She didn’t answer, but instead told him, “Go in the house and tell your grandfather to give you some cookies and milk.”
“But, Mom, I wanna stay here and—”
“Etienne. Go.”
With a pout, the kid steered the bike up the sidewalk and around the side of the house.
Before she had a chance to launch into him, John took her by the elbow and said, “We are not having this conversation outside. There’s a tabloid reporter hanging around.”
She was shocked at that prospect and let him propel her up the steps and into the living room. He could hear Etienne chattering away in the kitchen to James.
“Celine, I had nothin’ to do with this tabloid garbage.”
“I beg to differ.”
“The camera was stolen from the evidence vault. I didn’t know about it ’til this mornin’.”
“And why was the photo still in the camera?”
“What?”
“You heard me. You led me to believe that you had the only photo and that you were going to destroy it. And at no time did you tell me that there were so many different shots of the . . . kiss.”
She said kiss as if it were a distasteful word.
“I never promised any of that. I said I wouldn’t use the photo against you in any public way if you .
. . well, I never intended to use it anyway.”
“You just wanted to barter for a weekend of wild monkey sex.”
He made the mistake of smiling.
She hissed.
“Celine, be honest. I never forced you to do anything. And you never made love with me because you felt threatened.”
“No, I did it because I was stupid. But not anymore.”
“C’mon, Celine, we have somethin’ good goin’ on between us. You can’t let this ruin things.”
“We had something good, John. No more.”
“You’re not being fair. I’m a cop. I can’t ethically destroy evidence. I did manage to keep it out of the eyes of the other officers. Give me credit for that.”
“Apparently you didn’t keep it out of everyone’s eyesight, because someone obviously sold it to an outside buyer.”
“You’re right about that.” He sighed deeply. “Where do we go from here?”
“Nowhere. You can see Etienne as much as you want, within reason. I choose not to be here when you arrive or bring him back.”
“I might love you. I think.”
“Might? Be still my heart.” She laughed then, and it was not a nice laugh. “Bull!”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I wouldn’t believe you if you had your tongue notarized.”
“You’re bein’ unreasonable.”
“Oh, yeah? I got fired today.”
“Oh, no!” He reached to her in sympathy, but she ducked away from him. “Is there anything I can do?”
“You’ve done enough.”
“You can’t lay the blame on me for this.”
“Can’t I? One more thing. You had no right to buy Etienne that bicycle without my permission.”
“His old one was too small for him, and I happened to see the new one in the window of a shop near Luc’s office.” He shrugged.
“I repeat. Don’t buy him stuff.”
“Hey, he’s my son, too.”
Their voices had gotten increasingly loud; so, it was only belatedly that they realized that Etienne was standing in the doorway, looking with puzzlement from his mother to John.
“Are you my daddy?”
Celine moaned.
This emotional abyss was not something either of them was equipped to handle today. But it couldn’t be avoided.
He walked over and hunkered down to Etienne’s level. “Yes, I am, Etienne. And I’m very proud to be your father.”
“Why weren’t ya here before?”
“I didn’t know about you ’til recently. How do you feel about havin’ me for a dad?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Can I give you a hug?”
The little boy pondered the request as if it was a weighty subject. “All right.”
John opened his arms and held his son tightly. Eyes closed, he savored the little boy smell of him . .
. skin, milk, and chocolate from the cookies.
“Why is Mom cryin’?”
He turned and stood in one fluid motion, Etienne still in his arms. “Because she’s so happy,” he lied, tears in his eyes as well.
“Are you gonna live with us?”
His eyes held Celine’s, which were still filled with hurt from his presumed betrayal. “I don’t know.”
“Can I have a dog?”
He had to laugh then.
But Celine wasn’t laughing.
He soon left, with a promise to Etienne to return for a visit the next day. As for Celine, he saw nothing but a brick wall in their future.
Maybe they were never meant to be.
Oyster shooters: the all-purpose clueless Cajun remedy . . .
