The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do (15 page)

Shade thanked her so profusely that he felt just a little bit ashamed. He then rejoined Blanchette.

“It doesn’t make any sense yet,” Shade said. “But it’s startin’ to add up.”

“Uh-huh.” Blanchette sucked on his lips thoughtfully. “Crane and this Cobb kid hooks up easy. Now, is all this hooked to Alvin Rankin, too?”

“What do you think?”

“I think yes.”

“Me, too.” Shade watched as Mrs. Prouxl walked away, being queried by a couple of the spectators from across the street. She held her purse to her navel and didn’t turn her head to her questioners.

“Grandma gave me some ideas. I’m going to check the alley.”

“We already did that.”

“I’ll do it again. Make sure.”

“Whatever makes you happy. Should I wait on you?”

“No.”

The alley was a pothole with a few shovels of gravel thrown on it, and situated as it was, to the rear of ramshackle Voltaire Street, it offered a wonderful view of nothing wonderful. The garbage bins behind the hair salon smelled of permanent solution and a broken vial of eau de something or other unlikely.

The shattered window that Jewel had squirreled through was illuminated by a naked bulb in the apartment. Shade could see the jagged frame of glass that he would have had to slice himself on. The drop to the alley was not deadly, but the kid could easily be hurt by it.

He followed the alley to its southern exit, then turned left and crouched beneath the well-lit window of a doughnut shop and inspected the sidewalk. Still in a crouch he duck-walked in the pastry-bullied air, drawing a few interested glances from passersby. Then he saw what he
sought. He dabbed a finger into the moist evidence and raised it to the light. Blood.

The trail of claret, although indistinct and occasional, could be followed with only minor hesitations. Shade hung with it across streets and around chancy corners, until he came to a telephone booth with a bloody payoff smeared at chest height. He looked in the booth but found only a closed phone book and extra flecks of blood. He knew that if the seepage did not stop soon Jewel Cobb must weaken. Of course the kid could find a taxi or a friend and disappear, Shade thought, but for now this trail was all there was to go on.

One block later good luck ran out and the trail disappeared. It was at the corner of Rousseau and Clay, but catty-cornered to Lafitte and an alley. The kid could’ve gone any of a dozen directions from here, and with no telltale drips it was impossible to follow.

Shade leaned against a lamppole and took what he had planned to be a healthy suck of night air, but turned out to be a greedy toke of stench. The weather was condensing the river, rotting it in its own broth. Shade made a face, then sniffed his shirt and made the same face again, only better.

The Catfish Bar was only a block away on Lafitte, and Shade, having decided that his sleuthery would be enhanced by the input of a couple of tall cool ones, figured the Cobb kid might’ve gone that refreshing direction as well as any other.

He passed his mother’s poolroom and his own apartment. He halted to look in the window and saw that the tables were being put to good use and his mother was sitting on her stool smoking a long black cigarette. This had been home for most of memory but not all of it. The Shades had once lived in a house two streets up, with a dog-run yard and a cement basement, until the early morning Daddy John X. had laid the soul-search conclusion on Mama that his true self, his
real
true self, was a river-rambling man who frankly knew more than one doll and even more than one was no good if the mix was not kept sassy. So he wasn’t leaving over no other woman but because of
women
who are an animal fact, so don’t think shitty of him ’cause what he’s got honestly is a problem that he ought to work out on his own, don’t you see.
But he
will
send money, sure, whenever that smile-yellow nine ball staggers in on the break. That had been twenty years before, and on the evidence, modern nine balls must have been glued to the felt.

Shade stood looking in the window for a moment more, then walked on.

When he entered the Catfish he thought his brother might give him a hard time. He was prepared for tension. He sat himself on a stool until Tip noticed him. There was a second of deadpan hesitation, then Tip smiled.

“Hey, Rene, how you doin’?”

“Hot,” Shade said. He looked at his brother’s broad, tough-guy face and saw friendliness. Odd. For even when Tip was full of joy he tended to scowl, and now he was doing a thick-necked, pockfaced parody of the Mona Lisa. “This town has busted loose.”

“Yeah,” Tip agreed. “I been hearin’ about it.” He shrugged. “It’s time, I guess. Things have to go crazy every few years, you know, just so somebody can step in and put it all back in line.”

“The bartender’s view of life,” Shade said. “Give me a draw.”

