There were no taxes filed in her name, so maybe she worked off the books at restaurants for cash and no paycheck. It was as if she had never existed. Now I had two people on my mind that would keep me up nights, Fara Theriot and Jimmie Batiste.
Chapter Eleven
Monday nights after work always leaves me with a melancholy feeling from the weekend. It’s that no-man’s land of the work week with little going on and no real reason to go out. My cell phone rang and it was Jiff.
“Hey, are you still in the mood for that drink?”
“Yes, I’ve had a long day with no real progress on…anything,” I said.
“I have minimal news from my forensic contact, and I’d much rather tell you in person. I can pick you up and we can go somewhere we can relax over a drink,” he said. “Your call.”
“Pick me up in thirty minutes. That gives me time to get home, freshen up and feed the dogs,” I said.
“I’m at your service. See you in thirty.” He gave me a kissing sound like muah Then he hung up and left me smiling.
When he rang the bell, the dogs went crazy barking, but settled down right away when he came in bearing a dog biscuit for each of them.
“You’re a crowd pleaser,” I said standing on my toes to give him a kiss after the dogs ran off with their prize.
“Anything you want, you just need to ask me,” he said kissing my hand. “Where do you want to go? Got anyplace in mind?”
“I have these two free tickets left on my front door the day we moved in for a bar in the neighborhood I want to check out.” I was a little uneasy asking him to what I was sure was going to be a dump. “This isn’t going to be like the five-star restaurants you usually take me to. It’s more likely a no star dive,” I said later when he helped me into his car.
“With you there, and if you bring Meaux, it starts off with at least two stars.”
“I now see why you are so good with a jury and win all your trial cases,” I said.
On the drive over which was only five blocks away, Jiff updated me on what his forensic guy found, or rather didn’t find, on the box hidden under my bedroom floorboard, holding the mysterious jewels from ‘Mimi’. The news was his guy found one set of prints, but no match to anyone in any database. The person may have never been finger printed. In fact, there was only one set of prints other than Jiff’s on the box and we had to assume they belonged to the original owner.
“That’s a little disappointing,” I said. “I really thought he’d find us a good starting point.”
“When one door closes,” Jiff said, dramatically opening the bar door for me, “another one opens.”
We entered the bar and as soon as the door slammed closed behind us, it felt like someone put a black bag over my head. I immediately reached and grabbed for Jiff’s arm. It took more than a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, even though it was only 5:30 pm and still daylight outside. The oppressive smoke odor enveloped me like an old smelly blanket.
The long, mahogany bar was holding up patrons who seemed to have been there since the place first opened, on their first day of business, whenever that was. It was a neighborhood joint that served the local drunks, and tales of broken marriages, lost jobs, and missed opportunities hung in the air along with the smoke. Even if I had tickets for ten free drinks, I wasn’t going to make this a regular stop on my social calendar.
When my eyes adjusted to what felt like an opium den, I noticed another sign over the bar that read Open 24 Hours Except Mondays. I nodded toward it and said to Jiff, “Odd sign.”
The bartender, a guy about thirtyish with cold black hair in a shoulder-length ponytail was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. I couldn’t tell if he looked up when the door closed behind us. If the guy hadn’t noticed us, I thought about walking slowly backward to leave the way we came in. But, he had quit washing glasses in the sink because the clinking sound had stopped.
My eyes adjusted, and I saw him wipe his hands on a nearby towel. We walked up and sat on two bar stools as he extended his hand across the bar to shake Jiff’s and then mine.
He greeted me with, “Hey, you’re one of the two new…” He looked like he was at a loss for how to describe females nicely.
“Women?” I volunteered.
“Right. Nice to meet you. Name’s Sullivan, but everyone calls me Sully.”
“Hi, my name’s Brandy, Brandy Alexander. This is Jiff Heinkel.”
“Is that your real name, or a stage name?” Sully asked as he returned to rinsing and drying glassware under the counter.
