Emma swore softly. Wonderful. She couldn't have
found a lousier place for the car to begin acting up if she'd tried. She'd
just driven off the Washington state ferry ten minutes ago, and following
a mix up at the terminal she'd disembarked on an island instead of the
mainland destination one stop farther on. She didn't know if this small
island even boasted a real town, let alone a garage with a certified mechanic.
The engine noise grew louder and Emma feared they wouldn't make it over
the next rise.
"McDonald's?" Gracie requested hopefully from the car seat
next to her. She appeared oblivious to the horrendous racket the car was
making.
"I don't imagine they have a McDonald's here, angel pie,"
Emma replied. She reached over and stroked a gentle finger down her daughter's
cheek, giving her a soft smile. "I'll find us some place to eat, though."
Or so she fervently hoped.
What she found was a picturesque town called Port Flannery,
built on two levels around a harbor and attractive even in the grey light
cast by a low ceiling of clouds that looked ready to open up and dump
their contents any moment. The tide was low and down on the bay was a
boathouse and dock, a gas station, general store, several specialty shops
and a tavern. Up above was a town square, around which was built a town
hall and the rest of the business section, including, thank goodness,
Bill's Garage. Emma coasted the Chevrolet to a halt in front of the garage
doors.
"So you say she's been runnin' rough, huh?" a man in greasy
overall's with Bill embroidered above the chest pocket asked her a few
moments later. He wiped his hands on an oily rag and then leaned over
the engine once again.
"Running very rough," Emma confirmed. "And the engine's
making a lot of noise. I think there's--"
"Now, don't you worry your pretty little head about it,"
he interrupted in a condescending tone that made the short hairs on the
back of Emma's neck stand on end. She opened her mouth to cut him off
at the knees but Gracie chose that moment to start squirming in her arms.
"Hungwy, Maman," she insisted querulously and drummed
her feet against Emma's thigh.
Bill raised his eyes as far as Emma's breasts. "There's
a cafe across the square," he informed them helpfully. "You go get your
little girl something to eat and I'll have a better idea what's the matter
with your car by the time you get back."
Emma gritted her teeth. She was tempted to impart a few
home truths guaranteed to make Bill's ears ring, but Gracie was wiggling
and demanding to be let down, her own stomach was growling, and swallowing
a sigh, she let it pass. She set Gracie on her feet and took her hand.
Moments later they were crossing the grassy square and climbing the porch
steps to a large clapboard establishment. Red neon script above the navy
checked cafe curtains in the front window spelled out Ruby's Cafe.
By the time they walked out again, Emma was feeling a hundred
percent better. Amazing, she marveled, what a hot meal could do for a
woman. But it wasn't merely that; in addition to filling up on food that
tasted like honest-to-goodness home cooking, she and Gracie now had a
place to stay. Ruby's was a boarding house as well as a cafe, with big,
spacious rooms to let upstairs. Emma had rented one overlooking the square.
The shortest lease Ruby was willing to accept for one of
her rooms was a non-negotiable week cash in advance but that
was all right with Emma. She was tired of being on the run and she was
sick to death of living out of suitcases. It would be a luxury to be able
to unpack and stay put for a few days. Sooner or later she had to stop
somewhere anyhow, didn't she? Not to mention that with breakfast and dinner
included in the rent, this was definitely cheaper than paying by the day
at a motel, even cut-rate motels. So what the heck why not here?
It was an excellent, well-thought-out decision.
And one that, not five minutes later, she had cause to regret.
***
Sandy, the dispatcher, stuck her head into the sheriff's
office. "Elvis, you better get on over to Bill's Garage," she said. "Some
off-islander with an old car is over there raising cain, and she's drawin'
a crowd."
Elvis swore under his breath and headed for the door. Damn
that Bill; he'd warned him before about his habit of padding the bill.
Sandy hadn't exaggerated; there was a small crowd bunched
up in the doorway that separated the office from the garage bay. Most
moved aside without speaking to him when Elvis appeared, but his friend
Sam was there and he turned and gave him a grin. "Almost hate to see you
break it up, Donnelly," he said. "This woman's good. Worth the admission
at twice the price."
The car was the first thing Elvis noticed and he nearly
choked. Jesus, Sandy, he thought, an old car? It was a classic
'57 Chevy in mint condition and Elvis would have happily ignored the argument
raging over by the pit in favor of going over the thing from stem to stern
with a fine toothed comb. . . except by then he'd seen the woman, and
both she and her argument were impossible to ignore.
His first impression was of a big blonde with a voice like
molasses and a body built to stop traffic. Looking more closely, he realized
she wasn't actually a true blond. Her hair was more caramel colored, kind
of a warm goldy-brown, but it had dozens of flaxen streaks that gave it
the blond appearance. Elvis's massive shoulders twitched. Hell, close
enough. If it walked like a blonde and talked like a blonde. . .
