and sweet olive, hot nights, hot jazz, hot women-lay at the bottom of the Mississippi like a tarnished piece of jewelry. In a city noted for its individuality, the Blue Choctaw managed to remain common. Gray and dingy, with a pair of neon beer signs that flickered painfully in
a window dulled by exhaust fumes, the Blue Choctaw could have been located near the seediest part of any American city-near the docks, the mills, the river, skirting the ghetto. It bumped up to the bad side, the never- after-dark, littered sidewalks, broken street lamps, no-good-girls-allowed part of town.
The Blue Choctaw had a particular aversion to good girls. Even the women the men had left at home weren't all that good, and the men sure as hell didn't want to find better ones sitting on the red vinyl bar stools next to them. They wanted to find girls like Bonni and Cleo, semi-hookers who wore strong perfume and red lipstick, who talked tough and thought tough and helped a man forget that Jimmy Asshole Carter was sure enough going to get himself elected President and give all the good jobs to the niggers.
Bonni twirled the yellow plastic sword in her mai-tai and peered through the noisy crowd at her friend
and rival Cleo Reznyak, who was shoving her tits up against Tony Grasso as he pushed a quarter in the jukebox and punched in C-24. There was a mean mood in the smoky air of the Blue Choctaw that night, meaner than usual, although Bonni didn't try to put her finger on its source. Maybe it was the sticky heat that wouldn't let go; maybe it was the fact that Bonni had turned thirty the week before and the last of her illusions had just about disappeared. She knew she wasn't smart, wasn't pretty enough to get by on her looks, and she didn't have the energy to improve herself. She was living in a broken-down trailer park, answering the telephone at Gloria's Hair Beautiful, and it wasn't going to get any better.
For a girl like Bonni, the Blue Choctaw represented a shot at the good times, a few laughs, the occasional big spender who would pick up the tab for her mai-tais, take her to bed, and leave a fifty-dollar bill on the dresser next morning. One of those big spenders was sitting at the other end of the bar… with his eye on Cleo.
She and Cleo had an agreement. They stood together against any newcomers who tried to sink their butts too comfortably onto the Blue Choctaw's bar stools, and they didn't poach on each other's territory. Still, the spender at the bar tempted Bonni. He had a big belly and arms strong enough to show that he held a steady job, maybe working on one of the offshore drilling rigs-a man out for a good time. Cleo had been getting more than her fair share of men lately, including Tony Grasso, and Bonni was tired of it.
'Hi,' she said, wandering over and sliding up on the stool next to him. 'You're new around here, aren't you?'
He looked her over, taking in her carefully arranged heimet of sprayed blond hair, her plum eye shadow, and deep, full breasts. As he nodded, Bonni could see him forgetting about Cleo.
'Been in Biloxi the last few years,' he replied. 'What're you drinking?'
She gave him a kittenish smile. 'I'm partial to mai-tais.' After he gestured toward the bartender for her drink, she crossed her legs. 'My ex-husband spent some time in Biloxi. I don't suppose you ran into him? A cheap son of a bitch named Ryland.'
He shook his head-didn't know anybody by that name -and moved his arm so that it brushed along
the side of her tits. Bonni decided they were going to get along fine, and she turned her body just far enough so she didn't have to see the accusing expression in Cleo's eyes.
An hour later the two of them had it out in the little girls' room. Cleo bitched for a while, jerking a comb through her tough black hair and then tightening the posts on her best pair of fake ruby earrings. Bonni apologized and said she hadn't known Cleo was interested.
Cleo studied her suspiciously. 'You know I'm getting tired of Tony. All he does is complain about his wife. Shit, I haven't had a good laugh out of him in weeks.'
'The guy at the bar-his name's Pete-he's not much for laughs either,' Bonnie admitted. She pulled a vial of Tabu from her purse and generously sprayed herself. 'This place sure is going to hell.'
Cleo fixed her mouth and then stepped back to scrutinize her work. 'You said it there, honey.'
'Maybe we should go up north. Up to Chicago or someplace.'
'I been thinking about St. Louis. Someplace where the fucking men aren't all married.'
