The Axeman's Jazz (Skip Langdon Mystery Series #2) (The Skip Langdon Series) (27 page)

“And how do you know Jimmy Dee?”

“Oh, we don’t. We came with some friends of mine.”

Of course. Certainly not friends of Carlton’s. Jimmy Dee was probably as horrified to see him as Skip was. Carlton was a stuffy old coot—and old he really was, even for the dad of a friend. He was also loaded, married to a younger woman, and not the sort to get divorced—for financial was well as social reasons. And he would no more be seen in public with a black woman than spit in his soup. What the hell was wrong with both these people?

She answered mechanically as Cindy Lou asked her a thousand questions about how the night had gone, whether the Axeman had shown himself, if an arrest had been made. It was too much. Not only had she failed professionally, but Cindy Lou had failed her. She was the closest thing Skip had to an idol, and she turned out to be not only human, but not very bright in a certain area. Granted it was the area in which almost no one is very bright, but it didn’t help Skip’s mood any.

She slunk off to bed as soon as she could extricate herself.

And was gratified to find a good-night message from Steve Steinman on her machine: He loved her. Even if she did date murderers.

THE NEXT MORNING Joe was jubilant. To him, the bottom line had been getting through the night without a body on page one of the
Picayune
.

She wished she could match his mood. A body still might turn up.

And they still didn’t have a good suspect. Alex, their best bet, had gone straight home after he left Skip. Di had never left her apartment. Cappello had followed Sonny and Missy to one other party, then home. Abe had stayed late at Di’s, and O’Rourke, returning from following Alex home, had followed Abe to a few bars, then home.

“We got through this,” Joe told the task force, “and we should all be proud. But we have to hit this investigation even harder now. We have to think of new ways to go, ways to kick this thing out of neutral, get it into high gear.”

But what was left? They were already backgrounding everybody they could trace who’d lately been to the inner-child group. So far, connections with the victims just weren’t emerging.

“The group meets tomorrow night and I want you all there.”

Skip said, “I just had a thought.”

O’Rourke said, “Oh, shit.”

“Can it, O’Rourke,” said Joe.

“I was thinking,” Skip continued, too excited even to be annoyed, “that Cindy Lou might go to the group too. She could meet all these types and give a better evaluation of them.”

Joe turned to Cindy Lou: “What do you think?”

She shrugged. “Worth a try, I guess.” Her enthusiasm would not have inspired regiments.

Later, she got Skip aside. “So what’s the deal on Carlton Lattimore?”

“He’ll never leave his wife, Cindy Lou.”

“He has left her.”

“He’ll go back.”

Cindy Lou sighed.

“You can do better.”

“What the hell’s wrong with me?” Cindy Lou said, and turned away to hide her tears.

Skip had a sadness of her own: No one is ever who you hope they’ll be.

He’d had enough. That was it. He was never going back. Abe crumpled his phone messages, tossed them in the wastebasket. Perfect shot.

Shit. Last night had been an unmitigated fiasco. Skip had left with Alex. The new blonde had been a bimbo, probably never dated anyone over thirty. And Missy had been with Mr. Beautiful-but-Dumb. He was starting to think they were two of a kind. He’d gone prowling after leaving Di’s, had actually gone into the Quarter, that was how desperate he was. But all the women there were cheap and country. Probably had AIDS and herpes both.

Why did it have to be this way? Why did he have to be in this goddamn hellhole? He knew for a fact that two people in the firm had had parties last night, and he hadn’t been invited to either. That was the way New Orleans was. Closed.

Tighter than a strongbox unless you’d been born here or at least gone to Tulane.

Or weren’t Jewish. That was probably a big part of it. They hated him here because he was Jewish. Not that he was really Jewish, gave a damn about it or anything, but nobody’d asked him, had they? They just assumed he was and that was that.

Mary Ann had been like that. His first girlfriend. He could still remember her from seventh grade. A beautiful little blonde with blue eyes, the most popular girl in the class. She called him every night for two weeks, and then they went to the movies, his mother driving. And after that, she didn’t call anymore. His mother said it was because her mother had recognized her when she picked Mary Ann up, and knew she was Jewish, knew Abe was. So that was the end of it.

