by Jessie Cooke
“I’m sorry,” he said, again. “I’ll do better.”
“If you want to keep your patch, you’ll have to do better. I’m putting you on notice, but next time I won’t ask nicely.”
Chance nodded and muttered, “Thank you.”
A curt nod from Blackheart and then, “Maddox sent an investigator out.” Maddox was a PI from California with ties to a club out there called the Westside Skulls. He’d come out to New Orleans and helped Blackheart when his own sister was missing. Since then, he’d opened his own business and had several investigators working with him. “His name is Forrest Barrow. He found your mother. She’s still in Baton Rouge, but in a nice neighborhood. He spoke to her and she’s still denying any contact with your brother, or any idea about where he might be…but like the rest of us, he has a strong feeling that she’s lying. He’s keeping an eye on her movements and trying to trace those deposits made to her account this past year. He says so far all he sees is her coming and going with the little boy, no one else in and out of the house other than the old man, and he works long hours.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate all of that,” Chance said. He could feel his phone vibrating in his pocket, but he ignored it.
“Like I told your sister, we’ll do our best to find him one more time…but it’s been five years, so I need you both to understand the odds of finding something we didn’t know five years ago are slim.”
“I get it,” Chance said. “Can you tell me where she is? I’m not going to interfere, but just for the future…I’d like the Sheriff’s office to have that information on file too.”
Blackheart nodded and said, “You’re not the one I’m worried about interfering.” Chance smiled. He was worried about Poppy too, and what her being home again was doing to his head. Before Poppy came back, he thought he’d made peace with never seeing his brother again…but once again she had him feeling hope, and he almost hated that because he knew he’d have to feel the disappointment all over again. It was like losing Bubba again every time, and if it went on much longer it might well kill him. “Make sure your sister stays out of it, or I’ll pull the investigator,” Blackheart reiterated and then, sliding a piece of paper across the desk he said, “This is the investigator’s information.” Forrest Barrow and a phone number were written on the paper. Under that it said Marlene Little.
“She has a new last name…”
“Yeah, Forrest said she and the old man got legally married before the kid was born, right before she went to rehab. I told him to talk to you when and if he had any information from now on. If you need my help, I’ll be here, but I’d rather you take over handling your own business. I trust you’ll do it without getting yourself, or us, into any trouble.” Chance nodded again and Blackheart went on, “Talk to your sister tonight, and spend some time with your old lady and the kid. Tomorrow when you show up, I expect to have your full attention.”
“Thank you,” Chance said, before getting out of there as quickly as he could. He felt like he couldn’t breathe sometimes lately. His relationship with Sharon had been tested since the rape. He had a baby that he felt nothing but love for, but he still worried that might change as the child grew and became more of a “real” person. He hated himself for having those thoughts, but he couldn’t stop them. His relationship with his sister hadn’t been okay in five years and his little brother was probably dead. All of that was affecting his position with the club, and he knew that it was like juggling a house of cards…if one card fell out of place, the whole thing would crumble down around him.
The phone call Chance missed when he was with Blackheart was from Poppy. She wanted him to meet her at a diner just outside the Quarter. She didn’t say what she wanted, just that she would be there at 7 p.m. It was almost 6:30 p.m. when he left the club, so he drove straight there. He figured she’d spoken to Gray and wanted to chew his ass, but figured he’d get it over with so that he could have his head on straight by morning when he reported back to the club.
The diner was in the Central Business District, a hangout for the businessmen and women who worked in the area. Chance left his kutte on his bike and, in the parking lot, pulled on a clean white t-shirt that he had in his saddlebag. The other one had Gray’s blood and tar all over it. He’d seen his face in his rearview mirror, and as it was, he would already stand out in the place like a sore thumb.
His sister was waiting in a booth near the front when he got there. She eyed his face and rolled her eyes as he sat down, but she waited for the waitress to take his drink order and walk away before saying, “Heathens, that’s what you are, both of you.”
