She went to a drawer, took out some things, and came back to the kitchen table. “Close your eyes,” she said to Broussard.
Finding all this rather entertaining, Broussard did as she asked. There was a rustle of taffeta and then a sharp pain on the top of his head.
“Ouch!” he said, rubbing the spot.
Grandma O showed him the hair she had plucked from his scalp. “It don’ work if you cut it off with scissors.”
She spread out on the table what she had gathered: a spool of thread, a piece of aluminum foil, a ball of yarn, a matchbox with some gray powder in it, a pair of scissors, and a small vinyl pouch with a drawstring. She filled a glass half-full of whiskey and sat down.
First, she tore off four long pieces of thread and doubled each strand four times, laying the folded strands parallel to each other a finger’s breadth apart. Then she picked up the first strand and tied a knot near one end. She took a small sip of whiskey, spread the thread on the table, and spit a tiny amount of whiskey on the knot.
She did this three more times, producing a strand with four, more or less equally spaced knots on it. Then she picked up the second strand, saying, “Four times four times four is da luckiest number dere is.”
She proceeded to tie four knots in that strand, anointing each with whiskey and saliva. This time she placed the second strand much nearer the first than before. When each strand had its full complement of knots, she spread out the foil and laid the four strands in its center. “Da foil represents light to drive away darkness,” she said.
From the matchbox, she tapped some gray powder over the soggy strands of thread. “A little grave dust for strength.” To this, she added the hair she had taken. After carefully folding the foil into a three-cornered packet with the threads, grave dust, and hair inside, she wrapped the packet round and round with yarn until she had a small ball. She tied the yarn and snipped it so as to leave a free end. Holding it by the free end, she dipped the ball in and out of her glass of whiskey, closed her eyes, and mumbled something Broussard couldn’t make out.
“Now le’s test it,” she said. “Spirit of da ball. Are you dere?”
With a talent Broussard had never suspected she possessed, Grandma O threw her voice into the ball. “Yes, I am here,” the ball said without an accent.
“Leave us now and go to da other side of da room.”
From faraway, a voice said, “Is this far enough?”
“Yes. Now come back.”
“I’m back,” the ball said.
Grandma O looked at Broussard. “It’s got an obedient spirit. Dat means it’s gonna serve you well.”
She put the ball into the vinyl pouch, pulled its drawstring shut, and gave it to Broussard. “It don’ matter where you keep it. Long as it’s under your roof it’ll protec’ you and those you care for. All you got to remember is to give it a drink of whiskey every two weeks.”
Broussard searched the old woman’s face trying to figure out if she was serious or just playing an elaborate joke on him. But there was no sign of humor in her and he accepted the gift with great seriousness.
*
Late the next day, a telephone call to Barry Hollins’s sister, Daphne Parks, turned up the car Kit had been searching for. It was in the possession of Daphne and her husband, Ned. At first Daphne had been puzzled at Kit’s request that she go to the car and determine the first five letters on the silver tag behind the engine but eventually agreed after being told that the information might help explain her brother’s behavior the day of the fire. After learning that the Hollins car was assembled in New Orleans, Kit got Daphne to agree to discuss the matter face-to-face if Kit could get there before Ned came home.
She arrived at the Parks household at exactly three fifty-two and pulled in behind a red Escadrille. As she went up the walk, she wondered who the mastermind was that thought the lawn needed a birdbath and six plastic flamingos. Afraid to touch the doorbell, which was dangling with its wires exposed, she knocked sharply on the peeling front door. While waiting for Daphne to answer, she noticed that the family had not yet taken down the Christmas lights under the eaves. The drapes over the tiny windows in the front door moved. An eye appeared in the lowest of the three, and then the door opened.
Daphne Parks was probably in her late twenties. Her thin brown hair, which she wore chopped off at her jawline, framed a face with finely drawn features and smooth translucent skin. The lack of color in Daphne’s cheeks and her dull lifeless eyes made Kit believe, as she had on the first visit to the Parks home in the days immediately following the fire, that Daphne was anemic.
