DIVA (28 page)

Sunday 12:20 P.M.

Antoine paid for the CD at the register, boogied on out of the Louisiana Music Factory and ambled down Decatur Street, basking in the warmth of the midday sun. Way better than listening to Reverend Goines rant about sin. This morning he’d told Uncle Jonas he felt sick, must have caught a bug or something. Got back a dubious look. Uncle Jonas took his responsibilities seriously, had promised Antoine’s parents he’d make sure Antoine went to school every day and take him to church every Sunday.

He’d refused his uncle’s usual Sunday breakfast—fried eggs, grits and toast—said his stomach felt like a meat grinder. And it did. Go to church, he’d run into Marcus. Out of sight, out of mind be the best thing. Five minutes after Uncle Jonas left, he’d hopped in his car and drove to the French Quarter, got to the music store right when it opened at noon.

Clutching the yellow plastic bag with Antonio Hart’s latest CD in his left hand, he dug out his car keys, fantasizing about his future, imagining himself onstage at Snug Harbor with his own quartet, or playing lead sax in the Dizzy Gillespie Reunion Band like Antonio Hart.

A bleak vision shattered his joyful mood.

Chantelle at the microphone singing with his quartet.

His heart crumbled into a thousand pieces like a broken mirror. Yesterday was her birthday, sweet sixteen. Would have been, if she wasn’t dead. Chantelle would never sing with his group, would never sing again except in Heaven maybe. He couldn’t get her out his mind. Even when he played along with one of his CDs, a vision of Chantelle might blindside him, his eyes filling with tears at the sight of her beautiful face and sparkling eyes.

Oblivious to passing cars, he put his head down and trudged along the sidewalk, not much traffic at this hour on a Sunday, everybody sleeping in after a night of partying. Across the street, the sun bounced off the gleaming tower of Canal Place, a swanky shopping center, a young couple going in the back entrance to catch an early movie at the Canal Place Theater probably.

Hearing voices behind him, he turned to look. He saw no one and kept walking, hurrying now. Uncle Jonas be home from church by one, he’d better be there if he knew what was good for him. Better hide the CD, too. If Uncle Jonas heard a new CD, he’d have to explain where he got it. He smiled as a solution came to him: Take the wrapper off in his car, listen to Antonio Hart on the way home, Uncle Jonas be none the wiser.

“Yo,” called a deep voice behind him. “Antoine.”

He turned to look and his heart jumped into his throat. AK and his homeboys, Spider and Dead-Eye, jogging toward him a block away.

Sweet Jesus! He turned and ran like hell. If he could get to his car . . .

No. They were too close, footsteps pounding the sidewalk behind him. He ducked down an alley lined with smelly trash containers, risked a glance over his shoulder. They were gaining on him.

“Yo, Antoine! Stop! I just wanna talk to you.”

Just wanna talk to you
. Bullshit. AK wanted to beat the crap out of him because Marcus, the little rat, had told AK that cop had pulled him out of Jazz Harmony class. He ran faster, arms flailing, clutching the bag with the CD, bolted out of the alley onto Chartres Street.

Hadn’t told the cop nothing, but AK would never believe it.

He ran faster, feet slamming the pavement, heart pounding so hard it made his teeth hurt. He dodged a man and a woman walking along the sidewalk. White tourists. No help there. Maybe he’d go to the District-Eight police station on Royal Street where Detective Renzi worked.

But Renzi wouldn’t be there on a Sunday. And AK and his thugs would catch him long before he got there.

“Antoine! Wait up!”

Powered by adrenaline, he ran faster. But he couldn’t outrun them forever. He zigged left and ran up Conti Street, breathing hard. Maybe he’d go in a store. But a lot of stores were still closed after Katrina and some of the others didn’t open on Sunday. This end of the Quarter was full of upscale shops that catered to tourists. Nobody gonna help a black kid running from three ‘bangers in cargo pants and hoodies. Go in a store, they would corner him like a mouse in a trap.

Maybe he could make it to Harrah’s. The gambling casino at the foot of Canal Street was open 24-7. Plenty of security there. No. Forget that. They wouldn’t let him in the door, see some wild-eyed black kid run inside, they might even call the cops. Maybe that be the best thing.

He glanced over his shoulder. Saw Dead-Eye but not AK and Spider.

