M&C & The Courtesan Ruby Jeansonne

MOSES & CURIO & THE COURTESAN RUBY JEANSONNE



         

         “Hey, Mister!”  A young boy’s voice, stifled and half-choking as he tried to swallow a gully-washer of lemonade and speak simultaneously, begged the resting man’s attention.  The man was sprawled out on beach blanket, half-upright.  He had dug a large hole in the beach with a sloping shelf in it so he could lay back in a reclining position in the cooler, wetter sand beneath the top layer.

Under both the lazy shade of a large LSU umbrella and the calming influence of many beers and a desultory quickie prior to stumbling out for some sun, his initial thought before opening his eyes was a reply of, “Piss off!” to whoever’s brat was bugging him.  He relented and rolled his head toward the tyke.

         “Yes, sir, my good man.”  He smiled and looked at a pudgy, shirtless son of a tourist hovering over him.  He guessed the kid was about eight, clad in new flip-flops and a pair of new, white Bart Simpson shorts.  The boy’s shoulders were already hot-pinked by yesterday’s Mississippi sun and it was only Saturday morning.  His mama was obviously intent on torturing the boy all weekend for some offense and the poor kid was too dumb to know it.  One look at his skin the men knew the poor kid would spend most of next week crying between dousings of Solarcaine and shedding skin.

         “Were you in a car wreck or somethin’?”  The kid was peering down at the man’s numerous scars, incredulous and sincerely curious about them.  The man looked around for a parent and found no one was watching the kid.

         “I’ve actually been in three car wrecks, buddy.  I’ve also got thrown by a few bulls and one horse in my day.  Why you askin', Cowabunga boy?”  He replied, looking sternly but amused over the top of his aviator-style sunglasses.  He wondered briefly why the designer had put Bart Simpson’s face right on the crotch of a child’s attire.

         “You get all them scars in those wrecks?” The boy sucked at his drink continuously between his questions.  He was sweating profusely.  A solid byproduct of Nintendo, sodas, and air conditioning, the man determined.

         “Nope.  I been in them three wrecks and done got bucked off a many a bronco and bull alike, but not a single one of these was from a car wreck, surprisingly.  I got most of these in the war.”

         “What war?  Were you at Pearl Harbor?”

         The man smiled.  “No, sir.  Pearl Harbor was way back in 1941.  I warn’t alive back then but my daddy was in that war.  That was in World War Two.  I got mine in Vietnam.  In 1972.  You ever heard of Vietnam?”

         The boy brightened up immediately.  “Yeah!  My brother was watching a movie about that one not too long ago.”

         “Which one?”

         “I don’t know.  It had some girl in it sayin’, ‘me so horny’ a lot.  And then later,” the boy got excited as he found someone to impart his wisdom upon, “she was shootin’ at a bunch of guys from a building.  Until these soldiers shot her.  I think she was copying a rapper when she said it.  My cousin has a tape with some rappers saying it on one of their songs.  But my mom wouldn’t let me listen to it ‘cuz she said it’s dirty.”

         “Your mama knows best.  You should listen to her.” 

His eyes now watched his lady walking in the blue waters of the swaying Gulf, squeezing the salt water from her short black hair and happy.  She was radiantly shining with the glimmer of salt water skidding down her oiled skin.  Her full smile of idle contentment and bliss was profound.  It was by far a more glorious sight to him than the pristine blue water and cloudless sky.

         “Did you get shot?  It looks like you got shot.”

         “I did.”  He raised his cargo shorts on his right leg and rolled it slightly to show a dull red dimple that stood out against the whiteness of his farmer’s tan.  “A guy shot me right there once.”

         “With what?”

         “With a machine gun.”

         “Wow!  That must’ve hurt.”  The boy’s eyes were wide. 

         “It wasn’t pleasant.  But these scars,” he pointed out various imperfections dotting his body, “were as a result of a big artillery rocket blowing up by me.”

         “You got blowed up?  Wow!  Cool!”  The kid was enamored but realized in his young mind that scars were painful to real people who didn’t just get blown up on a movie set.  “I mean, not for you.”

         “Yeah, that day I could have done without, partner.  It was a bad day.  The rocket that hit me also hit a lot of my friends worse than me.  It killed a few guys, too.” 

The kid’s pudgy face drooped a little as he realized it was probably not a very cool thing at all.

         “That was scary, I bet.  Did you cry?”

         “I was purty scared but I don’t reckoned I ever cried about it.  Maybe I did.  I dunno.  War is a right scary thing to be in.  I hope you never have to know that.  It’s way better in movies with some popcorn and some buddies to watch it with.”

         “Where you in the Army?”

         “I was a Marine.”

         “What’s the difference?”

         “One’s part of the Navy and the other is just the Army.”  He scratched at the long scar on his left arm that ran from his elbow to nearly his wrist.  That one was not a war wound in the historical sense but it was the result of mortal combat. 

His woman caught him gazing at her and gave him a giggling wave as she watched him, thigh-deep in the lolling surf.  He nodded and waved subtly.  She blew him a kiss and fell backward into the water again.

         “Which one’s better?” The boy asked.

         “Well, we all think we’re the best.  And we’re all correct.  I happen to think the Marines are the best.  But I reckon anybody who puts on a uniform and gets shot at deserves the same recognition.  I will say this,” He sat up and wallowed back in his hole  to shuffle the sand beneath his butt, “Something we used to say in the Marines is that when a feller goes to the Army recruiter, the recruiter says, ‘Come on and join the Army, boy.  We’ll make a man out of you.’  You gotta’ be a man to begin with to join the Marines.” He smiled the casual smile that his lady loved to see.

         “Cool.  What about those tattoos?  You get them in the war?”

         He looked at a few of them, recalling their stories and cherry-picking those images which he would tell about truthfully.

         “A couple of them I got back in the war.” 

The boy sucked at the straw and looked around.  His cherubic face locked on a very pale and chunky lady squished into a doodoo-brown one-piece about thirty yards away, bouncing a tiny pair of swim trunks on a toddler who was slathered completely white with sunscreen. 

         Mom… the man inferred.  The boy figured he had a few more minutes to gab.

         “They hurt?  My mama says they hurt and I shouldn’t get one.  But I want one when I grow up.”

         “They sting a bit but a grown-up can take it okay usually.  What do you want to get drawed on ya’?  You best make certain you like it before they draw it.  They don’t go away.”

         “I dunno’.  I just want one is all I know.”  He took another long draw of the drink and nosed at the man’s chest.  “Is that your name right there?”

         Moses Holliday rolled over and brandished the writing stenciled in his flesh beneath his left nipple.  In faded India ink, were drawn in four lines:



HOLLIDAY, MOSES T

USMC ENL.

A+    P

SEMPER FIDELIS



         A huge white patch of scar tissue covered a swath of skin just below the words.  Above the same nipple was a more recently scribed LCL.  A very few people knew it stood for Lemarie Curio Leblanc.

         “That’s me.”

         “Like Doc Holliday?  I just saw that Tombstone movie with Doc Holliday in it.  You like that movie?  Was he your uncle or something?” The boy’s eyes got big as he readied himself for a brush with greatness.

         “I did like it.  It was a good movie, warn’t it?” The boy nodded.  “But I ain’t no kin to him far as I know.”

         “Oh.  Okaya.  What’s all that stuff mean under it?”

         Moses pointed at the words as he explained.

         “This here is called a blood tat.  This means United States Marine Corps.  This means that I was an enlisted man like a private or a sergeant and not an officer like a lieutenant or a major.  This is my blood type and the P means that I’m a Protestant in case a preacher needed to be called in.”

         “Called in for what?”

         “To pray for my soul in case I got killed and had to be buried.”

         The boy cocked his head and looked puzzled. “Why did you put it on your chest?  Why not your arms?  My cousin has a big tattoo that's looks like an ace of spades with blood dripping from it and all.  It’s weird-looking.”

         “Because arms and legs get blowed off a lot.  Usually a chest stays intact enough for a blood tat to be read.  I’ve seen it happen before.  Ain’t no pretty sight findin’ folks blowed up in pieces.”

         “Gross!  I bet it was all bloody like in Friday the 13th!  That’s way gnarly, dude!”

         The man shrugged.  “That’s one way of looking at it.  I’ve definitely seen gnarly up close and personal in my day.”

         They could hear suddenly the call of the boy’s name by his mother.  The annoyed matriarchal tone was unmistakable above the din of radios, cheerful sunbathers’ voices, seagulls and the rumble of distant motorboats garbled by the gentle wind and surf.

         “David Solly!  Leave that man alone and get your tail over here!”

         Young David glared at her as a child just getting a feel of his own legs beneath him was capable and hollered, “Okay!  I’m just talking to him about war!”

         “I didn’t ask what you were talking about!  Get over here or I’m taking you back to the room!”

         “You best be a-scootin’ along, buddy.  You ain’t supposed to be talkin’ to strangers no how.  Listen to your mama.”

         “She’s always yellin', I swear.  Her and my daddy both.”

         “It’s what they do, buddy.  Now git on!”  He shooed him away, smiling.  “Before she blisters you worse than that sun is doing.  Get some sunscreen on that white skin, partner.  Sunburns hurt like the dickens.”

         “Okay.  Good to talk to you.”  He struck out his hand bashfully.  Moses chuckled and gave it a thorough squeeze.  “Take care, bud.” The boy looked one more time at the blood tat.

“Semper Fi!” The boy said.

“Semper Fi, bud.”

         The boy ambled over to his mother and his little brother, dragging his feet in the white sand.  Moses turned from the boy and watched his lover stretch her hands over her head and give him a bit of a shimmy of her hips as she left the water and approached him.

         Curio Phelonie walked from the water, giggling as she watched the little chunky kid make nice with Moses and get chastened for it by his mother.  She walked up and flopped down beside him, wriggling in the hole to get situated.

         “You making friends with would-be informants over here, Mister Moses?  Tsk, tsk, tsk.  What would the boss think?”

         “He would probably just ask if the boy’s mama was single in all likelihood.”  She giggled at that.  “You have a good dip?”

         “The water is perfect.  Ain’t too hot, ain’t too cold.  It’s awesome here, let’s move.  I'm no longer feelin' coonass enough to live in the bayou nowadays.”

         “I ain’t much for living on the beach.  And one summer or fall day, all this ain’t gonna be here a-lookin’ so pretty.  It blows through here and makes a real damned mess every once in a while.”

         “Always the pessimist.”  She kissed him on his sinewy bicep.  “If it gets swept clean one day, they’ll just rebuild it.  Think of it as improvement.  And it ain’t like we would hang around here to ride it out.  Fuck that.”

         “It would be a great way to disappear, though.  Wait til' a big one comes in and get listed as missing and presumed washed out to sea.”

         “You said can’t no one go missing like that anymore with all the databases they got now.”

         “Probably not in the future.  But if it happened soon, it could be doable.  Damn computers are catching on in a hurry.  They a-gonna’ fuck up everything when everyone has one someday.  Idiots love to share and they love to one-up one another.  Computers, cars…whatever.  One day people will plug it straight in the brain, I betcha'.  And they’ll do it and they’ll actually pay someone to allow them to do it for them.  Be too dumb to know they can be tracked that way or too dumb to care.  Too dumb also to wonder what happens if they want it unplugged and someone in a suit with a badge tells 'em naw we don't think so.  Think about all them games.  Kids nowadays already willingly stare at a screen for hours doin’ what needs to be done on the screen to win some game, accepting challenges, never moving.  I can’t help but wonder when they start linking them things up together if folks will ever have secrets again.”

“You and I will still have secrets.”  Curio winked at him and put her hand over his mouth. “Now no  more talking shop, Mr. Orwell.  Let’s talk about margaritas.  And lovemaking.  And maybe lovemaking and margaritas on the balcony again tonight.”

         “Kinky.”  He rolled over and pulled a thermos of cold margarita from her beach bag and gave it a shake.  “I guess being so private so much makes it so thrilling to be in public like that.”

         “I hadn’t thought of it that way.  I just figured it would be nice outside like that.  You know, the moonlight and the sea and the waves and all.” She brushed her thighs clean of a trickle of sand. “But without all the sand in my ass.

         “If you recall, wetting sand down and packing it keeps that from happening as much.”

         “Yeah, but that was work.  I’m thinking pleasure.”

         “Always thinking, you.”  He poured her some margarita into a plastic cup and secured the bottle.  Then he pulled a flask from the bag and took a swig from it.

         Curio winced and faux-retched.  “Bleh!  I don’t see how you can slug down some hot-ass whiskey on a damned beach, Moses.  Damn.” She shuddered as he gargled some for effect and swallowed it as he closed the flask.

         “We been drinking whiskey in the hot sand as long as there’s a-been a west Texas to ride in, honey.  Warn’t no fruity drinks with umbrellas where I was from.  Cold beer and whiskey was all we needed.”

"What about tequila?  You can make fruity drinks outta’ that.”

“We had tequila, too.  But no white folks would hardly be caught dead drinkin’ some Pendajo’s Golden Pee tequila.  At least until whoever made up a margarita made it socially okay.”

         “You coulda’ brought beer, though.  It’s way too hot for whiskey.”

         “Not from where I’m sittin’.  But I will admit it got a little teeny bit hotter when you plopped down.”

         “You think?  I am kinda’ hot, huh?”  She smacked her lips after a long drink. "Tangy!"

         Moses rolled over and kissed her on her shoulder blade just beside the spaghetti strap holding the emerald green bikini to her lithe body.

         “Smokin', baby.  Smokin’!”  He flopped back over and scooted further back into his hole.

         “Why do you reckon he wants to meet us over here on the coast anyway?  It ain’t his normal way of doing things.”

         “No talking shop, you said.” Moses looked over at her behind his shades.  “Do you ever really wanna’ know what he wants when he calls?”

         “I guess not.”

         “And I be willing to bet this time won’t be much different.” 

         She took a long drink of the margarita and cleared her throat. 

“You’re right.  No talking shop.”  Curio rolled over and pecked him on his cheek.  Then they stared from behind sunglasses a long while at the blue Gulf of Mexico. 



