Rescued By A Kiss (The New Orleans Go Cup Chronicles Book 1) (12 page)

It was one afternoon in the summer when the mercury ran a steady 100 degrees with 100% humidity. We didn’t have central air conditioning then, just attic fans. The only thing the attic fans were good for was pulling more hot air into the house along with buckets of dust. I went outside to play where it was cooler. I was playing under the huge oak tree in my backyard when, Dante, and his brothers, Darryl, Dawson, Danny and Dennis called me over. They had a new game and they wanted me to play! They said they knew how to jump through the glass window without getting hurt. It was my great honor to go first.

They wrapped me in the heavy velvet drapes while they were still hanging from the rods in the living room in front of the window. They said I was going to be a Super Hero because I could jump through the glass. There was no jumping involved on my part. They pushed me through the plate glass and watched what happened while Dante waited his turn.

For the most part, it worked. Miss Ruth heard the glass breaking from the kitchen, ran to the living room and saw a small body wrapped in her good drapes suspended in the azalea bushes outside. I was not moving, and covered in broken glass. The azalea bushes in her unkempt flowerbed had snagged the drapes, keeping me from landing on the jagged shards lying below. I didn’t have a scratch on me, but Ms. Ruth didn’t know this. She screamed until she lost consciousness, fell on the floor and her head made a loud thumping noise. I bet it would have sounded a lot louder if I hadn’t been wrapped in those velvet drapes. I was not sure what I was supposed to do in the drapes, and hearing the commotion outside, I started singing the song taught in my Brownie troop for times when we felt afraid:

“I have something in my pocket that belongs across my face,

I keep it very close to me in a most convenient place,

I bet you’ll never guess it, if you guess a long, long time,

So I will take it out and put it on

It’s a GREAT BIG BROWNIE SMILE!”

When the police arrived I was still in the drapes. They found me by the muffled singing coming from inside. They unwrapped me and since I was taught never to speak to strangers, I wouldn’t tell the officers my name.

The sirens from the medics and police cars along with their flashing lights did not go unnoticed in the neighborhood. Every Tuesday is hair day at my grandmother’s house. She lived right across the street from Miss Ruth. My Grandmother and three of my great aunts got together on the same day, every week for the last 20 years, and did each other’s hair. They washed, rolled, dried, and combed with military precision.

The process resembled a musical chair type scenario around the kitchen table. Having studied the process for years, I’m still no expert, but I think it went like this. First up, Lady A would be washed by Lady B, then was rolled by Lady C. Lady A moved to the dryer while Lady B was being washed by Lady C and rolled by Lady D, and so on. They moved along this production line until he dryer turned off and all heads were coiffured. One rolled under the dryer when one rolled out. The dryer looked like ones I’d seen in beauty salons, except this one was bigger, pink, and loud. This was a portable contraption and it sat on one end of the kitchen table. The dome was positioned over a chair placed under it with the chair facing away from the table. It should have been named a luggable not a portable since it could only be moved by a strong man, or two women. It folded up to a smaller version of itself for storage, about the size of a steamer trunk. The one under the dryer had an unobstructed view, not of the front door, but the kitchen wall and the stove. Once in the chair, the dryer’s heating dome lowered over the head, covering it to almost the neck.

Each week, my grandfather resurrected, assembled, and set it on the table facing the stove, and away from the door. Then he disappeared to the inner sanctum of his garage and left the ladies to their hair. He reappeared the instant it went off and the final hair spray was being administered from what looked like an old bug spray can with a hand pump. The fog from the hair spray was so dense and hung over the entire kitchen so that when they stood up, you couldn’t see their heads. This allowed my grandfather to covertly move in, disassemble the dryer and return it to its storage facility.

The commotion across the street at Miss Ruth’s did not go unnoticed by the hair club. My Aunt Florence was in the middle of the wash cycle when the sirens rang out. With a towel wrapped around her head, she waited on the front porch of my Grandmother’s house, wringing her hands, uncomfortable with the police, the sirens, and the unforeseen disruption in the weekly ritual. She had to get home to start dinner for Uncle Ervin and this setback would make dinner late.

