Coq au Vin (14 page)

“Yes.”

“Are you okay, Andre? I mean, not hurt.”

“Yes.”

“And someone's there, right? Listening. Telling you what to say.

“Yes.”

“What do they want?”

“I told—” He broke off with a sharp intake of breath.

“Andre!”

“It's all right. Just listen. You know how you told me once there used to be a rape crisis center where a friend of yours was a counselor? You remember where that was?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Don't say the name of the street,” he cautioned. “Just come there. Now.”

“All right. I'm coming.”

“Wait a minute! Come alone, right?” Yes.

“And bring those papers from home—from New York, I mean. You know what papers I mean, don't you? Bring all of it. You have to bring all of it and you have to come alone, then we'll both be all right. I promise. It's not a setup, understand?”

“Okay,” I said, understanding perfectly what he meant by “papers”: the money I'd been sent over here to deliver. The money orders. Someone knew about my mission and was holding Andre until I turned over the money.

Of course, I thought, it had to be the Gigi/Martine underworld connection. I had been stupid enough to go to a petty crook for help, and now I was reaping the wages of that error.

Except I had not been stupid enough to tell them the reason I was looking for Vivian was to turn over an inheritance to her. I'd never said a word to Gigi or Martine or anyone but Inspector Simard about the ten thousand. Yet, somehow, they'd found out.

I was betting Gigi had been killed because of that money.

“Understand everything now?” Andre asked.

The answer to that one, obviously, was no. But that isn't what I said.

“Yes,” is what I said, “I'm on the way.” I started to ask once more if he was okay, but I realized I was speaking into dead air.

The street he would not let me name was a little cul-de-sac in the 11th, off the rue Chanzy. There is such a thing as the beaten path. There's off the beaten path. And then there is Cité Prost—that's the street Andre was talking about.

I had indeed once known someone who volunteered her time at a women's counseling center there. Andre and I had dropped another musician off in a cab one night and I had pointed the old building out to him.

“Kind of an isolated part of town for something like that, isn't it?” he had asked.

“If you think it's weird now, you should have seen it then,” I countered. “When you went in for counseling, you were always looking over your shoulder to make sure somebody wasn't going to rape you.”

There was still a slice of sunlight left when I emerged from the métro. The rosy horizon lit my way as I trotted along the avenue, looking for the sharp turn into Cité Prost.

I found it, made the turn, and then halted in my tracks. The grimy street hulked before me like a living presence, a fearsome thing with hollow eyes and wings.

Half the buildings on the street had been razed. Half of those remaining were in some stage of gentrifying refurbishment. Piled building bricks, wheelbarrows, and construction machinery cluttered the sidewalks.

The women's center was all boarded up. I stood on the pavement and waited, staring at the building. Was I expected to go
in
there? My heart froze in my chest. How was I going to get in? I looked around for the inevitable smelly
type
who would emerge from the shadows and take me around the back way. Who else would be inside? Homesteading junkies fixing by candlelight? Lady Martine in her stilettos, the ring leader of some murderous band of outsiders?

Where did they have Andre? The thought of him gagged and locked in a closet or in a corner with his wrists and ankles bound made me tremble. And though I tried willing myself not to think of the worst—that they had killed him as soon as he hung up, as soon as I'd agreed to bring the money—I was losing the battle.

What if they were watching me right now? Killing him right now?

The press of all those gruesome possibilities was too much. I began to rush toward the building. But a word spoken softly and carried on the mild air stopped me.

“Nan.”

I whirled.

Not another soul on the street. I looked around frantically. Up at the bricked-in windows. Even to the branches of a yellowing plane tree. Where had that voice come from?

There was an old gray Volkswagen parked directly across from the center. I hadn't even noticed it before. I walked toward it, slowly. And then I began to cry, making no noise, just weeping silently, happy, grateful: that was Andre sitting behind the wheel. He lifted one hand slightly and beckoned me to him.

I ran to the driver's side and tried to open the door.