“I thought you moved on from this place,” Chance said. “Why get involved with him, again?”
“I know you never believed it, but we weren’t involved back then. Not for lack of me trying. Gray was the one who insisted we couldn’t ever be more than friends. He listened to me whine about my life, and sometimes he helped me out financially or gave me rides places, but that was it. He was always a gentleman, and he always told me I was too young for him.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question,” he said, desperately wanting to believe that his club brother had really been that noble. “Why get involved with him now? Surely you can do better out there in California.”
“Some friend you are,” she said. “How would you like it if he was telling Sharon she could do better than you?”
“It’s not the same thing. Sharon isn’t his little sister.”
She rolled her eyes again. “I’m eleven months younger than you, Chance, and honestly, even you would have to admit that I’m the more mature of the two of us. Bottom line is, what’s happening, or not happening, between me and Gray is our business, not yours.”
“Fine, whatever,” Chance said, still not okay with any of it, but tired of arguing. “Why did you want to meet?”
“I got an email from the coroner’s office in St. Martin.” Chance’s stomach seized up and he held his breath as he waited for her to go on. “It’s not him.” Chance let the breath he was holding out, once more hating the hope that Poppy had brought home with her. He didn’t even realize until that moment that he’d been wishing it wouldn’t be Bubba…because that might mean he was still out there somewhere…still alive. “You look relieved,” she said.
“Of course, I’m relieved. Damn it, Poppy, do you honestly still think I’m hoping he’s dead…or that I killed him?” The waitress sat his sweet tea down in front of him. The look on her face said she was trying hard to pretend like she hadn’t heard that part of the conversation.
“Y’all want a menu?”
“No, just the drinks,” Poppy said. She waited for her to get out of earshot before saying, “I don’t know what to believe any more. I just want to know what happened to our brother.”
“So do I,” he said. “Blackheart said the investigator found our mother.”
She rolled her eyes. “Where is she?”
“Still in Baton Rouge, she just moved up to a nice neighborhood.”
“He talk to her?”
“Yeah. She’s still singing the same old song. But he’s also working on finding out where all that money in her account came from.”
She nodded and stood up, tossing a ten-dollar bill on the table. “Good. Hopefully he’ll find something we can use.”
“You’re leaving?”
“We’re done, right?”
Chance sighed. “Are we ever going to get back to where we used to be, Poppy?”
She was shaking her head before he even finished his sentence. “You can’t go back, Chance. Especially with us, too much has happened. I’d like to think we can go forward though. I’d like to believe that someday we can be close again. I like Sharon, and your baby is perfect. I’m looking forward to meeting the twins…”
“But this thing with Bubba will always stand between us.”
“I guess that depends on what we find out,” she said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Chance watched her leave, trying not to imagine that she was on her way to meet Gray. He sent a text to Sharon, to let her know he’d be by in a bit, and then he took out the paper Blackheart gave him and dialed the PI’s number. After two rings a male voice answered, “Yep?”
“Mr. Barrow, it’s Chance Le Blanc.”
“It’s Forrest,” the man said.
“Forrest, I was just wondering if there was anything new on my brother.”
“That money your maw got sent to her bank account came from an offshore account. I’ve got a guy working on it, but that kind of information isn’t easy to come by for a reason. In the meantime, I’m watching her, but not much interesting going on there. She took the kid to the park today and made dinner for the old man…”
“Blackheart said you talked to her?”
“Earlier in the week when I first got to town.” Chance was thinking about the “kid.” It was his sibling, a little brother from what he’d heard from Blackheart. Most of the time he tried not to think about him at all, because then he’d feel like shit for not reaching out, or at least checking to make sure the little boy was safe.
“She seem sober to you?”
“Yeah, she tells me she’s been sober off and on for the past four years. How true that is, I don’t know. I do have a record of her checking herself into a rehab facility a couple months before the boy was born. While she was there the husband moved them to a new house, and after she had the kid she and the baby came home to that house.”
“Her husband…do you know much about him?”
