Slow Heat in Heaven (13 page)

Schyler covered her face with her hands. It was too much to assimilate at one time. Veda. Gayla. Jimmy Don. Their lives had been ruined. And, although indirectly, Tricia was responsible. Schyler felt guilty by association.

She raised her head and looked at the man slouching in the chair opposite her. He seemed to take perverse pleasure in tormenting her. "You relished telling me all that, didn't you?"

He conceded with a nod. "Just so you'll know the caliber of folks you're living with in that big, fancy house. Your sister is a spiteful bitch. Her dick-less husband is a joke.
Cotton. . .
hell, I don't know what's wrong with him. He stood by and let Tricia do with people's lives what she damn well pleased."

Schyler's chin went up a notch. It was all right for her to acknowledge her family's weaknesses, but it was something else for an outsider to, especially Cash Boudreaux.

"What the people at Belle Terre do is no concern of yours. I won't have you bad-mouthing my family." She stood up and looked down at him, her expression imperious and haughty.

It nudged his temper over the edge. One second his spine was conforming to the cushions of the chair, seemingly indifferent. The next, he was looming over Schyler, gripping her shoulders hard. "I'll say what I goddamn want to about anybody or anything."

"Not about my family."

His fingers slid up through her hair and pressed against her scalp, holding her head in place. He lowered his face to within inches of her. "All right. For the time being, I'll tell you what I think of you."

"I don't care what you think of me."

His lips brushed across hers. "I believe you do."

"Stop that."

Smiling, he briefly touched his lips to hers a second time. "I think you're just about the most interesting woman I've come across in
a
long time, Miss Schyler."

"Let me go." She tried to dodge his roaming, sipping lips, but they wouldn't be eluded. They gently struck her face with petal softness. She tried to push him away, but her efforts were wasted.

"Any woman who'd go up against Jigger Flynn, hell, she's somebody I've just got to know better." He thrust his hips forward and up, using the fly of his jeans to suggestively nudge the cleft of her thighs.

"You're disgusting."

His laugh was low, deep, dirty. "Ask around, Miss Schyler. Most women don't think so. And I think you're just dying to find out for yourself."

She tried to squirm away, but he pressed his fingers against her head, hard enough to cause some mild discomfort and to effectively stop her from trying to pull it free. Then he tilted her face up and kissed her, covering her lips with his. She made a strangled sound of protest when his tongue slid between her lips and into her mouth. His tongue's lazy, swirling penetration shocked her. She reeled and clutched his shoulders for support.

After a long, thorough kiss, he raised his head. "Just what I thought," he said roughly. "You put on all those ladylike airs, but you're just like a firecracker on the Fourth of July, ready to ignite, ready to explode." His hands slid from her head, down her shoulders and arms to her waist, which he clasped. He jerked her forward and rubbed against her. "Feel that? I've got just the match to light your fuse." She slapped him hard. His eyes narrowed dangerously. "What's the matter, not used to—"

"Filth, Mr. Boudreaux. No, I'm not used to filth."

"Doesn't your brother-in-law talk dirty to you in bed?" Schyler's face went white with indignation. Cash snickered, adding, "How does Howell manage to service both you and your sister?"

"Shut up!"

"Folks in town are wondering, you know. Does he traipse back and forth between bedrooms, or do y'all sleep in one big, happy bed?"

Schyler pushed against his chest so hard that he was forced to release her. She ran out the front door and clambered down the steps. He followed close behind. Encircling her wrist, he brought her up short. "No need to run off. I don't want Howell's leftovers. Now get in the truck. I'll drive you home."

"I wouldn't go anywhere with you."

"Afraid you'll be seen with me?"

"Yes. I'm afraid people would think that your lying, cheating ways might rub off on me."

"Lying, cheating ways?"

"You had bet money on Jigger's dog last night."

"I don't deny that."

"Why didn't you tell me you gambled on those fights when I asked you to kill the dog?"

"It was none of your business."

"You manipulated me!" she cried. "Taking me there, urging me for my own good not to do anything against him. But all the time you were protecting your own interest."

"One had nothing to do with the other."

"Liar. You won a lot of money."

"I damn sure did."

She shuddered with fury over his calm admission. "You're every bit as unscrupulous as people say."

