The Gauthieux Twins pt 3

Franklin Gauthieux finished counting the profits from the ambush of Fred Lemoine.  The wrapped bundles of twenties and hundreds spread across the twin’s Impala in his cousin Vonshay Webster's junky one-car garage in Saltillo, Mississippi.  His twin brother Marvin was on the john.  Vonshay sat in a folding lawn chair, swirling a basketball on his fingers and watching the bundles get sorted and counted.

         “Dat's some jackpot, Frankie.  How you and Marvin gonna’ hide all dat cash, yo?  You know you starts tah wavin' dat shit around, some muthafuckas gonna’ acks where y’all got it from?”

         “I'ma tell whoever aks it ain’t none of their goddamned business!” Franklin held up his Glock. “Or I’ma show ‘em how I done got it.”

         Franklin was already tired of his cousin's incessant questions after two days.  Vonshay was five years older than they.  Already he had the best of both educations, two years in Itawamba Community College and two years in the Pearl Correctional Community for armed burglary and resisting.  Thus armed with the added educations, he felt the need to mentor his cousins at will.  He nearly had a heart attack when the pair came wheeling into his yard in a tricked out old Impala with a lift kit rocking it.  When they showed him the cash and were not shy about explaining its origin, Vonshay began to get nervous.

         “We ganked a big-time dopeman down in Birmingham.  Set him up through a contact and took that shit.  Punk ass nigga trusted his middle man too much.  We paid him off with some dat dead nigga's cash and still got all dis loot.  We in business now, my man!  We headin' up to Louisville next week and get set up with Carter.  Be rollin' in dat shit in a few months.”  Carter Gauthieux was a half-brother still blending bricks of weed into dime bags.  He was as anxious as they were to get some real dopeman cash-money shit going.

         “That's a lot of money, Frankie.  Somebody gonna be huntin' that money, nigga.  You sure you got loose clean?  Dem DEA mahfuckas be lookin’ up folks when they want to.” 

         “Let 'em.  They don't know us and they don't know you.  By the time they figure it out, we gonna’ be longtime gone, yo.  Cuz, we straight up leavin' dis shitass country behind.  Fuck these chicken coop-ass niggas down here in the South.  We got money to go now.  Chi-town.  New York.  Philly.  L.A.  We can set up anywhere.”

         Marvin hobbled in through the kitchen door, his lips wrapped around a huge spliff, freshly lit.  “Hey wassup, man?  Y'all got any shawties around here, Shay?  Not no chickenhead crackie bitches, neither.  We wants some real trim.  We got a lil’ loot to throw around for some lucky ho's.”  He grimaced as he struggled down the four stairs to the garage floor.  “Fuckin’ leg hurts like a motherfucker, yo.” 

         He rubbed his swollen knee as he flopped in another lawn chair.  The Ace bandage was not helping much.

         “Yeah.  I know a nigga keep some escort ho's for dem white men that like to slap a ghetto girl on the ass every now and then.  They earn big though.  You really wanna spend high dollar on somethin' we can get down at the club for some weed and a few glasses of liquor?”

         “Live large, Cuz.”  Marvin handed the spliff to Vonshay, smiling with his big white teeth. “Don't need to show our faces at some bullshit club, listening to some dumbass girl's life story out here in Redneckville.  Besides, my knee is fucked up and I can't get my dance on.  We got cash.  Cash means dey keep dey mouth shut and my nuts on their chin.  Set it up, baby.  We ballin' this weekend and get our asses up Monday and go make us some real money!”

         “I feel you, baby.  Hey, you talked to Aunt 'Retta since you got here?”

         “Yeah, we talked to Mama.  Just before we got here.  She always wantin' to know where we be and shit.  I told her we up here with our peoples.”

         Vonshay swallowed hard.  “Ain't they gonna’ know that too, now?”

         “Who?  Mama know not to tell nobody shit.”

         “The kinda’ people you took that money from ain't afraid to make Aunt 'Retta tell off, you know.  That's a lotta' green, nigga.  I mean, shit, you had to leave some kinda’ trail behind.  Someone set up the meeting and all.”