         Bertrand Fontenot stared absently at the Gulf of Mexico through the bay window of his beach house in Diamondhead, Mississippi, cuddling a tumbler of iced Glenfiddich against his chest.  He did not need to look at the Rolex hanging loosely on his wrist to know the time was nearing noon.  For four days straight, he was reclining on his couch in the same position and posture around noon.  When the sun was halfway-severed from his sight by the outcropping of the clay-tiled roof, it was noon. 

Sighing, he sipped the scotch and watched a distant boat bobbing in the meager waves.  It was a rarity for him to be so completely alone for more than a day or two.  Four days alone at the beach house had been blissful.  No phones, no business to handle, no voices other than his and that was practically never.  Apparently, since he had not been contacted, there were no problems back home or at the office. 

Just a few days lounging in a beach house he rarely had the pleasure of using. 

Before he opted to head over to Diamondhead alone, he thought about bringing along some female company.  There was any number of strippers at his clubs who would have jumped at the chance to take a day or two off and head over to the beach with the boss.  He reneged from making the call at the last minute. Sometimes, it was better to just be alone.  Alone he could do “some thankin’ and some drankin’”, as he liked to call it.  A great many situations had been sorted out in his mind while nursing a Red Stripe on his couch.

Ever the garrulous mobster in public, it was a great thing and an actual blessing to merely be able to sit quietly and watch the tides ebb and flow.  Watch the fish scurry in the tide.  Birds milling about.  Fishing boats passing now and again.

In the middle of his placid scenery, there was the trio of FBI agents anchored almost constantly in a thirty-footer.  When they were not there, Fontenot figured when they were punched out for the day, a Coast Guard cutter would loiter by within visual range of the house.  He knew one of the tiny, moving specks on the distant boat was listening to him with one of those fancy sound scooping gadgets they used.  Considering he slept with a radio blaring soft rock in his bedroom and had barely spoken a word aloud in four days, he gave the men kudos for their tenacity. 

To sit in a lawn chair on a bobbing boat deck in the broiling sun for hours, for naught, must have been a dreadful duty.  At least the agents waiting for some signal light on his tapped phone line to blink so they could snatch up headphones and start the tapes rolling did so in a cool office somewhere.

At the very least, the agents in the boat should have brought a pole and tossed a jig or two in the water as they listened to his silent house and made a decent, albeit professionally wasted, day of it.

Probably against da regs, he sighed.

Some suit would catch them with a cooler full of specks and nothing to report.  Then the suit would probably write them up.

The Feds just sat and watched, occasionally with binoculars.  He made sure when he limped outside on his fake leg and putted a few golf balls on his putting green, he went out naked so they would at least be forced to wince for their pay. 

It was all good fun.  For a substantial fee, Fontenot was tied into the very offices where the agents would file their dutiful reports of, “Subject has not yielded any notable information.”  Over and over again.

He marveled at the labor and the technology spent to attempt to incarcerate him at times.  He always figured it was a waste of treasure in the grand scheme of things. 

They may well catch ole Fontenot one day, he mused as he stared at the cabin cruiser.  A man wearing sunglasses was looking at him through binoculars while another spoke to a walkie-talkie. 

But the next sorry sumbitch is waiting somewheres to take up my slack.

But, that was a possible future.  He was still a free man and very gainfully employed and he had company coming by. 

There was some real business to handle amidst some partying.

It was an interesting bit of business- a rare initiation of a new member into his group of thugs known in the press as the Atchafalaya Mudbugs.  Not a formal rite like the wops did up north, with their burning the saint and all that naked handshaking bullshit. 

This was more like a leap of faith.

He was at a point where he felt some détente was warranted concerning his main button man’s comely new partner.  An underlying uneasiness had always permeated his dealings with her.  The first time they had dinner together she threatened to kill him.  Bertrand Fontenot finally decided since he was the boss and, thus, the man with the most to lose or gain by her insecurities arising from her unique place at his man’s side, it was time to bury the hatchet as best he could with her.

That she was a woman was novel thing, to be sure.  From their first meeting until their last, Fontenot could sense the detached manner in which Curio Phelonie suffered his presence.  He could hardly blame her.  She killed for him alongside his main man, Moses Holliday.

She shared his bed and secrets.  He once felt that the security of Moses Holliday was better than a bank vault encased in a starving-shark tank, surrounded by a core of molten lava, and guarded by Gurkhas on meth for keeping his secrets.  At least before he and the hothead little woman started their thing. 

Moses broke a cardinal rule.  In a big way.  Having a partner was a thing he would not have been chastised for had he asked for one and had one assigned from the hoods and muscle men Fontenot kept on his leash.  Bringing in a secret one though, a woman no less, unvetted by the men who had the most to lose if a job went badly, that was a practically a capital offense in itself.  Had the girl not been so crazy but competent and Moses not been so trusted, the call to end his employment would have been made with ease.

Bertrand shook his head and downed his scotch, pondering both the idiocy and peculiarity of his old friend Moses falling for a girl young enough to be his goddamned daughter.  It was a thing Bertrand wondered about constantly.  Whereas he only shook his head and wondered in incredulity at the randomness of the love bug’s bite, his brother Pete was by far more livid than curious.  It took a lot of talking to from Moses and Bertrand alike to settle Pete down enough to not order someone surreptitiously to rub Moses and Curio out after the initial discovery of her.  Bertrand himself came dangerously close to making the call in the days after discovering her existence. 

It was his first impulse.  For a long time, he debated whether he was right to allow the coupling.  The entire reason he had Moses was to negate, permanently, any dangers other mortals posed to his organization.  At the outset, there was no way he could rationally see a way where having a sexy, young woman holding a gun alongside Moses Holliday as he handled the final business transaction between the Fontenots and some former associate was a plus. 

If a worker doing thoroughly felonious things for him no longer made sense to have in that capacity, they were a danger and thus should be handled just as any other employee would be handled if they erred similarly.

Catch-22, Griz, he often chuckled, handled by Moses.

It gave him a week of indigestion after the abrupt first encounter with the couple together to wring his hands about the call to make.  Pete put it to him simply.  Did the risk outweigh the allegiance and friendship he had with Moses?  Pete’s answer was no.

Bertrand and Moses’ relationship spanned decades.  Bertrand owed several lives to the man.  Pete simply could not bow to that, however.  He only saw the risks.

Bertrand finally considered the man and erred on the side of Moses over his brother.  He knew him and knew how he operated.  The girl was his problem and she seemed to thoroughly grasp what she was in for if she stayed by his side and accepted it completely.

So, they lived. 

He often wondered how long Moses would have kept her a secret.  One look at her and he knew why most men would.  Hell, Bertrand’s first look at her was nearly enough to trump his usual caution.

On the night they met, it was by surprise.  Grizzly and Pete were riding along with Moses on a job, a rarity in itself.  During a hit on house full of armed thugs, things had gotten nasty and public.  One of the targets got away.  She was watching and gave chase.  When the men gave chase as well, Moses had to come clean when she was spotted.  She cornered the escaping thug, disabling his car and shot up the man’s legs where he could not run.  When she took a chance to fearfully hand him her shotgun with one shell left in it to issue a coup de grace to Franklin Gauthieux, his shock rendered him unable to shoot her.

Seeing Moses standing there, a gun taunt in his hand, having just explained on a wild ride in the rural Mississippi countryside that the woman driving his Ford chasing Franklin down ahead of them, wearing night vision goggles no less, was his woman and his partner.  Bertrand knew if he flinched toward her a mere half-inch with that shotgun or if Pete made some minute flinch that warned Moses her presence was forbidden under any circumstance, Moses would have had them both on ice inside of two seconds.  He could see it in Moses’ eyes in the shine of the headlights.

So he shot Franklin, which was why he was there with Moses anyway, and left to drive away with Pete firing questions, theories, and expletives all the way from Tupelo to Memphis.

Had Moses not looked so intensely able to shoot his longtime friends over her, Bertrand may have gone through with it.  That dedication to her, spelled out in a nervous glare aimed at Bertrand as he awaited the gangsters’ verdicts was what gave Fontenot pause.  It occurred to him that if a man as cautious and professional as Moses, who knew the rules because he had enforced the rules for so long, could trust a woman enough to bring her all the way into the fold, she must have been special.  Moses was no fool. 

Except for her.

Bertrand had seen a many a man lose it over a woman.  Moses had lost it, but Curio was an asset, ultimately.  Of all the possible women Moses could have met, he was blessed to have found the perfect her for the imperfect him.

Despite Pete’s anger and fright about the situation and against all normal protocols he normally carried out when one of his minions went all stupid, Bertrand was actually happy for Moses.  Ole’ Tex was human after all.  Bertrand was beginning to wonder…

But did he want him human?  Humans were fallible.  Moses, in the years he had worked for them, was many things, but fallible was never one of those things.  He was solid, intractably focused on a task at hand, downright ruthless when ordered.  Fun to be around, sure.  God knew he and Tex went back a long way.  They went all the way back to the war.  They both had seen injury and death, dealt death to the enemy together. 

Moses was with him during their morose homecoming as Bertrand learned to walk with a stump leg.  Both of them still suffered from the occasional nerves flaring up as the shrapnel lodged in their bodies jostled around with age and dug into them ever further. 

Tex had moseyed back to Texas and ended up a slovenly drunkard and a mean lay-about.  Pete found him when times were dire for the Fontenots as they battled rival factions for the control of the burgeoning dope market in New Orleans.  Moses soon found a new calling as a foot soldier for Bertrand back when he was seizing control of the southeast Louisiana criminal enterprises. 

Moses was instrumental in dwindling down the numbers of low-end thugs who stood in the Fontenots’ way.  Ruthless, inventive and fearless, Moses and a few other members of the Fontenots’ gang installed them as a powerful faction of the New Orleans underworld.  Expansion through attrition then receded to the less hazardous glad-handing methods when there were no longer any more leaders worth shooting.

Around ’84 when the street wars were now forced into the ghettoes, Moses was moved over to what could be termed, Special Services.  He thrived in that capacity.  Tough as a boot, as tactically brutal or finessed as needed, he handled a great many problems for them.  He did it for years.  Never questioned an order, never argued over pay.  He was automatic when his machine was flipped on. 

Then, he took it in his head to move some young coonass tart- tasty, hot and soft as a fresh beignet to be sure- in with him and make her operational as his second. 

A wingman that swallowed, apparently. 

Moses had it lucky, Grizzly Fontenot often chuckled.  As a boy working as a low-end hood before the draft caught him, Bertrand’s partner was a hulking redbone from Opelousas named Denny Carter.  Denny was fifty pounds of body hair heavier and thirty years of eating pickled quail eggs older than Bertrand.  He would have killed to have a sexy woman of Curio’s sexual persuasions and proven capabilities to hole up with in a hotel both on and in-between jobs.

Still, it was a lot to process at first.  Time did not make it easier, either.  But it did assuage their paranoia as the girl proved she was as cold as he was when it came to the business at hand.  They were understandably reticent about using Moses for a long spell after that, despite his protests.  There were other men who made people disappear for them upon orders.  When one of them messed up a hit and ended up getting himself shot to death by the fellow he was supposed to kill, the Fontenots realized it was a waste of raw talent.

If anything, she made Moses more cautious.  And the girl proved to be capable.  The job on the Mississippi AG’s mistress was a real piece of work.  Even Pete’s reluctance waned after he saw her first-hand.

After that job, Bertrand saw in Curio the potential for longevity.  She knew the rules, was not showy or gabby despite her gender and age.  She seemed to only need Moses for company.  The girl was solid in the field; she really took to it.  Not as technically efficient as Moses, but of course he had two decades on her and was a war vet.  She was a savage little minx and cocky as hell. 

Nice to look at, a pretty coonass to boot. And that certainly didn’t hurt.

He and Pete had asked Moses privately for an honest recapping of which jobs he and Curio had done together and the extent of her involvement.  Their jaws dropped as he rolled off a number of jobs she was in on.  The extent of her involvement was total.  She was at a level where he would back her up a lot and let her “have her play” as he called it.

Moses even let it slip that she got horny from doing the jobs.  Pete nodded in affirmation.  He had seen her squirm in anticipation before the Mississippi AG’s mistress job.

“Da girl was practically getting’ down on all fours and throwin’ up her pussy in da air like a calico in heat.”  He shook his head and chuckled as Moses shrugged.  “It ain’t nevah seen nothin’ like it, Bertie.”

Bertrand looked at his watch to verify his time and saw he was more or less correct.  His honored guests would be arriving within a few hours.  Punctuality was a strong suit.

Limping on his fake leg, he walked over to the kitchen and rinsed out the tumbler.  Beer and umbrella drinks were about to be served.  The hard liquor was done.

Popping open a Red Stripe from his fridge, he was pretty well into it when the first motors began rumbling up his driveway.  Casting a furtive glance toward the parked boat a few hundred yards past his private stretch of beach, he smiled and gave them the finger.  With the push of a button, he lowered a dark mirror over the bay window.

“Sorry boys, private party.”

He fired up the stereo.  REO Speedwagon started up.  “Nice!”

All chicks liked “Take it on the Run.”  Thinking of Curio, he cranked it up. 

The cars emptied visitors into his home.  Sighing as his ninety-six hour sabbatical end, he left the door open and hugged necks as they passed him.



A few hours later, Moses and Curio got out of a cab under the cover of a tunnel built across Grizzly’s driveway.  It was built onto the house after Grizzly bought it to shield folks from watching eyes as best he could.  Moses hated going there.  It was all well and good when one got to the house, but having to slink down and cover his face…and now hers… in the back seat of a cab was unnerving.  The smiling Lebanese driver would not have been smiling so widely had he known he was going to be questioned in detail by the FBI within a few hours.

“Swanky digs!” 

Curio’s eyes were smitten with the sprawling home.  It was built of bleached limestone and roofed with long clay tiles.  Tropical plants abounded.  Pete’s dog, an ever-bouncing Golden Retriever named Cubby, came from nowhere as the cab left them.  Curio loved on him a moment before they went inside.

