Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
The Big Apple Posse:
Escape From New Orleans
Illustrations
by Sophie Escabasse
A. The Morning After
B. Target Practice
C. Miss Gaby and the Travco
D. The Motel
E. Interior Travco
F. Arizona Highway Patrol
G. Lafayette Loomis’s house
H. The Hidden Doorway
I. The Hidden Room
J. The Rasta Man
K. The Pool
L. The Tunnel
M. The Save
N. Escape
Chapter I
Amanda squirmed in the backseat of the Escalade, unable to find a comfortable position without waking her brother Peter who was asleep, his head on a pillow in her lap. Amanda also had a pillow; she had a blanket too, for which she was grateful. It was nice to feel warm again after swimming from a yacht to shore in fifty degree weather wearing a cocktail dress, high heels, and what was now a soggy, smelly down jacket. Now that she was warm, she could feel the bruises developing on her face from where the thugs had slugged both her and Solange to make them tell where Thibodeaux and Peter were hiding. But for now, they were safe. Thibodeaux and Solange were asleep in the middle seats of the Escalade; she was trying to sleep in the back, and Michael and his brother, DJ True, were driving. Amanda guessed it could be worse. She could be the one trying to stay awake and drive all night instead of trying to sleep without pressing on her bruises. Not that anyone would allow a thirteen-year-old girl to drive on a highway at 1 a.m.
Today was shaping up to be one of the worst days of Amanda’s life—right up there with the day they were trapped in the basement of the theater after the terrorists attacked New York City. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but being kidnapped, beaten up, and forced to escape by jumping out of a yacht porthole in March in New Orleans (people who thought New Orleans was always warm really needed to log onto weather.com) would be considered pretty awful on anyone’s scale of yuck. Nice girls from nice homes in Greenwich, Connecticut were not supposed to have “those kinds” of problems.
Amanda dozed on and off, but sometimes she could hear Michael and DJ talking on their cell phones. It sounded like they were talking to their Dad, Mr. Trudeau. Mr. Trudeau must be trying to figure out where they should go next, because she heard Michael say, “We’ll drive to Baton Rouge and call you again.”
About an hour later, Amanda woke up. The car was stopped in the parking lot of a twenty-four hour Walmart. Amanda asked, “What are we doing?”
DJ answered, “Michael is going to buy some clothes for you and Solange? What size shoe do you wear?”
Amanda was really tired but she thought for a moment and said, “Seven, and I think Solange wears an eight, because I wore her shoes tonight and they were a little too big.”
“Go back to sleep. I’ll take care of this,” said Michael.
Strangely enough Amanda did go back to sleep only to be awakened fifteen minutes later by Michael handing a bag of clothes to her and Solange and telling them to put them on.
“Sorry, you need to wake up enough to put these on. If we get stopped by the police, I don’t want you getting out of the car looking all beat up, wearing just a sweatshirt, and without any shoes,” said Michael.
Amanda fished around in the bag that Michael handed her. There was a hoodie, some sweatpants, socks, sneakers, and underwear. Amanda did not want to think about how Michael decided what size underwear she wore. She just took the clothes and put them on, using the oversized men’s sweatshirt she was wearing as a cover as she changed. Surprisingly, everything fit, including the underwear which Amanda still did not want to think about.
While Amanda and Solange were changing DJ’s phone rang.
“Okay, we’ll head to Natchitoches. Can you give us driving instructions? Michael disabled the GPS on this car when they arrived in New Orleans. We really need to hide the car before sunlight when it will be visible by satellite. We are pretty sure the New Orleans police have the license plate and description of this car from their traffic cams,” said DJ.
Amanda thought that DJ must also watch a lot of Law & Oder. But then she dozed off again. While she was sleeping she would occasionally hear the phone ring and DJ talking in a hushed voice. The next time she woke up, they had pulled off the highway and were driving through the outskirts of some town, and then she woke again as they drove onto a roughly paved road that seemed to go on for a bit before they pulled to a stop. Amanda could see the outline of a large two-story wood house by the light of the moon. There were no lights on anywhere, making the house look haunted.
