Sailor & Lula (46 page)

Pace looked up and saw Wendell standing at the gate. A light rain was falling.

“Both you boys stand up,” Wendell ordered, and they obeyed.

Wendell flipped Smokey Joe's legs up with the barrel, causing the corpse's head to hit the ground before the rest of it pretzeled over. Lefty Grove and Pace got to their feet.

“Come in, gentlemen,” said Wendell, unfastening and opening the gate to admit them.

Wendell marched the boys up the steps into the house, where he motioned with the gun to a wooden bench against a wall of the front room.

“Sit yourselves down there, gentlemen, and tell me what's brought you this far.”

Pace sat down and Lefty Grove remained standing.

“Look, mister,” said Lefty Grove, and Wendell shot him through the heart.

The last Rattler brother collapsed on the floor next to Pace's feet, made one slight lurch after he was down, then lay perfectly still. Pace closed his eyes.

“Didn't exactly sit, did he?” said Wendell, looking down at Lefty
Grove's body, then up at Pace. “That's a rhetorical question, son. You needn't answer. Open your eyes.”

Pace looked at the man. Wendell Shake had mud puddles where his eyes ought to have been, and he was grinning, exposing gums that matched his suspenders and a dozen crowded, yellow teeth.

“We'll wait together, son,” Wendell said. “There are terrible things soon to be revealed, and man craves company. That's but one flaw in the design. Do you love the Lord, boy?”

Pace said nothing.

“Please answer.”

“I do, sir,” said Pace. “I surely do love the Lord.”

“Then the Lord loves you.”

Wendell pulled up a goose-neck rocker and sat down, resting his 30- 06 across his knees. He began to sing.

“I'm goin' to take a trip in that old gospel ship, I'm goin' far beyond the sky. I'm gonna shout and sing, till the heavens ring, when I kiss this world goodbye.”

Pace saw the pistol crossbow lying on the floor beneath a window on the other side of the room.

They decided to take two vehicles, Coot riding alone in his red Dodge pickup and Sailor with Jaloux in her metallic blue Chevrolet Lumina.

“All the top stock racers back home use these,” said Sailor, as Jaloux drove, following four car lengths behind Coot Veal's Ram.

“These what?” Jaloux asked. “And where's back home?”

“North Carolina, born and raised. Luminas, they all run 'em. Quick, light, and powerful.”

“Kinda like me,” said Jaloux, laughing, “only you don't know it yet.”

Sailor looked over at her. Jaloux was short, about five-three, with a sweet little figure that tempted Sailor to suck on her like he would a piece of hard candy, rub her smooth with his tongue until she disappeared. It wouldn't happen, though. There was no way Sailor wanted to risk breaking the bond between him and Lula. All he needed from Jaloux Marron was her help in finding his and Lula's son. This wasn't the time to get complicated.

“Mama's second husband, he was a welder,” said Jaloux. “Kind of a criminal, though.”

“Yeah, what kind?”

“All I know's what Mama says, but Terrell—his name was Terrell Vick—he'd need somethin' extra, Terrell'd just go out at night and knock somebody over the head and take it. Never nothin' big, I guess, small-time. Maybe that's what prompted Mama to get rid of him.”

“What about your own daddy?”

“He was French. Not Cajun, real French, from France. Belgium, really, which is a place close to France. His family was all from there. Marcel Marron.
Marron
means chestnut, you know.”

“I didn't.”

“Yeah, he was livin' in Antwerp before he come to the States. Started sellin' hosiery for some New York company and wound up in New Orleans at a convention, where he met Mama. She was on her own by then, nineteen years old, and was sorta hard up for cash, I guess, workin' as a party hostess for this bunch of conventioneers at the Monteleone.
'Course all them boys, they just after a quick dip, and why not? That's how Mama met Marcel Marron and he got her pregnant, married her, and hung around N.O. until about two months after I was born, then run off. Mama says she never knew where to, and ain't never heard. Maybe back to New York, or Antwerp. Least I'm legal.”

“You mean legitimate.”

“Can't have it both ways, huh?”

“How'd you get started at the Fais-Dodo?”

