Son of a Sinner Page 6

  “Don’t say it. No Hispanic slurs allowed in our family.”

  “Right. Does she hate me so much?”

  Tom didn’t answer that one. Their rival’s return team formed up on the field, and he went to perform the kickoff, launching the ball to land exactly one foot before the goal line on the bounce. “Tommeee, Tommy the Toe,” the Sinners fans cheered. He gave them a modest wave as he returned to the sidelines.

  The hotshot rookie quarterback leading their opponents did a decent job of working the ball down the field, but in the end ran out of downs. All that time, Dean repeated silently to himself, “Head in the game. I do not care if Stacy has sex with that dude in the bleachers, and they put it up on the big screen. Concentrate, concentrate. Remember what Dad always said. No matter what bothered him, he always tried to play his best game. Good advice if he could take it. For the next three quarters, he pointedly did not glance Stacy’s way. In the end, the Sinners prevailed 24-7 with his touchdown, another by Jones, a third by Prince Dobbs and a field goal kicked over the uprights by Tom.

  He showered and went to join the family for dinner at Ralph’s. He’d ask Stacy to return the ball, that’s what. Only she didn’t join them. Xochi appeared and apologized for missing Dean’s big moment. She sat beside him. “Hey, tell Stace I want that ball back. Who was the guy she brought to the game?” he asked, breaking his own slight resolve to stay out of Princess Anastasia’s life. Tom grinned at him across the long table they’d reserved at the premier seafood restaurant.

  “Oh, Angel Garcia. He and Stacy are dining elsewhere. He’s a good dancer and horns in sometimes with our group. He came over to our place along with a few of the girls last night and hung around. Stacy still had on that black dress she looks so fantastic wearing. Angel hit on her hard, practically invited himself to the game when he found out I had to work. Hey, let’s not waste an extra ticket. You know how it goes. Stacy really found him fascinating, but I don’t know. He might be a gang member and mixed up with drugs. He’s got that vibe about him.” Innocently, Xochi put a warm hushpuppy on her bread plate before her younger brothers could gobble them all up.

  “Want me to have a word with him?”

  “Usually Stacy can take care of herself, but maybe you should. I know they have a date to go dancing next Saturday. I’ll find out where. In the meantime, I can ask some of the cops we translate for to run a background check on him.” She shot her most adored brother—and it wasn’t Dean—a warm smile across the table. “Great game, Tom. They couldn’t do it without you.”

  From the far end of the table, Joe Billodeaux said loudly, “Yes, a great game, but what about that first play? Explain what happened there.”

  “A moment of inattention, Dad. I won’t let it happen again, but I think I made up for it.”

  “You sure did. So, what does everyone want tonight?”

  The family members ordered stuffed redfish, fried oysters, alligator pasta, seafood platters, shrimp remoulade, crab salad, and in little T-Rex’s case a whole platter of frog legs because he thought eating them would make him jump higher. After coffee and bread pudding, Dean and Tom departed for the after-game celebration at Mariah’s Place, the perfect ending to a perfect but slightly disturbing day.

  Chapter Seven

  An easy Monday morning opened up before Dean Billodeaux offering September sunshine, fairly low humidity, and promising a team meeting that should go pretty well though he didn’t expect his hesitation on that first play to remain unmentioned. Despite a late night, he rose early, put on his sweats and the brand of running shoes he currently endorsed. He added sunglasses, a Sinners cap, and plugged in his ear buds, a light disguise but one that would keep fans from stopping him as he went for a short run to loosen up a little. He put Stacy firmly out of his mind. She rarely went out on weeknights, and Xochi said they’d be helping Ilsa find an apartment today, a nice safe activity. In an excellent mood, he jogged along Canal Street, but only got as far as the nearest coffee shop to his condo.

  Stacy, dressed for work, sat right in the front of the place like a piece of attractive window dressing. Across a tall table with a very small top, Angel shared a plate of flaky croissants with her. At this early hour, that could mean only one thing—he’d stayed over at her place last night. Nearly taking out a dog walker, Dean made an abrupt turn into the shop. No better time to have that talk with Mr. Garcia, but he had to make it seem natural. Without looking their way, he strode up to the cashier, removed his ear buds, and took a quick glance at the pastry counter, choosing the first item that caught his eye.