And the body was still built to stop traffic. She had a
little girl riding her levi-clad hip and he didn't think he was the only
man in that garage who couldn't quite tear his eyes away from her chubby
little dimpled hand as it moved up and down the t-shirt covered, centerfold-thrust
of her mother's breast. "Itsy, bitsy spidoo," she sang beneath
her mother's harangue, little fingers pressing into the fullness. "Went up the water spout."
Jesus.
"
lowlife, cheatin' thief," the woman was saying
when he tore his attention back to the business at hand, and even in the
midst of reaming Bill out, he noticed, her voice evoked images of sultry,
magnolia scented, southern nights. "Where'd you get your license, cher--from
a Cracker Jacks box?"
"Listen, you bitch," Bill snarled back with his usual inimitable
charm, and Elvis's eyebrows snapped together.
He stepped forward. "What's goin' on, here?"
Emma's head swung around and she found herself gaping speechlessly
for an instant. Standing in the doorway, a small island of space separating
him from the rest of the gawkers, stood one of the largest men she'd ever
seen in her life. He must have been six feet, six inches tall and weighed
somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred thirty pounds, all of it
solid, khaki and levi covered muscle. But it wasn't simply his size that
caused her to stare. It was the sternness of his expression. It was the
fact that his left arm ended in an artificial limb with a metal clip-style
hook where his hand should have been, and that a wicked raised scar zigzagged
across his left cheek like an inch and a half long lightning bolt, pointing
to his full lower lip where it ended at its outside corner.
She grew aware of Gracie growing quiet against her. Her
head lowered to nestle against Emma's breast and her thumb crept into
her mouth. Emma glanced down and saw her daughter staring wide-eyed at
the unsmiling man across the room. Her big brown eyes were fastened on
the angry red scar on his face. "Owie," she whispered around her thumb.
It shook Emma from her reverie and she smiled slightly, pressing a kiss
against her daughter's soft curls.
"I'll tell you what's goin' on," she said firmly and crossed
the garage to stand directly in front of the gigantic man. Her head tilted
back to look him directly in his startling blue eyes. "I'm pretty sure
I had a piece of carbon break loose and start hittin' the top of the piston,"
she said. "So I came in here to get it flushed out. But did this idiot"
She gestured expressively at Bill Gertz. "squirt a bit of water
in the cylinders or give it a bit of combustion cleaner to eat it up?
Oh no, cher." Her brown eyes flashed fire and Elvis found himself
taking a step closer. "No, he decides a rod bearing has come loose. A
rod bearing! He can't show me this loose rod bearing, you understand,
but I'm not supposed to worry my pretty little head about it!" She all but spat those last words out. "But, no. I mustn't do that. We're
only talkin' about hundreds of dollars difference in the damn bill."
"Where did you learn so much about cars, Miss?" Elvis inquired
curiously, for it was clear that Bill had made a major miscalculation
with this one. She knew exactly what she was talking about.
She met his eyes dead on. "From my brother, cher.
Big Eddy Robescheaux ran the slickest chop shop in all of N'Awlins, maybe
in all of Lou'siana. He and I well, we were all the other had for
years and years. I grew up in that shop. I could hardly help but pick
up a few pointers."
"Chop shops are illegal, Miss Robescheaux."
"Sands," she corrected him. "Robescheaux was my maiden name."
Elvis was aware of a fierce disappointment and gave himself
a sharp mental shake. As if a babe like this one would ever give an ugly
sonofabitch like him a second glance anyway.
"And I know they're illegal," she continued softly, a sadness
creeping into her eyes. "They closed Big Eddy down, and he died in prison
just before he was slated to be released." She sucked on her full bottom
lip for a moment then slowly let it slide through her teeth. That period
of time surrounding Eddy's incarceration and death tied together with
the beginning of her association with Grant Woodard . . . but that was
another story and not something this gigantic man needed to know.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Sands--"
"Oh, call me Emma, cher. And you are...?"
"Sheriff Donnelly."
"Hey, do the two of you friggin' well mind?" Bill
interrupted in disgust. "What is this, the Sunday fuckin' Social? Don't
be taken in by a sweet pair of tits, Elvis--"
"Elvis?" Emma questioned, blinking up at him. Gracie
yawned around her thumb and started finger-walking her free hand up and
down her mother's breast again. "Itsy, bitsy spidoo..."
Elvis shrugged his massive shoulders uncomfortably. "My
mother's a big fan of The King," he explained. Then, expression hardening,
he turned to Bill. "And I'll tell you what, Bill. Why don't you leave
the lady's anatomy out of it and just flush out her cylinders like she
wants."
"The hell you say! It's a friggin' rod bearing, I'm tellin'
ya!"
"Then you have nothing to worry about, do you? Of course,
if the problem clears up the way Mrs. Sands here seems to think it will,
she'll have to make a decision about pressing charges against you for
fraud. If you prove correct, however, I'm sure she'll give you a nice,
big, public apology."
"Oh, on my knees, cher," Emma assured the enraged
mechanic.
"Yeah? Well, while you're down there why don't you suck
my big red di"
Never in her life had Emma seen a man so large move so fast.
