“Like what?” Luke inquired suspiciously.
“Feathering the bride, for one.” She tsked at Luc as if he should already know that.
“What’s feathering the bride?” Sylvie asked.
“Oh, my God!” Luc muttered, crossing his eyes with frustration that she would encourage his aunt.
Amazingly, he looked kind of cute when he crossed his eyes.
“That’s when all the Cajun women in the community give a prize chicken to the new bride. That way she has her own money, independent from her husband. She gets to keep all the egg money from her flock for herself.”
“Bride feathering—what a nice tradition!” Sylvie remarked.
Luc’s response was a snort of disgust.
“But who’s the bride?” Sylvie frowned with confusion.
Tante Lulu looked directly at her with a wide smile. Luc looked directly at her with pure disgust for posing the question.
“
Me?
You can’t mean me,” she protested to Tante Lulu. “I’m not a bride-to-be, and I most definitely do not have any place for chickens at my town house.”
But Tante Lulu ignored her objections as if she’d never spoken. “Yep, I best get home and finish up my crocheting for you, Luc. I still have the bridal quilt to complete before the wedding.”
“What wedding?” she and Luc asked as one, their voices equally filled with shock.
“Dum, dum, dee, dum,” Tante Lulu hummed in response as she strolled in front of them into the living room.
Then the old lady screamed.
Criminal elements wouldn’t prompt a peep from Tante Lulu, but damage to her precious handiworks caused her to scream her head off. So, it was not surprising that two hours later, Luc, Sylvie, and Tante Lulu were still in his Houma apartment.
Danger be damned, his great-aunt was determined that they could not leave till she’d picked up and examined each and every one of her—rather
his—
damaged towels and pot holders and sundry other linens. And Luc understood her dismay. After all, she’d probably spent a thousand hours laboring to produce those priceless items for him.
Claudia Casale had come and gone, once again, after being summoned to assess this new threat. Her opinions had been much the same as those she’d given at Sylvie’s place, except that the damage here was most assuredly related to Luc’s work
for the shrimpers, and not Sylvie’s love potion.
He felt comfortable placing the investigative work in Claudia’s hands since she was a true professional. He and Claudia had worked together on numerous cases in the past, but they’d never been involved personally, though he couldn’t say why, exactly. She was a beautiful woman.
He’d be a fool not to have noticed the jealous gleam of speculation in Sylvie’s eyes when seeing them together, and he’d played up her misconception for all it was worth. Hey, he got his fun anywhere he could these days…rusted zipper and all that. It was amusing, really, to see Sylvie react to him with another woman…not that she had any right to be jealous of him. Still…
Most normal people would have hightailed it out of Houma with the threats and actual physical assaults that had been directed against them. But, to his amazement, he had agreed to wait till Tante Lulu could assess and straighten out the damage to his apartment. “Besides, those crim’nals ain’t dumb enough to come back again so soon,” Tante Lulu had contended.
Luc wasn’t so sure about that.
“And if they do, you can shoot ’em smack dab between their eyeballs.”
This was a cold-blooded side to Tante Lulu he’d never seen before. He could be mistaken, but he suspected his aunt was enjoying all the excitement.
He sat in the kitchen sipping his third cup of thick chicory coffee as he alternately raked his fingers through his hair, shook his head with dismay, and wondered if a tension headache could actually make a man’s brain explode.
In the next room Tante Lulu was chitchatting with Sylvie
—chitchatting, for God’s sake!—
about herbal remedies, Cajun and Creole lifestyles, and
him
.
Through the open doorway, he heard Sylvie ask his aunt, “Will you be able to repair these linens?”
“Some of them. But I got plenty of others at my house and in Luc’s cabin. Don’t you be worrying none.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Sylvie interjected quickly. “It’s just that they’re so beautiful.”
He didn’t need to look to see that Tante Lulu was beaming. Thank God, Sylvie wasn’t looking down her aristocratic nose at his eccentric aunt, who did make herself a mark for ridicule in a lot of ways. He had to give Sylvie credit for seeing beyond the outrageous exterior.
“Tell me again why Luc needs all these household linens,” Sylvie urged.
Propping his elbows on the table, Luc put his face in his hands and groaned.
“For his hope chest, of course.”
“His hope chest?” There was no laughter in Sylvie’s voice. Just incredulity.
“
Mais
yeah. Certainly.”
“A hope chest for a man? Really? And Luc
wanted
a hope chest?”
He spread his fingers, which still braced his face, and peered at Sylvie to see her reaction.
She was looking pointedly at him, eyebrows raised in question.
He rolled his eyes.
“Hah! When it comes to what’s good for that boy, he don’ know haf’.”
Luc rolled his eyes some more.
