Gilt Trip

by Laura Childs

  “Only when it comes to men,” said Ava. “And hey, girlfriend, isn’t it about time women started taking the upper hand?”

  “I suppose turnabout is fair play,” Carmela agreed. Ava had perked up her spirits and succeeded in making her laugh. And now as they raced down the thin ribbon of highway, the bayou stretched out low and sparkling on both sides of the road. The sun, which was just about poised to slip over the horizon, cast a warm pink and orange glow that made everything feel peaceful and beautiful and right with the world.

  • • •

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, THEY COASTED ACROSS an old one-lane bridge as wooden boards buckled and thumped beneath their tires. They had arrived in the heart of Venice, but the place hadn’t exactly rolled out the welcome mat.

  “Oh my,” said Ava, crinkling her brow.

  What they could see of the town was more than a little depressing. Many homes looked practically unoccupied; others seemed to have been knocked off-kilter from their foundations. A few homes were just plain flattened.

  “This is worse than I expected,” said Carmela as they continued on another block.

  Here, many houses sported boarded-up windows, chipped paint, and sagging front porches. Others looked slightly more habitable but had often been jury-rigged in places. Obviously, the last two mighty hurricanes hadn’t been kind to Venice.

  Ava put a hand over her heart. “Honey, you’re not going to go knocking on any of these doors, are you?”

  “I don’t think most of these doors would hold up to a knock,” said Carmela. She felt terrible that people were living this way. That many of the people down here were forgotten victims, left to fend for themselves.

  “Now what?” asked Ava as they continued to creep down the main street. “Oh man, if New Orleans is supposed to be the city that care forgot, then Venice is the city that time forgot!”

  “It’s looking a little better up ahead,” said Carmela. They cruised past what served as the heart of the business section—Boudreau’s Rod and Gun Shop, Palermo Pizza, Stritch’s Realty, and Sonny Turk’s Used Cars (No Offer Too Ridiculous!, according to Sonny’s hand-painted sign).

  “Do you see a bar?” asked Ava.

  “Yup. Just up ahead. With lots of cars parked around it, too.”

  “Finally,” said Ava. “Some real vital signs!”

  Carmela drove toward the throng of cars and found a parking spot between a beat-up Ford F-16 pickup truck and a rusted Chevy Impala. She heard faint strains of zydeco music as she switched off her engine. “Sounds like something’s going on.”

  But Ava had already scrambled out of the car. “Looks to me like a crawfish boil!” she said excitedly.

  And she was right. The vacant lot next to Sparky’s Saloon was in full festivity mode. Strings of colored lights had been wound from pole to pole, a zydeco band was thumping out tunes from a makeshift stage, and an outdoor bar in the corner was jammed with happy patrons. But the crown jewels of the party were the steaming pots of crawfish!

  “Food!” exclaimed Ava. “Thank goodness they’re serving up mudbugs, because I’m starving!”

  They bought tickets at the gate from a guy wearing a Born on the Bayou T-shirt and pushed their way in. Two long trestle tables were covered with newspapers and piled high with bright red crawfish, red potatoes, and cobs of sweet corn.

  Ava looked around at the men. “Not exactly Chippendales material, are they?”

  “No,” said Carmela. “But the food looks good.”

  “Then let’s do it!”

  Grabbing paper plates and a handful of paper napkins, they helped themselves to what was a veritable bayou feast.

  “Perhaps a refreshing beverage as well?” said Carmela. You had to drink beer with crawfish. It was tradition, after all.

  So they grabbed longneck Abitas from the bar, found two seats at one of the picnic tables, and settled in.

  “Mmn,” said Ava. She twisted the head off a crawfish and sucked the body meat out greedily. “This is delicious.”

  A man with more facial hair than a billy goat passed Ava a bottle of Pleasure & Pain hot sauce. The red and yellow label featured a naughty little dominatrix cracking a whip. “You might want to try this, ma’am. It’ll really spice things up!”

  “Merci!” said Ava.

  “This is quite a fais do do,” Carmela said to him, using the Cajun word for dance party.