“No, that’s my real name,” Jiff answered abruptly. His voice had an edge to it that I had not heard from him before. When Sully looked up at him, he said, “Oh, you mean her name?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s my real name.” I went on to tell Sully the story while chancing a glance or two at Jiff. It seemed the hair was up on his neck, but I wasn’t sure why just yet. Sully continued washing the bar glasses.
I had this explanation down to as few words as possible since so many people asked me if that was my real name.
“Wow, lucky you,” he said. “So, is that your favorite drink too?”
“I don’t feel lucky, and no, that’s not my favorite drink but I do like it. Everybody thinks I’m a stripper when I tell them my name, just like you did.”
“We usually give the new neighbors a welcome glass of wine, but there’s not a bottle in here with a cork, only screw tops, although we do have this stuff in a box.” A slight turn at the corner of his mouth you could call a smirk was probably as much of a smile as he gave anyone.
“So, I guess champagne’s out of the question,” Jiff said.
Sully smirked and said, “You’re a good guesser.”
“Well then, I’ll have a dark rum and tonic, three limes. Any dark rum you have except Mount Gag,” I said trying to get comfortable in my seat which made me feel like I was sliding forward out of it.
“We have Myers and Cruzan. I’ll make it with Myers and give you the welcome drink price.”
Like a Frisbee, he threw out a small white cocktail napkin that landed right in front of me. He set my drink down hard enough to slosh some of it all over the napkin and yet the glass remained full to the brim. Sully looked at Jiff waiting for his order.
“I’m good.” Jiff held up both hands to stop Sully as he got ready to toss a napkin his way.
“Do you guys do take out?” I looked around to take in the rest of the place and to kill some time until I finished my drink.
“Yeah, we have food, but we don’t take phone orders or credit cards, and we don’t deliver so you have to be here to order it, pick it up and pay for it. It takes the kitchen a minimum of thirty minutes to make the burgers and fries.”
“Can I see the menu?”
“That’s the menu. Burgers and fries.”
“Are the burgers any good?” I asked. Jiff sat there looking at some imaginary place on the back of the bar, acting as if Sully wasn’t alive and speaking. I noticed it was a poster of some sort of football pool.
“I eat ’em, and so do most of the customers. They’re like the hot dogs from the carts in the French Quarter. They taste better after midnight and after you’ve had a few.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Oh, do you have any empty boxes, like liquor boxes, I could have? I still need a few to finish moving out of my parents’ house”
“Can’t help you. We’re outta boxes,” Sully said over his shoulder as he went to return the rum bottle to its place behind the bar.
One of the patrons I thought was sleeping on the bar popped up and slurred in the direction of Sully, “You outta vodka? Wha’ kinda bar runs outta vodka?”
“No, Stanley, we’re not outta Vodka.” Sully raised his voice to explain. “We’re outta boxes. The lady wanted an empty box.”
“Oh! Thank God. Wha’ kinda bar runs outta vodka?” Stanley mumbled as he returned his head to resting on the counter.
“Yeah, you moved into t
he shotgun across the street from Sandra, right?” Sully turned his attention back to me and stopped drying the bar glasses.
“You know Sandra?” I saw how Drunk-Falling-in-the-Bushes-Sandra could be a regular here.
“Yeah, she comes in here to unwind on her way home,” he said.
I took a few sips of my rum and tonic—mainly rum with a drop of tonic and the requested three limes. He took the poster Jiff had been looking at down and placed it on the bar in front of us. It was on a school size poster board with squares drawn across and down on it. It hung on the wall behind the bar under Sully’s supervision.
“I don’t bet on football pools….” Jiff tried to cut him off before Sully could ask him to buy a square on the board.
“No, man, this isn’t a football pool. This is the local neighborhood pool to guess how many times Sandra will have to be untangled from her bushes after she does a nose dive off the front steps,” he said looking at us from one to the other.