He was drowning his sorrows in oyster shooters at Swampy’s Tavern with his three brothers.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and not many customers in the place. René’s band, the Swamp Rats, often entertained here with rowdy Cajun and zydeco music.
“We should probably cut out the drinking and go over to the Veterans Club to help decorate for tomorrow’s pirate do,” Luc said.
Gator, the longtime bartender and part-owner, lined up four shot glasses, plopped a raw oyster in each, then doused them with one hundred proof bourbon and a dash of Tabasco. Only then did he raise his bushy eyebrows in question to them.
As one, they reached for the glasses and tossed them back and down their throats. Also, as one, they did full-body shivers and exclaimed, “Whoa!”
Gator shook his bald head at them, his lone loop earring flashing in the artificial light.
“Hey, Gator, it just occurred to me . . . ” John was staring at the bartender. “You would make a great pirate. Wanna come tomorrow?”
“Me, I get enough pirate wannabes here in the bar. I doan need ta make a fool of myself thataway.”
Gator went off to wait on someone over by the jukebox, which was belting out country songs.
Looking at Gator’s earring as he passed, John decided, “I think I’ll get my ear pierced.”
“Do you remember when you were a kid,” Luc prodded him with a laugh, “you asked me how men went about piercin’ their cocks. Apparently you had seen somethin’ in the French Quarter.”
“Well, I might be blitzed, but I’m not that blitzed.” My brothers know way too much about my past.
“You could have ‘Celine’ tattooed over your heart,” René suggested. “Or on your butt.”
“Or not!”
“You know what they say,” Luc offered. “A peacock who sits on his tail is just another turkey.”
“Are you tryin’ ta say I’m a turkey?”
“If the shoe . . . uh, feathers fit, and all that.”
“I’m thinkin’ about quittin’ my job,” he disclosed, after an unexpected belch escaped his lips.
That got his brothers serious in a nanosecond.
“Why?” Luc asked.
“I don’t know, this whole Mafia case and the newspaper coverage has turned me sour. Not on law enforcement, but workin’ for the Fontaine department, or anywhere within a hundred miles. And I won’t go back to DC and the FBI. I’m thinkin’ about openin’ my own private detective agency.”
They all pondered that possibility. Then René remarked, “You’ve got a head start, Tee-John.
You’re already a dick.”
He jabbed René in the shoulder with a fist.
Remy picked up a stick pretzel and started to chomp. The oysters in the shooters were about all they’d had to eat today. “Remind me, why’re we gettin’ plastered?”
None of them were that far gone, although John wished he could escape to the numbness of a good ol’ bender. It had been a hell of a week
.
“We’re drownin’ my sorrows,” he told Remy.
“What sorrows?”
“Unrequited love.” Oh, crap! I didn’t mean to say that.
All three of his brothers turned to gawk at him for his flowery words. Then all three of them grinned.
“I consider your amusement a totally inappropriate reaction to my pain,” he complained. Celine was holding to her decision not to see or talk to him. After a week of trying, he’d stopped trying. Didn’t mean he was giving up, just reconnoitering. He’d heard that she got a new job with one of the newspaper syndicates, but that was no reason for avoiding him.
He’d never been so miserable in all his life. If this was love, it was highly overrated.
René patted him on the shoulder. “We’ve all been there, buddy.”
“Not to worry, though,” Luc chuckled. “By tomorrow night your problems should be over.”
Remy and René immediately said, “Shhh” to Luc.
Too late. The hairs on the back of John’s neck were not only standing erect, but they were doing the hula. “Why?”
With a sigh of resignation, figuring he’d already said too much, Luc disclosed, “I’m pretty sure Tante Lulu has a plan.”
John put his face in his hands and groaned. Then he lifted his head and ordered two more oyster shooters. Once he felt a bit more braced, he confronted his brothers. “Spill.”
“Charmaine ordered us not to tell you,” Luc said.