She wrested her arm free. She truly loathed this man. She had tried to communicate with him as an equal, but he wouldn't let her. Ken was right in that respect. The differences between the classes were as deeply ingrained as the rings in an oak tree and seemingly as impenetrable. The system was feudalistic, it was unacceptable, but it was undeniable. Cash Boudreaux had dragged her down to his level and she felt soiled.

"Now that you've told me off, get in the truck," he said.

"Like hell I will."

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

Cash went after her. "Don't be stupid. You can't walk all the way to Belle Terre in the middle of the night."

"Wanna bet?"

He pulled her around again. "You're mad because I said the things you know but don't want to hear. People call me trash. Fine. I don't give a goddamn about anybody's opinion of me but my own. I'll go to hell for some of the things I've done, but I never dumped on an aging black woman who depended on me for her livelihood like your sister did. I wouldn't stand by and let it happen either like that gutless wonder, Howell, did. I wouldn't turn a blind eye like Cotton did."

Schyler glowered at him. Even in the darkness, she could see that he was sneering at her. His kiss had been blatantly erotic, but not sexually prompted. He had used it to insult her, to punish her for being what she was and for what he wasn't and never would be.

"Stay away from Belle Terre and everybody in it. Especially me. If you don't, I'll shoot you for trespassing."

With that, she took the shotgun from the bed of his pickup and struck out for home on foot.

Gayla sat in the ladder-back chair in the corner. Like a child, Jigger expected her to be seen and not heard, especially when he had company—unless he was using her to entertain his company. Tonight their company was the sheriff. She knew from experience that the sheriff liked his sex straight. He was a swine, but a finicky one. Tonight, though, he was on duty, which relieved Gayla of hers.

"Made any enemies recently, Jigger?"

Sheriff Pat Patout looked longingly at the glass of whiskey Jigger was drinking, but he had declined the offer to join him. He had barely squeaked past his opponent in the last election. He was already sweating the outcome of the next one. Lately he was being as prudent and conscientious as an old-maid school marm.

"I don't have an enemy in the world, Sheriff," Jigger said blandly. "You know that."

They both knew quite the opposite. The sheriff cleared his throat loudly and cast a lustful glance at Gayla. Her face remained impassive, as though she were too stupid to grasp the meaning of their conversation. That passivity was the only way she had survived the last few years. She sat there and let the sheriff ogle her high, pointed breasts. They were as symmetrical and well defined as two sno- cone cups growing out of her chest. Their shape was ill- concealed by the thin, tight dress Jigger made her wear. Gazing back at the sheriff with lifeless eyes, her mind actively conjured up epithets that applied to him.

Patout wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and
fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair. "Maybe I will have just a touch of that." He nodded toward the bottle. "It's a thirsty night. So goddamn hot." Jigger poured him a hefty drink. He downed it in one swallow. Almost immediately beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. "You might not have any enemies, Jigger," his stinging vocal cords wheezed, "but you sure as hell pissed off somebody. I only had to take a gander at those dog pens to ascertain that."

"Bastards," Jigger muttered.

"You think there was more than one?"

"One did the shooting. One did the driving the pickup."

"Did you recognize the vehicle?"

Jigger shook his shiny, oily head. "Too dark. Too fast."

"Did
you
see anything?"

Gayla jumped when she realized that Patout had addressed her. She tucked her bare feet beneath the chair and curled her toes downward, pressing them into the cracked, scummy linoleum floor. Her hands were balled together into twin coffee-colored fists. Straightening her arms, she pressed her fists between her thighs as though to hide evidence. She relaxed her arms and withdrew her hands, however, when she realized that the pose made her breasts more prominent. The goat with the badge pinned to his shirt pocket was staring bug-eyed at her chest.

In answer to his question, she shook her head no. They could torture her, but she would never supply them the name they wanted. That name was Schyler Crandall. Schyler had been in Jigger's yard shooting up his kennel with a shotgun.

It didn't make a lick of sense, but it was true. She would recognize Schyler anywhere. She just prayed to God that Schyler hadn't seen her. Schyler wouldn't spit on her shadow now. Schyler's return had nothing to do with her, but somehow it was heartening to know that her former friend was home.

"I didn't see nothin', Sheriff," Gayla mumbled, deliberately using bad grammar.

Jigger scowled at her over his shoulder. "Where are your manners, gal?" He pronounced it "mannahs."

