Charlaine Harris - The Julius House

Martin looked suspicious. But he said, “That sounds good, Roe. Angel, how does that sound to you?”

“Suits me,” Angel said cautiously. “I can pack and be ready to go in thirty minutes.”

“That would give me a chance to look into having some security installed here,” Shelby said.

“I don’t want to find an armed fortress when I come back,” I told him.

He did not even look at Martin; give him credit for that. “I won’t do anything until I talk to you both,” he said.

I nodded and stood up in a very pronounced way. The Youngbloods rose instantly and left for their apartment. Martin went to the living room and looked through the crack in the drapes.

“They’re leaving,” he said, not turning around. “All the police. The hearse has gone.”

I waited.

He finally faced me. “Roe, I don’t know what to tell you now. Nothing has turned out as we planned. I wanted a good life for us, I wanted to provide for you and take care of you and I never wanted any harm or upset to come to you. I thought I could keep the gun thing separate. I thought I would go to work at the plant and come home and you would tell me about whatever you were interested in and I would enjoy it and we would make love every night.”

Maybe I had sort of planned on all that, too.

“Well, Martin. It looks like we’re not going to have that, exactly.” I walked over and put my arms around him, lay my head against his chest. He squeezed me so hard I thought I would squeak. “We’ll have something different, though. If you can disentangle yourself from this arms thing…” we have a chance, I finished silently. “But,” I resumed, “we can still go for part of your expectations.”

“Hmmmm?”

“We can make love every night.”

“Let’s go upstairs.”

“Good idea.”

Readers, he carried me.

New Orleans. In New Orleans, Angel’s battered face attracted little attention. Angel followed me grimly through the gorgeous new Aquarium of the Americas at the foot of Canal Street. Angel sulkily refused iced coffee and beignets at the Cafe du Monde. Angel accepted the rooms and the service at the Hyatt Regency with calm disdain. When a tattooed man on Bourbon Street grabbed my arm and made a suggestion so bizarre and indecent that my jaw dropped open, Angel stepped up from behind me, pressed his arm in a particular spot right above his elbow, and glanced back with grim satisfaction while he rubbed his useless arm and cursed.

“Why are we really here?” she asked after I’d bought my mother some antique earrings at a little shop in the French Quarter.

“Let’s go on the walking tour of the cemetery,” I suggested. We met the tour guide at a little cafe close to the police station. The cafe was loaded with charm and fancy versions of coffee. The guide was also loaded with charm, if an offbeat brand, and I found myself as curious about his sex life as I was about the tour, which was very interesting-though I can’t say Angel seemed too impressed. After we’d received the lecture about staying with the group since there’d been some muggings in the cemetery, I saw from Angel’s restive gaze and alert stance that she was aching for someone to try to attack us.

“Why are we really here?” she asked, as we ate in a Cajun restaurant across from the convention center.

“Let’s go to the zoo tomorrow,” I suggested.

When we got back to the Hyatt, I found Martin had left a voice message on my room telephone. “I’m here, I’m trying hard, and it looks possible but difficult,” he said. “I miss you more than I can say.” I had a sudden blur of tears in my eyes and sat on the side of my bed gripping a Kleenex.

It wasn’t the message I’d hoped for. Dawdling in New Orleans, having a good time, wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to try Plan B.

I should have called Sally Allison. It would have helped a lot. But frankly, it never occurred to me.

“Tomorrow, Angel,” I said, “we’re going to work.”

“About damn time.”

ANGEL WAS DRIVING. She was very comfortable and competent behind the wheel. She’d opened up enough to tell me she’d taken several driving courses especially for bodyguards. We were going out to Metairie, a giant suburb of New Orleans, where Melba Totino had lived with her sister before she’d moved to Lawrenceton.

There was a phone listing for Mrs. Totino’s sister, Alicia Manigault, in the Metairie phone book.

Mrs. Totino had gotten all misty when she spoke of her former home, but I couldn’t see much about Metairie to love, from the interstate, anyway. There were hundreds of small houses jammed into tiny lots, charmless and style-less, leavened by an occasional motel or restaurant or strip shopping center. Surely there were prettier parts of Metairie somewhere?

The heat had begun in earnest here, and I shuddered when I thought of what it must be like in July or August. We had the air-conditioning on in the rental car, and I still felt sticky when we got out on the short, narrow street where Alicia Manigault lived. Scrubby stunted palms were planted here and there in tiny yards. All the houses were very small and one story, and though some of them were spick and span, others were in need of repair and paint. I would hate living in a place like this more than anything I could imagine. I felt very there-but-for-the-grace-of-God.

The squat flat-roofed house at the phone book address was moderately well cared for. The grass was mowed, but there were no ornamental touches to the yard, beyond some straggly foundation bushes. The house, formerly barn red, was peeling, and the side facing the afternoon sun was noticeably lighter than the rest of the house.

Angel unfolded herself from the dark green rental car and surveyed the street expressionlessly. “What do you want to do?” she asked.

“Ring the doorbell.”

The whole property was enclosed in a low chain-link fence. The gate creaked.

There didn’t seem to be a doorbell, so I knocked instead. My heart was beating uncomfortably.

A young woman answered.

I had never seen her before. She was very fat, very fair, wearing a pink dollar-store “Plus-Size” muumuu.

“What you want?” she asked. She didn’t look unfriendly, just busy.

“Is Mrs. Manigault here?” I asked.

“Alicia? No, she’s not here.”

“She doesn’t live here?”

“Well, it’s her house,” the young woman said, her small blue eyes blinking in a puzzled way behind blue-framed glasses.

“And you rent it from her,” Angel said.

“My husband and me, yeah, we do. What you want with Alicia?” A strange sound behind her made the young woman turn her head.

“Listen, come on in,” she said. “I got a sick dog in here.”

We followed her into the tiniest living room I had ever seen. It was jammed with vinyl furniture covered with crocheted afghans in a variety of patterns. The only thing they had in common was a stunningly dreadful combination of colors. Angel and I gaped.

“I know,” the woman said, with a little laugh, “everyone just cain’t believe it. I sell them at craft shows on the weekend, but the ones in here are my favorites. I just couldn’t sell them. My husband always says, ‘You’d think we got cold here!’”

She bent over a basket in the corner by a doorway into, I thought, the kitchen. When she straightened, she had in her arms a tiny black dog with brown on its muzzle-a Toy Manchester, I thought.

“Kickapoo,” she said proudly. “That’s his name.”

Angel made a snorting noise and I realized she was trying not to laugh. I was too concerned by the obvious illness of the dog. It was limp and listless in her arms.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, not at all sure I really wanted to know.