by Lynn Shurr
Xochi smiled and shook her head again. “He knows better than to bring up that subject. He grew up with a houseful of women, and he’s usually more sensitive than that. No wonder he wouldn’t tell me what he said. I gather he apologized.”
“Yes. I didn’t really forgive him. I told him I hadn’t had a period in a while. He turned white, but immediately offered to marry me, afraid the baby might have been hurt in that scrum, too.”
“Awww,” said Xochi. “Not your typical male reaction to news like that.”
“I think he wants children way more than I do. I mean I plan to have kids someday, but not right away. Maybe not for years. Now, I really have my period, and I guess I’ve been rough on him. No other outlet. I have to keep my cool with the team.”
“I understand. I think he would if you explained all this to him. I’ve never seen two people more perfectly matched, and it would be a shame to toss that away, but you must make your own decision. I can still be your friend even if we are never sisters-in-law.”
“Mean it?”
“Absolutely. I used to have Stacy to confide in, still do, but I hate to dump my concerns on her when she’s pregnant, so this works both ways. Friends?”
“Damn right!” Alix offered her crossover fist bumps and a double high five, accepted by a slightly startled Xochi. The exuberance of the acceptance scattered the birds. Xo placed the remains of her greens and her cup in a nearby trashcan. Alix dunked her sandwich wrappings in the same receptacle. Sharing the last of the fries, they walked back to the World Trade Center together where Alix split off for the condo.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alix took the condo stairs again eager to find Tom alone and talk out their rift. He’d been home for lunch. She could tell by the empty tuna-noodle casserole dish soaking in the sink with a fork leaning against one side. He hadn’t bothered with a plate, a compliment to her cooking, she guessed. Other than that, no sign of Tom around.
The door to her rooms stood open. True, this had been a Miss Krayola day, but their cleaning lady generally left closed doors closed. A little twinge of anger rose from her bloated belly. One thing Tom had to learn if they were going to continue this arrangement was to stay out of her space when she told him to. She stomped into her bedroom looking for signs that he’d gone through her things or laid on the blue and white embroidered spread. No open drawers, no Tom-shaped indent in the covers, but sitting on the spindly little table by the window, Alix found a gold box of Godiva chocolates and a bag of Zapp’s potato chips. She emitted a very Xochi-like, “Awww.”
A hot beverage and a handful of chocolates certainly would hit the spot below the waist right now. Alix brewed a mug of strong coffee and returned to the tiny table placing it very carefully on a coaster. Before she sat down and stretched out her long legs, she retrieved a couple of her old albums from the closet. In fact, this might be a good day to start a new one. Clippings of her football career lay in the bottom drawer of the dresser. These included the one of her carrying Lorena Billodeaux from the bayou, but her favorite remained the SI picture of her and Tom sitting on the bench, sitting thigh to thigh, toe to toe.
Was she really going to toss away a guy who offered to fetch feminine hygiene products in the middle of the night, who left her chips and chocolates when she craved them, who truly wanted children and showed no fear of becoming a father? For what—to flaunt her independence or to become more masculine to suit the Sinners?
Alix gazed out her window on the same level as Tom’s space in the parking garage. It stood empty. She wished he’d get his freckled butt home so they could talk, maybe should call him. She’d wait a bit and plan what she wanted to say. Downing a dark chocolate with a mocha center, she swigged her coffee and paged through an album.
There stood a gangling teenaged Tom with his signature wide grin in place and wearing a Speedo along with a stripe of white zinc ointment down his nose as a lifeguard for Camp Love Letter. She’d subscribed to the newsletter put out by his younger brothers and Stacy. The money went to the charity, Alix told her mom. Her sisters saw through that and teased her without mercy over what they assumed was a crush on Dean who would have been their choice. The future quarterback standing next to Tom sure had that brooding teen idol thing going for him, but no, she’d always adored Tom, the kid who stood out separately from his dark family and the two blondes.
Once that boy, feeling too keenly different she guessed, had run away from home, been kidnapped by his birth father, managed to escape and save Xochi, his Mexican half-sister. She had all the coverage of that dramatic story in one of the other albums, searched on the internet and copied long after the fact when she first took an interest in the Billodeaux family. Alix imagined Tom had finally realized his worth and the whole-hearted of love of his adoptive family following that incident. She also knew her value as a kicker now and planned to lay claim to his love as well.
