Shrugging, I cross my arms and watch the dusky stretch of Lake Superior slip past the window in streaks of pink and yellow. “Just defending my case, is all. No different than you defending yours.” The beer cans rattle a second time, drawing a smile to my face. “However many you have back there.”
“That’s over the course of months.”
“And that’s only a fraction of what you have back at the house.” If I were to check right now, the guy would probably fail a breathalyzer. It’s a joke between us, that if someone hooked a tap to his vein, they’d probably get a mild buzz off drinking his blood. Thing is, he’s so big and drinks so frequently, I can’t say I’ve ever really seen the guy shit-faced. He’s passed out on occasion, but that takes the hard stuff to accomplish. “I’m not abusing them, okay? They help me sleep, is all.”
“There are more legal ways of falling asleep at night, Cely.”
“What? Counting sheep? Chamomile tea? Who, aside from cat ladies and yoga fanatics, drinks chamomile tea?”
“It so happens, I do. And it works. Soothes my stomach after dinner.”
“Well, it won’t work on me. The things that keep me awake are …” The window beside me blurs into a dark silhouette of passing houses, and the undefined features of a horned skull pops into my head. Doesn’t matter that I close my eyes to it. Shutting them doesn’t make it disappear. It’s always there. Always will be. In my head, I’ve always called him TonTon Macoute, a Haitian boogeyman, as I learned from childhood stories growing up. I don’t remember hearing the story, or why it stuck with me, but I convinced myself he was after me for years. Even now, I have to remind myself that boogeymen aren’t real. “Look, no cup of tea at night is gonna make them drift away. Besides, do you have any idea what I had to do to earn those pills?”
“Tell me you weren’t skinny dipping again. ‘Fucks sake, it’s winter! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“It’s actually therapeutic. Way better than chamomile tea. You should try it sometime. Just … not where anyone’s around. Nobody wants to see that. No offense.”
“None taken.” Lips tight, he huffs an exhale through his nose. “On a different note, I came out lookin’ for you for a reason. Been trying to get a hold of you for an hour.”
A bleak grimness clings to his tone that turns my stomach a little. That’s when it occurs to me how strange it was that he came out looking for me. The guy hasn’t chased off teenage boys with a groping problem since I was fifteen, when he nearly ran Cash Iverson over with his truck because the jerk coaxed me into going with him to a place the locals call Bareback Bluff. A decision I instantly regretted when I learned what the name actually meant.
“Everything okay?”
The flinch of his eye tells me something is very wrong. Staring out through the window, he hands me back the pills without so much as a glance. “Just a couple, okay? Store ‘em in the medicine cabinet so I know you ain’t downing all of them at once.”
Heart thumping against my ribs, I stare down at the pills. The last ones he confiscated, he flushed down the toilet. Something is wrong. Very wrong. “What’s going on?”
The tightening of his lips only stirs my fears, and he lets out a huff through his nose. “Found Noya about an hour ago, in the backyard. Wolf got to her.”
2
Thierry
Chevalier Isle, Louisiana
Curling plumes of cigarette smoke drift upward, reflecting in the wall of glass through which I stare down at the main floor, where women line a black, velvet catwalk. Tits and asses swaying in a trance-inducing seduction with the beat of the music. The patrons, men and women alike, line the stage at either side, tucking bills of cash into stringy thongs that disappear into the cracks of fit, rounded asses and ample hips. From the same pile of cash, they pay overly-attentive waitresses for the overpriced drinks that flow like an endless stream of liquid self-loathing.
Every swinging dick in the parish comes here on a Saturday night, because it’s clean and the girls are vetted by both looks and their ability to perform.
And they do perform.
The stakes are too high to employ cheap pussy.
Chevalier Isle might not be the ideal place for a strip club, seeing as it’s only about twenty-two miles from one end of the island to the other, but this has grown to be one of the up and coming hotspots of the south. And though it’s only been in the last few years this club has been anything worth the drive it takes to get here, they come from New Orleans and as far as New York to see the girls of Sinners and Saints. The neo-gothic church, whose bricks I had stained a deep charcoal, looks like something straight out of a Dracula flick, but it’s what goes down inside that packs the tables.
Like a sexual freak show, all paid courtesy of the dirty money that sifts through hands like a well-executed card trick.
My business partner, if I can even call him that, is the only person this side of the border that has a direct link with the Matamoros cartel out of Mexico, for whom I launder large sums of cash. If I don’t deliver? My body will be buried in a deep pit on some remote Mexican ranch, never to be seen again.
“Mais, you own da hottest club in Terrebonne parish wit’ all dat sweet chatte at your disposal, and you sittin’ up in dis office alone?”
At the interruption of my cousin Luc’s voice, I smile to myself, and turn to find him standing in the doorway to my office.
“Comment ça va?” Years I’ve spent distancing myself from the accent I was born into, not out of embarrassment, or shame, but because in my line of work, the fewer distinguishing features a man has, and the less anyone knows about me, the better. Valir is a language rooted in Cajun, but distinct enough in dialect that it’d be instantly recognizable. I’m one of the many who’ve contributed to the decline of my native tongue, but in my case, it’s a matter of keeping my identity concealed, or risking a bullet in my ass. Yet, somehow, Luc brings me back to my roots every time.
“Pas bon.” Not good. He falls into one of the chairs in front of my desk and groans. “She finally packed up an’ left. Di’n’ even say goodbye, her.”
He’s the quintessential bayou boy, with his ragged ball cap and muscle shirt, but the curveball is his hopeless yearning for romance, which has earned him the nickname Casanova. A trait I can’t much relate to, from where I reside on the opposite end of the spectrum in all my cynical distaste for love.
A passing discomfort sweeps over me when I glance back to find him bent forward and looking downtrodden, as he shakes his head. I’d sooner stab an icepick into my eyeballs than talk about relationships.
“I swore she was da one, me. Even picked out a ring.”
“Sorry things didn’t work out. How’s business?” A lame response, but I wouldn’t even begin to know what else to tell him. Women have never been more than a transaction of needs for me, and parting afterward is what I appreciate most of all.
“Business is good. Not like what you got goin’ on, but it’s good.” For the last couple of years, Luc has struggled to get his venture into Valir cuisine up and running. The guy is horrible with money, and in spite of the advice I’ve given him over the years, he continues to flounder a bit. Good, for him, is breaking even, which is better than the debt he was looking at before. Problem is, he’s too kind, always giving away something for free. Including his heart. “I jus’ don’ understand da women sometimes. Don’ know what dey want.”