Fat Tuesday (12 page)

Granting Flarra's request was out of the question, but she couldn't tell the girl that without having a battle on her hands. Nor could she tell her the reasons why she opposed it, or discuss with her matters that she wouldn't understand.

She couldn't talk to Flarra about Galveston.

For the time being Remy remained noncommittal."A lot will depend on how you conduct yourself for the remainder of this semester. Will you behave yourself?"

The sixteen-year-old took that as a definite maybe. She leaped to her feet and executed a graceful pirouette."I promise on my maidenhead."

"Flarra!"

"Don't freak. That's all that's going on with my maidenhead. What about Mardi Gras?"

"What about it?" "Last year you said that maybe this year I could come to your party." "That's right I said maybe."

"Reee-my."

"I'll bring it up with Pinkie, Flarra. You're hardly in a position to be asking for favors."

"But you'll ask him," the girl insisted.

"I'll ask." Then Flarra took Remy's hands and pulled her into a hug.

"Thanks, sis.

I love you."

Remy hugged her tightly, whispering, "I love you, too."

When they pulled apart, Flarra's face had turned sad."What do you think she would think of me? Of us?"

Flarra could only be talking about their mother."Who knows? I don't think about her at all," Remy lied.

"Neither do I."

Flarra was lying too. Naturally they thought about the woman who had given them away without a smidgen of regret. Of course if she hadn't, Flarra probably would have died before her second birthday.

As to Remy's fate, she knew what she would have become.

"I must go," she said, moving toward the door."Pinkie will be getting home soon."

"Does he make love to you every night?"

"None of your business."

"We my friends and me think he does. Completely naked and with the lights on. Are we right?"

"Instead of speculating on my sex life, shouldn't you be studying geometry?"

"Remy, are you feeling okay?"

It was customary for Flarra to switch subjects with rocket speed.

This time she caught Remy with her guard down."Am I feeling okay?

Sure.

Why do you ask?"

"The last few times you've been to see me, you look sort of, I don't know, tired."

"I am, a bit. We hosted a party night before last. I was up late."

Scrubbing offBardo's touch, she added to herself.

"If you're sick, don't lie to me."

"I'm not sick."

Flarra's eyes brightened and her voice dropped to a hush."Could you be pregnant?"

"No, I'm not pregnant."

"Damn. I thought maybe ..." She pulled her lower lip through her teeth.

"You don't have cancer or something, do you, Remy?"

"No! Of course not. Flarra, I swear, there's nothing wrong with me."

'"But if something were wrong with you, something terrible, you'd tell me?"

'"I would tell you."

"Because I'm not a kid."

"I know that."

" Cause if I lost you, I ... you, Remy."

"A herA "Wouldn't lose "You won't," Remy declared with soft urgency."I swear I'll always be here for you. If something were wrong, I'd tell you, but there's not, so don't worry. Okay?"

Flarra released a gust of breath and flashed her engaging grin.

"Okay.

I'll see you Friday night." "No. I'm afraid we won't be taking you to dinner as planned."

"How come?" From the threshold of Sister Beatrice's office, Remy looked back at her crestfallen sister."Because you squandered that privilege on your adventure last night." Ipon of a bitch," Burke said softly.

He cursed with disbelief. Mrs. Pinkie Duvall was the woman he'd seen in the gazebo. Sitting behind the steering wheel of his car, he watched her enter the exclusive girls' school. Even from half a block away, he couldn't mistake her.

A little more than an hour ago, he had asked Ruby Bouchereaux, "What's a remy?"

"Not a what. A who. Pinkie's wife."

That Duvall was married had been a staggering revelation. Burke didn't recall ever hearing about a wife. Marital bliss just wasn't in his mental character profile of the flamboyant defense attorney.

As soon as he left the brothel, he drove to Duvall's neighborhood and cruised past the estate several times. He didn't really expect to see anything, but he got lucky. While he was making a turn-around down the street, a limousine came from the rear of the property and drove right past him. Since it was business hours, he assumed that Duvall was either in court or at his law office downtown. Was the lady of the house in the limo?

