Now Let's Talk of Graves

by Sarah Shankman

  “Come on, Joey, my ass. You upsetting me, Frankie. I don’t like talk. No kind of talk, you know what I mean?”

  “I know.”

  “So? I want the talk should shut up.”

  “Right, boss.”

  “So? You take care of it.”

  “Right, boss.”

  “Lavert.” Joey was tapping on the glass.

  “Yes?”

  “Pull over here. Frankie needs to get out.”

  “Whaaat?” Frankie’s whine went off the chart. “Boss, we here in the middle of nig—we nowhere here. I don’t need to go nowhere.”

  You couldn’t see it unless you were looking in his eyes, but Lavert was smiling. They were at Elysian Fields around North Dorgenois, Law, Hope. White man in this neighborhood gonna shine. Gonna be a beacon. A light drawing no telling what kind of critters.

  He pulled over smartly to the curb, handling the long car like it was a baby carriage. He got out and opened the door for Frankie, not even bothering to look him in the eye, just said, “Good day,” closed the door, got back behind the wheel. Didn’t look back.

  He didn’t need to. It was more fun imagining the little weasel darting this way and that. Hopping like a scared rabbit. Hoping a cab would come along. Knowing even if it did, it probably wouldn’t stop.

  “Now let’s go see Mama.” Joey leaned back. He lighted a cigar with the solid gold lighter his uncle Carlos had given him. The one with the notches. “Turn on my music, okay?”

  “Okay, boss. You got it.”

  Lavert flipped on Joey’s favorite tape—Sinatra singing “My Way.”

  The big white limo threaded its way northward, the neighborhood changing, past the Jewish cemeteries, turning left on Robert E. Lee. Just on the other side of the University of New Orleans campus, a few blocks away, was the huge flat surface of Pontchartrain. Lavert could smell the water, all the while shifting his mind forward and back between Harry’s Billy Jack Joyner and that little bastard in the Pic’N’Pac.

  Pic’N’Pac dude, G.T.’s dude, was right there. Lavert coulda picked him up with one hand, held him out wiggling like a cockroach. Be one down for Batman and Robin. One to go.

  Except for that little peashooter.

  A .38 bullet bounce around inside your head, it’ll give you pause.

  Had him, though.

  “Lavert?”

  “What?”

  “You hear what I’m saying?”

  “Nuh-unh. Sorry. Daydreaming, boss.”

  “I said, after we go see Mama, pick up Chéri, you drop us off, you run by that poolhall. Mr.—what Frankie say?”

  “Mr. Kush’s, boss.”

  “You know that place?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Go take care that little faggot, whatsizname.”

  “Joyner.” Lavert smiled to himself. Billy Jack Joyner. He had it.

  An hour later, still the middle of the afternoon after a couple cups of coffee and a few jokes with Mama, Lavert was pulling past the guard at Audubon Place. Private, didn’t get no more private than this, Uptown street off St. Charles right by Tulane.

  White boy all dressed up in a silly suit coming out of the guardhouse, saying, “How ya’ll doing, Mr. Cangiano?” Not pulling no Uptown AT, knowing attitude didn’t get you nothing but sorry with the likes of Joey the Horse, who, anyway, had every right to visit the big old white people’s house he’d bought here some time ago for Chéri.

  And there was that lady now, running out on her front porch like she’d been sitting right there in the window waiting for Joey for a week.

  “Would you look at that!” Joey said proudly, pulling the cigar out of his mouth. Like Chéri was a filly he’d been smart enough to invest in doing her stuff out at the track.

  Unh-huh, Lavert said to himself. She was an eyeful okay. Bodacious ta-tas bouncing around in a bright yellow jersey like they were doing la cucaracha. That Chéri sure as hell knew which side her baguette was buttered on.

  “Hi, honey!” Leaning in the door Lavert had opened for her. Big smooch. Fuck the neighbors.

  “Where to, boss?”

  “Where you want to go, sugah?”

  “Ummmmm. Maybe I feel like snacking on some shrimp.”

  “Barbecued? Manale’s, what you think?”

  “Joey”—she gave it a giggle—“what would I do without you, baby, reading my mind?”

