That Old Devil Sin

by W E DeVore

  What’s-his-name burned to death in a fire that Niko started because Niko was a fucking assassin, asshole.

  Q’s mild annoyance at Michael’s over familiarity turned to raw anger and she said flatly, “No. Niko killed him.”

  Michael’s jaw dropped open. He closed and opened it several times before Q felt something vaguely resembling sympathy. The feeling passed in a hurry. She picked up her satchel and pulled out the charts for the set list.

  Placing them in front of her on the piano, she said casually, “Burned him up in a fire that took down the whole building. Anything else you’d like to know?”

  Michael shook his head and glanced from Tom to Charlie and back to Q. “Sore subject, I guess.”

  “You think, asshole?” Charlie growled. “That prick broke my favorite guitar while he was trying to kill her.”

  Q sat down at the piano and carefully arranged the charts in front of her, trying to keep her hands from shaking. She played a couple of chords before saying, “Honestly, Charlie, you’re more upset about that guitar than me. And, really, to be fair, I broke your guitar when he threw me across the room…right before I shot him with your gun. Thanks for that, by the way.”

  She glanced at Michael and took a larger than appropriate amount of satisfaction in his ever-increasing discomfort.

  Tom clapped his hand on Michael’s shoulder and deftly guided him offstage, saying in his thickest Terrebonne Parish drawl, “I wouldn’t fuck up their monitor mixes if I were you, pahdna. They can be pretty temperamental, them two.”

  Michael swallowed and nodded, before scurrying back to his mix position at the other end of the room.

  Q glanced up to see the aforementioned Niko Perakis leaning against the side of her piano.

  “Was that really necessary, killer?” he mocked.

  Q closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she opened them, she found an empty space where Niko had been standing. She shook her head in a futile attempt to rattle loose the dark memories and darker ghosts that clutched at her brain. Nearly two years ago, Veronica Denton, the girlfriend of the Beasts’ former bass player, Pete Fontain, had blackmailed a Louisiana power couple; they’d hired Niko to quiet her up for good. Niko. Lovely, self-absorbed, perfect gay sidekick, Niko.

  They’d found Ronnie’s body after a Lundi Gras party and Pete had skipped town, heading to Tennessee to kick his drug habit. Unfortunately for Pete, he’d left town right before the police issued a warrant for his arrest. In the process of trying to clear him, Q had accidentally uncovered the same secret that had gotten Niko hired in the first place and found herself next on Niko's hit list. Self-defense or no, killing Niko weighed on her. Some people are natural born killers. Q found out the hard way, she most likely was not.

  She fought back the panic attack that always came on the heels of one of her PTSD hallucinations. Her breath grew shallower and she focused on slowing it down.

  Five things I can see: White keys, black keys, my hands shaking…fuck, stop shaking... The curtain, the charts.

  Four things I can touch: C-Major 7, C-7, F-major 7, F-minor 7.

  Three things I can hear: E-minor 7, A-7, D-minor 9.

  Two things I can smell: Tom’s cologne, cigarettes

  One thing I can taste….

  Q looked around and found Tom standing next to her with a worried expression on his face and glass of vodka in his hand. Tom had been playing drums for Q since she and Pete had started QT and the Beasts. After ten years of locking rhythms on stage, he was an expert in reading her moods when they were both off it.

  “Good looking out, Scare.” She drained the glass in one long swallow.

  Charlie gestured at the two of them from backstage. Q stood up, walking with Tom towards Charlie.

  “Fuck, Q. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I swear to god I didn’t know. Bobby cancelled and this guy just showed up. Fuck, Q. I didn’t know,” Charlie whispered.

  Q shook her head. “It’s ok, Charlie. It’s just one gig, right? I’ll be fine, promise.”

  She hated breaking promises.

  For the rest of rehearsal, Q’s internal timing mechanism was off-kilter. She sat at the piano unable to make her fingers behave as they should. Her left hand swung into the bass rhythm and she could hear herself slip out of time with the drumbeat. Frustration, aggravation, and fatigue finally got the best of her and she slammed her hands forcefully down on the keys, screaming, “Fuck! What is wrong with me?”