"Fix the sheriff some supper."

"No, thanks, Jigger. I already ate down at the cafe."

"Fix him some supper." Jigger's eyes were as piercing
as
pins that impaled Gayla against the tattered wallpaper with the cabbage rose print.

"He don't want none."

"I said fix him some supper," Jigger roared, banging his fist on the table and jiggling the amber contents of the whiskey bottle.

Gayla came to her feet. They whispered across the dirty floor. From the shelf above the old gas stove, she took down a plate. She lifted a graying, greasy pork chop from the pan, dropped it onto the plate, and ladled a spoonful of collard greens beside it. She broke off a piece of cold cornbread from what had been left over and set the chunk on top of the greens, then carried the unappetizing platter to the table and unceremoniously thunked it down in front of the sheriff.

"Thank ya." Patout gave her an uncertain smile.

Jigger wrapped his arm around her waist and jerked her against him. His shoulder gouged her belly. He patted her rump and let his hand linger, caressing her, squeezing the firm flesh through the threadbare dress.

"She's a good girl. Most of the time. And when she
ain't. . ."
He soundly swatted her fanny with his palm, making it hard enough to sting. Gayla didn't flinch.

A housefly buzzed around the sheriff's plate, which he voraciously attacked once he'd doused the greens with
Ta
basco. He mopped up the green pot liquor with a hunk of cornbread until it was soggy, then stuffed it into his corpulent mouth. While Jigger continued to maul her, Gayla concentrated on the fly. She watched it light on the dented metal top of the salt shaker. Her mama would have died before she let a fly invade the kitchen at Belle Terre.

But then her mama would have died before she let a lot of things happen, like her girl becoming a whore.

Jigger slipped his calloused hand beneath her dress and ran it up the back of her thigh. She reacted reflexively, though she didn't alter her expression to let her revulsion show.

"How many of your pit bulls were killed?"

'Two. Had to shoot another myself, he was wailing so pitiful like. His brains was hanging out. One more won't fight again. Just as well be dead." He laughed nastily. "But the pregnant bitch wasn't even hit. When she whelps,
I
'll have the finest litter of fighting pit bulls around."

The sheriff continued to gorge. Occasionally he grunted to let Jigger know he was listening. "I'll do what I can, but there aren't many clues."

"You find the bastards what mint my dogs, and Gayla and me'll give you a little present, won't we, honey?"

Patout stopped chewing long enough to glance up at her. His lips and chin were shiny with pork grease. She stared down at him, wondering if her eyes revealed just how much she despised all men.

The sheriff swallowed hard and pushed the cleaned plate away. He stood up, tried to hitch his britches over his belly, and reached for his straw cowboy hat. "Then I'd better git on it. I'll keep an eye out for a pickup with a bullet hole in it."

"That accounts for just about every pickup in the parish." Jigger accompanied the sheriff at the screened back door, negligently pushing Gayla aside in the process. "You'll have to do better than that, don't cha know."

"I don't need you telling me how to do my job, Jigger."

Jigger's mean eyes turned even meaner. "Then I'm teilin' you that whoever done it will be a lot better off if you find them before I do."

The men exchanged a stare of understanding. Patout put on his hat, gave Gayla one last, slavering glance, then went through the door. With a creak and a slap of old wood, it shut behind him. "Bury these dead dogs in the mornin'. They're already stinking in this heat," he said over his shoulder.

"Come out here and bury them your ownself, you blubber gut," Jigger said beneath his breath as he waved the sheriff off.

Jigger wanted the dead animals to stink. He wanted them to stink to high heaven. He wanted everybody in the parish to smell them, to know about what had happened, and the ones who'd done it to be forewarned that he was out for vengeance. He'd get them, but good. He'd show no mercy. He'd set them up as examples. Nobody crossed Jigger Flynn and got away with it. Then he'd see to it that that litter of pups became the meanest sons of bitches in the state of Louisiana and beyond. The thought of the prestige he would gain, not to mention the money, was arousing.

He turned toward Gayla, who was at the sink, scraping off the sheriff's plate. "Time for bed."

Ordinarily she would have dropped what she was doing and followed him into the bedroom. The sooner she capitulated, the sooner it was over with. But she remembered Schyler, who, for unknown reasons, had gone up against him. Schyler's courage had rubbed off on her.

