Unexpected Dismounts (14 page)

I must be having a bad hair day. That was the second slur about my age in the last two minutes.

“I don’t have a husband,” I said.

“Shocking.”

“A, I’m here to warn you that your landlords are on to you, and they
are
going to call the police if you don’t either cease and desist or clear out.”

At least, that was what I thought they had in mind. We hadn’t gotten that far.

“And B.” I hesitated because I wasn’t sure what “B” was, until it tumbled from my mouth. “B, this is a dead-end deal you’ve got going on up here, and I can help you turn it around.”

“Into what?” The upper lip almost disappeared up her nose, where it would undoubtedly be met by the trail of moisture coming out.

“Into a way of life where you don’t have to get high to tolerate your occupation. Or sell your body to
get
high. Whichever way you look at it, you’re going nowhere fast. Like I said, I can help you. It’s what I do.”

And I sure hoped God had a plan for that because none of this was coming from
my
brain. Now was a nice time for God to start speaking through me again. Judging from the way this girl’s eyes were bulleting into me, I was sure any minute she was going to produce a handgun.

Instead, she laughed, the second ugly sound to fill the room. The other was the shrill voice from behind the door. It had morphed from a giggle to a torrent of words only half of which I could make out.

“What’d you come here for? You still got to pay! Just get out!”

The last two were accompanied by the flinging open of the door. The man on the receiving end of the tirade had no choice but to get out because a willowy Hispanic girl gave him a shove that landed him on his back on the floor, right at my feet.

Kade Capelli looked up at me.

It didn’t matter that he was fully clothed. The ire still marched right up my backbone, and out my mouth.

“Getting to know St. Augustine?” I said. “You should’ve said something. I’d have gotten you a better tour guide.”

“He needs to get out!” the slender girl said to Chesty. Her voice bore the faint trace of Hispanic beginnings.

“What did he do?”

“It’s what he didn’t do.”

“Hey, listen, I’m gone.” Kade got to his feet and dug into his pocket, producing a wad of bills that he pushed toward the Hispanic girl. Chesty intercepted the money and pointed haughtily to the door. He backed toward it and at least had the grace to look sheepishly at me.

“I didn’t mean to tick her off,” he said.

“Why are you telling me that?” I said. “Tell her.”

“I don’t wanna hear nothin’ from you,” the girl cried. “Just—”

“I know. I’m getting out.”

“You, too, lady,” Chesty said.

“Who’s she?” the other girl said.

“Don’t know—don’t care. Both of you, out.”

Kade had already beaten a hasty retreat. I could hear him bursting through the door to the street below.

“Did I not just tell you to leave?” Chesty said.

“I’m going,” I said. But I still stood in the middle of the garish room.

“That doesn’t look like ‘going’ to me.”

“Listen, if you ladies aren’t busy on the seventeenth—that’s a Saturday, lunchtime—come to Number Two Palm Row. Around noon.”

“Why?” Chesty said. “Wait, don’t tell me. You’re having a revival and we can come be saved.”

“No,” I said. “We’re having a Feast. And I don’t know what will happen to you. You’ll have to come and find out.”

Then I beat it out of there before I was forced to blurt out something else I never meant to say.

When I reached the porch of Monk’s Vineyard again, where Desmond was sipping what I hoped was sparkling cider out of a champagne glass, I was barely coherent. All I could get out was, “You were right, fellas. I don’t know what you want to do about it.” I took the glass out of Desmond’s hand and set it on the table. “But we’ve got to get home.”

“We heard the yelling,” George said. “Already called the police.”

Lewis nodded toward the figure approaching the porch. Wonderful. It was young Officer Kent. Was there some kind of plot afoot that I hadn’t been made aware of? First Kade. Now him.

At any rate, I was so not in the mood for any more males of their generation. I hadn’t had time yet to figure out why I was this livid about Kade Capelli. I’d be incensed at any guy who exploited women, even higher-end hookers like those two. But I couldn’t explain the burning knot in my stomach over this particular one. Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen this in him when I met him. I felt like a dope.

Or maybe it was because I’d given him Chief’s number and told him to apply for a job as his assistant. Note to self: Contact Chief the minute you can get out of Desmond’s hearing range.

“You called the police, gentlemen?” Officer Kent said.

He stood now on the bottom step, just below me and Desmond, who was trying to wriggle from the grip I had on the back of his jacket.

“I did,” George said. “But this is the lady you want to talk to. She went up to investigate.”

Kent looked like I was the last person he wanted to talk to. The freckles around his eyes folded.

“I guess it won’t do me any good to say I wish you’d called us first before you went up there,” he said to me.

“None.” I looked at Desmond. “I want you to stay right here with George and Lewis. Do not step off this porch or I will take away your helmet. Permanently. I need to talk to this officer.”