  “Sparky’s has a boil goin’ most every Wednesday night,” said the billy goat. Then he tucked back into his own pile of crawfish again.

  Carmela and Ava ate happily, washing down their food with the cold beer, and watching the dancers whirl madly about. A burly biker in leather swung his partner, a nimble woman in a pink and yellow dress, around the dance floor like they’d taken lessons at Arthur Murray. Other couples did the two-step, and a young, sort of Goth-Cajun couple did a Cajun jitterbug with lots of intricate spins and turns.

  As Carmela ate, she watched. Kept an eye on the dancers, noted the people who sat at the surrounding picnic tables, and scanned all the newcomers who seemed to constantly stream into what was becoming a very crowded event.

  “I’m going to grab us a couple more beers,” Carmela told Ava.

  “Sure,” said Ava. “Great.”

  Carmela pushed her way through the throng, grabbed the beers, and started back toward their table. Halfway there, providence dropped its little gift directly in front of her—a tough-looking man, probably in his midthirties, and wearing tight-fitting blue jeans and a black leather vest. No shirt, just the vest. But what really stood out for Carmela was the blue-inked tattoo on his shoulder.

  Is it? Carmela wondered. Could it be?

  But the man had wandered away. So Carmela had a quick decision to make. Go back and join Ava, or make like a stalker and follow this guy.

  It was an easy decision.

  Darting through the crowd, Carmela tried to catch sight of him again. She dodged and bobbed, hanging on to her bottles of beer, but wasn’t having any luck.

  Please don’t tell me he just up and left.

  She circled around one of the boiling pots, glanced toward the bar, and saw him again. He was stationary now, leaning against a wooden post with his arms folded across his chest. His expression was glum, and he seemed immune to the toe-tapping, upbeat music.

  Carmela decided that asking him to dance was pretty much out of the question. So then what?

  She knew she had to come up with something quick. She was ten feet away from him, walking straight at him, and closing fast. When she stopped directly in front of the man, she flashed what she hoped was her most dazzling smile and thrust one of the beers toward him. “Would you like a beer?”

  The man reached out and swept it from her hand. Like a bear paw coming out of a cage to snatch a hunk of meat.

  “Thanks,” was all he said.

  Carmela smiled again and decided he was actually a decent-looking guy. Aside from the bayou-biker look, he had a tangle of blond hair like a surfer or beach bum, piercing blue eyes, strong cheekbones, and kind of a cute nose. But there was no smile, no hint of encouragement to her at all.

  “I bet a smile would light up that handsome face,” she said to him.

  The man continued to stare at her.

  Okay, maybe I should try another angle, Carmela thought. And decided to take a direct route. A very direct route.

  “I like your tattoo.”

  “Who’re you?” asked the guy. His tone was suddenly wary.

  Carmela’s trusty compadre in crime suddenly materialized at her side.

  “We’re just a couple of friendly gals from up New Orleans way,” Ava said breezily. “And we’re sure enjoying the hospitality around here.”

  As the man studied Ava, Carmela studied his tattoos. They were faded and his skin was very tan and leathered, but she could definitely se
e the outline of a sailboat. The other tattoo looked like a complex algebra equation, but Carmela guessed it was really the stars and map.

  This could be a guy who served time with Jerry Earl Leland!

  Before Carmela could ask him anything, a man with a receding hairline and toothy smile reached in and grabbed Ava’s hand.

  “Excuse me, Moony,” he said, “but if you ain’t gonna dance with one of these fine beauties, then I will.” And with that, he pulled Ava into the fray of dancers.

  Which left Carmela facing her quarry once again.

  “Your name is Moony?” she asked.

  The man nodded.

  “That’s your God-given name?” asked Carmela.

  “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” said Moony.

  And I’m about to ask a lot more, Carmela thought to herself.

  “Look,” said Carmela, “I bought you a beer; the least you can do is tell me your name.”

  “Ah . . .” said Mooney, then his shoulders seemed to relax and his face lost some of its earlier tension. “It’s Eddy Moon, but everybody around here calls me Moony.”

