Instead of hitting Cash in the face, his punch lands on Cash’s shoulder. It’s enough to knock Cash back a step or two. But then Cash regains his footing, ducks his head, and barrels toward Baseball Cap, hitting the guy square in the stomach with his shoulder.
His momentum picks Baseball Cap up off his feet and drives him across the bar.
“Cash!” I scream.
Luc finally notices things are no longer peachy keen and stops playing. He stands from the barstool and lifts his hand to shade his eyes against the stage lights.
Cash drives his fist into Baseball Cap’s face. Since there’s no music now, and since everyone in the bar is silent, watching the drama play out, there’s no mistaking the sickening crunch of cartilage.
Baseball Cap howls as blood surges from his nose to cover his lips.
A smart man would know when to say when. But I think we’ve already established that Baseball Cap is not a smart man. He takes two more wild swings. Cash easily ducks the first, but the second has my worst fear coming true.
Baseball Cap lands a teeth-clacking blow to the side of Cash’s head, directly over the angry scar above his temple. Cash staggers, and it’s enough to make my lungs feel like they’ve collapsed.
Thankfully, he’s dazed only for a second. He shakes off the punch, and the next thing I know, he has Baseball Cap by the collar and is shoving him through the side door.
“Cash!” I holler again, scrambling over the bar.
Luc and I make it to the side door at the same time. When we push through, I see Cash in the street. He’s sitting atop Baseball Cap, his knees planted on the guy’s arms, pinning them down, his hands around the man’s throat.
“You stupid motherfucker!” he yells, his lips peeled back in a dreadful snarl. “Don’t you know how precious life is? You should be cherishing each breath instead of being an asshole and calling people names!”
“Cash! Stop it!” I skid to a stop beside him.
Baseball Cap’s eyes are bulging out of his head. In the light of the streetlamps, the blood on the lower half of his face is bright crimson, but the rest of his complexion has turned purple.
“Call the police!” someone screams. “He’s going to kill him!”
“Cash!” I grab his shoulder. “Stop it now! You hear me? Cash! Stop it!”
He doesn’t budge. Not even when I give him a good yank.
“Cash?” Luc squats beside the struggling men. Baseball Cap’s hat has fallen off, and his feet are scrabbling ineffectually against the pavement as his hips buck wildly. “You really wanna kill this asshole? You think he’s worth it?”
I almost scream. Now is not the time for calm, rational discourse. Now is the time for him to grab Cash and haul him off the guy!
Cash blinks as if he’s coming out of a trance. He looks at Luc, then glances down at Baseball Cap. Next thing I know, he’s jumping up and scrambling away.
Huh. I guess calm, rational discourse was the way to handle the situation.
Stumbling over to the curb, Cash plops down and holds his head in his hands. I start to follow him, but Luc is already there, throwing an arm around his shoulders and whispering something in his ear.
Cash nods, and I release a shuddering breath. He’s shaken, but otherwise appears to be okay. Turning my attention to Baseball Cap, I try to hide my revulsion as I offer a hand to help him up.
The sound of sirens echoes down the block. By the time I wrestle Baseball Cap out of the street and onto the curb, the French Quarter Task Force—a private policing group started by some rich guy—has arrived on the scene in their black, tactical vehicle that looks like a cross between a four-wheeler and a Jeep.
Baseball Cap is rubbing his throat and sucking in great gobs of air through his mouth since his nose is ruined.
“Got a call there’s been an altercation.”
“Hey, Rory.” I sigh deeply.
Rory Ketchum is one of the off-duty police officers who moonlights for the task force to supplement his pay. I know him because his wife, Jackie, and I went to Tulane together.
Besides being a stand-up guy, Rory treats Jackie like a queen and their two little girls like princesses. In that way, he reminds me of my dad. But I’ve had to deal with him in an official capacity only once. It was last year when two women from New York got in a catfight inside my bar and went flying through the front window.
Don’t worry. The window was open, so it’s not like they broke through plate glass or anything. But they did land in a heap on the sidewalk, which resulted in one of the ladies suffering a broken collarbone.