  “One of those big oatmeal scones and a tall café au lait.” He offered a credit card he’d tucked into the kangaroo pouch of the sweats for any emergency that might come up. This seemed like one to him. He accepted the huge scone in a bag and gingerly picked up the scalding coffee that burned a little even through an extra wrapper. Turning as if to leave, he smiled and said, “Hi, Princess. I didn’t see you over there with your friend.”

  Though their chairs sat up on a small platform, his height still darkened their table as he loomed over them. Dean held out his hand and delivered a crushing shake to her companion’s rather long-fingered and delicate hand. “Dean Billodeaux. Stacy and I grew up together.” He thought that was the best way to put it. Protection rights asserted. He stared directly into Angel’s languid black eyes, an alpha male challenge.

  “Dean, this Angel Garcia. He’s an actor.” Stacy introduced him as An-hel.

  Actor—that meant unemployed sleazebag. Although Dean knew she used the correct pronunciation, he went for the American version because it sounded pretty and weak. “Angel, we think a lot of Stacy. You’d better treat her right.”

  “Or what you gonna do?” Angel slouched in his seat and fingered the pocket of his worn jeans as if it might contain a switchblade. Ironically, he wore a red Sinners T-Shirt, the nasty one with the evil devil on the front, not the cutesy kind kids bought for souvenirs at the games.

  Actually, Dean hadn’t thought that far in advance. Usually his size and fame kept things from going any farther. He fell back on Xochi’s idea. “Check your police record. See if you are breaking any paroles.”

  “The cops ain’t never caught me doin’ nothing,” Angel answered with a heavy Latino accent and a sneer on his thin lips to show he had no fear of Dean.

  “Good for you. Stay clean. By the way, I’d like that game ball back.”

  “Don’t got it on me, man.” He held out his thin brown arms as if Dean might want to pat him down. “You could autograph it for me sometime. Then it be worth some big bucks. I could use a little extra cash.”

  “Please don’t sell it, Angel. It means a lot to our family, Dean’s first touchdown ball,” Stacy interceded.

  “For you, my bonita Anastasia, I keep it.” Angel broke off the white carnation in the bud vase on the table and placed it with a caress behind her ear.

  Dean clenched his fists. A splurt of hot coffee erupted from the lip of his cup and dribbled to the floor. The scone broke in half.

  As if to keep the conversation pleasant, Stacy quickly said, “I saw you bought a scone. I thought you didn’t like them. When I first asked Brinsley to get some for me, you wouldn’t even try them.”

  “Well, now I love them.” Dean opened the bag and bit off a huge triangular corner. He chewed and tried to swallow the dry lump. It lodged in his throat. He coughed and took a swig of coffee. It burned his mouth, and he grimaced.

  “Here, mine is cooler.”

  Stacy held her cup to his lips. He tasted a hint of sugar she’d left behind.

  “Yeah, man. We don’t want you to choke, no. What would the Sinners do then?” Despite the nice words, Angel leaned back as if he could really care less.

  “They’d get another quarterback. Say, you have a pretty thick accent for an actor, Angel. Doesn’t that keep you from getting roles?”

  “Hey, I was gang member #2 in the detective flick they just wrapped here because I got some ex
perience in that area, you know. I like to stay in character. Stacy loves it.”

  “You do that. I need to get my run in before team meeting. Take care of yourself, Princess.”

  Before he could do anything that would get him on the front page of the tabloids, Dean left the shop and continued down the block. A grizzled old black man slumped in the doorway of a store with dirty windows and a heat-curled For Rent sign in the window. He handed him the scone and the coffee. “Watch the heat, and if you don’t want that scone, feed it to the pigeons.”

  “God bless you, sir. Got any spare change?”

  “None on me, sorry.” He jogged away weaving through a thickening crowd of people on their way to work and tourists hoping to beat the heat of the day. Running faster and farther than he’d intended, the pounding of his feet matched the throbbing in his head. Be an example for your team. Be a leader. Stay out of bar brawls and away from bad women. As if his dad ever had—at least in his early years as a quarterback. Wasn’t Dean himself the product of a drunken one-night stand with a woman Joe barely knew?

