by C. L. Bevill
Flor shrugged, disregarding Jane as if she wasn’t there.
“We’ll have our supper, Jane, and I’ll give Flor a ride back to her place, den we’ll get you a room at my boarding house.” Philippe looped his arm around Flor’s shoulders and guided her into a grassy spot where they could sit. He gazed down into her eyes. “I don’t have a lot of time before my shift, ma chère, so you’ll have to give me extra kisses.”
Jane shook her head as she sought her own spot in the shade to wait. She had been sitting in the sun and sweat was dripping down her forehead. I’d like to sleep in a real bed for a change. Maybe a good night of sleep will make a difference in my thinking.
As she sat on the grass, Jane caught sight of someone standing across the park from her. His tall figure was in the shade, as well. She couldn’t see him very well, but it appeared as though he had black hair and a strong physique.
The connection was there. It was a solitary moment of enlightenment. Jane thought, Duh, could I be more oblivious? She wanted to ask a question to cement her sudden knowledge, but there was a fear of rejection that made her hesitate.
Jane watched until a loud backfire from a nearby car distracted her. When she looked back, the figure was gone. She found him a moment later, striding away, finding the exit to the chain link fence that ringed the park, and walking down the sidewalk.
After a moment, he was gone.
Chapter 15
Even a white lily casts a black shadow.
– Hungarian proverb
The boarding room was tiny. A narrow twin-sized bed with iron fittings and a stained baby blue coverlet took up most of the area. A small desk with a matching chair took up the remainder of the space. A blue throw rug disguised hardwood floor that was badly faded and splintering.
The landlady, a woman in her sixties with bags under her washed-out blue eyes, looked Jane up and down. Finally, the older woman said, “Pay for the room up front. Washroom’s on the first floor on the veranda. Washing machine is a buck. Dryer’s a buck fifty. I don’t do change.”
Philippe patted Jane on the back. “I got some change for you. You can borrow a t-shirt and some of my pants, you. Borrow some soap, too. Clothes be dry in the morning by the time you wake up. I’ll give you a ride to Titus’s, and you’ll feel like a new woman, you.”
With that, he got her what he had promised. She paid the landlady with crumpled bills. She grudgingly handed over the key with unenthusiastic directions about breakfast and showering.
Philippe left for his job with a crooked grin slanted at Jane.
Jane had languished in the shower shared by four tenants until someone pounded forcefully on the door. She barely got the soap out of her hair before getting out of the minuscule shower. She hurriedly tugged on the borrowed clothing. Reluctantly she relinquished the underappreciated water closet to a large man who was shifting impatiently from side to side as he waited for her to exit.
The enormous behemoth looking at her lewdly when she came out, made her shudder. The fact that she was wearing a damp t-shirt without a bra didn’t escape his attention any more than it did his.
“Hey, honey buns,” he said. “Ifin you care to go back in the shower, I won’t mind. My mama told me I ought to share more often.”
“It’s all yours,” she said with a grim smile. One hand checked to see if the t-shirt was stuck to her chest. She plucked it away, and the big man sighed. His eyes unenthusiastically left her chest and looked at her face.
The behemoth stared at her for a moment more. “Don’t I know you from someplace?”
Jane pulled the bundle of clothing she held closer to her chest. “I don’t think so.”
He shook his head and went inside the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
Regardless of the encounter, Jane felt a hundred percent improved when she finished. She hung the still damp clothing on a makeshift hanger constructed from plastic tubing and plumbing parts, attached to the only section of the wall that was free in her tiny room.
Looking around, Jane finally stuck the cash-filled envelope, the doctor’s business card, and the gold medallion under the thin mattress on the bed. It would be safe enough until she could stick them back into a dry pocket. She took the chair and braced it under the knob of the door, ensuring her privacy or at least a few minutes of warning time.
Lying down on the bed, Jane caught the faint aroma of mold, dust, and bleach, but it was so much better than the cement floor of the warehouse. Someone yelled inside the house, and it turned into a strangled noise that quickly went silent. She thought about getting up to see what happened, but since there wasn’t any more noise, she didn’t.
