French Quarter (12 page)

“But there were skin burns on his wrists and ankles. From some sort of fabric, they think.”

“Who are these—they? Who are the people you say are telling you things?”

“The marks on his penis were different.”

Celina fell back in her chair and jerked her hand free. “Go away.”

“Oh, I do believe I hit a nerve at last.” Fishing a gold case from her purse, Charmain lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. “You do see why you should talk to me, don’t you? There’s no power like the power of the press, sweets. And I didn’t get on top because I’ve got tender skin. You can either give me what I want and I’ll be kind to you, or I won’t be kind to you.”

“Go away.”

“You’re repeating yourself. Why did you come here tonight? To see Jack Charbonnet?”

What could she say? Celina got a faceful of cigarette smoke, and her stomach turned.

“That’s right, Charmain. Celina’s here to see me. To meet me, actually. Errol and I were partners in Dreams. Now he’s gone and we intend to make sure his work keeps right on going. I need Celina’s help with that. If there’s anything else you want to know, give me a call sometime.”

Celina stared up at Jack and decided that she had never been more pleased to see anyone. Relief made her tingle.

“Hello, Jack,” Charmain sang out, unfazed. “Both of you at once. I must be living right. Sit yourself down.”

“It’s late,” Jack said. “Celina doesn’t need any beauty sleep, but she might prefer to get home before dawn, and we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“Where is that Dom Pérignon I ordered?” Stretching her neck, Charmain peered toward the bar with a crease between her brows. “You need better help here, Jack love.”

Jack looked around, smiled, and said, “You seem to be the only one who thinks so. You wouldn’t believe what a good time people have here. They throw money at me to prove just how much, and all but bury me in the lovely stuff. How are you doing, Celina? Sorry I got held up.”

“It’s okay. Some nice people bought me some orange juice.” She could tell he saw the humor in her eyes. “I’ve been very entertained. I’m a sheltered girl. and a look at the sinful side of life fascinates me.”

“Good, good,” he told her. “I’m glad you find my orange juice sinful. Ι have those figures you need for tomorrow. Why don’t we go to my office.”

“What figures?” Charmain asked baldly. “Jack, do you have any idea what caused the marks on Errol’s penis?”

For once Jack Charbonnet wasn’t quite collected enough not to show surprise.

“They know the ones on his wrists and ankles were probably from fabric bonds. But evidently they’re still working on his genitalia.”

Jack winced a little and said, “Thanks for sharing that with me.”

“You’re welcome. Is that man waiting for you?”

Celina looked at the man Charmain pointed out but didn’t recognize him.

“What man?” Jack said.

“If I remember rightly, his name is Sonny Clete and he’s Win Giavanelli’s underboss.”

“Sonny?” Jack said, sounding amazed, and looking closer at the paunchy red-haired man who leaned on the bar smoking, and staring their way. “Of course it’s Sonny. What would he be doing visitin’ here? He doesn’t even like me. Sonny, over here.”

“You aren’t even going to pretend you’re not on first-name terms with members of the mob?”

“Mob?” Jack snorted. “I don’t think Sonny would appreciate you makin’ that kind of connection. Hey, Sonny, welcome to my humble boat.”

Sonny Clete dragged his feet on the way to the table. He didn’t look particularly pleased to be hailed in a crowded area. He glanced around, his hand spread over his tie. “Thanks,” he said. “Just stoppin’ by to drop some bucks at the tables.”

“That’s great,” Jack said, standing up. He motioned to Celina to join him. “Meet Charmain Bienville. She surely wants to meet you.”

Sonny regarded Charmain with frank interest, and she looked back with her reporter’s alert eyes.

“Sit down, Sonny, sit down. Hey”—Jack snapped his fingers—”get that champagne over here for my friends, Lem.”

The bartender gave him a high sign and picked up the bucket and glasses he’d already placed on the counter for their server.

Sonny sat beside Charmain, who no longer appeared as fascinated.
Edgy
would be a more accurate description of her body language.

“Where you goin’, Jack,” Sonny said when Jack took Celina’s hand. “I come for that chat we been goin’ to have.”

