The Best of Sisters in Crime (36 page)

He gave a
grudging smile. “See, the trouble is, I grew up poor. I mean, dirt poor. I used
to go to the projects here with some of the black guys on the squad, you know,
Christmas appearances, shit like that. Those kids live in squalor, but I didn’t
own a pair of shorts to cover my ass until the county social worker come ’round
to see why I wasn’t in school.”

“So you broke
furniture because you grew up without it and didn’t know what else to do with
it?”

“Don’t be a
wiseass, Victoria. I’m sure your mamma wouldn’t like it.”

I made a face—he
was right about that.

“You know the
LeBlancs, right? Oh, you’re a Yankee, Yankees don’t know shit if they haven’t
stepped in it themselves. LeBlanc Gas, they’re one of the biggest names on the
Gulf Coast. They’re a long,
long
way from the Pierces of Florette.

“I muscled my
way into college, played football for Old Bear Bryant, met Brigitte. She liked
raw meat, and mine was just about the rawest in the South, so she latched on to
me. When she decided to marry me she took me down to Mobile for Christmas.
There I was, the Hulk, in Miz Effie’s lace and crystal palace. They hated me,
knew I was trash, told Brigitte they’d cut her out of everything if she married
me. She figured she could sweet-talk her daddy into anything. We got married
and it didn’t work, not even when I was a national superstar. To them I was
still the dirt I used to wipe my ass with.”

“So she divorced
you to get back in their will?”

He shrugged, a
movement that set a tidal wave going down the mountain. “Oh, that had something
to do with it, sure, it had something. But I was a wreck and I was hell to live
with. Even if she’d been halfway normal to begin with, it would have gone bust,
’cause I didn’t know how to live with losing football. I just didn’t care about
anyone or anything.”

“Not even the
Daytona,” I couldn’t help saying.

His black eyes
disappeared into tiny dots. “Don’t you go lecturing me just when we’re starting
to get on. I’m not asking you to cry over my sad jock story. I’m just trying to
give you a little different look at sweet, beautiful Brigitte.”

“Sorry. It’s
just. . . I’ll never do anything to be able to afford a Ferrari Daytona. It
pisses me to see someone throw one away.”

He snorted. “If
I’d known you five years ago I’d of given it to you. Too late now. Anyway,
Brigitte waited too long to jump ship. She was still in negotiations with old
man Le-Blanc when he and Miz Effie dropped into the Gulf of Mexico with the
remains of their little Cessna. Everything that wasn’t tied down went to
Corinne. Brigitte, being her guardian, gets a chunk for looking after her, but
you ask me, if Corinne’s gone missing it’s the best thing she could do. I’ll
bet you . . . well, I don’t have anything left to bet. I’ll hack off my big toe
and give it to you if Brigitte’s after anything but the money.”

He thought for a
minute. “No. She probably likes Corinne some. Or would like her if she’d lose
thirty pounds, dress like a Mobile debutante and hang around with a crowd of
snot-noses. I’ll hack off my toe if the money ain’t number one in her heart,
that’s all.”

I eyed him
steadily, wondering how much of his story to believe. It’s why I stay away from
domestic crime: everyone has a story, and it wears you out trying to match all
the different pieces together. I could check the LeBlancs’ will to see if they’d
left their fortune the way Jade reported it. Or if they had a fortune at all. Maybe
he was making it all up.

“Did Corinne
talk to you before she took off on Monday?”

His black eyes
darted around the room. “I haven’t laid eyes on her in months. She used to come
around, but Brigitte got a peace bond on me, I get arrested if I’m within
thirty feet of Corinne.”

“I believe you,
Jade,” I said steadily. “I believe you haven’t seen her. But did she talk to
you? Like on the phone, maybe.”

The ugly look
returned to his face, then the mountain shook again as he laughed. “You don’t
miss many signals, do you, Victoria? You oughta run a training camp. Yeah,
Corinne calls me Monday morning. ‘Why don’t you have your cute little ass in
school?’ I says. ‘Even with all your family dough that’s the only way to get
ahead—they’ll ream you six ways from Sunday if you don’t get your education so
you can check out what all your advisers are up to.’”