Everyone came to see what happened. The Guidry boys, Kent, Kink, and Kal showed up on their bicycles from up the block. The twins, Ronnie and Donnie, who lived next door to the Deedlers poked through the glass while my friend Suzanne with her two younger brothers watched. A police car, fire truck and ambulance was parked in front of our house and the Deedlers next door when my mother returned in the green station wagon from her errands.

The only one who missed all the excitement was Aunt Nonnie. She was drying under the dome facing the kitchen wall and did not hear or see a thing.

After the police and the emergency team disbanded, my Mother blamed me for everything. I had allowed them to take advantage of me. She said I let them throw me through the window. This caused Miss Ruth to scream, faint, and hit her head on the floor. It was all my fault that the ambulance and police came for nothing. Dante’s youngest brother called the emergency number, not because they thought I was dead, but because this time they thought they killed their mother.

Suzanne, who knew better than to find my mother, went and found my grandfather. He carried me away from the fray and chuckled under his breath, so only I heard him tell me, “Thank God you aren’t hurt. You need to be careful. Those boys play rough.”

No one looked with humor upon it, least of all my mother. She told me, “Brandy, you are boy crazy. This will never end well.” What was my mother talking about? I was five, almost six. I wasn’t even sure at that age what the difference was between boys and girls. She went on, “Your dad and I have decided you can’t play with boys anymore.” My mother was on the warpath while setting the dinner table. My dad sat in his Lazy Boy, fully reclined. Most of my childhood memories are of him in this position with the newspaper opened in the middle over his face. I think it was my father’s intention to sleep through our entire childhood, so he could get along with my mother.

I marveled at the fact that my mother, who like a duck on a June bug with everything else in life, did not notice my Dad sound asleep. She concluded his lack of argument as agreeing with her.

Now, what was I going to tell Dante? I certainly didn’t want the relationship his parents or my parents had but that’s all we both knew.

Julia was still sleeping with her eye mask on. I got dressed and when I tried to wake her she shoved me off.

“I need my beauty sleep to work tonight,” her muffled voice said coming from under the pillow over her head. “Take my car.” she added by way of getting rid of me.

“No one looks at your face when you take off your clothes.” I said, but she was already asleep, or she ignored me.

It was just as well. I needed a break from her and Stan would be easier to work with if Julia wasn’t there. I grabbed the keys and said I would give her an update after I met with him at his office. I was off to see if anything had turned up on the station wagon.

“Try not to let my car get stolen.” Julia’s muffled yell came from under the pillow before she faded back into slumber land. I was going to do my best not to get her cute, little, two seater, Mercedes coupe hot wired.

Stan was at his office with Isabella, and he had a couple of junior attorneys working when I got there at 10:30. Stan let Isabella run around his office on the floor. When we went to his private office, she jumped up into one of the client chairs across from him while he sat at his desk. I sat in the other chair. We both looked at Stan.

“She’s a nice little dog. I like her. She goes to the door and barks at me when she wants to go outside. She’s smart. If I didn’t work so much . . .” he drifted off.

“Stan, every dog should have a boy. I have the perfect one for you.” I was always positioning a rescue with a potential adopter.

He smiled yes, but his head shook no.

He told me he had already faxed a stolen vehicle report to a friend at NOPD.

“Please tell me the friend is not Dante.” I really didn’t want to strangle Stan, I liked him.

“There are brains behind this handsome face,” he smiled at me, and for the first time I saw Stan as an accomplished attorney with the confidence he lacked as a boy. Stan had two junior attorneys who worked for him in on a Saturday during Mardi Gras doing research on the Heinkel family. Old Stan had influence.

I smiled. He was a late bloomer, and it made me feel good to know he still carried the torch as I took that walk down ego lane.

“Get any rest? You had a long day yesterday,” he asked.

“Not much, a little nap, but I feel okay. I could use a cup of coffee. Have you found out anything on my mother’s car or who shot Jiff Heinkel?”

“Coffee is in the break room. Right this way. All we have is coffee with chicory. Want some King Cake? I get Haydel’s Bakery to deliver one every Friday in case we have to work the weekend. If we don’t work, they stay fresh until Monday,” Stan said slicing me a hugh hunk of King Cake.

