by Matt Hilton
So what was her best state of play?
She should contact Zeke Menon and appeal to what little good sense he might possess. If she convinced him that she could be trusted to stay quiet about what she had witnessed – which didn’t amount to much, she’d assure him – then would he allow her to return home unmolested? No. He would not. She didn’t know Zeke well, but had heard enough stories around town, and knew he was a violent and unpredictable man. How he wasn’t permanently behind bars astounded her, but it didn’t take too much figuring out: his victims’ fear of retribution against their loved ones.
Her brothers were not the kind to be intimidated, and if the shoe were on the other foot she knew they’d take the fight back to Zeke. But they would die or go to jail, and she didn’t want that. She had never been particularly close to either of her brothers, both of whom were a generation older than her, and her dad had proven an uncaring, aloof man who had never shown her any love, but she wished no harm would come to them. And then there was her mom. Clara had enough on her plate with her fading health and the last Emilia wanted was to bring her any more stress. She had watched her mother fading in the last few months, and trouble with the Menons might just be the last straw.
She wondered how her mother was faring now. Was she worried about Emilia’s sudden disappearance, or had she even noticed she’d gone? Sadly, because it would mean spending more time around her father, Emilia had been neglectful of her mother’s care so had rarely visited or made contact since leaving home. The realization shamed her. Brought forth fresh tears, these hotter and fed by different emotions than before.
She thought long and hard about calling her mom, but only to tell her that she was going to be out of town for a few days and not to worry, and with the caveat that she told nobody they’d spoken. She kept putting the call off. But finally, she reached for her cellphone. And recalled that it was in several composite parts spread around town.
Outside her room a woman shrieked.
Emilia bolted upright. Had Zeke found her, and murdered a witness to his impending crime?
Further down the walkway another woman laughed. And then the first’s scream turned into a sputter of laughter and bawdy, but friendly insults. Together the two women retreated, still laughing in the exaggerated way of drunken people. Emilia relaxed marginally, but she still slipped from the bed and went tentatively to her window. She teased aside curtains the colour of cow dung and peeked through the narrow gap. She couldn’t see the women but could hear them descending the rickety stairs at the far end of the walkway, their high heels clacking on the metal. She guessed they were heading out to their favourite street corners to ply their trade to passing motorists.
Nearby a TV roared at full volume, machineguns and explosions competing. Some guys argued angrily beyond the parking lot. Traffic groaned by on the congested highway behind the motel. Next door, she heard voices and the clatter of an item thrown haphazardly into the kitchenette sink. One of the room’s inhabitants swore at the other and seconds later a door slammed below her. The neighbourhood was taking on a different atmosphere as night descended: and it had been bad enough in daylight.
Emilia retreated from the window. She took another look around at the shabby carpet, the stained bedclothes, and the doors hanging off the sunken cupboards in her kitchenette. There was a small TV, an ancient thing formed of cream-colored plastic with ungainly black knobs and dials. The curtains were horrible and stank of cigarette smoke. She couldn’t abide to be in the place any longer.
She’d fetched little by way of belongings with her. She had the one set of clothes she stood up in, and her purse, into which she’d shoved her tablet. She was of a mind to request a refund from the desk clerk, but knew she would be on the losing side of the argument. Besides, she had no intention of bringing notice to her. If she asked for her rent back, the man’s eyes would be forced from her chest to meet her gaze. It wasn’t a risk she was about to take, despite being down to her last few dollars.
She pulled the door shut behind her, then paused, checking along the walkway for any familiar faces. A man squatted in an open doorway, a stringy guy with greasy, unkempt hair lying on the shoulders of a dingy grey undershirt, and denims with holes at the knees. His feet were bare, filthy, and his toenails long and yellow. He didn’t hide the fact he was shooting heroin into his arm as she edged past him. She kept to the railing, fearful that he might try to snag her ankle and drag her back inside his reeking hovel with him, but the creaking metal railings warned her not to place too much security in them. She picked up speed and made it to the steps down. She didn’t look back.