At least forty people, thirty of them women clad in various pieces of bikinis, were cavorting on the artificial sand dune behind the house or helping two men in chef’s clothes man the grill.  Many were dancing or playing volleyball on the patch of grass separating the manmade beach from the house. 

One blond had a chef’s hat on her head but no top.  The two black chefs stared at her breasts as they hovered over the smoking grill.

Through the back window, at least six jet skis were ripping up the surf between a parked boat and the house.  They jumped each other’s wakes and generally harassed the Feds in the boat.

Pete met them at the door.  “Bienvenue!”  He was drunk and sans shirt. 

Curio winced at the huge, white and hairy belly that spilled over a pair of khaki shorts.  His swimming shorts were nearly unseen beneath the fat.

Moses nodded and immediately pointed at the boat parked out in the water, puzzled and frowning.

“We’re good.  The mirror’s down.  Dey jess out der watchin' titties jiggle fo’ now.  Howdy, my cheri!”  He hugged Curio, hard enough to feel her breasts against his fat belly for an extra few seconds.  She knew what he was doing and smiled about it.

“How’s it hangin', Pete?”  She patted his belly and faked trying to lift it up with both of her small hands to see his pecker.  “Any idea today?”

“I wouldn’t know, bebe.  It’s down der someplace.  I’ll get someone tah make sho a-dat later.” 

A thin nymphet walked by wearing a smile and a pair of green biker shorts that split her perfectly.  Pete winked slyly at the couple.  Curio merely shook her head. 

“Bertie went to handle a piece of bidness fo' a few.  But I’m bettin' since he been cooped up out here a while, he fo’ sho’ ain’t gonna’ be dat long about it.”

Moses found a beer immediately and handed Curio one. “Blond, brunette or redhead?”

Pete guffawed.  “Paradise City” started on the speakers and the girls all whooped.  “All three prolly'.  He always liked Neapolitan best when we ate ice cream as kids.  Some habits don’t go away.”

“We still a go on the thing?”  Moses sipped from his Coors can and watched Curio watching the girls.  She was massaging her hot neck with the cold beer can.

A tall, black chef brought in a pan of grilled meat.  He nodded at the new arrivals curtly and hurried back outside to tend to the grill.

“Yeap.”  Pete walked them through the kitchen, snatching a freshly-grilled fish kebob from a plate as the chef who left them there. 

“We love deez caterers down dis way.  Dey do us fine when we here.” 

He pointed at the tall, beanpole black man now working the grill in a chef coat with a tall boy in his hand and a blond in the chef hat’s rubbing his belly on her wobbly legs.  “Dat man raht der, he livin’ proof dat a lil' time in da joint can do wonders fo’ a fella.  He owns da bidness.  ‘Course, he did three for possession with intent.  But he learned to cook in da joint, got a bit of bidness education and started up da catering thing.  He is straight up hell on a grill.  Try some of deez lemon-juiced tuna steaks on a stick.  Some good shit raht der.  Course, he got a few issues, but ain’t we all?”

Curio grabbed one and another with giant shrimp interspersed with grilled fruit and sweet onions as well.  The sunbathing made her hungry.

“Hiiiii Peeeete!” 

A pair of platinum blond twins in matching black thongs and explosive hair walked into the kitchen for a reload of Jell-O shots and munchie food.  One of them gave a curious glance at Moses and Curio.  Curio realized they were the only ones dressed for the street and not for a beach party.

“Hi, y'all!” 

The staring girl waved slightly as she picked up a shrimp kebob and slid off a hunk of pineapple into her mouth.  She held it in her lips and the twin bit away half of it, sensually.  Then they chewed and giggled.

Curio said nothing, merely rolling her eyes.  Moses only nodded and looked at the crowd for a threatening face that Pete managed to miss.  He figured the caterers were the probable spies, if any existed.  The girls were all just strippers from Grizzly’s various clubs, trucked over to mask their meeting from the Feds in the boat.  He supposed an informant was hidden in their midst.  Thirty-odd girls, the numbers bore that out.  He looked at Curio.

“Baby, why don’t you change into your swimsuit?  You stand out in here.”

She nodded and sat the kebobs down on a plastic plate.  To Pete’s amusement, she kicked off her sandals and pulled the skirt she was wearing down.  Kicking it aside, she pulled her loose silk blouse over her head and then she was as festive as the rest.  Wearing a turquoise two-piece cut perfectly for her curves, she slid her feet back into the sandals and trundled up her clothes, which she threw aimlessly into a cabinet filled with canned goods.

“That’s a great suit!”  The twins said in unison and giggled the same way about it.

“I’m glad you think so.”  Curio smiled at them.  She was thinking about a Bill Hicks rant about using sex in advertising.  He cited the Double Mint twins on a commercial specifically.

“Double your plea-suuure.  Double your fuuuun…”  He wasn’t thinking about gum…

The twins offered up Jell-O shots.  Moses declined but Pete and Curio did not.

Pete introduced them to Sasha and Tasha.  They were twin dancers who were touring through the South’s strip club circuit that summer.  They were from Reno, apparently born and raised to be an incestuous duo that licked a fleshy mirror of themselves nightly for fifteen hundred each.

Curio was glad she was not on weed.  Pondering the implications of literally tasting yourself in another woman was deep to her for some reason.

A lithe blond with ringlet curls crimped in her awesomely teased mane came dancing from a hallway Moses knew led to the master’s chamber.  She self-consciously wiped the corner of her mouth with a quick swipe of her thumb before rejoining her cadre on the beach behind them.  Curio watched the group coldly as she sipped her beer.

“Methinks out esteemed leader shall arrive soon.”  Moses tossed the empty beer can in a barrel-sized trashcan and fished another from the cooler perched at the end of the buffet.

“Naw, he gonna’ take his shit first.  Let’s head over and see if we can get a couch.”  Pete took two more kebobs with him.

“Take a shit after fucking?  Gross!”  Curio mumbled and shook her head.

“Better than during, doncha' think?” Pete offered. “He done dat all his life.  I used to wonder what a shrink would say about it but aftah thinkin’ about dat, I figure some things are best left unspoken.”

“Ew, man.  Just straight-up ew, ew, ew!”

They perched up on a large sectional.  Moses lit a Winston and watched the parked boat behind the aviator sunglasses that seemed to arrive on his face from nowhere.

“They really on y’all these days, ain’t they?” He shifted his eyes behind his glasses to the black caterers ambling about as Slash and Axl rumbled.

“When ain’t dey been?”  Pete shrugged and pulled food from the stick to his gullet.

“And this one we’re here for?  Saw too much, right?”

“She seen waaay too much.  The old bat.  It’s a damned shame, too.  She long in da tooth to boot.  Mebbe' if dem lawyers coulda’ come up with a lil mo’ time, she woulda' passed on before the trial and dat would be dat.”  Pete mumbled through sloppy tuna bites.  “But it ain’t happen dat way.  You know how dem old folks get uppity ‘bout civic duty and doing’ da raht thang and all.  We got it on good accord she intending’ to drop the dime on da docket.  It’s a damned shame fo’ sho’.”

Curio frowned and cocked her head at Moses.  He sucked his back teeth in resignation and shrugged impassively at her silent query.  His look registered, “I told you so,” to her.

Another blond, heavily tattooed with a fake tit falling from her sagging top flopped into Pete’s lap.  She was soused, a little too old to still be a falling-down drunken whore.  Somehow, her thin legs seemed to fit under his gut.  Her thighs were missing.  Only her bloated trunk and spindly lower legs were seen.  Curio retched slightly and giggled.  Moses saw what she saw and smirked about it.

“Hey, stud.”  She purred in Pete’s ear.  He barely noticed her and kept eating.

“Hey, Dixie.  You want a bite?”  He offered a piece of meat and she shook her head in disgust.

Taking notice of his guests staring at her, she whispered in his ear, nibbling at it when she was through speaking.

         “It’s in the last bedroom on the left.”  He pointed nonchalantly toward a hallway.  She staggered that way.

         “Good thing we traffic or we could never afford the tootin’ bill for deez bitches.”  He half-chuckled.  “You see her face when I offered her da meat?  Imagine the irony of a whore who don’t wanna eat no meat.  I'ma hafta' put that in her quarterly review.”

         “You ever tasted some meat you’d know why.”  Curio smirked.  “All gravy ain’t good gravy, bro.”

         Bertrand “Grizzly” Fontenot strolled in with his characteristic limp from the hallway leading to his bedroom, shirtless and wearing long white chinos.  A diminutive black girl with huge tits and a tall, freckly redhead with barely any tits at all followed him.  Neither of them were looking at the other.

         Pete cackled with a mouthful of onion and peppers.  “What I done told y’all!  Fuckin' Neapolitan!”

         Grizzly picked up a Red Stripe and dipped a chip in some cheese before flopping down next to Pete.

         “Bon soire!  Bon soire!  Y’all eat?  Evahthing good?”

         “I hope you washed your hands.”  Curio said as he snacked on the chips.

         “I had a lot to get washed up, mon cheri.”  He inhaled the chip.  “Good thing I had a lil' help.  Me being a disabled vet and all.”  The men chuckled.  Moses sipped his beer and kept watching the chef.

         “I hear ya.”  Her eyes watched the redhead standing quietly outside.  She was holding her arms to her chest as if she was cold inside, sadly watching the water, not moving an inch.  A rigid statue amongst the swaying girls.  Eventually, her hands slid down her belly.  Her fingers locked themselves with a self-cautious pressing over her womb.

         Yeah, girl, Curio smirked, Right now, you could be carrying a mobster’s bastard.  And he don’t give two shits and probably only gives four inches about you.  Hope the two bills he slid into you alongside his dick are worth all that worry…and by the way, if you’re knocked up, don’t tell a soul.  Move.

         “So, bidness.”  He leaned in toward them.  All four leaned into a nefarious circle. 

“Pete done told y’all what was what?”  Grizzly found the remote control for the music and cut it up a nervous notch. 

Moses noticed that the grass was green and the girls were pretty in the backyard.  Grizzly must have consulted Guns-n-Roses before buying the house.  He occasionally glanced at the Fed’s boat, which was still anchored and buzzed by jet skis.  The lead chef’s eyes kept shifting from the topless blond next to him toward the boat. 

Almost uncontrollably looking at the boat.  As if ordered to do so every minute.

         Now what black man would rather look at a cop boat asittin’ far off out there when there’s a big ole pair of big blond titties right there in suckin’ range? 

Moses knew the answer to the question.

         “Not really.”  Curio mumbled and sipped her beer. “He mumbled somethin’ about some old bats when he was stuffin’ his face.”

         “Well, it’s like dis.  We got ourselves a man who done went and got hisself caught after having to shoot his way out of a jam.  He down over in da Harrison County Jail and he sitting in der lookin' at life if he convicted.  Now he a good man and an earner and he play by da rules.”  Grizzly exhaled softly, as if affectionate for the man in question.  “The DA ain’t got a whole lot on him but he do got a witness who will swear til' she blue in da face she saw our man.  She is easier than him to get to.  So you gettin’ da call.”

         “Pete said she’s old?”  Moses looked at Curio’s face through cut eyes as he asked.

         “She seventy-two, yeah.”  He judged her reaction to that.  She had none beyond an abrupt sip of her beer.  “It’s a damn shame but it is what it tis'.”  Grizzly smirked abruptly and pulled down some beer.  “At least you can outrun her iff’n you had to.”

         “I ain’t done no old lady before.”

         “Dat’s why you gonna pull da trigger on dis one, cheri.”  Pete spoke slowly.  “Moses can back you up, but we want you to drop the hammer on her.  Think of it as a rite of passage.  Moses done told us we should just brand you with da Sign of Ar on yo palm but we figure we handle some business with it instead.”  Curio saw Moses chuckle but had no clue what the sign of Ar was.

         “You see, Miss Curio,” Grizzly gestured with his hands like a sales pitchman as he spoke, waving the squat Red Stripe bottle around, “You done pretty good so far.  Hell, real good.  You kept yo’ head despite bad shit goin’ down on y’all.  You shown no mercy and y’all got yo’ man evah time.”

         “Or yo’ woman.” Pete threw in.

“We aim to please.” Moses said.

“But by all accounts, mosta’ dem jobs been against some dangerous and dirty ass folks.  What you gotta’ know by now is I play for keeps.”

“I got that impression.” Curio smiled.

“Well, it’s like dis.  Dis old bag?  She gonna’ cost me a lotta’ money and a good man.  I aims tah keep both of dem fo’ myself.  Ole Cooneye, he a damn good man but he got hissef inna’ jam that wasn’t all his fault.  I know hearing dis from me after deez last few months workin’ fo’ me, it gonna’ sound like bullshit, but despite what you might think, I don’t usually pull a trigger on every Tom, Dick and Pierre dat might give me some grief if he keep on breathin'.”

“Coulda’ fooled me.”  Curio hmmphed.  “I bought some damn nice jewelry on your grief checks so far this year.”

“Well, you earned it, bebe.  But, dis Cooneye fella?  Who knows?  He gets antsy, he might flip on me and ole Pete here.  Da boy is lookin’ at a life term up in Parchman dis go-round.  Serious time.  He’ll be bustin’ up rocks and shit.  He probably sittin’ around in county dreadin’ dat good ole shower room soap-droppin’ jungle lovin’ he gonna’ be guardin’ against for the rest of his life.”

“Some men ain’t cut out fo’ a lifetime of anal sex.” Pete chuckled.

“Some women are.” Curio countered with a smile.  The brothers looked at each other and shook their heads.  “But you digress?”

“Da man ain’t be thirty-three.” Grizzly spoke. “It make a man renounce his mama when he done had eight months already in a lil’ ole county cell to dwell on dat.  He say here I am, lying on a bunk with some other asshole in der doin’ his sixty days and goin’ home after.  But me?  I’m thirty-three and I’ma die either by a shank sometime in twenny oh two or at best I die old with my anus all wore out.”

Curio clapped and laughed. 

“Dey gonna’ bury me in my orange jumpsuit.  Dat’s too much to lay on a lotta’ fellas.  Especially when a Fed walks in with dat old magic briefcase trick.  He pops da lock on dat briefcase full of wonderful magic papers.  And he tell dat man he a fuckin’ magician who can make it all go away fo da low-low price of Grizzly Fontenot’s balls hung on a keychain.”