Before the mechanic could complete his indecent suggestion, Elvis Donnelly
was across the space separating them and his hook had flashed out to open
and then close around the button placket at the collar of the man's greasy
striped overalls. It lifted, bringing the mechanic up onto his toes.
"This isn't the first complaint I've had about the way you
run this business," he said in a low, intense voice, bending his head
to bring his face close to the mechanic's. "But it damn well better be
the last, Gertz, or I'm going to shut your operation down so fast it'll
make your head spin. Now, I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your
head until your business is concluded. Get your mind out of the gutter
and your butt in gear." Straightening, he allowed the hook to open up,
releasing the fabric, and Bill settled back onto his heels.
Straightening his collar, Gertz stretched his neck first
to the left then to the right. "Well, big surprise that you'd take the
side of a whore, Donnelly," he spat, and then took a hasty step backwards
at the look in the sheriff's blue eyes.
"Excuse me?" Insulted right down to her fingertips, Emma
stepped without thought in front of the big law officer. It never occurred
to her to let him handle the slur to her name; she was accustomed to fighting
her own battles. Drawing her posture up to its full height of five feet,
nine and three-quarter inches, Emma faced the mechanic squarely.
"How would you like to find your scraggly little rear end
in a court of law defendin' against a slander suit?" she demanded in a
low but combative voice. Her brown eyes, boring into his, burned with
outrage. "I've been in this town less than two hours and y'all don't know
me from Adam, sir, so where do you get off castin' aspersions on my virtue?"
Taking a deep breath, Emma felt her shoulders brush against the sheriff's
chest and was curiously tempted for about two seconds to lean back and
let it support her weight.
How ridiculous. She stood taller, blowing out an impatient
little breath. "Legally, you're already treadin' a thin line here with
my car," she informed him coolly and then warned the belligerent mechanic,
"I'd take heed if I were you, Mistah Bill Whoever-the devil-you-are, because
I'm tellin' you right now as clearly as I possibly can. If I hear one
more obscenity uttered in front of my baby's ears, we won't be talkin'
a nickle/dime-let's-settle-out-of-court lawsuit. I'll go out and hire
myself the biggest legal gun this side of the Mississippi Rivah and y'all
can bank on the fact that we won't rest until this sorry little garage
is mine!" She gave her surroundings a disparaging glance then met his
eyes levelly once again. "The place is obviously in need of somebody who
knows how to run it right."
That's when she ran out of steam. Yeah, sure, Em, she thought
with self-derision. Big Talk. As if she'd dare do anything that would
draw attention to her and Gracie's location. But she neither blinked nor
looked away from Bill Gertz' stare. She'd learned to bluff at a tender
age and no crooked little backwater mechanic was going to jerk Emma Robescheaux
Sands around. Or call her slanderous names in front of her child.
"Maman?" Gracie tugged on her mother's hair to get
her attention. When Emma looked down, she said uncertainly, "We go bye-bye
now?"
"Soon, angel pie." Emma dipped her head to kiss her daughter's
chubby neck. Rubbing her hand gently through Gracie's curls, she raised
cold and level eyes to meet the mechanic's gaze once again. "So, what's
it gonna be, Mistah Gertz?"
Believing every word she'd said, he looked around, especially
a woman who looked like this one to know so much about cars? Conning
unattached females had always worked just fine for him in the past.
Gauging the mood of the crowd, he could see there would
be no help for him there. Most of those gathered might have little use
for Elvis Donnelly socially but they did respect him professionally. And
Bill could see it had been a tactical error on his part to make crude
remarks to a young woman who held a dimpled little angel in her arms.
Shit. There was no help for it.
"I'll flush your damn cylinders," he muttered ungraciously.
What the hell; he'd bluff his way out of this, then the slut would probably
hit the highway and he'd never have to see her again. By this time next
week no one would even remember he'd tried to cheat her. Except maybe
Elvis Donnelly.
And who the hell cared about him?
***
Emma was wrung out by the time her car was once again in
her possession and she'd driven it around the square to the small parking
lot behind Ruby's boarding house. After spearing the mechanic with a final
contemptuous gaze and garnering that unsmiling nod in exchange for the
thank you she'd given the big sheriff for his assistance, she would have
loved nothing better than to lay a patch of rubber out of town . Unfortunately,
she couldn't afford to do that.
She'd cleaned out her savings account when she'd left New
Orleans and it had consisted of exactly one thousand, four hundred, thirty-six
dollars and seventeen cents. She'd maxed her Visa and Mastercharge to
the limit by taking cash advances of four thousand dollars each on the
cards Grant had insisted on paying for her. That gave her a grand total
of nine thousand, four hundred and thirty
six dollars and seventeen cents. It seemed like a lot of money to someone
whohadn't
had to pay her own bills in years. But when she considered it was all
that stood between Gracie and the streets and as an annual income went
was right about poverty level, the cushion it provided became pretty thin.
She had already used five hundred, ninety seven dollars and change getting
this far, and she sure as heck couldn't afford to throw away a week's
room and board in a fit of pique.
Like it or not, it appeared she was stuck in unfriendly
little Port Flannery for the next seven days.
End of Excerpt.
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