As she fled from her hotel her heart rate was elevated. She didn’t initially feel the cold, but once she was out on the sidewalk adjacent to the highway the breeze cut through her and she began shivering uncontrollably. She had slung her purse over one shoulder, but now hooked it against her stomach, held tightly against her with her crossed arms. Days earlier she’d dressed for a date with her boyfriend, and when in the warmth of Jason’s truck, her skimpy attire versus the cold snap that had descended over Louisiana hadn’t been a concern. Now she was underdressed, dirty from hiding in the swamp, and smelling of the room she’d vacated. There was just one benefit: she blended with the cheapest of cheap crack-whores lining the highway. She even earned herself a honk or two of a horn, as passing curb-crawlers slowed to check out her butt and the tautness of her lithe calf muscles. She thought that if she could lower herself to their level, then she might be able to earn a living after all. She angrily shook off the thought: it wasn’t even funny making jokes like that.
She hadn’t made many forays into the local neighbourhood. She’d thought her own locale back in New Iberia was a bit on the rough side, but it was a peaceful haven compared to this one. She felt nervous simply walking alone at night, and the sooner she could get somewhere with more lighting and people with a full set of teeth the better. She was seeking an internet café, or maybe a public bar where she might find a payphone she could use. But there wasn’t an establishment she felt comfortable entering: not without an armed guard.
She cut off the main highway and found a commercial strip. None of the dingy storefronts advertised what she was seeking, so she pushed on. A scruffy terrier dog, its rump enflamed and scabrous, watched her walk by, waited until she was past and then began yapping: the dog sounded insulted that she hadn’t paused to pet it. She pitied the poor thing, but not enough to lay a hand on its mangy hide. She blew it a well-meaning kiss instead, and the dog cocked its head to one side, watching her now in silence. Some of the other pedestrians cast her similarly inquisitive glances. She knew why. She was a mess, but more so she was jittery with nerves. Out in the open like this, she half expected the Menons to drive by, bring their pickup to a squealing halt to grab her and bundle her inside. Her fear was exaggerated, but only until someone recognized her, and there was still the faint possibility of that happening.
When she had walked away from Rachel’s house she’d had a plan to throw off any pursuit. She’d headed towards the bus station and bought a ticket to New Orleans. But only a couple of miles out of town she’d asked the driver to stop the bus, got off, took a cab back into Lafayette and then walked across town to the grim neighbourhood where she’d laid low the past few days. Anyone asking Rachel about her might trace her to the bus station, but from there they’d expect her to have travelled to New Orleans. She thought she was being clever, but now she realized she would have been better staying on that damn bus. Hiding in her own stomping ground probably wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had, even if at the time it had felt like solid logic. What did she know about disappearing anyway? Everything she knew came from mystery books and TV programs. She should know from them that the one on the run was always found by her pursuers.
With unlimited funds, she could disappear permanently. But her available cash was meagre and growing shorter by the day. She couldn’t survive out here alone like this. It was time to adapt her p
lan with that in mind.
The first bar she tried had a phone, but it required a credit card. She left the bar, and found another, but there was no working phone. Thankfully she found one in a convenience store at the next strip mall. She scratched around for quarters and dollar bills, and readied them: it was so long ago that she’d used a public telephone that it took her a few awkward seconds to figure it out.
She didn’t think Zeke Menon had the ability to bug her family home, so felt safe enough ringing the house. She expected her mom to answer, it was usually a task assigned to her, but the surly grunt was her father.
‘Papa?’ She was barely discernible, a faint squeak.
‘Is dat you, girl?’ Darius Chatard’s voice was loud and husky, testament of a fifty-a-day smoking habit he’d followed for as long as Emilia could remember. His Acadian roots also heavily afflicted his accent.
‘Yes, it’s me.’ By contrast Emilia thought her own voice was higher-pitched than usual, the voice of a frightened little girl.
