Sailor & Lula (29 page)

“Ha!” said Lily, turning the page. “Another hotshot too smart for his own good.”

Lily wolfed down another Nilla Wafer and stretched her back. She figured Doug might stay out partying with Romeo and Perdita after they'd delivered whatever it was they had, and she was thinking that she might just as well go to bed, when the radio brought her up short.

“In Hollywood tonight, a gun battle left two men dead and resulted in the capture of another by federal drug agents, the FBI and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. An illegal cosmetics factory, specializing in the use of unauthorized products and operated in central
Hollywood by organized crime, was raided at midnight during a delivery of approximately one solid ton of human placentas. Authorities identified the dead men as Romeo Dolorosa, of Tampa, Florida, and Douglas Fakaofo, of Los Angeles. The man taken into custody was identified as Reginald San Pedro Sula, a citizen of the Central American republic of Caribe. All of the men are suspected members of the crime family headed by Marcello ‘Crazy Eyes' Santos, which is based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Dallas, Texas. According to Drug Enforcement Special Agent Woodrow W. Dumas, who led the raid, seizure of the two thousand pound shipment of placentas, used in the manufacture of anti-aging skin creams, and discovery of the illegal plant is a major breakthrough. More arrests are expected. Well, folks, that's another kind of Hollywood skin factory, isn't it?”

Lily dropped both her cigarette and the cookie she'd just taken from the box and stood up, knocking over her chair. She rushed to the rear bedroom, unlocked the door and flipped on the light.

“Get up! Get up now!” she screamed at Estrellita and Duane, who were huddled together on the bed. “Get up and get out! Get out of the house! Go, go!”

Estrellita and Duane ran out into the night, taking off down the street as fast as they could. Lily collapsed on the floor of Tutu's room.

“Doug!” she cried. “Doug, you big brown dummy! You poor, big, beautiful, dead dummy! What's your ugly old Samoan mama Lily gonna do now?”

As soon as Frankie Toro spotted the woman he pulled his metallic cherry Lexus to the curb, leaned over and lowered the window on the passenger side. She was leaning against a mud-encrusted black Jeep parked in the space closest to the street in the lot of an Oki-Dog on Santa Monica Boulevard, holding a soft drink cup and smoking a cigarette.

This was easily the hottest-looking chick Frankie Toro had seen that night. Twenty-two or three, he figured, about five-six, a hundred and ten, hard body, shiny black hair almost to her ass, skin like
café con leche.
A genuine
chicana
doll. She reminded Frankie of Tura Sultana, that steelcheekboned,
nagual
-eyed, Japanese-Cherokee leather bitch he'd seen in Russ Meyer's desert chase tit movie,
Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!

“Hey,
guapita,
” Frankie yelled to her, “you want a date?”

Perdita picked up her bag and slung it over her left shoulder, then walked slowly to the Lexus and looked at the grinning, eager idiot. She smiled at him, stretching the cobras. Frankie pushed open the door.

“Been dyin' for you to ask,” she said, and slid in.

“Mama?”

“Estelle? Is that you? This is Rita Louise.”

“Oh, Mrs. Samples. Is my mama there?”

“No, honey, no, she's down at the funeral home, makin' the arrangements. She's been out of her mind worried about you. Where've you been? Are you all right?”

“What arrangements, Mrs. Samples? Why's she at a funeral home?”

“Oh, my word, Estelle. Of course, you wouldn't know.”

“Know what? What wouldn't I know?”

“Your daddy, Estelle, honey. Ernest Tubb. He got kilt in a car crash on Madre Island. The body just arrived today.”

“Car crash? Daddy's gone?”

Estelle dropped the phone, fell to the floor of the booth and fainted dead away.

“Estelle? Estelle, are you there?” Rita Louise's voice jumped out of the dangling receiver.

Duane half-lifted Estelle with his right arm and put the telephone to his left ear.

“Mrs. Samples? It's Duane Orel. Estelle's sorta passed out here. Just tell Glory Ann we're safe now, we got away, and if she could to please wire us the airfare to come home.”

