Slow Heat in Heaven (16 page)

So much to do.

So much to think about. . . namely that Ken's kiss, for all its passion, hadn't disturbed her nearly as much as Cash Boudreaux's.

"Hey, boy!"

Every muscle in Jimmy Don Davison's athletic body tensed with the sudden realization that he was the only one left in the shower room. That was a dreadful mistake. He lifted his head out of the sputtering stream of lukewarm water and looked toward the man who had addressed him. "You talkin' to me?"

The hulking, muscular man bore a remarkable resemblance to Mr. Clean. He was indolently propped against the damp tile wall. A towel dangled from his extended right hand. "None other, sweetheart."

Jimmy Don ignored the endearment and cranked the rusty handles of the faucet to cut off the shower. He sluiced water off his skin, aware of being watched as his hands skimmed over the muscles he kept supple and strong by daily workouts in the prison yard. He reached for the towel. Razz snatched it out of reach at the last second. After several attempts to take it from the other man, who childishly withheld it, Jimmy Don managed to catch hold. He immediately wrapped it around his waist and tucked the end inside. Without letting his nervousness show, he quickly scanned the shower room. As he had feared, he and Razz were alone.

"Wha'cha looking for, boy? A guard? Don't bother. I brought him a new porno magazine. He's in the crapper happily jacking off." His ribald laughter echoed in the empty, tile chamber.

" 'Xcuse me, Razz. I'm busy."

Jimmy Don brushed past the other inmate, but Razz's meaty fist wrapped around his bicep and stopped him. The former all-star football player was in excellent physical condition. On the running track, he could beat Razz by a mile and not even get winded. Here, however, he was far outsized. The man, whose skin was as pink and smooth as a baby's bottom, outweighed him by nearly a hundred pounds and was as strong as an ox. While Jimmy Don's muscles were kept well honed and sinewy, Razz worked at pumping his up to abnormal proportions. He shaved and oiled his head and body. He was a brute.

Unctuously, he crooned, "What's your hurry, sweetheart?"

"Leave me alone."

For a moment Razz's smile faded and his piggish eyes bore into Jimmy Don's handsome face. Then the nasty smile reappeared. He playfully punched Jimmy Don's arm. "It'd be real stupid of a niggah boy to get Razz mad, now wouldn't it?" He trailed a finger over Jimmy Don's beautifully sculpted chest. '"Specially since I know what I know."

Jimmy Don shifted away from Razz's touch but said nothing, nor did his face reveal the murderous hate and revulsion he felt. Early enough he had learned the unwritten law of the prison, which was as brutal as the law of the jungle. Only the fittest survived. To survive, one did what was necessary. One found oneself being submitted to unspeakable cruelty by his fellow prisoners, but one stoically withstood the abuse if one wanted to live to get out.

And he did want to get out—just long enough to finish what he had to do. After that, he didn't care what happened to him in this lifetime or in the one hereafter for that matter. Once his scores were settled, the devil could have him.

"Ain't you the least bit curious 'bout this juicy secret I've got concernin' you?" Razz scraped Jimmy Don's nipple with his thumbnail. The muscles surrounding it leaped reflexively, but Jimmy Don's face didn't even flinch. Such molestation was a common occurrence. He had learned to stomach it because to resist was as good as a death sentence according to those in the cell block.

The electric chair was humane compared to what could happen to you at the hands of the inmates, those who governed the prison. Razz was one of them. He was a lifer; the prison was his dukedom. He exercised despotic control over other prisoners and many of the guards. Only the highest administrative officials were ignorant of, or indifferent to, the power Razz and the men like him wielded. Terror was the tactic they used.

"Ask me nice and I'll tell you what I know," Razz taunted.

"What you know ain't worth shit."

Jimmy Don was quick. He could break the hundred in ten seconds. But he hadn't learned to fight in alleys. Razz had. Before Jimmy Don could react, Razz had his hand under the towel and was squeezing Jimmy Don's testicles in a fist as strong as a vise.

"You sure?" He twisted his hand. Jimmy Don came up on his toes. "Ask me nice to tell you," Razz panted close to Jimmy Don's face. Grinning, he applied even more pressure to his fingers. Jimmy Don winced. "Ask me nice or I'll tear 'em off."

"Please. Please tell me." Jimmy Don hated himself for capitulating, but he didn't want to die, and he didn't want to leave there maimed. "Please."

