The Gauthieux Twins Part 1

MOSES AND CURIO AND THE GAUTHIEUX TWINS





         Marvin and Franklin Gauthieux rode together in a tricked out ’65 Impala up Alabama Hwy 79, just north of Tarrant.  The men were identical twins, but tried most of their young lives to differentiate themselves until deciding around the time they graduated high school to play to the strength of two for one.  The classic Star Trek where the half-white half-black races killed each other off and the weird Siamese twins on the COBRA side on the G.I. Joe cartoons they watched in their youth provided them a glimpse of the possibilities that course of action might provide.

         Both were redbone black, tall and built like the gangly forwards they were on the basketball court back in times of their dubiously innocent youth.

         Franklin, the older by five minutes of old-school c-section work by some old white doctor in Shreveport back in 1972, had his hair dyed blond on the left and red on the right.  His barber did as ordered one day and cut in a four-inch dollar sign on the blond side and an outline of Africa the Motherland on the other.

         Marvin had the same, only reversed on the sides.

         The men were dressed in black Malcolm X shirts, newly trendy after Denzel rocked the role in the movie and the country, always eager for a trend, embraced the radical Black Muslim martyr again.  They wore matching red and white Air Jordan's, black Girbaud jeans and a single golden X earring on an ear.  The pair had stopped at the Tarrant Popeye’s and their meals were about the only difference between them.  Marvin had the jambalaya on promotion.  Franklin had a three piece with red beans and rice.

         After the meal, they pulled off Tallapoosa on 47th street, driving through the ghetto neighborhoods until they reached the backside of the Birmingham airport.

         “We gotta be quick, bro.”  Marvin checked the clip of his new Glock 9mm, also the latest rage to hit the nation, as Franklin drove down through Inglenook.  “Shoot this muthafucka down and get the hell out of here.  Fast, fast, fast.”

         “I know, Marvin.  I muthafuckin' know.  Damn.  You just make sure you don’t chickenshit.  You seem all jumpy and shit.  Stop that shit!”  Franklin glared at the slightly more cautious version of himself next to him.  “Ain’t nuttin but a thang, dog.”  He patted Marvin reassuringly on the shoulder.  “Nigga ain’t knowing what hit him when we roll up.”

         “You strapped?  It working all right?”

         “Yeah, it’s all good, bro.  Park up behind that load of pallets.  You see any niggas come up and try to steal our shit, you poppa cap.  I’ma take care of business and we’re gone.”

         The Impala stopped behind a large warehouse that the Stay-Clean Janitorial Supplies company was housed in before Tarrant went gangster and one theft too many ran the owners out to Fairfield.  It was an imposing structure, resembling an aircraft hanger like the ones sitting across the fence that separated it from the airport behind it.

         “Damn, that muthafucka beat us here.”  Franklin grunted.

         A shiny deep green Caprice sat, hunkered on low-rider struts, tucked in the very nook the men intended to park their ride.

         “Ain't no thang.  We pull up in front and take care of this bitch-ass nigga.  Then we straight in the game, my brotha.” 

         They saw a dapper-looking black man, wearing a white shirt and tie no less, standing by the rear of the Caprice, arms folded, wearing sunglasses that were austere and business-like.  His salt and pepper hair was buzzed tight to his scalp.  He was fit, lean.  Still blessed with a former tailback's build even at his age.  He was Fred Lemoine, a one-time All-American from Leesville, Louisiana who carried the rock very well for the Memphis Tigers in the early Seventies.  A random gunshot outside a club hit him in the ankle in '73 and ended any shot at the pros. 

         Subsequently his life took a different tack.

         He was now in the employ of a man named Bertrand Fontenot.  Fred was in fact, a major distributor of fresh from the burro's back Bolivia's best blow.  He was the Cajun mobster Bertrand Fontenot's main man in Birmingham.  He was quick-witted, ruthless, and thorough.  Fred Lemoine was also affable, funny as hell, and one helluva good man to have a slot in a major market like Birmingham in his profession.  He stood in his suit, awaiting a deal set up by friends of friends, everyone supposedly on the level. 

         Fred was being sold out for a pittance.

         Franklin nudged the big car forward, watching Lemoine with one eye and Marvin's hands with the other.

         “Alright, hit it, bro.”  Marvin ripped the handle tightly and steeled himself.  He gripped the door latch with one hand and the Glock with the other.  Franklin angled the car for the nose of the Caprice and gave it a steady flow of gas.  The Gauthieux twins pulled up in a hurry.

