“I have the most wonderful idea,” Dominique told him right off.
It must be big if she had bothered to come all the way here. Whatever it was would require his approval, he assumed. And minions to carry out her orders, more than the thirty or so who resided with her in the Big Easy. He loved that name for the unusual city, by the by, reminding him of how sinfully easy parts of the French Quarter could be.
He waved a hand at her, encouraging her to continue.
“I happened to be near Angola Prison recently. That’s several hours away from N’awlins. Consider this, cher, there are five thousand men incarcerated there. The dregs of society. Irredeemable sinners of the worst kind, for the most part. Murderers. Rapists. Pedophiles. Armed robbers. Our favorite kind of people!”
“And your point is . . . ?” I have a party to get back to, and I am not about to let you ruin my day.
“We should be there.”
We? That would be the day when I partner with her on anything. She must have a hundred of those slithering bastards in her parlor alone. Satan only knows how many are in her bed.
The boa raised its head and hissed at him.
Jeesh! A snake that can read minds? Dominique is more dangerous that I thought.
Dominique patted the snake. Its fangs shot out and its flicking tongue caressed the upper swell of her exposed bosoms.
Jasper glanced at his watch and said, “You were saying about Angola Prison?”
“The Lucipire harvest could be monumental in such a setting. Think about it. All those mortal sinners, and they’re going nowhere, just waiting for us to pluck them off to our cause.”
He hated to admit it, but Dominique might be right. “Wonderful idea! I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before.”
“And it’s not just Angola. There are thousands of prisons around the world. We should be in all of them.” Dominique smiled at him, her fangs dripping with the saliva of her excitement.
The snake lapped it up.
Eeew! “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We don’t want to call attention to our work. I suggest starting at Angola. See how that goes.”
They discussed various details then. A timeline for the initial project. Number of Lucipires she would need to help her. How they would infiltrate the prison grounds.
“We could have a huge harvest at the Angola Rodeo alone. It’s coming up in October.” Dominique pretended to shiver with delight.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Lucipires and horses do not go together. Even worse, riding a bull. Our tails get in the way.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk! I didn’t mean that we would participate, but the event draws thousands of outside spectators. In the confusion of all the activities, we can hit them hard. Missing inmates will be presumed to have escaped and died in the surrounding swamps or the river.”
“Sounds good. Maybe I should send Zebulan to help you. He’s in California at the moment. He might relish a vacation from trying to break those special forces sinners. The Navy SEALs have been especially hard nuts to crack.”
Dominique made a moue of disapproval with her lush red lips, which looked rather ridiculous with the fangs hanging out. “Zeb doesn’t like me.”
Here’s a news flash, bitch. No one likes you. He shrugged. “It’s up to you, but feel free to call on him if the need arises.” He would make sure to call on Zebulan. In fact, he might even imply that Zebulan could take over the operation, just to annoy Dominique.
“One more thing. One of my minions swears he saw Ivak Sigurdsson walking into the prison one day.”
“A VIK?” Jasper sat up straighter. “Why didn’t you say so at the beginning? Maybe I need to visit Louisiana myself.”
Dominique smiled. “You can always stay with me.”
For the love of Hell! “We’ll see,” he conceded aloud, but what he thought was, No frickin’ way!
After Dominique left, Jasper went back to his party, humming that famous Louisiana refrain, just to get in the proper mood, “Laissez les bon temps rouler!” Definitely, the good times were going to roll.
Three
She wasn’t a desperate housewife, but she was desperate . . .
Gabrielle was sweating like a swamp pig by the time she arrived on Bayou Black, which was only an hour’s drive from New Orleans in good traffic, but seemed like ten hours today in her fifteen-year-old, un-air-conditioned Buick LeSabre.
Pulling into the driveway, she checked the number on the charming, white-chinked log cottage. Swamps and tropical vegetation overran most properties in this region, but Tante Lulu’s place had a neatly trimmed lawn and colorful flowerbeds on all sides. When Gabrielle noticed that there were plaster and plastic statues of St. Jude everywhere, even a St. Jude birdbath, she recalled Dolly’s words. The scent of climbing roses and bougainvillea and coffee-colored bayou waters teeming with fish filled the air.