“It’s a tough biz.  Remind me never to apply for promotion, y’all.  Man, it must suck to know a minion could sink the boat so easy.”

“It drive a man to drinkin’ and fuckin’ a lot.  Dat’s fo’ damned sure.  But anyway.  With one precise aim and a random obituary, you can make all dem things go back to raht.  As I sit here, it’s an easy call to make and when I made it in da past, it was yo’ man der dat got it.  You been doin' a lotta’ bidness fo’ us with him fo’ a while now.  But, it’s time you shit for me on command or you gotta’ get down from da potty chair, young 'un.  Welcome to da show.  All eyes of da audience are on you, mon cheri.  You gonna’ be a star or you gonna’ get stage fright?”

         “You don’t think I got it in me, do ya?”  Curio glared at the brothers and then back at Moses.  His face was the same as theirs- impassive, almost smiling like the men were parents listening to the babbles of a four-year-old trying to elucidate some elaborate movie plot.  Patronizing was a thing she could not stand.  “Any of y’all?”

         “It ain’t easy to throw down on somebody’s granny.  She gonna be scared fo’ her life, probably screamin’ bloody murder.  I’m sure Mo gonna plan it out where she alone but you gotta’ know by now, shit fucks up.  If she got some sweet tea-sippin’ ole biddy with her?  Or maybe some gentleman caller done brought the rummy cards ovah and der he be, sittin’ on dat couch with her all a-hopin’ his dick pump ain’t got a hole in it?” 

Griz pointed at a spare cushion on the sectional and then aimed a finger pistol at her, his eyes fiery.

“Dey gotta go, too.  Your conscience gonna’ be okay with it?”  Pete asked.  “Dat’s da difference between being in with us or being just down with whatever yo beau der is up to.  He done told me when it was dat he let you start ridin’ out with him.  He also told me why he didn’t let you ride with him on some of dem befo’ you pitched a bitch and came in fulltime.  He saved you from seeing a lot of what dat man had tah do so he didn’t scare you off from him.  But he’s all in.”

Grizzly smiled at Moses.  “He done been all in forevah, it seems.  It’s all in fo’ you now, pretty lady.  Nothin’ ventured, nothin’ gained.  You comin' into a group of murderin’, stealin’, lyin’ useless sons of bitches who may get you killed.  I ain’t gonna’ say get you thrown in prison, cuz' you gotta’ know you ain’t nevah gone see no prison cell.  It ain’t gonna’ happen,” He aimed his pistol finger at her.  “One way or another.  And dat’s da truth.”

“I understand.”

         “You can walk from it raht now.”  Grizzly said, finger still pointing.  “We trust you and we trust Moses enough to let you live in dat little love shack he got for you and keep dat lovely trap of yours shut up tight.  You been in on jobs with him and we accept dat you got as much reason to keep quiet as anyone if you decline to be let in.  Hell, you already in deep.  You with my man der.”  He smiled at Moses. “Against our better judgment and prolly’ his.  But, we aim to put you on da health plan and da 401k.  If you catch my drift.  But it means ain’t no turning back.  Der ain’t no, to hell with dis, I’m done and fuck all of y'all.  For lack of a better term, it means yo ass is mine, not Moses.  He rentin’ it.  Yo heart can be his, but to me yo ass just a sub-contractor.  And to prove I need one more ass in my stable, der’s a lil' ole white-headed snitchin’ ole bitch in Pascagoula that needs to be killed tragically during a home invasion.”

         “Tragic shit, man.”  Pete nodded.  “Dat crime deez days?  Jess tragic.  Every day we read about dem niggers jess breaking into old lady’s houses and shootin’ dem before dey robbing da place.  Sheer tragedy.  Hell, dey may have to create a neighborhood watch aftah' a senseless killin’ in such a quiet neighborhood.  Crazy world we live in, ain’t it?” 

         All three men watched her for a sign of weakness.  The party outside seemed distant and forgotten around them

         “It is what it is.”  Moses nodded and sighed, his eyes watching Curio as INXS began playing “The Devil Inside.”  The girls outside ground themselves together beyond the mirrored window.  He pointed a trigger finger briefly at her before aiming instead at the chef who kept staring uselessly at the mirrored window and then back at the boat.  The jet skis kept flittering in the salt water beyond them, kicking up rooster tails and jumping swells.

         “Nothing to report, suh…”  He knew the man would tell his handler later.  He caught Pete’s eye for a moment and gave a sniper’s aim with a closed eye at the caterer operating the grill.  Pete nodded and winked, “I know” subtly back at him.

         Curio drained her beer and burped loudly for effect.

         Moses squeezed her hand suddenly.  “Baby, we had a good run.  You done better than I coulda’ ever dreamed.  I love you to death.  You know all that.”

         Curio nodded.  Something about his tone was contrived.  He already knew what she was going to say.  Moses always knew everything.

         “You can go home right now.  We can go home right now.  And when the phone rings, you can give me a lil' peck on the cheek and say have a good day at work, honey.  Hell, you can pack my lunch.  Watch your soaps.  Shop.  Even get some girlfriends to hnag out with.  We can travel around.”

         “It’s a big ole pretty world,” Grizzly nodded.  “I be willin’ to send you to see some of it on my dime.  You done real good fo’ me so far.”

         “But you can have some normalcy.” Moses continued. “You can walk.  I can’t say by now your prints aren’t on file somewhere in a ‘who-the-fuck-is-this’ folder.  You knew that could happen from the start.  But I can say we done a great job of covering ourselves in the jobs we done already or we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.  Now you’ve heard all this bullshit from these two cockknockers.  I’m beggin' you one more time,” He squeezed her hand firmly. “Walk, Curio.  It’s the smart move.”

         Curio Phelonie kissed his hand, crumpled her empty can, and glared at the trio insolently for what seemed to be an eternity.  She drew it out as if thinking it over diligently.  Then she smiled.

         “Dat ole bitch got a name?”  She looked down her nose with her dark eyes set on kill.  Grizzly felt his heart pause for a moment.

         “Ruby Jeansonne.”  Pete chuckled.  He locked his fat fingers, stretched and popped his knuckles.  “Dat mean you in, Babygirl?”  He tapped his hands on his belly.

         “Call the newspapers.  Tell dem, they need a spot left open.  On the back page.”

         Grizzly Fontenot smiled and laughed aloud.  “Welcome to the party, cheri!  It’s gonna’ be a doozy.”

Something about the looks on the three men’s faces was peculiar as they laughed together.  Their titters were almost giggly; it reminded her of the sound girls had made talking about their newfound periods and boys under their breaths at the very few slumber parties she had been invited to as a kid. 

She chalked it up to nerves and left it at that.

Pete bade them farewell after the party at his house and clasped her shoulders before she ducked into the cab.

         “Make me proud, Curio.  It’s a rotten thing to have to do, I knows it.  But dat old lady could wreck us and I’ll be good and goddamned befo’ I do twenty years just cuz’ some old lady was leaving da Jitney Jungle just in time to see a fella of mine shoot it out with someone else on account of me.”

         “Sucks to be her is all I gotta’ say.  Don’t sweat it, baby.  I got this.”

“Bon temps, cheri.” He gave her a thumbs-up as the cab pulled away.



Ruby Jeansonne’s bungalow on River Road in Pascagoula fell under Moses and Curio’s lethal scrutiny at ten p.m. the following night.  Grizzly had it on good account that the widow Jeansonne would be mounting the witness stand over in Gulfport within three days.

         “It’s a simple breaking and entering.”  Back at the Singing River Inn, Moses reported after sneaking around the house and surveying the locks and windows. 

“The front door has a turnkey lock and a latch.  I’m surprised there ain’t no deadbolt on it.  Most old ladies seal their places up like Fort Knox.  I guess in this neighborhood they trust the lawdogs ain’t got much to do but watch their shacks.”

         “Can I pick it?”

         “Yeah, it should be easy enough to pick.  We’ll do it together, though.  We’ll wait til’ she finishes watching Matlock or rubs one out watching Johnny Carson or whatever she does.”

“Maybe she just prays.” She said under her breath.

“That could be.”  Moses nodded. “You gotta’ be ready for that too.”  He looked apprehensive. 

“I guess so.”

He ran through the plan deliberately.  “She crashes out.  I’ll pick the lock and cut the chain.  You pop it open and charge in there.  I’m on your six.  It’s a simple sweep and clear.  Empty the gun in her, though.  It makes it look more hurried and panicky.”

         “Easy enough.  They gonna’ see the silencer marks on the bullets though, ain’t they?  Silencers ain’t a ghetto specialty from my experience.”

“I doubt it.  I fixed the slugs to splinter up a bunch.  Hollow-points are a wonderful thing and with a little bit of playing with ‘em, they play hell on a ballistics check.  One day, you gotta’ learn how to do that.  It helps to know these things.”

Curio nodded, trying to put up the front but inside nervous for maybe the first time in months since partnering with him.  Moses held her to him on the bed as she curled up against his chest.

         “You sure you can do it?  It ain’t easy, you know…civilians.”  He shrugged at her.  “This ain’t no dopeman or some gangster kinda’ bastard, you know.  It just ain’t easy to do as you think.  It’s nights like these why I didn’t want you to go the route I’m on.”

         “There ain’t none of them been overly easy, baby.  At least the old bitch won’t try to gang rape me if I fuck this up.”

         Moses shuddered at the reference to a hit gone bad.  “Yeah, but that was thugs and some other various sorry motherfuckers.  This is some old lady that don’t rightly deserve it in the grand scheme of things.  She’s just an old blue-hair waiting for Jesus and she's about to get herself all kinds of shot up for doing something right for a change.  Something Grizzly didn’t tell you about that good ole cash cow Cooneye.  He conveniently left out that the bastard is a fuckin’ pervert.  Yeah, he earns them a piss-pot full of money.  But he also is all into that tying-up women and clamping up their nipples and all that shit.  Pissing on ‘em and beatin’ them with whips.  All that kinky Deutschland-Deutschland kinda’ shit.  He probably likes young girls, too.”

“You love a young girl.  I seem to recall you and me having some fun with the scarves and the cat o’nine tails a few times.”

“He don’t do it for love is what I’m saying.”

         “You also pissed on me once.  Don’t think I ain’t forgot that, asshole.” She growled and pinched his nipple.

         “Yeah, but I sure as hell didn’t mean to.  And I ain’t downed a whole case of beer and had you give me some head since then, have I?  That shit ain’t right.  He’s just a sick fucker.  Mean, too.”

         “No.  It ain’t right.”

         “I’m just saying that to tell you this.  Baby, you’re young and the rest of your life is a long time to lay around thinking you shot up an old lady halfway on her way to meet Jesus.  And you’re doin’ it just so’s a pervert who’ll probably end up killing a woman by choking her while he fucks her can make money for a bunch of sorry coonass criminals.  They’re my friends and they’re like brothers to me and all.  But they’re also the kind of sumbitches who would probably cheer him on while he did it.  Friends they may be, but I’m still not sure I want the love of my life under their shit-stained thumbs.”  He paused and stared at her woefully. 

“Last chance.”  He clipped a diving knife to his belt.  “Go home and sleep soundly.  Or dream of old ladies screaming, ‘Please don’t,’ and ‘Save me, Jesus’ and bleeding to death at your feet?”

         “She gonna’ find Jesus I guess.  It don’t never bother you?  Civilians like this?”

         “I’d be lyin’ if I said this sort of thing don’t bother me just a tad.  But it’s the business we’re in.  Or at least I’m in.  You can still stay here.  Lounge around, have a drink.  Watch TV.  I’ll go do it.  It’s a cakewalk, really.”

         “I’m in, Moses.  If I pussied out now, they may start getting’ antsy.  And you and me would get caught napping together one night by a retirement specialist just like us and that would be that.  I mean, they’re pulling a trigger on an old lady just because their earner might go away or drop a dime on them.  That level of determination and paranoia ain’t too good to get on the bad side of, is it?”

         He kissed her on her lips softly.  “I always told you that.  Glad it sunk in finally.  You keep that in mind for the rest of your life and you’ll do fine with them.  That’s how I’ve stayed alive, baby.  One step ahead of the paranoia.  Takes some kinda’ doin’, let me tell ya.” 

         She shook her head.  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” She stretched and yawned. “Damn the shit I get into.”

         He rolled her away and pulled his .45 pistol from its holster.  Checking the clip and slapping it home, he raised his eyebrows and shrugged at her.  “Sometimes, I think you were born for this.”

         “That’s sweet, baby!  Thank you!”

         He shook his head somberly but smiled at her.  “It may not have been a compliment.”

         In the cover of a gloriously timed rain shower, they parked a rented Lexus at the edge of the short driveway, lights and motor cut off as they rolled into the paved driveway. 

A single dim light was lit, a lamp obviously.  The windows were stained orange by the lampshade.  A TV’s glow beckoned from the rear of the home.

         Moses whispered, “I saw that through the window.  That’s a table lamp sitting by the doorway between the den and the kitchen.  I bet she might be asleep.” 

He cinched the strap of his lock-pick kit to his chest and holstered a silenced .22 pistol under her arm.  “Let’s go.  This place is too public for me.”  She reached up and flipped off the overhead switch.  Quietly and without the car’s interior light glaring, they each exited the car and pushed the doors closed until they almost latched.  Curio was holding bolt cutters in her tiny hands.  Moses disappeared into the blackness for a few moments. 

         “Phone’s down.”  He whispered when he returned.  “We’re on it.  Let’s go!”

Mentally, she felt the rush of the pursuit, aware of every window of the neighbors’ homes while trying to become an apparition in the falling rain as she followed Moses. 

The steps and porch were made of painted concrete.  They crept up and Moses sprayed a copious amount of WD-40 on the hinges of the screen door.  With a pocketknife, he slit the screen and lifted away the cheap latch.  The door opened with just a millisecond’s creak before the oil worked in.  He sprayed the painted door hinges as well.