         “Now you hurry up, dumbass niggas.”  Fred Lemoine muttered to himself as the old Impala growled and jumped toward him.  Shaking his head, he folded his arms in disapproval.  He knew the pickup guys were young bucks, but he hoped they were at least smart young bucks.  The business was full of hotheads, hopheads and flat-out stupid motherfuckers always had been.  He sighed to himself.  Maybe he was getting old, but the generation coming up was just not bright at all when it came to keeping themselves out of jail.

         He focused his gaze on the silhouette of the driver.  The sun's glare caught the passenger behind it.  Tinted windows were not a bad thing, but he would have liked to see what was going on inside long enough to make a forty-yard dash out of the line of danger.  As it turned out, he did not see the pistol in his killer's hands until the first two shots were already lodged in his belly.  He was already a goner by the time four more stitched him across the upper chest.

         “Move!  Move!  You slow-ass motherfucka!”  Marvin screaming at his brother as he closed on the fallen man, gun still outstretched.  Fred gave only a death rattle in response.  Franklin Gauthieux jumped out from the driver's seat, forgetting to put the car in park, or at least neutral, in his haste.  The car rolled forward in drive, powered by its big 350 motor as it idled unceasingly ahead.  It caught Marvin from behind, a “Golden BB” moment, to use a warrior vernacular.  The Golden BB was that one tiniest piece of metal that against all odds managed to damage a man or machine lethally. 

         The chrome bumper caught him just as he planted his feet.  It impacted his knee perfectly from the side, at an angle that hyper-extended the ligaments just enough to lame him.  Franklin managed to get a foot on the brake instead of the gas just before Marvin went down screaming and cursing.  Franklin was about to chide is brother for being a pussy.  The thump did not seem that impressive to him but the look of pain on his brother's face and the complete change in order of business he showed immediately gave him pause.

         “You a-ight?”

         “No!  I ain't a-ight, Franklin!  Fuck!  I felt something pop, man.  Damn!  I'm fucked up!”  Franklin rushed over, jumping the gap between the two cars.  With Marvin cussing his ineptitude with every fiber of his being, he helped him into the Impala.

         “Watch behind us!  I'ma gets the dope!”  Franklin tossed his twin into the cab and rushed to Fred Lemoine's bloody corpse.  He fumbled in his pockets until his found the car keys and got the trunk popped.  A single faux-leather carryall bag was inside the spotlessly kept trunk.  Eyes darting side to side, he unzipped the bag and verified there was ample reason to have killed Fred Lemoine and disappear, as they intended.  He grabbed the bag, slammed the trunk, and kicked the dead man while listening for a faint groan he never heard.  Quickly, he ran back and got the car out of the area before the first cruiser decided to see what the single call made to 9-11 regarding shots fired in a neighborhood was all about...twenty-three minutes later.

         For the gawkers at the scene and the viewing audience that evening, the scene was nothing more than the latest dope deal gone wrong.  The name Fred Lemoine definitely interested a few narcotics detectives across the area and they began running down leads immediately. 

         A minor blurb about the latest murder up near Inglenook ran the next day in the Birmingham News.  Mostly it touched on the man's lauded football endeavors some twenty-something years ago and how the sports business was a cruel one for many of those who never quite made it to the big leagues. 

         Soon, it would be an open murder case file in a town with many of those already.  It also left a brief vacuum in the drug network that would and could be filled easily enough.  The market was always rife with the candidates for “next man up.”

         Omitted from all of that was the fact that Fred Lemoine was a lieutenant, very close friend and confidant of one Bertrand Fontenot.  Though the city of Birmingham shrugged off one more dope-dealing, dead, black man thrust momentarily in its midst but soon forgotten, Grizzly Fontenot of New Orleans did not take the death so lightly.

         

         “Dem fuckin bastards.  I knew dey was some low shit.  I just shoulda known betta'.”  Bertrand Fontenot paced with the backs of his hands ground far into his hip bones.  His right leg was artificial and he limped as he struck out his right leg.  He was seething.  Losing his Birmingham distributor was bad.  Losing a personal friend was not something he took lightly at all.

         “It was a raw deal, Griz...”  Albie Aldredge shook his craggy face from side to side as he commiserated with his grieving boss.  He and the main figures that ran the crime syndicate known as the Atchafalaya Mudbugs sat around a pool table being used as a round table for the emergency meeting.  The five men sat on bar stools in a horseshoe around it. 

