by Jana DeLeon
Finally, I saw a tiny flicker of light in the middle of the black. As we drew closer, the faint lines of the large building came into view. It was comprised of weathered wood—rotted in places—and a tin roof with holes rusted through it. I completely understood Francine’s sentiment about decent women not coming out here for a drink. I wouldn’t walk in the place unless I had two guns pulled and an up-to-date tetanus shot.
Ida Belle backed her car into a stretch of dirt at the far end of the open space that served as a parking lot. A truck with giant wheels blocked it completely from view of anyone in the bar—anyone that could see in the dark, that is.
I unfolded myself out of the backseat and looked at my two partners in crime. “Well?”
“We thought you’d need a moment for the blood flow to return to your legs,” Gertie explained. She looked over at Ida Belle. “She’s in really good shape.”
Ida Belle waved a hand in dismissal. “Let’s get this done. It’s going to take me the rest of the night to get those bugs off my paint job, and I still have to roll my hair.”
“There’s Melvin’s truck,” I said, pointing to the rust bucket I’d seen him peel away from my house in.
“Good,” Ida Belle said. “Then this isn’t a waste of time.”
I didn’t bother to respond. The jury was still way out on that one.
We started across the open patch toward the building, and I immediately saw a problem. “Where are the windows?”
I had a clear view of the front and one side of the building. The side with the door in the center had a porch light, but there wasn’t a window in sight, and no glow emitted out of the walls.
“Too much glass in a place like this is dangerous,” Ida Belle explained. “There’re window openings on the bayou side that they cover with plywood when they close the bar.”
Nice. “Seems a lot of effort. What time do they close?”
“I think the last time was in 1982.”
“Uh-huh. What about during Katrina?”
“No way! It was dollar-beer night.”
I knew I was going to regret it, but I couldn’t help but ask. “So, what did manage to close the bar?”
“AC/DC was performing in New Orleans. The brothers that own the bar are huge fans, and neither would agree to stay behind and keep the bar open. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem as their father would have filled in, but he was in jail at the time for shooting one of the patrons.”
Yep. I regretted it.
“Is Father Shooter still around?”
“Yeah, he’s the bouncer, but his vision’s going, so it’s unlikely he’d hit you if he got off a shot.”
“Unlikely” didn’t seem all that great of odds, but this was my penance for not asking for specifics before getting into Ida Belle’s car. If I managed to get through this unscathed, I was going to start requiring them to complete a detailed description of the mission—in writing—before I agreed to anything else.
“All segues into eighties rock bands and murder two aside, how exactly are we supposed to peek inside the bar if the only windows are over the bayou?”
“We’re going to steal a boat, of course,” Gertie said.
“Of course we are,” I grumbled. I don’t know why I’d asked. It should have been so obvious. “And if someone sees us?”
“Oh, wait!” Gertie reached into her enormous handbag and pulled out three black ski masks. “This will hide our identities.”
I didn’t bother to point out that the options for three people—two old, one young—who would steal a boat at the Swamp Bar to spy on someone, wouldn’t be that hard to pick out of the Sinful population. I pulled on the ski mask. What the hell.
I looked over at Ida Belle and Gertie and winced. Black ski masks, black sweats, and black turtlenecks were definitely not the happening thing for senior citizens. Ida Belle pointed to the left and started walking. I followed the two thieving seniors to the pier and stared into the dim glow cast by the pier light, studying our options. All of them looked like they were five seconds away from following the Titanic down, and I’d be willing to bet none of them had Leonardo Decaprio, or anyone remotely resembling him, on board.
“The one on the end is best,” Ida Belle said. “It will be quieter and easier.”
Both good things when you’re stealing, I supposed.
“Okay,” Ida Belle instructed, “you guys take the boat around. I’m going to circle the bar and keep watch from the bank on the back side.”
“You’re leaving me alone with Gertie in the boat?” I asked. “What glasses is she wearing?”