“He’s got a decent job, works for a construction company, some kind of foreman. He makes decent money…”
“So that money she put in her account, the thirty grand, that might have come from him?”
“I guess it’s not impossible. He doesn’t seem like a guy who would have an offshore bank account though, and his name is not on her accounts.”
“So, he might not even know about the money…was he there when you talked to her?”
“No, and she told me not to come back either. Said if I came back when the old man was there, he’d call the cops.”
“Or he doesn’t even know Bubba ever existed.”
“Right.”
“Hey, when we hang up, can you text me that address?”
“Sure…if you plan on coming by though, don’t blow my cover.”
“I won’t,” Chance said, “but why don’t you take tonight off? I can be there in about an hour and a half.”
“Works for me. I could use a good night’s sleep.”
Chance thanked him and texted Sharon back, “Hey, baby, I’m sorry. If you and little Bubba are okay, I might not be able to come by until morning.”
She sent one back that said, “We’re good. The doctor says I can be discharged tomorrow, and the little guy is only a pound shy of being sent home himself.”
Chance smiled. “That’s awesome. I can’t wait to have you both home. I love you.”
“I love you more,” she texted back. He held that warm feeling in his heart, and the sadness that always swam in his sister’s eyes when she talked about their little brother, and he got on his chopper and headed for Baton Rouge with his mother’s new address in his phone.
12
It was almost 10 p.m. when Chance made it to Baton Rouge. He parked down the street and looked at the house. It was a lot nicer than the one they’d lived in the last time he and Poppy had seen her, when she was pregnant. He was scanning the neighborhood when a man got out of a dark sedan and began to approach him. He wished he would have taken his gun out of his bag and tucked it in his jeans, but it was too late, so he just sat on his chopper and waited. The man was average height, maybe six foot or so, and slightly built. He had a beard and mustache that covered most of his face and his head was bald. “Chance?”
“Yeah…Forrest?”
“Yup. Just wanted to make sure it was you before I took off.”
“It’s me. I’ll take the night shift tonight. What time does her old man leave for work in the morning?”
“Around six.”
“She’s usually still home when he leaves?”
“Yeah. Far as I can tell she doesn’t work, spends her days with the kid.”
“Got it, thanks.”
Forrest left and Chance sat on his bike for a while, watching as the lights in the neighborhood slowly began to go out one by one. He knew sitting on a Harley in a middleclass residential area wasn’t going to look good if anyone saw him, so reluctantly he drove his bike to an alleyway close by and left it there before walking back to his mother’s house. The yard was landscaped with a lot of trees and flowers, and he found a dark corner behind one of the trees close to the house and sat down and waited. He fought exhaustion throughout the long night, texting Gabe off and on just to keep himself awake. It was just about ten minutes before six when he heard the garage door go up and then saw a white GMC pickup backing out of the driveway. He was on his feet and made it to the sidewalk before the man in the truck pulled out onto the street. Chance motioned at him to stop and roll down his window. The man, a fifty-something white man with salt-and-pepper hair and a white mustache, looked at him suspiciously, but finally rolled down the window.
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Chauncey,” Chance said, looking for any recognition on the man’s face. When it didn’t come, he said, “I was hoping you and I could talk.”
“I have to get to work. What is it you want to talk about?”
“Your wife, and her kids.”
The man frowned and a deep line cut the skin between his eyebrows. “My wife only has one kid and he’s not even four years old. Who the fuck are you?” The man was reaching for his phone, probably to call the cops, when Chance said:
“So, she didn’t tell you about the rest of us?”
The man froze with the phone in his hand. “The rest of who?”
“Her kids,” Chance said. “She had three before she ever met you…”
“I’m not sure what you’re looking for here, but we ain’t got no money…” Chance had talked the reluctant man into meeting him at the coffee shop a few blocks away. He looked slightly less intimidated in a public place, but still suspicious as hell.
