Chapter Four: Dancing At Fred's With A 10 oz. Miller In Your Hand
As she waited by the door, waiting for Frank Estiponal to come pick her up, Cayenne could not resist. She dialed Marcy's number on her cell phone, and stepped outside to talk to her best friend, still living back in New Orleans.
"Good morning, girlfriend!" She whispered loudly into the phone. "Guess what I'm doing?"
She expected to hear a sleepy voice, but Marcy was as perky as always.
"Hey, Cayenne! Where y'at?"
"I'm waiting for my ride to take me up to Fred's Lounge in Mamou."
"AAAAAiyYYEEEEee, girl! Even I've heard of Fred's. Lake Charles must be treating you good, girl, because you don't dance."
"Well, I'm not dancing, I'm investigating. Hey, here comes my ride. I'll talk to you tomorrow. You coming out for Extravaganza aren't you?"
"Certainly.! Just found out that Bang and the Quest Playboys are playing for the big dance. Zydee Bob is playing with them, so what the heck. The whole gang together again. No excuse not to travel half way across the world."
"Excellent! Hey, gotta go! Talk to you soon, Marcy. Love ya and miss ya. Give Zydee Bob Beaux a big kiss for me even if he gets mad at you for doing it."
"My pleasure, chere!"
A small black Ford pickup pulled up to the curb in front of Raven's house. Frank waved and grinned when he saw Cayenne out front of the house. She hurried down the sidewalk, first greeting and petting his dog Perro, a friendly Golden Retriever turning circles in the back truck bed,. before she jumped into the front seat. It was early and the town was still quiet. The day was grey and misting with a slight wind, kicking up a bit of discomfort. Cay asked Frank to stop for coffee at a gas station. She insisted on filling up his tank since he had insisted on driving.
"Mamou is a good hour and a half drive North, so settle in." Frank said, pulling the truck out of the Esso Stop and onto the road.
"This place is really open only on Saturday mornings?" Cay asked, blowing on the steaming coffee in her Styrofoam cup.
Frank nodded. "And it will be packed. Fred's has been around since just after World War II and has been part of the vanguard keeping Cajun culture alive. Old Fred died back in the 90's but his wife, Miss Sue, might come out behind the bar and sing a song or two."
"You really have a thing for this place!" Cay commented.
"You got to love Fred's," he said, an enthusiastic smile filled his face.
The Louisiana prairie country flew by, and the occupants of the truck were sleepily quiet until the coffee did its magic and the world woke up around them. Frank switched on the radio and fiddled with the dial until he found the station he was looking for. A familiar voice boomed out from the dashboard.
"Hey that's Bernard!" Cay sat up suddenly, spilling a few drops of coffee on her jeans' leg.
"Yup, he does the Saturday morning show on KBON."
"When he said he had to work, I assumed he was guiding."
Bernard jovial voice filled up the front of the small truck.
"Hey! He's talking about us! Check it out." Cay reached over and turned up the volume.
"And here's a little song going out to Cayenne and Francisco, heading up to dance at Fred's up in Mamou this morning. Lucky dogs! Wish I was going with you. Remember to COME ON BACK., kids!" The music started with a big accordion introduction and soon the vocals started.
Why'd you go and leave me in Big Mamou?
Went away and left me alone and so blue.
Please come back!
Mon tit neg, Please come on back!
Come and stay with me in Big Mamou!
"They call this road the Zydeco Mile," Frank said, slipping into his guide's voice. He pointed at a dumpy looking one-story concrete block building. "See that little club there?"
"That abandoned building there?"
Frank snorted. "Looks pretty bad from the outside, doesn't it? But that's one of the best zydeco clubs on the route." He banged his hand against the wheel. "From here going east all the way down to Lafayette and Breaux Bridge. Ain't ever going to find better music than this.. Keith Frank, Lil Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers, Geno Delafose, Creole Zydeco Farmers,… they are all the best. "
"Do you dance, Cay?" He asked. Seems a waste to go all the way to Fred's and not get a two-step in." He looked at her with deep brown eyes, and smiled in a flirting way that made her slightly weak. But it wasn't enough to quell the rush of fear that rose up in her chest. She had second lined in Black Indian parades, and been moved around the dance floor at the Rock and Bowl but Cay still didn't feel comfortable dancing. She tried to change the subject.
"The countryside looks a lot like the farm country back home. But what are those ponds for?"