He shook his
head broodingly. “I know what I’m talking about, believe me. The lawyers and
agents and financial advisers, they all made out like hogs at feeding time when
I was in the money, but come trouble, it wasn’t them, it was me hung out like a
slab of pork belly to dry on my own.”

“So what did
Corinne say to your good advice?” I prompted, trying not to sound impatient: I
could well be the first sober person to listen to him in a decade.

“Oh, she’s
crying, she can’t stand it, why can’t she just run home to Mobile? And I tell
her ’cause she’s underage and rich, the cops will all be looking for her and
just haul her butt back to Chicago. And when she keeps talking wilder and
wilder I tell her they’ll be bound to blame me if something happens to her and
does she really need to run away so bad that I go to jail or something. So I
thought that calmed her down. ‘Think of it like rookie camp,’ I told her. ‘They
put you through the worst shit but if you survive it you own them.’ I thought
she figured it out and was staying.”

He shut his
eyes. “I’m tired, detective. I can’t tell you nothing else. You go away and
detect.”

“If she went
back to Mobile who would she stay with?”

“Wouldn’t nobody
down there keep her without calling Brigitte. Too many of them owe their jobs
to LeBlanc Gas.” He didn’t open his eyes.

“And up here?”

He shrugged, a
movement like an earthquake that rattled the bedrails. “You might try the
neighbors. Seems to me Corinne mentioned a Miz Hellman who had a bit of a soft
spot for her.” He opened his eyes. “Maybe Corinne’ll talk to you. You got a
good ear.”

“Thanks.” I got
up. “What about this famous Maltese cat?”

“What about it?”

“It went missing
along with Corinne. Think she’d hurt it to get back at Brigitte?”

“How the hell
should I know? Those LeBlancs would do anything to anyone. Even Corinne. Now
get the fuck out so I can get my beauty rest.” He shut his eyes again.

“Yeah, you’re
beautiful all right, Jade. Why don’t you use some of your old connections and
get yourself going at something? It’s really pathetic seeing you like this.”

“You wanna save
me along with the Daytona?” The ugly jeer returned to his voice. “Don’t go all
do-gooder on me now, Victoria. My daddy died at forty from too much moonshine.
They tell me I’m his spitting image. I know where I’m going.”

“It’s trite,
Jade. Lots of people have done it. They’ll make a movie about you and little
kids will cry over your sad story. But if they make it honest they’ll show that
you’re just plain selfish.”

I wanted to slam
the door but the hydraulic stop took the impact out of the gesture. “Goddamned
motherfucking waste,” I snapped as I stomped down the corridor.

The floor head
heard me. “Jade Pierce? You’re right about that.”

Back to table of
contents

The Hellmans
lived in an apartment above the TV repair shop they ran on Halsted. Mrs.
Hellman greeted me with some relief.

“I promised
Corinne I wouldn’t tell her sister as long as she stayed here instead of trying
to hitchhike back to Mobile. But I’ve been pretty worried. It’s just that . . .
to Brigitte LeBlanc I don’t exist. My daughter Lily is trash that she doesn’t
want Corinne associated with, so it never even occurred to her that Corinne
might be here.”

She took me
through the back of the shop and up the stairs to the apartment. “It’s only
five rooms, but we’re glad to have her as long as she wants to stay. I’m more
worried about the cat: she doesn’t like being cooped up in here. She got out
Tuesday night and we had a terrible time hunting her down.”

I grinned to
myself: So much for the thoroughbred descendants pined for by Joel Sirop.

Mrs. Hellman
took me into the living room where they had a sofabed that Corinne was using. “This
here is a detective, Corinne. I think you’d better talk to her.”