  She stood up to stretch before lying down on the hard wood floor of the stage. She heard and felt the loud thump as Charlie’s combat boots hit the floor and beat purposefully towards her.

  She held up her hand. “I know, Charlie, I know. It’s awful. I can’t play a steady beat to save my life. Can we please just call it quits?”

  Charlie put his hands on his hips, making the most of his slight frame before he squatted down. “Q, I don’t think we can find another sound guy that’s worth a shit on this short of notice. You’ve got to get it under control.”

  “I’m aware of that, Charlie. I’m just tired, I promise. I’m useless, and so is practicing the set anymore. Can we please call it a night, already?”

  Tom strode over to stand at her feet, followed by his nephew, JJ. Together, they formed a perfect ‘10’. Tom was long, lean, and gangly as a scarecrow, which had earned him his nickname. JJ was squat, round, and graceful as a floating butterfly, his long dreads adding to the perception of fluidity. At nineteen, JJ was the youngest member of QT and the Beasts and arguably the most talented. After Pete left town for good, Tom had used all his leverage with his wife, Camilla, and her sister, JJ’s mother, to convince JJ that playing bass in his uncle’s band was in his best interests. Q still thought JJ would do better playing for one of the larger, local touring acts, but she wasn’t about to intervene in the internal politics of Tom’s in-laws.

  “Lay off her, Charlie,” Tom said.

  Charlie held up his hands. “Why do you people always think I’m the bad guy?”

  Jessica Valentine, star of the Bourdello Burlesque, slid down from the ceiling on a cascade of fuchsia silk and joined them on stage. “Because you always are the bad guy, Charlie.”

  “That’s not what you said last night, beautiful,” Charlie leered.

  Jessica put both hands on her thong-clad hips and jutted out her chest, glowering over Charlie. The top of Charlie’s head barely reached above her glittering, golden pasties.

  Tom grabbed the largest piece of her costume from the floor and shoved it into her hands. “For Christ’s sake, Jess, put those things away.”

  Jessica flipped her long, black hair and stepped into the baby doll negligée, slipping into it in one slithering, sanguine motion.

  Q stood up and slapped the dust off the seat of her jeans. “I’m fine. Really. I’m just having a day. Ok?”

  “Not ok. We have a sold out show tomorrow. You have to pull it together,” Charlie said.

  “Leave her be, Charlie,” Tom said. He put his arm around Q’s shoulders. “Go home. Take it easy. Me and Charlie will have a come-to-Jesus meeting with the new guy. Who knows? Maybe Ben will give you that thing he’s got hidden in his sock drawer and give you something else to think about.”

  “What’s Ben hiding in his sock drawer?” Charlie asked.

  Right on cue, Max started whistling ‘Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady’ from his perch off stage right.

  “Christ, Scare! How many fucking people did you tell?” Q asked in horror.

  Tom held up his hands defensively, laughing. “Just JJ. Max overheard.”

  Q stormed over to Max and pointed her finger in his face. “Old man, if this gets back to Bubbe before there’s anything real to tell, your days of secretly sipping bourbon in the afternoon are done. You feel me?”

  “Whatever you say, my dear,” Max said with a grin as he sipped on his can of Pepsi.

  Q turned back to Jessica, “Did you and the girls get what you need, at least?”

  Jessica shrugged. �
��We’ve got it. Charlie might break his neck up there on his little pedestal, but that wouldn’t be such a tragedy.”

  Deciding to get out before Charlie and Jessica embarked on another epic battle of shouting-match foreplay, Q grabbed her satchel and jumped off the stage. Michael caught her arm as she landed on the theatre floor.

  “We should really talk,” he said, a look of unease still on his face.

  Q looked down at his hand and then at his face. “You should really get your fucking hand off of me.”

  Michael held up both of his hands and slowly backed up. Tom apparently, found this to be hilarious and dissolved into laughter, taking JJ with him.

  Q said her goodbyes to Laura and gratefully accepted a vodka with lime in a go-cup before she headed out into the Friday night Southern Decadence mayhem. It was barely into the dinner hour and already the streets were packed. She could feel the steady doonce-doonce-doonce of club music from every direction.

