4 Shelter From The Storm (4 page)

“Well, hello Tubby,” she said when she answered the bell. She gave him a big smile. A discreet golden favor from an old Comus ball adorned her perennially tanned, attractive, and not-forgotten chest. The rest of her was stylishly draped in a white, fairylike beach dress.

He grinned in admiration and shook his head, and was glad he was wearing sunglasses so she couldn’t see his eyes.

“You’re looking good,” he said honestly.

“Are we ready to go?” Collette brushed past her mother.

At fifteen, she was a smaller version of the original, just developing some pretty significant curves. Until the last year she had been real smart in school. Now, like her mother, she was starting to expect to be the center of attention in any crowd larger than three and was generally getting to be a know-it-all. Unlike her mother, she still loved Tubby.

“Ready and waiting,” he said.

“Then let’s head out.” Collette took her father’s elbow, turned him around, and hustled him down the walk to the gate that was about to fall off its hinges.

“I’ll be at the Ormonds,” Mattie called, to let Tubby know she was still in demand. Poinsette Ormond was among the high-class attorneys he was personally glad to be rid of. “Maybe I’ll see y’all at the parade.”

Tubby was halfway down the block before he let his stomach out. Brief encounters with the ex-wife were always nerve-wracking.

“Are you in a hurry to get to the parade?” he asked Collette, who was prodding him on ahead.

“No, I’m just glad to get out of the house,’ she said in exasperation.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, trying to match her stride down the oak-lined sidewalk, sections of which had been broken and lifted by the trees’ massive roots. They were passing lovely homes and tended hedges, all belonging to his former neighbors.

“You know how Mattie is. She just keeps asking questions. Who am I talking to on the telephone. Why Brenda is dropping out of school. Just bugging me all the time.”

“You call your mother Mattie?”

“When she’s like that, I do. She’s absolutely convinced I’m going to start doing drugs and pierce my nose and go grunge.”

These were exactly Tubby’s fears.

“Ha. Ha,” he laughed.

“Really,” she said in agreement. She waved at some boys in ragged blue jeans and baseball caps sitting on the wide steps between the columns of a grand old wooden porch.

“So you don’t like nose rings?” he asked.

“They may look fine on somebody eighteen, but not on a girl my age,” she said sensibly.

His brow furrowed.

“Will we have to stay long at the Molideaus? What are you supposed to call them? They’re not married, are they?”

“Her last name is Gayoso. Just call him Mr. Molideau and her Ms. Gayoso. We’ll stay awhile and get something to eat and then go to the parade. We can go back to their house whenever we want and use the bathroom.”

“Why don’t they get married? Haven’t they been together for years and years?”

“I have no idea,” Tubby said. “They own the house together. I guess they just have their own jobs and want to keep their lives a little bit separate.”

“I think that’s so cool.”

He did not have a chance to find out what part of the arrangement she found cool because they reached the gate of the Molideau yard.

“Howdy, stranger.” Bonita, in yellow shorts and a Crescent City Classic T-shirt greeted them. “Is this Collette? Honey, you’ve grown!”

Collette got through the introductions without a hitch, and it did not take her long to find the teenagers she knew who had isolated themselves in a distant corner of the yard. Having been abandoned by his escort, Tubby joined the men standing around the pirogue full of ice and Langenstein’s Lager.

“Make way for lawyer Dubonnet.” Jerry, hale and hearty with beer foam on his upper lip, pressed a wet bottle into Tubby’s fist.

“Happy Mardi Gras, son,” he said. “Let’s get this day going right.”

Tubby inhaled deeply the peppery vapors of crawfish steaming and took a long cool swallow. It looked like they even had an entire turkey frying in one of those pots. A child darted in for a handful of ice, and somewhere a clock chimed eleven.

“I saw you on the
Angela
Show,” somebody said to Tubby. “You were talking about some scam a drug company was running over at the Moskowitz Labs. Or was it a murder?”

“It was a murder,” Tubby said, accepting a fried oyster from a tow-headed six-year-old in charge of a full tray.

“Yeah, it was a very interesting program.”

“I tell you what, Angela’s really great,” Tubby said.

“She always has on them earrings.”

“Yeah. I thought she was real nice looking.”

“Didn’t I see you come in here with some babe?”

