The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do (26 page)

“That’s your opinion, Mayor.”

“Yes, Detective Shade,” the Mayor said, his voice thick with curdled civility. “It’s only one man’s opinion, but it’s a man whose opinion means
just a little bit
in these parts.”

Shade said, “You blew your nose, didn’t you, Mayor?”

“Pardon?”

“One of these tough guys we been discussing belted you and your nose filled with blood and mucus, and your instinct was to blow it. So you did.” Shade shook his head. “That’s a case of an instinct misleading you, ’cause when you blow a busted beak it makes your eyes swell shut. Kind of like yours are.”

“Why do you think I was there?”

“Because you’re here.”

Mayor Crawford was an almost unassailable political figure in St. Bruno. He had masterfully endeared himself to the rice-and-bean legions who all had one man, one vote, and he was personally liked for his roguish charm, laissez-faire approach to victimless crime, and his poon-hound exploits as a tea-dance heart warper.

The Mayor now swiveled his gaze from Shade to Bauer, and nodded curtly.

“Okay,” Bauer said, “it’s like this, Shade. Our little metropolis is run by a certain system and now some fuckin’ cowboys are throwin’ shit in the gears. That’s not good for anybody. Several factions in this town could run amuck if we don’t step in and settle this.”

“Uh-huh,” Shade said. “Like some of your gambler pals, huh, Mayor?”

“Detective,” the Mayor said, “be an adult—you’ll always have a lot of gambling wherever you have a lot of blacks.”

Shade laughed.

“Come on, all your gaming pals are white.”

The Mayor sucked wind through his mouth.

“Them, too,” he said.

At this moment, Shade was sensing a request that would be officially above and beyond the call, but unofficially crucial, and sweat slid down his temples. He wiped the sweat away, and said, “Christ, this’d be good weather to make weight in. What is it you want me to do?”

“Get the bastards,” the Mayor said.

“That,” Captain Bauer said, “and if possible save the taxpayers the expense of a trial.”

The Captain’s comment caused Shade to suddenly believe a legend, for there had long been one told about Bauer during last call at FOP meetings, and around anyplace cop buddies saluted their secret heroes, for this bit of law-and-order mythology claimed that the good Captain had performed just such an assignment years ago, when the Carpenter brothers had risen up and challenged Mr. B. It came about that the then Detective Bauer and his partner, Ervin Delahoussaye, had found themselves in a remote grain bin that was empty except for four spreadeagled Carpenters, only to have the brothers get allegedly combative and thereby cause their own deaths. Each brother, the coroner said, was shot twice in the head, and the whole thing was ruled justifiable force. Bauer leapfrogged up to captain, and cops young and old praised his marksmanship. Delahoussaye, clearly not leadership material, snacked on his gat six weeks later.

It was all true, Shade now knew, and he’d best step carefully.

“Are you telling me to take them off the count, Captain?”

“Not by yourself. There are other people who want to find these motherfuckers, too. One of them will help you.”

“There may be some money in this,” Mayor Crawford said. “A covert reward.”

“No,” Shade said, “I don’t want money. I’m independently wealthy, anyhow. I mean, I’ve been poor so long it doesn’t bother me anymore, and that’s as much peace of mind as a Rockefeller’s got.” The sweat on his face again required mopping, then he asked, “Does it have to be me?”

“It does now,” Bauer said. “Plus, our outside friends specifically asked for you.”

“I see.”

“Detective,” the Mayor said and strolled toward him, “you’ve been around. You’re from Frogtown—does this all seem too far out of the ordinary?”

“I can’t call ordinary, Mayor. I can tell weird, but ordinary is a tough call to make.” Shade bowed his head, trying hard to foresee all the angles, then raised his face and met the Captain’s eyes. “Who am I supposed to work with?”

“Shuggie Zeck,” Bauer said. “You’re doing the right thing, Shade, in the long run. Shuggie’s waiting for you now, at your brother’s dive by the river, there, The Catfish Bar.”

7

O
VER A
bowl of guinea-hen gumbo, at a small white table in Maggie’s Keyhole, Wanda Bone Bouvier was pressed into service as a luncheon audience of one for Hedda Zeck’s slightly slurred tale of her past. As the ample Hedda, who disguised her ampleness behind a billow of yellow summer dress, told it, her life up ’til she hoisted this very bloody mary in her hand was a convoluted tale of bubbly love gone flat, fine talents unnoticed and similarly woeful bullshit.