         “Dumbass niggas don't do homework like that.”  Franklin took the spliff and zipped up the moneybag.  The smoke curled into his eye and he squinted as they watered.  “They ain’t no CIA in Inglenook, nigga.  We long gone, baby.  Mama ain't gonna tell nobody shit.  Even if dey did figure out who we was and who she was.  Shit, I still barely can find my way out here in the sticks gettin’ up here to see yo’ ass and we been up here a hundred times.”

         “I dunno’, man.  You shoulda' told her you was somewhere's else.”

         “And have her catch us lyin' to her?”  Franklin laughed.

         “Yeah, Shay.  You might not wanna see Mama come up here and start whoopin' all our asses for lyin' to her.  She likes to know where her babies are.  She got heart problems.  She gets to worryin', she likely to have all dem heart pains and shit.  I ain't the one to be makin' my Mama have to go to the grave.  Nuh uh, not dis nigga, yo.”



         Moses looked around the lobby of the Tupelo Marriot and immediately spotted Pete Fontenot staring at him across the room, his eyes covered with his omnipresent black sunglasses.  Both men looked around for eyes noticing them a beat too long and found none.  Helping himself to a cup of coffee, Moses chuckled to himself about both their innate paranoia as he walked over and sat down across from Pete.

         “Good to see ya, Tex.”  Pete shook hands across the table.  “You lookin' fit as always.  Some cheri must be a-feedin' ya good.  Ain't no way you kept dat figure eatin' whiskey and saltines.”

         “I managed to get a can of ravioli opened a time or two this year.”  He nodded at Pete's belly.  “You must be keepin' the chef's down at Prudhomme's busy as hell.”

         Pete slurped his coffee and patted his sizable gut.  “Keeps me vigorous, Tex.  Someone gotta’ keep da beef cattle market afloat or all your kin hafta' go on that Texas-size welfare teat.  Be a tragedy if all dem cowboys didn't have no cows to stump-train no mo.”  Pete laughed heartily.

         “You're a great American for that, Pete.  Texas thanks you.”

         “Jess doin' mah part, Mo.  You ever been up in deez parts?”  Pete's face continued to note the looks on the faces of every front desk clerk, passerby and mockingbird chirping outside the window that could see them together.

         “Nope.  Never been up here.  Nice town.  Got some money in it from the looks of it.”

         “Dey do a lot of wholesale furnichah up dis way.  Big factory purchases.  Plus dey got dem useless colleges round here, too.  Ole Miss dat way,” he pointed west.  “Cow college dat way.”  South.  “Nice lil’ spot.  We may hafta’ look into it someday up here.  Dey got loot aplenty.”

         “How much of y’all's loot made it up here?”

         “A big damned chunk.  Fred was supposed to get a lotta’ weight moved with the deal.  Dey set him up all kinds of bad.  But it ain’t really even da reason Bertrand wants in.  Deez two we want," Pete paused and sighed sadly, "dey shot Fred Lemoine down in cold blood.  Plus they stole some product and some funds and hauled ass up dis way.”

         “Just two players?”

         “Two we want.  But Bertrand, you know, he kinda’ on a warpath.  You know how he git.  We already done tied up a loose end or two back in Birmingham.  Freddy was a good man.  At least what passes for good around us anyway.  You know what I mean.”  He shrugged.  “He was a friend and dis ain't the most gentlemanly bidness, but he never saw it comin' and he should have.”

         “He got lax.”

         “He got day-ed.  Deez two knuckleheads, I don’t think dey don't know how high up a chain Freddy was.  Or mebbe dey did and dey didn't give a flyin' fuck.  Who knows?  I can't say.  Deez young 'uns deez days ain't too easy to skeer like we was back a while back.  Dey into all dat gladiator respect-me bullshit.  Listenin' to all dat rap music, seeing sumbitches spray lead all up into houses on TV and shit.  For all I know, dey figger dey git gone 'fo anybody gits winda' dem.  But, dey didn't figger on dey setup man knowin' exactly who Fred Lemoine worked fuh.  That little asshole gots da cold feet and dropped the dime to me when he realized what he done.  Lil’ shit was cryin' like a teethin' baby when I talked to him.  He a-sleepin' by the way.”  Pete took another swig of coffee.

         “What's the names?”