She waved Kit to a chair covered in a brown check. Choosing the sofa for herself, Daphne sat on its edge, her back rigid, hands folded tightly on her knees. “I can only talk for a few minutes,” she said.
“A few minutes is all I need. I know you’re upset about what happened to your brother and his family and perhaps a little… ashamed?” Daphne nodded. “There’s a possibility that your brother was not in control of himself that day but was the victim of a toxin that may have originated in the car outside. How did you get it here?”
“Ned took me over and I drove it back. We planned to use it as my car. You know, for grocery shopping and things. The lawyer said it would be all right.”
“Do either of you know your blood type?” Daphne shook her head. “Well, don’t let Ned near the car or the results might be disastrous.”
Daphne’s forehead became as wrinkled as the skin on the elephant head in Bert Weston’s office. “What exactly is wrong with the car?” she said.
Before Kit could reply, the front door opened and a bucktoothed little boy about ten years old came in and said, “Look what I found.”
He was wearing the sunglasses Kit had left on the dash of her car.
“Why Eddy, where ever did you find those?” Daphne asked.
“That dopey looking car in our driveway. Can I keep them?”
Daphne looked at Kit. “Can he?”
Kit was shocked by Daphne’s audacity. Suppressing a desire to grab the brat by his ears, she smiled sweetly and said, “Of course he can,” immediately hating herself for being so spineless.
As the boy headed out of the room, Daphne called to him, “Didn’t you forget something?”
Kit prepared herself to say, “You’re welcome,” when the boy said, “Thank you.”
Instead he shouted, “Dad says I don’t have to shut the door,” and fled from the room.
Without a hint of annoyance, Daphne got up and shut the door. “You were about to tell me what was wrong with the car.”
“I don’t know exactly. But you can help me find out by allowing me to take it away for testing.”
Again the door opened and an angry voice filled the room. “Who the hell’s that blockin’ the driveway?”
Kit turned and saw Daphne’s husband with a stormy scowl on his fleshy face.
“It’s Dr. Franklyn,” Daphne said pleasantly.
“Oh yeah. How ya doin’? You shoulda parked in the street. If I get a ticket out front for not havin’ an inspection sticker, I’m gonna expect you to pay it.”
Ned then disappeared into the back of the house, leaving the door open even wider than his son had.
“Don’t take that personally,” Daphne said, shutting the door. “Ned acts that way toward everybody. It’s just his way.”
“Well, will you allow me to run some tests on the car?”
There was a loud belch and Ned appeared in the doorway with an aluminum can in his hand. “This is the last beer,” he said. “Finish up with what you’re doin’ there and take your brother’s car down to the corner and get me another case.”
“Ned, Dr. Franklyn wants to take the car away.”
“Take it away? What for?”
“There’s something wrong with it. It may have…” She hesitated, then seemed to find the word she wanted on Kit’s face. “… a toxin in it. That’s what made my brother… act funny.”
&
nbsp; “No way. No one is takin’ that car anywhere!”
“But she said it’s dangerous.”
“The car stays here. End of discussion.” Ned turned and stalked away.
By this time, Kit had written Daphne off as a doormat and had lost all hope of getting the car. But Daphne went to a small chest and withdrew a ring with two keys in it. She pressed the keys into Kit’s palm. “You take the car and find out what really happened.”
“Look, I don’t want to cause any trouble between you and your husband.”
“You won’t. Ned’s always had a weak spot when it comes to… You know.” Finally a bit of color came to her cheeks. “If he doesn’t get what he needs, he gets terrible headaches. Somewhere around ten o’clock tonight, he’ll see that I did the right thing. How are you going to move it?”
“I’ll send somebody by with a tow truck.”
As she walked to her car, Kit mentally gave old Daphne a hearty pat on the back.
