Chapter 6
I hit the bed like a rock, thinking I'd fall into a deep sleep and instead I tossed half the night, wrestling with all the strange unnerving pieces of this puzzle into which I had come.
Consequently, I slept late the next morning, and when I woke up I felt sluggish as I always do when I spend too many hours in bed.
I called Jamie's, but there was no answer. So I had breakfast and three cups of steaming black coffee in the hotel dining room, and read the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Then I took a walk through the square and told myself to cool everything until I talked to Jamie. She could explain things, and I could save myself a lot of trouble and the danger of coming to wrong conclusions.
The courthouse clock struck noon. I looked briefly at a cannon and a Civil War monument, and then left the tree-shaded square to glance in store windows-and bake in the sun and fierce humidity.
There was an interesting display of offshore oil-drilling in the huge window of a new, aluminum and glass building, and I studied the scale model of an offshore rig. But I could not shove from my mind, despite my resolution, the fact that a man had died last night in the electric chair and that I had attended a party and seen his victim.. . Forget it, I told myself, but I thought of Peggy Sue, and how she had pumped me about Jamie, and how she had used her mouth.
Nice girls all, I muttered. And if they had no connection with Jamie's troubles, then why had Peggy Sue gone to such lengths-
As I crossed the street to the square, a white Ford convertible screeched to a halt beside me.
"Lord, what are you doing walking around in the heat this time of day?" a girl asked from the car.
I leaned down and looked into the window. It was Kerry Lawrence, her pixie face smiling deeply.
"I'm heading back to the hotel, Kerry," I said.
"Climb in and I'll give you a lift," she said.
"It's just across the square," I said.
"It'll save you a few steps in this heat," she said.
I climbed in and shut the door, glancing at the tight, white bikini slacks that hugged her hips and the sleeveless white blouse, which was also tight enough so that her small breasts shoved against the thin material to show she wore no bra.
She drove slowly, and stopped at the corner for a red light.
"I was just on my way out to the drive-in to pick up a hamburger," she said. "Mother and Daddy are out of town and it was so hot I told the cook not to bother fixing me anything to eat. Have you had dinner, Carl?"
"I was just going to ask the hotel clerk to recommend someplace to get seafood," I said. "I had some beers with Ted Daniels and I'm starving."
"Oh, I know this simply great place, Carl," she said. "Would you like some company? Though actually, I'm hardly dressed for going anywhere proper."
What could I say. "I hate to eat alone. And you look fine."
"I couldn't go into a restaurant like this," she said. "You know, we could pick up some boiled shrimp and deviled crab and stuff like that and have a picnic. I know a good place for a picnic on a hot day. It's cool and awfully private."
My resolve to avoid the girls melted in an instant. I was intrigued at what Kerry had in mind.
But she shifted in the seat and I caught a glimpse of those slim thighs, perfect legs and excessive little buttocks, and I wondered if she was a "virein" and a nice girl like Peggy Sue. . .I licked my lips and wiped the sweat from my forehead.
"Sounds good," I said. "Let's go."
Kerry pumped down on the accelerator and the car shot forward and she had to swerve to avoid an old woman getting out of a parked car.
"Old bitch," she mumbled. "Oh, sorry, Carl. That was an awfully bad thing to say. My daddy would skin me alive if he heard me use a word like that."
She ran the next red light, and turned a corner on two wheels, and blew the horn and she plunged through a stop sign.
"Best way to cool off," she said, and turned her vent to catch the rushing wind. "I'll swear, some of the people from the country are such slow pokes. If you didn't practically drive right over them, you'd never get anywhere."
She didn't slow down once, but there were no more near-mishaps, as with the old woman. We roared down quiet streets lined with thick-leafed oak trees, then a couple of blocks with only one or two houses, then past a couple of motels, glistening in the sun, a bright red and white filling station. And finally we plunged into swampland, the trees growing over the road like a canopy, their tops laced with stringy gray moss.
The speedometer neared 100 and we crossed a narrow bridge over a sluggish brown stream filled with the stubs of dead trees and broad, green lily leaves.
She took her foot from the accelerator and I saw a building on the right, and a cluster of cars shining in the sun.
"They have take-out service here," she said. "I'm ijlad you mentioned seafood. It's perfect for a hot day like this."
She slowed, braked the car, and we pulled into the lot of a large pine-paneled building with a picture window overlooking a broad greenish bayou.
She turned off the ignition, and twisted around in the seat. "After we eat and all, we'll have to talk a lot and become real good friends, Carl," she said, and giggled slightly, then put her hand over her mouth. "I didn't get any chance at all to really welcome you last night, and we're all sure going to take care of you until Jamie comes back. Listen, you'll have to run in for the food. I couldn't be seen like this. I mean, maybe you noticed, but I don't have a bra on."
"Sure, I'll go in," I said. "What do you want?"
"Just whatever you're having to eat," she said. "And a cold Dr. Pepper to drink." She paused a moment and stared at me and I realized the lovely green eyes were brown-flecked. "Carl, did I upset you by saying I didn't have a bra on? Did I embarrass you?"
"Oh, Jesus, don't be ridiculous, Kerry," I said.
She giggled. "Well, sometimes that kind of talk coming from a girl like me shocks boys."
"A girl like you?" I asked. "What kind of girl are you?"
"You'll see, when you get to know me better, Carl," she said. "I guess I'm a little sensitive about my breasts, really. They don't poke out at all. I mean, they're awfully small, though the nipples aren't. And I have to compensate for them, sort of. Now, if most boys heard a nice girl talking like that, why, they'd be shocked silly, and my daddy, why he'd take my car away and probably turn me over his knee."
"Why are you talking like that to me, Kerry?"
The eyes sparkled and she laughed softly. "Oh, you're different and older and sophisticated and maybe I'm trying to impress you or even shock you."
"You'll have to do better than that to shock me," I said.
"Lord, go get the food and that cold Dr. Pepper," she said. "Before I burn to a crisp right here."
"Be right back," I said, and climbed from the car, disturbed again at how easily these little girls turned me on sexually.