“We’ll keep him busy,” Lewis said.

That was what I was afraid of, but I had no choice. I nodded for Kent to follow me and led him all the way across the street to the now closed gate to the Spanish Quarter. If Desmond could hear us over here, he was the bionic boy.

“Did the women admit to you they were soliciting?” Kent said when I stopped on the sidewalk.

“No. If you went up there and asked them now, they’d deny it, and you’d be hard put to find any evidence.”

“Then how do you know?”

“It’s my job to know. Look, arresting them isn’t going to solve anything. We both know that.”

He looked at me, the proper words already forming on his freckled lips. And then he let his shoulders drop, until he looked for all the world like a boy who had failed at his post on the safety patrol and had come to turn in his badge.

“I do know that,” he said. “And I wish I could do what you do.”

“Which is what?”

“Take them in and try to turn them around. I can’t do that. If I pick one up, I have to arrest her and from there it’s out of my hands.”

“So, what if you don’t pick her up?”

“I get busted for not doing my job.”

“What’s your job description exactly?”

He shifted his weight uneasily. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Isn’t it to ‘serve and protect’?”

“Supposedly.”

He was letting his guard down enough to make this worth a shot. I lowered my voice.

“If you were to call me if you suspected a woman of prostitution, instead of picking her up, wouldn’t you still be serving and protecting?”

“I’d be protecting a criminal.”

“They’re not serial killers, Officer Kent.”

“Nicholas.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My name’s Nicholas.”

“Okay—Nicholas. I don’t see how tossing them into the same tank as the drunks and the armed robbers and the pedophiles is protecting them. I can protect them, though. Or we can, at Sacrament House. It would be just like you were dropping them off at rehab.”

Nicholas hung his thumbs on his belt and studied the sidewalk now splashed with the light from the lamps winking on along St. George.

“The circumstances would have to be exactly right,” he said finally. “If somebody’s flipping out the way that woman was the other day—”

“Zelda,” I said. “Her name is Zelda.”

He grimaced.

“Yeah,” I said. “It makes a difference when you know their names, doesn’t it?”

“But if she’s a danger to somebody, I can’t just get you on the phone.”

“Okay. But if she’s merely out there trying to make it through the day the only way she knows how …”

He turned his young, pale blue eyes full on me. “Give me your cell number. If I can do it in good conscience, I’ll call you. But you have to do the same in return.”

“How so?”

“If you get yourself in a situation with one of the, well, with a Zelda, you call me personally, not the department. And you have to promise to give me any and all information that could lead to the arrest of any perpetrator.”

He stuck his fingers into his shirt pocket and drew out a card. When he handed it to me, I curled my fingers around his.

“Thank you, Nicholas,” I said.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, and added, “to anybody.”

I hurried back across the street, where Desmond was now astride the porch railing, leaning precariously from side to side.

“Desmond,
what
are you doing?” I said.

“Showin’ Mr. Georgio and Lewie how you and me ride our Harley.”

“Sounds like you’re quite the Motorcycle Mama,” George said with a grin.

I didn’t tell him that was totally under God’s orders. But for the first time in weeks, I felt again what I now knew was coming straight from God. You didn’t invite hookers to fund-raisers and set up liaisons with police officers unless you felt the urge deep in the folds of your soul. Unless the yearning was pulling you the way it finally did me.

Maybe now I could get all the stirred-up stuff settled down and get something done. Maybe now.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Officer Nicholas Kent and I had no need of each other in the days of relative peace that followed the incident at Monk’s Vineyard.

Emphasis on “relative.”

On the home front, Owen was pleased because he finally “got a bead” on a vehicle that he said had been driving up and down Palm Row on a regular basis.

“Beige, late-model Mercury Sable with Florida tags,” he told me on Wednesday afternoon when I was outside washing off the Harley. He sounded like he was auditioning for
Without a Trace.
“I couldn’t get the license number. I’m getting blind as a bat when it comes to distance. Now, close up, I’ve got eyes like a cat in the dark. Anything farther than ten feet, you’re better off with a mole.”

“Thanks, Owen,” I said before he could go any deeper into the animal kingdom.

He stepped out of the path of the hose spray. “I hope this doesn’t spell some kind of trouble for you.”

“It’s just somebody eyeballing the houses, I’m sure. People are always looking for property in this part of town. They think they can basically steal something because the economy has tanked.”

Owen adjusted the brim of his golf hat. “It’s yours they’re looking at. The car stops right in front of your house. But the minute I go out to ask questions, whoever it is moves on.” He shook his head until I realized he wanted me to shake mine, too. “You aren’t thinking about selling, are you? Miz Vernell’s worried about undesirables moving in here.”

I didn’t remind him that not long ago Miz Vernell thought I was one of the undesirables. Me and anybody else on a Harley, who were half the people I associated with.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “I couldn’t drag Desmond away from you.”