“So,” Hedda said, “Shuggie stands there, honey I mean he
stands
there like somebody who’s got the fuckin’
right
to look at me that way, so evil, and he says, ‘ ’Til you sweat off some of that lard you’re gonna have to bend like cookie dough and lick it your own self. You’re only gonna get the ol’ in-and-out until I see you in a dress that says size ten on it.’ ” Hedda sucked on her smoke, ignoring her own bowl of gumbo, shaking the ice cubes in her drink. “Would you take shit like that from a man, Wanda?”

“You’re not fat, Hedda,” Wanda said. “Besides, Shuggie ain’t exactly a hunk hisself.”

“He
is
chubby, isn’t he?”

“He could sure enough stand to run some laps or something.” Wanda had heard such miseries from Hedda before, but up until Ronnie had run afoul of Mr. B.’s organization it had mostly come out when the men had gotten up from the table and swaggered into a dark corner to talk business, as they put it. But now, with Ronnie an outcast from the
group because he had gotten just a little too indiscriminating about whose money he hustled, they met only here, on the sly, out of the way. “You want another bloody mary?”

“Oh,” Hedda said, “I shouldn’t but I will.” Hedda Zeck had been born a Langlois, which was a good thing to be in Frogtown since everyone knew they were cousins to the Beaurains, and she was ten years or so further down the track than Wanda. Her lips were full and red, and her hair was dark and cut short. Her twin vices were hard liquor and baked sweets, vices that greatly contributed to her dimensions, which in turn led to her being less often laid, which could possibly force her to acquire another vice that consisted of motel rooms and trampy men. “Aw, Wanda, wouldn’t it be a nicer world if God just grinned and everybody got what they wanted?”

Wanda sipped her beer, shrugged and said, “I think that could get sort of boring, really.”

“Honey,” Hedda said and laughed, “I declare you’d find fault with the land of milk and honey.”

“That’s right,” Wanda said. “You can’t dream up a world I won’t criticize.”

They signaled for more drinks and got them, allowing the gumbo to cool until a film developed on top.

Wanda actually did like Hedda, and in more flush days she’d found the older woman to be of some use in the selection of clothing, furniture, vacations and other matters that didn’t mean squat since they got mad and fed Ronnie to the law. She’d had to sell off everything to pay lawyers and landlords. The high life had been snatched back away from her and here she was, in cutoff jeans, sandals, and a cheap cotton shirt with Technicolor vegetation on it, listening to a gal with a few wads in her wallet rambling on about the hardships in this torture called
her
life.

“Hedda,” Wanda said, “I wish Auguste and Shuggie and them’d quit bad-mouthin’ Ronnie all over town. These things get back to me sometimes and it don’t make me feel too good.” Wanda took a big gulp of her beer and gestured for another since she knew who’d pick up the
tab. “I mean, they done run our name down to the goddam dogs. I’ll admit Ronnie misbehaved. I admit that.”

“Honey,” Hedda said, squinting through a puff of smoke, “he cheated Auguste.”

“Aw, Hedda, really now, that was just sort of an in-joke that got out. He was just seein’ if he could do it, as, like, a security check.”

“He took bets on races that were already run, honey. Auguste considers that cheating.”

“Now, Hedda, come on,” Wanda said. She stared sullenly into her mug of beer. “I bet there ain’t a bookie south of Minneapolis who ain’t took a post bet or some such shenanigans just to make ends meet once in a while.”

Another beer arrived, along with an unrequested bloody mary that Hedda decided not to send back.

“Wanda,” she said with a vodka stumble in her voice, “people get killed for what Ronnie done. I
love
you, honey. I
love
you like a little sister, and I screamed and screamed when that all came up, but if I wasn’t kin of the Beaurains I think you’d’ve been wearin’
bl-ack
for a while.”

“I know you went out on a limb,” Wanda said.

“But I don’t mind,” Hedda said. “I
love
you.”

Up at the bar a middle-aged woman with one leg, her crutches leaning against the rail beside her, did a merry-go-round number on her stool, spinning slowly enough that the I Can’t Help It If I’m Lucky on her T-shirt could be read. Behind the bar a preened man in a brewery uniform was loading beer into the coolers, his gaze frequently circling around Wanda’s way, as if he was hoping that regular blasts from his icy blues would prompt some spur-of-the-moment afternoon lushness to come into his arms.

The third time Wanda caught his Nordic Casanova act she flipped him the bird and he kept his eyes on business.

If this tête-à-tête had been strictly for friendship Wanda would’ve gladly gone awash on draft, but there were things that she needed to
know and Hedda was her only source. The bloody marys were providing an assist, and Hedda seemed primed.