“I will, Duane, of course, but where are you?”

“Los Angeles, California, ma'am. Western Union downtown'll do. We'll head there soon as Estelle comes to. We been hidin' in the bushes all night.”

“Goodness, Duane, isn't life a mess sometimes.”

“Yes, ma'am. You'll pardon me sayin' this, but shit happens.”

Santos hung up but kept his right hand on the telephone. He groaned and pressed his lips tightly together.

“Bad news, huh, Marcello?”

He sat back in a leather armchair and looked through his dark glasses across the room at Mona Costatroppo, who was perched on a white satin loveseat, her freshly shaved and lotioned legs tucked back under her spreading rump. She had on a low-cut black dress and a single strand of pearls that Santos had bought for her at Cartier in New York. They had cost him nine thousand dollars, Marcello recalled. Mona had a drink in one hand, an unlit black cigarette in the other. She always had a drink in her hand, Santos thought.

“
Una pioggia continua
,” he said.

“What now?”

“What now? Now is as before. All fucked up. First, it was Dede. Then
Il Pugno
, The Fist, who we send to hit and who himself gets hit. Now, Reggie, along with the West Coast factory.”

“Who Reggie? You mean the
tutsun
from Puerto Rico?”

“Caribe, not Puerto Rico. Caribe.”

Mona swallowed a mouthful of gin.

“You drink too much,” said Santos. “You're getting fat, too.”

“Like Lina, you mean,” Mona said. “You got a fat wife, you don't want a fat girlfriend, too, huh? You gonna dump me, Marcello? Is that what you want to do?”

Santos removed his hand from the phone, formed it like a gun, with the third finger and pinkie folded back, the thumb up, and the index and second fingers pointed at Mona. She froze.

“Bang,” he said.

“Hear you had a good trip.”

“Don't know about good, Doyle. Successful, anyway. We got what we went for. That L.A. is a whole other state of mind, though.”

“Didn't lose anyone, either, they tell me.”

“No white hats, but I woulda preferred to've brought in the delivery boys. Santos's trigger man took 'em both out before we got there.”

“Why you suppose they whacked Dolorosa?”

“Santos set him up. Crazy Eyes controls the border and Dolorosa got the area freaked out with his
santería
routine. Killing the boy was the last straw far as Santos was concerned.”

“Kidnapped two college kids, too. They turned up in L.A., you know that?”

“Only heard about it after I got back to Dallas. What'd they have to say about Perdita Durango?”

“Didn't want to talk about her much, just said she's plenty weird and dangerous. They're pretty shook. The girl's father was killed in a car wreck while she was gone, which doesn't help. Happened while he was out huntin' for her, apparently.”

“That's rough, all right. What's her name?”

“Satisfy. Estelle Kenedy Satisfy. His is Duane Orel King.”

“That Satisfy sounds familiar, but I can't place it just now.”

“Well, Woodrow, I got to run. Hell of a job, bud.”

“
Gracias
, señor.”

“Oh, by the way, how's your hearing?”

“Back in stereo.”

“
Bueno.
Be talkin' to ya.”

Tattooed on the biceps of Shorty's left arm were the words ONE LIFE ONE WIFE and tattooed on his right biceps was the name CHERRY ANN.

“That her?” Perdita asked him.

“Who?” said Shorty.

“Cherry Ann your wife's name?”

“Was.”

“She change it?”

Shorty laughed and shook his head no.

“Changed wives,” he said.

“Kinda puts the lie to your other arm, don't it?”

Shorty yawned and closed his eyes. He opened them and picked up his glass and took a long swallow of Pearl.

“Ain't nothin' stays similar, sweetheart, let alone the same. Or ain't you figured that out yet?”

Perdita Durango and Shorty Dee were sitting on adjacent stools at the bar of Dottie's Tupelo Lounge. It was eight-thirty on Friday night, December thirtieth. Oklahoma State was playing Wyoming in the Sea World Holiday Bowl football game on the television set above the bar.

“Know what I like to watch more than anything else?” Shorty said.

