Cajun Waltz (19 page)

“Freddy Baez.”

“Oh, is that … Portuguese?”

“Mexican. My mother's name. She was a famous whore, I'm told.”

She yanked her hand away. “That's no way to talk to me!”

With no little presumption he took her chin in his fingers and drew her face toward him. His blue eyes were vibrant but their low-slung lids looked woeful as a bloodhound's. “Don't lie, Corinne,” he said. “You like it just fine.”

*   *   *

J
OEY AND
S
ETH
hobbled along a tree-lined road at the outskirts of the hospital grounds, testing Joey's upgrade from walker to cane. Joey had healed enough in mind and body to question his prospects for further improvement. Was this it? The sag in his face, the hitch in his gait—was this his life from now on? “Could be,” Seth said.

“Jeez. Can't you just lie like my mother?”

“I can be honest because I believe you'll recover completely. I'm afraid your mother doesn't.”

“You noticed.”

“Your cousin, on the other hand, believes it, too. She'd make a good counselor.”

“Delly? Why, 'cause she's rude as you?”

Seth grabbed Joey's arm with an awkward flail. “Don't be calling her rude. That girl's got spirit to burn.”

“She's stone crazy.”

“She's red hot.”

Joey began in singsong,
“Se-eth likes Del-lee / Se-eth likes Del-lee…”

Seth took a playful swipe at the boy with his cane. A car approached. They moved to the shoulder to let it pass. A bearded man was at the wheel.

The car, a red convertible, braked and U-turned, holding crossways in the road. Joey felt idiotic standing there, as if his and Seth's lame conditions were mocked by the vigor of the vehicle and the man driving it. In a cocky gesture befitting the athlete he'd been, he gave his new cane a whirl, as if he had no idea how he'd come to be holding it. The car gunned forward, zooming past them with a wallop of wind. “Loser,” Joey muttered.

“Who?”

“
Me.
For bein' a goddamn cripple.”

“Don't blaspheme.”

“That a joke?”

“Yes and no.”

“You and Delly, who knows what you're thinkin' half the time?”

“You're a little spotty yourself.”

“Only since she busted my skull.”

“I'm warning you. Criticize her, you're gonna have a fight on your hands.”

“From you? There's a joke.”

“You don't know chivalry? You don't know honor?” Seth raised his fists like a bare-knuckle boxer and punched comically at the air.

Joey forced up a scowl. “Shit. I knew you and her was made for each other.”

*   *   *

D
ELLY WAS HOME
at the little ranch house she shared with Fiona when Abe Percy called. She wasn't surprised to hear from him, what with R.J.'s name in all the papers for his universally praised suicide. “Guess that ends the case,” she said.

“Maybe not.” Abe then asked an unusual question.

She didn't hang up. “It was a long time ago. And dark.”

“I realize it's distasteful.”

“Why do you care? They already buried him.”

“Which must have been welcome news.”

“That he's dead? I have my doubts. Would've liked to seen the body.”

“I saw it. And I have doubts.”

“So your question—”

“Pertains. Please don't think I'm enjoying this.” But Abe
was
enjoying it. He hadn't spoken to any women other than phone operators and waitresses for years. He used to enjoy their company more than was proper. He liked trashy ones best, ones like Delly, though at twenty-two she was older than his preference. He asked why she was still skeptical.

“The timing. Like when my father shot himself. I didn't want to believe it was suicide.”

“Well, if not that—”

“Murder, okay? Not logical, but that's what I thought. Because I loved him and couldn't picture him giving up that way.”

“But who?”

“He admitted to you about him and Angel Bainard. And then R.J. going wild when he found out.”

“You think R. J. Bainard killed your father?”

“Did then. I blamed R.J. for everything bad there was, because of what he did to me. But Daddy was just trying to set things right in his own mind, I know that now.”

They chatted. Delly's cousin Joey was recovering from his injuries, she said; her stepdaughter Fiona was still so mad at her that she was spending, of all things, more time with her father, from whom Delly was now separated. Abe was moved by this outpouring. It was reminiscent of the trust Delly had shown him in the run-up to R.J.'s trial, and trust always attracted him powerfully. “Would you join me for dinner sometime?” he asked.