         “Dey twins, deez two.  Last name Gauthieux.  Marvin and Franklin.  Dey got some kin down around Lafayette but most of dey kin are up in Birmingham.  We already had a talk wit dey mama.  She took some convincin' but she told us dey holing up dis way wit some useless cousin and maybe a few local friends.”

         “Shit, how many you talkin?”  Moses scowled.  Grizzly wanted vengeance but trying to get some on a potential house full of armed felons out in the Mississippi backwoods was problematic at best.  Deadly ignorant at worst.

         “Can't say really.  We gonna hafta’ find a way to look it over some.”

         “What if they're already gone?”

         “If dey gone, we all go home and I run dem down on my end.  Bertrand wants the two triggers, not some ignant' ass cousin dat don't know nothin'.  Of course, we make sure he don't know nothin' fust.”

         We should be so lucky...  Moses took a deep breath and rubbed a sore spot behind an eyebrow.

         “You think they're here, though.  Don’t cha?”

         “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.  Deez two, brainiacs.  I’m bettin’ dey think dey pulled off da great heist of 1992.  Books and movies will celebrate how dey pulled one over and got away with enough cash to wallow in.  But, dey forgot the part in every movie where dat big boss gits mad as hell and comes a-huntin' dey ass down at all costs.”

         “Sometimes they ambush that boss.  Last time I checked Griz ain't too quick to sprint for cover.  Why the fuck does he need to be here for this?  I could handle it without him.  You know that.  Hell I can handle it easy if he just wants them gone.  And I ain’t at all costs.  I’m just a tidbit.”

         Pete Fontenot sighed and shrugged.  “Dis Grizzly Fontenot you askin' dis about, ya know?  Da boy ain't been raht since he come out backwards from our mama's womb.  But he da’ boss, Tex.  He’s da boss and he wants in.  You and me of all people knows, when Bertie wants some payback, he gits some.”



         Under the bright Mississippi sun, Curio Phelonie drove the tan Bronco up Euclatubba Road west of Saltillo, looking at the cream-colored single-story house where a pair of naughty twins marked for death were supposedly holed up for a weekend.  There were three cars parked in the yard, all some version of late model Chevy's that young blacks seemed to prefer.  She did not see the one car Moses made mention of, an old Impala, but she bet her bottom dollar that it was parked in the closed garage.

         The road meandered from the outskirts of Tupelo into rural Lee County.  Old homesteads dotted the faded asphalt; sitting as they had for decades behind barbed wire that more often than not barricaded only ghosts of old herds on unused pasture.  The cleared fields probably were the fiefdom of innumerable Southern landowners for whom the war’s outcome meant the plots dwindled from generation to generation.  Huge tracts where neighbors had to make a day’s journey to visit the adjacent neighbor were now shrunk into to two-five acre plots between lonely houses.  Many of the houses made themselves cozy to a house trailer as a son or daughter married and decided not to venture any further than the smell of mama’s biscuits.

         Slowing down slightly as the target address came into view, she tried to feel the house, as Moses had explained to her.  The yard, the upkeep, the cars, pets…she tried to interpret any facet of the people who would in all likelihood attempt a rapid defense against his onslaught.  Her initial feeling was that the old house had been in a family a long time.  Whoever used to keep the house looking respectably neat was probably dead.  Some erstwhile son or grandson was letting it go all to hell while he and his homies partied.  Someone remembered to cut the grass out by the road every once in a while. 

         She caught just a fleeting glimpse of a large dog scratching itself as it sat on a chain in the back yard of the target house before it passed from her line of sight.  The yards, at least what she could see of the back, appeared to be barren of grass close to the house.  The summer sun turned the bare earth into dusty wallows.  No thought was apparently given to watering the grass and drought forced any trees with shallow roots to plunder topsoil for every bit of water. 

         There was a huge maple tree in the front with another dog chain tied around it. 

         But no dog!

         A huge indention near the tree and giant dogshit piles sprinkled around indicated whatever was off the chain was no dachshund.

         Dogs!  Curio shook her head.  Moses hates dogs.