Jack sighed. “What can I tell you, Sonny? There’s nothing I’d like to do more than speak with you. It’s been too long. Far too long. But I’ve got to get my friend here home. She works for me, and I like my people bright-eyed in the mornin’.”

“But you—”

“Soon. We’ll talk soon. Talk to Charmain. She’s one of the most entertainin’ women I know. Ask her anything—she’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“I talked to Win. He complained about one or two things. That’s what we need to discuss.”

“Win?” Jack laughed loudly. “Oh, Win doesn’t change. He’d complain if they used a new rope to hang him.”

“He wouldn’t consider that humorous,” Sonny said, his doughy face a study in serious disapproval.

“It’s not,” Jack said. “It certainly is not. Charmain, tell Sonny some of the interesting things you know about bondage. Don’t miss out on the penis stuff.”

Celina managed to keep her mouth closed at Jack’s diversionary tactics. She barely managed to keep her feet on the ground when he took off across the deck, gripping her hand so tightly her fingers were pinched together.

He led her from the enclosed area to the deck outside, and hurried her aft. A door with a single curtained porthole led to a small unfurnished room that became utterly silent once the door was closed again. Jack didn’t pause there, but carried on through another door to large quarters that were evidently office and living areas in one combined space. Again he closed the door.

The next instant he dropped her hand and pushed back his dark dinner jacket. With his fists on his slim hips, he regarded her with an expression she couldn’t read.

“I called your home,” she told him. “You gave me your card the other night.”

He waited.

“Tilly said you were out. I had a hunch you might be here, so I came.”

“Sounds plausible.”

“I don’t tell lies. At least, I don’t tell lies that don’t have to be told.”

“I didn’t think any lies
had
to be told.”

A vestige of the unpleasant exhausted feeling began to seep into Celina’s body. “My brother would agree with you. You’d make him very proud.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”

“It doesn’t suit anyone.” She considered sitting on his comfortable-looking burgundy-colored couch, but instinctively knew he wouldn’t welcome any move toward relaxing the atmosphere. “You were very kind to me when I got sick. Thank you for that. I know you don’t like me, but you’re a good person—a generous person. I’m still smarting from thinking about embarrassing myself in front of you.”

“Don’t. It was nothing. I’d have done the same for anyone.”

“Thanks.” She had no right to be hurt, nor should she be hurt. “Thanks anyway. You nurse with flair.”

He bowed slightly without taking his eyes from her.

“I understand you were with Cyrus and Dwayne when the doctor left me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Cyrus told me you’re aware that I’m pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“That isn’t something I’m ready to have discussed at this point.”

Why?”

“I have my reasons. And I’ve got a right to those reasons. My private business is my own.”

“If that’s the case, I suggest you avoid talking to Charmain Bienville.”

“I didn’t talk to her, I—” He was baiting her. “That would be good advice if 1 had any intention of saying one important word to the woman.”

“When are you having the abortion?”

Celina heard her own small cry of shock. She turned and ran—but didn’t get far. Jack stopped her—carefully but quite effectively, by wrapping an arm around her middle.

She made no attempt to struggle against him. “Let me go.”

“No way. I want you to sit down.”

“You can’t always have what you want. I’m not yours to command.”

“Sit down, please.”

“I came to ask—”

Very neatly he caught hold of her waist, lifted, and deposited her on the couch she’d admired. “I know you like to be in control,” he told her. “You made that clear the other night, but evidently you aren’t always in control. Rather like my not always being able to have what I want. Annoying, but a fact of life. Is it Errol’s child?”

The nightmare went on and on. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. Are you carrying Errol’s baby?”

She should have expected him to think of that, but still the idea caught her by surprise. “What if it is Errol’s baby? What does it matter to you?” She’d just told him how much she disliked lies, but suddenly she knew she was going to tell one, to live one.

“I intend to make sure a good man who happens to be dead doesn’t get maligned any more than I can help. That means I don’t want him accused of fathering a child by a woman he wasn’t prepared to marry.”

“How do you know what he was and wasn’t prepared to do?”

“Don’t play around with me,” he snapped. “Errol would never have married again. He swore to that after the mess at the end of his first marriage.”

Celina said nothing.