  Groups of well-dressed, half-dressed, and barely dressed, impeccably groomed men passed by her as she made her escape to Canal and the streetcar line. She had just stepped onto Canal when she felt someone following her. She looked behind her to see Michael Lopez threading his way through the dense crowd and moving swiftly towards her. She stared long enough to see him bump into a pair of older women.

  "Excuse you, young man," one of the ladies chided.

  Michael mumbled his apologies and caught Q's eye. He quickened his pace. Q rushed forward and glanced over her shoulder. Michael was coming closer, grinning.

  Creepy fuck.

  She spotted an empty taxi paused in the parking lot of halted traffic jammed on Canal. The middle-aged black woman driving it had every window rolled down and was singing ‘Dead or Alive’ at top volume, her long braids caught up in a brilliant orange scarf. Q stepped into the street and leaned into the window. The driver spied her and gestured for her to get in without missing a lyric.

  “’Cause I’m a cowboy! On a steel horse, I ride. I’m wanted. Waaaaaaanted….” she sang, with quite a few more melismas than Bon Jovi.

  Q slipped into the back seat just before her entire body exploded into tremors. She banged the back of her head against the seat for the remainder of the chorus.

  “Where to, my baby?” The driver called from the front seat, after the song had faded into its outro.

  Q gave her the address and the woman pulled to the left to move them off of Canal Street.

  “I hope you like you some Bon Jovi. My baby boy, he gave me the 'Best of' last week for my birthday. Those Jersey white boys are my jam!”

  “I had such a crush on Jon Bon Jovi when I was twelve.”

  “Oo! You and me both, girl. I told my husband that if old Jonny boy came a-knocking, he’d be out and Jonny boy be in. You heard?” she said, grinning at Q in the rearview mirror.

  “Crank it.” Q said, grinning back.

  The driver beamed and did just that. Q soon joined her in singing ‘Living on a Prayer’ as loud as humanly possible.

  After several more songs of Bon Jovi therapy, Q was feeling remarkably more like herself. She generously tipped the driver and asked for her card for future use. The driver handed it to her and said, “Alethia Fredericks, at your service.”

  “Q Toledano,” Q replied.

  “Nice to meet you, my baby.” Alethia paused for a moment before continuing, “I’m sure you are sick to death of hearing this, but thank you for putting that racist son-of-a-bitch and his wife behind bars. You did this state a favor.”

  Q caught herself tearing up for a second. “No, actually, you’d be surprised how rarely I hear that.”

  “Stay safe out there, my baby!” Alethia called as she pulled into the street, the dulcet tones of ‘Lay Your Hands on Me’ scaring every living creature into hiding. Still slightly teary and mildly amused, Q walked up the steps to Ben’s house.

  Our house. She inwardly corrected herself.

  Nineteen months of calling this house home and she still thought of it as his house, much to Ben’s disappointment. She pulled out her keys and unlocked the front door. As she stepped into the foyer, her phone rang. Q checked the caller ID: Daddy’s Office.

  Only it wasn’t her father’s office anymore, it was the home of the new star A.D.A., Terrance Fauchaux. For a split-second, Q debated answering, but her curiosity got the better of her.

  “Hey Terrance,” she said, dropping her satchel on the large, round table next to the stairs.

  “Ms. Toledano. I just wanted you to hear it from me, not the news.” Terrance’s voice had an edge to it that didn’t bode well.

  Q sat down on the bottom stair. “Hear what?”

  “We struck a plea bargain in the Multer case.” He said it quickly as if telling her fast would somehow lessen the blow.

  She closed her eyes and tightened her hand into a fist to keep from screaming in rage.

  “Ms. Toledano? Are you there?” Terrance’s tinny voice called from the speaker on her phone.

  Q took a deep breath.

  “I’m here. Which one? Which goddamned Multer is going to get away with it?” She stomped the floor and kicked the lowest stair in frustration.

  “Gus. He testified that it was his wife’s idea to hire Perakis and he didn’t find out until after it was done. He’s pleading out on two counts of sex with a minor and one count of accessory-to after the fact.” Terrance’s disappointment was palpable.