Curio waited, one hand clutching the bolt cutters and the other tapping the grip of her diving knife on her belt.  Nervous, she knew they were silhouetted against the white façade of the house but they were fortunate Ruby Jeansonne had half-dozen enormous magnolias in her front yard that covered them pretty well.

         He got two picks out and had the lock turned in less than twenty seconds.  He gave the guts of the doorknob almost a third of a can of the WD-40 through the keyhole and sprayed the crack where the catch was nestled.  Then he pulled his balaclava over his face and sat the can down.  She handed him the bolt cutters and pulled her .22.  Holding it with both hands aimed at her feet, she nodded ok at him and froze in place as he turned the knob slowly.

The door opened soundlessly.  He pushed it ajar just enough to free up a space he could slip the bolt cutters through.  She held both sides of the chain.  He snipped it and gave the door a push with his gloved hand as she let the ends of the chain ease away loosely.  Moses tossed the bolt cutters into the wet yard and waved her inside the house. 

Immediately, she was standing in a dimly-lit parlor room that screamed old person.  In the lamp’s orange-shaded glow, she could make out futons, love seats and the trinkets old ladies loved to fawn over.  Large flowery prints and old pictures hung dust-free on the walls. 

Everything was in its place.  No specks on the carpet.  A motionless ceiling fan was immaculate. 

Curio thought back of the night she first bumped into the Fontenots.  She watched the target house for Moses during the day and had watched an old man living across from the targets go about cleaning up his yard after the trash from the target house blew across the street.  He was a pitiful sight.  Hunchbacked with age, alone and in obvious pain, he still kept his tiny parcel of yard clean. 

It was a generational thing.  Her Aunt Epiphany was of the same vein.  They went about their lives keeping their meager possessions clean and ready for the eyes of company.  They tried to lead good lives, be good Christians and neighbors.  Frugality and dignity was often their watchwords.  Most would draw their last breaths at some hospice or hospital.  If they were lucky, maybe slipping over the final fence quietly in their own bed without awaking as their loved ones sat and waited their passing beside them. 

But this lady, a dutiful citizen who kept a spotless yard and house, was unfortunately on the marked list.  For the first time in a long time, Curio was not turned on by the hunt.  She was numb, but electrified in her dedication to task. 

The mark was not in the parlor.  Curio wished she had been.  She was keyed up on adrenaline immediately as she entered the room.  It would have been a far easier thing to drop the old bitch right at the door.  Now she had time to stand still and look around.  Curio was an intruder in a home bent on murdering an elderly woman.  Suddenly seeing the interior and feeling the room, as Moses liked to call it, sent an immediate sense of shame and shock down her spine. 

For the first time in months working with Moses, Curio allowed trepidation to set in.  Almost as soon as she froze and began to turn around to seek a word of comfort from Moses, he prodded her subtly with the palm of his hand. 

“All in.”  He whispered and then poked her with a firm forefinger to the small of her back. “Too late now.”

Holding the long-barreled .22 out with both hands, Curio took two timid steps inside.  Seeing nothing and hearing nothing except the glow and murmur of a TV in a far room of the house, she paused and concentrated.  She inhaled her surroundings carefully, still.  Seeing, smelling, listening, tasting the scents, seeking out the pungency of fear or worse, alarm.  She felt her way through the very walls, seeking prey, acknowledging threats.

Moses crept up behind her.  She could feel him almost pressed against her.  A hand lay on her shoulder.  In her ear she heard, “She’s probably asleep.”  He pushed the door closed soundlessly with his toe.  “You clear left.  I’ll clear right.”

Her eyes narrowed.  The grip tightened on the .22 and she took a step forward.

“Who in da fuck are you and what da fuck are you doin’ in my goddamned house!” 

An old woman’s voice thundered from the doorway leading from the parlor to the kitchen.  The voice was pissed, almost drunken.  It was anything but terrified.

Curio was, though.

Letting just a dribble of startled piss loose as she startled, Curio dropped into a crouch instinctively, shuddering.  Behind her, she heard Moses cock the hammer on his big .45.  It was unsilenced.  If he did that, she knew he was immediately as panicked as she was and that was no help for her terror.  For him to risk firing the big Colt and risk waking the neighbors was a move of sheer panic on his part.

A short, plump woman in a faded baby-blue housecoat and cheap blue slippers walked with rage to the doorway, staring the pair down.  Curio could see and hear immediately the woman was a Cajun.  She assumed it by the last name but seeing and hearing told her for sure.  She was holding an ashtray, a lit cigarette jammed into a ridiculously long holder jammed in her teeth.  Her hair was jet-black, rolled up all over her head in small, pink foam rollers.  Her eyes fixed on Curio as she tapped an ash into the ashtray and left the cigarette in it.

“I said who in da fuck is you?  With a gun, no less?  You fuckin thievin’ little dirty bitch!  You got some goddamned nerve breakin’ in my house, you damned sorry whore!”

         Curio thrust the pistol out toward her, eyes wide.  Taken by surprise, she was suddenly awed by the lackluster response that two people who had broken in, dressed in black, wearing masks and holding guns, had brought out from the spinster. 

         That old bitch is senile!  Gotta’ be… 

Curio began pulling the trigger, trying to aim but her hands were shaking.  The pistol popped at the end of the silencer.  Tiny snaps of fire that the old lady merely cocked her head at. 

Curio fired until the gun began clicking unstead of snapping.  The woman just glared.

Fuck!  I missed six times!

         Ruby Jeansonne cocked her head as if not comprehending the severity of the scene.  “It’s a good thing you pretty, you dumb little twat.  Because you cain’t shoot fo shit!”  She pulled her own tiny pistol, a two-shot Derringer, from somewhere deep between her big, old breasts.  “Stupid bastards da both of y’all!”  She aimed. “This’ll teach y’all!”

“Shit!  Duck, baby!  Duck!”  Curio screamed and dropped her useless pistol. 

The old lady fired two little snapping shots back at Curio. 

Missed me! 

Curio’s hand went to her diving knife lashed to her thigh.  She waited for the boom of his .45 and it never came.  She dared not take her eyes off the attacker, thinking, perhaps, the old bitch shot her man dead behind her.  She dared not look behind her to see that before she made the old lady pay in full for that.

Curio yanked the knife from its sheath.  The blade separated from its hilt and went clattering across the room.  The screws holding it all together had been removed.

“Oh fuck!”

She was now holding a useless handle.  The attack was now a farce that she was sure would end badly for them all.  It was not as she planned it in the slightest.  She panicked, single-mindedly focused on getting them both out of danger and getting the job done as ordered.  It was degenerating into a clusterfuck.  A good ole “Charlie Foxtrot,” as Moses liked to call it. 

Curio threw the handle aside and reached up her pants leg for her backup dagger.  It was a single piece of stamped metal from blade to grip.  A Valentine’s gift from Moses.

Ruby only cackled.  “My aim worse than yours!  Goddammit!  Ain’t dat some shit!”  She flipped the tiny pistol aside as if tossing it to someone. 

Curio pulled the dagger downward from her calf sheath.

“You’re fucking dead!”  The savagery of her voice took the room by surprise.  “I’ma kill you, you old bitch!”

         Curio was on her feet in a millisecond, the knife readied to stab downward.  She lunged at Ruby, whose eyes suddenly got wide as she saw the viciousness and dedication to her death Curio now had stamped into her dark eyes. 

         “Oh shit!”  The lady stumbled back a few paces into her kitchen.  Curio made it almost to the doorway before Moses’ iron grip caught her by the collar of her shirt and held her firm.  He jerked her backward so hard she came up into the air, her feet stilling running in place.

         “Let me go!  What the fuck?  Moses?”  His hand grabbed her wrist firmly but gently, as if trying to soothe her.

“Hold up, baby.” He spoke calmly into her ear. “She’s tougher than we are, I guess.”

         Ruby Jeansonne began laughing as she leaned against her mahogany countertops.  Curio looked at Moses’ hands.  No gun, no knife.  With the balaclava pulled up on his forehead, he held her firmly.  She looked at his face and saw his cocky grin unsuccessfully stifled as a chuckle erupted.

         When she saw Ruby Jeansonne slap her knee, guffawing unabated, and heard Pete and Bertrand Fontenot’s roaring belly laughs from in the kitchen, she shuddered in place. 

         Oh shit.  A fucking prank.  Hardy frickin' har. 

The mood slackened and no one ever knew how hard it was for Curio to stifle an abrupt rush of exasperated tears in that instant. 

Moses giggled.  “I told y’all she wouldn’t blink.”

         “Boy, Moses, I declare,” Ruby Jeansonne wiped a tear from her eye as she tried to stop laughin.  A light flipped on in the kitchen.  “I’m glad you are still got da fastest hands I ever done saw or I think dat lil girl woulda’ beaucoup cut out my liver for me.  Deez two boys raht nyah woulda’ nevah got out dey chairs in time to help me.” 

She looked over at the two men, unseen through the wall by Curio.  “Titties on a damned tomcat you two, I say.  Tomcat titties, da both of you sometimes.  I swear!  Mmm mmm mmm.”  She shook her head sadly at the brothers and smiled broadly at Curio.  It was the Fontenot brothers’ smile exactly.

         “You fuckin’ a right I woulda’.  What in the fuck is all this shit?”  Curio’s ears burned.  Her breathing was rapid; her heart pounding.  And she had wet panties for all the wrong reasons.  She looked around at her man.  Moses only chuckled and his grip relented on her shoulder.

         “Welcome to the club, Madame Curio.”  Ruby Jeansonne took another long drag of her cigarette.  “It’s a pleasure to meetchew, girl.  I’m Ruby Jeansonne.  And deez two boys of mine tell me you are someone special.”

         It dawned on her, as the moment passed from dire and tremulous to safe but embarassing, that it must indeed be an honor for her to meet Mama Fontenot.  She secured the knife in its calf scabbard as Moses retrieved the dropped pistol.  Ruby held out her hand, still chuckling.  A matronly look crossed her face as she saw the embarrassment creeping across Curio’s brow.

         “Come on in nyah, child.  We done damn near all done got ourselves tipsy as a Mick on dole day waitin’ on Moses to git his ass goin.”  She frowned frivolously at Moses.  “What?  Did you forget to set a watch again?”

         “Sorry, Mama.”  He gulped.

         “Come on, girl!”  Grizzly Fontenot bellowed.  “I made you a drink special fo you.”

         Curio walked forward through the doorway.  They were laughing at her as she cleared the door.  Looking to her left, she shook her head at the pair of brothers propped up at a simple dining room table.  It was laden with beer and liquor bottles of various makes and three or four open Styrofoam boxes of takeout food lay spread out. 

Moses followed her.  Ruby took her hands graciously and opened them outward, admiring the young woman’s figure and face.

“Let’s have a lookachew!” Curio suddenly felt like she was on an auction block as Ruby looked her over.  Mama nodded her approval and smacked her tongue.

“Lawd, Moses.  I gotta’ tell you, you outdid yo’sef.  Ain’t she just a peach!”  Curio smiled at the admiration.

“I tell myself that everyday, Mama.”  Moses walked up behind her and laid his hands on Curio’s shoulders.

“I knows I coulda’ got five hundred a night for her back when I was in dat racket.”  The lady shook her head wistfully. “And dat was five hundred in 1950 money, honey.  Dem street whores were tossing it for five an hour.  Girl, I done made a pile a-money in my day, but I coulda’ retired young if’n I had a dozen of you to work the weekend when Congress was in session.  Lawdy, lawdy, lawdy!”

Curio’s smile waned.

Ruby let Curio’s hands free and bear-hugged her.  Curio was pressed suddenly against a strange old lady’s big breasts and tried to be gracious enough not to squirm like she wanted to do. 

“I’m so glad Moses Holliday done fount himself a woman.  I knowed he would find one, one day.  But hell, I figured we all be dead and gone before it ever happened.  He done went and snatched hissef up a damned Cajun angel.”  She let Curio go and reached for him.  He wrapped the woman up in his lean arms. “Good to see ya, boy.”

“It’s good to see you, Mama Ruby.  It’s been forever and a day.”  He kissed both her cheeks.

“Longer than dat.  I always love gettin’ dem flowers you send.  Dem two ovah der,” she motioned to her sons, who both dropped their heads in anticipation of rebuke.  “Dem two,” She pointed two swaying fingers at them, “Dey barely come see me for holidays and such.  But yo sweet man raht cheer, cutie pie,” She squeezed Moses tighter, “he sends his Mama Ruby a nice bit of flowers evah’ time a special day comes up.  He send me cards, too.”

Curio looked at Grizzly for confirmation.  He only gestured toward Moses flippantly and nodded.

“Brown-noser.” Pete said.

“I wish I could drop by more, Mama.  But you know how it is.”

“Don’t I evah, Moses.  Don’t I evah.  I’d hoped by now we coulda’ been sittin’ on da porch without all dat bullshit deez two seem to wanna’ keep dey dicks stuck into.  Boys, when y’all gonna’ sell dat shit off and get me some grandkids?  Don’t y’all dare tell me about dem skanky bitches y’all paid to go away.  I mean real kids I can take to church with me.”

“We’re workin’ on it, Mama.” Bertrand said.  Curio locked eyes with Pete for a moment.  She winked at him as he shied away from his mother’s words.  She knew about one of his near-misses in Atlanta.

“One day, Mama.” Pete said.

“Lie to da Feds, you two.  Don’t you lie to me.”

“Yes ma’am.” “Yes ma’am.” The two replied. 

Curio looked at the brothers as they watched her and their mother, clutching tumblers of amber liquor and ice in their hands.  Though physically much different in size and appearance, she could see, perhaps clearly for the first time, how they were brothers.  Their mama’s features cemented their linage.  She wondered which one looked like their father.  Both resembled Mama in various ways.

“You two got a weird way of introducing folks.  You ever once wonder if I knew how to actually throw a knife?  I fuckin’ do, you know.  Your man is a thorough fucking teacher, for God’s sake.”

The brothers and their mother exchanged oh shit looks at each other.  She gestured with a classic, ‘What the hell, you idiots?’ thrust of her hand.