  “Is that where you’re from? Around here?”

  “That’s right,” said Moony. He took another sip of beer and gazed toward the dancers. “Your friend is having some fun out there.”

  Carmela followed his gaze and saw Ava shimmying and shaking like she was the second coming of Beyoncé. “Girls just like to have fun,” she quipped to him. And then, as the music ended, Ava’s partner dropped to one knee. He said something to her that made her throw her head back with laughter. Then she scampered back to join Carmela and Moony.

  “What was that all about?” Carmela asked her.

  Ava blinked. “What?”

  “He was down on one knee,” said Carmela.

  “Oh that.” Ava casually brushed her hair off her shoulder. “He professed his undying love for me and asked for my hand in marriage.”

  Next to them, Moony snorted loudly.

  Carmela raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Knowing old Dusty,” said Moony, “that’s not all he asked for.”

  Ava dimpled prettily. “No. But I’m a lady and that’s all I’m going to divulge in mixed company.”

  This time Moony laughed out loud, his shoulders shaking.

  Carmela took full advantage of his guard being down. “Moony, we were wondering if you were acquainted with a gentleman by the name of Jerry Earl Leland.”

  Moony’s disposition changed in a heartbeat, and his shoulders suddenly hitched up to around his ears. “Why would you ask me that?”

  Carmela pointed at his tattoo. “Your tats are showing.”

  “So what?” said Moony.

  “Jerry Earl Leland had the same tattoo,” said Carmela.

  Moony’s eyes flashed an angry green, then turned hard as sea glass. “How would you know that?”

  “It was in the coroner’s report,” said Carmela. She and Ava both held their breath as they waited for Moony’s reaction.

  Finally, Moony said, “Yeah, I heard that old Leland kicked the bucket.” Now he had his eyes focused on the ground. “Sounded like a tough way to go.”

  “That’s what his widow thought, too,” said Carmela. “That’s why we’re trying to help her.”

  Moony’s eyes finally rose to meet Carmela’s. “You’re trying to help his old lady?”

  “That’s right,” said Ava. “She’s pretty broken up.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Moony.

  “If you two had the same tattoos,” said Carmela, “you must have been friends.”

  Moony seemed to pick his words carefully. “Not really friends . . . more like . . . acquaintances.”

  “But you knew him fairly well,” Carmela prodded.

  “Yeah, I knew Jerry Earl,” he acknowledged. “From when we were in Dixon together.”

  “You were both in some sort of gang?” asked Ava.

  Moony thought for a moment. “I’d call it more of a business arrangement. Me and my guys occasionally helped smuggle out information for Jerry Earl.”

  “Information? What kind of information?” Carmela asked.

  “More like orders,” said Moony. “That old fox was running his company from inside a ten-by-twelve-foot jail cell. Pretty funny when you think about it.”

  Carmela didn’t see anything funny about it. “What exactly was it you smuggled out?”

  Moony shrugged. “Like I said, information. Notes and shit. You know, the kind of . . .” He twirled his hand around in a circle. “Messages. Stuff a guy like Jerry Earl would need to communicate to the outside world.”

  “How exactly did you smuggle it out?” asked Ava. “If you were in the joint yourself?”

  “Lots of different ways,” said Moony. “Sometimes it went out with our lawyers inside their briefcases. Sometimes one of my boys would get his release papers and carry it himself. And sometimes we used visitors or even tennis balls.”

  “Tennis balls?” said Carmela.

  “You had a tennis court?” said Ava. “I’ve heard of country club prisons but that’s ridiculous—”

  “No, no,” said Moony, interrupting. “From when we were out in the exercise yard. You cut a hole in a tennis ball, stuff in a note, and toss it over the fence to a waiting messenger.” He grinned. “That’s a good way to get dope into the prison, too.”

  “So the notes were all about business?” Carmela asked.

  Moony shrugged. “Sometimes it was a note to his old lady; sometimes it was this crap about geology. He was loony about geology and dinosaurs. Kept yapping about how he knew where there was a T. rex buried. At least he hoped there was.”