         Fontenot was the only one standing across the green field.  His face was beet red, a sneer most in the room had seen before spread across his face.  He was not a man easily stirred into rage.  When rage came, however, it was best to be silent and nod with a similar sneer as the man vented, which the men did.  With his long black hair swaying behind him fiercely as he paced on the one leg, his lieutenants knew silence was probably best.  His occasional outbursts had brought casualties among them over the most trivial of transgressions.  Normally, he was a affable man.  He may order your death, but outwardly he was a happy guy.  When he was riled, no one was immune from his ire and that ire may be lethal.

         “We already got a line on where they went.”  Henri Chellette cut into Albie's spiel.  The room was almost as mad about the results of Albie's latest crank binge as they were about losing Freddy Lemoine. “They ain't got long left on earth.”

         “They got longer than Fred does.”  Grizzly pointed at the ground with one finger.  “He deader than fried chicken on account of dem two motherfuckers.  I'm in on dis one dis time.  What's the hunter gotta say bout it?”  He looked at his brother, Pete.

         All three hundred and twenty pounds of Pete Fontenot quivered as he spoke.  “So far, we playin' with the idea that deez two done skipped out and hauled ass up to Tupelo afta' dey done did dis.  Newsome done talked to dey Mama yestidy...not so politely.”

         “She talk?  Cuz if she didn't, she gonna.”  Grizzly fumed.

         “She talked.  Dey got kin up dat way.  She gave up the likeliest spots and kinfolk dey with up der.”

         “She nappin'?”  Grizzly spoke to the wall, his back turned to them as he paced.

         Pete paused a bit, cutting his eyes at the other members of the Mudbugs as they peered at him.

         “She nappin’ it out.  Yes, Sir.”

         “Good.”  He sneered and turned his face toward his henchman.  “Henri?”

         Chellette lit a Pall Mall and it dangled from the corner of his lips.  His thinning black hair was poofy up front in his bangs and drained down the rear of his white scalp into a dreamy mullet.  The overhang of hair caught the curl of the smoke and spun it in tiny whirls over his head.

         “Yeah, Griz.”

         “I want you to get some funds set aside something special.  Dey's two of deez bastards plus whoever dey got to hide with.  Might take a bit of doin' to get to them.”

         “Already done, Bossman.”  Chellette handled the cash bundles kept in various locations across the South.  When word of Lemoine's ambush reached him, he began working on getting funds readied immediately.  “How many you thinkin' you needin'?”

         Fontenot spun on his good heel.  “Just the one and mahsef.”  He raised a hand in Pete's direction, stifling the protest he knew was coming.  “Pete, I can handle it.  I'll be in the best hands.  I want you back down dis way making sure dey ain't more to dis den jess two thievin' bastards.  If dey had the blessing of somebody, it won't shake out too quick.  But dem two, I gonna' be proud to make dem get the shakes and da shits 'fore dey get quiet.  Ricky?”

         Richard Delarque, the main day-to-day muscle for south Louisiana leaned forward.  “Yeah, boss.”

         “If sumthin' go bad up dat way, I want you to be raht behind it.  My man can handle bout most all of it dey throw, but shit happens and I don't run so good, you know.  You and yours, I'll have you set up somewheres close by.  He prolly gonna cuss and spit, but it's how I want it and I ain't in no mood about it to hear him bitch.  Bien?”

         “Bien, Griz.  I got yo back.”  Ricky popped his knuckles.

         Albie nervously rubbed the back of neck, his eyes bulging a bit.  Ricky looked over at him and narrowed his eyes. 

         “Griz, deez kinda fools, dey shoot first.  You sho our boy kin handle a crowd?”

         Grizzly looked hard at him.  “Albie, you fucked-up shit, you know I done seen him handle way more crowd than some gold tooth motherfuckers evah thank bout sending his way.”

         “Yeah, but what I mean is, it's one thing to be standing in a skirmish line full of Marines with M-60s.  It's another thing to kick in doors with a one-legged ole coonass raht behind him for cover.  Y'all getting long in da tooth to be runnin' and gunnin' down a ghetto crack shack somewheres.”

         “Then I guess you better get ready to run da show, Albie.  You ready fo’ it, I’m sho.”  The other men chuckled.  Albie was on the way out.  Dope had burned his mind away a long time ago.

         “What's so funny?”  His mind was blank to the hint.

         “You, Albie.  Don't sweat it.  Pete, give our man a holler for me.  Tell him I'm in need of his unique talents.”  Grizzly Fontenot pointed at his brother and touched a pinkie finger to his lips.  “Let me break it to him that I'm riding shotgun dis time.”

         “He ain't gonna like dat, Bertie.”  Pete exhaled a whistling breath through his nose.

         “Dis time, big brother, I give a shit what he thinks.  Jess you make dat call.”