A lady with a flashlight in her hand approached their car and gestured for them to follow her as she guided them to drive the car towards an old barn. The lady used hand signals to indicate that they should park the Escalade inside the barn.
Once the car was parked, DJ and Michael got out of the car and DJ said, “I’m Terrance Trudeau and this is my brother Michael and you must be Mrs. Gallagher.”
“Yes, I am and we need to get everyone inside the house before dawn. Please wake the kids. I don’t want anyone to know you are here until we figure out exactly how much danger you are in,” said Mrs. Gallagher.
Amanda woke Peter up and they very grumpily followed Solange and Thibodeaux as they climbed out of the car. As soon as they were out of the barn, Mrs. Gallagher closed the door. Amanda looked at Mrs. Gallagher. She looked to be in her sixties, was very tall and thin with short curly blonde hair. She was dressed all in black—black jeans and black leather jacket. She must really not want to be seen.
“Come on kids, we can’t turn on any lights, but I have your beds ready. We’ll sort all of this out tomorrow after you get some sleep. Is anyone hungry?” asked Mrs. Gallagher.
Mrs. Gallagher looked at the motley band of travelers as they slowly walked toward the house and said, “I guess not. Well, you’ll be hungry tomorrow.”
Amanda walked towards the back of the house which looked larger and prettier once she was closer. They climbed up the steps to the raised porch and entered the back door, going into the kitchen. Looking at the kitchen through the light of Mrs. Gallagher’s flashlight, Amanda could tell this was an old plantation style house. The kitchen was huge with old white cabinets, some with glass doors. There was a tin topped table in the middle of the room surrounded by old chairs which must have been white at one time.
“We always have a lot of company so there are lots of beds,” said Mrs. Gallagher as she led them out of the kitchen and down the hall and then shined the flashlight up the stairs. “My room is downstairs so you can just figure out the bed situation upstairs for yourselves.”
Amanda stumbled up the stairs by the light of the moon, entered the first bedroom at the top of the stairs, and climbed into the first bed she saw, and strangely enough, she fell back to sleep.
The next thing she knew, it was noon. Amanda’s watch had lost the ability to tell time when she jumped into the Gulf to escape the kidnappers, but there was an old clock on her bedside table and the hands were straight up.
Amanda looked around the room. The walls were covered in dark green wallpaper with large pink roses and flowery vines. When she moved in the bed, she could hear something moving underneath her which she guessed were old fashioned bed springs. The bedspreads and curtains were old also, made of some waxy green fabric that matched the wallpaper and was printed with huge cabbage roses. The room was filled with pieces of old mahogany furniture which Amanda thought were probably antiques or at the very least, old pretty things. She smelled the scent of dried roses coming from bowls of potpourri on the bedside tables.
Amanda sat up and looked around. Solange was still asleep in the bed next to Amanda’s so she quietly got out of bed and walked across the hall to a bathroom. Even the bathroom wa
s old; it looked like an ad out of Restoration Hardware, but that would be before the restoration.
Mrs. Gallagher had laid out a bunch of toothbrushes that were still in the packages plus a couple of hair brushes. Amanda opened one of the packages and brushed her teeth and washed her face. She looked longingly at the tub, but quickly jumped into the shower, washed, shampooed her hair, dried off, and re-dressed in her new Walmart fashions which looked uglier than they had in the parking lot lights last night. Amanda left the bathroom without trying to find a hair dryer to dry her hair. She had no idea how many bathrooms were in this house, but after living with only one while they were hiding in New Orleans, she knew better than to hog it.
Amanda walked back into the hall and looked around. There were six doors in the hallway so there must be five more bedrooms or maybe one of those doors was to another upstairs bathroom. It was a big house. If you followed the upstairs hall to the front of the house, walking past the stairway, there was a pretty glass door that led to an upstairs porch. Amanda opened the porch door and peeked outside to see several wooden rocking chairs. Looking around, she saw that the house was surrounded by woods—she could not see another house close by. But Amanda did not go outside because she remembered what Mrs. Gallagher had said last night about not letting anyone know they were here, so she walked down the stairs instead.