  “Did he tell you where?” Ava asked.

  Moony pursed his lips and made a disparaging sound. “Come on, like you actually believe that stuff? Dinosaur bones buried in Louisiana? If you believe that, then I got some hot property down the street you might be interested in.”

  “Oh no,” said Ava, “I’ve been down that street. Nothing in my price range.”

  Moony’s mood turned dark again. “Speaking of money, I did a lot of favors for Jerry Earl. And he owed me considerable money. Now that’s all gone. Since the jerk went and died on me.”

  “Do you get up to New Orleans very much?” Carmela asked.

  Moony narrowed his eyes at her. “I haven’t been up to those parts since I got out of the pen.”

  Carmela decided she probably would have noticed if Moony had been at Margo’s big bash. On the other hand, that didn’t mean he hadn’t creepy-crawled into the house through Jerry Earl’s office and killed him. A man like Moony was used to flying under the radar. He could probably get in and out of Jerry Earl’s house before anyone could say “Another champagne, s’il vous plaît.”

  “Let me ask you something,” said Carmela. “How did you know that Jerry Earl was dead?”

  “Lady,” said Moony, “Venice may be the end of the world. But we still get TV, newspapers, and the Internet!”

  Chapter 14

  CARMELA pulled back the gauze curtains in her bedroom and assessed the weather. Raindrops tip-tapped at the window and ran down in rivulets. A sodden gray mist consumed her view into the courtyard. Feeling tired and brought down by the weather, every ounce of her wanted to dive back into bed and burrow beneath the down comforter. Cuddle up with Boo and Poobah and catch a few more zzz’s. But this morning was Jerry Earl’s funeral, and she’d promised Margo that she’d be there. Front and center. Rain or shine.

  She took a shower, standing under the shower head, letting the water wash over her until the pipes started clanking and the hot water dwindled to a tepid trickle. Then she dried off, smoothed on body lotion, and padded barefoot to her closet. Next problem. What to wear?

  Well, it was a funeral, so she should probably choose some
thing tasteful and sedate. She searched through her closet and came up with . . . nothing. Why was it, she wondered, that she had been shopping for twenty years and still had nothing to wear?

  Okay, time to get serious. Maybe her tailored gray wool blazer and skirt? Sure, why not? Worn with a peach blouse, it had been her honeymoon going-away suit. It hadn’t brought her much luck in that regard, so maybe the suit would be put to better use as funeral attire. Couldn’t hurt.

  Shrugging into the skirt and a black blouse, Carmela returned to the bathroom. She applied the bare minimum amount of makeup—a hint of pink lip gloss and a waft of the mascara wand—so she wouldn’t get ticketed by a roving glam squad. Then she turned to her hair, which was caramel-colored and not quite shoulder-length and still dripping water. She considered doing a blowout, but in the end just settled for spritzing it with styling lotion and kind of brushing it into shape. Ava, who was a graduate of Mr. Gary’s College of Hairdo Knowledge, would have scolded her. Ava would have advocated using a blow dryer and a curling iron, and pinning in three or four hairpieces, but she wasn’t about to spend thirty minutes doing a fancy coif and then end up all bedraggled by the rain.

  The doorbell dinged, setting off a cacophony of barks from Boo and Poobah. Canine homeland security at work.

  Probably Ava.

  Carmela scurried to the door and pulled it open. Ava sauntered in like she was walking the catwalk, wearing a tight black leather skirt and a low-cut hot pink and orange silk blouse. From the bounce in her step and a few other places, it looked as if she also wore a spring-loaded bra.

  “Good Lord!” said Carmela. “We’re going to a funeral, not trolling for questionable dates at Dr. Boogie’s Jazz Club!”

  Ava twirled around so Carmela could see and appreciate the full effect. “You like? I know it might be construed as being a trifle edgy by some people with a more conservative bent, but I see my outfit as being rather celebratory.”

  Carmela stared at her deadpan. “Huh?”

  “After all,” Ava continued in her confident jabber. “You never know when your time is up. I mean, life is for the living and this is, after all, New Orleans!”