Now Let's Talk of Graves (2 page)

While he was waiting for the right side of his brain, the so-called
creative
half, to kick in, come up with something clever to say to the brunette, he'd practice his new trade on this lady. He was an insurance investigator now, right? So investigate.

He'd start with age. How old was Teri? Nineteen? Twenty?

(How old was the brunette? Old enough to be interesting, that was for sure. But not
too
old, and, when a woman was as attractive as that, who was counting?)

Back, boy, back. Okay, Teri, her baby in a wet Pamper squalling on the floor beside her. Well, that's what happened to them, girls from Westwego, Mandeville, Slidell, maybe over the state line, Pass Christian, Biloxi. He was warming to it now. They got married, got pregnant, got fat, and the good times were over before they were old enough to vote. Droves of them rolling carts out into the Kmart parking lot. Disciples of Sister Nadine. Leading the good ol' dead-end fat-ass life.

The blonde turned her head, catching him staring. Wasn't that always the way? Well, he didn't want to say anything to
her
,
which meant he could probably chat her up like crazy. But lookahere! What a nasty shiner she was wearing.

No mystery there for crack investigator Harry Zack. Miss Teri hadn't gotten the chuck on the table quick enough to suit ol' Billy Bob. Or hadn't properly chilled his Dixie beer.

But she'd hang around for a while yet—time for Billy Bob to break an arm, some teeth. Harry had seen more than he cared to of women like her. They made him sad, but you couldn't make them listen. She'd have to come to it in her own time, hang around until she got fed up lying about running into doorknobs. Then she'd take Junior there and split. After about two payments, Billy Bob'd get behind on his child support. The next thing you know, he'd decide she shouldn'a got custody of his only begotten son anyhow. He'd sneak over to the baby-sitter's, sweet-talk her in that way he had, grab that kid and—Harry peeked back at the brunette. Oh, hell. She had company now. What difference did it make if he were batting a thousand making up stories about the blonde, when all he wanted to do was sidle up to the brunette, give her the big slow smile he'd inherited from his daddy, say howdy?

*

Kitty Lee had no problem doing that: “Lord have mercy, Sam, if you ain't a sight.”

Sam grinned at her. There she was, ladies and gents, redheaded, blue-eyed Miss Kitty Lee, still five foot two, hadn't grown an inch.

“Sorry,” Kitty said, breathless. “Couldn't find a parking spot. Bastards wouldn't let me leave it at the curb, like I used to.
Nothing's
like it used to be. Jack in the Boxes and Burger Kings. Not a single sign left of graciousness and gentility.”

Sam snatched her into a big hug. “Thank God for Kitty Lee. Mouth going 122 miles per hour. State patrol ought to ticket that thing.”

Kitty stood back, tiny feet wide apart. If Jimmy Cagney had been born a Southern woman, he'd have been named Kitty. “You're right! But shut up and let me take a look at you. Damn!” All this out of the side of her mouth. “Still beautiful, goddamn
unnecessarily
tall, and
absolutely
right. I am
so
glad to see you.” Taking Sam's arm and pulling her along. “Come on, let's go get your luggage and blow this dump. Grab some lunch, go home and visit with Ma Elise. She's dying to see you.”

“And me her. Let's git.” Sam could feel her Southern shifting into third gear the second she laid eyes on Kitty. “What are we waiting for, three choruses of ‘Dixie'?” She hefted her garment bag and a tote.

“That's your luggage? That's it? Oh, Jesus, spare me. I couldn't get my undies for a weekend in something like that. Are you sure you—”

Sam jiggled the bag. ‘Turquoise-blue silk to the floor. Caroline Herrera. Hideously expensive. Shameful décolletage displaying thirty-nine-year-old bosom intactus. Gonna knock 'em dead at that ball.”

“Oh, Sammy! Most of 'em already are. Ancient and pickled.”

“Well, what the hell? I'll dress for you. We'll kick up our heels. Swig us some
serious
root beer.”