Jane looked at the tiny window with its yellowed curtains and saw that the sun had vanished behind the horizon. The city’s lights were blooming like flowers in the spring.
Somewhere the Roux-Ga-Roux is wandering, looking for me? Does the beast have a den? Does he have a place to sleep? The thoughts were the last in Jane’s mind before sleep took her down into unfathomable blackness.
* * *
The next morning Philippe knocked on her door at 7:30 a.m. Jane rolled in the bed and blinked. The sun was up, and the warm light spilled into the tiny window irrespective of its size.
“Just back from the hospital,” Philippe said cheerfully through the door. “Come on, girl. You don’t want to miss work. The landlady, she don’t save not’ing past 8 of de a.m. If you want to eat, best to move your little ass.”
“My ass isn’t little,” Jane protested. “And I’ve got to go talk to—” that kid who saw me escape from the car. He saw Raoul. He might have seen where Raoul came from. He might know where this whole thing started. It’s not like I can track Raoul down and ask him questions. She considered. I could ask him, but how would I trap him?
Jane considered again. Stupid. I couldn’t do anything to him. But someone else could. Someone like Christien? Someone like Philippe? Stupid and selfish, expecting someone else to solve my problems for me.
Dressing in the now-dry clothing, Jane hurried. She barely remembered to retrieve the money, card, and pendant from under the mattress. Philippe was speaking impatiently at the door. “My stomach’s growling fierce, little lady girl. He ‘bout to break out and et me up. And I’m tired, too, so hurry you up. I said I’d take you to Titus’s, and we got to go before I fall asleep at the table, me.”
“Sorry,” she said as she jerked the chair away from the door knob and pulled the door open.
Philippe spared the chair a critical glance. “Ain’t gonna to he’p you much, dat chair.”
Jane had thought about a weapon. She didn’t want to spare the money on something cheap. There was the little folding knife Marinette had deposited in her hand, but that was almost insignificant. She shook her head. “I’ll scream a lot,” she said as she handed him the spare t-shirt, towel, and bar of soap. “I washed the towel,” she added regretfully, “but not the shirt.”
Philippe shrugged. “No matter.” He took the items and said, “Meet you downstairs.”
The landlady, whose name Jane couldn’t remember, was in a large dining room, refilling a basket with a few more biscuits. She looked crossly at Jane. “No more sausages left,” she snarled.
Jane sighed. “Whatever you’ve got is fine.” Once she was sitting at a long table with a plateful of overcooked, rubbery eggs, and biscuits with a cup of coffee in one hand, she begged to differ. The coffee was made from grinds that had been used repeatedly. The eggs were chewy and not in a caramel candy sort of way. The biscuits were edible, but not to Jane’s unspoken standard. Needs more butter. Real butter, she thought. And buttermilk, too. Isn’t enough marmalade in the world going to make those biscuits taste right.
Philippe joined her and dug into his grits. “Country fried grits,” he said around a mouthful. “Got cheese and onions in dem. T’ink maybe a jalapeño, too. Makes a man’s stomach sit up and say, ‘Shut the hell up!’”
He was wearing scrubs, and his nametag w
as crooked. Jane looked at him for a moment, wondering if she was being a naïve idiot. Since when was being helpful to a stranger a crime? Since I discovered I don’t know the players from Jack diddly squat.
His scrubs aren’t dirty, came the irritated thought from the other one.
Jane couldn’t resist looking around the dining room. The windows were large and opened to the front of the boarding house, but the curtains and the sun would prevent anyone from seeing inside. Must have seen Philippe come in from his truck, she thought.
That’s right.
Following me again. Jane took a mouthful of eggs. So your theory is that Philippe is not really an orderly from the hospital and is out to do something evil to me?
I can’t—
Read minds? Jane thought back instantly. Or you can read just mine.
It’s not that easy. I hear strong thoughts from you. You can’t hear mine? When I’m worried, thinking about you?
Jane thought about it. Just when you want me to. But she thought back about their various encounters. It’s harder when you’re angry.
