Cold Bullets and Hot Babes. Arlette Lees
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was no dummy. He knew that sang meant blood. Blood Bayou?
He speculated on the contents of the envelopes. Some were addressed to Rémy Devereaux and a few to Pierre Marquet, Rt. 3, Bayou Sang. He could rip them open for the hell of it, check for cash, then scatter the letters along the roadside.
He’d been running on empty for about seven miles or so. He tapped the odometer but it had crapped out on him. He pulled into the first station he came to even though it looked like a throwback to the 1930s with its rusty pumps and a sign that hung from one hinge. The bony attendant shuffled out in baggy overalls, pumped his gas and cleaned the bugs off the windshield. He looked as if he’d blown in from the Dust Bowl.
“That’ll be eighty bucks, Mr. Marquet.”
Eighty fuckin’ bucks! That brought him back to the twenty first century. After doling out the cash he only had ten bucks left from the heist. And there it was again, someone thinking he was this Pierre Marquet fellow.
He checked the map that was taped to the office window. The turn-off to Bayou Sang was only three miles up the road, not a town really, but a large swampy district. The mail would be a perfect excuse to pay this guy a visit. He could case the joint while he was there, maybe come back in the night and rip something off.
The dirt track that cut through the swamp was almost impassable. Trees blocked the sun creating perpetual twilight. Jeeter clanked over potholes, dodged razor-sharp cypress knees and slid in places where the swamp had swallowed the road.
Eight maybe ten miles down the road and he hadn’t seen one house, not even a shack, just an occasional pirogue gathering moss at the water’s edge. Strange animal sounds emanated from the shadows. The engine light went on. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all, risking his tires, running out his gas. He was about to turn around when he came to a dented mailbox in front of a clearing. DEVERE had been slopped on the side with black paint before the artistic genius ran out of space.
He swung the truck into a large yard of swept dirt in front of an unpainted house of cypress boards. The back deck straddled the bayou on stilts and pecan and willow trees shaded the roof. He’d expected a third world hovel of some kind but this was actually pretty damn nice.
By the time he’d switched off the engine the truck was surrounded by a noisy pack of redbone hounds. A man at work in a tomato patch dropped his shovel and picked up a shotgun that was leaning against a shed. He strode over, his gnarled bare feet kicking up the dust. He gave the dogs a few casual kicks. They let out a yelp or two and crawled under the porch, disappointed at having missed the opportunity of tearing Jeeter limb from limb.
Jeeter opened the truck door, climbed out and extended his hand.
“I’m Jeeter Tate,” he said.
The moment they touched hands a jolt of electricity zapped across the synapse between them. They were a mirror image of one another right down to the black hair and paler than pale blue eyes. The noses were the same, the cheekbones, the planes of the forehead. The only difference Jeet could see was that the Cajun had managed to hang on to all of his teeth.
“Mon dieu!” said Pierre.
“Holy shit!” said Jeeter.
Pierre leaned into Jeeter’s face like an entomologist examining a bug under glass, judging the stranger to be a strikingly handsome replica of himself.
Jeeter slapped his knee and laughed. “I guess everyone does have an identical twin,” he said. “Looks like we’ve found ours.”
“Qui sont vous, mon ami?” said Pierre.
“Sorry, compadre, I don’t speak the lingo.” He reached inside his jacket and handed Pierre the mail. “There’s also some stuff here for a Mr. Devereaux.”
“Oui, poor Uncle Rémy.” The Cajun spoke English but it was obviously his second language. “He was visiting in New Orleans when Katrina hit. That was over a month ago and we haven’t heard a word.”
“Well, he’s probably a goner,” said Jeet.
Pierre yelled toward the house.
“Suzette, get out here.”
The woman who pushed through the screen door held a fluffy white dog under her arm. She had a doe-eyed angel face, her long wavy hair was like soft black smoke. She did a double take when she saw Jeeter.
“My God, Pierre, he could be your identical twin!” Her English was far better than her brothers like maybe she’d had some schooling. Third grade. Maybe fourth.
“Jeeter Tate, ma’am.” If he’d had a hat he would have tipped it. “Just call me Jeet,” he said. Oh baby, call me anything, call me a dog and I’ll lick your toes and work my way up.
“My sister,” said Pierre. Jeeter was praying he wouldn’t hear the ‘wife’ word.
Woo! Woo! Woo! Things were sure looking up for old Jeet.
He figured her age between fourteen and twenty. He was never very good when it came to guessing. Her simple cotton shift was sheer from too many washings and what didn’t show through the thin fabric was implied in the way it clung to every curve and crevice of her nubile body. She peeked at him through a lock of hair. Her look was sweet and smoldering.
Woo! Woo! Woo! thought Jeet. I’ve died and gone to heaven.
Pierre caught the intimate exchange and let out a full-throated whoop of laughter.
A couple hounds started scrabbling among the tomato plants. Pierre cursed in French and raised the shotgun.
“Don’t shoot!” yelled Jeet without thinking. The gun went off with a deafening bang that left his ears ringing. The shot whizzed over the dog’s heads as they bounded for the trees. Pierre laughed and gave him a good-natured slap on the back.
“Come, mon ami,” he said. “We have plenty of chicken and dirty rice on the stove.”
Jeeter would have eaten horse shit if it meant getting closer to Suzette. When they entered the house, Pierre set his shotgun inside the door. Jeeter wasn’t quite sure what he thought of the guy but he felt a lot safer once the Cajun’s finger was off the trigger.
They ate at a picnic table on the deck above the swamp. Free-range chickens picked at the cooked rice Suzette scattered on the boards. It was the first decent meal Jeeter had had in days. Afterward they relaxed in lounge chairs. Reeds and water lilies grew along the water’s edge. If it weren’t for the damn mosquitoes it would have been the Garden of Fuckin’ Eden. He could sure get used to a life like this. Charleen and the boys already seemed like a mistake from another lifetime.
Jeeter caught Suzette’s eye and moved his chair closer to hers. She lifted her knee and he watched her skirt flutter upward toward her hips. Her golden skin glowed in the ambient humidity and the pungent scent of arousal hung in the air. Pierre grew silent, smoked a dark cigarette that looked French or Turkish and looked on with a combination of wariness and amusement. Jeet wished he could read his mind but the French don’t let you know what they’re really thinking.
“What if your beau decided to drop in at this very moment?” he asked.
“Sheriff DuBois?” said Suzette. Jeeter’s stomach roiled. Sheriff’s carried guns. He didn’t like the sound of that. After all, meddling with another man’s woman was how he lost his teeth. “Until he pops the question I’m free to do as I please.” She smiled and looked at the stranger who wore her brother’s face, his hair, his pale blue eyes. There was something dangerous about him, territory as yet unexplored. She felt the visceral pull of consanguinity, both forbidden and irresistible.
A pair of huge golden eyes broke the surface of the water at the edge of the deck and the spell was broken. Jeeter sat bolt upright.
“What the hell is that?”
Pierre looked at him as if he were from another planet.
“It’s just an alligator,” said Pierre.