*

Harry'd give a lot to see Sam—wasn't that what Kitty Lee'd called her—in her ballgown. Maybe he could get ol' Kitty, one of his big sister Sudie's best friends, to introduce them later. But that very minute, the Delta flight from LaGuardia had arrived at the next gate, and he faded to invisible behind a column.

Here
was the lady he'd been waiting for, the one he had business with—the one who swore she'd suffered severe whiplash, not to mention all kinds of emotional trauma, when her little tobacco-brown Mercedes coupe had been popped from behind.

She sure didn't look like she was feeling any pain right now, this redhead scooting right along in a too-tight white jumpsuit, big shoulders, with a red fox coat thrown over one arm. You'd think the gentleman of Italian descent in the dark, shiny suit who'd been waiting for her would carry the coat, what with the whiplash and all. But maybe the gentleman—whom Harry knew to be Joey the Horse, a famous, in some circles, man-about-town—was having a hard time remembering about the neck injury. The lady, whose name was Chéri, wasn't wearing her neck brace, or much of anything else, under that jumpsuit. Now she was tossing her red hair like a mane and twisting her neck this way and then that to kiss Joey on both cheeks. Not just once, but twice. Well, she was French, Chéri, right?

The camera Harry carried in the canvas duffel over his shoulder was clicking away like crazy.

Yes, indeedy, his uncle, his mama's brother, Tench Young, and, more importantly, sole proprietor of Young Preferred Reliance Insurance and Investment Company, was gonna be right proud of him.

Harry, he'd said not too long ago, now here's your chance to stop breaking your mama's heart, straighten up, and fly right. Come work for me and learn to be an insurance investigator, join the real world, give up that crazy songwriting dream, and get real. Son, 'fore you know it, you'll be a vice president. Take over old Preferred Reliance from me when I get ready to step down from this son of a gun.

Hell, why not? Harry had given Uncle Tench the slow smile. Why not bag the off-again-on-again jobs—cab driver, process server, oil rig jockey, anything he could think of to maintain his reputation as a hell-raising bad bad Uptown boy pretending he was trash. After all,
boy
was losing some of its cute, especially since he'd awakened one morning a couple of months ago after a night of too many Dixie beers and too few women and realized he'd crossed over the line into thirty while asleep.

Harry clicked off another couple of shots of the sashaying Miss Chéri. Yep, Uncle Tench—who never paid a dime to anyone unless they could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their claim was purdee, absolute, no question about it, watertight, not even to a pretty woman, yeah—Uncle Tench was gonna be right proud of this boy. Correction, young man.

*

Out past the automatic sliding doors Sam and Kitty and Joey the Horse and Chéri all sort of banged together—everybody except Harry, who'd faded off to one side, not wanting to be seen.

“Excuse me,” said Joey the Horse, bowing a little at the waist, always the Old World gentleman around the ladies. Sam smiled.

Kitty smiled.

Harry smiled too—at the back of the cab dispatcher, who just then glided by where he was standing hunkered down behind a luggage cart.

Which is why he didn't see what happened next. Sam did though. Eagle-eyed reporter never missed a trick.

What happened was this: A little guy—young, light hair, slight build, snub-nosed cute, the Michael J. Fox type, and about that size, smaller maybe, five-four or -five—started walking through the crosswalk over to the sidewalk where Sam
et al
were standing, when just about the same time a gigantic white stretch limo belonging to none other than Joey the Horse started to pull in curbside.

The little guy, still on the other side of the car from Sam, yelled something. She didn't quite catch it, but she could fill in the blanks. Then the little guy slapped his hand up against the driver's window, which began to power down. Slow.

Real slow.

Then the door whapped open. Hard. Knocked the little guy down. A huge black driver looking like a Sub-Zero refrigerator-freezer in a powder-blue suit was standing there, looking sub-zero cool behind his shades, staring down.

Then, as if in slomo, Sam watched the little guy reach into his jacket. Uh-oh. She'd been witness to this kind of scenario several times in a professional capacity, but this was vacation, thank you very much. She grabbed Kitty's arm, jerked open the door of a cab waiting at the curb, pushed Kitty inside, and fell atop her, head down.

