Charming Grace (49 page)

I smiled. Sitting there in the hot darkness, trapped in a situation from which we might not escape alive, I thanked Diamond for my mental picture of her on the cover of
The National Enquirer
with her hair standing on end and her teeth bared like a mad baboon. “When Diamond finds out,” I said to Boone, “can we be sure to have a camera on hand?”

Boone and I bent our heads together, chortled, then huddled closer with fierce appreciation. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

Silence. We enjoyed the words so much, we let them float in the darkness for a while. Boone blew out a long breath. “
Stone Senterra’s my brother.
I’m goin’ to have to say that about a thousand times before it sinks in. No matter how ass-backwards his methods are, he’s been great to me, all in all. He’s a good man.”

We sat silently for another moment, not mentioning the fact that Stone had refused to believe Boone and Armand were in trouble and refused to help them, now.

“Leo’s your nephew,” I offered. “
That’s
wonderful.”

“That’s right. Yeah.” He hesitated. “But Diamond’s my
sister
.”

“Not by blood. Keep saying
that
to yourself. ‘
Stone Senterra is my biological brother, but Diamond and I don’t share the Senterra family tree at all. We’re not even from the same orchard.’
”

He laughed again.

I looked at my wrist watch. Its glowing face showed three a.m. “I wish Roarke would call.”

“Me, too.” Boone retrieved the cell phone from inside a pizza box.
Dumb And Company
had been kind enough to give me one of my pizzas back. He pressed a button to see the display. When I heard his sharp breath I looked down at the phone quickly.

The battery was dead.

“Maybe I should have hidden it somewhere less humid,” I finally managed to say. “Oh, Boone.”

Boone hugged me tightly against him. “It’ll be all right. Back to Plan B.”

Me, Grace, and Armand stood in the pitch dark at five a.m., one hour before the Gump Squad was scheduled to give us one-way tickets to nowhere. “Now?” Armand asked. Funny, how
I’d
become our leader, and how he let me. Like I was the older and wiser brother now, and he looked to me for answers.

“Not yet. Gimme a second.”

I began unbuttoning my shirt. The rustling sound made Grace fumble around until she found my chest. “What in the world are you doing?”

I stripped the shirt off and thrust it into Armand’s hands. “Roarke made me add a little Kevlar to my outfit.”

Grace grabbed my hands as I began unlatching the buckles that held the bullet-proof vest in place. “Don’t you dare take that off.”

“Gracie, this is one time I’ll wrestle you ’til you squeal, if I have to. You’re puttin’ this vest on, and that’s that.”

“Give it to Armand.”

Armand
tsked-tsked
. “Save your breath,
chere
. Me and my bro already had this discussion while you were freshenin’ up in
le toilet
. We make it a rule to take care of our ladies. I may be a lot of bad things, but I help old folks cross the street, I’m kind to kitty cats, and I don’t take bullet-proof vests away from girls.”

“This is ridiculous,
both
of you,” she said hoarsely. “No one’s going to get shot, so I refuse to jinx it by. . .Boone, do not put that thing on me—”

“I’m not Harp.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

I slid the vest over her head then began buckling it on the sides beneath her arms. “I know Harp didn’t wear a vest the day he was killed.”

“He
never
wore one. He felt it jinxed . . . ” Her voice trailed off in miserable defeat. I kissed her. She bent her head to mine. “All right. Just be yourself.” In other words—which she wouldn’t say out loud—
Please don’t end up like Harp.

I finished the buckles and stepped back. “I’ve spent all night stickin’ imaginary needles in imaginary Gump dolls,
chere
. Cajun voodoo will clobber ordinary jinxes every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”

Armand tossed my shirt to me. As I buttoned it in place he said, “We’ve only got one chance to bumfuzzle these goobers. It has to be loud, it has to be fast, and it better be for real. Meaning, bro, that if we get our hands on a gun, we shoot everybody who moves and says ‘Duh.’”