As Tip went to get the beer, Shade turned to face the room. There was a total absence of blonds, let alone one who impersonated Elvis. In the corner there was a table of shot-and-beer locals who’d gotten newscaster haircuts and put on suits that were already smirkingly behind the tide of fashion, talking loudly about having to settle down and get
real
jobs, and ordering practice martinis. They laughed so much it was obvious that real jobs were not threateningly close at hand.

Bonne chance in the executive suite, Shade thought. But keep your shovels scraped, boys, and don’t lose those double-thick leather work gloves.

Tip sat the beer in front of Shade. He turned and drank heartily. He could not afford to waste time, but the beer was uplifting and no sense being tight-assed about a brew or two.

“Hungry, li’l blood?”

“Not really,” Shade said. “I could eat a sandwich.”

“No problem.”

Tip went through a swinging door into the kitchen as Shade watched. Again he found himself bemused by the apologetic attitude of big Tip.

When Tip came back out of the kitchen he turned and watched the door close before carrying the sandwich to Shade.

“Plenty of horseradish on it,” he said. There was an uncertain tightness about his face. “The way you like it.”

“Merci.”

Tip glanced toward the kitchen door. Shade caught the glance and he thought nothing of it, but immediately it happened again and his spine sort of itched and his shoulders felt heavy.

“Expecting somebody?” he asked.

“Hunh? Oh, shit no. I was thinkin’ maybe I should knock a hole in the wall there, so’s you could watch the cook.”

“Sure.”

Mike Rondeau, a tall drink of a man sloshed into a squat glass, with a belt that could double as a lasso and a volume of ambitious lies that he called his life, came in the door and laughed.

“The Shade brothers,” he said. “I had a feelin’ I’d bump into you.”

“This is where I work,” Tip said. “Does that make you a prophet, that you found me here?”

“Oh, ho,” Rondeau said to Shade, “you can always count on
him
for bad temper.”

“Usually,” Shade replied, then thought, yes, usually.

“What’ll you have, Slim?” Tip asked.

“Do you have any carrot juice, perhaps?” the solemn-faced Rondeau asked.

“Sure, but not fresh. We have frozen.”

“Ah,” said Rondeau. “In that case make it a double rye with a beer back.” He turned to Shade, winked, then ran a hand across his thin patch of white hair. “Have to nurse the old timekeeper.”

“Yeah,” Shade said. “I heard you had a heart attack.”

“Just a little four-rounder on the backside of the heart. I got the decision.”

Knowing that Rondeau was self-employed as a plumber–gambler–widow–lover, Shade said, “Must make business tough.”

“I don’t walk as fast, that’s all. But when you win you can stroll, and when you lose—what’s the hurry?”

Tip sat the drinks down and collected the money.

Shade caught Tip eyeballing the kitchen door again.

After a sip of rye and a follow-up of beer, Rondeau said, “Saw you boyses’ daddy down in Cairo a week ago. Went down there to play some stud with a beaner philanthropist called Baroja who never showed. Ended up in a six-table joint by the river watchin’ Little Egyptians shoot nine ball for quarters when in walks old John X. himself. My favorite man. Had a coat on that was green and glistened like he’d hooked it up off the bottom of the river and cut the gills out for armholes. Flashy, you know, in a way only a shithouse Mick could think was flashy.”

Tip and Shade looked at each other, then turned away. Both felt dumped by their father, and despite the years alone, neither wanted to be.

“I’ll have another,” Rondeau said, rapping his empty glass. “He paid for my trip, plus some wingding dough. He got into a little nine-ball action with a fella called Dickie Venice, who’s from New York and hasn’t got any eyelids. His eyes’re always open and you wonder why they don’t dry out and crack but they don’t. Looks like a cue-ball goldfish, this Venice fella does, but with a silky stroke, you know. Really smooth. I hung back and laid off of John X. at nine ball, then backed him to the limit when they switched to one-pocket. Got to be a fool not to bet him in one-pocket.”

Tip slid the fresh drinks to him.

“He mention comin’ up to see us?” He and Shade were both a bit weak when it came to John X., and wished they weren’t because then they could show the old man their backs forever, but he was a hard man to do that to. “He say anything about us?”