After that he’d given up girls for a while, and when he finally emerged as a dater, he chose only Jewish girls—dark-haired, which he didn’t like, brown-eyed when he preferred blue. But he didn’t mind the colors so much as the fact that their hair was not only dark but usually curly. He was uncomfortably reminded of black people’s hair. He liked straight, silky hair, to this day couldn’t understand why women got perms.

He’d noticed something right away about the Jewish girls in high school. Those who’d already had their noses done wouldn’t go out with him, invariably chose guys on the football team or class officers. That was the way they were—snotty bitches. The others were bad enough, but these were ball-breakers. There was no other word for it. They always had to choose the movie, always had to pick the place to go afterward. One of them had done him at the drive-in, though. But the bitch wouldn’t fuck, that was as far as she went. He’d gotten her a really great birthday present too—a single pearl on a chain.

When he looked back on it, it was ironic. Half the grown-up ones wouldn’t go down on you, or expected you to do it to them every time. He didn’t mind on a first date or something, just to get things rolling, but it was too much work. He certainly wasn’t going to keep doing it over and over again, as if it was his idea of a million laughs. It was a disgusting practice, gooey and smothery. Jesus, you could end up with hairs caught in your teeth. While a penis was perfectly smooth and sanitary. Hell, he’d suck his own if he could reach it. (But no one else’s, of course—talk about revolting.)

Who needed Jewish princesses? He’d graduated to the blondes and redheads when he got to Princeton. They liked his Southern accent.

After college he thought it was time to get serious. First there was Inge, the nurse he would have married if the cunt hadn’t been so fucking interested in ending up with a doctor.

Then there was Amy, the secretary with the perky ass. Amy had dumped him for a senior partner in the firm. That wouldn’t have been so bad except that the guy was sixty-five and married. What was wrong with chicks, anyhow?

It never got any better. Finally, he’d married Cynthia, mostly because she wasn’t Jewish and therefore didn’t judge him on the basis of income and status in the firm. She looked good. She wanted children. She could cook. She liked to fuck. What could go wrong?

She was a bitch, was what could go wrong. He should do half the cooking, he should help with the children, he should mow the lawn; shit, she even wanted him to help her paint the bathroom, go shopping for furniture—there was no end to the crap she could dream up. And all to control him. She wasn’t happy unless she was controlling some man. That was what she really loved in life.

He’d gotten so he couldn’t stand to fuck her. Just didn’t want to at all. She’d take off her clothes and he’d remember what she looked like giving birth. (He’d had to watch, it was fashionable.) She’d put on perfume and he’d get little whiffs of baby shit.

That was marriage and the hell with it. He wasn’t doing it again. He was finding some hot little number who loved kids and getting her to move in with him. How hard could that be? He was a prominent lawyer.

But he wasn’t and he never would be. Not in New Orleans. And it was all that bitch Cynthia’s fault. In Atlanta he was hot shit.

And in Atlanta the women were prettier. Softer. More like flowers. There had to be some women like that here, but where? Not in these damn twelve-step programs. Certainly not in that stupid teddy-bear group. He was fed up with all that ritual crap anyway. It was too Christian. Who needed it? He’d thought the girls who went there might be disease-free, that was all. They didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, hardly ate anything, they could probably stay out of the wrong beds. And there was also a bottom line: He didn’t know where else to go.

Nobody was introducing him to anybody or inviting him anywhere. What the hell was he supposed to do?

Something. Not that crap anymore. Maybe he could volunteer, get on some committees. But the women would be too old, probably married. Maybe he could take a class. There had to be something. He was through with teddy bears.

His phone rang and who should it be but the Bitch of the Bayou, otherwise known as Cynthia.

“Abe, how are you? I’ve been worried about you.”

Sure she had. “Great, Cynthia. What can I do for you?”

“Listen, Jocelyn’s really having trouble with her math homework and I can’t help her with it. You’re good at that sort of thing. I thought maybe you could work with her.”

“I have been.”

“I meant this week.”

“They’re with you this week, Cynthia. Surely you don’t expect me to come over there.”