I nodded when I saw the purple, green and gold sugar on that cinnamon roll pastry. “I love Haydel’s Bakery. I love King Cake. Don’t leave me alone with it. I can eat the whole thing.” I said. It ranked number one on my food failure list when dieting. Haydel’s is my favorite and Randazzo’s is a close second. You?”

“Traditional or filled?” Stan asked.

“Traditional, only traditional. I don’t think filling them is an improvement,” I answered.

“Me either. I’m a traditional kind of guy. Yeah I like those two the best. Why buy one anywhere else?” I nodded in agreement as I pushed a bite of that one-of-a-kind, sugary carnival tradition into my mouth. Stan made a fresh pot of coffee. We stood there eating King Cake waiting for the coffee to brew.

“On your Mom’s car,” he said, “I’ve got nothing so far, but Heinkel is another story. You know his family owns a lot of Plaquemines’ Parish oil leases. We found out there is another guy down in the parish buying up oil leases from little old ladies and from successions. I am wondering why the Heinkel family isn’t buying them when they become available. That would make the most sense. The Heinkels are well known and respected in Plaquemines. I think this other guy might be shaking down these individuals for their leases and transfers.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because the guy buying up all the single transfers or smaller transfers works for Ratty Tulhman, otherwise known as The Tool. Ratty is the sheriff down there. He has a fixer named Angelo who is the front man on all the sales. Both of these jamokes have less than stellar reputations. Our firm did some work on deporting a well known Italian we believe Tulhman was in business with. We think The Tool is making a run since his buddy was deported.

“The Tool? With a name like Ratty, people call him the Tool?” God, I was starting to sound like Julia.

“His name is Radcliffe and kids in school called him Ratty ’til he sent a couple to the hospital. No one calls him that to his face anymore. Most just call him Tulhman or Sheriff. I refer to him as Ratty if I’m in another parish,” laughed Stan.

“Great. You think this is the guy who shot at Jiff and tried to get his dog?”

“It makes sense. These goons are small time and brainless. They start by hurting something that gets them no time if caught, like animal cruelty. They threaten some little old lady by saying they will kill her dog if she doesn’t sell the oil leases. Unfortunately, the charges brought on behalf of animals don’t get followed up on or addressed except to give the jerk a slap on the wrist, if that. There are no consequences for these guys to stop doing it. They terrorize the owner into believing it will escalate to them or someone in their family next. The fear of that works, and eventually, these goons will step up their game and hurt someone to get what they want or make their point.”

He poured us each a steaming cup of Cafe Du Monde coffee as he continued with his findings, “The good news is the Heinkels are squeaky clean. Tulhman now owns almost as many oil rights and leases as they do, so I figure he’s making his move. While the Heinkels have money and power on their side, Ratty has muscle and he doesn’t mind using it. The two neanderthals who took your mother’s car probably work for him, and I think they are the ones that shot Heinkel. Here’s cream and sugar.” He started to hand me the cup. He stopped, put both down, and pulled out a chair moving it under me saying, “Whoa! Brandy, you don’t look so good. I think you better sit down.”

“Good idea.” I mumbled as my knees gave out and I collapsed into the chair. Once the blood felt like it was circulating again, I asked Stan, “What am I going to do? They know where I live.”

“It’s a lot to take in. Just take a deep breath, I’m here to help,” and he handed me the cup of coffee.

“I am supposed to pick up Heinkel at the hospital after one o’clock this afternoon.”

“What? Why are you doing that?”

“He asked me to. I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was Duck Man. You know how that feels. The rush makes you think you can do anything! Besides, he didn’t see me dressed as Duck Man, or my white gorilla sidekick, so he thinks he still wants to meet me. Imagine that?” I paused a minute thinking about it all. Maybe I was still riding the Duck Man high. I said, “I want to do something for him and Isabella, for those pets, for all the people and their pets these guys are hurting or killing. What can we do?” I paused for effect then added looking right at Stan, “Remember when you brought me that little dog? The one some guy was kicking when we were in high school. You said to find him a good home, and I did. Mine.”