He had followed it here, to Blessed Heart Academy, and watched with dismay as the woman he recognized alighted with the assistance of the chauffeur. Chauffeur and bodyguard, Burke thought. After Mrs. Duvall went inside, the man took up his post at the gate. Burke wasn't surprised by the vigilance. Ruby Bouchereaux had already told him that Duvall kept an eagle eye on his wife.

"You didn't know he was married?" the madam had said, gauging his astonishment."I'm not surprised. Pinkie keeps her under lock and key."

"Why? What's wrong with her?"

"Nothing," she replied with a soft laugh."I see her periodically.

She's quite beautiful. As was her mother, until her lifestyle began to take its toll."

Burke listened raptly as Ruby told him about Remy's mother, Angel.

"She was an exotic dancer in one of the nightclubs Pinkie owns. This was twenty or more years ago. Angel Lambeth had talent and a promising career, but she became pregnant and had to quit dancing long enough to have the baby. When she returned to work, she was not only a mother, but an addict. Heroin, I believe. Her performance got sloppy. The drugs took a toll on her looks. So she was transferred to a club with a less critical clientele. A dive. You know the kind of place."

"What about her daughter?"

"When she was old enough, Remy became Pinkie's bride. Beyond that, I know very little of the mysterious Remy. No one knows much."

"How did Angel fare?"

"Badly. She was eventually demoted from dancing to running the cash register. Shortly after Pinkie married the girl, Angel died.

Supposedly of an overdose."

"Supposedly?"

Ruby Bouchereaux arched her brow eloquently."Pinkie was a big man around town by then. Would he embrace a drug-addicted mother-in-law who turned tricks to support her habit?"

"You think he disposed of Angel to spare himself embarrassment?"

"Or the cost of rehab. He probably considered Angel a bad investment In any case, her death was awfully convenient for him, wasn't it?"

Now, his butt growing numb from sitting so long in his car, Burke reviewed the story from every angle, wishing he knew the information that would fill in all the blanks. What was Mrs. Duvall doing here at the school? Did they have a kid?

His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since breakfast the day before. He searched the car for something to eat and found a forgotten Twinkie in the glove box.

What was taking so freaking long? The chauffeur had found a way to pass the time. He was cleaning his fingernails with a pocketknife.

Burke saw him cough up a wad of phlegm and spit it into the shrubbery flanking the gate. Nails clean, he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the iron post of a gaslight. Burke couldn't see his eyes, but he would bet they were closed and that the goon was taking a nap standing up.

Forty-seven minutes after Remy Duvall went into the school, she came out. She said nothing to the chauffeur until they reached the car, when she paused before getting in and spoke to him over her shoulder.

He doffed his cap.

"Yes, ma'am. Anything you say, madam. Kiss your ass? You bet.

Jump? How high? Roll over? Play dead? Your wish is my command."

Burke's muttering was tinged with contempt as he watched the chauffeur hustle to carry out her orders.

He cranked up the engine of the Toyota and followed at a nonthreatening, nonsuspicious distance as the limo left the Garden District, traveled down Canal Street, and then turned left, entering the French Quarter via Decatur Street.

The driver double parked beside a row of parking meters, all of which were occupied. Straight ahead lay the French Market. The chauffeur got out and went through the routine of opening her door and helping her out.

Burke whipped his Toyota into a space farther down the street, ignoring the stripes marking it as a loading zone. He reached for the duffel bag in his backseat. When he stepped out of the car a few moments later, he was wearing not a sport coat and dress shoes, but a loose rain jacket, Nikes, a baseball cap, and dark sunglasses.

Placing his hands in the pockets of his jacket, he strolled down the banquet looking like an average Joe who had the afternoon off, with seemingly no purpose in mind except to shop the fresh produce of the French Market and to meander among the stalls where vendors sold everything from voodoo dolls to alligator money clips.

He picked through a bin of Vidalia onions while, one row over, Remy Duvall sorted through the oranges. Now no more than eight feet away, Burke got his first close look at her.

