Page 104 of Bourbon & Blood

I chuckled again, not sure what was up, the girl talkin’ me in circles, but if I’d said something to make her happy? Well, then, I was all for it.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT

A FEW WEEKS LATER

Alina…

Life returned to a sort of new normal that contained what still felt like a gaping and raw wound in the center of my chest with the lack of Maya in it.

Her funeral had been swift, and small, and while I’d been allowed to go – having to stand side by side with her fucking monster of a father as they’d slid her casket into the vault next to her mamma’s made me both furious and sick.

La Croix had lurked nearby, and I’d almost wished he would just shoot him – I mean, I didn’t really, because that would almost ensure he would go to prison and I’d never see him again andthatI most certainlydid notwant… but it didn’t stop me from all manner of violently righteous daydreaming of all sorts of painful and bloody vengeance.

“Get me out of here,” I murmured, as soon as I’d gotten back to him, after crossing the cemetery to where he’d waited for me, sitting on his bike and smoking a joint without a care. The only thing that had kept me in line through the graveside service was knowing he was there. Was knowing that his eyes were on me and that sense of strength he telegraphed through the muggy New Orleans summer day in my direction.

It was such a deep sense that he poured strength into my empty cup in such a steady stream I almost worried hemustbe getting tired… but not La Croix. No, he seemed to have an endless reserve to lend me; but still I felt guilty about being such a black hole sometimes.

I’d returned to work at the bar after only two days. I wanted to get out of La Croix’s way so that he could do his thing but at the same time, I feared sitting idle. It was those times I found myself with little to nothing to do that were the hardest for me.

La Croix, to his credit, had gone back to his day job himself. Though he didn’t much like me riding the bus to work – he grudgingly relented on it. Still, it didn’t matter how late it was that I got out of the bar. He was always there waiting to take me back home.

Then there was tonight… and the first time he wasn’t. Instead, Louie waited outside the door for me and I perked up just a bit.

I waved goodbye to Mike and Sandra, and as soon as they were far enough up the sidewalk I turned to Louie and asked quietly, “Is it finally happening?”

He looked at me and looked markedly uncomfortable when he said, “Ms. Lina, now you know I can’t tell you that.”

I sighed and nodded, “No, I know, you’re right,” I said. “I just want them to pay so bad.”

He gave me a wan smile and put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me tight.

“I know, and if I’m here and the boss ain’t, then you know it’s only ‘cause he’s doin’ something mighty important, yeah?”

I smiled and looked up and gave Louie a nod.

“I know,” I said and then asked, “So you here to take me home?”

“That I am,” he said and gave a nod. “That I am.”

It was weird riding behind Louie back to the club. He walked me across the street to my apartment building, and I let myself into the lobby. I half expected him to come up and keep me out of trouble but he just gave a wave and said, “G’night, Ms. Lina,” and I smiled and said, “Goodnight, Louie,” and he jogged back across to the club’s small compound.

I went upstairs and fixed myself a snack, settling on the couch to eat and to watch a little tekevision, waiting and wondering, and knowing that this? This would be the hardest part, always, about loving a man like La Croix back.

I closed my eyes and could hear his velvet voice in the dark… calling me his love.

He hadn’t even realized he’d said it, which meant the world to me. It meant that he meant it from the bottom of his heart, from the depths of his soul. You never said something like that by design; only by accident – andGoddess help me, even knowing who and what he was, I couldn’t help myself… I loved him, too.

The time and the hours crept by and the more the minute hand crawled around the clock dial, the more anxious I became worrying for him, until finally…finally, I heard his key grate in the lock…

CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE

La Croix…

It was frustratin’, the reporter to bite on the Bashaw story was a pitbull of a woman who put the investigatin’ in investigative reportin’, and she was runnin’ this, that, and the other through back channel after channel – dottin’ her I’s and crossin’ all her T’s before she would utter a fuckin’ peep to her editor or whatever.

The local stations had brushed my boy off like he was crazy – but not the reporter over at the Times Picayune. She knew a story when she smelled one and she’d been practically drooling over the documentation we’d brung her.

Still, them wheels turned slower ‘n molasses ‘n January and so we had to wait. Shouldn’t be much longer now, though.

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