Son of a Sinner Read online

  She helped herself to the newly arrived ginger ale. “Oh, very good. It is so hot to me in here.” Ilsa unknotted the purple scarf that had filled the V in her suit jacket like an ascot. The merest hint of a pale pink lacy bra now showed in her cleavage. Stacy wore a light gray blouse under her coat that completely hid her very nice goodies.

  “Sit down and watch Mariah’s act. I got her all primed to go on. You haven’t seen it for a while,” Tom suggested. “Bartender, another ginger ale and a draft beer for me.”

  “Oh, yes, I would like to see this act!” Ilsa added with the enthusiasm she appeared to have for everything and everybody in New Orleans.

  “Sure, we’ll stay. Mariah is still amazing. She’s Tom’s step-grandmother.” Stacy perched on the barstool next to Tom and stared straight ahead at the first wisps of dry ice fog beginning to seep under the black velvet curtain.

  “Very complicated, your family. Is it not?” Ilsa asked Dean.

  “Complicated, that says it all. There are twelve of us, of many different parents.”

  The black curtains parted, the band played the signature song, Fever, and the tourists at the tables leaned forward to take in the sight of the fabulous Mariah Coy, a grandmother three times over, and still very hot. She’d let her hair go from red to white after her longtime lover, Billy, passed away beside her in bed, but still the mass of curls covering her head certainly had to be a wig. Wearing a red-sequined gown with a slit up the front nearly to the crotch, she owned that stage and strutted from side to side in shoes with heels thicker than they used to be but still very high. Flesh-colored tights covered any imperfections of those long legs. Her enormous fake bosom jutted proudly out at the crowd. Her entire stance seemed to say, “Move over Cher, Dolly, and Tina, and let me work my magic.”

  “Good evening. I’m Mariah Coy, and we’re going to have some fun tonight,” she breathed in her smoke-husky voice. The audience that had thickened close to show time shouted their approval. Mariah launched into her opening song playing to the drum riffs and the men in the front row of tables. She managed one more song before turning the stage over to a young black woman destined for fame, at least that was what Mariah claimed. The bald-headed bouncer with the cobra tattooed on his scalp helped her gently down the steps and over to the reserved chairs where she would hold court as long as her damaged lungs allowed. Too many smokes, too many years. She slung an arm over the back of Billy’s Chair as if the old man who had been her devoted bodyguard for so many years still sat there. Some of the more imaginative customers claimed when the dry ice wafted over that area they could make out the form of a stooped old man, once a big bruiser but now whittled in size by age, sitting there. That placed Mariah’s joint squarely on the ghost tour. “Good for business,” the star performer said and left it at that.

  When a slow, dreamy number played, the singer almost cooing the song, Dean asked Ilsa for a dance. Tom did his duty and made the same offer to Stacy. “No, thanks, we don’t plan to stay long,” she uttered—which didn’t prevent Ilsa from jumping up and taking Dean’s hand. He danced like he played football, amazingly agile, his footwork superb, his timing excellent.

  “Want some loaded potato skins? I’m kind of hungry, and you look like you could use some food.” Tom bumped Stacy with a friendly elbow.

  “What makes you say that?’

  “You look sort of pale.”

  “I’m always pale. I don’t think Ilsa is going to work out. Great time to find out, after we flew her all the way from Frankfurt.” On the dance floor, Dean gave Stacy a wink as he nimbly swung Ilsa around and then back into his arms. “Yeah, order the potato skins. I need to settle my stomach.”

  The couple stayed there attracting attention until the food arrived. Ilsa dug in with abandon. “So good these potatoes. Always too much rice here with everything. Say, I been thinking. Why not you and Tom come with us tomorrow, a-a…”

  “Double date?” Stacy took a swallow of her fizzy drink too fast and coughed. “Tom is my cousin.”

  “I’m an adopted cousin,” he explained for Ilsa’s benefit.

  “Then all is good, nein?”

  “Nein, I mean no. I have plans,” Stacy blurted.

  Dean studied her face until she pinked up again. “You’re seeing someone?”

  “Ah, no. A client who doesn’t like to dine alone. Don Juan.”

