Sailor & Lula (62 page)

“It's tornado weather, sweetheart. Been a while since you've been down here. You just forgot how it feels.”

“That's not the only thing I've forgotten how it feels,” Rhoda said, and hugged back.

“Hey, Sailor, look at this,” said Phil, handing over the front section of the day's
Times-Picayune,
folded to page sixteen. “There's an article about a kidnapping in Mobile.”

Sailor, Phil and Bob Lee had been picking at muffaletas and drinking coffee as they sat at the table in the Florida room.

“ ‘Kidnapping Victim Back Home in Alabama,' ” Sailor read aloud. “‘A Mobile businessman was abducted from in front of his house Tuesday morning when he bent to pick up his morning newspaper. He was returned home safely by taxicab this afternoon after he had been dropped off at a shopping center, said a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The authorities said they did not know the motive for his abduction or the reason why his kidnappers released him.

“‘The 71-year-old victim, who was taken away by two men, was Alfred Thibodeaux, a soybean and cotton broker who is also a well-known thoroughbred horse breeder. Mr. Thibodeaux assisted in the development of a port shipping terminal and is active in several charities.

“‘Mr. Thibodeaux suffered several cuts on the forehead and cheeks during the ordeal. He apparently engaged in active resistance to his abductors by attempting to beat them with a silver-plated cane he relies on to aid in walking due to his artificial left leg. A neighbor woman, Mrs. Fabrica de Puro, who witnessed his kidnapping, was threatened by one abductor brandishing a handgun, the police reported.

“‘At one P.M. today, however, Mr. Thibodeaux contacted his wife, Antoinetta, from a pay phone next to a Big Gulp root beer stand at the Lurleen Wallace Shoppers Planet. He told his wife he was coming home in a taxicab and that she should have his silver cane, which had been left behind during the initial scuffle, ready for him.

“ ‘ “He seems to be in decent shape, a little tired and stressed out,” said Doak Bullard, assistant chief of the FBI office in Mobile. Mr. Bullard would not disclose whether a ransom demand had been made. He said the abductors were not in custody.'”

“Strange, huh, Sailor?” said Phil.

“Yeah,” Sailor said, “maybe we'll get lucky with Lula, too.”

“Who you got in mind to play Lula in the movie, Phil?” asked Bob Lee.

“Flower Reynolds. She worked for me before.”

“Oh yeah, I remember her,” said Bob Lee. “Shortina Fuse. She's a southern girl. That scene in
Sexual Re-education
where Señor Rafferty begs Shortina to use the tire tool on his anus is pretty damn unforgettable.”

“Didn't know you was such a moviegoer, Bob Lee,” said Sailor.

Bob Lee laughed. “You be careful of this fella,” he said, pointing at Phil. “He got a awful weird imagination.”

While Sailor, Pace and Phil crouched in hiding around the entrance to Judge Perez Park, and Rhoda waited in Lula's Crown Victoria station wagon that was parked on Tupelo Street, Archie Chunk was at the wheel of Sailor's Sedan de Ville. Kitty Kat Cross sat in the front passenger seat with the visor down and the interior light on, applying her makeup.

“Man, I in love with this car, Arch,” she said. “Got so many nifty convenience, must was design by women.”

“I'm glad we didn't kill that old lady,” said Archie. “She reminds me of my grandma some.”

“Could I'd gone either way with it,” Kitty Kat said, as she wielded her blue eyeliner. “Was kinda nice to seen again where my mama worked, though.”

“It was the right thing. Never pays to murder folks remind you of loved ones. Now we got fresh plates on the Cad here, and we gonna stop up in Slaughter, get the Barnwell boys to slap on a new paint job, be all set. What color you like it, Kat?”

“This kind classy car, oughta be some type red.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“You sure you can trust these Barnwells, huh?”

“Oh yeah. Jimmy Dean and Sal Mineo Barnwell been doin' this since they got out of prison, four, five years ago.”

“What beef they go down for?”

“Animal cruelty. They was sellin' videos of Rottweilers in leather armor rippin' apart a captured pig. Fish and Wildlife agents busted 'em at a warehouse out in East Feliciana Parish, confiscated four beauty Rotts.”