He gave me a denture-bright grin. “You’re right there.”

“Besides, Sylvia would rise up from her grave and set me straight if I even thought about it. I made a promise to her.”

That seemed to reassure Owen for the time being. Meanwhile, Erin O’Hare let Desmond retake his history test before school Thursday. His brain cells evidently didn’t turn into ice chips, because he scored a B-minus. Erin admitted to me that she gave him a few extra points for the caricature of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés he drew on the back. Desmond was less impressed by his grade than he was that Chief promised him that the day after the Feast he’d get his reward ride on the beach. Desmond immediately started to mark the days off on the Harley calendar on the refrigerator.

On Friday morning, India joined Hank and me for our last breakfast at the Spanish Galleon before it closed. Between commiserating with Patrice and eating one of everything on the breakfast menu, I told India and Hank that I’d invited the two entrepreneurial prostitutes to the Feast. Hank chewed her Walk the Plank omelet and looked at India, who just looked confused. It was as foreign a look on India’s face as a cubic zirconium would have been on her finger.

“Are they part of the program now?” she said.

“Not at this point,” I said.

“So they’re not coming to serve.”

“No. If they show up at all, which I seriously doubt, we’re going to serve them.”

India tapped her lip with her index finger. “Right alongside the Junior League and the DAR.”

Hank put her napkin to her lips, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she was enjoying this. India held up both hands like she was surrendering at Appomattox.

“I’m not trying to be facetious. I’m just having trouble imagining what this is going to look like. I mean, honey, do you know?”

“I guess it’ll look like what it looks like,” I said. “Like I said, they probably won’t even come. We didn’t exactly hit it off.”

“Do we want to know what that means?” Hank said from behind the napkin.

“I called them on their stuff. They showed me to the door. And on the way I had this compulsion to invite them.”

“God,” Hank said.

“That’s what I think, yeah.”

India merely picked up her Café Olé and sipped.

I let it go. If she wanted to say something she would. I’d created a ripple in her vision, but if I knew India, she would smooth it out with her usual poise. I made a mental note to get me some of that.

A few of the HOGs put together a sunset ride and supper at the A1A Crab Shack that evening. Chief said I needed a night out and even made arrangements with Owen to have Desmond hang with him. Things had been a few degrees chillier than usual between us since the night at O. C. White’s, so I was happy for a chance to warm it up. Just a few degrees.

Chief convinced me to ride with him so I could relax, not exactly a hard sell. Once I was behind him on the Road King, however, his shoulders seemed bastion broad, and the V they formed with his waist pretty much made “relaxing” an impossibility. I wasn’t sure where to put my hands until he took both of them and pressed them into his sides, where they at once oozed a less-than-romantic sweat.

“You ready?” he said.

Was he serious?

All the way over the Bridge of Lions to the island, along the watercolor ocean and through the air made of spun silver, I had to be one with Chief, leaning with his leans, stilling myself at his stops, absorbing his confidence as my hands sensed the muscles in his back.

You’re not used to feeling?
Hank had asked me.

Not like this. Never like this. Never as if breaking away from this oneness would be like splitting myself in half.

By the time we got to the Crab Shack at Crescent Beach, I was a veritable puddle, and I escaped straight to the ladies’ room to drain the flush out of my cheeks. And neck. And scalp. I was going to have to do something about this Chief situation before I lost what little of my mind was left, but all I could think of to do at that point was lock myself in one of the stalls and wait for—something. All I knew was if God told me to
w
ash his feet, Allison,
we were going to have a serious conversation.

But I felt nothing except an increasingly delicious ache in my chest. Maybe Chief was right. Maybe I just needed to relax.

Uh-huh.

I finally stepped out into the “dining room”—a dubious description for a hall of chipped red wooden benches and a deserted purple bar bearing a sign saying DIAGONAL PARKING ONLY. Nita, Leighanne, and Hank, all still in bandannas and chaps like peasants-turned-biker-chicks, were already carrying surfboard-sized platters of steamed shrimp and stone crab claws to the bilious yellow tables with buckets for shells hanging from nails on the ends of them. I didn’t offer to help. My former stint as a waitress had only lasted for two weeks for a reason. But I did grab a pile of napkins and follow them.

The guys—Chief, Ulysses, Stan, Rex, and Hank’s husband, Joe—were all seated facing us on one side of the two tables they’d pushed together to make a single long one. Rex, the HOG chapter president, was pouring sodas from a pitcher, his oversized-toddler face, as always, an interesting study with the graying temples and mushy middle-aged paunch. Ulysses, who’d unsuccessfully attempted to teach me to ride before Hank stepped in, raised his plastic tumbler, which meant he had one of his infamous toasts at the ready.

“To HOGs,” he proclaimed, “who know how to pig out.”

