Not for the first time, Gabrielle realized what a remarkable woman Tante Lulu was. Most women . . . most people . . . at her age would think it’s time to rest, having lived a good life, having done enough. But not Tante Lulu. She had so much energy. She just kept going.
“What exactly is planned for this evening?” Ivak asked.
“Well, first off, there’s a cover charge ta get inta Swampy’s t’night. A hundred dollars a person. Kin you afford it?” That last seemed to occur Tante Lulu suddenly, and her brow furrowed with worry.
Ivak laughed. “Yes, I can afford it, and I’ll make a donation, as well.”
“How much?” Tante Lulu asked in her usual blunt, outrageous manner.
Ivak laughed again. “Ten thousand?”
“Twenty would be better.”
Gabrielle gasped. That really was outrageous. “Tante Lulu! You can’t ask someone—”
“Shh!” Ivak said, squeezing her hand. “I really can afford it.”
“With your pay as a prison chaplain?”
“Hardly.” He told her in an undertone, “Vangels do very well, financially.”
“Oh. Is that like battle pay for soldiers?”
“You could say that.”
Tante Lulu went off, as if no one had spoken. “Besides the cover charge and René urging folks ta make money pledges, we’s havin’ a silent auction with goods and services that people and area businesses donate. I even got that boutique we was in yestiddy ta give us a gift certificate, dontcha remember?”
Oh, so that’s what she had been discussing with the owner in the back office.
“Ivak gave us one of his swords,” Tante Lulu revealed.
“You did?” She turned to Ivak.
He shrugged. “I have lots.”
“We put a reserve of fifty thousand on it,” Tante Lulu said. “Remy’s wife, Rachel, usta be a decorator. She sent a picture of the sword ta some museum fella she knows, and he said it’s a thousand years old.”
“More than that, actually,” Ivak murmured.
Gabrielle digested that bit of information . . . an ancient sword. That only corroborated what she’d already come to believe about Ivak. That he was telling the truth about who and what he was.
Then, another thought occurred to Gabrielle. “Tante Lulu! You had the nerve to ask him for a money donation when he’s already given you such a priceless object?”
Tante Lulu exclaimed, “Bull feathers! If you ain’t got nerve, you doan never get nothin’.”
They’d arrived at Swampy’s and the parking lot was jammed. As they dropped Tante Lulu off at the front door, not wanting her to have to walk so far, they could hear René’s band belting out a raucous zydeco version of “It’s Alright.” Zydeco was the hand-clapping, foot-stomping music developed over the years by the French-speaking Creoles of African descent, similar to but different from Cajun music.
Now that they were alone, Gabrielle had questions to ask. “Ivak, I went to my apartment today and saw what happened.”
“You went to New Orleans? Tsk, tsk, tsk! Can you not stay put for even a minute?” He paused, then added, “I knew you left the cottage, of course. Your guards notified me. That does not make it right.”
She ignored his reprimand and asked, “Was the explosion your doing?”
“Mine. My six brothers. And about ninety vangels, give or take.”
“How did you . . . never mind . . . did you accomplish your . . . um, goal?”
“We did. Dominique is gone. For good. She will not come back in some other demon vampire incarnation. And about three dozen Lucies are gone, as well.”
“Three dozen! There were three dozen of those beasts in my neighborhood?”
“More than that, probably. At least a dozen escaped. And there were already others working the prison perimeter.”
“That means the danger isn’t over yet, doesn’t it?”
“Gabrielle, I doubt the danger will ever be over totally, but for now your neighborhood should be clean.”
“Aren’t you worried that law personnel will continue to investigate and find out what happened?”
“How could they? Think about it, sweetling. Who would ever come up with the notion of demon vampires and demon angels? No, they will dig and prod for weeks, mayhap longer, and in the end say it was a mystery. Or a scientist will come up with a quack explanation involving seismic shifts or some such thing.”
He was probably right. “Just like the explanation given for the missing people at Angola.”
“Right, but we have Mike to thank for that. Somehow he managed to get paperwork in the files showing the inmates actually died and were buried, and the staff members who disappeared just happened to be men who had no family; so the explanation that they just quit their jobs and went off for parts unknown was accepted, if not believed.”