“I don’t want your money,” Chance said. “I’m looking for my brother.” The man looked even more worried and Chance said, “Not your son…although I wouldn’t mind meeting him someday either.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t Marlene tell me she had other kids?”
“Maybe because she didn’t want you to know what a loser she used to be. I’m guessing, judging by that nice house y’all live in, that she’s cleaned up her act a lot since I knew her.”
“Or maybe you’re the one who is lying. If you’re her kid, why are you sneaking around and pulling me aside? Why not just knock on the door and talk to us both?”
“Because in the past five years, I’ve talked to her twice. She denies knowing anything about where my little brother is, but I don’t believe that’s true.” The man looked annoyed, confused, and like he was about to walk out so Chance said, “Let me start at the beginning. My mother’s name is Marlene Le Blanc. She had me and my sister when she was fifteen and sixteen years old, respectively. She was living in the Atchafalaya Basin at the time. When I was about four, she got together with a man named James Bouffay. This guy was a raging piece of shit. They raised us in a trailer that wasn’t fit for pigs to live in. He was an alcoholic and she was a drug addict. They had another kid when I was six, Billy Ray. James was physically and emotionally abusive to us all. Marlene basically just stayed too high to even know we were there. When I was seventeen, my sister left home and a few months later I found out it was because James had been sexually abusing her for years. I killed him.”
The man across the table from him squeezed his paper coffee cup a little too hard, and hot coffee leaked out onto his hand. He quickly grabbed a napkin and started wiping it of
f. Chance continued, “I’m not a bad guy. I’m not a killer. But I don’t know if you have a sister or not…all those years of the shit he did to me and my brother, knocking us around and calling us names, that was already in there…when I found out what he did to my sister Poppy, I lost it…My mother, your old lady, begged the cops to arrest me for murder. She even went so far as to say that Poppy had ‘seduced’ James when she was twelve years old and that’s when all of that started. That night was the worst of my life, and I was in police custody for a week. When I got out, I went to look for my brother, who was eleven at the time. The group home said he’d run away, but that my mother had been there twice yelling about wanting her kid. I tracked her down not long after that. She was in a dirty motel and all strung out. She denied knowing anything about where Bubba was. He’s been listed as a missing child for five years now, but no one has seen a trace of him. About a year after he went missing, I found Marlene again. She was living here in Baton Rouge, and she was pregnant. I heard she checked herself into rehab when she was about seven months along. That would have been just about the time my sister and I came to see her. I think she knows what happened to my brother…but I don’t think she’ll ever tell me.” The man was looking at Chance with a pair of blue eyes with disbelief in them. He stared at him for so long without saying anything that Chance was beginning to think he’d wasted his night, and his morning. At last though, the man opened his mouth and said:
“My name is Charles Little. Marlene was…” He hesitated, and Chance said:
“It’s okay. I know she was working as a hooker that first time I found her in that motel.”
“Back in those days, she called herself an ‘escort.’” Chance didn’t comment, but he’d seen his mother back then. She was torn up. Any man in his right mind wouldn’t have touched her with a ten-foot pole. But as Charles went on, a desperately lonely man began to take shape. “She was real pretty, and I was lonely…” Chance hadn’t thought of his mother as “pretty” since he was a little boy. All the years of using drugs had dulled her green eyes, caused her hair to thin out, and left scars from the sores that popped out all over her face and arms when she smoked meth. But…to each their own. “I paid her for…spending time with me for several months and then one day she come to me and told me she was pregnant. She wanted money to get an abortion. This is going to sound crazy, but I always wanted a family. I didn’t know if that kid was mine, but I wanted it, you know? I wanted her. I told her I’d marry her and take care of her and the baby if she would stop using drugs. She moved in with me not long after that and she did good for a few months on her own trying to quit the stuff. But one day when she was about seven months along, I came home and found her high. We had a big fight, but when she sobered up, she begged me to give her another chance, said she’d go to rehab. She’s been clean for over three years now…she’s turned into a really good wife, and she’s a good mother to our boy…”