“So?” It’s not like they hadn’t disobeyed that order before.
“You’re gonna ruin the surprise, Luc,” René complained.
“Tell me, dammit.”
“Okay, here’s the deal, and we only know this through our women. Did you know there’s a pirate longship anchored out on the Gulf?’
“What? You’re kiddin’.”
“No kiddin’, little brother,” Luc replied. “Apparently Val has some connection with those people who run that Tall Ships event on the Hudson River. And apparently there are these smaller reproduction Viking/pirate longships . . . and ta da, they brought one here.”
“My wife has connections,” René bragged.
“Okay, so there’s a pirate ship out on the Gulf. What does that have to do with me?”
His brothers grinned.
He was beginning to hate his brothers’ grins.
“They brought a longship here for me? Wow!” This is not gonna be good.
“You were aware that Celine would be there, right?” This from René.
He nodded. She had the exclusive story on the treasure hunt, as promised, and would be providing reports on the entire day’s events for her new employer.
“Cut to the chase, you guys. Longship, Celine . . . what else?”
“You’ll be dressed as a pirate, and I certainly hope you plan to put Johnny Depp to shame,” Luc said.
“He could do no less, our Tee-John,” Remy remarked.
“Aaarrgh!” he said.
“That should be ‘Arg,’” René corrected.
“Aaarrgh!” he said again.
“You’re gonna capture Celine in the middle of the ball and take her off to your pirate lair . . . i.e.
pirate ship, and have your wicked way with her, married or unmarried, depends on you, but the minister aka ship’s captain will be there, along with Father Boucher from Our Lady of the Bayou Church, just in case,” Luc told him in one long sentence. “Oh, and I’m gonna be handy to be best man .
. . just in case.”
“Tante Lulu’s gonna give you away.” Remy grinned at him.
“Etienne’s gonna give his mom away.” René grinned, too.
Okay, he hadn’t thought his family could surprise him . . . or grin so damn much. But, sonofabitch!
“And how would I be takin’ her off to my . . . um, lair, since I have no trusty steed?”
“Your hog.” This little tidbit from Remy.
“Huh?”
“A souped-up Police Special Shovelhead Harley, to be precise.” Remy again. He was probably responsible for that choice, having had a number of bikes over the years.
John’s mouth gaped open for a few long seconds. Then he smiled.
“I like it!”
Did St. Jude have pirattitude? . . .
“Holy smokes!” Tante Lulu said when she reentered the empty Veterans Club hall that evening before the Pirate Ball.
“I’ll second that. You outdid yourself this time, Auntie,” Tee-John told her with a squeeze of her shoulders.
He’d picked her up and driven her over here, probably because he didn’t trust her driving at night.
If it were up to her family, she wouldn’t be driving at all, but they couldn’t stop her. Nosirree, she had work to do.
“Well, I dint do it myself. And I sure as tootin’ ain’t responsible fer all these decorations. Whooee, are those live parrots in those cages? Wonder if they know any dirty words.”
“You were the drivin’ force, chère.”
“Drivin’ force? I like that.”
The large hall was festooned with ship sails and fish netting all over the ceiling and walls. A theater company had lent them several fake ships that were stage props. In one corner, where food and drinks would be served, was a sign that read, “Angel’s Grog Shop.” Another corner proclaimed: “Grace’s Tavern, Good Eats.” Throughout the room were dozens of skull and crossbones motifs, fake anchors, parrots, peg legs, eye patches, swords, and flintlock pistols, not to mention blown-up movie posters from dozens of pirate movies. She hadn’t realized there were so many. The three Pirates of the Caribbean ones, of course, but then there was Treasure Island, The Buccaneer, Blackbeard’s Ghost, Blackbeard the Pirate, and three Errol Flynn pirate movies, including Captain Blood.
“Now there was a real man, that Errol Flynn.” She sighed.