"Those are commercial crawfish ponds. Lots of the wild crawfish comes from around the Atchafalaya Swamp, but lots of folks around here farm them. Some switch off their crops between rice in the summer, and then flooding them to make way for a winter crop of crawfish."
A small sign indicated that it was time to turn on to the road to Mamou. Frank took a right onto a narrow road with no shoulders. Perro barked happily from the truck bed, either from the sharp turn or from his sense of excitement of getting closer to Mamou.
"Suck, pinch and eat." He whooped, slapping his hand against the steering wheel again.
"Excuse me?"
"That's how you eat them, Cay. The crawfish. You suck out the heads and pinch the tails to get out the meat. That's the best way to tell whose from around here and who is just passing through."
As they pulled into Mamou and turned left on to Main Street, Frank grunted at Cayenne. "And don't you think I didn't notice you didn't answer my question about dancing."
Main Street in Mamou looked a little worse for wear. Buildings were worn and Cay wondered if most of them weren't actually abandoned. But Nicolette and Bernard were right. On the right hand side, there was a line of motorcycles forming an intimidating border in front of a non-descript red-bricked building.
It was late morning and Fred's was full, rocking and dancing. Francisco took Cay's hand and led her into the bar, pushing past locals, tourists, motorcycle guys, and a few folks who looked like they been living in the place since the weekend before. The room was small with a few wobbly tables occupying the back, a small stage holding a five piece band the band and a bar the length of room that was already three deep at 10 a.m. in the morning. A rail bordered the dance floor on two sides and it was littered with glasses, beer cans and ashtrays.
"I'm going to get a beer. You want something?" Frank asked as they gingerly stepped farther into the melee.
Cay began to shake her head, aware she was "on the job," but then shrugged her shoulders. The atmosphere around her was more Saturday night than Saturday morning. "Sure. I'll have one too. A Miller Lite, please."
She edged up closer to the dance floor to get a look at the band playing, and found an open spot near a ledge looking out onto the tiny dance floor. She found herself standing next to a gap toothed man dressed in motorcycle leathers and smiling directly at her is a slightly boozy way. She was trapped by the crowd, so she couldn't move away and could barely move to one side to avoid his gaze. She took the Midwestern approach, looked him straight in the face and nodded graciously, then averted her gaze. In Illinois, that move meant, "don't talk to me." In Louisiana, it meant, "How y'all doing?"
"God Damn Fais Do Do!" the drunkard shouted and raised his glass of bourbon in a toast.
"Pardon me? I don't speak French." She was forced to look back at him again.
"Fais Do Do" he said and raised his glass again, happy for an opportunity to take another sip. "It's the name of the God damn band, the best fucking god damn band in Loosiana." He slammed back the rest of the drink. "Come on, girlie, let's dance."
"No, I don't really…" but she might as well be taking to a box of Cheerios. The bourbon soaked brut grabbed her and dragged her onto the dance floor.
"But…" she was totally ignored. Her partner turned around and grabbed her around the waist and grabbed her hand. He pulled her close, and bent his knee between her legs like a rudder.
He threw back his head and ripped out a lusty roar. "Allons Danser! Aaaiiiyyyeee!" Cay took a deep breath and prepared for a manhandling experience similar to ones she remembered from her high school prom.
He was smooth as silk. Despite a dance floor crowded with people and a breath soaked in bourbon, her dance partner expertly maneuvered between the couples and gently moved Cay back and forth around the floor. She found if she just relaxed and let her partner to the work, she could minimize the number of times she stepped on someone's feet, whether her partners or the many other couples dancing arm to arm, cheek to cheek to her.
The band played a twin fiddle two-step and Cay kept hearing the words that sounded like "tea gah-low, tea gah-low." She was trying to figure out a way to ask her tipsy dance partner what "tea gah low" meant in English when she caught the eyes of Francisco grinning at her. He mouthed the words across the dance floor. "Welcome to Fred's!"
After the dance, Cay extricated herself from a big heavy sweaty hug from the man she had dubbed Bourbon Billy and found Frank at the end of the rail behind the band. He handed her a 10 oz. can of Miller Lite as she approached. She took a big gulp, breathing heavy from the quick two-step. The band swung into another song that even Cay recognized. The crowd went up in a cheer and hit the dance floor in an energetic wave.
"Hey, that's Bernard's song!" She listened closer, "But everyone is singing it in French."