“Let me think,” Rondeau said. He raised his drink and took a bird-beak dip into it. “No, not really,” he said in a soft tone. “See, he had
some dates with him.” He looked at the brothers, who both looked elsewhere. “Probably didn’t seem like the time for family chat, you know. Couple of escaped wives on his arms, he wouldn’t talk about birthdays and graduations, most likely.”

“Escaped wives,” Shade said. “He’s good at escaping wives.”

“He’s still married to our mother,” Tip said. “The prick. He should at least ask about her, don’t you think? In between games when the balls are bein’ racked, he could maybe ask, ‘How’s Monique doin’ these days?’ or somethin’.”

“That’s a sweet sentiment,” Rondeau said. “But it’s askin’ a lot of the guy, under the circumstances.”

There was a momentary silence, then the kitchen door swung open and a man with fingers of gray running through his brown hair came out. He walked briskly to a table where a lone beer had been left.

Shade knew he knew the man, but the name was not coming to him.

Tip patted his arm.

“How about another one?”

“I might could drink another.”

It’s Ledoux, Shade thought. He watched the man drink his beer. Yeah, Ledoux, Pat or Paul or Pete. A character, too, with several priors.

The table of double-breasted unemployed who’d been drinking martinis to acclimate themselves to higher-life beverages, but who still had that underbelly pride, which fears selling out, were herding on stiff Florsheims toward the door, their voices raised in lopsided harmony.

There was a twitch beneath Tip’s eye, Shade noticed, and he seemed to be reining hard on his head to keep from looking at Ledoux.

As Shade hoisted his brew he felt Ledoux walk behind him. He watched Tip. Tip’s eyes rose for the length of a wink, then lowered like a phantom nod. Shade turned to watch Ledoux go out the door.

The itch was back in Shade’s spine, along with the heaviness of shoulder and shot-in-the-dark suspicions. After another contemplative sip of beer he scooted off the stool and went toward the kitchen.

“What?” Tip asked. “Hey, man!”

Shade pushed the door open. The grill was off and a kettle of stew
steamed on the range. The floor was wet with fresh mopping and the backdoor was open to the screen. Russ Poncelet, looking institutional in his all-white ensemble, was rubbing a rag along the sides of the steel cooler.

Shade stepped into the room, looking for anything solid to confirm his suspicions.

Tip leaned in the doorway.

“What’re you doin’?”

“Just lookin’.”

There was nothing strongly out of place in the room.

“Can’t get us on cleanliness,” Poncelet said. “I just gave it a washing down. You could eat off the floor safer than usin’ your fingers. Pine-Sol.”

Shade felt ridiculous but not ashamed, and spun on his heels. He pushed past Tip.

“You’re a pain in the fuckin’ ass,” Tip said as Shade went to the exit. “You’re a punchy fuckin’ weirdo sometimes, you know that? You should’ve ducked once in a while.”

Outside in the pungent night, Shade sprinted around the corner to the parking lot. The white dust shone in the moonlight and small scudding wisps of it lingered in the air.

He’s gone, Shade thought. Maybe it was just as well, for what had he really planned to do? Say, “Man, you make my spine itch, what is it,” or what? It could’ve been silly.

But he didn’t really think so.

16

S
AINT
J
OSEPH’S
Hospital served the maimed and mauled on the B side of the city. Pan Fry, Frogtown, and the south side kept the emergency room relevant and made it a frequent meeting place.

The room itself looked like a bowling alley that had missed a payment on its lanes. Lots of faded plastic chairs in muted colors, flaking green paint on the walls, with only one bright light and that directly above the nurse’s desk.

When Shade entered, a young tattooed man with skin taut as rice paper, a showy flattop, and an incredible amount of patience was standing at the desk holding a Baggie up.

“It’s my thumb, lady. It flew past the toolbox but I found it. I don’t know how long it’ll keep.”

Shade saw that one of the man’s hands was knotted by a sky-blue towel that had recently become two-toned.

“It hurts like hell, lady.”

“You’re not goin’ to die,” the nurse said. “That means you have to wait.”

“Lady, my thumb gets room temperature, I’m fucked. Damn, it hurts!”

Shade walked on, cutting through the building to the main desk on the far side. Once there, he was given the room number and got on the elevator. He got off on the fourth floor. It was getting late in the shift, and the nurses’ uniforms had lost their crispness. The floors were waxed to brightness and the air conditioning was chilling.