“Tell me, honey, did you give the same jelly beans to Luc as that male rat there?” Tante Lulu was peering inside the Happy Meal box, where the rodent couple had made love an impressive number of times.
“Well, not exactly the same,” Sylvie said hesitantly.
“But they have the same effect on rats as humans, right?”
“They should,” Sylvie admitted.
Oh, God!
he thought.
Sure enough, his aunt whooped with glee. “Thank you, St. Jude.”
St. Jude? She thinks St. Jude is responsible for this love potion nonsense
.
“Maybe it wasn’t really an accident that Luc ate your jelly beans,” Tante Lulu confided to Sylvie.
“Huh?” Sylvie didn’t have a clue when it came to the meandering way his aunt’s brain wended its path through a conversation.
“Dontchya have a hope chest, honey?” Tante Lulu asked Sylvie. Good, the subject was moving away from him and love potions.
“Well, no.”
“
Cou!
Not to worry. We got plenty of time to get you started on one. And on the flocking, too.”
Luc bit his bottom lip to stop a burst of laughter. He couldn’t wait till Sylvie found out what flocking was.
“What’s flocking?” Sylvie inquired casually.
“Same as feathering,” he told her.
“I’m assumin’ the wedding won’t be right away,” Tante Lulu continued. A pregnant pause followed.
Then: “There ain’t no reason for a rush wedding, is there?”
Luc’s head shot up. “Tante Lulu!” he rebuked. “There isn’t going to be a wedding. And don’t you dare start crocheting doilies for Sylvie’s hope chest.”
“Oh, my God!” was Sylvie’s response to this ludicrous discussion. Sylvie was not yet used to the way Tante Lulu’s mind worked or to his aunt’s obsession with finding him a bride. Her next words were proof that she was searching for some way to steer the discussion away from herself and his aunt’s misconception about their marriage plans. “Why are there so many St. Jude statues and night-lights and candle holders here, and…was that a St. Jude toothbrush I saw in the bathroom?”
Luc would have been embarrassed if he weren’t three light years beyond embarrassment.
“You know who St. Jude is, donthcha?” Tante Lulu asked Sylvie.
“The patron saint of hopeless cases?” Sylvie offered tentatively.
“Yep,” Tante Lulu responded. Then she and Sylvie both turned to look at him.
“Enough said,” Sylvie stated with a soft laugh.
“This one,” Tante Lulu remarked, jerking her head toward him, “he is in bad need of a good woman. Has been for a looong time.”
Sylvie made a gurgling sound deep in her throat…speechless at the prospect that she might be called upon to be the “good woman.” He would have laughed if he didn’t feel like crying.
Okay, the foolishness ends now. Time to be a man and take control of this madness
. He stood abruptly and walked into the living room, insisting, “We’ve
wasted enough time. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Uh-oh!” Tante Lulu exclaimed. She was peeking around the drapes of his front window, staring down at the street. Clucking her tongue in a tsk-ing sound, she added, “Bad business, this!”
“What now?” he asked, stomping over.
Two thugs were ransacking his jeep, searching for God knows what. Pollution reports? Chemical formulas? Jelly beans? Happy Meal rats?
“We’d better take my car,” Tante Lulu suggested quickly, nudging Luc away from the window. “Hurry up, boy. Why you dawdling here when danger is standing right outside your window?”
Me dawdling? Me?
Luc gaped at his aunt for a moment before springing into action.
Is this how The Fugitive felt when on the lam?
No
, he immediately answered himself.
This is how Thelma and Louise felt before going off the cliff
.
A short time later, they were barreling down Highway 90 in a twenty-year-old purple Chevy Impala. Tante Lulu was driving, her head barely topping the level of the steering wheel, even as she sat on two cushions. Beside her sat the Happy Meal rats, who were rustling their wax paper in some activity. He and Sylvie were in the backseat, hanging on for their lives…pistol and briefcase in their respective hands.
Horns were honking and brakes squealing as his aunt switched lanes with abandon, never using a turn signal. Houma was called the Venice of America with good reason. It had numerous bayous and bridges fanning out like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. He could swear his aunt hit every one of them.
The getaway car
—God, didn’t that conjure up some images!—
left downtown Houma on 90 West, then cut a right onto LA 311, over Little Bayou Black, past the State Sugarcane Experimental Station and Southdown Plantation. The latter’s green and pink colors blended into a putrid blur as his aunt tried her best to break the speed of sound.
Eventually they crossed Big Bayou Black bridge and were on 90 West again, following the Old Spanish Trail, which hugged the bayous and cut through the swamps. This was probably the oldest route from Texas to New Orleans. In fact, cowboys used to drive cattle across these very streams, the men latching onto swimming horses’ tails. Right now, Luc would much prefer riding a horse’s ass—rather, tail—than his aunt’s insane driving.
Luc had been involved in some dumb things in his life. This was the worst.
