Page 40 of Whiskey Shivers

He turned the machine around to face us, stood up and looked over the thing and hit a button. It started playing.

“New developments in the assault on the Lakeside High School teacher that’s shocked the city, Marianne.”

The newscaster was standing right outside the local jail we was lookin’ for.

“It seems Justin McDaniel has been found sane and competent to stand trial, so he has been moved to the Orleans Parish Jail for now and will be moving to the Orleans Parish Justice Center in the very near future as prosecutors advance their case.”

Cornelius closed the laptop lid. “Now, just what are you fellas planning to do?” he asked and then held up a hand. “You know what, on second thought, I really don’t want to know.”

La Croix set down a wad of cash on top of Cornelius’s laptop and said, “Stay by your phone the next few weeks.”

The lawyer gave us a flat and unfriendly look and said, “Now even that’s too much. I said I don’t want to know.”

“This conversation never happened, as far as we’re concerned,” I said, and he sighed.

“No, I reckon it did not… until it serves you somehow that it did.” I felt my lips twitch with the familiar saying. I was pretty sure Cornelius and I had grown up in the same parts of East Tennessee.

La Croix and I traded a look, and both turned for the door.

“Y’all see yourselves out, then. Alright…”

We left the lawyers and rode back to the club, calling the rest of the boys in for church.

CHAPTERNINETEEN

Corliss…

The men left as suddenly as they’d arrived that morning and it was just me and Alina for a good portion of the day. I’d wondered aloud where they’d all got to and she said to me, “You’ll get used to it. Club business is club business and it’s not for us to know.” She’d smiled then and crossed her eyes. I couldn’t help but be a little discouraged at that.

“So, like, secrets?” I asked hesitantly, and she gave me a sweet look of understanding.

“No, nothing like seeing other women or anything behind your back. I mean, do they have parties at the club with a bunch of other women around? Yes, but this isn’t that. There are things they get up to that aren’t exactly legal by societies’ standards and it’s strictly forbidden for the women to know. It’s to keep us safe.”

I stared at the picture I held in my hands of my mother and me for a while. One of the few pictures I had of her of us together. I asked, “Well, that’s deeply misogynistic, but I think my concerns lie more with… I mean… is it drugs?” I’d told her briefly of how my mother had died from her addiction, and Alina again gave me that sympathetic look.

“Maybe once,” she said gently. “But…” she hesitated. “But between you and me?” I nodded and tried not to seem too eager. She smiled at me and continued with, “I don’t know everything, but I think drugs played a role in the clubs near collapse a while ago. I mean, that’s the impression that I get. It was before my time. Likewellbefore it. Anyway, La Croix and Hex took over with the support of the rest of the club that was left, and now and they’re trying to build the club back better but also in such a way that things can’t or won’t ever get out of hand like that again.”

“It sounds like a lot happened,” I ventured, hoping for a little more information about it.

Alina nodded. “Look, I know they look rough and that it’s a little scary and mind blowing and justa lot, but I promise you I have never been treated so well by any man I have ever been with before. It’s reallynice, even with all the extra.”

“Don’t judge a book by its cover?” I asked, setting aside the picture of my mom, and picking up one of my favorite titles from the hodgepodge of items in the bag it’d come from.

Alina giggled. “Exactly.”

We were going through the bags with breakables in them, unwrapping the glass things from the clothes that’d been hurriedly wadded around them, to see if they’d made it. I went through some more things and was silent for a time.

She sighed. “You know Hex? He adores you… you know that, right?”

I looked up a bit startled. “I mean, I guess that tracks,” I said, stammering a bit and blushing. “He’s done so much for me.”

“Trust me, I’ve seen him party with the best of them and I’ve seen other women hang all over him in the last year and some change. Not a one of them held his attention the way he looks at you.”

I sighed and said, “I guess there’s a lot to learn about them and their life.”

She nodded. “Just three really big rules that I’ve encountered,” she answered.

“Oh yeah? I’m listening.”

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