A movement in the parking garage caught her eye. Tom parked the big SUV in its assigned space and got out, pausing for a moment to rummage a large bouquet of long-stemmed red roses from the backseat. She didn’t need or want flowers to get over her mad. Still, a soft, girlish oooh escaped her lips, a feminine sound she’d suppressed for months beneath grunts and guy noises.
As Tom stood up, a dark shadow emerged behind him. Dammit, Big Lou panhandling and offering her dirty wares again. How much did a person have to pay a doorman to get rid of a vagrant bothering his clients? She should go over there and… No, let Tom handle it his own way. Alix settled back and poked through the box of chocolates searching for an especially good one before she closed the lid.
A small spear of sunlight pierced the usual gloom of the garage and glinted off a metallic object pressing against Tom’s spine. Dear God, the bag lady had a knife, a huge, thick-bladed machete with part of the rotten haft fallen away. Tom turned slowly, smiled, and offered Lou the roses, which were accepted and shoved into her shopping cart, but she didn’t put the knife down with them. They seemed to be negotiating something—Tom’s life?
Deep down, fear welled in Alix’s stomach, the same kind of fear Tom must have felt for her at the bottom of the dog pile—worse, a life or death fear. Alix grabbed her phone and punched in 911 as she sprinted from the condo, ran down the stairs, and crossed the street. “Assault with a knife taking place, Camp Street Parking Garage, fourth level. This is Alix Lindstrom,” she shouted to the operator who told her to wait for the police. The hell she would!
Surging up the ramp of the garage to the fourth level, Alix arrived barely winded after all her training doing bleacher runs. She shot for the narrow slot between Tom’s car and another SUV where he knelt on the concrete in front of Big Lou’s exposed pudenda, her grubby sweatpants down around her ankles. Alix’s athletic shoes slapped the cement, echoing in the space, but Lou appeared too drugged up to notice. Alix thrust the shopping cart out of the way and threw all her arm strength into a horse collar attack that bent the bag lady backwards. The machete flailed the air, cutting it to pieces.
Tom sprang from his abject posture on the ground, came in at an angle, and chopped at Lou’s wrist. For all her poor condition, the woman had the strength of a maniac on meth. Alix hung onto her hold with one arm and reached for the assailant’s, pulling it back hard enough to break, but the woman seemed to feel no pain. Tom wrested the haft of the machete from her grip and threw it under the SUV. Big Lou didn’t surrender. Free of the weapon, she elbowed Alix in the stomach hard enough to force the air from the punter’s lungs. Alix let go.
Tom pushed against Lou’s spongy chest and sent her crashing to the floor. The Lolita sunglasses masking her eyes skittered across the ramp. Still, the tall woman attempted to rise. Alix mounted her naked pelvis sporting a surprisingly vigorous dirty blonde bush and banged Lou’s skull against the concrete, once, twice, three times.
“Leave Tom alone! I told you to let him be. You were warned.”
“Alix, honey, stop. She’s passed out.” Tom drew her up and i
nto his arms.
Her voice wobbling, Alix said into his shoulder, “No one should mess with me when I’m on the rag. Remember that, Tom Billodeaux.” She offered a feeble excuse that had little to do with her physical condition and everything to do with her feelings for Tom.
“I think I will.” He patted her back so very gently like a father comforting a child—or a man who knew she had bruises.
“Did I kill her?” Alix refused to look at the wreck of a woman on the ground.
A low groan issuing from Lou’s heavy lips and whistling out the gap in her teeth answered the question. Her eyes flickered open. Alix spun ready to go on the attack again if she must. She drew back a foot for a kick to the ribs. Tom moved to restrain her, but Alix stopped herself. “Her eyes.”
“Yeah, bloodshot and dilated like any druggie.”
“They’re violet.”
“So?”
“Remember the impersonator the night you took me down Bourbon Street? He did a Layla Devlin impression. It’s her, Layla, the woman who attacked your mother and dad years ago. I have pictures of her in my albums. She had dreads for a while, but they were blonde then, and famous violet eyes.”