“Not knowin' you any better than I do, which is not at all practically,” said Perdita, “I'd be afraid to ask.”

“Punt returns.”

“That so.”

“Yeah. Some people it's triples. Me it's punt returns. I like any kind of runbacks: kickoffs, interceptions, fumbles. But there's somethin' special about a little jack-rabbit of a guy takin' a tall ball and turnin' on his jets.”

Shorty took another sip of beer.

“You been in town long?” he asked.

“Few days.”

“How's it goin' so far?”

“Been rainin' since I got here. Weather always like this?”

“Time of year it is. Fifty-nine and rainin' sounds about right for Christmas.”

“What else Tupelo got to offer?”

“Other than bein' the birthplace of Elvis Presley, you mean?”

Perdita laughed. She swept back her long, straight black hair with one hand and picked up her glass with the other.

“Didn't know about Elvis bein' born in Miss'ippi,” she said, and took a sip of beer.

“Where you from?” asked Shorty.

“Here and there. Texas, mostly.”

“Brings you this way?”

“Lookin' for somethin', I guess.”

Shorty offered his right hand.

“Shorty Dee. Glad to be of service if I can.”

She squeezed his fingers.

“Perdita Durango. Pleased to meet you, Shorty. You still married?”

Shorty laughed. “Thought we was beginnin' a conversation here.”

Perdita smiled. “How about buyin' me a new beer?”

“Now you're talkin', honey,” he said, signaling for another round. “Got any more potentially embarrassin' questions you want to get out of the way?”

“You rich?”

The bartender set two more bottles on the bar in front of them.

Shorty laughed again. “Nigger rich, maybe,” he said.

“Bein' nigger rich is all right, I guess,” said Perdita, “long as a body got enough friends is rich for damn sure.”

They picked up the fresh bottles of beer and tapped them together.

“There you go,” said Shorty.

Perdita smiled. “Here I go,” she said.

A woman in a red dress came in the door unsteadily. “Whoopee,” she said, “so long, Red. He'll be in hell before I could even reach Little Rock.”

—William Faulkner,
Sanctuary

“Mama, I do appreciate all you been doin' for me, you know that.”

“Listen, Lula, you can't go on workin' in a 7-Eleven like this. You're too smart to be wastin' your time sellin' Slurpees to high school kids and cans of King Cobra to drunks. I don't mind supplementin' your income, 'specially where Pace is concerned, long as I got it to give. But you can do somethin' better with your life.”

Marietta Fortune took a big sip of Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth and raised her eyebrows as she looked at her friend Dalceda Delahoussaye, who sat across from her at the patio table sipping the same. Marietta wanted Dal to know how exasperated she was by her daughter's seeming dearth of ambition.

“Well, Pace'll be out of school next week,” said Lula, “and I gotta figure out what to do with him for the summer. I can't very well start on a new career with a ten year old trailin' after me.”

“
New?
You ain't never had one career yet, Lula, and here you are thirty years old.”

“Twenty-nine and a half, Mama. Keep it accurate.”

Marietta took another sip. “You could get married.”

Dal frowned at Marietta and shook her head side to side in disapproval.

“Okay, Mama, I can see where this conversation's headin', and I ain't goin' along with it. Far as that's concerned, you might be considerin' it yourself. Johnnie's still willin'.”

“Lula, we're not discussin' me. It's your life got to be lived.”

Lula laughed. “Mama, you ain't fifty till tomorrow and you talk like you got one foot and four toes in the grave. Look, I gotta go pick up Pace. We'll be over around noon for your birthday. Say hi to Dal if she's still there. Bye.”

Marietta hung up and sighed.

“You and that girl don't never give each other a smidge of space,” said Dal. “Why don't you just pretend to be the mature one and back off a spell, let Lula work her life out her own way.”

“Oh, she's done great this far, Dal, ain't she? Lula's approachin' middle-age and all she's got's an illegitimate child can't sit still for more'n two minutes 'cause he ain't never had no man around, and no prospects of any kind I can tell. I'm supposed to be comfortable with that?”