  “Manale’s, Lavert.”

  “Got it, sir.” Hanging a left on St. Charles, headed back downtown toward Napoleon and the old Italian restaurant. “You like those shrimp, Lavert?”

  “The barbecued? Sure do.”

  “Good. You come on in with us. I’m awfully partial to ’em too. Maybe you scarf up that recipe?”

  “Isn’t it great what Lavert can do?” Chéri chimed in. “You ’member that time, Lavert, you drove us over to my daddy’s, he made you that guinea hen gumbo?”

  “Next week we had it on my table,” Joey gloated.

  “Was the andouille did the trick,” said Lavert.

  “When you gonna open your own restaurant?” asked Chéri.

  “Now, darlin’. Don’t you go putting ideas in my man’s head.”

  As if Lavert didn’t already have plenty.

  *

  “This way, Mr. Cangiano.” The maitre d’ smiled, ushering the three of them past the waiting tourists in the bar and seating them at a corner table, Joey with his back to the wall. They ordered a pitcher of beer.

  “Now, tell me, darlin’,” said Joey. “What you been up to?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Now I know you been doing something. You play tennis today?”

  “Uh-huh.” Chéri took a long pull on her beer, licking foam off her top lip like it was cream.

  “Over at that club?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You want me to get you a membership?”

  “No, sweetie. That’s okay. I go there with my friend Marietta anytime I want to.”

  “Uh-huh. You sure that’s all right? No problem to get you in.”

  “Of course. Nobody ever bothers me and Miz Dupree.”

  “That’s her last name? Dupree?”

  Marietta Dupree. As in Maynard Dupree? Harry had said that name. Lavert filed it.

  “You know Marietta, sugar. You met her last year, that dance I dragged you to.”

  “United Way,” Joey grunted. “Bunch of stiffs.”

  “You’re so bad.” Her laugh was pearly. “And you met her stupid husband.”

  “Who?”

  “Marietta’s husband. That Maynard.”

  Lavert thought, uh-huh. Maynard Dupree, that was the one all right, a player in the tale Harry had told him. Now, how did that go? Maynard was an enemy of Church’s, who was the dude who bought it on St. Charles, which was why the pretty Ms. Adams, Harry’s dearheart—

  “What?” Joey growled. “What about that Maynard?”

  “Nothing, darlin’.”

  “Don’t nothin’ me. I heard how you said his name. What’s this Maynard?”

  “It’s nothing. Really. I didn’t mean a thing.”

  Chéri took out her compact and inspected her face, licking her little finger and smoothing her eyebrows. Joey reached over and lightly grasped her wrist between two meaty fingers.

  “Don’t shit me, Chéri.”

  “Oh, Joey. I don’t want you to get upset about every silly man says silly things to me.”

  “Said what?”

  The waiter who was delivering their shrimp jumped back as if he’d been shot. Which, taking a look at Joey the Horse Cangiano with his back to the wall, was exactly what he was afraid of.

  “Put it there,” Joey grumbled, grabbing up the bibs that came with the messy shrimp, tying one around his own neck to protect his silk shirt from the butter, patting another over Chéri’s pretty chest. Lavert was on his own.

  “You know how men are.”

  “Tell me what he said to you, Chéri.”

  “Oh, just the usua
l.”

  “Said he wanted to fuck you?”

  “Joey. Shhhhh.” Chéri did the embarrassed ingénue better than almost anyone Lavert had ever seen. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

  Joey cut dead eyes at Lavert. Eyes like ice-cold marbles. They always looked that way when he was serious, when the word in the front of his mind was hurt—as an imperative. “Add him to your list.”

  “Joey.”

  “Hush, darlin’. It’s done. Now let’s suck up some shrimp. There’s a good girl.”

  Thirty-One

  MR. KUSH’S BILLIARD Parlor and Café was a throwback to the twenties, left like an oxbow lake deserted by the Mississippi in the terribly chic neighborhood of Riverbend, where St. Charles ran into South Carrollton, and Uptown stopped short.