  “Really, Don Juan?” He thought he could always tell when she lied; that quick glance away as if she planned a fake play, but he didn’t pursue it. “Tom, you have anybody else you could bring along?”

  “Absolutely. I might be a lowly kicker, but there are a few women I could call.” He pulled out his phone and worked on getting a short notice date.

  As clientele came and went, the sunlight no longer lit their way. Outside the door, the French Quarter came alive with Friday night neon and noise.

  “We should go before it gets any later.” Stacy stood and waited for her new employee to unwrap herself from Dean.

  “Yeah, you have to get rested up for Don Juan. Want me to call you a cab?” he offered.

  “I could get my own, but it’s a short walk.”

  “Then, we should walk you home. Two women like you might be followed. Come on, Tom.” Dean paid their tab and left a generous tip.

  “I know how to handle myself in New Orleans. I just hadn’t planned on staying here after dark.”

  “Let’s say goodbye to Mariah and get going. Tom, you ready?” His brother nodded, still talking into his phone. “It’s on the way back to our place anyhow.”

  “Sometimes I think you are hard of hearing, Dean Joseph Billodeaux! We don’t need an escort.” She said it loud enough to alert several autograph seekers who headed their way.

  Dean graciously signed whatever they presented, a napkin, a Sinners cap, a hand. Ilsa showed no inclination to walk out into the night with only Stacy for protection, but waited patiently for the line to thin. Tom ended his call and gave them a thumbs-up for scoring a date. As usual, he smoothed things over between his brother and Stacy.

  “Dad would be upset if we didn’t see you safely home, Stace. You know that.”

  “Fine!” She stalked over to Mariah and accepted a crushing hug to that broad bosom. The guys both received kisses on their cheeks that left them stained with red lipstick. Ilsa merely got an invitation to visit again, as she wasn’t family of any kind, not sorta and not almost, not stepchild or adopted into the big Billodeaux team, unless she married into it of course.

  Chapter Two

  “You can leave now. See, we’re right at the door.” Stacy inserted the key in the lock, a brand new lock with a serious deadbolt. She stood under a high-powered security light so bright it made her hair gleam like the gold in a Royal Street jeweler’s window and lit the little alcove as if it were high noon. Ilsa appeared ghostly in its glare. Above, a newly installed fire escape stood out in sharp metallic contrast to the shabby rear wall of the three-story building sprouting small ferns between its crumbling bricks. All the safety improvements came with the compliments of Stacy’s Uncle Joe Billodeaux. Dean with Tommy by his side did not budge. So like him to be bossy and overbearing.

  Stacy opened the door and motioned Ilsa to climb the stairs to the second floor where Anchi Services had its office and the girls their living quarters. A quaint little sign on a cast-iron bracket jutted out from above the door. Purple lettering on a pale gray background proclaimed the business within. Not that many clients came to them. Usually, they met the customer elsewhere, or in the case of fulfilling their contract with the police department, rode in a squad car to their destination day or night.

  The short cul-de-sac butting against the wall of a major hotel was perfectly safe. A very pricey boutique hotel, also three stories, claimed the corner on Canal Street. Their shabby building with a cracked pink stucco façade crammed between the two hotels faced the wide thoroughfare. The first floor housed a Korean electronics store selling cheap goods to tourists and probably burner p
hones to drug dealers. Their business motto seemed to be “We don’t care where your money come from, no question asked.” Still, the Kim family who ran the place was very nice and allowed the girls to use an interior staircase whenever the shop remained open. Other perks included a crock of homemade kimchi hot enough to burn out a person’s tonsils presented at Christmas. The three businesses got along so well they shared the dumpster pushed against the far back wall.

  Dean and Tom still stood there waiting. “Go inside and lock the door,” Dean ordered.

  Stacy gritted her teeth. She stepped inside and poked her head out. “I’m in. I’m locking. Go away!”

  She turned the key hard and hoped they heard the snick of the deadbolt engaging. Stacy progressed up the steep, narrow stairs lit at intervals by replica art deco fixtures she’d picked out herself. Ilsa had left the office door wide open. Evidently the German had no fears when Dean Billodeaux wasn’t handy as an escort.