There was no cleavage showing today, yet her two-piece suit could have been tailored for a Barbie doll. The skirt was short and snug. Its tightly nipped waistline drew attention to her breasts his attention anyway. Her heels were high, her earrings flashy. The diamond on her ring finger was the size of a doorknob. She looked like the girls in the get-off magazines, except for her hair. It wasn't long and tangled.

It was sleek and smooth. But there was something about the way it brushed her cheek each time she moved her head that was like an invitation to touch. Cherry-colored lips parted into a smile when she lifted one of the oranges to her nose and sniffed it.

Except for the small gold cross around her neck, she couldn't have looked more blatantly sexual if she'd been stark naked and had BoFF ME tattooed on her tits.

Even the fruit vendor was almost too flustered to sack up the pair of oranges she selected. The chauffeur paid for her purchase, but the vendor handed her the sack, placing it in her hands with his profuse thanks.

As she moved away, the bodyguard fell into step with her, his eyes sweeping right and left. Burke thanked the onion vendor but declined to buy any. Instead he ambled across the street, past the stand that sold African artifacts and clothing, toward the kiosk coffee bar where Mrs. Duvall had taken a chair at one of the small, round tables. She opened the brown paper sack and began to peel one of the oranges, her long fingernails digging into the flesh of the fruit.

At the bar, Burke ordered a banana smoothie. He stood elbow to elbow with the bodyguard. The guy's forearm was bigger around than Burke's neck. He picked up Mrs. Duvall's cappuccino with his beefy hand and carried it to her. He returned to the bar only long enough to get his own cup of coffee, but he didn't return to Mrs. Duvall's table. He stationed himself at another one nearby, while she sat alone, eating her orange section by section and sipping her cappuccino.

The banana smoothie was even more obnoxious than Burke had imagined, but he drank it slowly and with feigned, drawn-out pleasure as he watched Mrs. Duvall's reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

She attracted attention from passersby, but she didn't make eye contact with anyone and spoke to no one. For a woman with her looks, a rich husband, a mansion, and a chauffeur-driven limousine, she seemed to make an event out of something as simple as eating an orange. She chewed each section slowly, and waited several minutes before consuming another.

Burke began to wonder if she was waiting for someone to join her.

Could Duvall be using her as a courier for his extracurricular activities? But no one came near her, and the guard didn't appear on edge. His head was buried in a tabloid newspaper.

The banana smoothie had melted into a syrupy slush that smelled like suntan lotion before Remy Duvall finished her orange and Wrapped the peel in a paper napkin. When she stood to dispose of it in a trash can, the chauffeur closed his tabloid and rushed over to assist. Together, they began making their way back toward the illegally parked car.

"Hey, lady!" Burke cursed himself for acting impulsively, but at that point he was committed. Both Mrs. Duvall and her guard dog had turned back and were looking at him.

The brown paper sack with the extra orange in it was still sitting on the table. He picked it up and jogged toward her."You forgot this."

It was the chauffeur who snatched the sack from him."Thanks."

Burke, ignoring him, addressed her."No problem."

He was close enough to smell an expensive floral fragrance and the essence of orange. For her hair to be so dark, her eyes were an incredibly light shade of blue, almost clear. The red lipstick had been eaten off, but her lips were rouged from the orange's acid sting.

She said to him, "Thank you."

Then the bodyguard stepped between them, blocking her from Burke's view. Although wanting to watch her walk away, Burke turned and ambled off in the opposite direction. He waited until the limo was out of sight before returning to his car, where he sat for a long time, motionless, but breathing as though he'd sprinted a mile.

"And that's it?"

Errol the chauffeur was sweating under the incisive glare that Pinkie used on clients he knew were lying."That's it, Mr. Duvall. I swear.

I drove her to the school. Then she asked me to take her to the market.

She bought a couple of oranges and had some coffee at that little cafe across the street there. I took her to church. She was in there for half an hour, same as always. Then I brought her home."

"You didn't take her anywhere else?"

"No, sir."

"She was within your sight the entire time?"

"Except when she was inside the school, yes, sir."

Pinkie steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips, while keeping the nervous bodyguard beneath his baleful stare."If Mrs. Duvall asked you to take her somewhere, somewhere that I hadn't okayed first, you would refuse to take her and then you'd tell me, right?"