  Mama Nell always told the truth as far as her children could understand at whatever age a question came up. Dean knew Daddy Joe had fathered him and wanted to know why she’d adopted him. Where was his real mother? After all, Tom knew his mom. She visited often. Because his had died giving birth to him after a tragic accident, his mom said when he brought this up at age five. Mama Nell followed this news with how much she loved him and thanked his mother for bringing him into the world.

  She took him to visit the niche holding Margaret Stutes’ ashes in the huge cemetery on the edge of New Orleans, held him up to place a bouquet of silk flowers in the holder beside the plaque with her name and dates engraved on it and paid for by Joe Dean Billodeaux. Content with that, he’d questioned no more until his early teens when additional details of the sordid story came out—the ugly legal battle for custody staged by Margaret’s lawyer and the obvious ploy to shake down the famous quarterback for money. Mama Nell said she had no more to tell. She’d met Margaret only briefly a few times, one of those times being at Stevie Dowd’s reception after her wedding to Connor Riley.

  Before he left for college, he pried the rest of the sorry tale out of Stevie Riley, a no-nonsense woman who admitted Joe slept with Margaret as a favor to her in order to get a job as team photographer with the Sinners and be closer to Connor. “Joe had to get really drunk to do it,” she said. “Margaret wasn’t his type.” Meaning not very attractive, he guessed. When he looked in a mirror, he saw only Joe Dean and none of his mother. Maybe a good thing.

  So, his dad could get away with all kinds of bad behavior and still come out a legend and a great husband and father. His family, his coach, his team expected Dean to be a leader and role model fresh out of the box. As he turned a corner to head back to his condo, he wondered what they would have thought if he’d thrown Angel Garcia through the plate glass window of the coffee shop this morning exactly like he’d wanted to do.

  Arriving home, he found Tom had already left for the meeting. He showered in haste and skipped the shave. Dean Billodeaux never came late to team meetings. Other guys still hung over from last night’s celebration would, but not Dean. He had to set an example.

  ****

  Stacy pondered Dean’s last words to her. “Take care of yourself.” Did that mean he had no intention of trying to save her from the lecherous Angel? She was on her own? She finished her coffee, setting her lips exactly where Dean’s had been. “You can have the last chocolate croissant,” she told Angel. He didn’t hesitate to polish it off.

  With his mouth still full of crumbs, he said with no trace of a Spanish accent, “Thanks for the breakfast and dinner last night, Stacy. I think we got the script all worked out. I’ll do a great job for you.”

  “One thing, no more hand up the skirt. I want Dean to notice me, not ruin his career.”

  “Whatever you want, boss. Man, that dude is even bigger and better looking up close. I know he wanted to bust my chops, I was that convincing. Glad he has no anger management issues, then all this glory would be ruined.” Angel framed his angular face with his long fingers for a moment before getting up and heading off to another audition. “See you Saturday.”

  Stacy watched his skinny ass sway down the street. He was so not her type, but she’d go dancing with him and hope Dean showed up to prevent her from making a big mistake. In the meantime, she could sleep with that football she kept under her bed—once she got Ilsa the hell out of her room. She swore they’d find a place today for the new employee and eliminate her as a further temptation for Dean, party pooper or not.

  Chapter Eight

  Not a bad week, all things considered. Sure, it started out with that close encounter involving Angel Garcia and moved on to a light reprimand about hesitating on the first play and giving the football to the family. After that, hard practices because the always-important Falcons game lurked ahead on Sunday afternoon. That kept him tired enough to sleep well without any thoughts of Stacy.

  Dean adjusted his striped silk tie in the mirror and asked Tom, who lounged nearby stabbing his finger at the screen of his cell phone, “You got the address? You know where Angel is taking Stacy tonight?”

  “Paco’s. It’s a few blocks into the Treme. Xochi says they already left, and Stacy dressed really hot for the date. The good news, Angel doesn’t have a record.”

  “He said he’d never been caught. He’s taking her back of town. That’s a-a…”

  Ever the diplomat, Tom filled in the blank. “Was racially-mixed neighborhood the word you wanted?”

  “Yes. I know nice people live there and some great musicians, but it can be dangerous. We need to get going before anything can happen to her.”