  Her new employee had passed by the small but very modern office space and already lounged on a plum-colored sofa inundated with silver throw pillows in the living room overlooking Canal. Drapes striped in silver and aubergine pulled back by tasseled cords framed the view outside one tall window of two trolley cars passing in the night. A second long window let light into their kitchen area though it never reached the small bathroom in the rear that held a sink, commode, and tiny shower and had an access door from the office.

  “Do you want anything else to eat?” Stacy offered, though Ilsa had scarfed down more than her fair share of the stuffed potato skins, which caused Dean to order a second platter. As for herself, she’d had as much cheese, bacon, and sour cream loaded on a hunk of potato as any reasonable person could hold, but Dean and Tom had no trouble finishing the appetizers down to the last lump.

  “Nein, I still have what you call it—jet-lag. Soon I go to bed.” Ilsa unbuttoned her jacket, exposing the sheer pink bra edged in lace. “So hot here all the time. We should have more cool dresses mit shorter sleeves.”

  “Most of the places we work have air-conditioning, and I want Anchi to project a business-like image at all times. I suppose we could look into other options in our signature colors. I’ll see what Xochi has to say.”

  “Is gut. I go to my bed now.” Ilsa stretched her perfect slim and lengthy body, arose and started up the second flight of stairs to the floor housing two spacious bedrooms and a full bath.

  Stacy hurried after her. “Do you want to use the shower down here or should I lock up?”

  “Later,” Ilsa called over a now-naked shoulder with the jacket slung on it.

  Stacy stared after her wondering if rumors that Europeans didn’t bathe as often as Americans could be true. She’d picked up her new employee at the airport on Wednesday night and didn’t recall her washing at all. Well, in this climate she’d better change her habits. On the other hand, if Dean got a whiff of body odor on his date, so much the better. Stacy sniffed the air in the stairwell. It smelled enticingly of high-priced perfume. Too bad. She followed in its wake after locking off the living area.

  The door to her bedroom at the end of a short hall stood closed already. She entered the bath on the other side and made a point of running the water long and loud for a soothing bath filled with lavender-scented salts. Laying her suit out on top of the hamper and disposing of her undergarments inside, she pinned up her hair and soaked for a long time, relaxing and releasing her latest turmoil over Dean Billodeaux. There, she’d washed him away. She dried off and put on a nightgown of thin pink cotton with a little frill on the bottom and a scooped neckline at the top. No need for flannel in New Orleans.

  Since Ilsa used her room and hadn’t had the courtesy to let her hang up her clothes before shutting the door, Stacy gathered her outfit and took it all into Xochi’s room next to hers. Her roommate, business partner, and another adopted cousin, sat up in bed reading a Spanish language book. Her thick black hair waved well past her shoulders. She pushed aside a curl that got in the way of a turn of the page. Xochi placed a bookmark and set aside her reading material. She studied Stacy with large brown eyes that everyone said came from the Billodeaux side of the family since her no-good dead father had been part of the clan, but Stacy suspected she’d gotten those alluring Spanish eyes from her deceased Mexican mother. No pictures survived for comparison.

  “Did you find Tom?”

  “Yes, and Dean.” Stacy rattled a hanger from the closet, hung up her suit, and placed her pumps side by side beneath it.

  “Well, they are nearly always together so it figures. You set him up with Ilsa?”

  “No, Dean moved right in and plucked her like low-hanging fruit, which I think she is. They have a date tomorrow, and Tom is going along for the ride. She suggested I come, too.” Stacy got into the other side of the queen-sized bed that Dean, Tom, and her Uncle Joe had shoved up the two flights of stairs using a bevy of curses for fuel. “As if I would. I don’t like Dean.”

  Xochi cocked her head and stared at her with a wise gaze strange in a young woman in her early twenties no matter how many languages she spoke. Spooky stuff, Stacy thought. When sleeping pills and psychiatrists had failed to quell Xochi’s night terrors about witnessing the deaths of her parents, Aunt Nell had given into the last resort and taken her to see the Cajun traiteur. An old soul she’d called Xochi, claiming the child would gain control as she grew into her powers. The traiteur gave the little girl a simple prayer to repeat and a charm of some kind in a small satin bag to place under her pillow. The nightmares ceased. So far, Stacy hadn’t noticed anything too woo-woo about Xochi except her uncanny ability to understand things she should know nothing about, and of course, the auras if they could be considered real. Xo still slept with that little sack under her pillow.