“Well, hey there, Maggie.” Rory props his hands on his gear belt. The thing holds pepper spray and handcuffs, a stun gun, and a big flashlight. “It’s always good to see you, but I suspect now is one of those times you’d rather not be seeing me. What seems to be the problem here?” He motions to Baseball Cap’s leaking nose.
“That sonofabitch tried to strangle me!” Baseball Cap throws out his arm to point at Cash.
“That’s not exactly how it happened.” I fill Rory in on the sequence of events, starting with the drunkenness, the name-calling, etcetera. I finish with, “And then he hit Cash in the head.” I point toward Cash. “Who, by the way, is a Green Beret who recently suffered a head injury in the line of duty.”
I add that last part because…cops and soldiers. They have a mutual respect for one another. Comes from sharing careers that put them in harm’s way.
“Fuck you, you lying bitch!” Baseball Cap bellows.
“Hey now!” Rory clicks on his flashlight and shines it in Baseball Cap’s face. “There’s no call for that kind of language. What’s your name?”
“Todd Dungworth.” Baseball Cap pinches the bridge of his nose and tilts his head back.
Todd. Figures. I never met a Todd who wasn’t a total a-hole. Also, Dungworth? What an unfortunate last name. Although, given the last ten minutes, I’d say it’s appropriate.
“I think my nose is broken,” he whines. “Somebody call an ambulance.”
“I don’t think a broken nose is life-threatening,” Rory says without emotion. “I’ll drive you to the all-night clinic. But first…” He takes a notepad from his pocket and flips it open. “Let’s talk turkey, shall we?”
“She’s lying,” Todd complains.
I roll my eyes and look up at the gathered crowd. “Anyone hear what he said, or see how the fight started?”
Two people raise their hands. One is the woman who was standing real close to Cash, occasionally shooting him lustful looks, right before the fisticuffs got underway. The other is a guy who was trying to get my attention for a refill when Todd called Jean-Pierre that awful name.
“Okay, good.” I nod. “Would y’all mind staying here and giving your statements? Everybody else, back in the bar! The show’s over, and the next round’s on me!”
A cheer goes up, and the gathered crowd pushes back inside. I hear the jukebox click on, and the sounds of chairs scraping across the wood floor mean my customers are retaking their seats.
“Everyone pop a squat on the curb. I’ll go down the line taking statements,” Rory says as his partner radios in to the New Orleans Police Department.
The task force is the first line of defense against crimes in the French Quarter, but it’s the NOLA police who have the ultimate authority.
I cringe at the thought of my name and the name of my bar going out over the airwaves. George Sullivan and the guys and gals in his department—excluding Rory, naturally—aren’t exactly my favorite people.
Jean-Pierre grabs the spot on the other side of Cash, and I sit down beside him. “Not really the night of fun and fiddling I promised you, huh?”
“Oh, I don’t know, cher.” He wraps his arm around me. Then he whispers in my ear, “It was a lot of fun before dis one”—he motions to Cash—“decided to do his best impression of John Wick after dem bad guys killed his dog.”
Isn’t it strange—and by strange, I mean scary—how quickly a good night can
go bad?
Looking up at the starry sky, I’m reminded of another place and another time and another guy who thought he could say and do whatever he wanted. There’d been blood then too.
I swallow convulsively as a sick feeling congeals in my belly.
Chapter Seventeen
______________________________________
Cash
They say anger dwells only in the hearts of fools.
If that’s true, I’m the world’s biggest idiot. Ever since I woke up in the hospital with a hole in my head and then found out what was wrong with my brain, I’ve been pissed.
Sad too. And alternately resigned and bitter and accepting and depressed. But most of all I’ve just been pissed. Righteously so. Mightily so.
Think tonight proves it. Left to my own devices, I might’ve crushed Todd’s windpipe.
Todd. What a terrible name. It’s like his parents wanted him to grow up to be a complete and total dickwad.
The urge to pull out my flask and drown everything in whiskey is strong. But I don’t dare. At least not in front of the task force guys.