“Drive,” she said.

“Lady, I have to wait till my dispatcher—”

There were popping sounds outside now, like a car backfiring. Three times.

“Drive, dammit! I'll make it worth your while.”

He drove fast—just like in the movies—and for a good long time before he asked, Where to?

“Bourbon Street.” Sam sat up off the grumbling Kitty when the coast looked clear, ran a hand through her curls, and said, “I didn't come all this way to spend my afternoon as a material witness to one goddamn more shooting when I could be eating oysters at Galatoire's.”

Two

THE TOURISTS ON Bourbon Street were waiting in a long line. Galatoire's takes no reservations—except the walk-to-the-front-of-the-line-if-they-know-you kind.

“Miss Lee,” the man at the door had said, and, smiling, had passed them right on in. Sam had to admit she liked that.

It wasn't until they were at a table in the middle of the one bright, high-ceilinged dining room, waiting for a glass of white wine and Sam's Perrier, that Kitty came to.

“I left my car in the goddamn parking lot.”

“Oh, my God!”

They laughed like young girls, heads back, mouths open wide. Well-tailored businessmen at neighboring tables smiled at them.
Bons temps rouler.
Why not? It was New Orleans. Carnival time. Anytime.

“So later we'll go back. Maybe we'll run into G.T., you remember her, Aunt Ida's granddaughter. Wait,
great-
granddaughter. She's over to the house a lot, and maybe she'll give us a ride back out. Got herself a job as an ambulance driver.” Then Kitty looked up at their waiter, who hadn't bothered them with a menu. “Gerard, I'll start with the shrimp remoulade, then the trout meunière.”

Sam ordered oysters en brochette and trout Marguéry. She'd been dreaming for weeks about the battered and fried oysters with bacon and lemon on toast. And the Marguéry sauce: a thick yellow roux chock-full of shrimp and mushrooms.

“Soufflé potatoes and green salads,” the waiter suggested. “And share plates?”

Sam nodded. Here was a man after her own heart. She sipped her water and looked around. “Kitty, you remember that time we were here with—what
was
his name? Chauncey? Boisvert? Duplessy? Trey? One of your fancy New Orleans monikers, but I know it ended in a Jones.”

“Well, I guaran-damn-tee you he's never forgotten
your
name, sugar pie. Not even after twenty years. Every once in a while at a party, real late, this dreamy look comes over Boley Jones's face and he says, ‘Kitty, do you know that time in Galatoire's your friend Sam from Atlanta took all her clothes off and—'”

Sam was somewhere between flattered and embarrassed. “Well, hell, you can't let every little old thing that ever happened when you were on the booze keep you out of places. Hell, I'd have nowhere fun left to go. You either.”

“Why, what on earth do you mean?”

As if she didn't know. Kitty had always been one to kick up her heels. Had even turned her high spirits, her way with people into her very own, very profitable public relations company.

Now Sam watched Kitty reach into a pocket of her sea-foam-green silk blazer and pull out a silver lighter and a pack of Picayunes, a local brand. She lit one of the forty-plus cigarettes she would smoke that day, sucked the smoke down, and exhaled hard.

The cigarette's funky aroma took Sam right back. She closed her eyes, remembering how the Quarter used to smell on steamy days when she was visiting Kitty from school, before the Jax Brewery over by the river became a bunch of boutiques. The smell of Picayunes was rich, yeasty, always bespoke New Orleans.

Kitty.

And Eddie Simms.

For it was that same smell which lingered in the still, quiet San Francisco bedrooms where Eddie, a Southern boy who smoked Picayunes while he worked, had left the carved and cross-hatched bodies of women he'd come calling on with a Buck knife and a bouquet of snow-white roses. Sam's series about him on the front page of the
Chronicle
had earned her prizes as well as several job offers, including the one from the
Constitution
that had taken her home to Atlanta a couple of years earlier.