“I had it covered.  Mama knew that.”  Moses pecked Ruby on the cheek and led the two women to the table.  “I’m starvin’.  What you coonasses find good to eat down here?”  He rummaged through the takeout assortment and frowned. 

“Seafood and chicken.  Variety is the spice of life, you know.”

“Dey’s barbeque in der somewheres too, cowpoke.”  Grizzly looked through the boxes.

“I woulda’ had something cooked up special for y’all.  But hell, I got on a roll at the craps table ovah at da Beau and lost track-a time.  But I’ma cook you up something good tomorrow, baby,” Ruby hugged him again briefly.  Her big boob threatened to fall out from her housecoat as she smashed it against his face. “Whatevah you want.” 

Pete handed Curio a large margarita and popped Moses a cold Coors.  She sat between Bertrand and Moses, who sat next to Ruby.

“Y’all sit down.  Sit!  Sit!  Make yo’sef at home.”  Ruby waved them into chairs at the table as her sons scooted around to make room for five.  Moses lit a Winston and shared the ashtray with Ruby.

Curio sat down, her face still flushed.  Her lips still pouting, she glared insolently at the brothers as she took a few stabilizing gulps of her drink.  Ruby poured herself two fingers of Southern Comfort on ice and took a bite of a pulled-pork sandwich she apparently had been eating when the alert of the “intrusion” was raised by Moses when he ‘cut the phone line.’

“So, my boys here, dey told me you from Elysian Fields originally.”  Ruby pulled her housecoat together a bit and dipped her sandwich corner into a tiny cup of BBQ sauce.  “I got people der, too.”

“I come from der, yeah.  But I wouldn’t claim it as home.  They tell you all about me?”

“Dey told me enough.  For obvious reasons we don’t talk much about folks’ bidness.  But yo man der,” she patted Moses on his forearm, “he a kinda’ special case.  I suppose since y’all together, you knows what he knows.  Probably not the whole details, cuz’ we all drank too much now and back den.  You old enough to know by now dat things get fuckin’ hazy in Nawlins aftah' jess one night partyin’.  I expect you can imagine what twenty years or so done did to all us.”

“I’m sure of that.  These two bring every new hire out here to be picked at like y’all done me?”  Her eyes still had a fire lit as she held the large glass to her lips.

“You be da first, cheri.”  Pete laughed.  “And da last.  We ain’t takin’ too many new hires deez days.  We sho as fuck ain’t takin’ no mo like you.”

“Like me how?”

“Retirement specialists.”  His brother answered.

“Oh.  Gotcha.'”

“You see,” Ruby stubbed her cigarette out and slid the ashtray toward Moses.  She wiped her mouth with a linen napkin and sucked at her teeth.  Curio was amazed she did it just as her sons did.  She wondered if she subconsciously copied her own mother’s mannerisms. 

“Deez two, dey my last two boys.  Dey done made a purty good pile of money.  But at da price of tickin’ off the law a time or two.  I raised dem boys of mine all wrong in most folk's eyes, to be sho.  But most folks ain’t from Nawlins and fuck dem for trying to wreck us in a town dat didn’t nevah and will nevah want folks like us wrecked.  It’s a sex and partyin’ city.  If’n it wasn’t, it’d be…I dunno, shit…”

“Little Rock.” Grizzly said.

“Macon.” Pete shrugged.

“It wouldn’t be home.” Mama said. “I done been chased aftah by fifty years of cops and preachers in dis town.  I used to run da cathouses.  Deez two ever tell you dat?”

Curio shook her head. 

“Well, dey chased me but dey ain’t wanna’ catch me, you know?  Hell, all of us women who are loose…?”

Curio’s eyes widened.  Who you callin’ loose?

“…Hell, we practically civil servants in dis town.  Dis place woulda’ dried up a long time ago if it wasn’t fo’ us drunk wet women.”  Ruby leaned forward and pointed at Curio’s crotch.  “Dis town was built on it.”

“Amen.” The brothers said together.  Moses just chuckled. 

“Dat town looks jess like it always did.  Dey ain’t hardly moved a brick of it?  Why is dat?  Lemme ask you.  Which do you think a man gonna’ pay all his money fo’ more happily?  Dat fuzzy squeezebox we all totin’ around for dem men to want aftah?  Or you think dey wanna’ pay fo’ to get dem potholes and bricks in dem roads patched up jess so dey can get to work five days a week without bouncin’ in dey car seats?  Dey damned sho rather bounce with a woman of leisure, eh?””

“Damn skippy.” Curio nodded and patted Moses’ thigh. “It gets his ass eager to take out the trash when I ask him at least.” 

“Hell, dat’s all dey work fo’ anyway at da end of the day, ain’t it?  Dey wife do more den dem damn dishes fo dem, eh?  We a valuable commodity.  Much more helpful to our community than dem damned aldermen or mayors.  Useless money-grubbin' bastards, the whole lot of dem…” She winked, girl-to-girl, to Curio, “And I should know…and I done had dem all served up a one time or another.”

“With a smile, huh, Mama?” Moses said. 

“Hush up, boy!” She burst out with a rattling laugh and slapped at his arm.  He sipped his beer and winked at Curio.  She just sat still and watched the woman, transfixed with a glow of astonishment.  “Dem was old times.”

It was surreal to see the person who spawned her employers in the flesh.  She had no idea what kind of woman had birthed the two.  Hadn’t ever given it much thought.  But there she sat in a housecoat, sipping liquor and espousing the virtues of drinking and whoring.  It occurred to her that they, like she, were damn-sure a product of upbringing rather than free will.

“Back when I was a-workin’, shall we say,” She winked at her.  Curio saw the brothers giggle a bit, “Da law was a thing you could wink your way out of, fuck your way out of or buy your way out of.  All you had to do was keep the Times Picayune boys happily mistressed up evah so often when they needed some snatch.  And when dey got dey drawers shucked, we took pictures, of course.  Hell, it seemed only fair.  Dem sumbitches always trying to take our pictures and all?  Shit, one of dem get too much bloodhound in him, I send one picture to go to his mama and one dat go to his wife.  And then, one go to the DA.  But dat one dat go to the DA, it be all doctored up with dope and sex toys added in it on the nightstand.  Everybody jess assumed dem press boys back den were all communists, sex fiends, faggots and nigga lovers.  God help one of dem if dey got caught on film suckin’ on a brown titty in 1960.  Dey fellow newsmen be reporting on dey body done been found hung high and mighty from a sturdy oak someplace.”

“Dat was my job as a kid, by the way.”  Pete chirped.  “I took photography classes.”

“And of course, you made sure you slipped a fat wad of bills into Chep Morrison’s waterin’ troughs evah now and again and den later you make sure ole Mayor Spiro’s wop ass was fed some garlic bread and some pussy.  And you was let be.”

“The good ole days.”  Bertrand chuckled.

“But nowadays, with all dis TV news trying to one-up one another you got press lookin at ya all da damned time.  And used to, feds and others, dey jess went after dem communists and da Klan down dis way.  Vice and gamblin’ and all dat come with it was left alone.  Dey may pick up some ole sumbitch dat forgot to drop his tithe in a trough somewheres, you know…jess to remind him to rendah unto Caesar and whatnot.  But den he drop into dat trough and dat whole thing go away.”  She took another pull from her tumbler and stifled a burp.

“Some things stay da same, Mama.”  Bertrand shrugged.

“Yeah, but now dem folks love to be on the news.  Dey got tto many TV channels.  Sho nuff’ one day we gonna’ have courts and shit on da tube and dey gonna’ need criminals to put on dem shows.  I mean looka' deez prosecutors…”

“Just through a rifle scope.” Grizzly grumbled.

“Don’t you ever, boy.  I will slap da taste out yo mouth.  As I was sayin’, deex prosecutors now?  Dey pretty as Hollywood movie stars.  It used to be, a good lookin’, camera ready DA?  He come out to da stage all shaved up and got make-up on?  It was a sure sign he was on da take.  He was style, not substance.  What you had to watch out for was dem sad sack boys.  Men with bags under dey eyes.  Men who were ugly to look at most times.  Dem old hangdog sumbitches dat couldn’t get no woman lest dey call ole Ruby, you know?  Right?  Men who was going bald, smokin’ like a coal stack.  Thin as a cane stalk.  Wives gone out drinkin and cattin’ around on ‘em cuz’ dey know da old man ain’t evah a-comin’ home early on ‘em.  Dat meant dey was workin hard at dey job and not playin' with money or honey.  Dat was den.  Now, it’s all about movin’ up da chain.  A good lookin’ man on da TV with is hair all perfect and him standing upraht and cussin’ all us bad folks…”  Ruby pantomimed for effect, smiling, “…and makin’ an accused man walk for dem cameras up da courthouse steps with a coat ovah his hands.  Dey thinkin, hello!  I'ma be Governor!  Or, I’ma be a Congressman!  It ain’t about quote-unquote justice.  It’s about gettin’ folks to say how awesome dey be.”

“It still ain’t.”  Pete chirped.

“It’s about attaining power and stature.  Cons are a dime a dozen in any town.  Tossin’ guilty folks in a slammer ain’t even sport for dem no more.  For some of dem, it used to be dat way.  Whether dey gone huntin’ ducks over in da basin or dey huntin’ men in da back rooms of bars or hidin’ under a bed when da search warrant comes kickin’ in a door, dey lived for da hunt.”

“Like Pete could hide under a bed.” Grizzly laughed.

“Like you could run if dey chased you.” Pete replied.

Ruby poured herself another two fingers in the dwindling ice.  “Now it’s all gimme-gimme-gimme.  ‘I want to run shit!’ dey say.  Dat’s da difference between now and den.  Used to be, you could spot da man who wanted to be king.  Some you let be king if’n he make you a duke or a duchess in some fashion and he let you earn and quietly kick him his tribute.  But some you stopped, one way or another.  Now, evahbody wants to be king.  Dey took Huey Long too literally around here.  Cain’t be but just a few kings.”  She slurped a lot of her drink away.

“All this?” Curio shrugged and helped herself to some seafood salad on French hoagie, “Way over my head.  I ain’t had much schoolin’.”

“Oh, I’d say you done had a lot of it.”  Ruby handed her a tub of chicken salad.  “Try this.  Dey make a great chicken salad at Vincent’s, too.”  Curio nodded.

“Merci.”

“You was raised in fear in a filthy life of misery, child.  Yet look at you.  Pretty as can be, competent.  You smart in a million ways that cain’t be taught ovah at Tulane.  You got manners.  You intuitive.  Fo’ damn sho' you a determined lil girl.  And you ain’t a least bit twitchy like a lotta' girls who had to endure your kinda’ childhood.  I’ve seen dem for decades, cheri.  Some are cut from a thin skin that flapped like a sheet in a thin breeze evah time a chair scuffed a floor da wrong way and dey had dem flashbacks about dey daddy or some man who took at dem da wrong way.  Dem kind ended up either crazy or dead at dey own hand trying to get ovah what happened to dem.”

“Dat kind, you ain’t.”  Grizzly said.

“Dey a few who lucked up and found a good man.  Or a woman, hell.  Whatever gets you through da night, right?  A few found God and a bunch found da bottle or da needle.” 

Curio nodded at her.  What didn’t Mama find?  She asked herself.  Her mother would jump at nearly any loud noise.

“But lookachew!  Even though you probably done been done wrong on a daily basis most of yo life before you hooked up with yo man, you maintained your looks, you got a fire in you and you can handle whatevah someone throws at you with a sneer and a fuck you.”

“I like to think so.  Having Moses with me helps a lot with that.”

Mama beamed and tugged at Moses’ cheek. “Girl, my boy, der?  He like another son to me.  After he saved Bertrand in dat war, he come to visit him down here at da VA.  He was just as he is now.  Quiet, capable.  Handsome.”  She glared and slapped on a tattoo on his forearm. “Course back den he don’t have all dem damn pictures carved on him.  Dammit, boy.  How many dem damned things you got on you now?”

“Ten.”

“Ten too damned many.  You stop dat shit.  You want a picture?  Then get one of dem paint by numbers watercolors like Bertie der,” Pete laughed at his brother, “and paint one you can hang on yo wall for company.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  Moses hung his head.  Curio chuckled.

“I don’t take to dem tattoos.  You got any?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep it dat way.”

“Is dat an order?” Curio folded her arms and smiled.

“Girl, I ain’t too old to bend yo’ unruly ass ovah my knee and wear yo’ ass out with a switch.”

“Watch out, she means it.” Grizzly warned.

“Dem things is evidence.  And dey are classless.  I knows dis gonna sound odd, but I think marking up a body is more sinful den most sins.  God put us nyah as he pleased.  Ain’t our place to think he intended some damn cross or a gardenia flower on our arm.”  She slurred just a little bit and took another drink.

“Look at dem two boys of mine.  One thick, one thin.  Both of dem ate the same plates when dey was kids and dey probably do the same today.  Dey both come from the same seed and looka da difference in dem.  Dey are as God intended dem to look.  It ain’t our place to decide otherwise.”

“Good point.”  Curio nodded to appease her as she chewed.

“Call me old fashioned.  I just don’t think pictures go on skin.  It’s one thing for a five-year-old to draw on his arm with an ink pen.  Grown folks don’t need no pictures on their skin.  What if dey end up not likin’ blue flowers no more?  Or dey break up with some woman after dey marked her name on his chest?  Folks ain’t fuggin' Popeye, dammit…” She sat the glass down as her head dipped forward.  Glances were passed around.

Finally after her head dipped further and her breathing began to muffle into a snore, Grizzly spoke.

“Mama?  Mama.”  Her head popped up.

“Yes.  Dem tattoos are a goddamned sin.  Give you diseases, too.  Course, fuckin’ does, too but no one can stop a sumbitch from dat…”  She pointed with a swaying finger at Moses and Curio.  “Nor should dey!”  She slurred worse.  “Hell, fuckin’ feels good, don’t it?”

“Hell yeah!”  They all four nodded, smiling at the Mama Ruby show.

“Den do it!  Hell, I did it.  I’m still nyah, ain’t I?”  She stood up, rocking on her drunken legs.  The housecoat swung open a bit uncomfortably.  Curio finally stood up and offered her hand.