Almost to a person, the crowd sang along with the band.
Por quoi vous parit dans se Grand Mamou
Tous le sois, tous les nuis
Moi j' connais j'e suis passe…
The band, Fais Do Do, was headed by a slightly goofy looking accordion who grinned and chewed on his lips while he played. A bearded guitar player laid down a steady beat of chord and his wife sat near him keeping rhythm on the triangle. The fiddle player rocked back and forth in almost a catatonic posture. She seconded the accordion and sang every once in awhile.
Cay was drawn back to Francisco, who was trying to speak over the crowd. She leaned in closer to hear and he spoke loudly, close to her ear. "Aunt Deli says she can talk to you after the music is done, but she's too busy right now." He pointed at a bleached blond woman behind the bar who was laughing and moving efficiently from tap to cooler to pouring hard drinks. "Might as well sit back and enjoy the music."
The band worked through some standards until there was a slight commotion in the crowd and a loud murmur with a few claps interspersed went up from the crowd.
Francisco craned his head over the crowd. "Allright! Looks like Miss Sue is coming up to sing. Today's your lucky day, girl." He put his hands on Cay's back and pushed her toward the floor. "Come on. We got to dance."
There was no place to put down her beer so she took it with her. Frank smiled as he gently took her hand and put his hand around her waist. She balanced her Miller in her left hand, perching it on Frank's shoulder. Frank expertly moved them into the swirling circle moving around the dance floor and Cay felt she was part of a pulsating organism swaying from side to side in a parallel beat to the wheezing accordion moving in and out.
Miss Sue, an older woman with white hair piled on top of a beautiful, line face that sported bright, laughing blue eyes, sang with a shaky, high voice.
J'ai passé devant ta porte
J'ai crie Bye-Bye la belle
Y a pas personne qu'a pas repond du,
oh y yaie, moe coeur me fait mal
"Is every man a good dancer in Louisiana?" Cay eyed Francisco flirtatiously, slightly drunk from the early morning beer and the smell of Frank's slightly sweaty neck so close to her face.
"Why do you even have to ask, mi dulce?" he smiled and turned her around in an under-the-arm-twirl without even spilling her beer. He pulled her close and Cay dared to lay her head against his chest.
They danced to most of the music for the rest of the morning, and it was only after the music stopped, that Cay could return to being an investigator. Frank and Cay found their way to the bar to talk with Deliah Terrebonne or "Aunt Deli" as the nephews called her. Aunt Deli was Bernard's paternal aunt, which made Frank some kind of distant nephew a couple times removed. In Louisiana, that meant you're family.
"Yeah, Elena was here that morning. She had spent a couple days over at Fanny's in Church Point and picked up part of a Mardi Gras costume, a headdress or something, and came over to her on her way back to Lake Charles. I guess she had to get back to her job at the Casino. It's tragic what happened to her."
Aunt Deli's eyes teared. "Sweet girl. She loved to dance, that girl did. She loved New Orleans, but it don't have a place as down home as Fred's."
"Had she been drinking a lot that morning, Mrs. Terrebonne?" Cay said, self-consciously, knowing her own tongue spoke with an alcoholic accent.
"Call me Deli, Ms. Del Roi" and she slammed down two shot glasses in front of Frank and Cay and filled them up expertly with a bit of Maker's Mark bourbon without asking. "Nah. Elena don't drink anything but those fruity drinks, and we ain't a blender kind of crowd here. She was with some guy, though that kept trying to get her to drink something, though. Bought her a shot and everything. She ended up giving it to me to drink, thank you very much."
"Had you seen him before or do you remember his name?"
"She seemed to know him pretty well, though I didn't see her come in with him. She kept calling him 'Tone.' That seemed to annoy him. I think he finally talked her into going to have a daiquiri at the Daiquiri Shack at the edge of town. She loved the daiquiris. The Daiquiri Hut at the edge of town is her regular place, but this guy was pretty insistent that the Shack had the best in town."
Deli leaned over and confided. "Bless her soul. I even know what she got. . She got a pina colada daiquiri because that's what she liked the most. Daiquiris were her one evil, and she loved them. But they don't have enough alcohol in it to disinfect a paper cut."
She filled up a third shot glass for herself and clicked it to the rest of the glasses. "On est putain du chanceaux, mon amis" she said and slammed it back.