It was a topic they'd discussed many times, and they continued to discuss it as they left the ladies' room, weighing the advantages of the oil boom in Houston, the climate in Los Angeles, the money in New York, and knowing all the time they'd never leave New Orleans.
The two women pushed through the group of men congregated near the bar, their eyes busy, no longer paying attention to each other even though they continued to talk. As they searched out their prey, Bonni began to realize something had changed. Everything seemed quieter, although the bar was still full, people were talking, and the jukebox blared out 'Ruby.' Then she noticed that a lot of heads were turning toward the doorway.
Pinching Cleo hard on the arm, she nodded her head. 'Over there,' she said.
Cleo looked in the direction Bonni had indicated and came to a sudden stop. 'Kee-rist.'
They hated her on sight. She was everything they weren't-a woman right off the fashion pages, beautiful as a New York model, even in a pair of jeans; expensive-looking, stylish, and snooty, with an expression on her face like she'd just smelled something bad, and they were it. She was the kind of woman who didn't belong anywhere near a place like the Blue Choctaw, a hostile invader who made them feel ugly, cheap, and worn out. And then they saw the two men they'd left not ten minutes earlier walking right toward her.
Bonni and Cleo looked at each other for a moment before they headed in the same direction, their eyes narrowed, their stomachs bitter with determination.
Francesca remained oblivious to their approach as she searched the hostile environment of the Blue Choctaw with an uneasy gaze, concentrating all her attention on trying to peer through the thick smoke and press of bodies to catch sight of Skeet Cooper. A tiny, apprehensive muscle quivered at her temple, and her palms were damp. Never had she felt so out of her element as she did in this seedy New Orleans bar.
The sound of raucous laughter and too-loud music attacked her ears. She felt hostile eyes inspecting her, and she gripped her small Vuitton cosmetic case more tightly, trying not to remember that it contained all she had left in the world. She tried to blot out the memory of the horrible places the taxi driver had taken her, each one more repulsive than the last, and none of them bearing the slightest resemblance to the resale shop in Piccadilly where the clerks wore gently used designer originals and served tea to their customers. She had thought it such a good idea to sell her clothes; she hadn't imagined she would end up in some dreadful pawnshop parting with her suitcase and the rest of her wardrobe for three hundred and fifty dollars just so she could pay her taxi fare and have enough money left to survive on for another few days until she got hold of Nicky. A Louis Vuitton suitcase full of designer originals let go for three hundred and fifty dollars! She couldn't spend two nights at a really good hotel for that amount.
'Hi, honey.'
Francesca jumped as two disreputable-looking men came up to her, one with a stomach that strained the buttons of his plaid shirt, the other a greasy-looking character with enlarged pores.
'You look like you could use a drink,' the heavy one said.
'Me and my new buddy Tony here'd be happy to buy you a couple of mai-tais.'
'No, thank you,' she replied, looking anxiously about for Skeet. Why wasn't he here? A needle-sharp shower of resentment pricked at her. Why hadn't Dallie given her the name of his motel instead of forcing her to stand in the doorway of this horrible place, the name of which she'd barely been able to dredge up after spending twenty minutes poring over a telephone book? The fact that she needed to find him had printed itself indelibly in her brain while she was making another series of fruitless calls to London trying to locate Nicky or David Graves or one of her other former companions, all of whom seemed to be out
of town, recently married, or not taking her calls.
Two tough-faced women sidled up to the men in front of her, their hostility evident. The blonde leaned into the man with the stomach. 'Hey, Pete. Let's dance.'
Pete didn't take his eyes off Francesca. 'Later, Bonni.'
'I wanna dance now,' Bonni insisted, her mouth hard.
Pete's gaze slithered over Francesca. 'I said later. Dance with Tony.'
'Tony's dancin' with me,' the black-haired woman said, curling short purple fingernails over the other man's hairy arm. 'Come on, baby.'
'Go away, Cleo.' Shaking off the purple fingernails, Tony pressed his hand on the wall just next to Francesca's head and leaned toward her. 'You new in town? I don't remember seeing you around here before.'