“She’s only got to go ten feet. That she can manage. But just in case, do you want the person with the only set of car keys on board with you?”
I sighed and stepped into the boat as Ida Belle disappeared into the darkness. Gertie stepped in and stopped to pick up a long pole from the bottom of the boat. She handed it to me, then grabbed an oar and went to the back of the boat.
“Stick the pole in the water and use it to push the boat,” she said. “I don’t want to risk using the motor.”
Because I agreed with her one hundred percent on that risk, I stuck the pole in the slimy mud at the bottom of the bayou and got to pushing. As we inched up to the side of the bar, I realized that quite literally half of it was perched on giant stilts right over the water. Waves of cigarette smoke billowed out the openings that served as windows, and I could already feel my lungs constricting. Loud country music blared from a jukebox, and I could hear the sounds of at least one fight.
But before we even got into position below the window, I could already see a problem. The window was a good foot above my head, even though I was standing on the bow.
“Darn it,” Gertie said as she grabbed a knot on a piece of siding to hold us in place. “The tide’s out.”
“Is there anything I can stand on?”
Gertie brightened. “That’s right! You have that catlike balance. There’s a plastic bucket back here. Will that do?”
“That’s fine,” I grumbled, just wanting to get this over with.
“Hurry up!” Ida Belle hissed from around the corner on the bank.
I positioned the white bucket upside down on the bow and carefully stepped up onto it in a crouching position. Gertie passed me her smart phone, and I slowly rose up the side of the bar until I could peer inside.
The smoke was so thick, I had to wait for a good breeze to waft in before I could see much. I scanned the bar looking for that idiot Melvin, and finally spotted him sitting at a corner table, in deep conversation with a woman.
I squinted, trying to get a better look at her, but finally decided I hadn’t seen her before.
“Do you see him?” Gertie whispered.
“Yeah. He’s talking to a woman.”
Five foot five, a hundred fifty pounds, probably good in a bar fight.
“She’s a bit younger than him,” I continued, “but rough around the edges. Really rough.”
“It figures. We’re trying to get a cover for Marie, and he’s trying to get laid. Well, get a shot of them anyway. You never know what might come in handy.”
I stuck the smart phone over the ledge and zoomed in on Melvin and his honey. I snapped a couple of pictures of them before he rose from the table and walked toward the counter.
“He’s headed over to the bar. Maybe I can get a shot of him talking to someone else.”
“We’ll work with whatever you can get.”
Melvin slid onto a stool at the bar and motioned to the bartender, a burly man that even I wouldn’t want to take on in close quarters.
Six foot four, two hundred fifty pounds of mean.
I’d beat him in a footrace, hands down, but something told me he’d probably close that gap with a gun. The bartender filled two mugs of beer and slid them in front of Melvin. He leaned across the bar to speak to the bartender, who moved in so that they were only inches from each other.
I snapped a couple of pictures. That bar
tender was a great suspect. He was scary looking, of sketchy legal background, and had no reason to be sharing secrets with Melvin, especially as he’d already served the beer.
“Are you done yet?” Ida Belle hissed again. “More cars are pulling up. We need to get out of here.”
“Just a bit more,” I said as I lowered the smart phone and watched Melvin as he left the counter. If he stopped to talk to anyone else on his way across the bar, I could get another shot.
The delay proved to be my undoing.
A slutty redhead with more cleavage showing than I’d seen in public in years, came walking into the bar. Melvin’s head yanked around to get a better look as if it had been snapped with a rubber band; then he walked right into the back of an enormous bald guy’s chair and dumped an entire mug of beer on top of him.
The guy sprang up, breaking the wooden chair in two with the effort, and clocked Melvin before he could even stutter out an apology. Three other men jumped in the fray, and it flashed across my mind that now was a good time to get the hell out of there.
“Bar fight,” I said and tossed Gertie the smart phone.
