Nightwork, page 7
To the right a wide doorway opened to more, and a simmering fire with a mantel alive with greenery and candles, the towering tree sparkling in the big window.
Servers in white shirts, black pants, and red bow ties carried trays of drinks and finger food.
Juliet snagged two flutes from one. Set her mostly empty glass down. “Merry Christmas.”
She tapped her glass to his.
“Merry Christmas.”
“Hungry?”
“Actually, I just ate, but thanks. Is everyone friendly around here?”
“Hospitality is a religion in Savannah. Where are you from?”
Since he’d used his South Carolina accent, he went with it. “Florence.” Straight shot up 95, he remembered. “I’m heading down to Jacksonville to surprise my grandparents. I figured to get there tonight, but hit more traffic than I planned for. So I’m here until morning, as I didn’t want to get there so late I’d scare them instead of surprising them.”
“Aren’t you the sweetie?” She gave him what could only be interpreted as the flirt eye. “Traveling alone?”
“With my brother. He’s moping back in the room, talking to his girlfriend because I dragged him along with me.” The story flowed right out of him. “We lost our daddy last summer, and our mama back when Willy was a boy, so it’s just the two of us.”
“I’m so sorry.” She laid a hand on his. “It’s good of you to go see your family, and I don’t expect he’ll mope for long. Let’s get you in the spirit. There’s dancing upstairs.”
She led him to the staircase.
“So what do you do back in Florence?”
“Right now I’m doing carpentry work. My father’s company. I’m taking a gap year with all that happened, but Willy’ll be off to college in the fall, God willing, and I can go back to Carolina. UNC. How about you?”
“Home for winter break. University of Georgia. Family tradition.” She took his hand, led him up the next set of stairs.
“This house is amazing.”
“We take pride in it.”
His original plan had fallen along the lines of getting in, straight to the master bedroom and the safe he’d concluded he’d find. He’d assessed the locks and the alarm pad as Juliet led him through, knew he could beat them.
But now it seemed simpler, and somehow more polite, to just palm a piece of jewelry off a handy wrist or neck and be done with it.
Not hers, he thought, because that would be downright rude, though she wore a trio of very nice diamond bangles on her right wrist and a Chopard on her left.
She hailed a man in a dark suit and red tie he recognized as Jeb Carlyse. “Daddy! I found this stray wandering the streets and brought him in for some cheer.”
Carlyse laid a hand on his daughter’s shoulder and gave Harry a steady once-over.
“Is that so? Where did you stray from?”
“Florence, sir, on my way to Jacksonville and my grandparents. We’re just stopping for the night in Savannah, and … I’m intruding.”
“I invited you,” Juliet reminded him.
“What do you do back in Florence?”
“Carpentry. I don’t have the skill my father did, but I know enough to say the millwork here is extraordinary.”
“His daddy passed last summer, so he’s tending to his younger brother until he starts college. Then Silas here can go back to UNC.”
“You’re in Carolina?”
“Yes, sir. I’m going back in the fall once Willy’s settled.”
“And what are you studying there?”
“Daddy, how much longer are you going to grill poor Silas just for coming in for a drink and dance?”
“This might be the last.”
“I’m a lit major. Like most lit majors I’m planning to teach to keep the wolf from the door while I write myself the Great American Novel.”
That got a faint smile and a little nod. “Southern thrillers?”
Harry laughed. “Why, yes, sir. Does it show?”
“It’s what I do. All right then, you’ve got your drink, go and have your dance. Enjoy the party.”
“Thank you for your hospitality, Mister … Sorry, I don’t even know where I am.”
“Carlyse. Try the shrimp mousse. It’s damn tasty.”
“Dance first.” Juliet tugged him toward what he saw was an actual ballroom, decorated to the nines, with a live band rocking it out and the balcony doors wide open.
So he danced. He was good on his feet, as his mother had loved to dance and he’d been her usual partner. He kept the drinking to half a glass, though he found the champagne a lot tastier than the shrimp mousse.