“Like a date?”

“Oh no,” he stammered. “Just to talk. I'm far too ancient for you.” The comment begged her rebuttal. He despised himself for hoping she would.

“I'm seeing someone pretty regular.”

“Wonderful! Who?”
Who?
His pushiness shamed him.

“Um,” she improvised, “a doctor at Joey's hospital. Loadsa class.”

“And not an old fat man like me.”

Sharply she said, “Mr. Percy, I don't mind fat and I don't mind old. It's just I'm involved.” She offered some consolation. “What you asked before? About R.J.'s thing?”

“I shouldn't have put you through that.”

“It was…” She took a breath. “I know because my husband's isn't—it was circumcised.”

“You're certain?”

“He made me get close, okay?”

There it was: The dead man wasn't R. J. Bainard. “That's helpful to know.”

“Gonna tell me why?”

“No.” It was Abe's surest assertion today. “It's for your safety. And mine.”

*   *   *

A
BE'S NEXT STOP
was the neatly kept and pricey home of Lake Charles's former police chief, Hollis Jenks. The old lawman was sloshing gasoline down mole holes along his front walk when Abe pulled up. “You got balls comin' here,” Jenks said.

“On the contrary,” Abe said from his car. “I've acted with forbearance by not going straight to the authorities. But what use would that serve? To see you disgraced and myself empaupered? Surely there's a better way.”

“Lord, I hate a man talks like that.”

“I'm raising my price.” The rattle of Abe's car motor proclaimed the wretchedness he sought to disguise. “Twenty thousand dollars. Inform the Bainards.”

“Got nothin' to do with me.”

“You're a fraud, Chief Jenks. A wanted man thrived thanks to you. Now an innocent man has been murdered.”

“Gobbledygook.”

“Expect a visit from the sheriff in that case.”

Jenks shook his head. “I did some homework. The big-hearted lawyer with a bedroom to spare? All them poor little children and you.”

Abe's face blanched only a little—his scandal in New Orleans had happened so long ago, it seemed another man's life, another man's shame. Jenks noticed it anyway:

“Ring a bell, does it?”

“A grave error on my part. But as well-meaning as it was inappropriate.”

“Still pretty spicy. Front page, I'd say. Even now.”

“They had nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep! I gave them a home.”

“And got what back?”

Abe saw the futility here. “I say again: ten thousand dollars cash…” He'd dropped the price without realizing it. “… or all this…” He waggled his finger to delineate Bo's retirement haven. “… will be
gone
.”

“Your shit against mine,” Jenks said.

“Possibly. Or it could be the basis for mutual benefit.” The proposition disgusted Abe, though he prayed it might be accepted. Jenks did:

“I want half whatever they give you. I'll push for the twenty.”

“Partners, then.”

“Partners.” But after Abe drove away Jenks said aloud, “Guess again, freak.”

*   *   *

A
HALLWAY LED
to Bonnie's bedroom suite at the opposite end of the Georgia Hill house from where her father lay in drugged slumber. Alvin had skipped down it on many past evenings in anticipation of serving his lady, but since her brother's funeral she'd all but ignored him. He paced the house flipping coins or blowing his mouth harp—softly, so as not to disturb her—while praying that she would assign him a task he might perform to her satisfaction.

Bonnie spent her days in her upstairs office. Though she complained of the business duties that burdened her, she liked being hands-on in running Block's, preferring to type her correspondence and take her own calls rather than hire a secretary. When things were good between them, Alvin stood by to sort her mail, change her typewriter ribbon, refill her fountain pen. One glance from her and he'd know to bring the car around to head off to a Block's locale perhaps hundreds of miles away. The trips were his favorite times with her, their valises in the trunk, separate rooms booked at modest hotels. She used to ride in back, Alvin up front like a proper chauffeur. But on the excuse of needing to be nearer the heater or to share sips of his orange pop she increasingly wound up beside him, a voice in the dark if they were driving at night, a fragrant weight against his shoulder if the miles had lulled her to sleep.