“I plan to.”

“All right, then. Let’s do it. But first . . . I don’t want to make you look like a sissy in front of Grace, but gimme a hug.”

“Grace already knows I’m a hugger.” I grabbed my brother in a deep embrace.

“We always survived when we were together as kids,” he whispered in French. “Let’s prove that’s still true.”

“Of course it is.”

“I don’t want to be a sissy,” Grace intoned. “But give
me
a hug, too.”

We each hugged her. Armand, first. Me, second. She and I kissed. “There’s a creekside bar near here,” I told her. “Whiskey and beignets for breakfast. The meal’s on me, okay?”

“You’re on,” she whispered.

I let her go. “Now. You get behind me and Armand. You
stay
behind me and Armand. God help the Gump Squad if you get one of their guns before we do.”

“You bet. If you think I’m scary with an empty gun, wait until I get a
loaded
one.”

She moved to the rear. Armand stepped up beside me. I couldn’t see him, but we rubbed shoulders as we faced the door. “On the count of three,” I said, “we kick it down.”

“Ready.”

“One—”

“Count in French. It’s happier soundin’.”

“
Un. Deux—
”

“Stop!”

“Armand, for godssake—”

“I hear something.”

“That’s the sound of me grindin’ my teeth.”

“No, Armand’s right,” Grace whispered. “Listen. It’s overhead.”

We turned our faces toward the low wooden ceiling. At first I only heard the
shush
of my own heartbeat in my ears. But then . . . a motor. A big motor. A big motor with
whomp-whomp
sounds. Blades chopping the air.

“Helicopter,” I whispered.

“
Big
freakin’ helicopter,” Armand confirmed.

Grace grabbed me by the arm. “Maybe we’re being rescued!”

Armand grabbed me by the arm, too. “Or maybe it’s Caesar Creighton arrivin’ to watch the fun.”

“Yeah. Either way, time to head for breakfast. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“
Un. Deux. Trois.
” We kicked the shit out of the door. It gave up without much of a fight, splintering in the middle and collapsing outward with a few fingernail-on-blackboard screeches as the hinges pulled out of the frame. It was pitch dark in the narrow hall outside the door, too. The Gumps had locked us in what must have been the warehouse’s front offices.

There was no Gump to be seen. The helicopter noises were loud, now,
whomping
right overhead, and getting louder with each second. Armand dodged ahead of me down the hall, tiptoeing. I grabbed Grace’s hand and we crept after him, feeling our way in the dark. Up ahead, somewhere in a front room, shouting broke out.

“Put the goddamn phone down! I don’t care who he says he is! It’s a lie!”

“But he’s outside in the helicopter!
He’s got his own helicopter!
How many ordinary people
got their own helicopter
?”

“Po-lice people, that’s who, you shit-for-brains. Stay put!”

“But he says he’s gonna blow up the buildin’!”

“Like hell he is! No po-lice helicopter goes around firing rockets at innocent buildings, shit-for-brains!”

“Look out the window! Goddamn! Does that look like a po-lice helicopter to you?”

We slipped around a turn in the hallway and stopped. Dawn glowed through an open doorway at the end. We could just make out the broad backs of the Gump boys. All four of the Gumps were riveted to the small office window.

Through that window, we caught a glimpse of what they saw.

Hovering about twenty feet off the ground, facing the window, was the biggest, baddest, mo-fo military helicopter this side of a war zone. It came with a nasty set of rockets on either side. They were pointed right at us.

Armand whispered over his shoulder, “I hope that’s a friend of ours.”

I shook my head. “No clue.”

“Come out with your hands up,” a voice boomed from the helicopter’s high-tech loudspeaker, which was meant for shouting messages through concrete bunkers and across battlefields. We heard it loud and clear. “Come out with your hands up and bring your hostages with you or I’ll blow up this building and the planet it rode in on.”

The head Gump freaked. “What the fuck does
that
mean?
The planet it rode in on?
What the fuck is that? A riddle or something?”