  Tom looked him up and down. “You don’t want to shave first? That makes twice this week you’ve skipped.”

  “What are you—my fashion consultant or gay like Uncle Brian?”

  “Brian would probably do a better job on this, but tonight all you have is me, your very straight brother. I’d lose the jacket and tie and try to blend in a little better. How about that tropical shirt Adam Malala gave you? Take off the Rolex, too. No use tempting anyone.”

  Dean ditched the watch on his dresser top and reluctantly found the short-sleeved shirt bearing a print of parrots and big leaves on a pale yellow background in the back of the closet. He shucked his blue sports coat, tie and dress shirt. Bare-chested, he held up the Samoan attire. “Loud parrots will help me blend in—right?”

  “It depresses me that you make that shirt look so good. Put it on, but don’t tuck it in. I think the black pants are okay and the loafers since they don’t have tassels. I need to change, too. Only be a minute.”

  Tom reappeared shortly wearing a short-sleeved Kelly green shirt that made him appear to be kin to a leprechaun. Dean wore the damned parrots and summoned the truck they’d shared when both became old enough to drive from valet parking. Since it was all about fitting in, he left behind the massive red SUV and the black Mustang GT convertible he’d craved since a movie star showed up at the ranch driving a red one when he’d been around seventeen. Signing bonuses were good for many things including getting the car you always wanted without the approval of parents who didn’t believe in spoiling their children.

  Dean decided to drive and let Tom navigate with the GPS on his phone. They went south on Canal, rounded the casino, and crawled along in the traffic by the riverfront. Passing the French Market, they swung onto Esplanade with its restored nineteenth century Creole mansions and pleasantly green neutral ground. As they approached its border with the Treme, however, the houses grew smaller and shabbier. Closed shops with broken windows occupied the corners farther from the French Quarter.

  “Turn right at the next street,” Tom said. “Go three blocks in, then another right turn. Paco’s is in the middle of the block.”

  Dean completed these maneuvers overshooting Paco’s with its name in orange neon and a t
ilted margarita glass displayed on the sign. He wedged the truck into the first parking place they found, and they retraced their path back to the club. Like many nightspots, the two large front windows in its brick façade were blacked out making it impossible to see inside, but people standing on the curb could feel the beat of the fast-paced Latin music being played behind its walls.

  Dean and Tom entered the shabby front door and stood just inside allowing their eyes to adjust to the dimness. Along one side, a bar with huge drums of icy margaritas, strawberry daiquiris, and pina coladas swirling in the wall offered these drinks in thick, oversized glasses along with a selection of Mexican beers. Dozens of piñatas hung from the low ceiling—traditional orbs, burros, pigs, cactus, even a ninja turtle, some with their sides bashed in, a true fire marshal’s nightmare of papier-mâché. A few of them grazed Dean’s head as he wove around the crowded tables and homed in on the music coming from a courtyard.

  The band huddled under a shed-like structure toward the rear, protection for their marimbas and maracas if a sudden storm blew up in the moody New Orleans weather. The dance floor glowed with brilliant tiles of orange, green, and turquoise set between two wings, one with a takeout window dispensing tacos and nachos, and the other housing the restrooms. Colored light bulbs crisscrossed the open space and twined their way down two palm trees on either side of the band’s shelter.

  In the midst of it all, Stacy, standing a head taller than most of the dancers, swung her hips to the rhythm of a samba. She wore hot pink, low-cut and ruffled around her cleavage dewy from her exertions. Her skirt, above her knees, wasn’t tight at all and moved gracefully with her motion. She held up her loose blonde hair with one hand as if to cool her long, white neck, and silvery bangle bracelets jangled down her pale arm.

  Around her slithered Angel Garcia all dressed in tight, slinky black showing off his fancy footwork, the snake-like movements of his pelvis, some chest hair, and a few gold chains. When he noticed Dean, hard to miss in a shorter crowd, he slid behind Stacy, put his long fingers around her waist, ground against her backside, and whispered in her ear. Her blue eyes half-closed as if enchanted—or drugged—opened. She smiled dreamily Dean’s way. Good thing he’d gotten here in time before Angel dragged her off to some ratty motel and had his way with her. Angel kissed her nape.