Courir De Mardi Gras (12 page)

Birdie, having prepared a luscious chicken salad full of chopped pecans and green grape halves, got a little put out when Suzanne barely touched her meal in a desire to get at the silver immediately. Birdie absolutely refused to give up the key to the cabinet and took exactly sixty minutes to finish her salad, crackers, iced tea, and a dish of ice cream. Slowly, Birdie swayed through the kitchen and dining room. Painfully, she knelt by the latch and fiddled with the lock for several minutes, then parted the doors of the sideboard with a slow motion gesture.

Suzanne snatched up the punch bowl and lugged it into the kitchen. Her set of metal files and the acid sat ready by the sink. Birdie gasped when she began to saw a very small notch into the base of the bowl. With her best chemistry class technique, Suzanne pulled the stopper on the acid bottle between two fingers and placed a drop on the scratch. The acid turned a sickly green. Most of the large pieces in Virginia St. Julien’s collection tested the same way. Except for the candlesticks, George’s infallible mother had amassed the largest assortment of forged silver-plated replicas she had ever seen.

The candlesticks still puzzled her. They tested as sterling silver. Then, she applied her file to the fine crack around the base and prayed she wasn’t destroying a $5,000 antique. She hadn’t. The base popped off like the lid of a paint can. Beneath the silver shell lay pure cement. A few of the large bowls had been similarly packed in the base. As for the tea set, only the overlooked sugar tongs were sterling. The rest of the pieces tested as silver plate adhering to a poor casting of the original set.

Birdie disappeared during the first act of desecration and pounded down the hall to the telephone. Suzanne could hear the maid reporting her crimes to George. Birdie returned and found her standing over the dismembered candlesticks, file in hand like a murder weapon.

The housekeeper crossed her arms over her big bosom and said, “Mr. George says not to worry, just to help you out. He’s going down to Lafayette to work with a client for the rest of the week and check out a new business. Says he see you Saturday night.”

Birdie stared fixedly at the candlesticks as she gave her report. “Just ’cause I said I didn’t like those as good as the old ones don’t mean you should of done that to ’em.”

“Look.” Suzanne tapped the silver base into place. “Now only the experts will know this is a fake, but I dread telling George his infallible mother was duped.”

“Honey,” said Birdie, “I’m glad I don’t work weekends.”

Chapter Six

Suzanne’s story

No matter what Suzanne did, the days marched relentlessly on toward Saturday. Relieved, she found no discrepancies between the cards and the furniture downstairs at the Hill. She thought of all the nice things she could say about the Renaissance sideboard and the Wooten desk to temper what must be said about the silver collection.

She’d moved her cataloging upstairs and was working on the Jacques St. Julien gothic bedroom when the dreaded day arrived. With her nerves jangling by the time George returned at 6:00 p.m. sharp, she did not have enough courage to ask for an immediate interview. Saying “hello,” Suzanne watched him pass with his bulging garment bag over one shoulder like a cape.

“I’m going to clean up and change. You might want to put on a dress to go to the Roadhouse,” he directed, looking at the dusty jeans and T-shirt she wore, grubby from crawling around his father’s bedroom.

Too hell with this weird and awkward date. She wanted to tell him about his mother’s fraudulent silver collection right this very minute and simply get it over with, but George went into the bathroom, locked the door, and turned on the water. If she’d spoken up more quickly, she might have gotten out of the date altogether while he was still in shock.

To pass the time, Suzanne put on fresh make-up and the suit she’d arrived in. She set her hair to smooth it out, changed the style two times, and finally let it loose around her shoulders. At first selecting her highest heels so she could more nearly look George in the eye, she switched to low heels in case she offended him, or he offended her, and she had to walk back to the Hill.

Taking off the suit, she chose a black dress, a trifle short and low cut, to provide some distraction from the bad news. Oh, for heaven’s sake, he was only George St. Julien, not some hot movie star or athlete she wanted to seduce. She should consider this a business dinner. She decided to take off the sexy black dress and put on the suit again, but struggled with the back zipper and caught it in the cloth. At that moment, George knocked and asked if she was ready to go.

“Not exactly. My zipper is stuck.”

Nonchalantly, he entered her room as if he owned the place. Well, he did. His big warm fingers tugged the zipper free and up past the hooks of her black and lacy pushup bra. His hands lingered.