         There was an old house trailer for sale.  It sat on a bare spit of land just in the elbow of a sharp curve, four houses down and on the opposite side of the road from the target house.  Curio wheeled the Bronco into the yard and pretended to be checking a realty map.  There was no one living in the trailer.  The high grass around the property was getting impossible thick and high for anything but a bush hog.  Carrying her notebook and the realty map, she circled the trailer.  The power meter had been pulled.  Watching carefully for observant eyes, she checked the shut-off tag on the water meter.  It was dated almost a year before.

         Perfect!

         She opened the tailgate of the Bronco and sat down with her notebook.  Sipping from a bottle of cold Evian (naïve spelled backwards, sneered Moses every time she bought one) Curio stared at the house, mindful of the lack of neighbors milling about.  The road was a backwoods artery carrying rural folks back and forth from the outskirts of mutually incongruous towns of Guntown and Saltillo and also drained the earth of its salty yokels into Tupelo itself.  Now and again a car or old beat-up truck passed er by, an old black farmhand or white-haired old hayseed lady behind the wheel. 

         It was high noon on a Friday and she patiently counted cars and watched.  Very little activity was to be seen.  The tidy yards separated by the long patches of old pasture spoke of elderly hayseeds to her.  They were the just the type of folks Moses was most afraid of, people who were used to silence and order.  It was his hope that the target house was the scene of innumerable parties and raucous domestics.  If it was the lone trouble spot in the midst of the otherwise peaceful street, he hoped the neighbors would initially chalk up the screaming he was sure to cause to another night at the Webster house.

         Sighing after a few minutes of watching without much to see, Curio was indeed worried that the target house kept to itself as much as the neighbors.  Nothing stirred from it and nothing was heard from it.  She thought for sure they would at least have something bumping the woofers for her to notice.  The street was just silent.

         When an elderly back neighbor finally did stir from the house trailer directly across the street from the Webster house, she nearly cried as she watched him.  She was hidden from his view, she was certain of that.  Elderly people tended to notice strangers and she, sitting at a house he probably knew was uninhabited and probably even why, never got so much as a glance, let alone a courtesy nod.  The old man was easily pushing eighty.  He was skinny as a post with a shock of pure white hair on his head and beard that stood starkly against his dark skin.  He was stooped over horribly as he walked.  His back was humped at a curve of at least sixty degrees.  Poor as he was, thin and old as he was, there was undoubtedly no hope for a day's letup from the constant pain the arcing spine had to bring him.  She could see him grunting his waking hours away in his easy chair in the tiny trailer.  It made her uncomfortably sad to see the poor fellow in such a bad way.

         He shuffled outside and took slow, deliberate steps down from the tiny five-by-five covered porch.  Each step and grip of the rail was measured.  It took at least a full five seconds between each slow thrust of the old feet took him another six inches closer to the earth he probably wished he could crawl under and sleep a while.  The slow march away from whatever solace he may have found inside the trailer gave him a day’s worth of pain, but she could see it was a fair price to pay for the companionship of his only friend.

         A tiny Scottie pup followed him on a leash, hopping happily in place and waving its paws in the air as it ventured out to pee.  He walked the tiny dog in a slow patrol around the front yard, stooping down an inch at a time to pick up a Bojangle’s bag full of the greasy leftover boxes from some tossed-aside three-piece with mashed potatoes and gravy.  More bits of litter caught unseen breezes as he approached them, stifling his attempt to catch them mercifully quick.  Her eyes watered as he bravely collected every bit of rubbish in his yard. 

         Each stoop and slow ascent back from the crouch to his feet clearly was a feat of amazement to her.  She had seen Moses shrug off pain in the commencement and recuperation of the job but he was just tough as a railroad spike.  It was never in his interest to allow the infliction of pain upon him to dictate what he did in life nor would he let it cause him to not live that life by acknowledging the hurt instead of defeating permanently the immediate threat that caused the hurt. 

         Watching that old man respectably fight away agony just to show others he was still alive and would maintain both himself and his domicile in a classy way despite the hardship made her realize Moses was tough because he had to be, but the old man was tough because it was expected of him as a man when he was younger and some engrained notions of stoically toughing out the body blows of life never faltered despite the passing of time. 