Jesus! Dead-Eye was driving him into a trap. Then he saw what was in Dead-Eye’s hand. His heart almost stopped. A mean-looking gun.

He kept running. If he could get to the next street, maybe he could hide out in a store for a while, then sneak back to his car. Uncle Jonas would be pissed, coming home from church to an empty house.

But that was the least of his worries.

Most important thing now was to stay alive.

A stitch in his side slowed him to a trot. The pain stabbed his ribs like a steak knife. He swiped sweat off his brow. Risked another glance over his shoulder. Dead-Eye was still behind him, but not gaining on him. Dead-Eye was winded, too. If he could get to the Royal Café, he’d be safe. People went there to drink coffee and eat pastries while they read the Sunday paper outside in the long narrow courtyard.

AK wouldn’t dare shoot him in front of all those people, would he?

And then, his worst fear. AK and Spider sprang out of an alley ahead of him packing killer hardware. Jesus God, they were going to kill him!

Panic-stricken, he ducked into the recessed doorway of a jewelry store and yanked the door open. A white lady in a polka-dot dress stood behind a waist-high display case.

Her head jerked up and she looked at him, eyes fearful.

“I won’t hurt you,” he gasped. “Just let me out the back. There’s three guys chasing me. If I don’t get away, they’ll kill me.”

______

“Works going great, Dad. Last week I assisted one of the orthopedic surgeons on a broken leg with a compound fracture.”

Enjoying the trill of enthusiasm in his daughter’s voice, Frank sank onto Kelly’s sofa with his cell phone. Kelly had made him use the bathroom first. After a quick shower and shave, he’d found a message from Maureen on his cell phone. Which he’d shut off last night before he and Kelly went to bed.

No message from Otis, though. No news on Marcus.

“Sounds like you’re knocking ‘em dead, Mo.” He grinned. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, Dad, I know. You and your dark humor.”

He pictured her: hazel eyes, auburn hair and a big grin when she was happy, which was most of the time, unlike her mother. Maureen was the light of his life. Damn, he missed her. “Other than work, how are things?”

“I spent last weekend with Mom. It was nice to be home.”

“How’s she doing? She doing okay?” He assumed so. He hadn’t had a late-night panic call from his ex-wife for almost a month.

“I guess. She’s got that teacher’s aide job, but she doesn’t go out much.”

Doesn’t go out much
. Meaning what, he wondered.

“Do you think she could be a lesbian?”

The question bowled him over, not the fact that Maureen thought Evelyn could be a lesbian, the fact that she had voiced the idea to him.

“No, I don’t. What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know.” Sounding like she wished she hadn’t brought it up. “She doesn’t seem interested in meeting . . . you know, guys.”

Of course not. His ex-wife wasn’t interested in sex with anyone, male or female.

“She’s only forty-two, Dad. And she’s in good shape, attractive. She could be dating. You go out on dates, don’t you?”

He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. His daughter, a twenty-four-year-old resident in orthopedic surgery, asking about his sex life?

“I mean . . . you did it before, right?”

The subtle reproach brought back the aching sadness he’d felt during the divorce, a bitter fight that had driven a wedge between him and his daughter that had only recently begun to heal.

“Your mother’s fine, Mo. You worry too much.” He wasn’t about to tell her that after she was born Evelyn decided she’d had enough of sex. A year later he’d begun a long-term affair with Audrey. But he wasn’t going to discuss this with his daughter. He hadn’t when Evelyn filed for divorce, citing adultery, and he wasn’t going to do it now.

“Any chance you can fly to Baltimore for a weekend, Dad?”

“I’d love to, but I doubt it’ll be anytime soon. We’re still shorthanded since Katrina.”

“Okay.” The disappointment in her voice made him ache.

“I’ll get up there soon, I promise. How’s the riding going?”

“Great! Jeremy and I got picked to ride in the state competition. I am totally psyched!”

He smiled, picturing her beaming face. She’d met Jeremy, a show horse rider, at the Baltimore Hunt Club three years ago. Now Jeremy was her steady boyfriend. He heard Kelly’s footsteps coming down the hall.

“Congratulations. When is it? Maybe I’ll come up and watch you.”

“Second Saturday in January. I already got that weekend off.”

“I’ll try to get off, too. But we’ll see each other before that, right?”

