Gibby peeped at the petite blonde woman. She was trim and appeared to be much younger than she was, until one looked at the lines on her face and the wilt of her jaw line. Not that it mattered in her case, she was beautiful, and the type who was likely to become even more beautiful as she aged. “I know Miss Danley told me, but I didn’t catch your name,” Gibby said regretfully.
“Kameko,” she answered. “It’s Japanese for turtle child.”
“Are you Japanese?” Gibby asked with all seriousness.
Tamara snorted a large gulp of iced tea out her nose. “Does she look Japanese?” she said after clearing her throat several times.
“No, I guess she doesn’t,” Gibby said. “But it’s a pretty name. I think my father wanted me to be a boy. Also he liked guitars. Go figure.”
Tamara studied Gibby. “Are you for real?”
“Um,” Gibby stammered. “Am I for real? I suppose I am. I’m not fake or anything.” She looked down at a brown skirt and a cream colored, sleeveless top, and decided that she should have worn hose no matter how hot it was going to be in the afternoon. Bare legs were acceptable but hardly professional. “Do I look…not real?”
Laughing, Tamara shook her head. “Why don’t you start with your name and what it has to do with guitars? Then you can lead up to that stupid, not to mention dead, slime ball who happened to be my grandfather.”
“My father called me Gibson. My last name is Ross, no relation to Betsy or her alleged flag. I go by Gibby.” She smiled brightly at the two women and tried not to let a stammer creep into her voice. She’d had a brief respite and now it was time to get down to the real matter. Thinking about the real matter was enough to make Gibby fold like a cheap suitcase, if she allowed herself to do that.
“Gibby,” Tamara said. “You’re from Sawdust City,” she added sternly. “The other one was from Albie, which is right across the state line from you.”
“That’s right,” Gibby affirmed. “I take it you haven’t been there.”
“Not unless a thousand flaming queens in silver sequins and feather boas and doing the can-can towed me there,” Tamara said amicably. “And I’d have to be dressed like Elvis in drag.”
Kameko nodded approvingly.
Gibby’s smile slipped. “Flaming queens,” she repeated doubtfully.
Tamara stopped midair with a glass of iced tea. “Oh, do not tell me you don’t know what a queen is.”
“Elizabeth II? Mary of Scots? Hamlet’s mother?” Gibby said quickly.
“Dude,” Kameko said with an admiring tone. “Why are you here?”
“I guess you mean me,” Gibby surmised. “Well, I’m on a mission.”
“A mission,” Tamara said. “Of course you are.”
“I’ve been trying to think of what to say to you ever since last night,” Gibby started blandly. “My boss, his name is Pascal Waterford and he’s the mayor of Sawdust City, said to tell you that we’d give you a percentage of the proceeds. You know, name your price. But right now, Sawdust has about minus ten percent proceeds. If a creditor could come and take the town away with a tow truck, I think they already would have done that. People are very nervous about their jobs. Some are nervous that they’re going to be eating Hamburger Helper and dog food all winter. ”
Tamara and Kameko stared as if they couldn’t look away. Gibby was hypnotic.
She went on blithely. “I’m getting ahead of myself. It all started last week, you know, when your grandfather died.”
“I’d like to forget,” Tamara said dryly. “Forget that he was ever alive.”
“Well, Pascal and I went to Shreveport to claim the body,” Gibby continued. “You know, in order to bail out Sawdust City. A little fame and glory might save our united tushies in the manner of increased tourism and interest in the area. So we paid his hospital bill and even a little storage fee. Did you know they charge for storing bodies?” She didn’t stop for an answer. “And there was this wretched little woman in charge of the morgue there. A little person, you know. Red hair and about yea high.” She motioned at about three and a half feet. “I bet she gave Ophelia Rector merry hell when they met. Well, we took Billy back to Sawdust in the dog catcher’s van, and then…”
While Gibby persisted talking, Tamara said to Kameko, “Is it too early for a shot of whiskey?”
Kameko was focused on Gibby and didn’t answer.