“It’s getting’ late, Miss Ruby.”

“Call me Mama, mon cheri.  You earned it.”

Curio beamed and fluttered her eyes in sincere gratitude.  “Why thank you!  That’s so awesome of you!” She steadied Miss Ruby against her hip as the men watched with amusement.

“And you make sure you do some fuckin’.  A lot of it.”

“I’ll think about it.” Curio giggled and looked at Grizzly. “Which way to the bedroom, boss?”

“Oh, I ain’t dat kinda woman!”  Ruby was startled, haziness jolted into succinct awareness in an instant.  Laughing, she kissed Curio daintily on her cheek.  “But with a cutie pie like you…hell, I’m old and you only live once, right, boys?”  She cupped Curio’s tit and bobbled it. 

“Woohoo!  Dat’s some beaucoup bon temps in dat der bra!”  She cackled at her joke and stumbled a bit.  Curio laughed with her.  “Bedroom’s dat way!” 

The men paused, shocked for an instant before exploding into laughter.

Ruby bent down and pecked Moses on his cheek.

“Be gentle, Mama.  She’s tender.”  He patted Ruby’s hand.

“Woowee shit, I’m drunk.”  Ruby Jeansonne steadied herself against Curio Phelonie.

“We all been there, Mama” Curio winked at the men as she helped the old lady shuffle from the room. 

The last cognizant thing they heard Ruby say aloud was, “Moses!”

“Yeah, Mama?”  He barked.

“I’m sorry I called your woman a dumb little twat earlier!”

“She got over it, Mama.”

“Love y’all!  I'ma make duck and dumplins' for y'all tomorrow!  Dat sound good?”

“Awesome, Mama.  Sleep tight!”

“After yo girl gets my jollies for me, I jess might!”

Grizzly and Pete dropped their heads simultaneously, closed their eyes and snickered.

“Bon temps, Mama.  Ain’t no one better at that than her!”  He sniggered at the looks on her sons’ faces.

When they heard the two women get Ruby through her bedroom door, Moses lit another cigarette and finished his beer. 

“So.  Mama’s looking good.”  He smirked and wiped tears of laughter from his eyes.  “Randier than I remember.”

“She usually is pretty good when she done had a pint of liquor in her.”  Pete laughed.

“Her health okay?”

“Well, she got a touch of heart fluid but I’m surprised it ain’t no worse than it is.  You know, given how long she been livin’ life fully, shall we say?”

“Bon temps, Griz.  It keeps us young.  You got her set up pretty good out here.”

“She likes it here purty good.  But having dat snitch living two blocks ovah don’t sit too well with her.”

“I expect not.  He’s been watchin’ her, you say?”

“Like a hawk.” Pete grumbled.

Grizzly chewed his ice.  “He takes his johnboat out back in da lake evah day and just sits around behind da house.  He put a line in da water but Mama watches him and says he ain’t hooked up da fust worm.”

“And Lawd knows, it makin’ her fightin’ mad not to be able to go down on her own dock down der and fish on account a-him watchin’ her.”  Pete sneered.  He heard that from his mama firsthand and it angered him.  Both of the men knew how she loved to catch perch and crappie on her deck.  It was why they bought her the house with the long deck on Krebs Lake.

“I don’t know how he found out she is my mama but I do know his sorry ass ain’t got her best intentions in mind for her.” Grizzly drummed his fingers on his free hand on the table as he splashed another round in his cup and downed it neat.

“I’ve been askin’ around.”  Pete spoke with a thick tongue. “I think he tryin’ to figger a way to get to her without bein’ fingered.  He been spying on us for da Man but he also playin’ it both ways.  I guess he tryin’ to get even for dem three years he done.  Da three little ole years dat for some reason shoulda’ been fifteen but wasn’t.  Somehow, dat skinny bastard found out she was our mama and he wants to stick it to us.  He plays it cool when we hire him to cook out fo’ us.  I’ll give him dat.  I don’t know what his play is and I don’t care.  The muddafucka is a danger and dat’s all need be said about it.”

“Anyway to make him go in the usual manner without gettin’ your door kicked in the next day?  They’re gonna’ suspect y’all for it most ricky-tick if they get to lookin’ around and find out he’s undercover.  But I’m guessin’ y’all know that.”

“Now, Moses.  You are an intrepid problem solver with a partner of equal standing and dedication.  Dat’s what we pay you to figger out, ain’t it?”

“True this.”



Curio led Ruby to her four-poster bed and pulled back the heavy comforter before letting the old lady flop unceremoniously upon it.  Still giggling, Ruby propped up briefly on a flabby arm and patted the mattress.  Wary of the whether the woman was playing to the crowd or sincere in her words, Curio placed as little of her butt on the edge of the bed as she could.

“Look-a here, baby.  Given what you do fo my sons, I’m aware of how crazy dis sounds, but you got yo’sef a really good man, Curio.”

“I love him.” She shrugged.

“Dat’s a wonderful thing.  I ain’t gonna preach to you about da how dangerous his job is.  It’s a tough stretch of road you two done chose.  You do know you make it harder den it need be for him, right?”

“I know he’s happy.  I can’t speak to how he was before we met.”

“He’s a happy fella by nature.  He always has been.  Men like him are comfortable in dey own skin.  He don’t need to prove nothin.  He’s a learner, too.  He still reading?”

“All the damn time.”

“He always did.  I think it had a lot to do with him being out der in Texas.  Wasn’t nothin’ to do but stare at desert and fo’ some dat don’t ever get old but for him it did.  I cain’t help but think his daddy bein’ a preacherman and forcin’ him to read just dat one book evahday probably led him to want to read other stuff.  Reading is an escape for many with nothin’ much to do.  As much as drinkin and gamblin’ is for some, escapism and attaining a higher intellect is for others.  Fo’ a man who done nothin’ but kill folks, I expect anything he gets to think about or read about outside of what he does fo’ a livin’ is a blessing.”

“Most of what he reads is history books about killin’ people and books saying how to kill people better.”

“Whatever gets him through the night.  He’s a tough bastard cut from an old cloth dat ain’t made much no more deez days.”

“He is that.”

“You two gonna’ have a baby one day?”

“He’s been snipped.  And I don’t think having kids is all it’s cracked up to be.  I never had it in me to be a mom.  I sure as hell wasn’t trained for it by mine.  Aand I don’t think…” She struggled to explain herself and bit her lip as she framed her response with a shrug.  She pointed her trigger finger at Ruby.

“Since I came up in here to shoot an old lady to death tonight I’m thinkin’ I might be right about that.”

“Yeah, dat’s probably best den since you put it dat way.  Shame though.  In a different world, I think you be a good mama.  Mama’s cain’t be fearful of da world or they raise up weird kids.  One thing I don’t get no vibe about from you is fear.”

“I used it all up when I was a kid.”  Curio smiled. “You learn to sleep with one eye open with the occasional fiending junkie in and out of your purse already by the age of six.  I had to hide my fuckin’ gum in my panties.”

“You have a great smile.  You too small and got too many curves to be one of dem toothpicks walking dem runways in New York.  But you missed your calling as a face model.  Revlon would love you.”

“Thank you!  You’re kind to say that!”

“I was a working girl and a madam for years.  Did dey tell you dat?”

Curio furrowed her brow.  “To be honest, I never knew about you at all until now.”

“Well, it’s true.  I worked the high-end Baton Rouge crowd in my heyday, if dat what you wanna’ call it.”  She pointed at a vanity next to the bed.  “Get dat shoebox out of da bottom drawer.”

Curio withdrew it.  “Tap the metal on dat lamp a coupla' times.”  Curio did and the table lamp brightened two levels.  Ruby pulled out a Ziploc full of some tattered pictures and sorted a half-dozen for showing.

“You ever heard of Belle Star?”

“Yeah.  I saw Blaze.  That’s about all I know about her is what I saw on the movie.  Did you know her?”

“I met her a few times, sure.  Before she was getting porked by our fair governor, she stripped down at the No-sho.  Der was a fella who ran it.  Last name was Glorioso.  I worked for him as hired tail around dat time.  Dis was way before Crazy Earl hooked up with her.  See, when all dem fat cats came down from the capital or from ovah in Dallas or Houston or Memphis, dat’s when I got da call.  Glorioso and her went dey separate ways and it wasn’t too long Glorioso picked up and left town.  You could say Earl run him off.  And even doh old Blaze was supposedly handling Crazy Earl’s needs, it was Ruby Fontenot dat handled him best.”

“I don’t remember that from the movie.”

“Creative license, mon cheri.” Ruby laughed. “Glorioso was a dickhead.  When I had a shot to tug on ole Earl’s pecker a bit, I made sure I told him dat him and Blaze had a thing and it was best for evahbody dat Glorioso vamoose.  So he magically did and it left a void for somebody to run da pussy-cat trade.  So I filled da void.”

“Why did you do dat?”

“Why?” Ruby looked flabbergasted. “Well hell!  It meant I got a cut on damned near evah busted-nut at every cathouse in Nawlins, cheri!  Hell, I had three small sons to feed and a dead husband.  I made some serious ends meet back in dem days aftah I started runnin’ things in da office and not on my back.  He was killed in Korea, dey daddy was.  In case you didn’t know dat.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well he was.  He was from down near New Iberia.  He served in the Pacific in ’44 and ’45 and he got out.  But den he got recalled and ended up a major in Korea.  He got hit by a cannon shell right before da war ended.  He went up to observe da front for da first time after two months back in Seoul and den da big uh oh happened. ” 

She sighed and shrugged.  “When I heard Bertrand got hissef hit in Vietnam, I liked to went nuts.  It was a long time before he could get around good on dat fake leg.  I’m forevah grateful to yo’ man for getting him home.  Bertrand ain’t nevah spoke about it to me, but I think they had to do some real bad things over der.”

“Moses doesn’t talk about it much either.  But I can look at both of their bodies and know it wasn’t fun.” 

“You a woman.  You gotta’ know it ain’t da body gettin’ hurt dat’s da problem.  Da body heals.  It’s da soul dat ain’t right after dem really bad things happen to people.”

Curio nodded and pointed at a picture.  “That’s you, ain’t it!”

“Dat’s me!  Back in 1947.  Sassy young thing, dat wa me.  Do you know who dat fellah is next to me?  We was going to a movie premiere dat night.  Damned horny bastard kept my hand on his pecker from the time the lights dropped until they came back on.  High as a kite on reefers.”

“Don’t know him, no.”

“Robert Mitchum.  He’s an actor.  Course he’s old as sin now but some of the easiest money I ever made was dem two days he was in town promoting a film called Out of the Dark.  He was quite a stud horse in his pants.  I was pretty happy to have made his acquaintance as well as his dollar, I must say.  He got busted for dat reefer with some nobody actress not too long after dat.”

“Interesting.  And this one?”

“I was pregnant with Pete.  Bertie was three.”

“That’s sweet.  This one?”

“Me and a young Ted Kennedy.  His dumb ass got too drunk and when it come da time to earn the till.  He nevah made it.  He did in fact, shall we say…shit hisself?”

“Eww.”

“Yeah.  Boy passed out and ain’t even know he done it.  I took his money and left.  I wipe my boys’ butts fo’ dem back den cuz dey ain’t no no bettah but I be good and goddamned if I wiped Teddy Kennedy’s!”

Curio lit up with laughter.

“Kennedys?” Ruby dismissed the name with a brusque swipe of the hand. “All dat Camelot talk!  Camelot my ass.  None of dem Kennedy’s were all dey made out to be.  Dey daddy was the worst one when it came to sex.  Evah last one of dem liked da ass fuckin…” 

Curio raised her hand. “Eww.  Too much detail.”

Ruby shrugged.  “Whatever.  Shit, I’m drunk tonight.”

“How long were you in da biz?”

“Well, after ole Gloriso left, I ran dem girls kinda’ on my own for a few years.  Trouble was fellas who ran whores usually wanted to go full bore into other diversions.  Think about it.  You been around dem clubs and dem kinda’ women and da johns.”

Curio nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“Den you know dey want liquor with dey women.  Dey wanna’ throw dice when dey done with dem women.  Or do dope.  Or watch horses.  Or dey maybe wanna’ dig up some dirt on what woman or hell, maybe a man- dis is Nawlins we talkin’ about, right? Dey wanna’ be able to gossip about some man visiting a lady friend to throw off da trail on dey own vices.  Dope, liquor, numbers, all dat was a boy’s club.  I could run all da pussy in town, since I had one I guess, right?  But numbers, bootleggin’, dope and all dat, I was just froze out of all dat.  Since I ain’t had no pecker of my own, I married me one.  Arnie Jeansonne.  He was a numbers man from Chalmette.  With him showing his dick at da door to dem other gangster types, we could get in and get stuff done dat set us up.  Our little thing grew pretty good.  When dem three knuckleheads of mine got big enough, we showed dem da biz too.” 

She pointed at another picture.  “Me and George Plimpton.  You probably don’t know who he was.

“Mousterpiece Theater!”

“Huh?”

“A Disney thing I used to watch.  He was the host of it.  He would talk all cerebral about a Mickey Mouse cartoon and then they would show it.”

“Musta' missed it.  All dis cable and TV channels dey got is unreal.”  Ruby shook her head, looked at the old picture of Plimpton and laughed at him.  “Ain’t no man all dat cerebral with his pecker hangin’ out for a spit shine.”

“So very true.  Y’all seem like such a cool family.  It must have been an interesting time back then.  No one married in?”

“Naw.  We kept it in house because da crazy you know from growing up under one roof is better than da one you get from out from under someone else’s.  Anyway, after a while when times changed and men done got used to seeing me and Arnie sittin’ side by side a while doin’ business, I had him shot…don’t look so surprised, girl.  He wasn’t worth much in any way and he used to drink and tried to slap my kids around too much.  I ran things best I could until Bertie got back from da war and Ray, my son dat got killt and Pete done had enough hair on dey balls to be treated as capable men.  Course by den, dat coke biz had got huge and da money was tremendous.  But it wasn’t my cup of tea.  Dey’s jess too many outsiders in dat trade.  You know, Haitians and Spanish and all dem browns.  Cain’t none of dem be trusted, even now.  Us locals ended up havin’ to fight over shit dat was understood by tradition to be ours cuz it was our city, our home.  It was what we made it.  It was some brutal stuff.”