The stairway ended in the front hall. Amanda looked to her right and saw what must be the formal living room which was filled with antiques, but had a couple of comfy-looking old sofas. The living room opened into a formal dining room which had an enormous old mahogany table and twelve chairs. There was a swinging door between the dining room and what must be the kitchen and hearing voices from behind the door, Amanda pushed it open, screamed, and ran straight to an older man who was standing in the middle of the kitchen with his arms wide open. “Granddaddy!”
“Hello, darling!” Amanda’s grandfather picked her up and spun her around.
“How did you get here?” asked Amanda.
“I was in Dallas for a horse show when I got the call from your mother. So I called Gaby (he gestured to Mrs. Gallagher) and asked her to take you in. And then I drove all night and got here just after you did. Both you and Peter were sound asleep when I arrived. Just look at you. You must have grown two more inches since I saw you last summer.”
Amanda looked around the kitchen and saw that Michael and DJ were sitting at the table drinking coffee and she remembered her manners, “Michael, DJ—have you met my grandfather, Wallace Abernathy?”
Michael and DJ smiled and nodded.
“I sure did meet them and they are already calling me Wally, and we are busy swapping war stories,” said Amanda’s Grandfather Wally.
Mrs. Gallagher walked up to Amanda and said, “You were really sleepy last night so I don’t know if you remember me, but I am Gaby Gallagher—you can be southern and call me Miss Gaby. I am so glad you were able to sleep.” Miss Gaby touched Amanda’s chin. “You do look better this morning, but you are going to have some nasty bruises.”
“Bruises?” asked Amanda’s grandfather looking again at her face. “How did I miss those? What kind of man would beat up a little kid like you?”
“It’s okay. I’m going to be okay and I think Solange is too. She got beat up too but no worse than me,” said Amanda.
Amanda sat down at the old kitchen table. The table used to be white but most of the paint on the legs had worn away so the wood showed through. Someone had put silverware, plates, and yellow gingham cloth napkins on the tin table top. It was warm in the kitchen. The sun was shining through the wood frame windows, casting shadows on the walls and white washed plank flooring. The kitchen looked like it was at least fifty years old; the only new things were some pieces of blue Le Creuset cookware, a stainless steel coffee maker, a cappuccino maker, and a retro looking orange microwave.
“Would you like some breakfast? I made eggs and toast. I don’t have bacon or much other food in the house because I thought I would be alone this trip,” said Miss Gaby.
Amanda nodded and said, “I would love some breakfast.”
“How about a nice cup of tea?” asked Miss Gaby. “I have a nice collection of flower teas that I bought at a tea shop in Austin.”
“Amanda’s a coffee drinker just like her grandfather. She’s got a lot of the old West in her for a Connecticut girl,” said Grandfather Wally as he poured a cup of coffee, added milk and sugar and handed it to Amanda.
“You said you were here for a trip. Don’t you live here?” asked Amanda.
“I grew up here and when my parents died, I inherited the house. I live in Austin, Texas most of the time, but I come here when I need a break. I say break, but I spend most of my time when I’m here fixing up the house. But I couldn’t bear to have the house pass out of the family, so here I am,” said Miss Gaby.
This is a beautiful house,” replied Amanda. “I can see why you love it.”
“Thank you.” Miss Gaby handed Amanda a plate of eggs and toast.
Amanda looked up at Miss Gaby and said, “Thank you. Where are we?”
Amanda’s grandfather Wally answered, “We are just outside Natchitoches, Louisiana. When your mother told me you had to leave New Orleans and needed a place to hide, I remembered Gaby had a house out here in the woods and I called her cell phone hoping that she had a key hidden somewhere outside and that she would say that you could stay here. But we were in luck. Gaby was already here and she invited all of us to stay with her while we try to figure out what to do next.”