“I could bring them over tomorrow night…”

“No.”

“What do you mean no? You’re the one who followed me here from Atlanta, ‘just to be near the girls.’ Frankly, I’m starting to doubt your motives.”

“What other motive could I possibly have had? It’s not like I like being here, you know.”

“Torturing me.”

“Cynthia, if you have a point, would you get to it, please?”

“I have a date tomorrow night.”

“Hip, hip, hooray.”

“Listen, Mr. Prominent Attorney, do you have any idea how hard it is for women in this town? While you’re going out every night with a different blond tramp, I’m sitting home watching TV without even the girls half the time because they’re at your fucking house. For once I have a date, okay? And it happens to coincide with Jocelyn having terrible trouble with her math. So if your precious daughters mean so goddamn much to you, you can just goddamn take them for one night.”

“Cynthia, do you happen to recall telling me I should see a shrink? Do you happen to recall about a million suggestions you have made in the last few years about how I can improve myself? It may interest you to know that I’m deeply involved with a group that meets every Thursday night and is devoted to spirituality and self-improvement.”

She spat out a grim snicker. “Oh, sure you are. Honest Abe strikes again.”

“I really don’t care what you do and don’t believe. I can’t be at your beck and call every time you don’t care to take care of your own children. I suggest you get a baby-sitter.”

“I’ve tried. Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Her voice got shriller on each word.

“It’s really not my problem.”

And then the first sob came over the phone and he knew that once again it was easier to do what she wanted than put up with her crap. It was starting already: “It’s the first time! The first goddamn time since I’ve been here! Do you want me to be a dried-up old crone?”

“Okay, okay. Take it easy.”

Shit. Now he’d have to get a baby-sitter. Because there was no question he was going to the meeting. She’d ask the girls if he’d gone out, and if he hadn’t, she’d say he’d been lying and throw it back in his face. This way, he’d have taken the girls at a huge sacrifice to himself. There should be some leverage in that.

The monitor showed the flat line of asystole, cardiac standstill. The guy had a nasty gunshot wound, probably wouldn’t make it.

The defibrillator sounded its little alarm; it was charged.

“Everybody clear; I’m going to shock him.” Sonny moved away from the table.

Two hundred joules. Nothing.

Three hundred. Still flat.

Three-sixty. Sonny’s pulse was going crazy. The uneven peaks and valleys of normal sinus rhythm appeared on the screen.

“Okay,” said the resident. “Call the lab and tell them he’s going to surgery. Get that blood upstairs.”

The guy had a good chance. Sonny had to shake his head to get the hang of it, had to come out of a kind of trance. He’d been so sure this one was going to go. So sure. He must have fallen into that weird half-trance to protect himself against it.

Great. A fat lot of good it would have done if the guy had died. He’d still have to come out of it and he’d still feel just as bad as he ever did. But never mind, who the hell cared? He felt great now. It really did feel good when you saved them. This was what being a doc was all about. This was why people did it. (People other than the Gerards.)

He’d been such lousy company lately that he hunted up Missy, thinking to tell her … what? Well, just how good he felt. To “share” that, he thought with a smirk.

“Can you take a break?”

She looked at her watch. “Five, ten minutes.”

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“The roof.”

But once in the elevator he had a better idea. He knew a room, several of them, in fact, with keys hidden over the doors—the old call rooms.

“Where are we going?”

“In here.” He hustled her into one.

“Why?” She had on a tiny lime-green miniskirt, a crisp white blouse—a madonna in a mini. She was so beautiful. Why didn’t he notice it more often?

He felt so tender, so choked up with love for her, he could barely whisper. “I want to make love to you.” It came out a croak.

“Sonny!” Her voice was a schoolteacher’s, shrill and punishing.

He put his arms around her, kissed her. Her arms didn’t go around him. “Sonny, are you crazy?”

“Yes. Yes. I’m absolutely crazy.” He took her arms and put them around his shoulders, prompting her. He ground his groin into hers.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Missy never talked like that. Not Missy McClellan, the woman he loved, who was so afraid of displeasing anyone, he’d never heard her raise her voice. Never even heard her say “hell.”