  Kush’s was hard by the corner of Plum and Dante—a more felicitous pairing Lavert couldn’t imagine. He found a parking spot right in front, wheeling in his little old Fiat Spider with precision—a Tinkertoy after the limo which he’d dropped off along with Joey and Chéri back at the house on Governor Nicholls.

  Full of shrimp and lust, they wouldn’t be needing him for the rest of the evening.

  Which gave him time for his own pursuits.

  His and Joey’s, he amended.

  Never let it be said that Lavert wouldn’t just as soon do a twofer if the opportunity were presented, and now that both Harry and Joey had asked for the head of Billy Jack Joyner, well, why not oblige?

  Especially if he and Harry snagged G.T.’s little sucker along the way.

  Keep going like this, he’d win six ways to Sunday. G.T.—he sighed at the thought of her—being the prize. Then Lavert stepped into the cool gloom of Kush’s parlor, sporting his favorite soft khakis and an old cream-colored linen sport jacket over a blue workshirt, the shirt a throwback to his peapicking days up at ’Gola. He grinned in the mirror at the free man intended to stay that way. Mr. Entrepreneur-in-the-Making, Jr.

  Overhead, fluorescent lights battled it out with curls of cigarette smoke. The crack of one brightly colored ball hitting another was the only sound—other than an occasional muttered damn!

  Kush, actually Kush III, proprietor like his daddy and granddaddy before him, ran a tight ship and a clean hall. As high yellow as a man can be without turning white, he gave Lavert the welcoming nod.

  “Doin’?”

  “Fine. You?”

  “Hanging. Wanna dog?”

  Well, now. He’d already downed enough shrimp over at Manale’s to satisfy your ordinary sixteen-year-old linebacker, but then, look at it carefully, the matter under consideration here was a Kush dog. The kosher frank grilled with unsalted butter. The roll crisped for just a sec. The chili, no beans, with hand-chopped meat, perfect seasoning. Two kinds of mustard: yellow French’s, then a soupҫon of Zatarain’s creole. Fresh coarse-chopped onions.

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Dixie?”

  “Please.”

  “Be a minute.”

  Around the big room sat twelve pool tables, mostly occupied by young men wearing tight jeans, some with cigarette packs rolled in their T-shirt sleeves, trying awfully hard to be cool. The billiard table, off to one side in an alcove of its own, made it a baker’s dozen.

  Prowling the billiard table were two white men in expensive suits. On a bench tableside, two old women perched like pigeons.

  Lavert did a double take, then went back for thirds. He stopped Kush, strolling by, with a chin jerk. “That old black woman?”

  “Aunt Ida. You know her?”

  “G. T. Johnson’s granny?”

  Kush grinned. “I heard that voudou woman got her hooks in you.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says the grapevine, son. You think them drums be still on you just ’cause you got all fancy, don’t hardly come by no more? That don’t stop them drums.”

  Now it was Lavert’s turn to grin. What could he say? “And the little old white lady?”

  “Ma Elise Lee.”

  Ahhhhh. It all fell into place. But what were they doing here?

  “I tell you you ain’t been coming ’round near often enough. Two little old ladies my chief billiards aficionados. Come in here nearly every afternoon.”

  “They play?”

  “Clean your clock, you want to try ’em.”

  “You kidding.”

  “Ma Elise taught Ida. She say she learned in Europe. You know that’s where all the good players come from.”

  Lavert and Kush watched for a minute as the two suits demonstrated a proper game, making ordinary pool look like the pedestrian occupation it was. Three balls—red, white, and yellow—rolling around on what looked like a pool table with no holes. Balls with no home.

  The task was to tap the white cue ball into either the red or yellow ball, which must then touch at least three cushions before striking the third ball. The proper sequence of hits results in a point, or billiard. Fifty billiards, you’re in the money.

  The two little ladies leaned forward, their heads close together as they studied the older man’s technique. Oooh, Ida whispered. Shhhhh, warned Ma Elise, who was feeling so much better, Ida’d got her out of the house away from her Zoe troubles.

  “You know a short white boy named Billy Jack Joyner?” Lavert turned to Kush while picking up his chili dog, watching it almost disappear in his big hand, thinking he should have ordered two. Still could.

  “Unh-huh. You know him too.”