“After high school, which I went three years, only work I could find was fast food places or checkin' in grocery stores. That weren't no decent money, so a guy I knew, Jim-Baby Fitch, tended bar at Inez's for a while, introduced me to the manager, Blackie Caddo, happens to be from Plain Dealin', where Mama grew up partly. He hired me and there you go.”

“Strange how them things turn out.”

Sailor switched on the radio and they listened to Eddie Floyd sing “Knock on Wood” before the news on the hour.

“In Baton Rouge today, a man who two days ago shot and killed another man who had just shot and killed a woman in a shopping mall, turned himself over to the police.

“Enos Swope said he acted on impulse after seeing Kirkland Ray kill his former fiancée, Yvette Vance. Lieutenant Frank LeRoi, of the Baton Rouge police department, said, ‘Ray murdered this woman. She's down, she's wounded, and he goes and shoots her in the head again after she's down.'

“Swope said that as he pulled into the mall's parking lot he saw Ray chase Yvette Vance, waving a revolver in the air. Swope took out his own gun, a forty-four caliber pistol, and shot at the back of Ray's car as Ray was pulling away, hoping to disable it. His second shot penetrated the door and struck the fleeing man, who slumped down in his seat. Ray's car went out of control and crashed into a light pole, toppling it over onto the top of a 1958 Cadillac Coupe De Ville, trapping seventy-eight-year-old Johnson Buckeye inside. Both Buckeye and Kirkland Ray were taken by ambulance to a hospital, where Buckeye is listed in stable condition. Kirkland Ray was pronounced dead on arrival.

“‘I didn't want to kill him,' said Enos Swope, a twenty-five-year-old washing machine repairman. ‘I was just trying to help a lady.'

“Swope fled the scene, he told police, because he was afraid of being treated like a criminal. After reading in the newspaper that police were searching for a third person believed to have been involved in the incident, he came forward.

“‘My life is a mess now,' Swope said today. ‘I could lose my job, everything I own. I don't want to lose my gun. I paid dearly for it. I don't want my gun marked up. It's such a pretty gun. I love that gun.'

“Police have decided not to file charges against Enos Swope, pending a grand jury's review of the case.”

Jaloux followed Coot Veal off the highway to a Short Stop convenience store.

“Hey, Sailor,” Coot said, before they went in for a coffee break, “forget what I was sayin' before about them Shinin' Path people in Peru.”

“Why's that, Coot?”

“Well, I was just listenin' to the radio news?”

“Yeah, so was we.”

“Had a report that them guerrillas shot and killed nineteen peasants, nearly all of 'em women and children, in a small village up in the Andes. These peasants went there to escape the rebel attacks down below. Said some of the kids weren't no more'n two or three years old. Just like Nam.”

A young black woman, no more than fifteen years old, a bright yellow scarf wrapped around her head, holding an infant with one arm and a bag of groceries with the other, was coming out of the Short Stop. Sailor held the door open for her.

“Thanks, mister,” she said, passing Sailor without looking at him.

“No problem,” said Sailor.

Carmine Papavero and Zero Diplopappus left the office of Bayou Enterprises at seven-forty-five A.M. Poppy slid behind the wheel of his powder blue BMW and punched up his home number on the cellular phone as he pulled into the commuter traffic on Airline Highway.

“H'lo.”

“
Buona mattina
, Perdita
mia
. I wake you up?”

“Uh huh.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, but I figured if I didn't call now I might not get another chance until late.”

“Got a busy day, huh?”

“Zero and I are going to Mississippi today, after we make a stop in town. We might not be back until tomorrow, tomorrow night.”

“I'm still pretty beat from all that flyin', honey, so I'll be sleepin' mostly. That Europe's okay, but it's too damn far away. Think from now on I'll just stick to Dallas or Palm Beach, I need somethin' special.”

“Whatever pleases you, honey. Get your rest and we'll have some fun when I return.”

“Hold ya to it.”

Poppy laughed. “Sleep tight, baby,” he said, and hung up.

“You ought to get married, Zero. Change your outlook.”