I took one final peek inside just as the bartender stepped from behind the counter. The fight had ventured close to the window, and it was clear that Melvin was not going to come out on top of this one as he was currently curled in a ball on the floor. I looked back up just in time to see the bartender heave a bucket toward the fighters, and a second later, a burst of ice water hit me full in the face.
“What the hell!” the bartender yelled.
Through blurry eyes, I saw he’d locked in on me.
“Go!” I yelled at Gertie, but she was already ahead of me, tugging on the motor.
Before I could even jump off the bucket, the motor fired and she launched the boat backward, pitching me off into the bayou.
“Swim!” Ida Belle yelled from the bank as Gertie continued her backward run, showing no sign of slowing.
The front door to the bar burst open, and I heard people running outside as I swam like an Olympic athlete for the bank. The cries of the outraged bar patrons echoed through the open swamp.
“Someone’s stealing my boat!”
“Get ’em!”
“Grab my rifle!”
“Some bitch!”
As soon as my hands touched ground, I sprang up and ran as fast as the quicksand mud would allow. Ida Belle was standing in a patch of moonlight, gesturing frantically. We ran behind the row of cars and hurried down the edge of the marsh until we reached Ida Belle’s car.
“They’re all chasing Gertie,” Ida Belle said as she unlocked her trunk. “Now’s our chance to get out of here.”
She reached into the trunk and tossed me a couple of trash bags. “Shed those clothes.”
I stared. “You’re serious?”
“Get naked, or I leave you here, but leave the mask on in case we run into anyone on the road home.” She tossed me a towel. “Wipe the mud off your hands.”
I could hear the search party mounting in size and temperament, but Ida Belle just stood there, not about to unlock the car doors. Refusing to die in the middle of the swamp at the hands of people who were not worthy appointments taken individually, I pulled off my clothes and shoved them in the trash bag, then wrapped the second trash bag around me.
Ida Belle finally unlocked the doors, and I jumped into the passenger’s seat as she tossed the dirty clothes into the trunk. A couple seconds later, she slid into the driver’s seat and we took off, sans headlights. Good God.
“For heaven’s sake,” Ida Belle complained, “don’t touch anything. And keep your feet firmly in the middle of the floor mat.”
I felt my back tighten as she drifted the Corvette around a corner that I couldn’t even see, praying there was road beneath us. “You have serious issues. You know that, right?”
“So you say, but my car doesn’t smell like an algal bloom.”
“What about Gertie? Aren’t we going to help her?”
“Gertie’s fine. She knows these channels like the back of her hand. She’ll get away clean and leave the boat drifting.”
Gertie’s unadmitted vision problems made that seem far less of a sure thing than Ida Belle made it sound, but I was in no position to argue. I was in no position to do anything but get indoors.
“Uh-oh,” Ida Belle said. “We’ve got company.”
I turned around in my seat, but couldn’t see anything behind us but the light from the bar.
“Not there,” Ida Belle said.
I turned back around and saw headlights curving through the swamp ahead of us. “I guess there’s no chance they’re on a different road.”
“There’s only one road out here.”
“Just stay cool,” I said. “They’re probably headed to the bar and will drive right past.”
“You’re probably right,” Ida Belle said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
But even as I said it, I knew we were sunk. “I don’t suppose there are any more Corvettes in town.…”
“Of course. Why do you think I chose American over a German model? Granted, mine is in much better shape, but all the drug dealers have black Corvettes. At night, I blend.”
I didn’t even bother to question the logic of blending with drug dealers. At the moment, it was a better option than being mistaken for ourselves. I held my breath as we rounded a corner that put us face-to-face with the other vehicle, which was stopped in the middle of the road, leaving no room to drive around.
Ida Belle slowed to a stop. “This is so not good.”
I started to reach for my gun, then remembered my gun was in a trash bag in the trunk and probably waterlogged, anyway.
Someone rapped on my car window and I jumped. Ida Belle lowered the window and Deputy LeBlanc leaned down to the look into the car. He didn’t seem surprised to see either of us—and I had no doubt he knew who we were despite the masks—but his eyes widened when he saw my latest choice of garments.