“Take it easy, Nan,” he said tonelessly. “Go around to the other side and get in.”

For a moment I couldn't move to obey him. I was too busy searching his face for bruises, checking his clothing for bloodstains. But then I saw him wince, and he repeated sharply, “Go around and get in, Nan.”

I did it on the double.

“Don't turn around yet!” he barked when I had closed the door after me.

It soon became plain what his wincing was all about. There was a gun less than half an inch from the nape of his neck.

“I'm
okay
, Nan, just you be cool,” he said desperately, seeing me seeing the black muzzle.

A “titter” came from the backseat then, no other word for it, really. Yeah, a titter—and the motherfucker was girlish as all get-out. Tinkling and merry, and perhaps tinged with madness.

“Yeah, he's
okay,
” said the laugher. “And you know what, girl? I want to thank you for letting me borrow this pretty man of yours for the day. We had a lot of fun.”

Andre's warnings be damned. I turned around and took a good look. A good hard look.

A silence had fallen in the car. It went on and on and on. I was the one to break it.

“Vivian,” I said, “I hate you.”

CHAPTER 13

You've Changed

“I mean, Vivian, I hate what you're doing. Whatever that is.”

“I swear to Jesus,” she replied, “sometimes I barely know what I'm doing anymore.”

“Here's a suggestion,” I said acidly. “Get that gun away from Andre's head. Are you out of your mind!”

The thing was withdrawn and Andre let out an endless breath. I took his hand and held it for a long moment before turning back to my sweet old aunt, as Gigi had once called her.

“I'm not sure you heard me, Viv. I just asked you if you were out of your mind.”

Vivian sighed heavily, then, as if she'd just had a hit of B
₁₂
, demanded breezily, “Where's that money, Nanny Lou? Pretty man here tells me my ship's come in. When I found out you were in Paris looking for me, I figured you'd brought some dough from home. But I never dreamed you were going to make me a rich bitch.”

It was my turn to laugh gaily. “Just a minute here, Aunt Viv. Let me get something straight first, okay? You think you can frighten my mother half to death with your stupid telegrams, get me all the way over here, and then, like,
hide
from me—terrorize me—kidnap my fucking boyfriend and hold me up at gunpoint. Then you're gonna call me Nanny Lou, right? Like when you used to bounce me on your knee. Do I have all that right, Aunt Viv?”

“I'm something else, huh?” she said soberly.

Vivian leaned forward a bit. There was gray in her hair now and her eyes were dull, the coppery skin over her thin face not so taut anymore. But she was still my wild auntie. Great bones, high forehead, wide and noble nose with that sexy bump between the nostrils. Still a package of nervous energy and sharp angles. My dad's wayward sister. My baby-sitter and role model, whom I adored. Aunt Vivian. Armed kidnapper and holdup woman.

I couldn't take it in. “Why'd you do it? Why?”

“That makes no difference now. I know I scared you shitless and I'm sorry I had to do it this way. But I want that money, Nan. You give me that money and then you and your young man get on a plane and go home, you understand me? Get out of Paris. This has nothing to do with you and you're going to get burned bad if you stay here.”

“Nothing to do with us?” Andre at last spoke up. “Lady, notice I'm not asking you if you're crazy. I already know the answer to that. You've been threatening to blow my head off for several hours now, and you can sit there and say it has nothing to do with us?”

She didn't answer him, head turned away.

“God damn!” he exploded. “I ought to come back there and snatch you—”

I managed to shush him with a hand to his face.

“Who was Ez?” I asked her point-blank.

Snap of the head. Her voice broke as she asked, “What?”

“Come on, Viv. You heard me. Who was Ez? The man who also called himself Little Rube Haskins. And what do you know about the way he died?”

“I'm not going to talk to you all about that. I told you, that's nothing to do with you!” She was gripping the back of my seat tightly as she spoke.

