“Fine,” the little boy replied. He had a burr haircut and eyes that were mere slits, as though his face had not been fully formed.
“I blame myself for what happened in the restaurant in New Orleans,” Pierre said. “I got involved in some business dealings that had consequences I didn’t foresee. That’s my fault and not yours. I think you’re quite a woman, Miss Gretchen. I’d like to know you better.”
“You’re serious?”
“How many times does a guy meet a one-woman army?” He held his gaze on hers. “At least think about it. What’s to lose? You’ve already shown what you can do if a fellow gets out of line.”
Something was changed about him, she thought, though she couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe it was his hair. It looked freshly washed and blow-dried. Or was it his eyes? They were free of scorn and arrogance. Also, he seemed genuinely happy.
“Is Mr. Dupree treating you all right, Gus?” she said to the little boy.
“We went to the carnival in Lafayette. We went to the zoo, too,” Gus replied.
“How about it?” Dupree said.
“How about what?” she said.
“Having lunch with me and Gus. Then I have to get him back home. It’s a beautiful day.” Again, his eyes lingered on hers. They were warm and seemed free of guile. “Have you ever modeled?”
“Sure, steroid ads when I rode with Dykes on Bikes.”
“Stop it,” he said.
He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. She gazed down the street, her chin raised slightly, her pulse fluttering in her throat.
“I’d love to get you on canvas,” he said. “Come on, have lunch and we’ll talk about it. I’m no Jasper Johns, but I’m not bad at what I do.”
“Sorry, no cigar,” she said.
“I’m disappointed. Keep me in mind, will you? You’re a pistol, Miss Gretchen.”
Her face and palms were tingling as she watched him drive away, the paint job on his Humvee as bright as a yellow jacket in the sunlight. Dammit, she thought. Dammit, dammit, dammit.
25
After supper on Wednesday evening, Alafair received a call on her cell phone from Gretchen Horowitz. “Take a ride with me,” she said.
Alafair shut and opened her eyes and wondered how she could hide the reluctance she felt in her chest. “Now?” she said.
“I need your advice.”
“About what?”
“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”
“I was thinking of taking a walk in a few minutes.”
“Your father doesn’t want you around me?”
“It creates certain kinds of conflicts for him, Gretchen. Be realistic.”
“I bought a whole bunch of film equipment. I’m going to make the documentary on the 1940s music revue.”
“That’s not why you called.”
“I’ll be parked by the drawbridge on Burke Street. If you don’t feel like talking with me, don’t worry about it.”
“Gretchen-”
Minutes later, Alafair walked past the Shadows and the old brick building that had been a Buick agency and was now a law office. She turned up the street that fed onto the drawbridge and saw Gretchen’s chopped-down pickup parked by the corner, its exposed chrome-plated engine gleaming in the twilight. Gretchen got out on the sidewalk. “Thanks for coming,” she said.
“What’s the trouble?” Alafair said.
“Something happened today. I’m a little mixed up about it. You want a drink?”
“No. Tell me what it is.”
“I saw Pierre Dupree take a crippled child into the Catholic church in Broussard this morning. He saw me watching him and pulled into my driveway. He invited me to lunch.”
A pleasure boat loaded with revelers emerged from under the bridge and passed the old convent and hospital on the opposite side of the bayou. They were holding balloons and smiling, and their expressions seemed garish and surreal among the balloons. “You’re not going to say anything?” Gretchen asked.
“Did you go with him?”
“No.”
“I think you made a wise choice,” Alafair said.
Gretchen folded her arms on her chest and looked at the diners eating and drinking in the courtyard behind Clementine’s. There were white cloths and candles that flickered inside glass vessels on the dining tables, and the candles made shadows on the banana plants that grew along the restaurant’s walls.
“I called the church,” Gretchen said. “Pierre-”
“Pierre?”
“That’s his name, isn’t it? He not only paid for the crippled boy’s tuition, he set up a scholarship fund.”
“Don’t be taken in by this guy,” Alafair said.
“He had no way of knowing I’d see him at the church with the little boy.”
“I think something else is going on with you, Gretchen. You’re having second thoughts about your own life, and you want to believe that people can be redeemed. Pierre Dupree is no good.”
“Where do you get all this knowledge about what goes on in other people’s heads?”
“Sometimes I want to believe certain things for reasons I don’t want to accept,” Alafair said.
“You’re talking about me, not you, right? Don’t start that twelve-step psychobabble with me.”
“If you want to have lunch with him, do it,” Alafair said.
Gretchen’s face was flushed, her eyes moving from the bayou to the diners in the courtyard to the drawbridge, without seeming to see any of it. “You’re supposed to be my friend. I came to you for advice, nobody else.”
“Some people have to work at being assholes. That’s not true of Pierre Dupree. He was born one.”
“Explain to me how he knew I’d see him with the crippled boy.”
“He’s afraid of you. He knows what happened to Jesse Leboeuf. He doesn’t want to end up in a bathtub with a bullet in his brisket.”
“You’re saying I killed Leboeuf? You know that for a fact?”
“No, I don’t know anything. I don’t want to, either.”
“That’s a chickenshit attitude.”
“What other attitude can I have? You ask me for advice, then you argue about it.”
“The 1940s revue is this weekend. I thought you’d be there with me.”
“I’m trying to make some headway on my new novel.”
“You and Clete are the only two people I ever thought of as friends.”
“I think Pierre Dupree will hurt you. You’re not being honest with yourself. You’re about to let a bad man use you. The worst thing we can do to ourselves is to help other people injure us. The feeling of shame never goes away.”
“Anything else you want to say?”
“Yeah, I think it’s going to rain.”
Gretchen widened her eyes, her face hot and bright in the sunset. “I won’t call you again,” she said. “I’m really angry right now and having thoughts I don’t like to think.”