Gibby continued to speak while Tamara and Kameko stared as if their eyes had been nailed into place. “Dropped me off…Drunk as a skunk, I can tell you…They had a wake, the bunch of inebriated idiots…And the doofus took the body right to Rector Mortuary…Ophelia has the same plans as us, except in Albie…Pascal knocked his head on the side of his Ford in consternation…Then yesterday, he got his panties in a really tight wad. I thought he was going to have to have them surgically removed, I’ll tell you what.”
“Really tight wad,” Tamara repeated intently. “Go on.”
Gibby motioned vehemently with her hands. “Pascal didn’t exactly say he was going to do it, but he intimated he would.”
“Do what?” Kameko asked seriously. “What was he going to do?”
“Steal Bayou Billy’s body, of course,” Gibby said and clucked her tongue. “We realized that the power of attorney that you signed was nonbinding and that he was still up for grabs. Oh, but not literally. That’s just awful, thinking of grabbing a body.”
“Nonbinding,” Tamara said. “Why is it nonbinding?”
“Ophelia notarized it herself,” Gibby explained patiently. Then at their blank stares, she added, “She’s only a legal notary public in St. Germaine Parish in Louisiana. She can’t notarize anything in Texas. She would have to be a legal resident here. I don’t know what she was thinking. Probably that you wouldn’t care one way or the other.”
“Uh-huh,” Tamara muttered. “Bet she thought I wouldn’t take her check to the bank yesterday first thing, too.”
“Check?” Gibby said. “She paid you off?”
“She bought two sculptures,” Tamara said defensively.
“Good thing she didn’t take them with her,” Kameko said.
“Where was she going to stick those sculptures in her BMW?” Tamara snapped.
“Bad check?” Gibby guessed.
“Banker called me first thing this morning. Bitch stopped payment on that check ASAP.”
Gibby gasped. “That inhuman mass of malignant dirty underwear,” she said. Then she covered her mouth. “She figured that you’d keep your statues and she’d have the power of attorney and that Billy would be buried before you could shake a stick at a lawyer. And she could always sweet talk you into believing it was a big mistake on her part.”
Tamara looked at Kameko and said, “Did she actually mean that?”
Kameko nodded firmly. “Yep. Too bad she’s straight. She’d be my goddess any day.”
“Kameko,” Tamara protested.
“Oh, baby, you know you’re my number one stud,” Kameko purred at Tamara.
“That’s right,” Tamara affirmed. “And don’t you forget it.”
Gibby nervously took a sip of iced tea. “I don’t guess I really got to the point, did I?”
Tamara shook her head. “Nope, you didn’t, but it’s been an entertaining story to date. Did the mayor actually steal bitch-assed Bill’s body?”
“I don’t know,” Gibby murmured. “But if he did, will you give it to us?”
“Will you buy a sculpture?” Tamara demanded.
“Sweetie, we couldn’t buy a little piece of one of your sculptures,” Gibby said regretfully, her gaze going to the silvery behemoth longingly. “If I said we could, I’d be lying like a hound dog in the shade on a hundred and five degree day.”
Tamara sighed. “At least you’re honest. What do you have to offer?”
So Gibby told her explicitly, without withholding a single bit of information.
When all was said and done, Kameko said, “Your mayor-bud wouldn’t really steal a corpse,
would he?”
So Gibby tried calling Pascal. However, the office phone rang and rang without even Deanna, the hefty-hooters-having receptionist answering it. Pascal’s cell phone also went unanswered.
All Gibby could do was grimace painfully.
Chapter Seventeen
From an article in The Dautry Digest dated September 16th, 1945:
Singing Louisiana Governor Calls Bayou Billy a Hero!
James Davis, the singing Louisianan Governor, praised William ‘Bayou Billy’ McCall today for his efforts in rescuing a drowning woman along the Mississippi River.
Witnesses report that the woman, identified as Charlotte Mills, 26 years of age, had been thrown into the river by an irate gentleman who was identified as the woman’s husband, Michael Mills. The infamous ‘Bayou Billy,’ fresh from an outing of picnicking and robbing the First Fidelity Bank of Vidalia, Louisiana, and was making good his escape across the Natchez-Vidalia Bridge when the reputed husband and wife were sighted fighting. ‘Bayou Billy’ is said to have stopped to break up the sorry affair. A witness reports that ‘Billy’ audaciously stated, “I hate to see a man beating on a woman,” “That man needs to have his private parts castrated,” and “I would throw him into a freezer to be locked up until he screamed for mercy and frost dropped from his mustache, if I were allowed to pass judgment on him.”