“I hope so. Are you coming to Boston for the holidays?” Tension in her voice now, the bone of contention being: Where would she spend Thanksgiving and Christmas, with him or with her mother?

“I haven’t had time to think about it, but we’ll work it out.”

Kelly entered the room dressed in black slacks, a V-necked gold top and a pair of Big-Z earrings. He gave her a thumbs-up. She looked more like a model than a cop, dark hair fringed around her face, tailored slacks accentuating her slender but curvy figure.

“Where were you when I called last night?” Mo asked. “Out celebrating your birthday?”

“Tell you all about it when I see you, Mo,” he said, and saw Kelly react to his daughter’s name. “Thanks for the card. It was great.”

Her handwritten note had made him melt:
You’re the best, Dad. Thanks for always being there for me.

“You sound happy. Were you out with your girlfriend last night when I called? The one that lives in Omaha?”

“No,” he said, meeting Kelly’s gaze. “I was with one of my detective friends. We’re about to go out for brunch.”

“Oh, a
female
detective friend,” Maureen said, her voice tinged with amusement. “Good for you. I guess the Omaha lady didn’t work out, huh?”

“Right.” He didn’t want to talk about it. “Send me an email about the riding meet, okay?”

“Okay, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too.” He closed his cell phone and rose from the couch. “My daughter,” he said.

“Like I couldn’t guess from your proud-poppa expression. I bet you’re a great dad. I love watching men interact with their kids. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s so . . . heartwarming.”

He wrapped his arms around her, inhaling her vanilla-spice scent. “That’s because you and your dad had a good relationship.”

She tilted her head and her earrings swung back and forth. “Well, now that we’ve established that, let’s go get some breakfast. Man, you wore me out last night.”

“Takes two to tango.” He grinned. “Shall we take your car or mine?”

“Mine. Yours has a bullet hole in the trunk. But you can drive if you want.”

“What? You think I’m one of those macho guys that can’t stand to ride with a woman driver? You drive. I’ll relax and enjoy the scenery.”

______

Gasping for breath, Antoine took another step into the store, so winded he felt dizzy. The lady looked panicky, eyes wide, mouth gaped open, frozen behind a waist-high case full of antique jewelry, ivory cameos set into earrings, pendants and brooches.
Jesus, stop gawking at the jewelry
!

He reached behind him and pulled the door shut.

And saw the woman’s hand disappear beneath the counter.

“You got an alarm button, hit it,” he said. “Get the cops over here.”

The woman licked her lips, looked even more terrified.

“There’s three guys out there fixin’ to shoot me. You got a safety lock for the door? Hit the button to lock it and let me out the back. I gotta get away from those guys.”

Guys that would be outside the door with the big glass window any second. Guys that would shoot him in the back. He wanted to turn and see if this was so, but he didn’t dare. What if the woman had gun? Lots of French Quarter merchants kept guns in their stores. And dogs.

Fear clawed his throat. Jesus, what if she had a dog?

“I want you to leave,” she said, her voice high and tight with fear.

“I will! But I can’t go out the front—”

Blam! The window in the door shattered into a million pieces, little glass rocks cascading over the carpet, scattering everywhere like sparkly diamonds.

He dropped to the floor and squirmed forward on his belly. Said in a loud whisper, “Call the police.”

“I am,” she said in a quavery voice.

Inching forward on his belly, he squirmed toward the rear of the shop. Saw the woman hunkered down behind the display case.

“Can I get out the back?” he whispered.

Crouched on the floor behind the counter, holding a cell phone to her ear, she nodded vigorously.

“Antoine! You don’t come outta there we come in and shoot you daid!”

The woman frantically motioned him toward the back.

“Hurry,” she said. “Hurry.”

CHAPTER 28

They were lucky to get a table at the Marigny Brasserie. Located on Frenchman’s Street two blocks from the French Quarter, the restaurant drew both locals and tourists to its celebrated Sunday brunch. The place was packed, close to a hundred people digging the Pfister Sisters, a hip vocal trio that sang 1940 swing tunes,
Boogie-woogie Bugle Boy
being their specialty.

Frank ordered the Brasserie Breakfast, an omelet with mushrooms and peppers. Kelly went with scrambled eggs and a side order of bacon. And a pitcher of Mimosas. Kelly’s idea. He liked most of her ideas, so why not?