  “Two?? Two? That video I found showed him raping Ronnie a dozen times plus two other girls,” Q yelled in disbelief.

  “The one girl we found says it was consensual, and that she was over the age of consent when it happened. The judge says there’s no proof that Veronica Denton wasn’t consensual sex. We’ve got him dead to rights on a statutory based on Pete Fontain’s testimony.” Terrance paused and let out a heavy sigh. “Multer is still a big deal in this state. I got him on three charges. He’ll do fifteen years. His wife will do at least twenty-five, maybe thirty,” he explained as if anything other than life without parole would have placated her.

  “How long before probation?” Q asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Three to five if we’re unlucky.”

  She could hear the desolation in his voice. “This wasn’t your idea, I take it.”

  When he didn’t say anything, she knew the answer. Politicians looked out for one another, and the D.A. was nothing if not a consummate politician.

  “Don’t sweat it, Terrance. You did what you could,” she said, knowing that he really had done all he could, but the system was rigged in the favor of men like Gus Multer.

  Q hung up without waiting for a response and left her phone on the bottom stair. She climbed the stairs to the bedroom and screamed into a pillow for several long moments. Once she felt marginally less like burning the world to the ground, she slipped out of her Cannibal Corpse t-shirt, Converse, and jeans and into one of Ben’s dress shirts. Ben was a good foot taller than her and extra-long in every way. His shirts fell down to her knees. She took a deep inhale, breathing in his allspice and lavender smell and was instantly comforted, and slightly aroused.

  Prior to the Mardi Gras, during which the Multers had committed the crimes that had gotten them arrested and Q nearly killed, Q and Ben’s relationship revolved completely around getting one another naked as quickly and expediently as possible. But while Q was somewhat out-of-character in her casual treatment of their relationship, Ben patiently bided his time, pulling down the little brick walls she kept building up around her and using them to build something real and lasting with her instead. Nevertheless, thoughts of Big, Beautiful Ben Bordelon generally elicited memories between her legs that momentarily overshadowed her love for him. Within seconds, however, her rage bubbled itself back out of her momentary calm.

  Gus Multer is going to get away with it.

  The child of an A.D.A., Q was prepared for some sort of plea deal, but this was a bridge too far. Serving three to five years for raping a teenage gir
l and having her killed when she demanded some semblance of justice, was concrete proof of the systemic corruption that ran through every level of Louisiana government.

  Q wandered across the hall to her music room and sat at the piano to attempt another pass at the song she’d failed to master during rehearsals. She conquered it on the first try.

  “Motherfucker,” she muttered and successfully played through the rest of the set.

  Standing up to stretch, she found herself making a straight beeline for Ben’s antique vanity to check his sock drawer again. She reached into the back left corner and her fingers wrapped around the tiny silver box. Pulling it out, she looked at the inscription on top. A single word in elegant Hebrew script read: _______

  Bashert. Yiddish shorthand for soul mate.

  She opened the small silver cylinder to reveal a single square-cut diamond on a simple platinum band. Q’s stomach flipped and she felt an uncomfortable heat rising through her spine to her neck. She snapped the offending box closed and shoved it back into its hiding spot. Storming out of the bedroom, she crossed the hall to her music room and grabbed her guitar before heading downstairs.

  She poured herself a taller than advisable glass of vodka and walked out onto the fern-lined front porch. Sitting down in the white porch swing at the far end, she took a long sip of her beverage before setting it down on the table. She began to absent-mindedly strum out a tune, listening to a nearby mockingbird cycle through its set.

  Q caught a hold of a melody and began to lightly strum the strings, pulsing out an easy four bar blues progression and looking out onto the street. Unused to having so many visible neighbors in close proximity, she'd developed a new hobby during the gigless season of the past two summers that she liked to call, ‘what's your secret?’

  Already abundantly equipped with trust issues, Q figured everyone was hiding something; and, by and large, it turned out that she was right. She watched as the fifty-something man who lived across the street pulled into his driveway.

  Right on time.