Pearl Jinx

  “Bite me!” John countered.

  “Who’ll watch the cavern?” Caleb called after them.

  “Call Adam,” she suggested. “I think he went to the tavern. I passed him on the way here. Or else watch it yourself. Who needs you?”

  As he walked, Caleb flipped open his cell phone and punched a few numbers. “Famosa? Peachey here. Where are you?” He paused for a moment, then continued, “When you finish dinner, can you head back to the B & B and take a shift over at the cavern, just for a few hours? No, Mark or LeDeux can’t do it. They’re coming with me.” Another pause while he listened. “We’re going to The Red Zone to get Tante Lulu and Abbie.” He glanced over at Mark. “And maybe Lily, too.” He held the phone away from his ear then, and they all could hear the shouting. When it went silent, he put the phone to his ear again. “Yeah, yeah, same to you. Thanks.”

  When they got to the parking lot and had to wait for Caleb to catch up and unlock his vehicle, Claire said, “I’ll sit in back with John.”

  Caleb’s upper lip curled back in what could only be described as a sneer. “You’ll sit in the front seat. Next to me. And get out of that piss-ant mood you’re in, baby, unless you want to be spanked.” He picked her up then and shoved her into the front passenger seat, slamming the door after her.

  Spanked? She was too shocked to react at first. That was outrageous, even for Caleb. And truth to tell, even though she wasn’t into pain or S & M in the least, the image playing through her mind was hot and taboo and very, very tempting.

  Mark and John were suspiciously quiet in the backseat, probably waiting for the next scene in this soap opera between her and Caleb.

  Caleb slid into the seat next to her, gave her a sideways glance that told her loud and clear that the same image was playing through his head, then pulled out of the parking lot, tires squealing in the gravel.

  “Did I ever tell ya ’bout the time I met this dominatrix on Bourbon Street?” John said into the silence.

  “Shut up, LeDeux,” Caleb said.

  John replied in French with what Claire was pretty sure translated to “Up yours, sailor!”

  Then slowly, one by one, they began to chuckle, then laugh out loud hysterically. And the fun had just begun.

  Chapter 15

  Hail, hail, the gang’s all here . . .

  Caleb had been in worse joints around the world . . . worse meaning sordid . . . but still, The Red Zone was pretty bad. It didn’t help that it was Bikers’ Night at the stripper club, and the Harley lovers were a rowdy crowd. In fact, there was enough leather in this place to make a horse run for cover.

  After paying an exorbitant cover charge just to gawk at some naked bodies, when the same or better could be had by renting an X-rated movie, they entered a large room where a circular stage was surrounded by a bar and seats holding mostly horny college students and overaged bikers. There were also side stages where the women moved once done with their main events, bringing with them their “fans” for special performances. Lap dances and God only knew what else could be had upstairs. There were also adult toys for sale and special viewing booths.

  Mostly, there was a lot of gawking going on.

  Claire was among those gawking, especially at the young overendowed woman, totally nude, who was dancing on the stage and picking up twenty-dollar bills with her breasts from the mouths of the males at the bar. Only a half-dozen women were in the room, not including the dancers and waitresses.

  LeDeux was grinning like a fool, exactly what would be expected of the testosterone-oozing young man. Nothing seemed to shock or faze the boy.

  Mark was red-faced, but not with embarrassment. He was probably picturing his ex-girlfriend Lily doing what this woman was doing, except that Lily didn’t have much cleavage, as Caleb recalled. She would have to pick up the bills with her teeth, he imagined. Yeech!

  “There they are,” LeDeux said, pointing to his aunt, Abbie, and their two gentlemen friends. They were seated at a table, not the stage bar, thank God, but all their eyes were riveted on the dancers. This was a bring-your-own-beer-type establishment, and an unopened six-pack sat on their table.

  The two gents were wearing cowboy shirts with string ties. Abbie was demure in a short-sleeved floral dress. On the other hand, Tante Lulu, with spiked black hair tonight—she must have used a gallon of mousse—was totally in tune with the theme, wearing a low-cut leather bustier top that revealed a good portion of her chest. And an impressive cleavage.