“But what if more people disappear?”
“That could be a problem,” he agreed. “But we’re on it.”
Changing the subject, she said, “I was surprised to see my apartment so clean. You’d never know a half-dozen giants had been living there. In fact, it looks better than it did before.”
“We sent a cleaning crew in this morning.”
“The cleaning crew didn’t leave all those roses. The place smells like a funeral parlor.” There were vases of different colored roses in every room, and even a potted climbing rose on the balcony. He had to have spent hundreds of dollars on the blasted things.
His expression went crestfallen. “I saw the way you admired those wild roses at Heaven’s End, and I thought . . .”
“I love the roses, and your gesture, while overboard, was sweet. I love them.” She put a hand on his arm, making sure to touch the sleeve and not bare skin. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he said, and placed a hand over hers, then immediately jerked it back at the shock. “Oops.”
“I wonder if this is your boss’s way of keeping you from doing something you shouldn’t,” she said.
“Could be. Like a shock collar on a dog. Mike has a warped sense of humor sometimes.” When they got out of the car, Ivak remarked, “Have I told you how hot you look tonight?”
“Not half as hot as you, babe,” she said, fanning her face. He was clean-shaven, and his dark blond hair was pulled off his face into a long ponytail.
He just grinned, as if he knew how hot he was, but then he redeemed himself by telling her, “I want to look good for you.”
It was probably a line he’d practiced with a hundred women, but she didn’t care. She liked it! “By the way . . . Viking S-spot? Give me a break!”
“The dream,” he said, shaking his head with amazement. “Actually, there is such a thing. The Viking S-spot. And I must say I am a master of the technique. Someday I will demonstrate for you.”
Promises, promises, she thought, but what she said was, “And don’t think I’m forgetting your remark about my fried egg breasts.”
“It was a jest. I like your breasts just fine.”
He put a hand to her lower back to guide her, and she got a shock again. This time, emanating from a lower region of her body, it gave sizzle to a part of her body that hadn’t gotten any attention in years, except in her dreams.
Her knees almost buckled.
Ivak chuckled and put an arm around her to hold her upright.
“Stop zapping me!” she said.
“I’m getting zapped, too,” he defended himself. Then added with a grin, “I like it.”
She did, too. Not that she would admit it.
As they walked from the far reaches of a spillover parking lot, deliberately not touching now, the band was already into another zydeco song, “My Woman Is a Salty Dog.”
While Ivak paid their admissions and got a number for the silent auction, declining a receipt for tax purposes, Gabrielle got her first view of just how crowded the tavern was as a blast of heat generated by hundreds of bodies hit her. Good thing Tante Lulu had told René to save seats for them and the rest of the fam
ily.
Ivak took her hand, despite the little shocks, and led her toward the bar, where Lucien LeDeux was waving for them to join him. The band slowed down for that Cajun classic “Louisiana Man,” low enough in volume that she was able to introduce Ivak to Luc.
“Thor called me this afternoon,” Luc told her. “We have an appointment with one of the federal judges in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Baton Rouge on Monday. He wants to discuss Leroy’s appeal for a new trial.”
She threw her arms around Luc’s neck and hugged him. Into his ear, she whispered, “Thanks for all your help.”
“Hey, I came into this late. Thor is the one you should thank. And Ivak.”
“And your aunt, too.”
“Don’t I get a hug of thanks, too?” Ivak asked.
“Later,” she said.
“I’ll hold you to that. Literally,” he replied.
“How ’bout trying an oyster shooter to start off the night?” Luc asked.
At Ivak’s interest and her puzzlement, Luc gestured to the bartender, “Hey, Gator! Give us three oyster shooters.”
The bartender—a big, bald-headed man with a gold hoop in one ear—placed two shot glasses in front of each of them. One with a raw oyster in it covered with Tabasco sauce. The other with a healthy swig of one hundred proof bourbon. “This is how it’s done,” Luc said. First he tossed back the oyster, followed immediately by the bourbon, then stamped a foot on the floor. “Whoo-boy! That’s good!”