“Wait. What? You bet on how many times she is going to fall in the hedges?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, why not? That’s last week’s winner.” Sully nodded in the direction of Stanley, now sleeping on the bar who previously was concerned about how much vodka the bar had on hand.
“Don’t you think that’s taking advantage of her?” I asked.
New Orleanians will bet on just about anything from football pools and horse racing to how many strings of Christmas lights a neighbor will put on his or her house every year. This was outrageous, even for a gambling city like ours.
Sully explained, “This lottery is known as The Sandra Hedge Fund and you, being new to the neighborhood, are the appointed Sandra Wrangler.”
Wait. What?
“Miss Brandy Alexander, you have been elected to be the Sandra Wrangler until such time as another person moves into the neighborhood, and can either see or hear her fall into the bushes,” Sully said hanging the poster back in it’s easy to view position behind the bar.
Jiff looked at me like he was going to blow a gasket and started to get up off his barstool. I put my hand on his arm and smiled at him. Sully ignored him by going back to washing glasses under the bar.
“So, explain to me how this works,” I said to Sully.
He shook his hands under the sink to shake off the excess water and then wiped both hands down the front of his bar apron. He looked over his shoulder at the poster and explained to us, but only looked back and made eye contact with me during the briefing.
He said, “For five dollars, you pick a day you think Sandra will go into the hedge. There are days, Sandra might fall into the bush in the morning on her way home from work, and again on her way to work in the evenings. The only way for it to count as more than one per day was she had to tumble into the hedge in a twenty-four-hour period.”
“I work every day and leave about seven a.m., so if she gets in after that she might hang there all day,” I said, hoping for some backup plan he might have in mind.
“Someone will get her out. If not, she hangs there.” He went on as if this was the most normal action to take, “If two people guess the same number of falls in any block, they have to split the money. Some days she doesn’t fall in at all. Weekends you get most of the action. If no one’s name is on the square, then the house keeps the money.”
The house being Sully.
“Who put you in charge to appoint Brandy, and why should she do it?” Jiff asked, not so much in an unfriendly tone, but a more demanding one, as if to say, who are you to dictate to anyone?
“She’d probably do it because it’s neighborly.” Sully answered Jiff, but kept his eyes on me.
“Yes, I’m neighborly,” I said trying to diffuse what felt like an argument on a slow boil below the surface.
“You have more rules than Blackjack,” Jiff said.
“You’re not with the Gaming Commission, are you?” he asked smirking again.
“No,” Jiff said.
“Too bad, I would have given you another drink on the house.” The smirk was gone again.
“Why don’t y’all use some of the pool monies and put up handrails on her front steps to keep her from falling over the side? I’ve seen stairs like hers with no, or very low guardrails retrofitted with wrought iron on this style home,” Jiff said again with the sharp tone.
“Well, you’re a real buzzkill, aren’t you?” Sully said, without the smirk.
“So, who thought up this, this, this…,” I was at a loss for words.
Sully went on to tell me, not speaking to Jiff even though he was sitting right there, “I had this idea to start the Hedge Fund, get it?”
“So, I’m guessing you came up with the idea of Bush Wrangler too?” I asked, trying to get all the facts of who was to blame for this.
“My very own brainchild.” He looked smug as if he thought this was his climb up the ladder to becoming a Captain of Industry. “Look, if you don’t take the assignment seriously, or won’t help her out of the hedges, I can’t allow you to participate in the weekly drawings.”
I was convinced he was delusional. How could he not see how horrified Jiff and I both were over the entire fiasco? But, how could I not help her out of the bushes if I saw her fall? Sully had me. Jiff looked like he was ready to explode.
“OK, I’ll do it. But, I’m not betting on her,” I said.
Sully shrugged and went on to say, “Under no circumstances when removing Sandra from the hedges are you to cut her out, or remove any of the branches when untangling her. Someone cut her out once and removed so many branches, the next time the bush didn’t hold her up. She fell through them to the ground, hit her head and had to be taken to the emergency room.”