Wanda put some zippidy-doo-dah into her smile, and said, “But what else is new with you?”

“It’s none of it new,” Hedda answered, using both hands to tame the wobbling of her drink. “I hardly get to shop. Shuggie won’t leave me the checkbook since, you know, since I like nice things and checks can be traced, right, traced and then added up by the tax man. The fuckin’ tax man has ruined my life, ’cause now I gotta use cash and I gotta wait for fat-assed Shuggie to give it to me.” She looked blearily at her audience. “Ain’t I half of this marriage?”

“At least,” Wanda said.

“He used to say for me to use good judgment, but now he just says forget it, no way.”

“I’m sure he’s busy nowadays,” Wanda said amiably. “Tryin’ to oversee all of Auguste’s games and other interests. Crime is a job, when you get right up against it.”

“Tell me about it. It’s like a doctor, like Shuggie’s an odd sort of doctor or something, the way they call any hour of the night. Like last night, it must’ve been, I don’t know, late. Real late. I don’t remember what time, but it was late, ’cause I was asleep and the TV was all static, and they called.” Hedda fumbled for a cigarette, then lit it. “Some problem at the country club, they had some kind of uppity poker game or somethin’. Some problem, I don’t know. They call anytime, day or night.”

“Well, Shuggie can handle any problems,” Wanda said. “He’ll probably have it straightened out by now.”

“Prob’ly. He ain’t come home yet, when I left. He called. He’s a good li’l boy that way, he calls home and tells me where he’s at. It’s in case he gets murdered, I think, so I’ll know who to sick Auguste on.” Hedda leaned toward Wanda, drunkenly sincere. “Do you think Ronnie fucked aroun’ on you? Do you?”

“Not tremendously.”

“But some?”

“I imagine. I mean, I’d eat a tame man up, and I couldn’t eat him up.”

“Does Shuggie fuck around?”

“I doubt it. He never came on to me, Hedda. I’d tell you if he did.”

“You’re a dear, you know it?” Hedda waved her cigarette around, and picked at some tomato juice that had slopped onto her summer dress and dried. “That makes me feel better about him and all them naked girls out there.”

“Out where?”

“When he called he said to send messages out there to that place, you know, on River Road? Where them naked girls dance and bend over with their tushes in men’s faces, trollin’ for dollar bills to be stuffed in their garters.”

“Huh,” Wanda said.

“We went once, me and Shuggie, just for the hell of it. It didn’t help.” Hedda was swaying in her chair, becoming dangerous with the hot end of her smoke. “I imagine he’s openin’ a game there, or somethin’, after that trouble last night.”

“Is that The Rio, Rio Club?” Wanda asked.

“That’s it. They wax their pussy hairs out there. I
saw
.”

“Listen, Hedda, I got to get goin’,” Wanda said. She stood, came around the table, and embraced her friend and unknowing informant. “I’ll call you a cab, okay?”

“Ooh, I
love
you.”

As Wanda pulled into her dirt-rut driveway she saw the men’s car parked back behind the bougainvillea at the side of the house. When she came in the front door she heard a muffled pop and some hairy-chested guffaws.

She went into the sparsely furnished family room and immediately noticed a couple of dozen eraser-sized holes punched in the walls near the floor.

“What on earth?” she said, then looked closer and saw unshelled peanuts littered about. She heard the guffaws again and tracked the source
to the side porch where she found Dean and Cecil in
her
underwear, waving Ronnie’s pellet rifle around. “You fuckin’ slobs,” she said.

“Uh-oh,” Dean said with a drunken smile, “the landlady’s home.”

Wanda extracted a recitation of the chain of events from Cecil and found that it all started when Emil went back to bed and Cecil decided to flaunt his worldliness by mixing up a batch of gimlets, four parts gin to a teaspoon of lime juice, the way muckety-mucks mix it in Clearwater, Florida, a place where he’d once had a bartender buddy. Anyhow, Wanda learned, you got to give the snooty sorts a tip of the cap on this, ’cause it’s a flat-out monster drink and Dean, you know, Dean lets himself into your bedroom looking for a Band-Aid for the finger he cut after he’d dropped the first pitcher, that glass one with the fancy scenes painted on it, and down there in your closet where you keep a bunch of crotchless panties and negligees in that oatmeal box, you know, down there, he turns up this here pellet gun and says he can shoot better’n me. I told him I could hit an unshelled peanut from across the room, and, by golly, two or three times I did.