but I couldn’t stop the cry which tore out of my throat, ringing in my ears to mix with the thunder that exploded in my brain. Until I realized that I hadn’t made any sound at all. Terri held me as I wondered if I was losing my mind, if it had been just one more nightmare played to the hilt in the darkness of my room.

My fingers trembled as I reached past him and turned on the lamp. Light flooded my room, illuminating a pool of red that formed a ghoulish design of blood splattered with goose feathers. My pillow had been slashed into ribbons.

Pushing away from Terri, I made my way over to the mirror on shaky legs. Three long gashes encircled my throat like a jagged choker of blood red rubies. As the blood flowed freely down my neck onto my breasts, Valerie’s reflection appeared in the mirror, tattooed in a lacework of slashes. And I remembered Kitty, the stripper I’d recently met, and her own angry scars. I had little doubt as to who my attacker had been, or that this was the prelude to a terror not yet over. The slashes sizzled on my neck, branding me as one more victim permanently marked with fear. It made me all the more aware that I was no stronger or braver or safer than either Valerie or Kitty had been. And I knew that my nightmares had now become my reality.

What was left of the
night was spent with lights blazing bright to fight off the demons that had suddenly become all too real. My .357 explored every closet, every corner, in search of something to take aim at so that I would stop feeling so helpless and out of control. Terri helped to patch me up as best he could, staining most of a towel before the bleeding subsided. Refusing his pleas that I go to a hospital, I allowed him to cover the gashes on my neck with rolls of gauze. Pouring me a shot of straight bourbon, he poured another as I gulped down the first.

Then he rocked me as I sat in bed, the gun cradled in my lap like a sleepless child. Refusing either to call the police or to try and sleep, I watched one moth after another fly into the overhead light, where they departed as black ashes in a crisp sizzle of smoke, falling in a growing funeral pyre around me.

I resisted the temptation to phone Santou. At first I told myself it was because I was too shaken up to be coherent. But it was more than that. I was angry that he had left me alone in the dead of night. He’d walked out, as if that was all the evening had been worth. I tried to stop myself from thinking this might not have happened if he had been there. But it didn’t work. Along with being afraid and angry, I was hurt. Finally, I caved in and picked up the phone to call Santou, only to realize that he’d never even told me where he lived. Instead, I called the precinct, letting the phone ring until I could no longer stand the unanswered buzz in my ear.