The Saint Louisans (41 page)

“What do you know about the body?” she demanded.

I sunk into the corner chair. At this moment, I needed plush and gilt. “Knew about it for years, didn't you?”

Pierre advanced. “It was nobody. Some woman. Lucas had all kinds of people. Drugs brings the world to your doorstep.”

“Lucas told both of you?”

Terri sighed. “A couple of weeks later. When I mentioned that strange pile of dirt in the yard, he looked like he was having kittens. Rainer told us.”

A nod from Rainer confirmed this.

“I thought it best not to tell Mr. Desouche and Madame. It was easy to explain and hide away. Their interest in gardening or upkeep was slight.”

Terri glared. “So don't accuse us, Lee. Don't even go there.”

“It was the drugs,” Pierre sadly sighed. “They took over his life.”

“Oh, come on,” Terri waved her hand. “Lucas wanted to get high since he was ten. You and I settled for being the usual trust fund babies. Now,” she sneered at me, “Nurse Lee knows secrets, and she has leverage. The kind, wise, nurse. Whose marriages tanked. Who married a nut.”

Pierre glowered at Terri. I said nothing, because she was right. My marriages did tank. I was married to a nut, and Jama was right. I am a jackal.
“Okay,” I began slowly, “guilty on all counts. Especially the leverage bit. Knowing Lucas buried someone on the grounds and not talking about it won't do either of you any good.”

Pierre narrowed his eyes. “What do you want?”

“What I've wanted from day one. For both of you to help your mother die in peace.”

A labored sigh from Terri. “Again.”

“Please, Terri. There's not much time. She's going.”

Terri went to the window, as if the traffic on Grand was some kind of release, her stance a bullet sliding into the chamber. Hatred wafted in the drawing room like malodorous heat. One more word from me, and she might leave.

“Tell her.”

All eyes turned to Rainer. His command a cold draft. Terri's eyes met his in a duel. “Pardon me?”

“You must tell Mrs. Bridger. This is no time for bitterness to rule. Madame will die soon.”

Terri pulled her coat closer, ready to exit. Rainer blocked her way.

“Everyone here is on a power trip,” she said. “I won't be painted into a corner.”

I probed her anger, and compared it to mine, and I didn't like our measuring sticks. They were too neck and neck. “You're afraid of Margot. You hate her, don't you?”

“Oh, buzz off.”

“Terri, I have the same problem. I hate my daughter, and she hates me.”

Pierre leaned closer. “What do you mean?”

“My daughter is upstairs looking after her grandmother. For a moment, I thought the worst. That Jama was going to hurt her.”

Terri's eyes widened. “What? You mean that con artist is upstairs? With my mother?”

“Lee,” Pierre said as he looked upstairs, “what's your daughter doing?”

“I just told you. She's taking care of her.” I had to admit this still surprised me, but I plowed on. “Jama and I never get along. I saw, see her … well, she says I think she's a fuck-up, and I do feel that way. I've always loved Pierce more than her. Christ, I hate admitting that. Terri, I think hating your
mother is connected with Lucas. I wasn't here, but I know about druggies. About living with and covering up for the irrational, and not seeing what's there. I was married to it. Talk to me.”

Pierre and Terri exchanged wary glances. I hoped I broke the ice. If they took off, then I'd failed. Pierre shifted and spoke.

“I had to get away from the tension here. All of that family recrimination, Mother and Father at Lucas's throat, then not. He was the oldest, and they had so much invested in him. The Kennedys and their soap opera have nothing on Desouches. I found peace in Buddhism.”

“Sure,” snorted Terri, “after you'd tried six or seven of the other paths. I went along with all of them.”

“Come on,” I said quietly, “go with me. Talk.”

Rainer stared at Terri, nodding, moving closer to block her exit. Her frown made her older, but the tension in her face gave her a strong kind of beauty.

“Lucas was always on the make for a new high. He went to Mexico. One of many times. On his last trip, he discovered salvia.” She sneered. “Yeah, my brother was a real pharmaceutical Columbus. “Salvia is an herb, related to the mint family. He said Aztec priests made a tea from it and drank it. He wanted a quick high, so he smoked it. He wanted me to join him. I'd done some weed and stuff with him, so I did.”