         The little dog, to its credit, did its business close to the road and far from his owner's immediate field of coiffed Bermuda glory.  Curio scowled as he found a tall Budweiser can and shook it dry before cramming it into the Bojangle’s bag.  She could see a trash bag sitting in a wooden box on the near side of the porch to her. It was nearly full of beer and Sunkist cans.  Maybe the old man was a raging alcoholic, but she wagered he was not.  There were cans of many colors in the bin.  Drunks tended to be brand-loyal, never deviating from the drink of life even if they shunned any possible deviation from a life of drink.

         His return trip to something resembling a human posture took a full half-minute after trapping the last fluttering napkin under a shuffling, uncertain foot.  For a moment, she thought he would collapse entirely.  It would have taken all she could muster to not go help him to his feet.  But she would not.  He would remember her and probably make small talk.  She would probably be a highlight to his week, a pretty stranger in his time of need.  An angel he would think, and he maybe even would say it to her.

         Curio Phelonie was observing the scene of an impending capital murder.  Being called an angel hours before maybe shooting a man in the head point-blank did not sit well with her.

         She mentally applauded as he rose back to his feet, cramming the napkin into the bag.  Getting a hold of his pain, he turned and looked across the road.

         His face morphed into a scowl of revulsion she figured she could easily from an airliner.  The gritted teeth, narrowed eyes and balled fists...all aimed silently at the target house.  She knew in an instant, if the old man could, he would have marched, upright and indignant like a malevolent drill sergeant, kicked the living shit out of any barking, shitty-pawed mutt that tried to intervene, and stomped a goddamned mud hole in every sorry sumbitch in the place.  But he was old, probably praying to join some wife long-lost to diabetes or lard-clogged veins in whatever version of heaven he imagined awaited to embrace him the instant the pain ceased in lieu of infinite freedom. 

         So the best he could do was toss the Bojangle’s bag into his trash can and hobble with his bouncing puppy back up each painful step to disappear back into his tidy aluminum box to watch Judge Wapner.

         And wait for the Good Lord to take his breath away one day.

         Curio reached behind her and pulled out a 4x rifle scope.  Slowly, she slid back into the rear of the Bronco and peered at the target house.

          There were three trashcans brimming with white bags crammed full of garbage.  In the scope's view, she could see most of the bags on top.  All of them were jammed full to the point the white bags were nearly rendered transparent.  Clearly, she could see a glut of beer cans and bottles straining the plastic.  One can was turned over and a dog, maybe some stray cur bold enough to not care about the pits attacking it- maybe smart enough to understand how much chain they had- or too hungry to care, had ransacked a bag and scattered trash a few feet around a leaning can.  Chicken boxes, burger wrappers, and wadded napkins were strewn around their yard.

         “Sorry motherfuckers.”  She muttered and took the scope away from her eye.

         Gritting her teeth, her pouting bottom lip swelling from rage, she looked again at the tidy yard of the old man and glowered at the obscenity of the lazy men, a third his age no less, letting their own filthiness and shiftless existence cause some poor old fellow on his last leg to have to take even a minute of his painful day to so agonizingly bend down to clean up after their shiftless, murdering asses.

         Unexpectedly, she cried for a moment.  When she composed herself and chastised herself for being such a girl about it, she took out her notebook and began drawing pictures of the target house.

         

         Moses quickly shimmied down from his climbing tree stand behind the rear of the target house.  Dressed in a Ghili suit, he held fast to the large pine that provided him such a good vantage point.  The acres of pine that stretched in a seemingly endless line along the series of hills that cover northeast Mississippi once hid Rebel sharpshooters holding out against the Yankee army that won the blood day at Shiloh and nearby Corinth.  Now they formed a cover that Moses melted into without delay.

         Moving effortlessly through the forest, he ran quickly to the dusty county road a few miles to the north of the target.  When he reached his pickup location, he was twenty minutes early so he sipped from a whiskey flask and fired up a Winston.

         Hunkered down away from the road, concealed in a plush blackberry thicket, the reconnoiter of the house swirled around his mind as he sat and smoked. 

         “Dogs.”  He muttered to himself.  Closing his eyes, he inhaled his smoke and took a long swig of Rebel Yell.  It finished the flask and he resealed it and slid it back into his cargo pocket.

         When he and Grizzly first drove past the target house to get a quick look in the middle of the night, they were stifled by the lack of streetlights on a cloudy night.  Moses noted two pit bulls on a chain in the front yard but could not get a look at the back due to the positions of cars and trees.  Not knowing the place or the area yet cognizant of time, he fumed at the variables unknown.