He sighed. “I promised myself when I saw this car, that no matter what, I wasn’t going to ask questions I really didn’t want to know the answer to. But I have to admit, this one has tempted me beyond all good common sense.”
“She fell into the bayou,” Ida Belle said. “And she’s not riding in my car in wet clothes, so I made her improvise. Give me a ticket if you want.”
“And you fell in the bayou how, exactly?” he asked me.
“Trying to avoid a bar fight,” I replied. It was the truth. The short version, anyway.
“Uh-huh. And why were you at the Swamp Bar to begin with?”
“Checking out the local culture.”
“Do you always check out the local culture wearing ski masks?”
“We did facials before we left my house,” Ida Belle chimed in. “This is supposed to make us look ten years younger.”
“I see. So your visit wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Melvin usually hangs out at the Swamp Bar when he’s not in jail.”
“Really?” Ida Belle said. “I had no idea, but then, we weren’t there long.”
He snorted. “I bet. Where’s your partner in crime?”
“Gertie has a headache and stayed home to rest,” Ida Belle said.
Deputy LeBlanc raised an eyebrow. “So, if I called her house right now, she’d answer?”
“Of course not. I told you she was resting.”
“Uh-huh. Then she wouldn’t know anything about the call I got concerning a stolen boat…”
“Not unless she’s psychic,” I volunteered.
Deputy LeBlanc closed his eyes for a moment, and I could see him mentally counting to ten. Finally, he opened his eyes and pointed at Ida Belle. “Turn on your headlights, take off those ridiculous masks, drive straight home, and do not come out of your house for the rest of the night. If you were a decent, kind person, I’d tell you to stay inside your house for an entire day so that I could catch a break, but I’m not going to waste my breath.”
“And you,” he said to me, “if you’re going to continue hanging out with these two—against good advice, I might add—then at least carry a change of clothes. I’ve seen you in more states of undress than I did my last girlfriend.”
Ida Belle rolled up the window, probably saving me from a retort I could ill afford, given the circumstances. Deputy LeBlanc walked back to his truck and backed up to let Ida Belle pull past him.
“Headlights!” he yelled as we drove past.
Ida Belle pulled off her mask and flipped on her headlights, creeping down the rock road. I pulled off my mask, and my skin screamed with relief to have the sticky, wet fabric no longer clinging to it. As soon as we hit the highway, Ida Belle launched the Corvette down the road at a clip so fast it had me gripping the sides of the seat.
She glanced down at my hands. “I told you not to touch anything, you pansy.”
I released the seat and glared. “You and I have to talk. As soon as I have regular clothes on and am strapped with a weapon.”
Ida Belle opened her mouth to retort, but her cell phone rang, interrupting whatever she was about to say, which given my current mood, was probably a really good thing for Ida Belle.
“It’s Gertie,” Ida Belle said to me as she answered the phone.
“Where are you?” Ida Belle asked.
I held my breath waiting for the answer, but Ida Belle only mumbled a few times.
“Meet us at Marge’s,” she barked into the phone and disconnected.
“Well?” I asked.
“She’s about to hop in the shower and will meet us at your place.”
“Her own shower?”
“No, she’s showering with some hot guy she met on the boat ride home. Of course her own shower.”
I shook my head. Here I was naked, wearing a trash bag, and facing another twenty minutes of this humiliation, and the senior citizen boat thief was hopping in a nice hot shower. So many things were wrong about this, I didn’t even have the mental faculties to list them all.
I rode in absolute silence the rest of the way home. It was best not to let my thoughts out into the atmosphere. Gertie opened the front door, holding a fresh cup of coffee. I walked right past her without a word and went straight upstairs for a shower and clothes. With any luck, they’d take a hint and leave while I was gone, but when I went downstairs fifteen minutes later, they were eating the chocolate pie I’d bought from Walter and drinking coffee.
