Now Let's Talk of Graves (35 page)

“Five hundred? You're kidding.”

“I'm not. Well, maybe not quite that many, but you know, there are breakfasts, brunches, luncheons, teas, dinners, dances, balls, they go on for six solid months. That's a
lot
of clothes.”

“Plus her gown for the Comus ball.”

“Ten thousand—with the train.”

“Noooooo.”

“I saw the bills. Designer in New York. Woman makes gowns for the opera stars.”

“Ouch!”

“That's what I said. I told my daddy, I said, you think I spend money on clothes, you ain't seen nothing. 'Course, they never even look that great on Zoe, bless her heart, poor thing's so skinny. You'd think somebody would do something about that.” Cissy lowered her voice. “You know she has that problem, don't you?”

“What do you think it is?”

Cissy rolled her eyes again. “That anorexia. Don't you know?” She paused a minute, finished teasing her hair now, picked up a can of hair spray. “Cover your eyes you don't want this stuff in 'em.” Sam did. “Okay. I'm through now. Though, actually, Cecil says he thinks its something else—what Zoe's got. Starts with a B. Means she throws up. I never can remember it.”

“Bulimia. Who's Cecil?”

“My fiancé. Dr. Cecil Little. Do you know him?”

“No. I don't think so.” Though she sure remembered the story Zoe had told her, his walking in on her in the ladies' room at a tea, then giving her the idea for her cocaine business.

“Cecil's a friend of the Lees. Was a good friend of Church's. I never did call him that to his face, you know. Church. Always Dr. Lee. My daddy taught me that a long time ago. Doctors go to school all that time, they like to be called Doctor. It burns them too, did you know, when other kinds of doctors call themselves that. You know, like Ph.D.s. But they have a point, I mean, when somebody says
Is there a doctor in the house?
they don't mean some guy's got his degree in English, now, do they? Not gonna save your life, if you see what I mean.”

“I do.”

Cissy turned from the mirror now. All done. She gave Sam a dazzler of a smile. “Hold on. Just let me slip my clothes on. I've got to get going if I'm going to meet Cecil.” She struggled across the thick pile in her catch-me fuck-me high heels, the spikes sinking in, and threw open the door to a closet larger than many people's living rooms. “I'll just be a minute.”

She was gone long enough for Sam to reach over to her dressing table and sample a couple of bottles of perfume. Cissy stepped back out, buttoning a blouse of black Charmeuse above a black and gray skirt. A jacket was draped over her arm. Very plain. Very understated. Very Giorgio Armani. Very two thousand bucks.

“Do you like it?”

“It's beautiful.”

“You know, my daddy always told me that he had raised me in a style that meant I'd
have
to marry in the profession. The medical profession, I mean. And he was right.”

Sam laughed. “I think he was.”

“Oh, I know. Believe me. I was in love with this cowboy once over in Houston. My daddy said, Honey, you just go right on ahead, you want to marry that boy, you can move out there on the edge of town with him and his mama and papa and put you a mobile home out behind their house, string you up some line for the diapers.”

“Made his point?”

“He might have raised me vain, but he didn't raise me stupid.” Cissy smiled. She turned this and way that so Sam could inspect the product.

“Absolutely stunning.”

“Thanks. So listen.” She sat down neatly on the bench to her dressing table, facing Sam now, her cute little knees together, careful not wrinkle her skirt. “What else did you want to know?”

“I think I've got it. Church's finances are what I'm really after here.”

“Well”—Cissy ticked off the items on fingers ringed by Tiffany—“that malpractice, the drinking, then the debut and the balls, their house uptown, plus Comus, the way he was used to living—” Cissy shook her head, pursing her glossy melon lips. “Not too long, he would of been broke.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Why would I make it up?”

“No, I don't mean that. It just seems—”

“Seems don't mean jack. I'm telling you what's what.” Cissy said the words with the precision of a little girl who would have a man's credit rating checked and rechecked before she'd give him a good-night kiss, never mind raising her skirts.

“Well, that's what I came for.” Sam stood. “I thank you for your time, and I guess I'd better let you get going before you're late for lunch.”

They were halfway across the living room when Sam thought Why not? “By the way, do you know Church's girlfriend?”

“Sister Nadine? Sure.”

“Really? That's
who he was seeing?”

Cissy laughed, showing lots of catlike white teeth. “Yeah. Idn't that a hoot? I thought you knew. Idn't that
great
?”

“Everybody else know that?”

Cissy double-bolted her door. Shook her head. “Naw. Nobody.”

“So how did you?”

Cissy turned, gave Sam a big wink. “Secretary misses something like that ought to be shot.”

*

Billy Jack was pumped now. Sitting in his Town Car, engine idling, knees jiggling, doing a hundred miles an hour standing still. Fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

God Almighty! Shit! He couldn't believe that big nigger walking in the Pic'N'Pac like that.

Whoowhee!

Wuddn't that the living end?

Those kids chunking things at 'im. He'd like to go back, do it all over again. Show 'em what was what. Pump a few rounds in 'em.

But that was okay. For now. He had better things to do. Like following this tall, curly-haired woman driving a rental car. She was a DEA agent. He was sure of it. After all, hadn't he seen her last night up in Zoe's room in that house where she was staying now. Holding a meeting, had to be about him. He'd take care of Miss Zoe Lee later. But first things first.

He wanted to know more about this bitch. He wouldn't be a bit surprised if she wuddn't in cahoots with the Big Man's nigger—it wasn't no coincidence
he'd
stopped in the Pic'N'Pac. Nigger was in with the feds too. He could
smell
it, them hot on his trail, just like a hound dog with scent in the wind.