Club Bayou Med.
Yeah, I have time to stop and smell the roses.
Remember why you’re here, Gabrielle.
Why am I here?
What can an old Cajun lady do that all my years of legal wrangling hasn’t?
Am I really so desperate that I’ll try anything?
Yes! The look on Leroy’s face when I told him about the parole board’s latest decision was scary. He’s going to do something. Something impulsive and dangerous. I just know he is. And then there’ll really be no hope at all.
Not that my cup is overflowing with hope. Forget about that glass half-full crap. Mine is ninety-nine-and-a-half percent empty.
But right now, the pleasant scenery and her lack of hope were preempted by something else. Shutting her motor down, she barely noticed its embarrassing putt-putt-putt of protest in her need to escape the sauna interior. She swung her door open and staggered onto the crushed shell pathway.
Only to be showered with rain.
Only it wasn’t raining.
A tiny woman as old as time was holding a garden hose, spraying her. And smiling, like she was doing her a favor.
Actually, it did feel good.
“What the hell . . . ?” she said, anyway.
“Me, I was jist waterin’ mah okra when I noticed how hot you looked. Seemed lak a good idea ta cool you off, right quick. Dint want you havin’ a heatstroke or nothin’.”
“Well, thanks, I guess.” No harm done, she decided, since she was just wearing a Louisiana Second Chances Project T-shirt and shorts with athletic shoes, no socks. She brushed those strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail off her face and reached inside her car for her briefcase. That’s when she turned and really studied the person that she’d hoped would be her salvation.
Good Lord! If anyone should be embarrassed by her appearance, it would be Ms. Bizarro Senior Citizen, whose close-capped head of curls was dyed a brassy blonde. The old biddy wore shorts that hugged her nonexistent butt and a little tank top that proclaimed in glittery letters, “Wild Thing,” both in hot pink, with pom-pom socks and orthopedic shoes, all of which had to come from the minus-size department of Wal-Mart; she couldn’t be more than five foot zero. Hot-pink lip gloss and rouge called attention to every one of the thousand wrinkles on her face. Grandma Moses with a Mary Kay obsession.
Walking forward squishily, Gabrielle extended a hand, “You must be Tante Lulu. I’m Gabrielle Sonnier. We spoke on the phone.”
The old lady gave her a surprisingly hard grip with her right hand and continued watering her wire-fenced vegetable garden with the other. For a woman who presumably lived alone, she could feed a large family from the neat plot, where a bumper crop of tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, onions, garlic, lettuce, peas, string beans, squash, melons, and lots of okra flourished. Then there were the chickens that free-ranged in her yard, having escaped the chicken coop at one corner of the yard where a gate hung open.
Turning off the hose, Tante Lulu motioned for her to follow around the side to the back of the house that faced the bayou . . . where a large alligator sat sunning itself, watching
them, as well as the foolhardy chickens, through beady eyes. Because of the wide expanse of lawn between them and the critter, Gabrielle wasn’t alarmed . . . yet. And she had her heavy briefcase for a weapon. The chickens were on their own.
“Um . . . do you know you have a gator in your yard?”
“Thass jist Useless.” Tante Lulu waved a hand airily.
“What’s useless? The gator or my telling you about the gator?”
Tante Lulu chuckled. “Useless is his name. The critter usta belong to my nephew Remy when he kept a houseboat down the bayou, but Useless moved up thisaway when there was no more Cheez Doodles comin’ his way.”
“Cheez Doodles?” Have I entered some alternate universe?
“Yep. His favorite treat. Doan suppose ya got any in that gas-guzzlin’ tank yer drivin’? I vow, that car is noisier than two skeletons makin’ love on a tin roof.”
Gabrielle would be offended if it weren’t a sad fact. Every cent she earned went toward Leroy’s defense. “If I did have Cheez Doodles, they’d be baked to a crisp by now.” At Tante Lulu’s arched brows, she explained, “My air-conditioning broke.” Two years ago.