The hesitance with which she'd invited his advances stirred his utter gratitude. Lying unclothed before him, she showed no concern for his pleasure or his feelings. The understanding that these intimate perks could be cut off at any time carried, for him, an erotic component that he'd quite enjoyed until they actually were. Her office and bedroom were off-limits now. Tension crusted the air when they crossed paths in the hall or at Richie's bedside. Alvin wondered how things had gone so awry. He should have let Freddy Baez do his work. With R.J. dead for real and Seth cut out of his father's will, all Alvin's problems—which is to say, all Bonnie's problems—would have been solved.

In the depths of one of his morose afternoons he found a folded note under a paperweight on the foyer table. His heart leaped to see his name written on it in Bonnie's schoolhouse cursive. When leaving him memos, she kept an odd protocol whereby work instructions were addressed to “Alvin” and personal ones to “Sgt. Dupree.” She was so ill at ease with affection that she masked it in formality. Thus “Sgt. Dupree” gave a foretaste of sweet reunion. His knock was timid, his eyes downcast in expectation of blinding radiance when she opened her bedroom door.

He hoped she'd be wearing her robe; it represented as bold an invitation as she could permit herself. A shoulder or foot massage would lead to the robe falling open as he performed in priestly obliviousness for the willowy nude unveiled before him. His stories would come next. Dirty ones, her enjoyment of which, once piqued, far exceeded Alvin's experience or imagination. In constant quest of new material, he memorized passages from pornographic literature and spent his pay to interview prostitutes rather than to fornicate with them. For purposes of research he sometimes pursued cheap pieces like that Ethel at the Section Eight Gun Club. A girl like that had no better use, and Bonnie did enjoy hearing about it afterward. To conjure an arousing story was to be the diligent lover she deserved.

But Bonnie wasn't wearing her robe. She had on a gray skirt and sweater, her hair was bunned, and her face was stern as a boxer's at the opening bell. “You got my note.”

“I did.” There'd be no stories today.

She beckoned him inside. A tidy arrangement of chair and love seat took up much of the sitting room. Last time they were together here, she'd been sprawled naked on the love seat like a body thrown from a truck. She was all business now. “My brother's funeral the other day?”

“Yes…”

“You cried.”

“I did?”

“At the graveside, Alvin. You cried when I put the urn in.”

“Me and him went back a ways. Korea an' all.”

“It's why I was surprised,” she said. “Since obviously you knew it wasn't R.J. we were laying to rest.”

“Well, yeah, the real R.J.'s with Jesus.”

“Don't hand me that crap.” Her sacrilege shocked him. “That body was someone else. Tell me I'm right,” she said, “and let's get to the consequences.”

Alvin surrendered. “Man was some acquaintance o' his.”

“You didn't know him?”

“Never got a name.”

She asked him how and where.

“Three of us huntin', R.J. goes bang. I 'bout wet my pants.” Cowed by Bonnie's anger, he'd kept his eyes down. He raised them contritely. She was grinning with wolfish glee, like a goody-goody who's turned a new leaf. “
Dog?
You knew?”

“Hell yes, I knew. The second I saw him in that icebox.” Her exhilarated movements released her hair, unpinned apparently, in an uncoiling snake down her back. “I was just waiting to make sure no suspicions.”

Alvin felt behind him for a chair to collapse in.

“I'm evil, huh?” she said.

“R.J.'s the one gotta carry it. You done nothin' wrong.”

“In my mind, Alvin.
In my mind
.” She began to pace, ruffling her shoulders and working her neck beneath the burden of dastardly thoughts.

There was no way Alvin could give voice to what was blooming before him. Bonnie's sinewy wildness was thrilling to behold. All he could do was sit back and gaze up in wonder, like Jack watching his beanstalk rise.

She unbuttoned her cardigan and yanked it down off her shoulders and arms. Her black brassiere, at his eye level, fronted her torso like a reveler's mask made raunchier for its mock modesty. His heart beat so fast it hurt. She propped one foot on the arm of his chair and he knew without looking that she was wearing nothing under her skirt. Her inner thigh pressed the side of his face. “You said you kissed a girl there once,” she said.