“Uh, that was my daughter.”

“Oh. Have another beer.”

And where could she have gotten to, Tubby wondered, looking around.

* * *

An old man named Russell Ligi was getting more and more nervous, which made him more and more angry, the longer he had to wait at the Algiers Ferry landing. He was sitting in his car with his door open, feet planted on the iron ramp, furiously puffing a Swisher Sweet. A seagull landed beside him, and he kicked at it. His instructions had been to take the eleven o’clock boat and someone would contact him. The ferry was late, of course. He had been watching it piss around on the far side of the river for half a hour. He desperately needed to use the can.

The boat finally chugged up and discharged its load, and a punk in an orange vest waved him aboard. By then, Ligi was ready to pop off at anyone who volunteered. A dozen other vehicles rumbled onto the ferry behind him, and they were all crammed together in three tight rows on the open deck.

As soon as he could shut his engine off Ligi was out of the car. He leaned on the rail and crushed the butt of his cigar into the sheet metal deck with his heel. Sunlight broke through the overcast sky for a moment, causing the river to sparkle wildly. He had to squint to see the face of the large, square-jawed man who had appeared on the railing beside him.

“Ligi?” the man asked.

“Yeah, sure!”

“C’mon, let’s get in my car.”

The big man turned away without waiting for a reply and led Ligi to a mustard-colored Cadillac parked further back in the jam. Ligi hopped from foot to foot while the man worked the locks. He got in and slammed the door.

“So? What?” Ligi had out another of his Sweets and tapped it on the dashboard.

The stranger, with curly blond hair worn long to cover a few sparse patches, stared at Ligi until the old man stopped fidgeting.

“Mr. Ligi, the deal is all set. That’s what I’m supposed to tell you. The sale is going ahead. I’ve got the papers right here for you to sign.”

“Sign? Right now? What about the fucking letter I told them about? You got that?”

“We’re getting it. It will all be taken care of.”

“You got old Parvelle to give it up? What’s that old thief getting out of this?”

“That’s not your affair. You made your deal, and the deal is going down on Mardi Gras Day.”

“You got to be fucking joking,” Ligi sputtered. “When do I get paid? Why am I signing now in the front seat of a car on a goddam ferry boat? Where’s my money?”

“You’re going to get it later this week,” the man explained patiently. “Right after Mardi Gras.”

“This is bullshit, sonny. That’s what the chickees say when they’re trying to talk some guy into marrying them. After that it’s ‘I’m tired, honey. Oh, I’m so tired.’ Nobody does business like that.”

“Mr. Ligi, I was asked to treat you with respect, considering your age, but if you don’t stop breathing in my face I’m going to smash your fucking head up against that windshield. So listen up.”

Taken aback, Ligi clamped his jaw shut.

“The thing is, you sign your deed now. You forget about that letter, like it doesn’t exist. When the investors finish the transaction, which should be in a couple of days, you will get your money. I’ll deliver it personally.”

“And I’m just supposed to trust you?” Ligi shook his head violently.

The big man’s hand shot out and grabbed Ligi’s nose, fixing it in place. Deliberately, he squeezed and twisted slowly one way, then the other, causing Ligi to squirm and stomp his feet on the carpet.

“Ow, ow, ow,” he yelped.

“Mr. Ligi,” the man said, holding him tight, “this ferry is about to dock, and before it does you’re going to sign the documents I brought with me. Then you can go on about your business.”

Mopping the blood off his upper lip with his handkerchief, Ligi signed his name on the sheets of paper as the were pushed in front of him.

“These are supposed to be notarized,” he complained.

“We got a notary.” The stranger folded the papers and put them in his pocket. “You better get back in your car,” he said pleasantly. “We’re there.”

* * *

With sirens whooping and street cleaners gobbling debris and hosing down the pavement, the Thoth parade faded away down Magazine Street. That was it for Tubby.

Walking home after the parade, both weighted down with many, many beads, Collette invited her father to rendezvous with her crowd on Mardi Gras Day. So-and-so was parking a truck at the corner of Third Street and St. Charles, and they would have an ice chest, and everybody could come there and watch Rex and all the trucks. Her sisters, Debbie and Christine, would probably spend part of the day there.