Corinne was
hunched in front of the television, an outsize console model far too large for
the tiny room. In her man’s white shirt and tattered blue jeans she didn’t look
at all like her svelte sister. Her complexion was a muddy color that matched
her lank, straight hair. She clutched Lady Iva of Cairo close in her arms. Both
of them looked at me angrily.

“If you think
you can make me go back to that cold-assed bitch, you’d better think again.”

Mrs. Hellman
tried to protest her language.

“It’s okay,” I
said. “She learned it from Jade. But Jade lost every fight he ever was in with
Brigitte, Corinne. Maybe you ought to try a different method.”

“Brigitte hated
Jade. She hates anyone who doesn’t do stuff just the way she wants it. So if
you’re working for Brigitte you don’t know shit about anything.”

I responded to
the first part of her comments. “Is that why you took the cat? So you could
keep her from having purebred kittens like Brigitte wants her to?”

A ghost of a
smile twitched around her unhappy mouth. All she said was “They wouldn’t let me
bring my dogs or my horse up north. Iva’s kind of a snoot but she’s better than
nothing.”

“Jade thinks
Brigitte’s jealous because you got the LeBlanc fortune and she didn’t.”

She made a
disgusted noise. “Jade worries too much about all that shit. Yeah, Daddy left
me a big fat wad. But the company went to Daddy’s cousin Miles. You can’t
inherit LeBlanc Gas if you’re a girl and Brigitte knew that, same as me. I
mean, they told both of us growing up so we wouldn’t have our hearts set on it.
The money they left me, Brigitte makes that amount every year in her business.
She doesn’t care about the money.”

“And you? Does
it bother you that the company went to your cousin?”

She gave a long
ugly sniff—no doubt another of Jade’s expressions. “Who wants a company that
doesn’t do anything but pollute the Gulf and ream the people who work for them?”

I considered
that. At fourteen it was probably genuine bravado. “So what do you care about?”

She looked at me
with sulky dark eyes. For a minute I thought she was going to tell me to mind
my own goddamned business and go to hell, but she suddenly blurted, “It’s my
horse. They left the house to Miles along with my horse. They didn’t think
about it, just said the house and all the stuff that wasn’t left special to
someone else went to him and they didn’t even think to leave me my own horse.”

The last
sentence came out as a wail and her angry young face dissolved into sobs. I didn’t
think she’d welcome a friendly pat on the shoulder. I just let the tears run
their course. She finally wiped her nose on a frayed cuff and shot me a fierce
look to see if I cared.

“If I could
persuade Brigitte to buy your horse from Miles and stable him up here, would
you be willing to go back to her until you’re of age?”

“You never
would. Nobody ever could make that bitch change her mind.”

“But if I could?”

Her lower lip
was hanging out. “Maybe. If I could have my horse and go to school with Lily
instead of fucking St. Scholastica.”

“I’ll do my
best.” I got to my feet. “In return maybe you could work on Jade to stop
drugging himself to death. It isn’t romantic, you know: it’s horrible, painful,
about the ugliest thing in the world.”

She only
glowered at me. It’s hard work being an angel. No one takes at all kindly to
it.

Back to table of
contents

Brigitte was
furious. Her cheeks flamed with natural color and her cobalt eyes glittered. I
couldn’t help wondering if this was how she looked when Jade and B. B. Wilder
were fighting over her.

“So he knew all
along where she was! I ought to have him sent over for that. Can’t I charge him
with contributing to her delinquency?”

“Not if you’re
planning on using me as a witness you can’t,” I snapped.

She ignored me. “And
her, too. Taking Lady Iva off like that. Mating her with some alley cat.”

As if on cue,
Casper of Valletta squawked loudly and started clawing the deep silver plush
covering Brigitte’s living room floor. Joel Sirop picked up the tom and spoke
soothingly to him.

“It is bad,
Brigitte. very bad. Maybe you should let the girl go back to Mobile if she
wants to so badly. After three days, you know, it’s too late to give Lady Iva a
shot. And Corinne is so wild, so uncontrollable—what would stop her the next
time Lady Iva comes into season?”