And the same with you.
Jane stared at the fork full of eggs, and another thought hurtled into her brain. Have you eaten?
Worried about me?
Yes. As a matter of fact, I was wondering—
What?
Never mind, Jane clamped her mouth shut on the eggs. She inadvertently bit the side of her cheek. “Crap,” she said.
“What?” Philippe said. “It’s not dat bad, chère.”
“Are you from bayou country, Philippe?” Jane asked as soon as the word, chère, slipped from his mouth. “Your accent sounds like some others I’ve heard.” He sounds a little like Marinette. He sounds like the voice in my head but only sometimes. The voice in my head sounds like he’s been educated, too. As if he spent a lot of time in a place far from Louisiana.
“I got kinfolk from all over the bayou lands, Terrebonne Parish, St. Martins Parish, St. James, and Lafourche. My family likes to move about Louisiana.” He paused to shovel some more grits into his mouth.
“Seems like there’s a lot of people with that accent around here.”
Philippe chewed twice and swallowed. He washed it down with coffee. “The coffee is dat bad.” He paused to send a glare at the landlady. “Delores, you can’t use the grinds more dan twice, don’t you know?”
“Saves on cost,” Delores muttered and vanished into the kitchen.
“Cajuns move to the city to find work, just the same as anyone. You t’ink the recession don’t affect us, non?”
Yawning, Philippe covered his mouth. “Everyt’ing bad all over, us. Katrina, she chewed us up and spit us out. The gov’ment might as well spit us out, too. More Cajuns in the city, us. Jobs is jobs.”
Ask him what he did at work today, came the impatient other one in her head.
Jane wasn’t quite that blunt. “Doing what you do in the hospital seems like hard work,” she said.
Philippe’s shoulders shifted. “Changing sheets, delivering food, mopping up puke and blood sometimes. Not so bad. The pay ain’t t’rrible. I save half of what I make, me.”
“That’s what you do at the hospital?” Jane asked. “Sounds pretty bad to me. I wouldn’t want to clean up someone’s vomit. I wouldn’t want to clean up my own vomit. Did that happen last night?”
Oh, you’re subtle, his thought came to Jane. It was the first time she could remember him being so plainly sarcastic.
“Last night?” Philippe repeated. “There was a lot of blood last night. Folks being right silly.” He pushed his plate away from him. “You ready to go? I got to sleep, me.”
That do anything for you? Jane asked just as sarcastically.
Not really. If he drives any way but to Perdue’s, you might want to jump out of the truck door, chère.
Chatty Cathy, aren’t you? Jane thought. So are you who I think you are?
Sorry, I ain’t Channing Tatum, he shot back.
Who’s Channing Tatum?
* * *
There was a crowd of people at Perdue’s waiting to be selected into a crew. Titus Perdue walked around with a clipboard, marking on it with a pen as he paused. Appearing incongruous in a suit that cost more than some new automobiles, Titus snapped out orders to crew leaders. There was money to be made, and Titus didn’t want to waste a minute making it.
A line of vans waited for crews to be loaded up and taken to their destinations.
Philippe had let Jane out at a nearby corner and driven away, seemingly in a hurry to get to a bed. The other one had remained silent throughout the short trip, ostensibly content to maintain his muteness. Jane hadn’t pushed the issue.
As she waited to be assigned to a crew, Jane thought about what she could do. She could find the little boy, Bobby Therin, and she could also call Dr. Armand Sorrell back. If the sociologist knew where the Noir was to be found, she could follow up on that.
However, pinning down a magic practitioner was about as difficult as getting information out of Raoul and she knew it. If the person was her enemy, she would be walking into their hands, gift-wrapped. If the person was only a conduit for someone else, they would be similarly disinclined to share information.
A curse could get worse, she considered.
Jane deliberated. She could simply use a telephone to call Bobby Therin’s mother and ask to speak to the little boy. Who knew how that would go? If I call now and she refuses, will she be less likely to allow him to talk to me later in person? I could lie on the phone and tell her I was someone from school. She pursed her lips. She might not remember her name, but she already knew she didn’t care for lying. I should go in person.