"I c. . .
can't tonight, Jigger. I got my period."

He was on her in a flash, backhanding her across the mouth. Her teeth cut her lip and drew blood. "You lying bitch. You got your period last week. What do you think, I'm stupid? You think I don't remember?" He gave her a swift kick in the buttocks that sent her flying face first into the wall.

"Stop it, Jigger. I ain't lyin'." He drove his fingers into her cap of short, curly hair. She kept it short, having learned that when it was long, he could use it as a weapon. He got enough of a grip on it now to bring tears to her eyes.

"I said, time for bed. That means now."

Hand over hand she felt her way along the wall, guided by the twisting, pulling fingers in her hair. She fell through the doorway into the living room. He gave her head a mighty push that almost snapped her neck in two. She stumbled into the bedroom.

Docile now, she stood beside the bed and unbuttoned her dress. She peeled it off her shoulders and let it drop to her feet. Naked she crawled onto the bed and lay down on her back, hoping that's all he wanted her to do tonight.

He undressed. The bed springs rocked noisily when he mounted her. Granting like a hog, he dryly pushed himself into her. In pain, she arched her back and gripped the
coarse sheet beneath her; her heels dug into the thin mattress. But she didn't utter a single sound. He liked her to cry out when he hurt her. She refused to give him the satisfaction. After that initial reaction to his brutal penetration, she lay perfectly still.

This, this gross rutting, bore no resemblance to the loving act she and Jimmy Don had started doing together when she was barely fifteen. They had been so young, so much in love. They couldn't keep their eyes and hands off each other. Their blood had run as hot and sweet as pralines bubbling in a double boiler. Kissing and petting weren't enough. They had followed the urgent dictates of their bodies. And, oh, Jesus, it had felt good.

From that first time, they made love regularly. Afterward she had never felt dirty. With Jigger she always felt as nasty as a spittoon. Mating with Jimmy Don had made her feel pure, loved, cherished. It had not made her feel tainted, or so filthy she would never get clean, or so vile that she wanted to die.

She had thought about it frequently. Killing herself had been a preoccupation ever since she had come to live with Jigger. The only thing that prevented her from ending her own life was the hope, the faint hope, that one day she would see Jimmy Don again and win his forgiveness.

She had also thought about killing Jigger. When he fell into one of his drunken stupors, she had fantasized about driving a butcher knife through his bloated gut and putting an end to her misery. Nothing they could do to her afterward would be as bad as what she lived with daily.

But Veda had made her attend church faithfully, twice on Sundays and Wednesday night prayer meeting. The doctrines were steeped into her. Thundering sermons about hell and damnation had kept her on the straight and narrow for most of her life. She wasn't sure what brimstone was, but she was terrified of having to spend eternity in its midst.

God would forgive her for loving Jimmy Don and "doing it" before they got married. God understood that she was married to Jimmy Don in her heart. And she reasoned that God would forgive her for letting men use her body as a receptacle for their lust. Mama's doctor bills and medicine had been so expensive. Black girls, no matter how smart, rarely got jobs in offices and banks and retail stores. During a recession in the economy they didn't get jobs at all. She was too pretty, her looks too sensual, to get a job cleaning houses. No sane housewife wanted her around a husband or son. So she had done what she had to do. God knew her heart and would understand that.

It might stretch the boundaries of even His understanding and forgiveness if she murdered Jigger Flynn in cold blood. So she hadn't. She had tolerated what he was doing to her now, hoping that she would die a natural death and get out of this life without jeopardizing her chances for spending the next one in heaven with Papa and Mama and maybe even with Jimmy Don.

It was taking longer than usual tonight. Jigger's foul breath soughed against her clammy neck. He sweated like a pig. It dripped from his body and trickled over her breasts.

She couldn't stand it any longer.

Gayla lifted her long, elegant legs and folded them across his back, hugging his pumping hips tightly. She made a moaning, passionate sound that was a tragic parody of the sighs she had once moaned against Jimmy Don's strong, hard, smooth chest.

Her feigned passion worked. Jigger Flynn climaxed, throwing back his ugly, flat head and braying like a jackass. He collapsed on top of her before rolling off, precariously rocking the bedsprings. He lay on his back, as white and plump and slimy as a slug.