She and Ivak eyed their drinks suspiciously.
“C’mon. You can’t be a Cajun—even an honorary one—without having your first oyster shooter. Bok, bok, bok,” Luc clucked, daring them to try it.
“Together?” Ivak said to her. “One, two . . .”
They both tossed back their drinks, and while Ivak stamped his appreciation on the floor, Gabrielle practically hyperventilated, the Tabasco was so hot and the booze so strong. But then they settled in her stomach, and she felt a warm buzz. “I like it,” she said, and both Ivak and Luc laughed.
Between the erotic sparks and the bourbon, she already felt half drunk.
“Follow me to our table,” Luc said then. He was carrying two pitchers of beer. Presumably, the glasses were on the table.
Tables, as in plural, Gabrielle soon realized. Four tables along the dance floor facing the stage had been pushed together to seat the more than twenty LeDeux family and friends present tonight.
Luc quickly made the introductions. They’d already met Rusty Lanier and his wife, Charmaine, who was wearing a dress identical to her and Tante Lulu, but she looked vastly different. She’d put a silver belt around the waist. Her hair was upswept to highlight her big silver chandelier earrings, complemented by a lot of single bangle bracelets. Somehow, Charmaine’s dress had more of a décolletage than hers did, creating a deep cleavage. On her feet Charmaine wore silver stilettos, too, but hers were nothing but thin, sexy straps that ended in a little bow at her ankles, the kind of shoes that immediately called a man’s attention. Hers had the name Hot Silver.
Next came the four legitimate sons of Valcour LeDeux. Apparently there were lots of illegitimate ones around the country. Tee-John, a police officer, whom she’d already met, with his wife, Celine, a newspaper reporter; Luc and his wife, Sylvie, a chemist; Remy, a pilot—who was a sinfully good-looking man, but on only one side of his face, thanks to burns sustained in an Iraq bombing—and his wife, Rachel, a feng shui decorator, along with the older of their adopted children who were college students; and René, whom they’d also met, with his wife, Valerie, a lawyer, formerly of court TV fame. René was up on the stage at the moment with his band, the Swamp Rats.
Plus, there were close friends of the family. Lena, a gorgeous mocha-skinned girl resembling Halle Berry, and Lionel Duval, her brother; they were among the first families to be rescued by the Hope Foundation. They both attended college, thanks to Tante Lulu’s generosity.
They also met Angel and Grace Sabato, who had bought a dilapidated Southern mansion. On being told that Ivak was purchasing Heaven’s End, they both laughed, and Angel had asked, “Are you crazy?” Grace had added, “We can give you tips. Lots of tips.” She rolled her eyes. “We’ve been at Sweetland for four years now, and we still have a snake problem.”
Samantha Starr, an auburn-haired beauty who helped run the Hope Foundation, was there along with her father, Stanley Starr, founder of the Starr Foods chain. Stanley, a white-haired gentleman dressed like one of those old-time planters in a spiffy white suit, had to be close to ninety years old, and he was sitting with Tante Lulu, very close.
“Does Tante Lulu have a boyfriend?” Ivak whispered in her ear.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” she whispered back.
Then there was Daniel LeDeux, a physician, formerly of Alaska, who seemed to have a frowning eye on Samantha, who kept looking at him, too, even as she flirted with his twin brother, Aaron, a pilot.
“Whew!” Luc said when the introductions were done.
They were about to sit down when Tante Lulu said, “Make sure you check out the silent auction items later.”
The Swamp Tavern was a small bar with a dim interior, square in shape. A stage for the musicians at the far end, fronted by a postage stamp–size dance floor, a long bar off to one side, and dozens of tables where patrons could drink beer and nibble at finger foods, like hot wings with Cajun hot sauce, crawfish nachos, pretzels, and the like. But off to one side was a large addition with a windowed view of the bayou where the additional crowd could be seated. It was here that the silent auction items were displayed on tables lined in a U-shaped fashion around the edges of three sides of the room.
Tee-John poured a glass of beer for Ivak from one of the pitchers and a glass of wine from a carafe for Gabrielle. The band had been taking an intermission, but were about to begin again.