“Shit!” cried Kitty Kat, bending over and looking around the floor. “Dropped my applicator.”

Kitty Kat crawled down and wedged her slender body between the seat and the dashboard.

“Hey, Kat, be careful.”

“There it is,” she said, reaching for the swab.

The car hit a pothole and Kitty Kat fell forward. She attempted to brace herself with her right hand and accidentally depressed Archie's right foot, which was on the accelerator pedal. The black Cadillac swerved out of control directly into the path of an oncoming Mack semi loaded with several hundred 110-pound bags of Dr. Fagin's Organic Fish Fodder.

Two old men walked slowly together along the path connecting the main building to the greenhouse. Sparky Plombier and Buddy Rêveur, both of whom were octogenarians, had been friends for seventy years. Now they were residents of Naomi “Hard Cash” Kamil's Just A Closer Walk With Thee Nursing Home in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, a few miles down-river from New Orleans.

The men had been partners in numerous business ventures, including ownership of a bar in Dallas, Texas, Sparky & Buddy's
New
Mystic Knights of the Sea Bar and Health Club in Biloxi, an exotic religious items mail order company in Waggaman, Louisiana, and, most recently, the S&B Organ Retrieval Service, based in Memphis, Tennessee. This last enterprise had proven their most lucrative, and they lived in pleasant circumstances at Closer Walk, as the residents called it, having invested a goodly share of their retirement funds with their old friend Naomi. Known as “Hard Cash” Kamil both for the fact of her having been born in the Delta town of Hard Cash, Mississippi, and for her renown as an astute businessperson, Naomi made certain that Sparky and Buddy had everything they required to make them comfortable during their declining years. Their passion of late was for raising flowers, so Naomi had provided the greenhouse, which Sparky, an avid reader of mystery stories, had christened the Nero Wolfe Memorial Arboretum, in honor of Rex Stout's rotund detective whose own favorite hours were spent tending his Manhattan roof garden.

Buddy hummed the tune to “Stardust” as he shuffled forward, finding himself unable to sustain a whistle of sufficient strength and timbre. He wore a black, hooded Los Angeles Raiders sweatshirt with the hood up, protecting his bald head against the morning chill. Sparky, who at eighty-three maintained a full head of brown hair remarkably absent of gray, went hatless but leaned heavily on a black walnut cane as he proceeded, carefully keeping weight off of his swollen left leg, which limb had been bothersome to him in cold, damp weather ever since his best fighting dog, Meyer Lansky, a red-hued 110-pound Pit Bull Sparky had raised
from a pup more than a quarter-century ago, had accidentally locked down on his left knee with almost one ton per square inch of pressure after Sparky's breaking stick, used to pry open a Pit's engaged jaws, had cracked in two and turned the beast's head in the wrong direction during a training session. It broke Sparky's heart to have had to shoot Meyer Lansky through the right eye socket to get him off; he would have almost rather shot himself, but, as Buddy always said, almost is the twin brother of not quite, and even in his pain and near panic of the moment, Sparky knew how to cut his losses, figuring he would be able to acquire another fighting dog a whole lot easier than he could a new left leg.

“Meyer Lansky actin' up, hey, Spark?” asked Buddy.

“Some,” said Sparky. “Be okay soon's we get snug in Nero Wolfe.”

Buddy held open the door for Sparky, who passed inside and immediately noticed that something was wrong.

“Buddy, either I'm sufferin' from some sudden kind of macabre brain damage or there's a body in the begonias.”

Buddy and Sparky moved as quickly as they could on the begonia bed and stared at the woman lying there, her hands and feet tightly bound by synthetic rope, a seven-inch strip of duct tape stretched across her mouth. The woman's big gray eyes glared at the two men, then blinked rapidly several times.

“Spark, either you ain't got no monopoly on geriatric mind disorder or this woman is Lula Ripley.”

SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 18 (SNS)—A Pacific Continental Airways K-711 commercial jetliner en route from New Orleans to Los Angeles crashed and burned yesterday approximately 250 miles west of San Antonio. All 147 passengers aboard are believed to have perished.

Witnesses in the nearby community of Big Tuna, Texas, said that the plane appeared to have exploded in the air, raining metal on the arid land below.