‘Where d’ goddamn hell you been?’ Darius demanded, as if scolding her for being late home after curfew. She wasn’t a teenager any more, and didn’t have to answer to him, not normally. This time however she knew she owed him an explanation.
‘Papa, I had to go away for a few days, you see …’ She didn’t know what further to add and the words stuck in her throat.
‘Goddamnit, we been lookin’ all over for you. Your brothers have been goin’ mad, running all over town. You know how much trouble you causing us, girl?’
‘I’m sorry, Papa, but I … I had no choice.’
‘You had no choice? You had every damn choice! Your mama … she needs you, and you’re off on some goddamn bender with that asshole junkie Jason Lombard. When I see him, you’d better tell him, I’m gonna bust him upside his damn head for turning you astray. You been on dem drugs wid him again, girl?’ As his anger grew, Darius’s Acadian accent thickened. Emilia knew that before long he’d be cursing her in French.
Instead of answering his accusation, she changed the subject. ‘How is my mama? You said she needs me, Papa. Is she OK?’
Darius exhaled into the mouthpiece. ‘Your mama is far from OK, girl. You needs to git your skinny butt back here right now.’
‘I … I can’t come home, Papa. Not yet.’
‘What’s that you say? Can’t come home? Now you listen to me, and none o’ your smart lip. Remember, you’re not too old to take a whupping, girl. Git yourself home right now afore I come drag you back by your hair!’
‘Papa, it’s not that I don’t want to …’
‘Is it him? Is Jason stopping you? Put dat junkie fuck on d’ phone right now.’
‘It isn’t Jason.’
‘Den it’s just you being defiant. Home, girl. Now. Don’t make me tell you agin.’
‘Papa, I want to come home. I really do.’ Emilia couldn’t see clearly for tears. There was nothing more she wanted than to go home, even if it was a place she’d felt unwelcome in recent years. ‘But I can’t. Not yet. Please, Papa, trust me. I’d only bring trouble with me.’
‘Trouble? You think you know trouble. Continue defying me and you’ll see what trouble looks, and feels, like.’
‘Papa, please stop. I know you’re angry, worried, but please listen to me. I can’t come home, and you’re going to have to accept that for now. What about Mama? You said she’s far from OK? What do you mean?’
‘Her heart give out.’
‘What? Is she …’
‘She’s alive. Made it through, but she’s failing, girl. So you gotta git your ass back here now, before you too late to say yo goodbyes.’ Darius calmed a little. He had mellowed with age, and the perpetual anger he’d once exhibited couldn’t be sustained for long these days. His anger at Emilia, she realized, was through concern for his wife. Her mom was dying.
‘I’m coming now, Papa.’
‘There now, dat wasn’t so difficult after all. What is dis trouble you wus talking about?’
‘I can’t come to the house,’ Emilia said. ‘Papa, where is my mama?’
‘Your mama ain’t here, any rate. She down d’ hospital.’
Emilia clarified with him that Clara was at the Iberia General Hospital and Medical Center.
‘Where else she be at, girl? Now where you? I’ll have the boys come get you.’
‘No, don’t send them. I’ll make my own way there. Papa … will you be at the hospital?’
‘You know I got no truck wid dem places.’
Emilia didn’t answer; she hung up before her money ran out.
SEVENTEEN
As he replaced the handset on his phone, the older man glimpsed up at his visitors and gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his wide shoulders. ‘Kids, huh?’ he growled. ‘D’ older they git, de more trouble dey bring ya.’
‘Not a problem I’ve got,’ said Zeke Menon. Then with an ugly twist of his mouth. ‘None that I’ll own up to anyways. I could have dozens of little bastards out there someplace, but they mean nothin’ to me.’
Darius Chatard looked over at the hulking figure of Cleary Menon standing in one corner of his family room. ‘Looks as if you have your hands full lookin’ after that’n over there. Isn’t he right in d’ skull?’