“Only one I'm lookin' out for is me. Besides, I was married once.”

“Oh yeah? What happened?”

“Back in Tarpon Springs, when I was eighteen. A local girl, Flora Greco. She drowned on our honeymoon in Mexico.”

“I'm sorry, Zero. I didn't know.”

“I don't look back. Where we stoppin'?”

“Sonny Nevers needs a visit. We'll catch him at his jewelry store right when he opens at eight.”

Poppy guided the Beamer off Interstate 10 onto Claiborne and turned down Elysian Fields. He pulled in front of the Gold Mine and parked. He and Zero waited until Sonny Nevers pulled up the doorshade, then
they got out and rang the bell next to the store entrance. Nevers recognized Zero and Poppy and buzzed them in.

“Don't even say it!” said Sonny, edging his five-feet four-inch, three-hundred-pound body around from behind the counter to greet the two men. “I'll have it tomorrow, no problem.”

Poppy accepted Sonny's handshake and waved away the smoke from what was already the jewelry salesman's second Partagas Topper of the day.

“Wasn't expecting there'd be one,” said Poppy. “You've always been a man of your word, Sonny.”

“Had a small cash flow difficulty here, just straightened it out. You can count on it. Want a cigar?”

“I know I can. No, thanks.”

The doorbell rang. Sonny looked out and saw two men in blue sports coats carrying briefcases.

“Salesmen,” said Sonny, who went back behind the counter and pressed the buzzer.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked, after they'd entered.

Both men were more than six feet tall, well-built, had blond hair and wore Carrera sunglasses. Each man pulled a .45 automatic from his briefcase and pointed it at Sonny and Poppy and Zero.

“We'll kill all three of you,” said the slightly taller of the two men in a calm voice, “unless you give us what you've got in the safe.”

Nobody said a word as the taller man followed Sonny into the rear of the store. The other man kept Poppy and Zero covered while he pulled down the doorshade and reversed the OPEN sign to CLOSED. In less than five minutes, the taller man emerged from the back, carrying a large black satchel filled mostly with twenty-four-karat gold used for the manufacture of gold chain.

Sonny ran out and hurled his huge body at the man with the satchel. The other blond man turned and shot Sonny in the face, the slug going in under the nose, lifting off the top of the fat man's head. Sonny's corpse belly-flopped on the floor as an umbrella of blood spread around him. Zero and Poppy plastered themselves against the wall. The taller blond man turned toward them and fired twice. One round entered Poppy's open mouth, killing him instantly. Zero dropped to his knees, so the
man's first shot missed entirely, shattering the plaster above his head. The second shot, however, was on target, gouging a large opening in the left side of Zero's neck, causing his oversized ears to flap furiously as he crumpled over on the cool, black-and-white-tiled floor.

The two blond men put their guns into the briefcases and left the store, the shorter man making certain that the door was closed securely behind them. The men walked swiftly to a new black Cadillac Fleet-wood, put the satchel, containing nearly seventy-five pounds of gold worth three quarters of a million dollars, and the briefcases into the trunk, locked it, got into the car and drove away at a moderate speed. Inside The Gold Mine, Zero Diplopappus watched a ribbon of sunlight wriggle slowly through the front window and settle on what was left of Sonny Nevers's face. Zero did not live long enough to close his eyes.

“You don't have to be afraid to talk to me, boy,” Wendell Shake said to Pace. “Got somethin' to say, say it.”

“I ain't,” said Pace.

“This world's an awful cruel place, son. Worst place I ever been.”

“You remind me of a person I met once, named Elmer Désespéré,” said Pace, “hailed from Mamou. He weren't so crazy for it, neither.”

“There's a few of us is sensitive to more'n the weather. Where's this Elmer now?”

“He was killed on the street in New Orleans.”

“Mighta guessed. It's the good go young, like they say. But there'll be one Great Day in the Mornin' before it's finished, I guarantee.”

“Sir?”

“Yes, son?”

“What is it exactly gripes you, you don't mind my askin'.”

Wendell grinned. “Ain't worth explainin'. Best repeat what Samuel Johnson said: ‘Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.' ”