“Ah, thass why you look lak the back side of bad times, I reckon. You oughta check out my niece Charmaine’s beauty shop,” the old lady said with a lack of subtlety she was probably entitled to at her age, which had to be close to ninety, give or take. “I thought lawyers wuz rollin’ in cash.”
“Like your nephew Luc?” she countered. Gabrielle had done her homework. Lucien LeDeux was a famous lawyer throughout the South, well-known for his sometimes unorthodox tactics.
“I wish! That boy, he could charm the snout off a pig. He needs ta get on one of them court TV shows, if you ask me. But Luc, bless his heart, is stubborn as a cross-eyed mule. Not that I’d want him ta move ta New York or Hollywood, wherever they film them things. Although, if he went ta Hollywood, he might meet up with Richard Simmons. I do declare, I have a hankerin’ ta meet up with my fantasy man before I die.” She sighed deeply.
Definitely alternate universe. Was she actually saying that Richard Simmons was her fantasy man? Gabrielle wasn’t about to ask. This woman’s brain bounced around like a Ping-Pong ball. At this rate, Gabrielle would be here all afternoon before she got to the point of her visit. At Tante Lulu’s age, that could be risky, time being of the essence.
They stepped onto the narrow back porch that ran about thirty feet, the length of the small cottage, and contained several comfy-looking rockers painted a bright red with thick cushions that had an image on them. St. Jude. Who else?
Inside the cottage, the low ceilings and small rooms contributed to a cozy atmosphere, along with the doily-adorned, upholstered furniture and family pictures everywhere. This was the type of home Gabrielle and her brother would have loved to have when they’d been growing up in a New Orleans slum tenement. They’d never dreamed of luxury, just a homey place, safe from violence and hunger. Like this. Maybe someday if . . . when . . . Leroy was free and she could start to save a little cash, she’d buy herself a place like this. Nothing fancy. A haven. As it was now, she had to work at a place like Second Chances because of the flexible hours they offered her to help Leroy. Once her brother was out of Angola, she would join a big-money law firm and make up for all these years of poverty.
“I love your home,” Gabrielle said as they entered the kitchen that was a step back in time to maybe the 1940s. The aged cypress cabinets flashed their original polished hardware. An enamel and chrome table with red-Naugahyde-cushioned seats matched the red-and-white checkered curtains on the window above the large farmer’s porcelain sink. The air was scented with myriad spices coming from an open pantry off the kitchen where the noted traiteur lady must practice her folk healing craft. Sage, coriander, thyme, lavender, and something pungent she didn’t recognize.
“Come, sit yer pretty self down, you,” Tante Lulu urged.
First she said I look awful, now pretty. Am I being buttered up for something? Gabrielle had no sooner sat down than Tante Lulu placed a large glass of iced sweet tea in front of her. “Y’all had lunch yet, honey?”
Gabrielle shook her head as she downed half her glass in one large gulp. Before she knew it, she was gobbling up crab gumbo, a fresh lettuce and tomato salad, homemade lazy bread, and sugary beignets, like a soldier just home from the war.
“Now tell me what the problem is,” Tante Lulu said as she sat down across from her with two cups of steaming chicory coffee, pushing one of them in front of Gabrielle.
“My brother, Leroy, is serving a life sentence at Angola, and nothing I do as a lawyer through regular legal channels is helping to get him out. I was hoping you might have connections, people who could help me cut through some of the political roadblocks. I shouldn’t be bothering you, though. It’s hopeless.”
“Thass where yer wrong. Nothin’ is hopeless when you got St. Jude on yer team. And me, of course.” She beamed at her, as if that was all it would take.
Oh God! Gabrielle thought, and could have sworn she heard a voice say, He’s busy. Will I do?
“How did you do that? I mean, project your voice?”
“I dint perject nothin’. Must be yer hearin’ St. Jude in yer head. That happens sometimes when a mission begins.”
“A mission?” Gabrielle squeaked out.
“You came here fer help, dint you, girl? Thass what I call a mission.” Tante Lulu looked at her as if her brain was a few bricks short of a full load. “Now, tell me everything.”
“As I said, Leroy is in Angola, has been for the past fifteen years. I’ve tried everything since I graduated from law school four years ago, and years before that, as well, to get him out, but nothing works. I’m ready to give up.”