“So, the way I see it…” The one taking our statements flips shut his notebook. Did he say his name was Officer Ketchum? Ketchall? It was something like that, but I think I heard Maggie call him Rory. “And from what I’m hearing from these eyewitnesses, it sounds like your mouth was writing checks your fists couldn’t cash, Mr. Dungworth.”
Dungworth. That’s worse than Todd.
“You can press charges if you want to, but I suspect Mr. Armstrong here”—the officer motions to me with his chin—“will press charges right back. And honestly?” He makes a face. “My money would be on Armstrong to win in a court of law. You were the one name-calling and throwing the first punch.”
Todd gives me a withering look. Well, I figure that’s what he’s going for. Hard to tell, since his nose has swelled up like a balloon.
“I take your silence to mean you don’t want to press charges?” Rory asks.
“No,” Todd mutters. Louder, he says, “But only because I came down here on vacation and I’ve already wasted too much time on him.” He points to me and spits out him like it’s rotten meat.
“Right.” Rory walks back to his vehicle. “Then all of you are free to go on your way.”
Jean-Pierre hustles the two eyewitnesses back into the bar, winking over his shoulder at Maggie. She gives him a wave of thanks.
“Wait!” Todd jumps up. “You said you’d take me to the clinic!”
I have to smother a grin when Rory doesn’t do a very good job of hiding his disappointment. He’d been this close to making a clean getaway and putting the likes of Todd Dungworth in his rearview mirror.
“Of course.” Rory indicates his vehicle’s back seat. “Hop in.”
Todd is in the process of buckling his seat belt when the sound of a big engine rumbles up the street. It’s coming from a Dodge Ram with a lift kit, huge stubby tires, and a shiny chrome cattle guard.
Luc once explained to me that a Southern man’s ego is directly related to the size of his pickup truck. If that’s true, whoever’s driving this rolling penis enhancer must think he’s second only to God.
I stand and wipe off the ass of my jeans when the truck comes to a stop in the middle of the road. The engine growls off and the driver’s-side door opens. The instant I see a pair of alligator-skin boots, I groan and close my eyes.
This would fall into the category of a shit howdy. That’s another thing Luc explained to me early on. Here in the South, even mortal enemies feel obliged to abide by the social contract of acknowledging each other’s existence. Kind of like, Well, shit. I better say howdy.
“Superintendent Sullivan.” Rory hops back out of his vehicle. “What are you doing here? No charges were pressed and—”
Sullivan lifts his hand to hush Rory. His brown sports coat pulls away from his jeans and reveals three things: his badge, his beer belly, and his holstered weapon.
Couple items to note when it comes to George Sullivan. One, he’s a transplant from Galveston, Texas, and takes his raising seriously. Along with the alligator boots, you’ll never see him without his cowboy hat—brown wool in the fall and winter, white straw in the spring and summer. And two, like a true Texan, he carries a six-shooter.
A six-shooter, for fuck’s sake.
God help him if he ever finds himself in a situation where he needs more than half a dozen rounds.
Then again, the Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum doesn’t hang on his belt for its practicality. It hangs there because he fancies himself a modern-day Dirty Harry, and because a big-bore weapon like that is scary as shit. It’s what spec-ops guys like myself like to call a huge persuader.
Even I might be persuaded to give him a wide berth, except I happen to know that deep down, under all that swagger and bluster, is a slimy little dickhole.
How do I know?
Number one, because he managed to raise a grade-A asshat like Dean. And even though, given my own situation, I’ve never believed in that whole “like father, like son” thing, in George and Dean’s case, it happens to be true. And number two, because he’s friends with my sperm donor—pieces of shit tend to stick together—and not long after we moved here, I came home early from school one day and heard him bragging to my father about how he’d recently bested the mayor.
Apparently, Sullivan had been in danger of losing his appointment because the mayor got wind he’d been encouraging police brutality within the ranks. When the mayor refused to be swayed into keeping Sullivan on even after Sullivan used some of the dirt he had on a few of the more affluent families in town to persuade them to speak on his behalf, he got nasty.