He picked out a couple of marks, then one fell into his lap, almost literally.
She tumbled into him on the dance floor, a woman somewhere in her forties, he gauged, who hadn’t kept the champagne anywhere near half a glass.
She wore a tight silver dress showing off impressive breasts. Her chestnut hair had started to tumble out of whatever updo it started in, and her brown eyes laughed up at him.
“Oops!” Then she locked her arms around him. “Since I got him, Juliet, I’m stealing him. This boy has the moves! Show me some moves, cutie-pie!”
He held her upright, sent Juliet a mildly panicked look for effect. She just rolled her pretty blue eyes.
“You go on, give Miss Mazie a spin. Then I’m taking him back, Miss Mazie.”
“If you can get him!”
Not flat-out drunk, Harry decided as he gave her that spin. But she was heading there. While she giggled, flirted, hung on to him, he snapped open the safety on her bracelet, flipped the clasp, and had the very nice set of diamonds and sapphires sliding into his pocket.
When the music ended, she said, “Whew! You do have the moves. Juliet’s wasting your moves on the dance floor, you ask me.”
“Now, Miss Mazie.” Juliet peeled her off Harry. “Shame on you for embarrassing my guest. Now I’m taking him back.”
“Don’t waste him, child.” And she wandered off to find someone else to give her a spin.
“She really should get some air.”
“Oh, she’ll be fine. Happens every year.”
He gave Juliet another dance to cover himself and because he just wanted to.
“I really have to get back. I never expected to be out this long.”
“Tell you what, if Willy’s still up and moping, bring him back. We’ll party the mopes out of him, and, trust me, this is going on all night.”
“I might just do that. I’d like to do that.”
She walked him down to the second floor, then turned away from the staircase.
“Just give me another minute.”
She led him down a wide corridor, into a room. Her bedroom, he realized when she nudged him inside, closed the door, leaned back on it.
“I bet Willy can handle another little while, and I’m so bored with these parties. Got any ideas how to take care of that boredom?”
“Ah, maybe, now that you mention it.”
“Right here.” She smiled as she just pulled her dress up and away, stood in the tiniest of black bra and panties. “Right now. Bang me up against this door, Silas. Good, hard, and fast.”
“Talk about merry Christmas.”
He thought about the bracelet in his pocket, took some care so it didn’t fall out. Then he accommodated her.
He walked back to the motel in a daze. If not for the weight of the bracelet in his pocket, he’d have sworn he dreamed it all. When he reached his room, he sat on the side of the bed and relived it all. Especially the last part.
The part where she’d wrapped both her legs around his waist, dug her nails into his shoulders. When he’d come it had been an explosion.
He hadn’t known it could be that fast, that intense, that hot.
If he had one regret, it was knowing he couldn’t go back and do it all over again.
But he pulled out the bracelet, got his loupe, studied the stones under the light.
“Oh yeah, merry Christmas, and happy New Year.”
He set his alarm—best to be gone at first light—and crawled into bed.
* * *
Plans to head south and check out Florida, maybe spend a week or two exploring the beaches, possibly all the way to the Keys, changed. No point winding his way toward Jacksonville when he’d pointed an arrow at it. Just in case somebody put a missing diamond and sapphire bracelet and some dude who’d danced with its drunk owner together and wanted to chat.
Instead, he spent his first Christmas Day on his own cutting across Georgia to Alabama. Because he didn’t want conversation—What’re you doing all alone on Christmas, boy?—he hit a vending machine for road food and snacked on chips, peanut butter crackers, Oreos, and Hershey bars while he traveled the rolling hills of the Piedmont.
Hyped on carbs and sugar, he crossed the Chattahoochee and drove straight through to Montgomery and a half-assed motel, where he slept for twelve hours.
He thought about Juliet of the sunny cap of hair and supple legs winging her way north to ski. It all seemed like a dream until he studied the bracelet.
