Now Let's Talk of Graves

by Sarah Shankman

  He’d been trying to figure how to make a move on G.T. ever since.

  He’d mentioned her to his mama, who knew her people, used to live around the corner from them in Slidell.

  Everybody knew everybody else’s kids then. Kid’d do wrong he’d get five or six whippings before he ever even landed on his own front porch, where his own mama’d be waiting for him with a belt already warmed up. His mama said she used to go to heaven ’n’ hell parties with G.T.’s mama at the church. Both of them saints, buying a plate of chicken and a cold drink and going on in the church to read the Bible and sing gospel songs while the sinners sat outside with their plates, drinking beer and dancing to music on the record player. She said G.T.’s mama got to be a witch, did sand dancing, cured nosebleeds for chi’rren with a wet brown paper bag and a key on a shoestring. Her grandmama and her great-grandmama, that Ida, witches too. Said stay away from that girl. A witch and got high-falutin’ ways. Talking about going to medical school. Ain’t gonna have no use for the likes of you. Woman like that make you crazy. Carve you up for one of her cadavers, use your manhood in one of her voudous. No telling what she likely to do.

  Well. That was all the inspiration he needed—besides having been struck by lightning the instant he’d first spied her. ’Specially now that he’d discovered that he could do more things than anybody thought a black boy, albeit ex-English major and ex-football player, and okay, ex-con, could do—cook in French and Italian, not to mention Cajun, creole, and soul, a thing that didn’t depend on his size and strength, well, Lavert had some plans of his own. Of course, he had to get away from Joey the Horse first. But once he did that, he could sure use a little woman by his side.

  Wouldn’t hurt a man wanted to go into the restaurant business—where, he’d read in a magazine, 78 percent of them folded in the first two years—to have a woman could work a little magic.

  Now, looking at G.T. across the street with this woman he’d also seen almost at the same time, the same place certainly, he took it for a sign.

  A man dealing with a magic woman ought to start paying attention to signs.

  He strolled toward them, slow, easy, man his size had to be careful not to rush up on people.

  “Ms. Johnson,” he said in his nicest voice, holding out his hand. “It’s good to see you again.”

  Both women turned and looked at the towering black man. She’d seen him somewhere before, Sam thought, then noticed the white limo in the background.

  At the airport.

  Then, in her mind, she ran out the rest of the story that Harry told her, Chéri talking, this giant waiting with the little guy in his arms till G.T. came in her ambulance and picked him up.

  “You two know each other,” she said.

  “We’ve met.” Lavert smiled.

  He had a great smile, Sam thought. Easily as good as Harry’s. Now he was introducing himself, reminding G.T. of the airport incident.

  “Oh, yes,” G.T. said.

  “I trust you got the little man to the hospital safely,” Lavert said.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, we didn’t,” G.T. said. Then she started telling him about the little man’s hauling ass, though she didn’t say it that way, not knowing why she thought she ought to talk like a lady in front of this gangster man—’cause that’s what he was, everybody knew about Joey the Horse, his reputation, and about his man. “You should have seen him running like a chicken with his head cut off right up the middle of the sidewalk.” Then G.T. laughed.

  “Well, maybe that was good riddance,” Lavert said. “The boy was crazy, acting like that. Maybe he had rabies or something. You wouldn’t want to get too close to that.”

  “I’ve been up against worse than that,” said G.T., bragging a little. “But, you know, that little man got me in trouble. I’m still getting grief at the office about that file. There is nothing they hate more at ZZZ than a file that’s not closed out. They’d rather see somebody die, zip that file right up ’long with the body bag than leave one hanging.”

  And there it was, Lavert thought. Just like that. He smiled. “Why don’t you let me take care of that?”

  “I beg your pardon,” said G.T.

  “I’ll find out who that boy was and his”—Lavert searched for a word he thought she’d like—“disposition. Let me help you out.” It wouldn’t even be that hard. He knew he’d seen that little dude before. Man in his position, he’d just do some asking around.

  “Now, why on earth would you want to do that?” G.T. gave him a look from up under her lashes. Not so much that you could call her a flirt. Just a tad. Just enough.