“You talked to my mother? Where is she?” asked Amanda.
“Melanie has to hide too so she took a leave from work and is living in Boston. We all want to talk to you, but just can’t risk someone finding you even when we are talking on burn phones,” said Wally. “Melanie had to move twice because men supposedly from the FBI keep finding her friends and asking questions. They seem to know everyone she knows, even kids she went to grade school with in Texas.”
“Is my Mom okay?” asked Amanda.
“Yes, but she can’t risk staying with any of her friends anymore. She is living in an apartment in Cambridge that she rented for cash. I sent her enough money to stay where she is until the trial so she should be okay. She dyed her hair and does not have a car so she does not need to carry an ID,” said Grandpa Wally. “She wanted to come to New Orleans and take care of you, but we did not think she should risk driving. She would have to use her own driver’s license and if she was stopped for anything…and of course, she could not fly. I’m pretty sure her name, and all of your names, are on some kind of watch list.”
“I can’t wait for June when we can testify and then I can go home and see my mother,” said Amanda. “I wish she was with us. She must be very lonely without us.”
“She misses you very much, but the last thing she wants to do is lead those terrorists to you,” said Grandpa Wally.
“How do you two know each other?” Amanda was really curious. Did her grandfather have a girlfriend? Amanda looked at Gaby closely. She was very pretty for an older woman. Even dressed in an oversized man’s white shirt and jeans and with bare feet, Gaby looked elegant. Amanda knew her grandfather liked pretty ladies and Miss Gaby looked like she might be fun—she had a tattoo on her left ankle.
Wally and Gaby looked at each other for a few seconds and then Gaby spoke. “We met at the Marfa Film Festival a couple of years ago. I was there because one of my books had been made into a film and your grandfather was there because, as he told me, ‘It was something interesting within a hundred miles of his ranch.’”
“You went to a film festival?” Amanda asked her grandfather.
“Yup. I like to piddle around in a lot of different things these days,” said Wally.
“Don’t let him fool you. He has a real talent for storytelling. He spins some of the best yarns in our club,” said Miss Gaby.
“Your club? What kind of club?” asked Amanda.
“Well,
Gaby asked me to join her club and I have been meeting with them on and off for the last couple of years,” said Grandpa Wally.
“What kind of club is it?” asked Amanda.
“It’s called The Day of the Dead Drinking and Lying Club,” said Miss Gaby.
“The what?” asked Amanda.
“We get together two or three times a year, and tell stories and well, some of us drink while we tell stories, but not me or your grandfather, of course,” Miss Gaby gave a meaningful look to Grandpa Wally. “All of our members, except your grandfather, who really needs to start writing, are writers. Most of us are crime writers or screenwriters. We named it the Day of the Dead Drinking and Lying Club because our first meeting ten years ago was in Cuernavaca, Mexico on the first of November. We visited some friends outside the city in Ocotepec and saw our first Day of the Dead celebration and the name sort of stuck.”
“What’s the Day of the Dead?” asked Amanda.
“It is a celebration of the lives of ancestors. In Latin American countries, everyone goes to the cemetery and brings offerings—food, flowers, gifts—for the dead in their family. They believe that life continues after you die, that you move onto a different plane. The celebration started in the Aztec culture, but after much hemming and hawing, the Catholic Church unofficially incorporated The Day of the Dead into the celebration of All Saints Day,” said Gaby.
“That’s nice,” said Amanda changing the subject. “You write books?”
“Crime novels. I also teach literature at the University of Texas in Austin. Writing books used to be my sideline, but now they bring in enough money to pay for the renovations on this old house. And with this kind of home, it’s ‘write a book, write a check.’”
DJ and Michael were eating breakfast and had been very quiet, letting Amanda talk to her grandfather. DJ cleared his throat and said, “So what are we going to do now? I have been talking to my father on and off all night, but so far, we haven’t worked anything out except hiding here. I don’t think we can stay here long. We would attract too much attention.”
The Big Apple Posse Trilogy Page 28