René, wearing a frottir—a washboard-type instrument that fit over his chest—stepped up to the microphone. “Welcome, everyone, to the fourth annual Hope Foundation fund-raiser.”
The loud chatter in the room came to a sudden silence.
The other band members did little riffs on their instruments, a guitar, an accordion, a fiddle, and drums.
“Come up here, Tante Lulu,” he urged.
Tee-John helped her up the side steps to the stage and she walked out to resounding applause. Gabrielle would bet that the old lady knew most of the people in this bar, or had touched their lives in some way.
René adjusted the microphone for her and she smiled widely. “Thanks y’all fer comin’ out t’night. Spend lots of money on the auction. It’s fer a good cause.” She started to walk away, but then she turned back and said, “An’ doan fergit ta pray ta St. Jude. I left lotsa little statues and prayer cards by the door. Yeah, I know this is a bar, René. Dontcha be tellin’ me what ta do. I’m a little older than you.”
Everyone laughed at her jab of humor. Most of the audience probably knew how dedicated Tante Lulu was to the patron saint of hopeless cases.
“On a serious note,” René said. “I want y’all to know that the Hope Foundation has raised five million dollars in the past four years. That’s small potatoes compared to some of the big charities, but believe me, it does a hell of a lot of good right here at home, and ninety percent of the funds go to the families and kids.”
Whistles and loud clapping resounded through the rooms.
“Now, folks, bear with me while I introduce a guy most of you already know. John Willie Clayton, or JW, Voice of the Bayou, a deejay on Baton Rouge’s WJJJ radio, a man who has single-handedly been trying to preserve Cajun music. JW?”
JW walked out onto the stage and adjusted the mic with an expertise telling of his radio background. “René, thanks for the invitation, and here’s back at you, my friend. It’s bands like yours that make the young folks remember their Cajun roots.”
Turning to the audience, JW got more serious. “I won’t take up too much of your time. I just want to give you
a brief ‘Hell, yeah!’ for Cajun music, which has been around almost two hundred years. Many of the songs popular today are just new spins on the songs that have been handed down for generations, originally in French, by our Acadian ancestors. These songs speak of traditional themes, like love, home, family, loneliness, heartbreak, and joy.
“The one song I like to use as a particular example is ‘Jolie Blon’ which many music historians believe stemmed from ‘La Fille d’ la Veuve’ or ‘The Widow’s Daughter,’ or even older French ballads. The version made popular today by BeauSoleil and even Bruce Springsteen is said to have stemmed from ‘Ma Blonde Est Partie,’ or ‘My Blonde Went and Left Me.’ And isn’t that just like country music today?”
Everyone clapped as JW walked off the stage and then René’s band exploded into a loud, twangy, poignant-sounding “Jolie Blon” in a heavily accented Cajun French. It was bluesy and syncopated at the same time. Immediately afterward, René belted into the microphone an English version similar to the one made famous by Bruce Springsteen where he refers to “Jole Blon” as his flower. That one had a more optimistic ending than the earlier ones involving a fickle blonde.
Before anyone had a chance to get up and dance or go to the bathroom, René looked down to their table and said, “Lookee, lookee. Do I see someone I know? Could it be one of the Angola Prison chaplains. In a bar? Tsk, tsk, tsk! Hey, if anyone needs a beer and a night on the town, it’s someone who works up at the prison. Talk about!”
Ivak just shook his head at being singled out in that way.
“I have the perfect song to introduce this man to Cajun land. It’s called, ‘Les Barres de la Prison,’ or ‘Prison Bars.’ Hey, Johnny Cash wasn’t the only one who could sing a good prison song.”
More laughter. René, who had once been an environmental lobbyist in Washington, D.C., now a local teacher, was a born entertainer, very comfortable on the stage.
When the song was over, René said, “One more thing, folks. Don’t forget to attend the Prison Rodeo at Angola on October 27. The LeDeux family will be putting on their famous, or you could say infamous, Village People act to benefit some of the prison programs.” He paused for effect, then yelled out, “Now, is everyone ready to dance?”