Maybe, he said, but the idea of staying home, hanging out in the backyard, and listening to the beat of distant drums had a lot of appeal, too.

“They’re going to bring a grill and barbecue stuff all day,” she said, which made the invitation a lot more tempting. “They’re going to cook hamburgers and sausage and roast some oysters on the grill.” Perhaps he would take a stroll down there after all, if the weather was nice. The forecast, however, said possible showers.

“It can’t rain on Mardi Gras.” Collette was certain of that.

“If it does, you’ll just have to think of all the fun we had today.”

“Right, daddy,” she said and kissed his cheek.

Opening the wobbly gate, she ran up the walk and waved from the front steps.

Replaying her parting smile in his mind, Tubby set off on foot toward the house, a smaller one, that was his new home.

It was about six blocks away— close enough if somebody needed him. It was on a nice street with nice lawns and mostly nice people. Some, you could tell, were a little better off than he was. That thought got him thinking about his money problems. Only a few months ago he had lucked into a small fortune, but, characteristically, he had blown it. Sigh. Specifically, he had let himself be talked into buying Mike’s Bar. It was a great place to hang out with the right sort of people, and he could get all the booze he wanted wholesale, but it didn’t turn a profit. Meanwhile, his law practice was suffering from inattention, and he had lost a few bucks at the track. His bills, tuition and child support for three daughters, were not going away, that’s a fact. And now his oldest daughter, Debbie, was getting married and naturally expected him to pay for the wedding. His suggestion that she elope had been ignored. Tubby unlocked the front door of his house and walked straight through to the kitchen for a beer.

But, you know, all that was not what was really bothering him. He had long ago realized that worrying about money was just a big waste of time, just an excuse to keep from thinking about significant things. He preferred to avoid thinking about those, of course. But, facing facts, his real trouble was— he was lonesome.

The kids were gone and his wife was ancient history. He did not even like to dwell upon Jynx Margolis, his well-heeled consort at parties. She could be fairly amorous, if it suited her schedule, but there really wasn’t any fire there. He badly needed a better class of companion.

Tubby glanced at the wall clock and was startled to see that it was four o’clock. How could a morning parade last so long?

He sat at the kitchen table and idly leafed through the sports section of the
Times-Picayune
. He had already read it while drinking coffee this morning, so he lost interest quickly. He tossed it on the chair and stared at the stove, a lawyer home alone. “Now what?” he said out loud.

* * *

An hour later he was holding down a stool at Mike’s Bar, sipping an old-fashioned. Larry, somewhat opaque in the dusty light behind the bar, fixed Tubby’s drink extra strong, with a better brand of bourbon than his undiscriminating customers got and a double shot of Isle of Capri cherry juice. Larry basically ran the place now. He had tended its bar for thirty years— the whole time Mr. Mike owned the joint— and he had taken on the tavern’s coloration. Tubby pretty much left him alone.

“Nobody’s playing cards tonight, Tubby observed, tipping his head toward the round table in the corner. It was empty of its usual circle of gamblers.

“They’ll be in later,” Larry said. “The judge already called in to see who was here.” He meant Judge Duzet, who spent his evenings at Mike’s and was facing mandatory retirement this year.

“When’s he comin’ in, darlin’?” Mrs. Pearl called from down the bar. She was a busty widow of advancing years with a stiff ball of pink hair. Mr. Pearl had blown up in a grain elevator and left her a little pension.

“He said after a while,” Larry reported and drifted away to wash a glass.

“You all by yourself tonight, sweetheart?” Mrs. Pearl asked Tubby.

“Yeah.” He kicked back his drink and grimaced.

“Well, I’ll join you.” She hefted her thighs off her stool and walked over to climb up beside Tubby. “Watch my purse, Larry,” she called. She didn’t have to worry. The only other guy in the place was asleep in the corner, a bottle of Budweiser by his elbow. Tubby hoped things would pick up later.

“You been to any parades?” she asked, straightening her dress beneath her.

“Yeah, I went to Thoth today with my daughter.”

“Oh, that’s a nice parade. I didn’t go this year because my son’s in the hospital.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s got a ulcer.”

“Really? How old is he?”

“If I told you that you’d know how old I am,” Mrs. Pearl said slyly and winked one of her eyes.