Voodoo River

W e drove directly to the airport. Jodi bought the last remaining first class seat on a flight readying to leave the gate. They held the plane. Can't just fly away and leave America's sweetheart holding her bag.

Jodi said, 'Call me whenever you want. The pickups should only take a few days, and then I'll come back.'

'Sure.'

She gave me a kiss, and then she was gone. A businessman with a receding hairline watched Jodi get on the plane. 'Say, podnuh, that who I think it is?'

'Who'd you think it was?'

'That one on TV. The singer.'

I shook my head. 'Nope.'

As I walked back through the terminal, I felt alone and at loose ends and overly aware that Lucy Chenier was only a short drive away. Of course, Lucy seem particularly interested in my proximity, but that didn't make it any easier. I tried not thinking about her. I thought, instead, that perhaps I should do something exciting to clear my head. With a clear head, I could probably think of a way to help Edith Boudreaux, which was, of course, what I was being paid to do. Also, something exciting would probably make it easier to not think about Lucy.

It was twenty-three minutes after seven, and there were exactly six people in the terminal besides me. A man of action is ever resourceful, however, and one's options are limited only by one's imagination. Hmm. I could hike up to the levee and shoot rats, but that would be noisy and one probably needed a rat-shooting permit. Difficult to obtain. Okay, I could scale the outside of the state's thirty-two-story capitol building then paraglide onto the Huey Long Bridge, but where would I get the parasail? Rent-a-chute was probably closed, too. Elvis Cole, this is your life!

I drove to the Riverfront Ho-Jo, checked in yet again, then ordered a turkey sandwich from room service, and went up to my room. Twenty minutes later I was eating the sandwich when the phone rang. I said, 'Diminished expectations. Elvis Cole speaking.'

Lucy Chenier said, 'If that was a play on Great Expectations, it's too obscure.'

I said, 'Hi.' My heart speeded up and my palms went damp. We are often not as tough as we make out to be.

Lucy said, 'I want to apologize for the way I acted. I'd like a chance to explain.'

'It's not necessary.'

'Jodi phoned me from the plane. She told me a little of what's going on, and, as before, she asked me to assist you in anyway possible.' She sounded mechanical, as if she were nervous.

'All right.'

Lucy didn't say anything for a moment, and I wondered if the line had gone dead. Then she said, 'I'm making dinner. If you'd like, you could join me and we could talk about these things.'

'That would be very nice. Thank you.'

'Do you remember the way?'

'Of course.'

There was another pause before she said, 'Then I'll see you soon.'

'Yes.'

'Good-bye.'

I hung up and stared at the phone. Well, well. I threw away what was left of the turkey, took a quick shower, then talked the bartender in the hotel bar into selling me a bottle of merlot and a bottle of Chardonnay for three times what they were worth. I made it to Lucy's in fourteen minutes. Try getting across Los Angeles in fourteen minutes. You'd need a Klingon battle cruiser.

Lucy's neighborhood was quiet, and her home was well lit and inviting. The same man and woman were walking the pinto Akita. I parked in the drive behind Lucy's Lexus, and nodded at them. The woman said, 'It's such a lovely night.'

I said, 'Yes. It is, isn't it?'

Lucy answered the door in jeans and a soft red jersey top and dangling turquoise earrings, and I thought in that moment that I had never before been in the presence of a woman who looked so lovely. My heart pounded, hard and with great intensity. She said, 'I'm glad that you could come.'

I held up the bottles. 'I didn't know what we were having.'

She smiled and looked at the labels. 'Oh, these are wonderful. Thank you.'

She showed me into the kitchen. The kitchen was bright, but only a single light burned in the family room, and Janis Ian was on the stereo. Lucy and her home and the atmosphere within it seemed to have a kind of hyperreality, as if I had stepped into a photograph featured in Better Homes amp; Gardens, and I wondered how much of it was real and how much was just me. I said, 'It smells terrific.'

'I have rumaki in the oven for an appetizer, and I'm making roast duck with black cherry sauce for dinner. I hope that's okay.'

I said, 'Wow.'

'I was having a glass of wine. Would you join me?' A bottle of Johannesburg Riesling was on the counter near a mostly empty wineglass. The bottle was mostly empty, too.

'Please.'

'Why don't we save your wine for dinner and have the Riesling now.'

'Sounds good.' She seemed to be moving as carefully around me as I was around her.

I opened the merlot to let it breathe while she brought out another glass and poured. I said, 'Is there anything I can do to help?'

'Everything's done except for the cherry sauce. Why don't you sit at the counter and bring me up to date about Jodi while I do that.'

Lucy opened a can of black pitted cherries and poured them into a saucepan with lemon juice and port and a lot of sugar, and then put the pan over a low fire. I told her how I had given Jodi the tour of Eunice and Ville Platte and how Jodi had introduced herself to Edith Boudreaux and what had happened when they met. Lucy nodded every once in a while and frowned when I got to the part about Jodi steaming into Edith's dress shop while there were customers, but mostly she sipped at her wine and concentrated on her cherry sauce. Nervous, I thought. Distracted. She finished her glass of wine and refilled it and added a drop to mine. The Riesling bottle was empty, and I'd only had one glass. I wondered how long she'd been working at it. I said, 'I think the rumaki's burning.'

She said, 'Oh, damn,' and took the rumaki from the oven. The rumaki were little bits of water chestnut wrapped in bacon and held together with toothpicks. The toothpicks were black and smoking, and a couple of the rumaki were overdone, but mostly they were fine. She put them on the stove.

I said, 'I like them like that.'

She smiled lamely and had another belt of the wine.

I said, 'Are you okay?'

She put down the wineglass and looked at me. She'd been working at it, all right. 'I really like you.'

Something clutched in my stomach. 'I like you too.'

She nodded and looked at the rumaki. She began taking them off the cooking pan and arranging them on a serving plate. I was breathing faster, and I tried to take it easy and slow the breathing. 'Lucy?'

She finished arranging the rumaki and put the little plate on the counter between us. She said, 'Would you please eat one of these things and tell me that it's wonderful.'

I ate one. 'They're wonderful.'

She did not look happy.

'They're great. I mean it.'

She drank more wine. I was breathing so fast that I thought my head might fill with blood and explode. I put my hand across the counter and she put her hand into mine. I said, 'It's okay.'

She shook her head.

I said, 'It's going to be fine.'

She took her hand back and walked across the big kitchen, and then she came back again. She put both hands