Cleary’s head came up and he stared balefully at Darius. Zeke adjusted the peak of his cap. He didn’t give a shit if Cleary ripped the old man’s head off his shoulders, but only after he’d finalized their business. ‘Cleary’s his own man, I assure you, an’ doesn’t need me to hold his hand,’ he said and he heard a growl of agreement from his brother.
Darius Chatard pushed out of the chair he’d taken to answer the phone. He grunted, and both knees popped before he’d righted himself. He was ageing, fast approaching seventy years old, but was still a commanding figure. His large head was stacked on top of broad shoulders, and he had a barrel chest, only slightly rounder than his big belly. He wore a thick, drooping moustache, white as snow that seemed to glow against his weathered, sun-darkened skin. His legs were bowed slightly as he walked. ‘Let’s go out on the deck,’ he announced. ‘I got beer in the cooler, and I need a smoke.’
Zeke took a lingering glance at the phone. He wondered if he could check the last caller number, and trace back Emilia to her current location, without raising her father’s suspicions about his motive. But why risk it? From what he’d overheard, Emilia was en route to her mother’s bedside, and Zeke need only return to the hospital and wait for her. But he counted himself a resourceful man, who could benefit in more ways than one. He wanted to kill Nicolas Villere, but why not be paid for his trouble? It was what was called a win-win. ‘C’mon, Cleary,’ he said, and followed Darius.
To the immediate south of New Iberia, the Chatard property sat alongside one of many drainage canals – known locally as coulees – that took standing water away from town to spill into Vermilion Bay. Here the coulee was sluggish, and was almost obscured beneath a blanket of lily pads and detritus fallen from the overhanging boughs of trees. It smelled faintly of rotting vegetation. Not far away was the Port of Iberia, set on a network of waterways into which the coulee spilled. Zeke could hear the faint sounds of commerce, and smell the fumes from the industrial complexes. The unpleasant aromas, the faint yet constant din could spoil the thought of living there for some people. Nevertheless, the house and the plot it stood upon were picturesque. Surrounded on its borders by tall trees, there was no visual hint that it stood so close to the ugly industrial and shipping hub. Zeke envied Darius’s home and aspired to own something similar. No, scratch that, something grander. Being a resourceful man, he decided that if a petty criminal of Darius Chatard’s calibre could attain property like this, then he should have himself a Southern mansion in no time. After years of coasting along – towing his brother along with him – he thought it high time to begin climbing. He could do that via the clever manipulation of men who thought of him as a lowly hireling, someone to get his hands dirty on their behalf. Seeming
ly doing their bidding, they would never guess he was actually building his own legend, until he surpassed theirs. At which point there’d be no more taking instruction from old has-beens like Darius Chatard, and punks of Al Keane’s ilk would bow and scrape to please him. Nathaniel Corbin would take some ousting, but nothing was impossible if you put your mind to the task, and never took a backwards step.
Bugs danced in the bright light that spilled beyond the deck and illuminated the trees on the opposite side of the coulee. There were chairs on the raised deck but nobody took one. Darius fished cans of Budweiser from a plastic cooler box. Zeke accepted one and popped the tab.
‘Beer,’ said Cleary. The twist of his mouth said enough about his distaste for alcohol for Darius to dump the third tin back in the ice.
‘Suit yoursel’,’ he said, and took a seat on the railing surrounding his deck. Cleary peered at him with small, piggy eyes, before turning away and staring out at the middle distance. Darius glanced at Zeke, who merely tilted his head in a ‘beats me’ gesture.
‘Prefers soda?’ Darius was deliberately snarky.
‘As a matter of fact, he does.’
‘I ain’t got none.’
‘Don’t matter.’ Zeke knew from the intensity of Cleary’s stance that his attention had pinpointed on something in the nearby illuminated trees. Zeke took a quick squint, caught a flutter of brightly coloured plumage, and knew what Cleary was fascinated by. ‘Can we get back to why I’m here?’