Jane had taken into account that the boy would be in school, so she would work a shift at Perdue’s Cleaners because she was going to need the money, then find a way to the boy’s house. Maybe she could even talk Philippe into borrowing his truck while he was working at the hospital. Hah. Willing to lend me his soap, his clothes, but probably not his truck. Unless—
Titus stopped in front of several Mexican laborers and spouted off some Spanish. They nodded, and he made a note on his clipboard. He twirled his pen in one hand while he counted something. “I need three cleaners at the Barbeau Building,” he said half to himself. “Someone who knows what to do with a broom and a mop.”
Looking around, Jane wasn’t sure if she wanted to jump in or not. No one had rushed Titus as they usually did for a job. There was a reason for the lack of enthusiasm. There was something they knew about the job that Jane didn’t know. She had seen it a couple of times before when it had to do with a job that was more wretched than the usual manual labor.
“You,” he pointed at a young Hispanic woman. She winced and stepped backward. “Sí, usted.” An older man next to her said several things in Spanish that made her grudgingly nod and head for the van Titus indicated. “You,” he said to another young woman who could have been from anywhere.
Jane spotted Marinette in the crowd but didn’t recognize her for a moment. The older woman looked Jane in the face and blinked. The woman had two black eyes, and her nose was bandaged. Her face had been misshapen with some unmentionable beating. Jane frowned. She took a step toward the older Cajun and watched as an expression of fear distorted those battered features. The woman moved away, turning to evade Jane’s approach.
“Wait,” Jane said. “I just want—”
A hand caught her arm and held her back. Jane looked and it was Titus. “You, too,” he said, and his face was resolute. His fingers were curled around her upper arm as if he thought she would break away and run.
Jane glanced back toward where Marinette had gone and found the older woman had vanished into the crowd. Well, that’s par for my course, she thought. If I want to speak to someone, then they disappear.
Marinette had told Jane it wasn’t safe for her to go out after dark, and she’d also mentioned La Famille. Clearly, Marinette knew something about Jane that Jane needed to know, but li
ke a great many other people, she wasn’t speaking. After speaking to Jane in the van, she showed up with injuries on her face.
A broken nose is a clear warning, came the other one’s familiar thought pattern.
Someone knew Marinette talked to me and beat her for it? Jane peered into the crowd, searching for the older woman but couldn’t find her. The driver of the van heard what Marinette said. She breathed deep and let out an unwelcome surge of anger. All these secrets. Everyone’s afraid.
The hand tugged, not gently, on her arm. Jane turned back to Titus. His weathered face was tight. His lips were a grim line. “If you turn this one down, I won’t use you for the jobs anymore. There are lots of other people who want the work.”
“Sure,” Jane agreed, mentally stomping her anger away. “Sorry.”
Titus’s hand dropped away. The tightness of his face relaxed. “Great. You’ve got a head on your shoulders, and I need you to make sure the job is done right. These people at the Barbeau are finicky folks.”
Something’s not right, the other one said inside Jane’s head. Titus’s tone was a bit urgent. He didn’t try to convince day laborers to take his jobs, but he was trying to push her.
Jane agreed with the other one. I can’t run right now. He’s got his personal people all around. No one in this crowd will lift a finger to help me.
The other one was silent for a moment. The owner of the company wouldn’t have three of you going together if something was going to happen to you there. He would have sent you somewhere alone with one of his drivers. Go with them. Clean in the building for a bit. Don’t leave sight of the other two women. Then find a window and get your ass out.
Walking toward the van, following the other two women, Jane looked at Titus out of the corner of her eye. The man watched her carefully and then finally looked away as she put her foot on the step of the van.
Jane got into the van last and slid the door shut. The driver talked to Titus for a moment and then came over. She took the time to look for the other one in the crowd. Will you follow me? she asked him, not knowing how to keep the fear out of her thoughts. Something bad was happening. She shouldn’t have come back to Titus Perdue’s. Somehow she had been traced to here.