An appreciative moan went up.

“A sumptuous repast,” Joe said. He wasn’t your typical HOG. Actually, he wasn’t a HOG at all. It almost took an act of Congress to get him to ride with Hank. That or the promise of stone crab claws.

“I don’t know about that,” Stan said, blue eyes grinning. “But would you look at all this?”

I was looking. And what I saw caught at my breath and held it in my chest.

This was a gathering of disciples, as blundering and faithful and hungry as any in a long-ago upper room. Leonardo da Vinci it was not, but it had to be a portrait painted by God because something contracted inside me like a squeeze toward birth. It was as real as the words that came out of my mouth.

“I love you,” I said.

Ulysses turned to me, curly black bun at the nape of his neck in tow. “Right back at ya, babe.”

“I love you
all,
” I said. “And what you’ve done for Sacrament House and the Sisters.”

“Aw shucks,” Stan said. Leighanne punched him in the stomach.

“We do for you because we also love,” Rex said, his shy French accent peeking out between the words.

“You set the tone, though, Allison,” Nita said. “You know you do.”

“Whatever, but, listen.” I took another breath. The squeeze was still there. “We’re having a Feast at my place a week from tomorrow. It’s a fund-raiser but it’s also a footwashing.”

“Say again?” Stan said, hand cupped around his ear.

“Don’t you want your piggies washed?” Leighanne said to him.

“Harley Riders do not have ‘piggies.’”

Leighanne curved her tall body over him, the usual tank-top spillage hidden by a turtleneck sweater. “I’ve seen yours, Stan. You could use a good pedicure.”

“It’s not a literal footwashing,” I said. “It’s like a metaphor. You know, we’re serving the people we’re asking to serve us.”

“Serve you with donations,” Stan put in.

“Right, but we want to do for the people who already
have
donated—donated themselves.” I opened my arms to them. “Like you. So will you come? Let us feed you and pamper you?”

“But, really, no spa?” Stan said.

“No,” I said, laughing. And then I caught Hank’s eye. Her left cheek protruded, as if she had her tongue secured there so it wouldn’t escape.

“I’ll talk to India,” I said to her.

She just nodded and took the pair of crab crackers Joe handed her.

As the banter continued over the shellfish, Chief tugged me into the chair next to his at the end and scraped closer. His shoulders shut out the rest of the party as he leaned in.

“I can only assume that was spontaneous,” he said, lips barely moving.

“As in it just came out of my mouth?” I said. “Yeah. All of a sudden, this just looked like a picture of—never mind. I can’t describe it. It just was there.”

“I never question what you hear,” he said.

“There’s a ‘but’ in there though.”

Chief gave a half shrug. “I’m merely … inquiring … whether you’re trying to make money, or spend it.”

“Neither.”

“You’re scarin’ me, Classic.”

I tried to shape it with my hands. “Okay, I know it’s supposed to be about getting the funds to do what we have to do, but that’s not what’s going on inside me. It feels like there’s something more. I just can’t get a handle on it.”

“So, Allison.”

I turned to Nita, whose Spanish eyes were earnest.

“Are we the only Harley people invited?” she said. “I mean, because there are some other people who’ve helped.”

“Absolutely. Whoever you think of, please, tell them to come. And—”

I glanced at Chief and at Hank. They were both watching me, their expressions cryptic as text messages: Hank’s saying,
I can’t wait to hear how you break this to India;
Chief’s telling me he could hear the bank account draining. They made sense, and the contraction in my soul made none. But wasn’t it
the very thing I’d been waiting for? Didn’t it get to the root of
Wash their feet?

I looked back at Nita, still waiting, all short and golden. “Invite anybody else who just needs to be served.”

Chief smeared his entire face with one big hand. Hank drowned a hunk of crabmeat in the drawn butter without taking her eyes off of me.

“You want me to do a little Evite maybe?” Nita said.

Leighanne tapped my hand. “Have Desmond do a drawing. We can scan it and put it on there.”

“That would be fabulous,” I said.

“What are we calling it?”

“The Feeding of the Five Thousand,” Hank said, voice dry.

“Just call it ‘Community Feast,’” I said. “And then put, ‘For Anyone Needing a Holy Meal.’” My eyes locked with Chief’s. “And ‘Donations appreciated from those who are able.’”

You sure about this, Classic?
his eyes said.

No
, mine said back.

But God seemed to be, because at last my soul relaxed. I grabbed for a crab claw.

Chief’s hesitation notwithstanding, he supported the effort. He went out for forgotten items when Hank and the Sisters were cooking in my kitchen almost every evening. Monday he delivered Desmond’s caricature—a line of servers who looked like all of us, carrying streaming trays and sporting oversized bare feet. He came back with fliers to put in, as Desmond phrased it, “places where people needs somebody bein’ they Mother D.”