If the hair-raising ride down the narrow bayou roads wasn’t bad enough, Tante Lulu was tossing out love counsel to him, like a regular Dr. Ruth with bullets of advice:
“Treat her nice, Luc. Women like men with couth. Best you pull out all your couth. No scratching or crude swear words or nothin’. And you, young lady, best you treat my Luc proper, too.”
Sylvie giggled nervously.
He snorted, nervously.
“I don’ believe in long engagements for men like you. Yes, I said men like you; don’ you be givin’ me those dirty looks. You been havin’ impure thoughts since you a little boy. And I don’ want no hanky-panky ’tween you two afore the wedding, love potion or no love potion. Well, maybe a little
hanky-panky. Do you have any of those condos with you?”
A gurgling sound came from Sylvie’s throat. She was no longer amused by his aunt now that she was the subject of the love advice. He thought she was mumbling something that sounded like, “Engagement? Hanky-panky?
Me?
”
“It’s condoms, not condos,” he corrected his aunt with a belated gasp of shock.
She ignored him, continuing her tirade. “I’ll start workin’ on the wedding quilt once I catch that Dubois baby.”
“Don’t you dare start any wedding quilt for me,” Sylvie snapped. Then she was immediately apologetic. “I mean, I’m sure you make lovely quilts, but it’s just that—”
It was as if she hadn’t even spoken. Tante Lulu was still fixated on him. “Did you say a proper thank-you prayer to St. Jude for sending you a good woman to love you? Maybe you better make a novena. St. Jude had to work extra hard on you.”
Luc gave up arguing with his aunt. Sylvie looked as if she’d been hit with a Mack truck, or Tante Lulu’s Impala, which was as big as a Mack truck.
Luckily, the car came to a screeching halt in front of The Swamp Shack. Every bird within a mile took flight in the dust she raised.
Tante Lulu’s parting words to him were. “How many
bébés
you plannin’ to have? Lordy, I ain’t even started knittin’ baby afghans yet. I been too busy tryin’ to get you married off.”
Sylvie was stunned speechless.
For a brief moment, he closed his eyes and said a silent prayer.
Dear St. Jude, you are needed here…big-time
.
He thought he heard a voice in his head answer, with a lazy Cajun drawl, “Let the good times roll.”
Some saints had a warped sense of humor.
It was early evening, and Luc was carrying a tray from the back entrance of The Swamp Shack…better known as Swampy’s. The tray was loaded down with two pottery bowls of steaming crawfish gumbo, a platter of warm cornbread oozing butter, frosted glasses of iced tea, a stack of beignets covered with powdered sugar, and hot coffee.
His brother Remy, a rancher in Northern Louisiana, would be coming just before dawn with a hydroplane normally used to transport feed to far ranges. Now it would be used to take him and Sylvie to a cabin Luc owned on a remote bayou.
With René at his side now, he walked carefully along the planks of the wharf where his brother had found a temporary hiding place for them that belonged to a friend of his—an ancient houseboat no longer capable of movement over the bayou’s intricate waterways. There were a couple dozen other vessels docked there, as well…everything from fancy motorboats to air boats to primitive pirogues to “go devils,” gas-powered boats that could travel through extremely shallow water. Most of them belonged to customers of Swampy’s, the no-fuss restaurant-bar serving hearty Louisiana foods during the day and loud Cajun honky-tonk music at night. Most of the time René lived on a bayou closer to the salt waters of the Gulf, on a commercial shrimp boat that he owned in partnership with two other Cajun fishermen, but he did stay here on the houseboat occasionally when per
forming gigs at area nightclubs, fire halls, or wedding receptions.
Luc was fairly certain that the half-wits chasing after them were unaware of this houseboat. They were safe…for now, at least.
“This is all my fault, Luc. I never should have involved you in the shrimpers’ fight. Maybe we should give up before someone gets hurt,” René said. Even more ominous than his words was the fact that René was tucking a small pistol into the back waistband of his jeans, which was then covered by a denim jacket. Just as Luc’s weapon was hidden by the suede vest he’d grabbed when fleeing his apartment.
“If I thought y’all would give up without me, I might consider tossing in the towel,” Luc said. “It’s a losing battle fighting these oil behemoths anyhow, as you well know.”
“Hey, haven’t you ever heard of David and Goliath? That’s who we are…a bunch of Davids.” René grinned at Luc, trying to make light of a situation that was getting darker by the moment.
“Dammit, René, I know you and your lamebrain friends. You’ll ditch the idea of legal representation and try to fight Cypress Oil with your own half-ass methods. When the almighty dollar’s involved, human beings are disposable roadblocks to the bottom line. Believe me, slingshots don’t count for crap with these people.” He looked pointedly at the back of René’s jeans when referring to slingshots.