Tom squinted in the poor light. “You think so?”
Sirens drowned her answer as two squad cars mounted the ramp, tires screaming on the turns. They crunched over the Lolita sunglasses and slammed on the brakes before hitting Big Lou or her shopping cart. An officer jumped from one of the vehicles with his gun drawn and the open car door as his shield. The other policemen did the same.
With a shake of his curly Italian head, Officer Ancona called out, “Stand down. It’s only Big Lou causing trouble again.” He holstered his weapon and buttoned it down. “Can you get up, ma’am, or do you need an ambulance?”
Lou pushed to her feet, but stood there swaying. The back of her head displayed a mass of bloody, unkempt hair. “That bitch there tried to strangle me just when me and Tommy were about to get it on.”
“Tom?” asked the officer who’d talked Xochi into a lunch or two when she went to translate at police headquarters. Somehow, he always showed up when trouble involved a Billodeaux. Maybe it was just his beat. Probably, he wanted to impress Xo. Tom thought the latter more likely.
“Tony, she had a machete. It’s under my car. Wanted me to—um—eat her out.”
By his side, Alix made a gagging noise. “You were going to do that? Good thing I came along to save you.”
“I figured I had two options: do what she asked and have a penicillin shot afterwards or get down on my knees and make a grab at her ankles while hoping she wouldn’t behead or neuter me as I jumped over her to escape. Hadn’t made up my mind when you arrived here.”
A little embarrassed, Alix said, “I saw what was happening from our condo window and dashed over here to break it up. I got her in a horse collar.”
“Illegal in a football game, but not in self-defense for a civilian. She must have hit her head in the fall, huh?” Officer Ancona hinted.
Not catching on, Alix shook her head. “No, I bashed her against the concrete. I really thought she’d try to get up again and hurt Tom.”
“Okay, no more for now. We’ll take her by the emergency room and see if her brains are scrambled any more than usual, then over to the station. Tom, you want to press charges?”
“I think I must. Maybe if she spends some time in jail, she’ll leave the Billodeaux family alone.”
Officer Ancona shook his head. “I wouldn’t bet on that. We’ve picked her up for disturbing the peace, soliciting, prostitution, you name it. Someone always bails her out. Maybe since a weapon is involved, the judge will refuse to set a bond and you can rest easy for a while. Come on, Lou. Pull up your pants and let’s go for a ride. Watch your head, there. One of you, collect the knife.” Gingerly touching her filthy clothes, Ancona cuffed his perp and pressed her into the rear of the cruiser.
A young, slim policeman with the fresh, dewy look of a rookie lay on the oil-stained floor and retrieved the knife for evidence. Awestruck, he stared at Alix. “You’re the Sinners’ punter. Might I say you are even more beautiful in person and out of uniform?”
“But she has a mean temper certain days of the month.” Tom discouraged her adoring fan. Alix shot an elbow into his ribs. “Okay, she has wicked temper all the time.”
Peering at his nametag, Alix said, “I do not! Thank you, Officer Pratt.”
“Pratt! Stop gawking. You can get her autograph when they come in to make their statements. We get lots of celebrities in the Quarter. Try to learn not to drool around them.” Ancona pointedly slammed the rear car door and got into the front seat. The squad cars took their time going down the ramp.
“We didn’t tell them Lou might be Layla Devlin,” Tom said.
“If she is, I’ll bet that female impersonator in the French Quarter is the one bailing her out. No one else remembers her, and he clearly adored the actress.”
“We can share the information when we make our statements.”
Tom removed the roses from the shopping cart and pushed it against a wall out of the way. “These were for you, but I did use them as bargaining tool. I figured they might distract her, and I could make a run for it. I’m pretty sure I could outdistance her, but Big Lou is fairly cunning. She just pulled her cart closer and boxed me in even more.
Alix accepted the roses, inhaling their scent to clear her nostrils of the bag lady’s odor clinging to her hands. “You never considered punching her or wrestling for the weapon before I got here?”
“What can I say? I’m a wimp. And I would never hit a woman, even one like her.”