“I heard it,” Pierre said, “all that high laughter. Babbling. Words streaking out.” He shrugged. “Now it's a hot drug.”

Terri's eyes sharpened at Pierre. “You didn't hear my screams, did you?”

“I did.”

“Yeah,” she glared, “I screamed. I left my body.” She stared at the carpet, its swirling pattern almost like some kind of garden she wished to escape into, a magic carpet of escape. “Really, salvia does that. You see yourself. You look from the ceiling and see you.” She stroked her forehead. “That's supposed to be wonderful, isn't it? The whole astral, out-of-body thing. What every con man and street corner mystic peddle, but when you do it—” Terri gulped for air, as if she'd been dunked underwater. “To be out of your body and feel nothing. Nothing!” She shivered. “To be a freaking ghost. I couldn't take that. Having no body. It was the most horrible thing I've ever felt, and Lucas? Oh, our wonderful brother, our heir to the throne. He thought it was so cool!”

I saw Terri was drained by this. I watched as her fingers covered her eyes, then moved down.

“Maybe I'm a drunk. Maybe I screw around. Okay, I admit it, but it's better than floating with nothing to you. That's goddamned scary. Even after all these years, it's the worst thing I ever did. But Lucas kept wanting more. He wanted to be a ghost. Well, he got his wish.”

Pierre nodded. “Mother and Father blamed us. Terri especially. As if she could control Lucas. Everyone blamed each other. We stayed away. We
grew
away. That's it. It's all very American.”

Their bitter silence meant it was my turn. “At the end of the day, before we're whatever we think we ought to or want to be, we're children. We have to bury our parents. We have to go up there and say goodbye.”

Terri frowned. “Her and that goddamned Veiled Prophet and its royal claptrap. That was her big moment, you know. Being VP Queen.”

“You're wrong,” I said. “She knew about Lucas. Maybe the Veiled Prophet was her escape. We all try to escape life, but we can't escape death. We have to go up there as a family. You don't have to stay the whole time. I'll do that. That's my job. Stop hiding. We can't hide from death.”

“Of course,” Pierre said quietly, “but the estate—”

“I never wanted any of it. You tried to destroy the mansion, but that didn't work. Vess is out. Sonia's gone. You wanted to destroy our mother, Lucas, all the arguments and angst that took place inside these walls. It didn't work, and that was more by accident than anyone's plans. Believe me, I wasn't a great strategist. It was just … all family wars are wars of attrition.” I sighed. “We're worn out. Let's go upstairs.”

Rainer spoke. “Mrs. Bridger is right. Make your peace. Accept your fear. Then you may leave.”

Terri's frown was severe. “I'm not afraid. Not like I was.”

“We're all afraid,” I said, “because we don't know what death is, but know that eventually, it will be our turn. Because whatever memories we have of our family, good or bad, when our parents go, it's final. We don't know what happens afterward. It might be nice if you're right, Pierre, that in the end we become nothing. Because I'll tell you what scares the hell out of me.” I paused, thinking back to a long, bad time ago. “What scared me as a girl, alone in my room, alone as I heard my lousy relatives decide how to get rid
of me after Dad died and Mom—the woman I thought was my mom—took off …”

I took a deep breath, remembering that room with thin walls and odd smells of the old, the incontinent, of memories that clung like bad cooking odors. The rumblings of the Seven Dwarfs over the TV noise, and how “I hugged my Raggedy Ann. I was afraid if I died, I'd be in eternity. I'd go on forever and forever and forever, that there would be no end, that I'd never have a body, never know love or feelings anymore, that I'd just … never stop!”

The silence in the drawing room and eyes drawn on me made me blink. For a moment, the headache left. “That made me cry. That made me hug my doll, made me cling to something. Our mother has a strong faith, the kind we'll probably never have, but we owe it to her to go upstairs. Lucas is gone. His screw-ups belong to eternity. We have this moment. This one last moment.”

Shadows darkened the drawing room, cloaking its gilt and triumph. We went upstairs.