  “Nunh-uh.” Chewing. God, that was good! “I don’t.”

  “Well, you ought to. Would if you come around more often.”

  “Jesus, Kush. You sounding like a woman pining for love.”

  Kush leaned over from his barstool, tweaked Lavert’s cheek. “Thass right. ’Cause I be loving you.”

  “Get out of here.” Lavert and Kush had no more than six weeks before been chasing some skirts in a club out the edge of Desire. But no more. Now that he’d taken a vow to win the hand of the fair G.T. No way. “You mean he comes around?”

  “I mean you just missed him, dude.”

  “What?”

  “Five minutes ago. Little sucker was in here hitting up one of my customers. Reckon one of his customers too.” Kush nodded his head over toward the billiard table.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Docs. Playing hooky from surgery over at Oschner, hear them talk. Hell, blood or billiards, guess I know which one I’d rather do.”

  “He was right here?”

  “You record broken, son? Ain’t that what I just said?”

  “Shit.”

  “Don’t be so down in the mouth. You come back tomorrow, he probably be here again. Do a lot of visiting with my high rollers.”

  And then there was a hubbub of noise from the billiard table, one man clapping the other on the back.

  “What you think, Ma Elise?” the loser said to the old woman.

  “You didn’t need to play defense, that last shot,” she answered. “You supposed to make it.”

  “Now you tell me,” the man laughed. Good-spirited. Lavert liked men like that. Looked like they enjoyed all the games of life. Would enjoy eating. Kind of men he’d be proud to serve in his restaurant. Lavert’s. Wished he had a card index of all the people he’d met like that in this town. Send them invitations to his opening. That was the ticket. Send all the fancy Uptown dudes invites, come in and taste the fine spread, classy way to do it, G.T. at the door in a long dress, wearing a nice welcoming smile—not too much though.

  “Game stretches our minds,” the man was saying.

  He was right. Lavert knew. He played it himself. Billiards encompassed infinite possibilities—like life.

  He looked down at the tops of the heads of the two little old ladies who’d toddled over, stopped now, idling.

  “You that Lavert Washington?” Aunt Ida asked.

  He stood up. Tipped an imaginary cap. Always paid to be polite to the ladies, especially old ladies. Besides, his mama had raised no
ignorant, bad-mannered fool. “I am.”

  He gave her his big warm smile. “What can I do for you?”

  “I know your mama,” Ida said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “She knows me too.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Now, excuse us. Me and Ma Elise here’s gonna get on home. Catch us a ride on the streetcar.”

  “I’d be proud to drive you.”

  “Humph. That’s what my great-grandbaby said. You know G.T.?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I sure do.”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  Had G.T. said something about him? Lavert’s heart pounded in his chest like a bass drum gone nuts.

  “Well, don’t stand there, boy, looking like a fool. You gonna give us a ride, come on with you.”

  *

  Four blocks away, G.T. was running some questions around in her head. She was wondering why Teri had made tracks out of Ida’s house. Wondering how long it would take her to show up to home next door, then start all over again, that bastard Jimbo pounding her face on the floor. Wondering how twisted their little boy’s gonna be. Doctor King. Indeed! All the Kings she knew were black. Couple of them, toddlers, named Martin Luther, but Doctor??? Crazy white-folks business.

  She was also wondering about Lavert. Actually she found herself doing that a lot.

  And she was wondering about Samantha. What could she do for her? She’d said she’d help, but she hadn’t done a thing. She ought to give Sam a call. Ought to talk with Ida. She needed to stop being so reactive. Get on the stick, girl, do something about Zoe too. She didn’t know what was wrong with her, what had possessed her mind. (Big man hadn’t even touched her, she’d already been hoo-dooed.) Well, first thing she ought to do was get together with the altar sisters. Do some transformations. Get on the case.

  And stop being late. She glanced at her watch. Ida was gonna kill her.

  She’d promised she’d pick them up. She’d insisted on it, knowing full well the old ladies would be okay on the streetcar.

  Well, probably.

  On the other hand, people were getting shot by drug dealers every day. Bystanders, sitting on their stoops, walking out their doors holding their children’s hands, were suddenly blown away.