While he calculated he’d put enough miles between himself and Savannah, he didn’t want to risk trying to sell the goods so soon.
He learned to love the South, the feel of it, the food, the voices, and the slow, easy pace of the byways.
He spent New Year’s Eve in Mobile, watching the ball drop in Times Square in his motel room while he ate cold pizza. After crossing the border into Mississippi, he spent New Year’s Day enjoying the beach on the Gulf of Mexico.
He considered settling down right there for a while, maybe getting a job, picking up some nightwork. Instead, he pawned the bracelet in Biloxi, and moved on.
Then he drove into New Orleans, and fell in love.
It had everything: the water, the voices, the food, the music, the architecture. And tourists with fat wallets, not to mention a historical district loaded with mansions.
It had Tulane—smaller than he’d wanted to risk for slipping into a college for some classes, but he thought he could manage it.
After two days of exploring the French Quarter, he learned he could walk into the humblest of holes-in-the-wall and eat like a king. A stroll down Bourbon Street after dark meant music pumping out of doorways, and tourists drunk on Hurricanes he could relieve of watches or wallets with a simple bump and snatch.
Taking the leap, he rented a furnished apartment on Burgundy Street, opened a local bank account, and—though it cost him—acquired a damn good fake driver’s license all under the name of Silas Booth.
The enterprising soul, one Jacques Xavier, who’d sold him the ID had a cousin, a tarot reader who worked as a bartender at night. Dauphine LeBlanc had wide, soulful eyes and a flood of black hair.
She didn’t mind if he hung out at the bar some nights, listening to the music, drinking Cokes or sweet tea, and trolling for marks.
She wore snug, colorful shirts and chains of crystals. The crystals prompted him one night halfway through January while the band oozed out deep, dark Delta blues to tell her she reminded him of his aunt.
She pursed her pretty, full lips, angled her head. “You sit there, doudou, and say you look at all this fine and see your tante?”
“No, not like that. She’s into crystals, and she’s working as a phone psychic. And she’s terrific.”
And Mags didn’t feature in any of his sex dreams, where Dauphine had starred a time or two. At twenty-two, she treated him a little like a stray dog who came to the door. Kindly, with occasional and vague affection and no ties whatsoever.
But then he wasn’t looking for ties.
He drank his sweet tea, enjoyed the music as she worked the bar before she came back down and topped off his glass.
“You should come into the shop so I can read your cards.”
She wouldn’t do it for free. Her cousin had told him Dauphine had a hard line on the issue. Do a free reading for one, and it opened the door for the flood of friends and relations to want the same.
“Maybe. Sometime.”
“I already see what I see. I come from a line, and we know what we know. You see plenty, too.” She leaned over. He had a generous view of her excellent cleavage, but since he’d been raised better, he kept his gaze on her face.
“Like the table there, with the man so white he glows while he sweats through his fancy shirt and drinks whiskey sours. You see, as I see, the big, ugly gold watch, and the woman he’s with and whose leg he strokes under the table isn’t his wife.”
“His wife’s home somewhere like Toledo while he brings his side piece with him to the convention here where he can play big shot on his expense account.”
Dauphine tapped her finger on the back of his hand. “You see, I see. But why Toledo?”
“Thereabouts, anyway. His accent.”
“Ah, bien sûr. Yankees, they all sound the same to me. You have good ears, I think.”
An idea struck, so he went with it. “How much would you charge to teach me French?”
She waved him off, moved down the bar to fill orders. He’d learned, even on the short acquaintance, to just wait.
The band went up-tempo, and feet started stomping. A group of four—college-type girls, he concluded—came in and crowded at the bar.
Dauphine would card them all, and it occurred to him if any of them had a fake ID, it might be courtesy of her cousin.
Dauphine came back, put a plate of crawfish boulettes and Creole mustard sauce in front of him. She’d charge him for it, but he couldn’t complain.