“It still is big business.  Seems most of the jobs we get are over coke movers who skim or we end up goin’ after someone who got busted and wants to narc on the boss..”

“It’s big money but not really like you think.  Back den, the risk was so much lower for what folks cleared.  Because it was jess another vice in a city dat had ever one of dem, da basics were easily brought in and only da locals were watchin’.  Of course, we knew da locals and dey mostly gave da ole wink and nod as long as dey were cut in.  It’s high dollar and high risk, now.  Foreigners, Feds.  Crackheads who jess rob and steal just to do it.  It grew in a hurry around here.  My boys were raised old school, like y’all call it now.  Dey kinda’ fell behind da curve at first, I guess.  By da time they got back into da game, dey had to gunfight with other sumbitches for everything.  Dem’s some rough times back in dem early ‘80’s.  Rough times.  It cost me a son and it cost me a year in prison in ’81 for having an unlicensed handgun.”

“Damn.  That’s harsh.”

“Life’s a bitch.  Again, yo man helped us through it.  He took out a buncha' sorry sumbitches for us.  One by one if he had to.  Five in bomb blast if he had a chance to, which he did once or twice.  After a while, dey all either got killt or moved on elsewhere.  A buncha' dem just disappeared.  I bet yo beau knows where dey are but I’ll be damned if I’m evah gonna’ ask him.  Somethings a lady shouldn’t know.”

“He don’t talk about that stuff from then.  It’s all just a fart in the wind, as he says.”

“He’s one of a kind.” She stuffed the photographs back into the box and tossed it on the desk.  “I’m buzzing my ass off and my heart pill is kickin in, baby.  You head on back to dem men up der and see what dey up to.  And don’t you let dem give you no shit.  When I heard about you, I figured you must be special for Moses Holliday to take a shine to you.  Dey was gonna’ cut yo’ throat at first.  You do know dat right?”

Curio swallowed hard. “Moses said they would take it hard.”

“Well, if Dey had asked me, I woulda’ told dem no on account of what Moses means to us.  But dat don’t mean I woulda’ been right until dey got a better look at you.  Be glad he has such a good reputation with us.  It saved your life, mon cheri.”

“Ok then!” Curio stood up. “It’s been real interesting to meet you, Mama Ruby.  You take care now.”

“You too, cutie pie.”  Ruby pulled the covers over her and tapped the light to dim it.  Curio made her way to the door.  Just as she was about pull the door to, Ruby called out, “Oh and Curio!”

She poked her head in again.  “Yes, ma’am?”

Ruby Jeansonne sat up on her elbows.  “You take care of my boy Moses.”

“I will.”

“Or I’ll make sure someone takes care of you.  Just lettin’ you know where I stand on him.”  She touched the lamp again and it went out.  “Good night, Curio.”

“All in, Mama.  All in.” 

“Goddamned right you are, cheri.”  Her voice trailed off into a stupor.  “You ain’t got no idea…”  Then a light snore rattled the room. 

Curio raised her eyebrows and closed the bedroom door.

“Old bitch.”  She mumbled to herself, admiringly, as she rejoined the men. 

Soon they were all talking business.



The next morning, Moses Holliday paid a visit to a dive shop in Mobile while Curio busied herself running around Pascagoula.  Satisfied the preparations were to their satisfaction, the brothers Fontenot had disappeared home to New Orleans two days later when the lurking john boat crept into position.  Mama Ruby fanned herself on the back porch long enough for her stalker to see her and retired inside to check on her dumplins.

         Chris Donell sat in his johnboat at high noon.  Tired of watching the home of Grizzly Fontenot’s mother, he was certain he finally had a workable plan to break in and choke the life from her. 

For the first two years in Parchman, he was constantly assaulted by three men belonging to a white supremacist faction.  At first, they would catch him in the kitchen where he worked and beat him with blocks of two by four wrapped in bath towels. 

He complained about it after a while.  Branded a snitch, neither black nor white inmates would associate with him.  Soon he was caught stealing a cupful of dish machine sanitizer, which he intended to use as self-defense.  To make matters worse for himself, he was seen leaving a conference room just ahead of an investigator for the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics (MBN).  It didn’t take long before Chris was shanked in the back and sent to protective custody after he recovered.

         All of this he blamed on the brothers Fontenot. 

His initial possession with intent charge stemmed from a botched drug raid.  He was caught holding the bag in a sting the brothers had uncovered just prior to their arrival at the pickup.  Seeing it as a chance to knock off a competitor through a prosecution, they faked going through with the deal but never arrived.  When Chris walked from the meeting site with a satchel of cocaine and a confused look on his face, he was swarmed by a MBN agents.  He did not blame his boss, the intended victim of the sting.  He blamed the Atchafalaya Mudbugs for setting them all up.

         In seclusion, he studied for his business degree, spoke about as much as he knew about his area of the dope business, and studied articles about the arrests, charges and suspicions raised about the crime syndicate.  He came across an old Clarion Ledger article listing a Ruby Jeansonne as the mother of one Bertrand Fontenot, then under indictment for racketeering in Harrison County- a charge Fontenot beat when a star witness was found with his neck broken in a fall from a ladder, which the coroner ruled accidental but always seemed suspicious. 

         Further research into the tax records of the three coastal counties in which Fontenot operated eventually yielded a Ruby Jeansonne.  And she lived not two blocks from a second cousin.  Chris Donnell set up shop in Pascagoula.  He got a little catering gig going to make ends meet and watched the house whenever he could.  Soon enough, he spotted the fat brother, Pete, coming and going a few times with the old lady in his passenger seat as they went to town.

         He could scarcely have been more shocked when Pete Fontenot himself called him a few days later and inquired about having him cater a shindig over on Cat Island.  Pete just pulled his name from a phone book.  Chris bought a gun but could never find a good time to get a clean shot.  Leery of getting caught and recycled back to jail, he bided his time and called in reports to a FBI agent that his MBN contact set him up with. 

         For weeks, he watched the house from his cousin’s johnboat.  One day, just a few days after catering another gig at Bertrand’s posh party house, he thought for sure either Bertrand or Pete must be visiting Mama with one of the bitches from that party. 

A sexy blonde, well endowed from top to bottom and wearing a black two-piece swimsuit came down to the pier behind Ruby Jeansonne’s house.  Her face shielded by a large-brimmed hat and wide sunglasses.  She carried a large, heavy purse made of woven straw with her.  Planting herself on a deck chair, she pulled a sunning mirror and a bottle of spray-on tanning oil from the purse.  Slowly, deliciously she sprayed herself down with oil, her fresh tan glistening in the glare of the noon sun.  Pouting seductively as if he was not there, she rubbed the oil over her flesh. 

With a sly grin, Curio Phelonie watched as the man stared at her as she caressed herself.  In the heat of the sun, she was hot as hell.  Playing to her audience, she made sure to pull aside her top and let him watch her massage the oil into her nipples, cocking her head back as if aroused as she pinched one of them. 

The man just stood in the boat, idly picking up a forgotten Zebco and reeling up some slack.  He gaped at her and she gave him a demure wave with one hand.  Her other slipped into the bikini bottom when she began to see, every ten or fifteen seconds, a subtle roiling in the still water of the lake behind the boat. 

The bubbles approached the boat and after a few seconds, the bubbles curled up from under the boat.  Her pussy seemed to pulse with its juice in sync with the bubbles.  Every eruption from beneath the johnboat brought an eruption inside her.

Chris watched the woman playing with herself, certain now that she was just one of Bertrand Fontenot’s whores.  He wondered how best to attack the house should he see one or both of the brothers around.  He had his pistol with him as always.  As best he could think despite his erection, he figured it was best to beach the boat at the launch just downriver, walk up quickly and knock on the diir under the guise of needing to talk to them about a catering bill.  When the door opened, he would march in shooting.

As the girl writhed on the chair in front of him, he had nearly decided on that course of action when a force rocked the boat ferociously.  Fearing it was an alligator, he screamed in terror as he fell overboard.  As he flailed about in the lake, his mind wondered helplessly whether it was worse to be eaten or to drown, for he could not swim.

Curio watched a gloved hand reach from the water behind the johnboat and grab the side of it.  The hand yanked down hard on the boat and the staring black man screamed and fell overboard.  She giggled maniacally and rubbed herself harder.  The oil on her fingers mixed perfectly with her own slickness into an erotic elixir.  She climaxed as the tumultuous action beneath the water surged upward and rocked the boat.

“Give ‘em hell, baby!”  She purred and pulled a Corona from a tiny icebox in the purse.  “Give ‘em hell…”

Moses carefully swam beneath the water, following a length of wire straight to the area where his prey watched the house.  When he could see silhouette of the boat above him, he took a quick look at his tank gauge and noted eighteen minutes remaining.  He followed the wire to the to the bottom of Kreb’s Lake and got ready.

During the night prior, he and Pete dropped eight old truck batteries, tied together in pairs with cinched bands, overboard at approximately the area where Chris Donell anchored and watched the home almost daily.  The quarry’s unfortunate persistence in sitting in the same spot when he was off work made things much easier.

Diving and feeling his way along the bottom and generally working the hell out of himself, he tied off a length of heavy nylon rope to the four pairs of batteries and left the weights in place.  Paying out a spool of thin wire behind him, he swam out to the island where Pete waited for him in his own johnboat.  Moses tied the end of the wire to a stake and they left. 

Now he clipped the end loop of the rope, tied with a Bowline knot, to a D-ring clamped to a diving belt around his waist.  He felt for the diving knife strapped to his ankle and found it ready. 

Beneath his mask, Moses Holliday smiled as he remembered how Curio returned from tucking in Mama Ruby.  He and the brothers were debating how best to interdict the man in question.  When she heard he sat in a boat all day, she merely snickered at what seemed to be so obvious to her but the men overlooked.

“He’s in a boat?  Boys, boys, boys.  Black men don’t swim.”

We’ll see, baby.  We’ll see! 

Moses cut the johnboat’s anchor line and reached up quickly to grab the starboard side.  Using the weights as leverage, he heaved down with both hands on the side of the boat.  Chris Donell tumbled a few feet away from him.  He sunk immediately.

Underwater, he thrashed violently, jabbing his fists at unseen reptiles intent on devouring him.  His scream as he fell in exerted a large volume of precious air.  He panicked, trying to remember to kick his legs toward the brightness above him.  A vise grip force grabbed his leg and he yelped underwater, giving up more air. 

Immediately he felt his lungs hurting.  He kicked violently at whatever was holding his leg.  Suddenly the grip was gone but replaced with a tight binding around his calf.  Struggling to hold what breath he had left, he kicked his feet, trying to free himself. 

The lack of sight beneath the water was stifling.  He thrashed about wildly with all of his arms and legs.  Suddenly in front of him, he could make out the rectangular outline of a scuba mask.  His eyes widened in surprise.  A man was gazing calmly at him.  Without warning, he was punched hard in the chest.  A direct hit to the solar plexus.  The wind left within him erupted without his control.  It bubbled up through his nose as he clutched his mouth, trying desperately to hold his life inside his cheeks.  He further panicked as he sensed his head getting airy.

Moses hit him in the chest and dove to the bottom again, his hand following the rope down to the weights.  He pinioned himself against the batteries and began using the leverage to winch in the struggling man.  He pulled the rope down further.  His strength and the leverage were more than a match to hold down a man half-woozy from lack of oxygen and floating free.  With the rope belayed around him he just held the man suspended about two fathoms deep.  When the movements stopped, he looked at his gauge.  Twelve minutes.

He pulled the lifeless body down to him and cut the rope loose.  Swimming fast and using the remaining length of rope as a tether, he towed the body downriver toward the very boat launch the dead man was planning to use as his launching pad for an assault on the Jeansonne home.  When he felt the subtle rush of a current and sensed a coolness around him that indicated a deep drop-off, he slipped the rope from the ankle and left the body to drift in the flow and surface when it was good and ready.  With a few minutes to spare, he swam back to Curio.

She watched the empty johnboat as it floated downriver slowly, sipping her Corona and adjusting the sunning mirror to focus on her neck.  Checking her watch, she started to get nervous about his time underwater.  Soon enough, the little roiling bubbles began to appear again downriver to her left.  She watched as they neared the pier and then disappeared under the wood planks. 

Moses surfaced quietly beneath the pier.  “Clear?”  Curio looked around for several minutes.

“Clear.”

Clad only in a pair of swimming trunks, he climbed up the old wooden ladder, looking again for any watching eyes.  She handed him a towel and a t-shirt.

“All good?”  Curio hugged him.

“All good.  After draggin’ up a gator a time or two, a man ain’t shit.” He dried his hair. “Let’s get gone.” 

After Curio collected her things and sunk her Corona bottle, they started to walk up the pier toward the house. 

Moses hugged her around the waist and looked at her hair. “Leave the wig on for later?  I like me a cute blonde ever now and then.”

She giggled and slapped him on the arm.  “Cheater.”

Both of their eyes saw movement in the sliding glass door and they stared at the house.

Behind the glass door stood Ruby Jeansonne.  She was wearing an old ballroom gown and high heels.  Her permed hair was piled high and perfectly on her head.  Her stance was slinky, almost foxy.

For a moment as they squinted in the glaring sun, she did not look like a old spinster.  She looked like a virile courtesan in the prime of her life, prepared to do her business in the most gracious and lascivious manner money could buy.  That version of Ruby Jeansonne tipped a tumbler of Southern Comfort in a satisfied salute to the couple. 

As the couple reached the shade of a towering magnolia and could see through the glass more definitively, a little old lady waved curtly and slid the curtain closed as they walked by toward the Lexus.  When they got in, they were delighted to find a Tupperware bowl full of duck and dumplins sitting politely wrapped in a towel in the passenger seat.  A tiny note that read “Merci beaucoup et bon temps!” lay atop the bowl.



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