“
Death Squad Patrol!
” a lesser Gump said. “That’s what it’s from!”

“What are you talkin’ about, you dumb—”

“You have thirty seconds to come out with the hostages,” the voice boomed again. “After that, I’ll take you down and out and turn you every which way but loose.”

The lesser Gump went ballistic. “Don’t you get it?” he yelled at the others. “The first line was from
Death Squad Patrol.
And
this
one’s from the movie where he corners the asshole alien monsters in their nest and he says, ‘Come out or I’ll take you down and out and turn you every which way but loose!”

In our hiding place in the hallway, I suddenly understood. “
Viper Platoon
,” I whispered.

Armand stared at me. “The movie?”

“Yeah! It’s a line from the
movie
! That’s
Stone
out there.
That’s our brother!
”

Grace leaned against me and muffled her laughter in the middle of my back. Quoting lines from his own movies. It was so perfect. So weirdly, perfectly Senterra-ish.

Up front, the Gumps started yelling at each other, again. “You’re fuckin’
kiddin’
me! That ain’t Stone Senterra the movie star out there!”

“Who else would know them lines?”

“Only every teenage punk with six bucks for a movie ticket!”

“Yeah, but teenagers don’t ride around in Black Hawks pointin’ rockets at people!”

The loudspeaker voice bellowed again. “Ten seconds! Nine! Eight!
I’ve killed and barbecued better scum of the jungle than you!
”

Now even the head Gump gasped. “
The Amigo Commando!
It
is
Stone Senterra!”

“
Now
,” I yelled.

Armand and I charged the Gumps.

For the next few seconds it was all fists and grunts and shouting and girly squealing—I don’t mean from Grace, I mean from the Gump she hit with a scrap of metal pipe she grabbed off the floor. He went down like a wrestler whacked by a folding chair. I punched one Gump out of the way long enough to kick open the outer door, grab Grace by the business end of her metal pipe, and sling her outside. “Run, Gracie!”

She stumbled into the yard.

“Don’t shoot!” I heard her yelling at Stone, while I turned back to help Armand. Three Gumps versus two Noleenes. I dived in.

I saw the barrel of a gun coming up in Armand’s direction. I grabbed for it, jerked it aside, and managed to anchor the tip in a not-so-good spot right below my breast bone. The Gump holding the gun wrestled with me because he was too stupid to stop. We fought over that godawful little territory called
the trigger
. His finger beat mine into place.

Aw, Gracie, I didn’t want to die on you.

Whump.

Stone had arrived. He punched the Gump in the side of the head. The Gump went backwards, and I snatched the gun out of his hand. “Noleene!” Stone yelled. “I’m not payin’ any dentist’s bills
this
time!”

Stone. My brother. He’d come to help us, after all.

“It’s a deal!”

We lurched toward Armand. He was fighting the good fight, but he made the bottom layer of a free-for-all two-Gump parfait, and he was about to get whipped. The Gumps might have brains so tiny even Mike Tyson could beat ‘em at
Jeopardy
, but they made up for it in brawn. It would have been easier to stop two unbraked dump trucks. Plus they were scrambling for their guns. The place was an arsenal. They could’ve opened
Gump’s Gun World
with the collection laying around the dusty desks and rusty file cabinets of that front office.

Stone jerked one Gump off Armand while I wrestled with the other one. Stone’s Gump squawled, “I ain’t scared of no movie star!” and stuck a pistol under Stone’s nose.

Nothing could have made Stone madder. Not the gun, but the fact the Gump wasn’t impressed by him. He swung a fist at the pistol. I watched the terrified Gump tighten his hand. I made a grab for the gun. I wasn’t quite close enough.

But Roarke was. He came out of nowhere, moving fast for a sixty-five-ish papa with three sons to choose between. His fist came down on the Gump’s gun hand. The gun hit the floor and went off. Roarke hit the Gump.