“What you want to learn French for?”
“I like to learn.”
She eyed him while she mopped at the bar. “What kind of French you want to learn? You got French like in Paris, you got Louisiana Creole, you got Cajun French, and more.”
“All of it, or as much as you know.”
“We do this. I give you one lesson, one hour, fifty dollars, and if I think you’re an imbecile, c’est tout. If I think you’re not wasting my time and your money, we go on. Twenty-five dollars each lesson.”
“Deal. You won’t think I’m an imbecile.”
She didn’t look convinced but nodded. “Tomorrow night, eight. You have dinner and a good bottle of wine for me. One hour, no funny business.”
That night before he went to bed, he put the gold watch—a Gucci—and the cash from the wallet he’d tossed in the space he’d made beneath the floorboards under his bed. He’d hold on to the watch for a few weeks, where it could keep company with a very nice pair—about two carats each—of ruby earrings, a cuff of rainbow sapphires, and a TAG Heuer Aquaracer.
Once he sold them—not all at once, of course, and not all in the same place—he’d add to his bank accounts. He’d never have to worry about someone taking away the roof over his head, or if Mags had enough to get by.
He settled in with one of the books on art history he’d borrowed from the library—with a card. He thought the day was fast approaching when he could expand his nightwork to art.
He had to pay somebody to buy the wine, as even his fake ID had him underage. He decided to cook. He liked having a kitchen and often tossed a meal together. But he wanted something a little better—or more adult than mac and cheese or a burger. Since he didn’t think he’d developed the skills to try a Cajun or Creole meal yet, he fell back on one of his mother’s standbys for company.
In the days when they’d had company for dinner.
He hit the farmers market for red potatoes, found some early asparagus, bought a baguette, some chicken, and a small praline cheesecake.
He wouldn’t hit on her, he thought as he quartered the potatoes. She might laugh him off—humiliating—or refuse to continue the lessons. And he wanted French in his pocket.
So he made the meal, and if the steps and the scents brought his mother into his apartment, it didn’t hurt as much as it had. He found some comfort in it.
He set the table, put out the flowers he’d bought. He didn’t light candles, didn’t put on music—sent the wrong message. When she knocked—precisely at eight—he concluded prompt would be part of his lessons.
She wore a body-skimming black dress and red heels that put her nearly eye-to-eye with him. Nearly a month had passed since his brief and intense sex in Savannah, so he thought he could be forgiven the spike of lust.
“Bonsoir,” he said. “Bienvenue.”
She nodded. “C’est bon.”
She stepped in, gave the tiny apartment a quick glance. “You keep it clean. I have three brothers, all slobs. Their rooms always smell like dirty socks and moldy bread. Yours smells like good cooking. Did you cook or pretend to?”
“I bought the bread and the cake. I made the rest.”
She wandered the few short steps to the kitchen. “Where did you learn to cook?”
“My mother.”
Those soulful eyes went straight to his. “She’s left us? I have ears, too,” she added. “I hear sorrow.”
“Yeah, last year.”
“Je suis désolée.” She touched her heart. “I think you’ve done her proud with this cooking. Now pour me some wine. Divin—Louisiana French. Du vin in formal French.” She tapped her ear. “You have to listen to hear the difference.”
He poured wine for both of them. “The second is, like you said, more formal. I can hear that.”
“Then you hear good.” She stepped to the window, pointed. “The car? Un char, Louisiana French. Une automobile in French. But you see, you can blend and mix here—not, I think, in France, but here you can use either or both. It shows you know more than one language. So we who do switch from French, English, Creole because we can.”
“You have to be fluent in all first.”
“Mais oui. The wine is good. Le vin est bon.”
When he repeated it, she pursed those lips and nodded. “Your accent’s good for a beginner. So you can feed me what smells so good. I think talking with dinner is a good way to learn.”
He proved not to be an imbecile, so she agreed to come back the next week for half the price, a meal, and good wine.
