Part 2 (1/2)

CHAPTER 3.

Ididn't wake until late afternoon. No phone messages, only a hungry cat. I fed Hep, then decided that it was useless to wait around for a phone call that might be twenty-four hours away. Time for brunch at the Spread Eagle.

Ralph was a real pal. He set me up a three-course meal: peanuts, popcorn, and pretzels. After he served a few other customers, he came back to my corner of the bar.

”New gossip about Harry,” he said.

”Yeah?” I asked.

”Shoot-out at the O.K. Corral last night. You heard about it?”

”No. I was teaching a hetero girl a new form of birth control.”

Hearing about it and being there are two different things, I figured.

”Harry got his picture taken. Stands to lose a lot of money.”

”Huh?” The queer smell came back.

”Harry's got a rich grandfather in very poor health. His will's got certain interesting clauses, so they say. Like any deviant behavior gets you disowned.”

”Harry's got his picture all over the place,” I replied. ”Certainly every boy's bar in town. Why doesn't that get him disowned?” This was not good news to me. I was beginning to feel a trifle bit set up.

”His sister Karen already tried that. Showed Granddad one of those pictures. Harry denied it. Said the picture was doctored. And what upstanding Southern gentleman wants to believe his grandson is queer?”

”None I know of.”

* 16 *

”So Granddad said he wouldn't believe any pictures without the negatives and Harry figured he was home free. Until,” Ralph continued, ”Karen hired some f.a.ggot goon to help her get to him.” (Well, at least I hadn't been recognized.) ”She snapped his picture. Now all she has to do is give the undeveloped roll to granddaddy to prove it's not a doctored photo, and she inherits the whole lot.”

”That's real interesting.” Boy, was it ever. ”Any chance his sister's a knockout blond about so high?”

”Yep. A real mess for Harry.”

A customer signaled for Ralph. We had a good relations.h.i.+p. He didn't ask me how I got my information and I didn't ask him about his.

So much for my luck changing. It was time for me to find out a few more things about the woman who called herself Karen Wentworth. I downed another shot of Scotch, then headed back to my office.

I made a few preliminary phone calls while munching on an oyster po-boy. Then I called Danny Clayton. She and I had gone to college together, two poor scholars.h.i.+p students huddled against the ma.s.s of children of the rich and powerful. I think we had been accepted so that that Northeastern sn.o.b school could claim that it had a black and a Cajun from the Bayou State. After that, we'd both come back South.

Danielle to honors at Tulane Law School and me to, well, dishonors on Bourbon Street. Danny now worked in the D.A.'s office and knew a lot of things. And we'd been lovers for one very long hot summer. We still liked each other enough to occasionally jump into the sack together.

Danny's latest this-one's-going-to-last-forever answered the phone. She told me that Danny was working late. I left my name, then called Danny's office.

”D.A.'s office, Danielle Clayton speaking,” she said.

I told her my story. She raised an eyebrow (phone-etically speaking) at my front-seat adventures, but then, she always does. She had a few helpful suggestions.

”Get out of town and stay out until this thing blows over,” was her first.

”Why?” I asked.

”Dixie mafia. Her name's not Wentworth, it's Holloway. Of the Holloways of One Hundred Oaks Plantation. That's a big estate upriver from here with very extensive and secluded access by water. Possibly * 17 *

some drug running going on. If the plantation doesn't go to either Harold or Karen, then it goes to the Daughters of the Confederacy Historical Society, and no drug runner in his right mind would tackle them.”

”You mean Grandpa Holloway can't stand the idea of queer grandkids, but lets drug runners use his place?” I asked.

”Not quite that simple or we'd have them,” she answered.

”Ignatious Holloway, as near as we can figure, is a perfectly straight-backed old Southern gentleman. But he's had a few mild heart attacks and a stroke, and he absolutely resists the idea that anything illegal might be going on on his land. So we can't stake it out or get a search warrant, because he's got too many friends.”

”What about Karen and Harry? By the way, where are their parents?”

”Beau Holloway got divorced, married a Jewish woman, and hasn't been seen below the Mason-Dixon line since. Mother's being trendy somewhere in California. No evidence that Karen and Harry have any connections with the mob. But they're smart little cookies who know when to duck, not to mention when to make friends with a rich grandfather. Also, there's a third granddaughter, Cordelia, who's given up family squabbles for Lent.”

”How does one do that?” I'd never been able to manage it.

”She told her grandfather that she didn't want any of his money.

Informed him in no uncertain terms that she was living with another woman, just to make sure. Aptly named, too. She visits him a couple of times a week. Karen and Harry could pa.s.s for Goneril and Regan.”

Danny liked to use literary references. I recognized King Lear, but let it pa.s.s. Then she added, ”Stay away from her. She's a good kid.”

I also let that pa.s.s. Danny has an exaggerated opinion of my decadence.

”What about Karen? Does her granddad know what she likes to do with women? Dismissing, of course, the possibility that she was telling the truth about me being the first.”

”Karen really is engaged to some society wimp. She might even marry him before granddad kicks off, but you can bet that she'll already have hired a divorce lawyer. Not a pleasant lady on a bad day. Get out of this one, Micky, it's dangerous.”

”I will, after I make reparations,” I answered.

* 18 *

”What does that...Yes, sir...No, sir,” to someone off in the background. ”I'll call you back later. Be there.” She hung up.

My plan was simple. As I figured it, the drug runners and the Daughters of the Confederacy were best suited for each other. Since Harry had just been struck out due to my unwitting interference, it was time to even the score.

I started rearranging the furniture in my office and cleaning up.

Hepplewhite looked amazed, but I ignored her. Then I set up my two cameras, the mini on the bookshelf and the Nikon in the closet aimed through the hole that I hadn't fixed in antic.i.p.ation of just this sort of situation. Karen, I was betting, was interested in at least another good f.u.c.k or two out of me. And I had every intention of f.u.c.king her better than she thought possible.

* 19 *