When the Honorable Jimmie Davis was asked about ‘Bayou Billy’s’ gallant rescue, he declared, “The man deserves a medal, but only if he refrains from robbing banks.”
‘Billy’ is said to have piled the attractive Charlotte Mills into an old Model-T-Ford and driven into Mississippi. Sightings of the famed outlaw have been reported in lower Mississippi and New Orleans. Mrs. Mills refuses to comment on her experiences. The whereabouts of Michael Mills are unknown.
The Present
Tuesday, July 18th
Sawdust City, Texas
Oscar Rector took the call midmorning. His cell phone rang with the sounds of the theme from The Pink Panther. He reached over from the bed, plucking the jangling unit from the nightstand and didn’t bother to look at the caller identification. As he would later reflect, that passing moment of laziness, exaggerated by a wicked hangover and an extreme need to urinate, had been the pinnacle in his life where he truly should have been more conscientious.
Who knew that hash mixed with rum and cokes and mescal will make your head pound like a kettle drum at the opera while the fat lady sings her guts out? Oscar closed his eyes and wished that the bed would stop spinning. Then without opening his eyes he jabbed a button on his phone and heard, “OS-CAR!”
Oscar bounded from the bed and the cell phone went flying. “Holy partially hydrogenated crap on a popsicle stick!” he yelled. “It wasn’t me! It was Oren! It was Oxford! Hell, Oakley drove from Dallas and did it! It was the one armed man from the grassy knoll!” Then he stopped and looked around at the messy arrangement of his bedroom. Tinny sounds were emanating from somewhere around his right foot. He looked down and wished he hadn’t because the floor heaved mightily and his nose was introduced forcibly to the hardwood surface. However, when things stopped lurching in general, his cell phone was two inches in front of his right eye, halfway hidden by an empty bottle of Monte Alban Mezcal and a large water bong shaped like King Kong holding Fay Wray by the titties.
“OSCAR!” bellowed the phone imperiously. “I need you! I need you RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!”
Oscar looked at the bong curiously. What did I smoke last night? I mean, Chuck said it was some bad shit, but this is ridiculous. His cell phone was cursing at him and even worse, it sounded exactly like his mother. But Ophelia Rector rarely cursed, and when she did it was usually a ‘darn,’ or a mild ‘damn,’ and on one memorable occasion an irritated ‘shit,’ when she was particularly peeved. And cell phones didn’t curse at all. To be more specific, cell phones weren’t supposed to speak at all.
He knocked the empty mescal bottle aside reaching for the phone and had another thought. Did I eat the worm? Was it like a hallucinogenic worm? He spun the bottle lazily about and did not see any slimy, pickled larva of any kind, much less remnants thereof.
Finally, it dawned on Oscar that the cell phone wasn’t speaking but that it was actually his mother on the line. “Oh, crudbuckets,” he muttered and picked it up again. “Uh,” he said into the receiver. “Sorry, Mama, I dropped the phone.”
“Were you asleep? At this hour?” Ophelia demanded irately.
“It’s my day off,” he protested. Ah, God, my fucking head is going to implode. Please let her stop talking.
“Nevermindthat,” she said quickly. “I need you to do something.”
Anything. I’ll promise anything. I’ll sell my soul to the devil. I’ll chop off my dingle and deep fry it. I’ll eat putrefied rat turds covered with flies, if YOU”LL PLEASE STOP TALKING! There was abrupt silence on the phone and for one horrified moment, Oscar wondered if he had said the last thought aloud instead of to himself. But Ophelia was simply waiting for him to come to comprehension. “Okay?” he said weakly.
“Here’s what I want you to do,” she said. When she told him, Oscar grunted grudgingly and hurriedly acceded that he would follow her instructions, whether he liked it or not. So he did.
•
An hour later, Oscar and Orem Rector were parked in Orem’s Ford Mustang one city block from Sawdust City’s City Hall. They had their eyes on the one and only exit from the parking lot that the city employees used. Oscar was drinking a tall coffee obtained from 7/Eleven. Orem was surreptitiously picking his nose and wiping the proceeds on the steering wheel.