“No, I think you are a kind and gentle man, Tom Billodeaux.” One of Alix’s wide smiles expanded across her face just above the scarlet bouquet. “I’m the savage.”
“Maybe you could be my bodyguard?”
“I want to be more than that.”
“My permanent roommate?” He returned a tentative, hopeful grin.
“More.”
“My fulltime lover?”
“More. Your lawfully wedded wife.”
Tom’s russet brows shot up. “Alix, did you just propose to me? Here in a parking garage with oil and blood on the floor?” He fanned his face like a flustered southern belle and put on the accent. “I surely expected you to court me properly, Miss Alix, with flowers and fine words as we strolled beneath the live oaks, then go down on one knee and—”
Alix thrust the roses at him and took a knee like a football player returning one his kickoffs. “I’m not a proper lady, Tom. So, yes or no?” Waiting for the answer, her insides shook more than they had when she feared he might die.
He continued doing his Miss Scarlett routine. “Why, I’m so flustered by your kind offer that—”
“Cut it out, Tom, or I’ll put you in the horse collar.” The concrete was hard and cold under her knee. If he didn’t answer soon, she’d do it, too.
“I feel I must accept,” he said in his own light voice. “Alix, you could have asked me to marry you when we met on Rookie Day and gotten the same answer.” Tom offered his hand to help her up.
“Then stop gabbing and kiss me.”
Their lips joined perfectly, their bodies melded together at the hip, their big feet tangled. Every part of them matched.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tom and Alix planned to keep things low-key: the attack, the identity of Big Lou, their engagement. No big splash in the newspapers. No grand announcements. They would quietly tell Dean and Stacy about Big Lou since she’d also stalked the quarterback, but after the arraignment when they knew more. Maybe by Thanksgiving they’d reveal their personal intentions to the family, but in the meantime they planned to hug the knowledge to themselves alone. It wasn’t to be.
They went hand in hand to give their statements to Officer Ancona and learned the police department must have leaks as big as a breached levee. News of the assault trickled out, first scooped up by reporters assigned to the police
beat. Even the Times-Picayune felt the story warranted a mention under the sedate headline Sinners Attacked by Street Person. The gossip rags souped it up with Sinners Savaged by Bag Lady and Kickers Cornered by Crazy Woman, both displaying Lou’s belligerent mug shot bracketed by very attractive publicity photos of Tom and Alix provided by the Sinners PR department.
Feeling obligated to attend Lou’s arraignment they put on disguises to prevent being mobbed. Tom shoved his curly red locks under a black watch cap and shielded his Billodeaux brown eyes with dark glasses. A long-sleeved black T-shirt with no sign of a Sinners’ insignia covered his freckled arms and blended with black jeans and athletic shoes.
Alix drew a pale blue knitted cap bordered with white reindeer and topped with a pom-pom over her bright hair. A white silk turtleneck, gray slacks, and wrap-around sunglasses completed her anonymous outfit. She eyed Tom. “Going to rob a convenience store?”
“Heading for the slopes?” he shot back.
“I wish.”
Regardless, they were asked to remove their dark glasses and hats as they passed through the metal detector at the courthouse and turn over their phones. “So much for disguises,” Alix muttered as she straightened her hair with her fingers. Tom’s curls stood on end, wild and crazy. She patted them down.
Slouched in the very rear of the chamber, the couple observed Big Lou enter in a clean orange prison jumpsuit that did nothing to flatter her sunken violet eyes. Her court appointed attorney, a weary-looking woman dressed in gray, stood to address the judge after he read the assault with a deadly weapon charge against Louise Dillman alias Big Lou alias Layla Devlin and called for the plea.
“Not guilty,” roared Big Lou, making her lawyer flinch. “He wanted my body!”
The attorney flushed, bringing some color to her washed-out face. “Pardon me, your honor, but the defendant is not capable of entering a plea. We have verified she never returned to a facility for the mentally ill in Iowa after a Christmas visit to her mother. As she isn’t responsible for her actions, we ask that Ms. Dillman be remanded to the state mental hospital in Pineville until other arrangements can be made by her family.”