“You ain’t tried everything.” Tante Lulu tilted her head pointedly at the picture of St. Jude on the wall. “Now, when I say, tell me everything, I mean, start back a piece, at the beginning.”
And Gabrielle did. She was twenty-eight years old, but right now she felt as old as the lady facing her with seeming compassion. At this point, she figured she had nothing to lose.
She started back in the early years when she and her older brother by three years had lived in low-income housing in the worst sections of New Orleans with their alcoholic mother, Marie Gaston, and a father, James Sonnier, who was increasingly more and more violent. Their parents had never got around to marrying.
“I can’t remember a time when my mother wasn’t drunk and my father angry. I don’t know if someone warned me, ‘Hide when Daddy gets home,’ or if I just learned that on my own, the hard way. No, no, I’m not looking for pity,” Gabrielle said when she saw the old lady’s eyes brim with tears. “This was all before Hurricane Katrina hit the city, of course. I can’t imagine how we would have survived that, too.”
“Lotsa folks didn’t. The hurry-cane smashed that city lower’n a doodle bug.”
“The least little thing could set my dad off, like a piece of stale bread. Or it could have been something major, like cat poop on the hall carpet, though I always wondered how he even noticed since the rug was so stained. Leroy had tried to clean it up. Anyhow, Dad’s reaction was to toss the cat against the wall and crack its skull open. After that, no more pets.”
Tante Lulu tsk-tsked. “Some men are born mean. I know one jist like that. Valcour LeDeux, the father of my nephews and Charmaine. I swear, I’d murder the man myself if it weren’t a mortal sin and me bein’ so close ta the Pearly Gates.”
Gabrielle raised her eyebrows with disbelief at such an image . . . a hit man . . . uh, woman . . . in orthopedic shoes.
“You doan think I could, huh? Girlie, I got me a pistol I carry in mah purse all the time, and I have a Glock in mah closet.”
Okaaay!
“Dint them government folks ever step in ta help you little chillen?”
Gabrielle shook her head. “They tried, but you know how overworked those agencies are.”
“Ain’t no excuse,” Tante Lulu pro
nounced and got up to pour them both another cup of coffee. Gabrielle would be bouncing off the walls with all this caffeine by the time she got home. Her senior citizen BFF . . . at least she acted like a good friend already . . . patted her on the shoulder before sitting down again and saying, “Go on, honey.”
“At first, Mom was the only one who bore the brunt of Dad’s fists, but when Leroy was old enough to protest, starting at about eight years old, he got as much or more of the beatings. Until he left home at about age fourteen, that is, and lived God-only-knows-where on the streets. I was only eleven then. Oh, he used to drop in fairly often, when Dad wasn’t home. He’d bring me Happy Meals, not just because I was always hungry but I loved those dumb little toys, or an item of clothing he’d no doubt shoplifted.” A long-forgotten memory came to her suddenly. “Once he brought me a stuffed panda, also no doubt bought with sticky fingers. I loved that panda, kept it under my pillow. But one day Dad discovered it, guessed where it had come from, and tossed it in the trash. He just couldn’t stand for anyone to be happy when he was so miserable.”
“Lak I said, honey. Bad ta the bone, thass what some men are.”
“Anyhow, I was fourteen when it happened. And I saw it all.”
She didn’t have to explain what “it” she referred to. Everyone knew about sixteen-year-old Leroy Sonnier killing his father with a kitchen knife. Twenty-four stab wounds in all. Blood everywhere. Even on the ceiling.
“Leroy had come by, not expecting Dad to be home, but apparently the welfare office had cut him off and said he would be getting no more money, except for food stamps. Told him to get a job. He took his frustration out on Mom and me, of course. The beatings that day weren’t even that bad in comparison to some others, but I had a bloody nose which looked worse than it was, and Mom had been practically unconscious from booze before Dad even hit her. Leroy lost it and went after Dad with a knife.” She shrugged and was surprised when Tante Lulu shoved a stack of St. Jude paper napkins toward her, and realized she was weeping. Really, it had been so long ago. She never cried anymore. It must be the accumulated tension over the parole board decision.