  “Good Lord, she’s wearing a push-up bra,” Claire remarked.

  “I didn’t know she had anythin’ ta push up,” LeDeux replied. “Wait till I tell my brothers about this. Charmaine probably overnighted it ta her.”

  “Tee-John!” Tante Lulu said when she noticed them approaching. “What’re y’all doin’ here?”

  Like she didn’t know! The message on Claire’s answering machine had to have been a ploy to get them all there. Especially Mark.

  “Come ta take ya home, auntie.” LeDeux sat down in an empty chair next to his aunt and gave her a hug.

  “I hope you don’t think this was my idea,” one of the men said. Amos, he was pretty sure.

  “They made us bring them,” the other man added. Andy.

  Neither of them was making any great effort to leave, he noticed.

  Abbie squirmed, shame-faced under her grandson’s glare, but then she lit up a cigarette, blew smoke, and glared back at him. “Don’t scowl at me like you’re my boss. It’s your fault we’re all here.”

  “Not friggin’ likely,” he shot back. “Where’s Lily?”

  Abbie motioned with her head toward the back of the room, where a line of young women was queued up for their turns to dance. There was a nurse, a cowgirl, a French maid, and then Lily . . . a cheerleader. A cheerleader with the shortest miniskirt in the history of cheerleaderdom, topped by a tight sweater with the logo “FU University.” She probably didn’t have undies on underneath, or else she wore nothing but a G-string.

  By the gurgling sound Mark made, Caleb guessed he’d come to the same conclusion.

  It was hard to hear over the loud music, catcalls, conversation, and laughter. This was a dry-docked sailor’s fantasy, a mother’s nightmare. Still, they were able to hear Mark say, “Son of a bitch!” before he stormed toward Lily.

  He and Claire and LeDeux pulled up chairs to sit with the old folks, who were transfixed by what the new dancer was doing on the stage. It involved bending over and touching her toes, then smiling at the crowd upside down between her spread legs, her size double D’s dangling like twin pendulums. The only thing she wore was red stiletto heels.

  “Oh. My. God!” That was a red-faced Claire speaking. Served her right for insisting on coming.

  LeDeux, on his other side, said, “I had sex with a woman in that position one time. Let me tell you—”

  “Please don’t,” he urged.

  “Ya know, Tee-John, if I’ve told ya once I’ve told ya a thousand times ’bout yer braggin’. Remember, a fella what toots his own horn never gets tooted.”

  Everyone laughed except LeDeux, who pretended affront and said, “I get tooted plenty.”

  A waitress soon pressured them to order sodas, “if they were going to take up space.” At ten dollars a pop.

  “I usta be able ta touch my toes,” Tante Lulu said.

  Everyone looked at her.

  “But I never woulda been able to pick up a bill with my boobies. Even when I was twenty, I wasn’t that big.” She looked at Claire. “How ’bout you?”

  “Whaaat?” She frowned at the old lady for drawing her into such a conversation.

  He put an arm around the back of her chair and squeezed her shoulder.

  She slapped his hand away. Apparently she was still a little miffed with him. Okay, sweetie, let’s see how you like this. “You know, Claire, you could probably get a job here doing an Indian maiden dance.”

  She turned slowly, inch by inch, to glower at him. “Do you have a de
ath wish?”

  “Come on, honey. Lighten up.”

  “Lighten up? What happened to the angry man in a snit who pretty much told me earlier today that it was over?”

  “The angry man never said it was over. He merely said we need to step back for a bit.”

  She cocked her head at him.

  “I stepped back. My snit ended. How about you?”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Do you have any idea what a turn-on it is for a man to meet a woman who gives as good as she gets? You let me get angry, apologized, then told me in no uncertain terms what a dickhead I was. You were smoking hot, baby.”

  “Am I supposed to be flattered by that?”

  “It was a compliment, believe me.”