“Would you please stop that?” Oscar asked politely for the third time. His head still pounded despite the fact that he had taken four aspirins and swallowed an entire glass of bicarbonate soda along with a big dose of vitamin C. So he’d purchased a package of frozen tater tots from the convenience store and was holding them to the side of his head in an abortive effort to freeze the pain away. According to Oscar’s best hangover cure research, a package of frozen peas was most effective for headaches, but 7/Eleven only had frozen tots in big package size. So tots it was.
“Stop what?” Orem asked, wiping a particularly large booger onto the wheel next to a company of its compatriots. “Hey, look. It’s Mama.”
Oscar perked up. Indeed his mother drove up to Sawdust City’s city hall in her beamer. She was followed by an Albie police car and a Sawdust City police car. All parked in the lot. The Sawdust City police chief redirected Ophelia’s parking so that she wasn’t blocking several cars from exiting. She did so resentfully and with what Oscar perceived as a restrained roar at the law official.
“Wow,” Orem said calmly. “Sure glad that’s not me. She’d have me by the hairy conkers by now and no telling when Mama would let them go.”
Oscar said, “She’s got herself wrapped up in this Bayou Billy thing like an Egyptian mummy with bandages.”
“She really thinks this mayor guy took the dead guy, uh, I mean, recently departed?” Orem said.
“Would we be here otherwise?” Oscar said painfully and readjusted the rapidly melting tots on his head. He wiped residual moisture away from his cheek.
“No, I guess not.” Orem looked at his index finger and it was obvious to Oscar that he was considering another attempt at gold mining. “So what are we doing here?”
“Doing the police’s job,” Oscar answered wearily. “They come here, poke Mayor Waterford in the ass, get to search the shitty place, and then when they leave we follow Waterford to where he stashed the booty.”
“What booty?” Orem asked innocently.
“The body,” Oscar snapped. “The corpse. The dead guy. The stiff.”
“Okay, jeez,” Orem replied. “Don’t get your nads in a twist. I mean, what did you do last night? You look like you got pounded by a gang of pissed off transvestites in high heels.” He chuckled at the mental image.
“Drank too much,” Oscar said sullenly. “Smoked too
much. Answered the phone this morning. Any of the above.”
“Do you really think the dumb shit is going to leave here as soon as the cops go and take us straight to the dead guy, uh, I mean, freshly deceased angel?” Orem examined his finger again, apparently judging if the fingernail length was correct for scraping the mucus cells from the interior of his nostrils. Then he looked carefully at his middle finger, as if determining if that one was better suited for snot extraction. “That sounds stupid. Even for someone who’s stupid enough to steal a dead, uh, I mean, lost soul’s eternal remnants.”
Oscar adjusted the tots again. “Oh, for the love of petrified, lumpy dinosaur farts. How the hell should I know? Ma said be here. I’m here. You’re here. But really, Waterford isn’t that goddamn stupid.” He smiled although it hurt. “He told Ma that he hoped her tits would rot and fall off.”
Orem choked. “No way. And he’s still breathing. How about that.”
Rubbing his forehead with his free hand, Oscar shrugged. “I heard it for myself. Also a, let’s see, shanky-assed, brother-groping, something about a jock strap, and an assclown.” He nodded approvingly. “Best insult I’ve ever heard. Makes me want to vote for him. That is, if I lived in Sawdust City.”
“She’s got a hit man, you know,” Orem said seriously. “Someone from Cuba who defected. The guy really did kill Castro and then came to the United States on a boat made out of tobacco crates. Some lookalike took over for Castro. Then, this guy came here and Ma hires him once in a while. You know, for when business gets slow. He makes things look like accidents.”
Oscar looked at Orem. His brother was in deadly earnest. “Did Oakley tell you that bullshit? How can you believe that?”
Orem shrugged. “You know Ma. It ain’t exactly impossible.”
“Well, there’s that,” Oscar admitted reluctantly. “Hey look, that was quick. There’s the cops and Ma. And the mayor himself. Man, does Mama look aggravated?”
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