"That's more like it." Razz gradually relaxed his hand, but he didn't remove it. He stepped closer and leaned down to impart his secret. "You're coming up for parole, boy. Soon. Real soon."

Jimmy Don had thought his heart was dead. It wasn't. It sparked involuntarily. His breath rushed in and out. He blinked repeatedly. "You bullshittin' me?"

"Would I do that?" Razz asked, looking wounded.

Hell yes, he would. "How do you know?"

"A little birdie told me." Razz pulled a sad face. "I knew yoii'd be real glad to hear it, but that piece of news makes me real sad. I kinda like havin' pretty black boys like you around." His hand squeezed Jimmy Don again. This time it was a caress.

Jimmy Don batted Razz's groping hand aside. "Keep your hands off me, you son of a bitchin' fag."

He was lifted bodily and thrown up hard against the shower wall. His cheekbone caught it. The pain was immense. One arm was twisted up behind him. Razz shoved his hand up between his shoulder blades and Jimmy Don cried out in pain in spite of his determination never to show it.

"The only thing that keeps me from cracking your face against this wall like a pecan is that I hate to spoil something so pretty," Razz hissed.

Jimmy Don gouged him in the gut with his elbow. Razz grunted, but his grip on Jimmy Don didn't lessen one degree. He sandwiched the younger man between his massive body and the wall and pressed his lips against Jimmy Don's ear. His voice was sibilant and sinister.

"You'd better be nice to me, sweetheart. You'll do what Razz says when Razz says it, or I'll see that your chances for parole go down the shit hole. You got that? I ain't got much time to enjoy you, but while you're here, you're mine, understand?"

Jimmy Don nodded. Fighting Razz was a waste of energy and time. Fighting only got you hurt and prolonged the inevitable. In this case fighting could mean losing his chance for parole.

Number twenty-one, the Heathen of Heaven, heard Razz's zipper being opened. He felt brutal hands on his flesh. For what was coming, he braced himself, mentally as well as physically.

He could endure it. He
would
endure it. He would endure anything. He had to get out. He lived for the day he would get revenge on Jigger Flynn and his whore, Gayla Frances.

"Did you do it?"

"Do what?" Cash asked around the sharp fingernail that was seductively rimming his lips. Rhoda Gilbreath smiled at him. It was as bloodthirsty a smile as he'd ever seen. She needed only fangs to make the picture complete.

"Did you kill Jigger Flynn's pit bull terriers?"

"They're not really terriers, you know. That's a misnomer."

"Quit playing word games. Did you?"

"No."

Cash pushed her aside and moved further into the room. She had barely let him in through the back door of her house before molding herself against him. After only one kiss she had posed her question.

"That's what's going around."

"I can't help what's going around. I didn't shoot his dogs."

"Do you expect me to take your word for it?"

"Jigger did."

Rhoda's carefully made-up eyes registered surprise. "You've talked to Jigger?"

"Not more than an hour ago. Get me a beer."

Once she had gotten the can of beer from the kitchen refrigerator, she followed Cash into the formal living room. He plopped down on her finest sofa and propped his boots on the smoked glass coffee table. He sipped at the cold can of beer.

Rhoda sat down beside him. Avid curiosity eked from her like resin out of a pine tree. "Where?"

"Where what?"

"Where did Jigger confront you?"

"He didn't confront me. I was out on the edge of town and saw his pickup parked outside one of his beer joints. I stopped and went in."

"What did he do when he saw you?"

Cash shrugged nonchalantly. "He threw out some fairly strong accusations. I denied them, told him I would have to be nuts to kill off his dogs when they frequently won me money." He slurped at the beer while Rhoda sat hinging on every word. "He said he hadn't thought of it that way. Then he asked me where I got that bullet hole in the side of my truck."

"Where
did
you get it?"

"Some goddamn fool up in Allen Parish got it into his head that I'm humping his wife."

"Are you?"

His grin neither admitted nor denied. He enjoyed tormenting Rhoda. It was rotten of him, granted, but no more rotten than she was for being an unfaithful wife. Cash never seduced a loving wife away from her husband. He took to bed only those he knew were on the make. Rhoda Gilbreath had hit on him one night at the country club. He was hardly a regular with that crowd and had only been there at a divorcee's invitation.

During a break in the penny-ante poker tournament, the divorcee went into the ladies' room. Cash went outside to smoke. Rhoda Gilbreath followed him.

"What do you think of the poker party?" she had asked.