Among the passengers believed to have been aboard were U.S. Senator Rantoul “Bingo” Blaine (D—La.) and Philip Reãl, the internationally renowned film director (“Mumblemouth”).

A spokesperson for PCA would neither confirm nor deny a Southern News Service report that a note was delivered by an unidentified man to the airline ticket counter at New Orleans International Airport shortly after takeoff that read, “They shall drop from the sky like radiant cherry blossoms.”

Dalceda Delahoussaye
809 Ashmead Drive
Bay St. Clement, N.C. 28352

Dearest Dal,

You are the only person in the world other than maybe Beany who ever really understood me so your the one I need to write this letter to. Thank the Lord Dal your still alive even though you been smoking since before I was born. Mama loved you more than anyone Dal including me probably. I know what a terrible loss it was for you when Mama died and so I feel its OK to tell you not only what has happened here but what Im thinking now about things.

The bad news is Sailor was killed in a wreck. I had to stop just now a minute to catch my breath sometimes it happens I lose control of my breathing and I kind of panic though not so much as I used to when I was a girl. This is Monday when Im writing so last Thursday Sailor was driving home from Bridge City where Gator Gone got there new storage facility and as he was headed on the Huey P. Long Bridge a dumb boy in a Apache pickup cut in front of Sailor from the shoulder and Sailor swerved his car to avoid him but couldnt straighten out in time before he hit the road divider. After smacking into it the car turned over and a transport truck carrying a dozen new Mitsubishi jeeps plowed him half way toward the Old Spanish Trail. Sail probably was already dead by then or knocked out for sure and didnt feel anything else at least its what I hope. The Cadillac with Sailor inside was crushed like it had been squeezed into a metal cube at the junk yard. There was no fire and believe it or not Sailors face was almost unmarked just his body was mashed in a 100 places.

There it is Dal I cant hardly believe it. Pace and me decided to cremate Sailor and we got his ashes here in a box we didnt want no funeral. I got to tell you Dal I feel kind of dead myself. I read once in Readers Digest I think about how often if two people been together a real long
time and one of them dies the other dies soon after. Im only 62 and Mama lived into her 80s and youll most probably hit a 100 but I feel like how am I supposed to go on now? I know Mama would say look how she done after Daddy burned himself up so many years ago and didnt she have a long and useful life but you know me Dal and as much as Mama wanted me to be I am not really like her not in the way of strength. I am not exactly a serious religious person either I know that ever since I left the Church of Reason Redemption and Resistance to Gods Detractors. What do I have left Dal I mean it.

Pace is the greatest comfort of course. He and Rhoda tried there for a bit to tie the knot again but as Pace says once the string come unraveled you got to get you a new piece so its off for good. After his boss the movie director was killed in that plane crash Pace went to New York with Rhoda and then to LA to get his possessions and now he dont want to leave me alone so hes at the house. I told him hes 42 just about and I dont want him to end up like Sailors former hunting buddy Coot Veal what never left his mama and didnt make a real life. Pace is different from Coot of course since he been so many places around the world almost but itd be easy for him to stop his life on my account I can tell and I dont want that. He is a Ripley though as well as a Fortune and there aint too much good can be accomplished by arguing. I guess I should feel lucky in that regard to have such a good son and I do but you understand what Im saying.

Thats really about it I dont mean to go on you had plenty enough sorrows through your own life not to need mine. Just I felt you should know what happened to Sailor the way it did. I suppose Ill figure out what happens next for me Dal but if I dont it aint but the end of
my
world nobody elses. It aint either that Im feeling sorry for myself its different. I suppose since Sailor and me come back together thirty some years ago I never even give a thought to our being apart ever again and its the biggest kind of shock to face this knowing Sailor aint in prison this time hes dead and thats the end of that tune like hed say. I cant play no other tune Dal I wont. Remember how the Reverend Willie Thursday used to say a boy without a father is just a lost soul sailing on a ghost ship through the sea of life? Well Im one now a lost soul that is without my man. Sailor Ripley was my man Dal he was the one and Im so glad
we found each other the world being as big as it is it was a miracle Im certain. We was never out of love Dal all this time since I was 16 aint that something? I been a fortunate woman I know but I cant believe its over and truth is I guess I might never.