George murmured, “Ready?” and sniffed her neck. “Great perfume, terrific dress.”

“I’m not wearing any perfume,” she snapped.

This close, he smelled good, too, some kind of spicy cologne or aftershave, she didn’t know which, and would hardly ask. Moving away, Suzanne kicked off her low shoes and put on her highest heels again. At least, she would be almost able to look him in the eye when she told him about the silver.

“Umm, nice soap or hairspray or whatever, then.” George stepped back toward the door as if she had slapped him. “I meant to say you smelled nice.”

“Thank you, but you shouldn’t say things like that when we’re having an ordinary, friendly business dinner, just boss and employee.” There, now he knew exactly where they stood. This would not be a repeat of her problem with Paul.

With the heels, she barely reached George’s shoulder, even slumped over as he usually was. Looking into his eyes—out of the question unless she stood on a stepladder. What an absurd idea. She would wait until after dinner and a few glasses of wine to break the news. She could do a “good news—bad news” routine.

“I’ve got some good news and some bad news, George. You have a lot of valuable antiques people will pay money to see, but the bad news is the family silver insured for $100,000 is worth about $10,000 because your mother was cheated on her deathbed by an unscrupulous dealer.” Maybe he would laugh if she brought it off well, but she doubted it.

On the drive to the Roadhouse, they remained characteristically silent. She saved her energy for the evening to come. Once inside the eighteenth century building, Suzanne exclaimed over the ancient walls of handmade brick, the charming wrought iron fixtures, and the pewter plates. Her comments came out so loud in her nervousness, the owner, all aflutter, rushed over to seat them and restore the quiet ambiance of the place. He shook hands, called George by his first name, and asked where he had found such a lovely companion.

“She’s working on my house, Bobby,” George replied rather tersely. “Maybe she could do something with the décor of this place, but she can’t cook—something you have in common.”

Bobby chortled and patted George on the shoulder as if the remark were a private joke between them, although George had not smiled when he made it. In a twinkling, Bobby went off to greet another customer.

“Wasn’t that a little rude?” Suzanne asked, as insulted about the cooking comment as she was embarrassed for Bobby. She’d never cooked anything for George St. Julien—and now she never would, even if he had two broken arms and begged and pleaded.

“It’s okay. I went to school with Bobby. He’d be the first to admit the food in this place is mediocre, but it’s the only decent place in town to take a woman. Bobby is so very gay. He got his father to buy out Hippo Huval so he could do a little interior decorating with his boyfriend, Randy Royal.”

“So Bobby and this Randy Royal are a couple? What do you know?” She stored that information away. “Well, the place is beautifully done. I think someone who has been to college should have a little more tolerance for people who are different.”

“I’m sorry. I suffer from jealousy. Jeff Sonnier, Doc Sonny, is Bobby’s father. I always wanted a father like that. Instead, I got mine, and Doc got Bobby.”

“And are you jealous of Randy Royal, too?”

“No. I think he’s a blood sucking leech.” George raised his over-sized menu and hid behind it, conversation over.

He was right. The food turned out to be mediocre. The entire menu consisted of various fried seafood platters served with a tomato and shredded lettuce salad and a choice of French fries or baked potatoes. A glass of barely cool jug wine came with the meal. George ordered an additional carafe. They both decided on the shrimp. The entree came greasy and heavily breaded to the table.

Polishing off the wine, which Suzanne barely touched, George ended his meal with coffee. She ordered the bread pudding for dessert and bounced her spoon off the rubbery surface while delaying the inevitable. They had discussed nothing but the food and the weather for an hour. She summoned her courage to tell him that he was right about Randy Royal, when George let loose with another outburst. “I should have taken you into the city. This evening is a disaster. I knew it would be!”

His frustration made her pity rise to the surface. Another brief delay in getting the bad news would hardly matter.

“Look, we can salvage the evening. The night is young. Let’s go dancing at Joe’s Lounge!”

Suzanne couldn’t tell if it was the light of the candle on the table or disbelief shining through George’s lenses. “That’s not a place you take a lady.”

“Evelyn Patout goes there with her husband. Let’s break with old-fashioned traditions. I’ll take you. Come on!”