Jiff let out an exhale and got up to search for the men’s room, and I was glad he did. Another few minutes of this and I thought he was going to sail over the bar at Sully. As soon as Jiff left, Sully took the opportunity to tell me what he wanted me to know about Sandra with a sob story.
He said, “You know Sandra has another job as a phone sex operator. Could be why she drinks a lot,” he said.
I thought it was more along the lines where Sully gave Sandra a few too many to keep the Hedge Fund operational.
“How come Sandra never predicts, or has a vision of herself going in the hedges—you know, being a palm reader and all?” I asked him.
“She reads other peoples’ palms, not her own.”
“Well, I thought she might get a glimpse of a square to bet on,” I said, more to myself than Sully.
“Sandra says listening to everyone’s woes gives her so much bad energy she can’t see things for herself after she spends all day seeing things for others.” He added, “Sometimes she’ll buy the empty squares on the Hedge Fund board hoping to hit it big on a slow month, but she never wins. She doesn’t see that either.”
That made me feel even worse for Sandra.
Jiff returned and asked for the check. Sully waived us off when Jiff tried to pay for my drink, so he left a five-dollar tip. We stood up to leave and Sully swiped up the five-dollar bill and turned his back on us. He only acknowledged the tip by ringing the bell and putting the money in a giant pickle jar on the back counter marked TIPS in permanent marker on the glass.
When we got back to my house, Jiff opened the car door on my side and offered me his hand to help me out. As he walked me to the front door I apologized for taking him there and for the God-awful time we spent in the bar.
“It’s not your fault. I’m glad I was with you so you didn’t go in there alone. The guy’s a jerk, and he sees me as someone who will never set foot in there again.”
“We don’t fit the profile of the regular patrons,” I said.
He said, “Right, like the profile sleeping on the bar.”
“Sully seems to know a lot about Sandra. He told me when you left for the men’s room that she works two jobs. He knows she drinks too much and she falls in the bushes often enough to start a pool on her.”
“He’s a bartender, they always know stuff,” he said.
“He knows Sandra’s second job is a phone sex operator.”
“Really? That’s enough to make me want to drink for her.” Jiff said.
“Sandra seemed so normal before I went into that bar. She’s a drinker and the neighborhood cat lady, but in New Orleans, that’s as close to normal as it gets here. Sandra and that bar have a strange co-existence,” I said. “It’s like they enable each other.”
Jiff stopped at my front door, and before he kissed me goodnight, he said, “If you get the urge to talk dirty to someone, you have to call me, and only me.”
“You know, I might have to charge you for that,” I said.
“I’m down for anything you want,” he said while he pulled me to face him. With one hand behind my neck, he moved my face to his, and he put his other hand on the small of my back and pressed my body into his. Then he kissed me like he always kissed me, just like the night of the Mardi Gras parade, and it felt like a flambeaux twirling on fire inside me.
Chapter Twelve
One week had passed since the murder and kidnapping at CluckIt. I sat enjoying a cup of coffee at my bistro table in the enclosed porch section off our kitchen at the back of the house. From here I had a clean view up the side of our house and side yard and could see the neighbors’ houses across the street.
Suzanne worked the night shift and had classes in the afternoons, so she slept during the day. My job was mostly nine to five unless I had a critical case and the source of fraudulent activity was hard to find. Then I might need to work late or go in on a weekend, but for most of the time I feel like I live here by myself. It started out as a beautiful Saturday morning in October—one of two months in New Orleans with zero humidity—and there was not a cloud in the sky.
I was mulling over the events of the past week—the kidnapping/murder, news of my sister getting married and having a baby (hopefully in that order), the mysterious previous tenant, and the box of rings. I was forced back to the here and now when Sandra interrupted my thoughts by falling upside down into one of the fifteen-foot-tall ligustrums on the right side of her raised basement home… again. It was seven a.m. and it usually took most of an hour to untangle her—not the way I wanted to start my weekend.
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