Sullivan outed the mayor and his mistress—who turned out to be Luc’s mom—and the rest, as they say, is history.
“Heard the call come over the police scanner,” he says, using his thumb to push his cowboy hat back on his forehead. “Thought I might mosey on over here and see what all the hullabaloo was about.”
“Right.” Rory nods. “I have all their statements here.” He pats his breast pocket. “I was going to write up the report after I dropped this one off at the twenty-four-hour clinic.” He motions to Todd. “But if you want to take a look now, I—”
“No need.” Sullivan waves him off. “Go ahead and do your thing. I’ll just have a chat with these fine folks.”
Just when I thought this night couldn’t get any worse.
Rory nods again and shoots Maggie a concerned look. After she gives him a subtle shake of her head, he hops back into his vehicle.
Sullivan waits until the task force guys, along with my good buddy Todd, disappear around the corner before sauntering close to the curb, his cowboy boots clip-clopping atop the pavement.
“Your daddy told me you’d come back,” he says to me as he pulls a cigar from his sports coat and sticks it between his lips. A bad attitude, a penchant for dirty dealing, and a love of illegal Cuban cigars… It’s no wonder he’s friends with Rick.
“Good news travels fast, I guess, huh?” I watch his eyes narrow as he lights his stogie.
He hasn’t changed much in ten years. Still has those same beady, black eyes. Still sports that ridiculous seventies porn-star ’stache.
“He tells me you bought some piece-of-shit Creole cottage over on Orleans Avenue. Says you and backwoods boy here”—he points the glowing tip of his cigar at Luc—“are fixing it up.”
I know he’s expecting a response from me, so I keep my mouth shut and simply blink at him.
When he cocks his head, the brim of his cowboy hat looks like a smug grin. “What happened? The army get tired of your bullshit and back talk and decide to kick you out? Or did they finally figure out they were harboring murderers”—he glares at Luc—“and make the wise decision to wash their hands of you both?”
I grind my teeth so hard my back molars cry out for mercy.
I really, really want a drink.
“You know I was up a
t Fort Polk the night Dean disappeared.” I manage—just barely—not to snarl.
He snorts. “What I know is you had it in for my boy. That day behind the gym proves it. What? Were you jealous he was the homecoming king and more popular than you? Did he fuck some girl you liked? As for your alibi, you may’ve been safe and sound up at Fort Polk, but that don’t mean you didn’t talk your two besties here into doing your dirty work for you. I got a bunch of eyewitnesses who saw Dean head into the swamp after them that night.”
“That’s a big swamp.” I repeat the story Luc and Maggie came up with ten years ago. “Maggie and Luc never saw Dean. Nobody ever saw Dean again. I’m sorry you lost your son, but the case is closed. Has been for a very long time.”
“The case is not closed!” he barks, dropping all pretense. “And I didn’t lose my son. He’s dead.”
I frown, my fingers itching to curl around my flask. “You know that for certain? Was his body found?”
“You and I both know there wasn’t any need for a body. Folks don’t disappear into the bayou. They die there. And I was willing to let sleeping dogs lie when I thought you and the swamp rat would get your damn heads blown off in the army. Figured that was a worse fate than whiling away your hours in a cushy eight-by-ten with cable TV and air conditioning. But God in his heaven didn’t see fit to make you pay, so now it looks like I’ll have to.”
He steps away from me to stand in front of Maggie. His face is screwed up into something awful when he says, “I know you were teasing my boy, shaking your damn tail feathers in his face every chance you got.”
I can handle having his anger and bitterness aimed my way, but when he turns his sights on Maggie? No. Hell no.
And, sure, if he wasn’t such a vile excuse for a human being who raised another vile excuse for a human being, I might actually feel sorry for him. Feel sorry for his loss. But as it stands, I’m hard-pressed not to punch him in the face.
“You’ve got no right to talk to her that way,” I growl, but Sullivan ignores me, moving down the line until he’s in front of Luc.
Volume One: In Moonlight and Memories, #1 Page 16