  “So now you think we should just pretend that nothing happened?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Clueless. You are one hundred and fifty percent clueless.”

  “Oh, look,” Abbie said, pointing to the far side of the room. “Our plan is working.”

  Or not, Caleb thought as he studied the unfolding scene.

  True, Mark and Lily were arguing, and he was attempting to pull her away and toward the door. But Caleb saw something they didn’t. Two bouncers the size of Buicks were headed in that direction. He and LeDeux exchanged looks and stood. Amos and Andy, bless their souls, stood, too.

  “Ladies, you best go out to the car,” Amos said, flexing his fingers.

  “I haven’t kicked ass since the time Leroy Watkins made that smart remark to Sis at the 4-H barn dance in 1982,” Amos said, a smile of anticipation on his face.

  Amos’s response was a loud, “Yee-haw!”

  Caleb thought, I’ve fallen down the hole in Alice in Wonderland’s garden.

  Claire came up beside Caleb. “I have some killer karate moves.”

  Abbie said, “I’ll go outside and bring the getaway car up to the door.”

  Or is this “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?”

  “I have a gun.” Tante Lulu was rummaging through a straw purse so big it would dwarf a sailor’s duffel bag.

  Everyone said as one, “No!”

  Maybe if I pinch myself, I’ll wake up from this nightmare.

  “Okay, I’ll drive the other getaway car. By the way, Tee-John, didja know yer car could go a hundred and ten? And I dint even get a ticket. That police officer was real nice, wasn’t he, Amos? He dint even get mad when I tol’ him he needed ta get some help with that sputterin’ problem of his.”

  When she started to walk away, LeDeux muttered, “Mon Dieu!”

  Caleb looked to see what had drawn that reaction from the Cajun. And he seconded the “My God!” Tante Lulu had curvy buttocks in her spandex pseudo-leather pants. She must have bought a pair of those padded panties that were advertised in the back of magazines. Or the infamous Charmaine had sent them along with the push-up bra. Unbelievable!

  Thus it was that a posse of five headed toward what was sure to be the bar fight to beat all bar fights, with two senior-citizen getaway drivers outside.

  From another quarter he saw some bikers rising from their seats. He had no idea whose side they would be on. But then he noticed that one of them wore a Green Beret hat and another wore cammies, and both were eyeing the U.S. Navy SEAL logo on his T-shirt. Lots of men, unbelievably, pretended to be ex-SEALs for prestige or to get chicks, but they must have accepted him for what he was, because they both nodded at him, and he knew they had friends in this place who would cover their sixes.

  Two hours later, they were all sitting in the local magistrate’s office waiting for their citations. He, LeDeux, Amos, Andy, and six bikers with bloody noses and bruised knuckles; the two bouncers, one with a blackening eye and the other limping because of Claire’s karate kick; Claire, with wild hair and wilder eyes, still wearing her jogging outfit; a still-furious Mark with a golf shirt half torn off; an oddly exultant Lily, with her “FU University” sweater; Abbie, also exultant, with an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth and smudged eye makeup; Tante Lulu in her outrageous leather, her mouth going a mile a minute as she tried to tell a female officer how to make gumbo; and three dancers who’d gotten into the action and were now covered with knee-length, men’s yellow prison shirts that had been handed to them by some grinning officers. In fact, the mini-courtroom in the back of the police station was lined with officers, both on and off duty, waiting for the show to begin.

  The magistrate finished two DUI cases and a disorderly conduct, then turned to them. With ever-widening eyes, the world-weary judge propped his chin on his hands, elbows braced on his desk, and sighed. “This oughta be good.”

  Give us an L, give us an O, give us a V . . .

  “Ouch, ouch, ouch! What’s in that stuff? Acid?”

  Lily was dabbing antiseptic ointment on a cut above his right eye. She was probably getting some perverse enjoyment out of his pain.

  He was sitting on the closed toilet seat in the bathroom of her Julian apartment, after having removed his tattered shirt. Lily still had on her cheerleading outfit.

  “Stop being a baby.”