  “Dean is a great guy, and you know it.”

  “How can you say that! He’s bossy and overbearing. He ruined my life in high school. I could have been popular.” Stacy punched her pillow hard a few times, then sank into it.

  “No, Stace, you would never have been popular. You were too pretty, too brainy, and too sure of yourself. All those qualities scare men and cause women to hate you.”

  “Kent Gonsoulin asked me to the prom when I was fifteen, my first real date, or it would have been if Dean hadn’t tattled some story. I had to tell Kent I wasn’t allowed to date until next year.”

  “None of us were allowed to date until we turned sixteen,” Xochi reminded her.

  “It was the prom! They might have made an exception just once if not for your brother. Kent took over from Dean as quarterback of the Flames after he left for college. I could have dated the quarterback. He reigned as prom king, and his date got to be queen.”

  “So you still want to be royalty, Princess Anastasia.” Xochi’s eyes crinkled a little at the edges, a sure sign she meant her words as a joke.

  Stacy ignored this indication of good humor. “Don’t call me that! Dean does all the time. After my parents died in the car wreck, I was a scared little kid. All I owned was a pile of luggage, a little dog, and a title that turned out to be completely bogus. I hid my fear of being abandoned behind all those things. We’ve been over this ground before. Don’t you start in on me again.”

  “Just trying to ease the tension. Consider this: Kent Gonsoulin got his date pregnant that night, married her at eighteen under a lot of parental pressure. Now, she keeps the books for his daddy’s mobile home business while Kent sells trailers. They have three kids already. Is that the life you wanted?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then, Dean didn’t ruin your life. He probably saved it.”

  Stacy wracked her brain for another example of Dean’s high-handedness. “What about the summer he took off to go abroad and left Tom to be the only lifeguard at Camp Love Letter? That had nothing to do with me. He dumped all that work on Tom and went his merry way.”

  “Dean traveled to Haiti to build houses for the poor. Besides, all of us older kids had lifeguard trai
ning—even you. You’re the one who insisted on rescuing Dean for your test just to show you could haul him out of the pool on your own.”

  “And I did, too. Don’t tell me Dean didn’t love being lifeguard at the camp with all the girls swooning over him and bringing him cold drinks and rubbing suntan lotion on his back.”

  Xochi studied her roommate again. “Dean did love all that. He also made sure none of the little kids got hurt and treated those bald-headed cancer victims like bathing beauties. How many other guys that age would have been so nice to them?”

  “I concede that point,” Stacy said as if they had entered into a formal debate on the topic: Dean Billodeaux, pro or con? She rubbed her temples. “Look, I need to get some sleep. Turn out the light, would you?” Stacy turned over, showing her back to Xochi and escaping her penetrating gaze.

  “I think you are too agitated to sleep.” Because it was her bed and her lamp, Xochi made no move to obey. “Tell me why you always pick on Dean.”

  Stacy sat up again, got out of bed and began pacing the floor. “Because everyone fawns on him. It’s disgusting the attention he gets. Someone needs to remind him he doesn’t walk on water.”

  “No, he runs across football fields which in Louisiana is almost as good.” Again, Xochi’s eyes crinkled. “But you started doing this the day you showed up at Lorena Ranch needing a home.”

  “He called my little dog a Bitchin’ Freeze instead of a Bichon Frise. Titi didn’t deserve that. She loves everyone. I was nine years old, all alone in that mass of Billodeauxs, and he had to be mean to my dog.” Stacy’s lower lip quivered as she remembered the insult to her beloved pet. She bit her flesh to make it stop.

  “As I recall, you treated us like country bumpkins. That’s what got his back up, Princess Anastasia.” This time Xochi showed no sign of teasing. “However, I did laugh the first time you called Dean a big lout. Up to that moment, I think all of us considered him our unchallenged leader. We did what he said, and he looked out for his younger siblings. None of us questioned him, a twelve-year old boy being trained as the next great Sinners’ quarterback. You never failed to stand up to him and defend the female point of view. All of us girls appreciated that.”