We entered quietly as Saul sat by the bed. Jama stood by, attentive to Margot until her eyes raised to us. Terri and Pierre, like me, immediately smelled death. A desert of silence filled the room, then both began talking to a gasping Margot, conversation like raindrops, here and there, leopard spots on the pavement, the early spring rains when St. Louis wakens from its winter. There was no unrealistic hope, nor were there recriminations. It was a mother and her children. It was a meeting of the waters … not the grand statuary of the Mississippi and Missouri, but two small streams that, after winter's drought, commingle with the rains.

It seemed uneventful, their small talk, but then erosion is also a banal, eternal power. Finally, Margot pointed to her can of Sprite. Terri got it and filled a cup with ice, offering it to Margot. In the dim light, her eyes watered.

Forever and forever and forever.

I forced my terror down as Terri and Pierre wept.

When Terri took Margot's hand, Jama slid past them to meet me.

“Her skin is yellow,” she said.

“The liver's shutting down. She's already crying from the pain.”

Her voice lowered like a faint candle. “Morphine.”

I nodded while Terri and Pierre clustered around Margot, whispering, touching, as we gave the morphine. For a moment Margot smiled, then her withered hand reached out to stroke Terri's cheek. I motioned for Jama to follow me into the hall. Once there, I drew close.

“What the hell and how?”

One of Jama's wicked smiles almost formed, but not quite, stopping the usual round of sarcasm. “Yeah. A big ‘oops', huh?”

My eyes took aim. “You know what you're doing. Those charts and how you used the morphine drip were perfect. The way you fixed her linen. Kept her skin from breakdown. The way you're handling her.”

“Okay,” said Jama, leaning against the wall next to a painting of the Mississippi, an imitation Bingham where flatboatmen idled on a sunset tinged current spilled with pink.

“A couple of years ago, something went wrong with a production company in Simi Valley. Studio politics, a movie that was more a tax write-off than a film, like two-thirds of 'em. The DA went on a witch hunt, funds got legs of their own and walked away.”

“You got framed.” I tried to sound sympathetic.

“Nine counts of fraud, but the judge liked me. Ventura County cut a deal. I could do three months in a orange jumpsuit, or I could hack five months community service. I hacked.”

She studied the painting. “I worked in a nursing home. Did all the scut work and I moved up. I wasn't really licensed, but I was cheap, I was white, and the old folks liked me. Everyone's always overworked, and they were glad to teach me tools of the trade, and the Home bribed the inspectors, so no one was nosing around for credentials.”

What else could I do but nod? There's always an elephant in Jama's room, and this one was more than credible. “You learned well.”

“Like I said, they liked me. Before the oldies kicked off, I was the one they wanted. I was gentle. I told stories. I didn't steal.”

Saul appeared, interrupting the heart-to-heart. “Lee? Need you.”

In the bedroom, Pierre smiled at Margot, but his eyes were moist. Terri leaned closer.

“We shouldn't quarrel,” Margot whispered. “We were. Happy. Once.”

Terri's voice quavered like a candle in a draft. “Yes, Mom. We used to be.”

Margot sighed deeply. “So proud of my children. My little girl.” She reached to Terri, who took her hand and brought it to her cheek. “Dancing. Miss Vratski's class. You were so beauti…”

Terri turned and sniffed. Pierre took Margot's other hand.

In the drawing room Rainer stood alone and rigid, the last bishop on the chessboard. “I have sent for the priest. Madame said to do so when it was time.”

I quickly nodded and waited. Rainer indicated the door. “I asked the guard to cross the street to the waiting car. To ask him in.”

The door opened and my blood chilled when Rasheed's familiar cologne and charcoal-colored suit exuded suave and threat rolled into one.

“My condolences.” His politeness, as always, was ordered and sharpened. “I sense death is near.”

I stared at him. “I'm looking at it.”

Rainer indicated Rasheed and I sit across from each other, Margot's portrait almost a judge in session. “It was explained to Madame about her granddaughter's debt.”

My eyes shot to Saul. He shook his head. Rainer sighed.

“Mrs. Bridger, did you not think we knew of your foibles? Especially the one you conceived?”

I was careful. When all was said and done, Jama was indeed my very own foible.

“Okay. And?”

Rainer reached behind the lily patterned brocade chair and produced a leather brief case. Classy but showing scuff marks, probably fished out of the cellar where China Doll was examined. Rainer handed the brief case to Rasheed. “You will find the right amount. You may count it if you wish. We will not be insulted.”