*
Kit had no trouble deciding what to wear for her date with Al Vogel. She simply chose her favorite outfit; a pale-yellow two-piece knit with a button-front cardigan and a lace collar. David had seen it so often she had been reluctant to wear it again. Now she could. Just another advantage of seeing a new man. Vogel arrived, equally resplendent, in a cool-looking linen suit, cream with a thin, gray stripe.
At K-Paul’s the line was a block long. The couple in front of them, a cardiologist and his wife from Grand Forks, North Dakota, said that the way they had it figured, it would be thirty or forty minutes before they were seated. While waiting, Al questioned the physician about North Dakota and what it was like to be a cardiologist. When the man ran out of things to say, Al entertained them all with colorful descriptions of items on the K-Paul’s menu, so that by the time they finally got inside, each of them knew exactly what to order.
Kit had seafood stuffed eggplant topped with a sauce that, according to Al, was made with eggplant pulp, cayenne pepper, peeled shrimp, and heavy cream. Whatever was in it, it was sinfully good. Al had oysters en brouchette, a sort of shish kebab of fried oysters, mushrooms, and bacon, topped with a hot browned garlic butter sauce served next to a bed of seafood dirty rice. Though totally happy with her own choice, Kit couldn’t help but cast an occasional covetous eye toward Al’s plate.
To finish, it was warm pecan pie and coffee, and finish them it did. For when the pie was gone, both felt the need to consume a little less in the future to make up for what they had just done. Al offered the opinion that he didn’t have the willpower to live in a city with such food.
After dinner, Al and Kit strolled over to Bourbon Street, which they quickly found too congested and too noisy.
“Let’s see if Jackson Square is any quieter,” Al suggested.
A block further on, a crowd had gathered around three musicians in the street, two men and a girl in turn-of-the-century costumes. They strummed their guitars with such force, sang with such bravado, and were so lousy that Kit found herself mesmerized. Finally concluding that she was indulging in much the same behavior that had drawn the crowd to the scene where Freddie Watts had jumped the curb, she forced herself to move on.
“They’re enthusiastic, I’ll give them that,” Al said.
In the next block there was a real musician; a bearded fellow in a denim shirt and worn jeans. They listened to him sing “Rocky Mountain High” for several minutes. At the completion of his song, Kit threw a half dollar into the Styrofoam cup at his feet, realizing only when it was too late that there was coffee in the cup and everyone else was throwing money into his open guitar case.
Thankful that she was not with Broussard, Kit took Al’s arm and pulled him from the scene, her face a cheery pink and getting pinker.
“Well, that’ll just be a nice surprise for him when he finishes his coffee,” Al said, laughing.
Kit looked at him and smiled sheepishly. Then she started to laugh. Suddenly what she had done seemed hysterical and they both laughed until tears came to their eyes and people began to stare.
She hadn’t laughed like this with David in a long time. This man whom she had known for such a short time had a rare ability to make people open up. First the cardiologist and now her. David had better watch out.
At night, Jackson Square was a ghost of itself in daylight. Where earlier there had been dozens of artists making pastel portraits of the tourists, there were now only the artists’ heavy metal lockers sitting quietly, waiting for the sun. No kids on skateboards, no clowns squeaking as they made balloon animals, only couples walking quietly, admiring the great cathedral, looking at Andrew Jackson atop his green copper horse, or heading for Cafe Du Mond for beignets and coffee.
Kit and Al went into the park and sat on a wrought-iron bench.
“So how long have you lived in New Orleans?” Al asked.
“A little over five years.”
“Then you’ve just gone from hating the city to loving it.”
Kit’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”
He shrugged. “That’s just how it works. This town is like an addictive drug. It hooks you gradually and then if you try to leave, you suffer withdrawal.”
“Have you ever tried to leave?”
“I’ve lived either in the city or nearby all my life.” He got a faraway look in his eye. “I could leave though, if I had to. But it wouldn’t be easy. A part of me would always still be here.”