  No sympathy there. “Would you really have gone onto the stage?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “What does love have to do with baring your butt for a thousand guys?”

  “I told you before, Mark. If you don’t want me, I’ll find some guy who does.”

  “Does it have to be a thousand guys at once?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not? I’ll tell you why not. You’re better than that. You could have any guy you want. And you don’t have to strip to get a man.”

  “I don’t want any other man.”

  He groaned with frustration. “This is all my grandmother’s fault, isn’t it? And that dingbat from down South?”

  “That’s just like you. Blame everyone but yourself.”

  At least she isn’t pitying me anymore. “Listen, Lily, I’m starting to get my act together. I’ll probably open the cavern to the public. But that doesn’t mean I’m whole again. I’m not. I never will be.”

  “You are a world-class moron if you think being whole has anything to do with body parts.”

  He let out a whooshy exhale. “You’re wearing me out, Lily.”

  “That’s the point.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Just your love, honey.”

  “You’ve always had that.”

  “How would I know that, the way you’ve been treating me?”

  “I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t . . . don’t . . . want to hurt you.”

  “Then stop being an ass, accept me back, and let’s plan a life together.”

  “Could it be as simple as that?”

  “Suppose I got cancer and all my hair fell out. Would you love me less?”

  “Of course not.”

  “How would you feel if I shoved you out of my life because I had no hair?”

  “This is a ridiculous conversation.”

  “No more ridiculous than you thinking I can stop loving you just because you lost an arm.”

  “What about your dreams? What about the renovation business?”

  “My dream was to do something with you. It doesn’t have to be renovating or architecture. Frankly, I would love to learn more about caves and how to make yours marketable.”

  He stared at her skeptically. “You’re just saying that.”

  She put her first-aid supplies aside and sat down on his lap, almost knocking him over, his balance still not quite right. Then she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I’m not going anywhere, Mark. There’s only one thing that could make me leave.”

  “And that is?”

  “That you no longer love me. Can you say those words? I. Don’t. Love. You.”

  He didn’t even try, because he knew the words would never come from his lips.

  “I give up,” he said finally.
>
  There were tears in her eyes now. “Those aren’t the three words I want to hear.”

  “You want blood, don’t you? White flags fluttering, a choir singing ‘Hallelujah,’ the works?” he asked. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. Are you satisfied now?”

  “I will never be satisfied,” she said on a sob. “I think you’re going to have to repeat those words at least once a day for the rest of our lives together.”

  “Done.” He sealed his promise with a kiss. Then he chuckled against her neck.

  “What?”

  “There is one thing I’d like from you to seal our reunion.”

  “Reunion sex?” She swiped at the tears rimming her eyes.

  “Well, yes, that. But something else.” He used his one arm to shove her off his lap, then took her hand and led her into the small living room. Sinking down on the sofa, he glanced up at her and winked. “How about a personal performance of your cheerleader striptease?”

  Diamonds . . . uh, pearls . . . are a girl’s best friend . . .

  Two days later, the cave chamber was drained, additional lighting set up, and they were about to make their first thorough exploration of the bottom.

  Unfortunately, that exploration was going to have to involve wading around in three-foot-high “pudding,” working the suction tubes. It would have been nice if it was only silt they had to deal with, but after all these years in damp conditions, the bottom was pretty much slushy mud.

  If it weren’t for the stalagmites rising from the bottom or the fact that Mark and Abbie, and now Lily, too, wanted to preserve the chamber, they could have run rough rakes to gather the pearls, outlaw’s booty, and anything else solid hiding down there. He would bet his Budweiser they were also going to find some animal and human bones. Claire was hoping for Indian artifacts, of course.

  Claire. He couldn’t think about her now. They’d been playing hide-and-seek with each other since The Red Zone incident. He had tried to hook up with her again, halfheartedly—a guy could apologize only so many times—but she wanted nothing to do with him now. He’d have tried harder to convince her that he was worth another shot, but he couldn’t do that till he was sure he wanted more than, well, a shot. What a mess!