So he went right back to where Zoe was staying. His instincts hitting one hundred percent, that black-haired bitch, there she was again, pulling out of the driveway.

This kind of mess was driving him crazy. He had to get back to the money-raising business. Maybe he'd tell the Big Man, Joey, about his nigger, like after the fact, get himself a reward. That'd come in handy in this temporary bind.

He took a look at the Rolex he'd nabbed off one of his fancy clients, needed a little extension. Wondered maybe the man from Adler's would take it. Naw. Jew jeweler wuddn't gonna do no trade-ins. Solid gold Rolex prob'ly wuddn't jack shit to him. Jew wanted cash. Well, he'd get rid of this—

Oops. There she was, heading back to her car. Now, who was
that
?
Cute little blonde with the buns? He knew he'd seen her too. Somewhere. Goddammit. How many girls was in on this? Another little agent he was gonna have to do something about?

But wait. The little blonde in black and gray was talking to the doorman. The curly-headed bitch heading for her car.

Eeny. Meeny. Miny. Moe.

Which one? Which one?

Billy Jack shook his head. He'd been doing too much blow. It was like he was seeing double. He had to get focused.

“Excuse me, sir.”

“What?”

Billy Jack turning now. Nose to nose with a
huge
motorcycle cop.

“You gonna have to move along.”

What?

“In a No Standing, sir.”

“I'm not standing, I'm sitting here. What's this standing shit?”

“You wanta step out of the car, please, sir? Careful with the hands now—”

Twenty-Eight

HARRY GRABBED A twelve-seater commuter flight over to Lafayette, then rented a car for the short drive to St. Martinville.

It would've been nice to take a couple of days to do the trip. Fun to stop for lunch in Houma, where you can go see a Cajun woman who feeds you off her stove just like you were one of her many children. To show Sam the bayous, the oil towns of Morgan City, Raceland, and Lafayette, where Mercedes used to be thick on the ground. Now bust, they were receding back to the old days, the slower days. They danced once again to a Cajun tune. Fishing, hunting, trapping out of hollowed-out logs, pirogues, setting tables full of great lusty food, whole families swirling to zydeco in halls like Mulate's in Breaux Bridge.

Harry could just see Sam in a pretty dress, laughing, color in her cheeks, skirts swinging.

Not this time. Not this trip.
Damn
that woman!

He passed the city limits sign of St. Martinville, for sure one of this country's prettiest little towns. Live oaks draped with Spanish moss surrounded a center square. Church. Museum. Statue to the ever-faithful Evangeline. There was a park named after her a little ways out. On that same road lived Madeline Villère.

Madeline Villère Lee Hebert, now wife of Jack Hebert, once a waiter at Galatoire's—so she'd told Harry on the phone when he'd called to set up the visit—now proprietor of Hebert's, a spectacularly successful seafood emporium.

Harry drove past the restaurant. He could smell the good cooking out on the road. About a mile past was a sprawling modern two-story house of cream-colored brick with curlicued cast iron balconies and green shutters. A discreet sign in front read HEBERT'S GREAT DANES. Kennels stretched out behind.

Madeline answered her own door.

At first Harry couldn't get over the bulk of the woman—three hundred pounds if an ounce beneath a float of flowered gauze.

Then he zeroed in on her pretty smile, her beautiful face, her gracious manner.

They settled in a sitting room at the back of the house that overlooked the dog runs.

“That's the nursery.” Madeline gestured with a bediamonded hand. “Those pups are five weeks old.”

Harry nodded. “Beautiful.” Then he hesitated, not sure exactly how to begin.

Madeline made it easy: “How'd you find me?” Harry explained about the DMV.

Her laugh came from deep inside. “So it wasn't very hard.”

“Not at all.”

“Or you could have just asked Ma Elise.”

“She
knows
where you are?”

“She's always known. But then—” Madeline stared off at something in the yard that Harry couldn't see. “No, of course not. No one would tell you. Or—what did you say was the name of Kitty's friend who's looking into what happened to Church?”

“Samantha. Sam. Sam Adams.”

“Yes, well, I guess Ma Elise wouldn't tell her either. No point, really. Lord knows
I
wouldn't have anything to do with Church's death. That was all over a long time ago. Would you like some more coffee?”

Harry would. Madeline poured from a fine old silver service.

“Can you tell me about it?”

“About Church? Sure. I haven't felt anything about him in
so
long—but”—she looked off again—“Zoe.”

She said the word as if it never passed her lips, except maybe in her sleep, or her prayers.

She turned big violet eyes toward Harry. Elizabeth Taylor eyes. Actually, she looked a little like Liz before she gave herself over to Betty Ford. And she was obviously the source of Zoe's mane of dark curls.

“She's fine.”

“Queen of Comus.”

“Yes.”

“Is she beautiful? Ma Elise sends me pictures, but—well, it's not the same.”

“Very beautiful.”

“But too skinny.”

Harry looked down into his coffee. It was a great cup of coffee. He nodded yes. Zoe was certainly too skinny.

“You gonna tell me about it, Harry?”

He didn't know what to say. Drive up in the yard of a woman who hasn't seen her daughter, as far as he knew, for fifteen years, tell her the girl's a bulimic with a drug problem. Throw in the dealing as an afterthought. No way, José.

Remember, they used to
kill
the bearer of bad tidings. This neck of the woods, throw him in the swamp, 'gators destroy all trace in three chomps. Forget it.

“Trade you even-steven.” He looked up. Madeline stared him dead in the eye, said, “I'll show you mine, you show me yours. No matter what. Deal?”