  There, thought Sam, was a girl who knew how to play a man like a fish. Though she wasn’t even sure that G.T. knew she was doing it. It came to some women naturally, even some women who didn’t know anything about magic.

  And it was sure working a mojo on this big one, who was stumbling all over himself, reduced to a puddle of jelly.

  “Well, I—I just thought it would be nice. Our folks knowing each other and all,” Lavert said.

  “Our folks? What on earth are you talking about?” G.T. asked.

  Then Sam listened with only half an ear. Lavert was talking about old times somewhere else, running his rap. G.T. was smiling, laughing. Oh yeah, I remember that.

  Sam turned toward the Royal Orleans and saw the back of Harry, no mistaking that trench coat he thought made him look like a P.I., walking in the door, now up the steps. She watched a minute longer. Yep, now he was sitting at a table in the Esplanade Lounge, checking into his unofficial office.

  “You ever have the beans and rice over to Eddie’s,” Lavert was asking.

  “Once, but it’s too hard to find. I get lost every time I try to go over there.” G.T. shook her head like the very thought made her impatient. The beads in her braids made a clicking sound.

  “What you do is”—now Lavert was the professional talking shop to a fellow driver—“you gotta remember Law don’t cross no major streets, goes under ’em. You head toward the lake on Elysian Fields, make a U-turn under the bridge at I-10, double back, and turn right on Law. Eddie’s ’bout four blocks, right-hand side. Ought to let me drive you sometime. Or even better, I’ll make you some beans and rice—”

  Nope, G.T. and Lavert didn’t need Sam. They were doing just fine their ownselves.

  Fifteen

  ABOUT THREE BLOCKS away on Decatur, in a less than genteel bar called The Abbey, Billy Jack Joyner was floating Dixie beer on top of some primo toot, trying to concentrate on The Racing Form. But today nothing was working. He had a case of the mean reds.

  He’d just gotten off the phone talking with Willie, the maître d’ over at Patrissy’s, who’d said somebody had come by looking for him.

  Now, wuddn’t that the pits? Like he didn’t have enough on his mind. Like bi’nis wouldn’t just flow like water if they wouldn’t mess with him.

  That was the one thing that still amazed Billy Jack about bi’nis. He’d always thought it was something hard. Something mysterious. Something that only people went to college knew how to do. Till he started his own little candy store. That’s what he liked to call his coke bi’nis. Mobsters in New York worked out of candy stores. He read about that at LTI, the reform school in North Louisiana where he’d spent some very hard time when he was a kid.

  Billy Jack had never wanted anything in his life as bad as he wanted to be a mobster.

  That was why he hadn’t minded so much when his mama wanted to leave Ruston, that little dump in North Louisiana where he was born. Even if New Orleans was lousy with niggers, he was thrilled to pieces to move there ’cause it was the home of the big man, Carlos Marcello. He didn’t know then that the feds were about to fuck Carlos up and send him away.

  Of course, Billy Jack was just a kid then, sixteen when he got out of LTI.

  It was right after that his mama said, Let’s go to New Orleans. She just knew she’d make the big time there. And sure ’nuf she had. There were no flies on his
mama.

  But then, there was nothing on his mama when she floated into his daydreams. He’d think about how she looked when he was a little bitty boy, was bad, and she used to chase him around the house in her altogether, swinging a switch, a flyswatter, a rolled-up newspaper, anything that came to hand. Once she’d jumped right out of the tub and came after him and his smartmouth with a wet washcloth. That’s how he liked to think of her. Running. Wet. Bouncing up and down.

  He’d told Frankie Zito about killing that Dr. Freiberg, called him Dr. Frisbee, shrink at LTI, what had said them terrible things about him and his mom. He told Frankie he could show him the newspaper clippings, of course they didn’t have his name in them, but he did old Frisbee good, right before he blew Rustontown. Frankie said, History, do it again.

  Black or white? Billy Jack asked. What they’d wanted had been nothing—taking a guy out, dropping him off the Pontchartrain Causeway.

  So, he’d said, to Frankie. Now I’m a made guy.