"Boring."

"What do you think of these?" She whipped her sweater over her head and stood before him topless.

While inhaling deeply on his cigarette, he gave her bra- less breasts a casual once-over. "The best money can buy."

She slapped him. He slapped her back. She coolly replaced her sweater. Holding his hazel gaze, she said, "Tomorrow afternoon, three o'clock, the Evangeline Motel."

He put his index and middle fingers together at his temple and gave her a quick and mocking salute. She went back inside. He finished his cigarette before rejoining the party.

The windows of room two eighteen of the Evangeline Motel steamed up the following afternoon. When Rhoda left, she felt bruised, battered, beautiful, and never better.

Since that afternoon, they had met in a variety of motels, but he liked coming to her house. He derived pleasure from violating the domicile she shared with Dale Gilbreath. He enjoyed putting his muddy boots on her expensive furniture. He could get by with mistreating her because she had more to lose than he did and both knew it.

She was attractive. When they split, she would find another lover, one who would appreciate her frosted blond hair and frosty blue eyes; one who would adore her implant-enhanced figure; one whose smile wasn't always tinged with contempt.

Rhoda's face was arresting, but there was a hard aspect to it that kept it from being pretty. There was a calculating glitter in her eyes that never went away, even in the throes of passion. Cash had detected it the night they met. That was part of her attraction. This woman couldn't be wounded too deeply. He never took up with a woman who wasn't tough enough to take the crap he dished out.

Rhoda was. He had her pegged correctly the instant she started sending him it-itches-and-I'd-like-you-to-scratch-it looks across the card table. Women like her castrated their husbands, making them feel inadequate to provide all they wanted in the bank and in the bedroom. They were socially rapacious, fanatical about their looks, money mad, and sexually dissatisfied. They were hungry, restless, selfish harpies. Rhoda Gilbreath led the pack. She deserved no respect.

She deserved no better than Cash Boudreaux.

He drained his beer and set the empty can on the coffee table. "Unless you've started drinking beer, don't forget to throw that away before Dale gets home."

She ran her finger down the placket of his shirt and dug beneath his belt in search of his navel. "Maybe I'll let him discover that I have a lover."

One of Cash's eyebrows rose skeptically. "Don't you imagine he already knows?"

"Probably." She flashed a teasing smile. "Maybe I'll let him worm it out of me who my lover is. That might be exciting. I'd like to see you square off with Dale the way you did with Jigger Flynn."

"Such a thing would never happen."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Because Jigger loved his dogs."

Her coy smile went as fiat as a punctured soufflé. She glared at him coldly. "You son of a bitch. You'd better tread lightly with me. I haven't forgiven you for leaving me stranded the last time we met at that seedy motel."

He stacked his hands behind his head and rested it on the back of the sofa. "You can't threaten a man who has absolutely nothing to lose, Rhoda. I don't even have a good reputation at stake."

She angrily pondered his handsome profile for a moment, then laid her head on his chest in conciliation. "That's the hell of it. The more like a bastard you behave, the more attractive you are. I read all about your type in this month's
Cosmo.
They call it 'heel appeal.'" He barked a short laugh.

She plucked at the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one by one. "But you might have something to lose. If the Crandalls lose Belle Terre, you'll be evicted. I doubt if the next—"

He covered her roving hand with his, flattening it against his belly to keep it still. It was a sudden, reflexive move, lightning quick. "What the hell are you talking about? The Crandalls losing Belle Terre?"

She worked her hand free and started on the buttons again. "Dale said Cotton Crandall borrowed money from him last year. He's been making interest payments on it,
but the principal is coming due. Dale was worried about it because Ken Howell shut down the business, so he met with that girl, the oldest one, what's her name?"

"Schyler."

"Whatever. Anyway, she didn't even know about the loan. He said she nearly had a conniption when she found out Cotton had used Belle Terre for collateral. Cool as a cucumber and real hoity-toity, you understand, but Dale said she went as pale as death. Right now, it looks like the bank might have to foreclose."

That was one of the reasons Cash had kept meeting Rhoda Gilbreath. Every now and then she supplied him with a tidbit of valuable information. Apparently Dale had no qualms about discussing confidential banking matters with his wife, who in turn had no hesitancy in sharing them with her lover.

Cash stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Rhoda's head moved over his chest, dropping light kisses on the thick carpet of hair. "What would the bank want with an old plantation house like Belle Terre?" he asked.