“There’s already enough potential for any competent reporter to make him sound like a pervert. Take a small leap from there to his involvement with young children, and there’ll be a bunch of people ready to accuse his memory of some sort of pedophilic tendencies. The foundation would wallow and sink over something like that. I don’t think you want that.”

“I don’t.” She ought to get up and leave. “I want Dreams to go on every bit as much as you do. Probably much more. I’m not just the pretty face that begs for donations. I’ve been involved with the children, Jack. 1
am
involved with them. Not the way Errol was—he was wonderful. But I’m going to take over for him.”

“Are you? Let’s get back to what’s happening here tonight. You heard that woman in there. I don’t know who she’s getting her information from, but I’m going to do my best to find out. Maybe someone in the NOPD will want to help me with that.”

“They don’t know we took those things,” she said in a small voice. “It scares me. All of it scares me. It’s as if all that matters is the sensationalism of the sex stuff. He was murdered. Why isn’t that what everyone’s interested in?”

“It’s what I’m interested in. They will probably find out we got rid of evidence. Since there must be marks on him that I didn’t notice, they’ll be lookin’ for whatever was used.”

“I burned it.”

His smile didn’t comfort her. “Yeah. In your wastebasket. Dwayne picked it up and said silk and nylon smelled bad when they burned, but rubber is the worst. Unless you plan to ask him to perjure himself, we’ll just have to hope the police don’t question him and lead him back to that wastebasket. Then it’s a little hop to you—and then to me.”

“I wouldn’t tell them you had anything to do with it.”

“How chivalrous of you. You’d tell them anything once they started working on you.”

She looked around. “I left my umbrella in the bar.”

“If it’s gone, I’ll buy you another one.”

“The police don’t torture people,” Celina said. “They won’t drive toothpicks under my fingernails. I’m a decent citizen. I’ve never hurt anyone.”

“Is that right? Good. We’ll make sure you don’t start now. Most of all, we’ll make sure you don’t do anything to hang scandal on Errol’s memory. Any more scandal than some people already intend to hang. Damn, I’d like to muzzle that female.”

“I only came here to ask you to keep my secret. At least until I’m ready to reveal it—or until 1 can’t hide it anymore, whichever comes first.”

“The way I’ve got it figured, you’re about out of time anyway. I can’t believe you’re more than five months pregnant—I wouldn’t believe it if the doctor hadn’t insisted he was right. You haven’t answered my question. Are you going to say this is Errol’s child?”

Was she going to “say” this was Errol’s child?
“Why does the thought bother you so much?”

“What bothers me is the thought of someone he trusted taking advantage of him now that he’s dead.”

He still wasn’t making enough sense. “How would I do that?”

“By saying he...by saying he took advantage of you.”

Celina couldn’t form a coherent thought.

“If you were in a relationship that was healthy, you’d either be happy about this child, or you’d be planning an abortion. Are you? Planning an abortion?”

Tears filled her eyes. “No,” she said quietly. “Even if I could have considered such a thing, it wouldn’t be this late in the pregnancy.”

“Are you in a healthy relationship?”

“No...Ι mean I’m not in a relationship at all.”

‘You didn’t get pregnant all on your own.”

“Stop it.’

He pulled an ottoman in front of her knees and sat down facing her. “That’s what I’m asking you to do. Stop it. Don’t use Errol.”

“I never said I would use Errol.” The idea sickened her, the idea that this man thought she would do such a thing.

“You never said you wouldn’t. What did you tell your brother, the priest?”

“You already know. That I was pregnant. ‘

“You people don’t believe in abortion, do you?”

“We people?”

“Practicing Catholics.”

She averted her face. “Αren’t you a Catholic?”

“My beliefs aren’t the issue here. Yours are.”

“You think that, in the name of faith, I’d keep a baby 1 supposedly don’t want, but that I’d lie about the paternity of that baby? Why wouldn’t I just not identify the father?”

“Because you’re part of a social set that would make your beloved parents lives miserable if you turn up pregnant but without a well-connected father for the kid. And you know Errol’s history. What a perfect cover. Α dead man who used to have a problem controlling his sex drive. The very least you’ll get is sympathy to your face.”

“You’re a bitter man, Jack Charbonnet. You’re so bitter you can’t think good of anyone you can’t immediately stick in a box and categorize—or anyone you haven’t known forever.”