Tee-John laughed. “Do you know where that expression ‘In like Flynn’ comes from?”
“By the devilish gleam in yer eyes, mebbe I doan wanna know.”
“It was a tribute to Errol Flynn’s talent as a seducer, especially of two underage girls who accused him of statutory rape. He was found innocent, but still the expression stuck.”
She smacked him on the shoulder. “Where do ya get this nonsense? Errol Flynn was a hero.”
“If you say so, Auntie.”
“This is gonna be so much fun,” she said, smiling at Tee-John, who hadn’t been having much fun lately, thanks to Celine. Hopefully, that would change tonight. He was looking mighty fine in his pirate outfit: a white musketeer shirt tucked into black tights leading to knee-high, cuffed boots. A red sash belted his waist, where a sword hung from a sheath. He wore one gold loop earring and a patterned red handkerchief tied around his head. Johnny Depp never looked this good.
She was dressed pretty much the same, except she wore a vest over her shirt and one of those head rags over a long blonde wig, the one she’d lent to Tee-John for his disguise. A bra with falsies inside and padded-cheek panties took twenty years off her . . . she hoped. Tee-John had said she looked hot when he first saw her, but then he said that all the time.
“Ya shoulda seen the crowd here this afternoon fer the media event . . . thass what Ronnie and Jake called the unveilin’ of the Pirate Project. People was on this place like Hurricane drinks at Mardi Gras.
In fact, they was chuggin’ down that ‘grog’ like it was liquid gold.”
“Where is the gold anyway?” John had chosen to stay away this afternoon, not wanting any more publicity than he already had, with that kiss picture floating around.
“They had it in glass cases with security guards durin’ the media event. The guards, men and women, were in costumes depictin’ real pirates. Afterwards, them Brinks trucks came in and carted it away. The gold is goin’ ta some vault ’til they decide which coins ta sell and where.”
“You’re gonna be rich.”
“I’m already rich, and I doan mean money.”
He nodded, knowing that she referred
to family. Always family.
“There was newspaper and magazine reporters and TV cameras from around the country, and a few from over the ocean. Even a Hollywood director who wants ta produce a documentary. And the usual local and state hoity toities. Ronnie sez three hundred people showed up, a hundred more than expected. A wallopin’ big success, fer certain. And another three hundred’ll be here t’night fer the ball.
Celine was here.”
“I figured she would be.”
The boy looked like the tail end of hard times, and it almost broke her heart.
“She’s comin’ t’night with her grandad and Etienne.”
“Etienne told me.” He laughed. “I bought him a cute pirate outfit off the Internet at dresslikeapirate.com. He’ll probably be tryin’ to climb that keel pole in the center of the room. What a little imp!”
“Jist like you.”
It felt as if a fist was squeezing his heart. “Did you know there are thousands of Web sites devoted to pirates? Even ones that teach you how to talk like a pirate? Yep, talklikeapirate.com.”
“Yer changin’ the subject.”
“I know.”
“Celine still givin’ ya a hard time?”
“She isn’t givin’ me any time at all.”
“I hope she doesn’t bring a date.”
“Whaaat? Why did you say that? I thought David returned to Afghanistan. Is she datin’ someone else? Do you know somethin’ I don’t?”
“I’m jist sayin’. Thass all.” She could see her words had shocked the dickens out of him. Good. He needed something to jump-start his engines. “Best ya be doin’ somethin’ ta reel in the gal.”
“Reelin’-in presumes the ‘fish’ has already been caught.” He eyed her suspiciously. “I know about your plan, you know.”
“Poo-ey!” she said with disgust. “Who tol’ ya?”
“Everyone. Luc, Remy, René.”
“Blabbermouths.”
He arched his eyebrows at her.
“What? I ain’t a blabbermouth.”
He continued with the eyebrow arching business.
“Okay, a little bit of a blabbermouth. Ya doan mind our plan?”
“I’m skeptical.”
“Do ya love her, Tee-John?”