She barely gave George the time to pay the bill and tip the waitress, who looked like a perky high school cheerleader stuffed into eighteenth century garb. A new plan formed in her mind. She would show him a good time, get him a little drunk, and then tell him about the silver.

Suzanne fairly dragged George down the unpaved section of Front Street. The bar sat close enough to the Roadhouse to leave the car parked on Main. Even before they passed through the red door of Joe’s Lounge, they could hear the clink of bottles, the throb of the music, and the thump of heavy-footed dancing. Joe’s came alive on Saturday night.

Crammed on an impossibly small platform bristling with mikes and fortified by amps, the musicians performed: an elderly man sawing at a fiddle; two middle-aged men, one banging a triangle, the other squeezing an accordion; and a bearded youth wailing out a song in the Cajun patois. All of them wore blue jeans and checked shirts. A banner swinging over their heads read “
Octave Dugas and His Boys
,” obviously, a family act.

Not a single table stood empty. They wove their way through the chairs and the cigarette smoke to the bar. Their drinks arrived served up by a secondary bartender since Mr. Hippo was engaged in tapping another keg. The set of dances ended, and a flood of thirsty patrons swamped the bar. Suzanne found herself next to Evelyn Patout who seemed to have come alive, too, once out of her guide costume and the Port Jefferson Museum.

She’d shoved her skinny shanks into tight, tight jeans. Her western shirt bore large red roses embroidered on each breast pocket. She teetered on heels higher than Suzanne’s, though that hardly seemed possible. If she had been slightly overdressed for the Roadhouse, Suzanne was entirely out of place in Joe’s Lounge. How she wished she had a large western shirt to cover what her push-up bra exposed. Evelyn did not appear to notice the wardrobe discrepancy.

“Say, you found yourself a date. Good girl! Ain’t he a long one though? Would you look at the size of his thumbs? You know what they say!” Evelyn cracked Suzanne in the ribs with a sharp elbow while George cringed behind his drink.

“This here’s my husband, Billy.” She pulled on the hairy arm of a chunky man who wore his western shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his jeans slung below his gut.

“We’ve met.” George nodded and nursed his drink.

“Suzanne Hudson.” She put out her hand, and Billy grabbed it as the band cranked up again.

“Come on, honey.
Laissez les bon temps rouler
! I do like a woman in a fancy dress.”

“George!” Suzanne appealed.

Evelyn held up her arms in George’s direction. “How about you and me, you tall drink of water.”

“I don’t dance. Have a good time,” George said and finished the last of his first Jack Daniels on the rocks. He gave Suzanne a glance that said she was getting what she deserved for dragging him here.

“Well pardon me!” Evelyn claimed another man who looked like Billy’s twin in a different shirt and with a larger belly.

Soon, Suzanne danced in a style she’d never danced before, the two-step and the Cotton-eyed Joe, slow dances with a funny beat and fast dances with complex steps, all to the tinky-tink accompaniment of a triangle. Overheated when she got back to the bar, she seized her diluted gin and tonic. George sipped his fourth Jack Daniels and half way dozed over the row of glasses. Billy Patout chugged an entire beer and pounded George on the back.

“How did an ole four-eyes like you get a girl like this, hey, Georgie? She’s too much woman for you. I think my brother Rod would like to have her now I’m an old married man again. Hey, Rodney!”

Suzanne leaned away as the burly man with his arm around Evelyn came over to the bar. Billy offered a crude introduction. “This is my brother, Rod. Hippo says you got to come with a man, but nothing says you got to go home with the same one. Rodney shows a woman a good time. Don’t you, Rod?”

Baring more tobacco-stained teeth than Suzanne cared to see in a human mouth at one time, Rodney grinned at her. He put a brawny hand on her wrist. Suzanne tried to shake him off. George, evidently, was not going to ride to her rescue, and she’d have to handle the unwanted attention herself. Mentally, she ran through a few self-defense techniques to use on strong but overweight men. Raising her hand sharply, she broke free and prepared to stomp on Rod’s instep. She never got the chance.

“What do you say, Four-eyes? Rod will see your girl home sometime tomorrow,” Billy prodded.

George woke up with the suddenness of an animal that had been poked once too often and unwound from the bar stool. He towered over Billy and Rod. Still hunched, he stood in the way a man does when he is guarding his vitals from attack.