“You heard what Andre just said, Vivian. If it didn't have anything to do with us, we wouldn't be sitting here looking down the barrel of a gun. So cut the shit, auntie. I want to know what's going on here. I want some answers! Were you sleeping with that guy Haskins when you lived in Paris all those years ago? Did you set him up to be killed?” It frightened me to ask the next question, but I did it anyway: “Did you run him down yourself?”

Her fingers tightened on the old upholstery.

“Why did you run from your hotel and why did you make yourself so hard to find? Who told you I was looking for you?” I pressed.

No answer, of course. Just an awful grimace and her knuckles going white.

I began to scream out my questions then: “Did you know a pimp named Gigi who was murdered the other day? Don't just sit there like a mummy, Vivian. You owe me some answers! And don't give me any more of that stupid shit about getting burned, okay? We're already burning.”

“All right, Nan, that's enough!” She returned my nasty tone at equal volume. “Stop playing the tough guy, because it isn't going to work with me. There are much nastier guys than you after my ass. And they don't just want to make me apologize for not dropping a line every once in a while. They're trying to kill me.”

“
Who!?
” Andre shouted before I got the chance to. “Who's trying to kill you? Jesus Christ, woman, why don't you just tell us what this is about?”

Vivian flinched at his tone. And then she almost smiled. “All right. Listen up, the both of you. I'm going to tell you as much as you need to know, and hope it's enough to convince you to get out of town.” She turned those now-sad brown eyes on me.

“I had me a lot of men, Nan. A lot of friends and a lot of coke and a lot to drink—but mainly a lot of men. This one particular one,” she said slowly, “your father used to call a cracker. To his face. He thought that was funny. But then, as you know, my brother never had much of a sense of humor.

“I don't know why, exactly, don't ask me to explain it, but this one I loved. Jerry Brainard was his name. I don't know if you remember him.”

“Kind of,” I said. “We found his picture in your album.”

She nodded. “You're young, baby. Both of you are. You don't know yet what it does to you when somebody you thought loved you, turns around and puts a knife in you. I don't just mean leaving you. I don't mean hitting you, or fucking around on you, or anything like that. I mean when you love them enough to give them your eyes, and then they actually put you in a position where—where you're going to die. They could've saved you. They could've warned you. But it wasn't convenient for them. You just don't know what that kind of betrayal is like.”

Oh, don't I now?
I wanted to say.
You really should have dropped a line, auntie. I could have told you some story
.

I had to fight myself to keep from interrupting her, to tell her that, young or not, I'd had almost the identical experience with a man I thought I loved. But I couldn't go into that now. I had to hear
her
ghost story now.

“When we were living here in Paris, it was fabulous,” Vivian said, coming alive again, for just a second. “I was over here—speaking French, girl! I had this fine man who was crazy about me and a lot of other men in love with me and all the fun in the world and the party never stopped. Just like back at home. Just like everywhere in those days. Your aunt Viv could hang with the best of them and drink most men under the table. I was bad, baby, I was out there.”

“I know,” I said.

“Well, the day came when the party
did
stop. Jerry screwed me royally. Took everything I had. But hey, those are the breaks, right? Somebody dogs you like that, it's cold, yeah, but you can walk away from that in one piece.

“No, that wasn't the worst of it by a long shot. See, there was this other fella who was crazy about me, too. He loved me, Nan. This Negro loved me in a way I couldn't begin to understand at the time. And I played him. I played him something shameless.”

“You mean Ez. Rube Haskins.”

“Yeah. Ez. A sweet little guy who was in way over his head and never knew shit from Shinola. I let him think I could have the same kind of feelings for him that he had for me. And I took him for a lot of money—everything he made from singing and all the front money this German company gave him to make this record. All to help Jerry. I'm not proud of it, Nan. I did a lot of stuff I never should have done—things you'd be ashamed to know about me—things that could have landed me in jail if I'd been caught—but I feel the worst about Little Rube.

“Anyway, what goes around comes around, like they say. I fucked over Ez, and Jerry did the same to me. He made off with more than a hundred and fifty thousand. Except—before Jerry left Paris—before he dumped me—Ez was—”