Out of the Easy(83)

“Yeah, on a date. Once it’s finished and running.”

“Who cares if it’s running? We can be like Ray and Frieda and pretend we’re driving.” I leaned back in the seat. “Where are we going on our date?”

“To Swindell Hollow,” he replied without hesitation.

“Where’s that?”

“It’s where I’m from, in Alabama.”

So we drove to Swindell Hollow. The quiet was blissful, Jesse quiet. I laid my head back and closed my eyes. I imagined the two-lane highway rolling under the tires and the breeze sliding in through the open window, lifting the ends of my hair. I felt New Orleans pass behind us, the gray net lifting, the sky becoming lighter, the trees greener.

“I owe you an apology,” I finally said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I started in about the debt to Carlos Marcello. Jesse took his hands off the wheel and turned to me. “I kinda know all about it,” he said. “Willie told me when I worked on her car. She was waiting for you to come to her. But you didn’t.”

“So you know all about it. I feel silly,” I said.

“Don’t feel silly. Just tell me something I don’t know.”

“Hmm, let’s see. Did you know that the day I saw you with your friends, I was on my way to earn fifteen hundred dollars from that sleaze John Lockwell? Well, I chickened out, threw my shoes at him, and pulled a gun on him instead.”

“I didn’t like those shoes,” said Jesse.

“Oh, and did you know that I met that Memphis tourist the day he died in the Quarter? He came into the bookshop and bought two books. He was so kind and nice I created him as my make-believe hero dad. Did you know that?”

Jesse shook his head.

“What else . . . oh, and then I found his wristwatch under my mom’s bed and for some strange reason became completely attached to it. The night you saw me at the river, I wasn’t there to meet Patrick. I was going to throw the watch in and sink it. But then I couldn’t and broke down and cried. So I buried it out at Shady Grove, even though the police were looking for it.”

I peeked at Jesse, expecting disgust or shock. He just nodded.

“Next, I bet you didn’t know that I got a big fat rejection letter from Smith. And instead of inviting me to be a student, they attached a letter from some spinster writer who’s asking me to come clean her house in Northampton.”

Jesse perked up.

“That’s humiliating, but not as humiliating as my new friend Charlotte finding out from her cousin here in New Orleans that she’s invited the daughter of a prostitute to her summer home in the Berkshires.”

I took a breath and looked at Jesse. “God, that felt so good.”

He slid over toward me.

“Yeah? You likin’ Alabama so far?”

“Loving Alabama.” Thousands of pounds lifted from my shoulders and flew out the window of Jesse’s car.

“Is that all you got?” asked Jesse.

“Nope. Here’s one to add to the humiliation pile. Not only am I the daughter of a prostitute, I’m named after one. Josie Arlington, brothel madam, had a five-dollar house on Basin Street. For an extra fee, she offered some kind of French sex circus. And I’m named after her.”

“Ding!” Jesse hit a nonexistent bell in front of us. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a match. The two kids both have hand-me-down names of the ill repute.” Jesse turned to me. “But actually, I win. You’re named after a madam. I’m named after a murderer. So mine’s worse.”

My mouth fell open.

“Yeah, my criminal of a father named me Jesse, after Jesse James. Told me to grow up a good outlaw and live up to my name. I tell ya, I really hope that my father never meets your mother.”

“Have you ever thought of changing your name?”

“Nah, Jesse Thierry is who I am.”

“I want to change mine. Willie said I should change my last name.”

“Last name might be a good idea, but don’t change Josie,” he said.

“No?”

“Nope.” He fiddled with a knob on the dash. “I like the way it feels when I say it.”

The cuff on Jesse’s white dress shirt was open at the wrist. I reached for it and slowly began folding it back. He stared at my hands as they touched his forearm. My fingers didn’t ball into a fist, just trailed lightly up and down his skin. He looked at me. I looked right back.

“Okay,” I said. “Your turn. What don’t I know about Jesse Thierry?”

“What don’t you know?” Jesse slid his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “Maybe that I really wanna kiss you right now.”





FIFTY-EIGHT


“We don’t have a choice. Willie’s attorney has requested us. He has questions,” I said.

“Well, it makes me nervous,” said Cokie. “I don’t want to go sittin’ with no lawyer rattlin’ ’bout Willie. Willie never liked no one talkin’ ’bout her business, and I ain’t about to start now, even if she gone. So I’m not sayin’ nothin’. We’ll let Sadie do all the talkin’.”

Sadie reached forward from the back of the cab and swatted Cokie across the side of the head. Sadie was nervous too. She and Cokie both had their church clothes on and had been bickering since we got in the cab. I was more than nervous, but not about the attorney. The law office was in the Hibernia Bank Building, one floor below John Lockwell’s office. Just the thought of him brought bile to the back of my throat. I had pushed the meeting with the attorney back two weeks but couldn’t delay it any longer.