"Hmm? I don't know." She swirled her tongue around his nipple. "Sell it, I guess."

"Wonder what it would take to buy it?" he mused aloud.

Rhoda lifted her head and looked at him with amusement. "Why? You interested, Cash?"

He knotted his lingers in her hair, drew her mouth up to his, and kissed every single cunning thought out of her head. His tongue swept each malicious idea from her mind and left her thinking of only one thing. Her brain was too fertile a field to sow a single seed of suspicion in. The most farfetched speculation mustn't be given a chance to take root in Rhoda's conniving mind.

"Why don't you finish what you started?" He fished in the pocket of his jeans and tossed her the foil packet he was never without. No bastard kids for Cash Boudreaux. Never.

Holding his hot stare, Rhoda licked her lips. So adroit was she that she didn't even have to look down to unfasten his belt buckle and undo his zipper. She did it all by feel.

Palming his testicles, she lifted him free of his jeans, then lowered her face over his lap.

Cash's head fell back against the sofa again. He stared up through the crystal teardrops of the ostentatious chandelier overhead. He became entranced, not by the rhythmic movements of Rhoda's greedy mouth, but by the name that was chanted in his head like a call to vespers.
Belle Terre. Belle Terre. . .

"Belle Terre," Cotton Crandall proudly pronounced.

"It's a beautiful name for a beautiful house."

Monique Boudreaux smiled up at him, her eyes glowing. Cotton bent his tow head and kissed her lips softly. "You understand why I wanted it, why I married Macy?"

"I understand, Cotton."

Cash, his bare toes curling in the warm earth, angled his head back and watched his mother's smiling face tarn sad, though she made sure Cotton couldn't see her smile fade. Cash had hoped that when they moved from New Orleans to this new town where the tall man with the white hair lived that his mother wouldn't be sad anymore. He had hoped that she wouldn't cry and lie listlessly on her bed in the afternoons until it was time to get up and go to work in the barroom where she served bottles of beer to rough, boisterous merchant marines.

She had always told him that one day the man she called Cotton would send for them. Then they would be happy. And she was—happier, anyway. The day she'd gotten that letter from Cotton, she'd squeezed Cash so hard he could barely breathe.

"Look,
mon cher,
do you know what these are? Tickets. Train tickets. See, didn't
maman
tell you? He wants us to come live with him in a wonderful place called Belle Terre." Bubbling and animated with emotion, she had covered Cash's face with eager, exuberant kisses.

Two days later, which was all it had taken to finalize their affairs and pack their meager belongings, they dressed in their best clothes and boarded the train. The ride hadn't lasted long enough for Cash. He had loved it. When they arrived at their destination, he had stood warily
against the belly of the steam-belching engine, suspiciously eyeing the man his mother ran to.

She flung herself into his arms. He lifted her up and swung her around. Cash had never seen a man so tall or so strong. Monique threw back her head, laughing more musically than Cash had ever heard. Her dancing, dark curls had glistened iridescently in the sunlight.

She and the man kissed for so long that Cash thought his mother had forgotten him. The man's large hands moved over her, touching her in ways that she wouldn't let the customers of the barroom touch her. Many kisses later, she disengaged herself and eagerly gestured him forward. Taking reluctant baby steps, he moved toward the towering man. He smiled down at Cash and ruffled his hair.

"I don't think he remembers me."

"He was just a baby when you left,
man cher,"
Monique said softly. Her eyes brimmed with shiny tears, but her mouth was wide and smiling. Cash's young heart lifted. His
maman
was happy. He had never seen her so happy. Their lives had taken a new direction. Things were going to be just as she had said—wonderful. They would no longer live down a dark, dingy hallway in a roach-infested apartment. They were going to live in a house in the country surrounded by grass and trees and fresh air. They were finally at Belle Terre.

But the house Cotton had driven them to wasn't quite as wonderful as Monique had expected. It was a small gray house sitting on the banks of a bayou that he called Laurent. The sunny atmosphere had turned stormy. Monique and Cotton had had a shouting match. Cash had been sent outside to play. He grudgingly obeyed but went no further away than the porch, still distrustful of this man he'd just met.

"It's a shack!" Monique said in a raised voice.

"It's sturdy. A family of moss harvesters used to live here, but it has stood vacant for years."

"It smells like the swamp."

"I can help you fix it up. See, I've already started. I added a bathroom."

Monique's voice had cracked. "You won't live here with us, will you?"