         The area was sparsely populated but one look at the homes around the target immediately told him the houses and trailers within sound range it were probably aware of the habits of the young men living there.  And perhaps not too happy about it. 

         Whereas all other homes were fairly well kept, the target was neglected and an eyesore.  Moreover, gunfire would bring sheriffs in a hurry since the neighbors had to assume they were dealing or buying at the house.

         Having Grizzly cussing and muttering oaths of vengeance in the driver's seat while he tried to find a tactical advantage over an unknown number of dead men drove him nuts.  True, Bertrand Fontenot could handle himself if he did not have to do much running, but there was too much that was going to have to happen and in a hurry.  Pete was not much good with guns, he was fat, and never been in a military.  Both men had done dastardly acts in their past, but both were a long way away from suitable personnel to help him breach a building and clear it.  The best Moses could think to do with them was put them out in the front yard to catch whomever he flushed out from the backside.          

         He opted to recon the place from the rear and had Grizzly drop him off at three a.m. in the very spot where he rested.  Glancing at his watch, he smiled.  Curio was at that moment checking out the front for him.  It was all he would allow her to do.  It gave him a subtle thrill for him to know she was only a few miles away.  He wondered, after a few of their shared jobs, if he was starting to actually get over having her taking to his life as she had.  Never wanting the danger of his life to be hers, her own wants had overwritten his.  He figured he head noted as much as he needed to about the front of the house during their drive-by the night before, but Curio was chomping at the bit to do something useful so he put her on surveillance detail on the front while he studied the rear. 

         The most notable detail he acknowledged was the dogs.  The whole pack of dogs.

         “Dogs, dogs, dogs.”  Stubbing out the butt against a tree, he chewed on his upper lip.  He counted seven pit bulldogs on chains in the backyard.  One more was an unchained bitch with puppies that were big enough to scamper about and romp.  She rated a pen at least, but she was the only one caged.  The others roamed in circles around bare dirt perimeters. 

         A worn-out barbed wire fence bordered each side of the house.  There was an unused pasture, overgrown for many years he figured, bordering the house approximately five hundred yards in each direction before meeting the fences of the adjacent neighbors.  With the woods behind them, the house was a decent place for an ambush, with the only exception being the neighbors.

         “Silencers, of course.” He mused.  “Pop the mutts on my way in.  Breach the door harshly and fuckin’ melee the place.  Maybe dress the part? Anyone rushes out the front gets caught and dropped by Mutt and Jeff out there.”  He figured the house had to be worth a ruckus at least every other weekend so the noise at first would be ignored.  “Hardly a piece of cake but it’s pretty doable.”

         “Maybe pull up with radio blaring to drown all the fuckin’ screamin' out.”  Moses nodded to himself as he added the minor detail. 

         For all the hours, he spent sitting on his climber stand watching, he only saw one man.  It was not one of the twins. 

         “A scrawny fella.”  He recalled the gangly young man who came out at a little after nine to feed the dogs. Moses figured him for the cousin.  “Not a PETA guy, I’ma guessin’.”

         The dogs' gleeful dancing at the edge of their chains was met with a hard slap of the snout as he struggled to get a few cups of cheap food into their bowls and the water bowls refilled.  He had not pet a single one, not even the mama bitch.  The gleeful pups were tossed aside with a casual swipe of the foot.  Moses placed him at early twenties, not educated, probably not a gangbanger and country-raised in the house.  Details were sketchy about who could be in the house.  The mother they used for intel did not know the conditions at her nephew's house. 

         “And he is nervous as hell.”  The man's eyes darted around constantly.  A passing car literally made him freeze every time one passed by.  “Either he's a crackie and jumpy.  Or he knows all about why his twin cousins made a beeline outta’ Birmingham.”  Moses suspected the latter.  The guy did not look like a crackhead.

         “Too bad you can't pick your family, Cuz.” Moses shrugged and stretched. “I hate it for you.”

          Looking at his watch again, he stood up and shucked the camo suit, stuffing it into his pack.  Precisely on time, a black Suburban driven by a swearing Cajun picked up the man toting a large backpack on the county road and drove away.