“Because it’s the only home you’ve ever known.”
“More than that. It’s the history, the feeling of permanence you get here.” He gestured toward the Cabildo. “Not many places in the country where you can see buildings that old still standing. When I close my eyes, I can almost feel the presence of the people who built it. Try it. Go on.”
Kit shut her eyes and did her best.
“Feel them?”
She opened her eyes. “Well… maybe a little.”
He laughed. “More likely, I’ve just got an overactive imagination.”
A young couple in jeans and Reeboks passed them sharing a bag of potato chips. The guy, a kid with a short face and orange-blond hair, scoured the inside of the bag with his fingers, licked the salt from them, and threw the bag on the sidewalk. Al went over, picked up the bag, and put it in the green waste can beside the bench.
“He probably parks in handicapped zones too,” Kit said.
“… at a sharp angle so he also takes up a legitimate space,” Al added, sitting down again.
“And he laughs at the sad parts in movies,” Kit countered, sensing that Al wanted to make a game of it.
“And… refuses to bus his tray at McDonalds.”
“And…” Kit hesitated.
“Your turn,” Al said.
“I’m out of gas,” Kit admitted.
“And he has gas,” Al said.
They both laughed and Al said, “I like it when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“When you laugh.” He touched the bridge of her nose. “Your nose gets all crinkly right here, like a happy little girl.”
“I guess right now that’s a pretty good description of me.”
“Now?”
“Now that my job is going better.”
“What was wrong before?”
“It’s a long story and would probably bore you.”
“Anything to do with that rash of suicide-murders we’ve been having?”
“How did you…?”
“I ran into Charlie Franks the other day and he mentioned it. Doesn’t sound boring at all. Just the opposite.”
“Well, if you’re sure…” Over on Decatur, reins smacked a horse’s neck and the sound of hooves against pavement drifted over the square. “About three weeks ago…”
Kit talked for nearly half an hour, telling everything that had been happening to her, encouraged now by a nod of Al’s head, later by a pertinent question, and always by those hypnotic blue eyes… alert and interested. Yes, David had better watch out.
CHAPTER 11
At eight-thirty Monday morning, Bubba backed into the Parks family’s driveway in a police tow truck, his fingers tapping the seat in time to a Cajun two-step on his portable radio. Here in the city, with the sun shining and the radio playing, Bubba gave no thought to the swamp superstitions that so firmly guided his grandmother’s life. In less than ten minutes, he had a towing dolly under the Escadrille’s front wheels and had its rear dangling from his tow chain.
Broussard had designed the work bay in his garage for car restoration. Expecting that some of his acquisitions would have to be towed home, he had installed Dor-O-Matic overhead doors at both ends. When Bubba arrived, he pointed his remote control at the door and eagerly pushed the button. The device had been in place for three years and Bubba had used it so often that he didn’t find it nearly as amusing as he once did. Now, he only made the door go up and down a few times before going in.
Together the truck and the car filled the work bay. To center the car, Bubba raised the far door and eased the truck partway through the opening. He jacked up the Escadrille’s front end, removed the dolly, then lowered both ends to the pavement, unaware of the green eyes that watched him intently from the doorway to the adjacent room.
He hooked the dolly onto the tow chain, raised it until it cleared the floor, and walked over to set the car’s emergency brake, a habit acquired after a car he had once towed rolled down a tiny grade and struck another vehicle.
When he opened the Escadrille’s front door, Broussard’s old tomcat slipped through it and jumped onto the platform behind the backseat. It was only then that Bubba remembered Broussard’s warning about staying out of the car. But if it was dangerous for humans, it might also be bad for cats. What was he to do now?
He began to coax the cat as seductively as he could. “Here kitty. C’mon Chuck. Come on, big boy. Come to Bubba.”
Sensing that Bubba was up to something, Chuck stayed put.
Cajun Nights Page 13