  Billy Jack hadn’t liked it when Frankie laughed. Said you ain’t got the blood, stupid. We’ll let you do scum, we don’t want to get our hands dirty. Make a few bucks. But you never be family. Don’t ever make that mistake.

  Make a few bucks, what a joke. He was making it hand over fist with his candy store. Not with scum, either. His business was strictly Uptown. You lived downtown of Lee Circle, call somebody else.

  Business. Bi’nis. The thing that was truly so astounding about it was that it was so easy—just like selling Hershey’s Kisses or ice cream sodas. The money flowed.

  In fact, that was the problem.

  The coke bi’nis was so much like just being your ordinary insurance salesman that Billy Jack had been getting a little bored.

  He needed more excitement to keep him from getting antsy, so he did a few things on the side from time to time.

  Scared a few citizens. Hit a couple 7-Elevens, Pic’N’Pacs. He’d also fallen into the habit of going out to the track. Before he knew it, he was hooked.

  A couple of times he took along Zoe Lee, one of his best customers. But he stopped doing that. It pissed him off that she’d always win. And she didn’t even use a system.

  Billy Jack had a system. It was all about numbers. He had it all figured out on his computer, had designed a special program in D-base. You could buy programs, sure, but they weren’t for him. He entered in post positions, horses’ birth dates, jockeys’ birth dates, the odds, of course. And the date of the race. It was bound to work out.

  Lots of times it didn’t, though. That was the funny thing.

  So now, for example, he was coming up a little short. Which is probably why Frankie was looking for him.

  Things had been just a little slow lately. But that was to be expected, regular ebb and flow of bi’nis always slow during Lent, Uptown folks got holier than thou, cut down on their fun, and Zoe, who moved a lot of stuff, had punked out on him. She said she wasn’t buying somewhere else, but he knew she was lying. She was on his list of things to do something about.

  And he didn’t like Frankie bugging him either, saying if he couldn’t deal with the weight, they’d find somebody who could.

  Couldn’t Frankie tell he ought to lay off a little? Show some respect.

  Respect? Christ! Think the wop would know about respect.

  And here it was almost Easter.

  Billy Jack needed all the cash he had on hand to pay for his mom’s Easter present. She was gonna love it. A diamond cross. Eleven diamonds. Half a carat each. The absolute best. Set in genuine platinum. The man at Coleman E. Adler on Canal—he’d asked Zoe, who knew where to go—said it was the finest of its kind he’d ever seen. Perfect stones. Came from Russia, time of the czars. Billy Jack wasn’t exactly sure when that was, but he knew his mom would be impressed.

  And here it was Wednesday; Sunday was right around the corner, and he didn’t have the cash for Adler’s yet. It wasn’t a problem, really. He could always get more bread. If nothing else, this town was lousy with 7-Elevens. He would tell Frankie Zito that.

  And then, like out of nowhere, something cold grabbed him in the gut like a Tastee-Freez cone had slipped down his throat, straight into his belly without passing Go.

  What if it wasn’t Frankie Zito who was looking for him? Actually, Willie hadn’t said. What if it was those fucking cops with some other beef? Something his mom would hear about?

  He signaled to Buster for the tab. He had to get out of there. Had to get out in the street, over to Patrissy’s, check this thing out.

  He stepped out onto the sidewalk. Skinny black cat almost ran under his feet. Billy Jack kicked at it. He hated cats.

  And there, look, see, right across the street, was a nigger meter maid putting a parking ticket on his black Lincoln Town Car.

  Billy Jack went berserk.

  Motherfucker! he screamed.

  Charged across the street, breathing hard through his mouth, big snatches of air, almost hyperventilating. He was gonna kill her. That’s all.

  Then, zap, like a big old rubber band from the sky snapped him back, he got ahold of himself. Stopped dead in the middle of the street.

  Horns honking. Tourists from Iowa freaked, almost ran him down.

  That was okay. It was all tit for tat in the big numbers game—the one up in the sky, where everything was ones and zeroes.

  Nigger got him. He’d get one back.

  Billy Jack could always make the numbers come out.

  Sixteen

  “WHAT’CHA BEEN UP to, lady?” asked Harry, rising from his seat in the Esplanade Lounge. He probably looked like a fool, but he couldn’t do anything about his grin. He couldn’t help it that he was always so happy to see Sam. “Got this thing whupped?” He glanced at his watch. “You’ve been in town more than twenty-four hours. Already on overtime.”

  She plopped down, checked him out out of the corner of her eye. God, he looked so fresh. He had wonderful skin—like a baby’s. “No, son, it is not whupped. Of course, if you’d done right in the first place, passed on this case when your uncle Tench handed it out, I’d be home in Atlanta with my little dog, doing what I get paid to do, instead of charity work for my friends.”

  “Listen, I been meaning to ask you. How the hell old are you, anyway? Fifty? Fifty-five?”

  Sam’s head jerked like she’d been slapped. What the—?

  “I’ll tell you, reason I asked, now I’d put you at thirty-four, thirty-five, tops.”

  Still, she winced. There’d been the time they’d been light by ten years.

  “But the way you talk to me, like I’m a little idjit child, calling me son, I figure you must be at least old enough to be my ma. Am I right?”

  She relaxed. That’s all he meant. “Shut up, Harry, and order me a drink.”

  He grinned. He had her where he wanted her for a change. Said to a passing waitress, “Perrier with lime,” out of the side of his mouth.

  “You doing Bogey imitations now?”

  He winked. “Call ’em as you see ’em, sweetheart.”

  “Puhleeze.” But she couldn’t stifle her smile. ‘”Wanta hear the scoop on Mr. Leander?”

  “He bought the Hope diamond.”

  Sam laughed. “Aren’t his sparklers something? I thought Atlanta was full of weirdos, but, boy, y’all do have the types. Anyway, he says he’s dropping the suit against the Lee estate.”

  “Well—how do you like that? What do you think that means?”

  “Don’t know, was hoping you’d tell me.”

  “Let’s look at it. One, he doesn’t need the money. Never needed the money.”

  “Right. So the suit was brought because he was so pissed.”

  “Perfectly natural, considering we’re talking about his sight.”

  “Absolutely. So why’s he dropping it?”

  “Church is dead. He’s got nothing against his heirs.”

  “Which gets us no closer to knowing if he might have engineered Church’s exit.”

  �
�What was your gut feeling when you saw him?” Harry asked.

  Sam shrugged. “You know, he’s that type. Old, rich men—hell, Harry, they’ve been playing games so long, they don’t even know which way’s up. Couldn’t deal a straight hand if they had to. Except—well, the crazy thing about him was he told me he’d forgiven Church because of Sister Nadine. The TV evangelist.”

  ‘What?”

  “He said Church had introduced him to her and she’d changed his life. He talks like a Born Again.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Would I make this up?”

  Harry scratched his head. “Hell, I guess it could happen to anyone. But it seems hard to figure. Plus that gives us Church being hooked up with Sister Nadine somehow. I’ll tell you, this town is getting crazier every day. No wonder everybody drinks.”

  “So I thought I’d go and make a call on Sister Nadine later this evening. See if there’s anything there.”

  “Prob’ly worth the time. Besides”—he grinned—“can’t wait to see your take on her.”

  “She’s something, right?”

  “Listen, could you get me her autograph, for my sister Sudie. She collects freaks. So, what else you been up to?”

  “Well, if you really want to know, I’ve been with G.T. Johnson over at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 getting the blessings of Mam’zelle Marie LaVeau.”

  “Hey. Never said there were any flies on you, woman. She give you some gris-gris, you’ll have this thing wrapped up by suppertime. Which reminds me”—whenever he was around her, Harry just couldn’t get the great food-great loving doubleheader out of his mind—“you wanta go grab a bite somewhere?”

  “Thanks, no. I’m going home to spend some more time with the ladies.” Not that she wouldn’t have liked to while away the evening with him, but first things first. And now it was his turn to do some show-and-tell. “So, Kitty said you struck out on Billy Jack.”

  “I love the way you put that. I did not strike out. I just didn’t find him waiting for me with open arms at Patrissy’s. I ran him through Motor Vehicles. No such cat. And trying first name Billy or William, middle name Jack is going to get us about five thousand possibilities across the state. I can guarantee you that.”