Cay raised her shot. Bourbon Billy sat directly across the bar. He raised his glass in a glassy, boozy look and cheered, "aaaaiiiyyyeee!". Cay thought, "What the heck!" to herself and toasted him back.
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The drive through daiquiri stand was another startlingly cultural difference that Cay had to get used to on this side of Louisiana. In Louisiana, you can pull up to a drive through window and order one of dozens of different flavored daiquiris in a To Go cup. It must be sold with a lid, however. Even Louisiana has it's standards.
The Daiquiri Shack on the edge of town didn't have any distinguishing marks to make you believe that they had any special magic. The police report said that a witness had seen Elena stop at this daiquiri stand and she appeared quite drunk. The witness did not say anything about a man named "Tone."
A young kid named Tommy had been working that day. Cayenne lucked out. He was working again today and he talked easily.
"I heard about that. She was a real nice lady. I've see her go through the Hut lot during the last couple months. I used to work over there until I got this job. I earn 50 cents more an hour here." He wiped his hands on a white towel. "I remember her because she said she was from New Orleans staying with family while her place got rebuilt and she always left a tip, which no one does around here. Always ordered a small pina colada."
"She didn't seem drunk to me I didn't think she was loaded at all," he paused, "But my girlfriend said she smelled like whiskey. She's the one who called it in after we heard about the accident. To be quite honest, I couldn't tell." He leaned in closer. "If I served a drunk person and she died, I think I'm going to lose my job over this."
"She work here? Your girlfriend?"
Tommy shook his head. "She doesn't work here. She's just my girlfriend. She was hanging out with me last week while I was working."
Then Tommy got defensive, "Hey, I'm real sorry she died. She was a nice lady. But she must have gotten loaded after she went through here, because she looked okay to me."
"Was she with anyone else?"
"Some guy came through right behind her. My girlfriend recognized him, but he didn't order anything. Just wanted to pay for the lady's drink and make sure we took good care of her."
"Do you know his name?"
"No, but my girlfriend probably would. I think he was a friend of her momma's."
Cay made a bet on Tommy's basic desire for self-preservation. "Well, Tommy. I want to find out why she died and I don't think you are to blame at all". Cay said, leaning across the seat and showing her private investigators ID card. "I believe you. I think I can help clear your name and help you keep you job if you work with me. Why don't you give me the name and address of your girlfriend and I'll talk with her too, and get all the facts. I think I can clear this up in a hurry," She leaned back and said ominously, "before your boss starts thinking too much about what happened."
He hesitated, but it sounded okay to him. His girlfriend's name was Daphne and she lived conveniently in Lake Charles. He insisted on showing them a picture.
"She's real pretty," he said, blushing red against his white drive through apron. He squinted into the truck and looked carefully at them both. "You guys want something? It's on me."
"Well, that's quite kindly of you. I'll take a blackberry, medium." Frank asked.
"Give me a small banana orange," Cay said.
They pulled over to the side of the road to discuss their next move and to drink the daiquiris.
"Maybe Elena and Tone went drinking some place afterwards?" Cayenne sipped on her straw too quickly, giving herself an ice cream headache.
Frank sipped more slowly. "Or maybe there was something in that daiquiri? Why didn't he get anything if he was so hot on making her come to this particular drive through?"
"Oh, now who's playing the detective?" Cay teased.
"Seriously, Cay. Something's not right about this Tone guy." Frank looked thoughtful, then offered. "Maybe I should contact my friend, Joy Bottell at the crime lab. She does the toxicology and substance testing. Would they still have that half empty daiquiri after all this time? Can they test it to see if there's anything in it?"
"Can you call her? I got a phone."
Frank called Joy using Cay's phone, while she got out of the truck to stretch. She unleashed Perro, allowing him to get out and run around. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Frank talk intently on the phone. She wanted to resist what she was beginning to feel. She focused on petting the love sponge of a golden retriever in front of her who couldn't get enough petting. When Frank hung up the phone, he got out of the truck, and took another loud slurp of his daiquiri.
"Joy's got it and she's agreed to run some tests on it," Frank said. "She was kind of offended though. Like I was thinking she wasn't doing her job, so I pointed out that everyone thought it was an open-and-shut drunk driving case. I had to promise to hand deliver some of Bernard's boudin balls to her at a lunch time of her choosing."
"Hey, we make a good team, Francisco!" Cay said, then blushed. She stared down at her own cup, and filled in the uncomfortable silence by mixing the fruity icy mixture with her straw.
"How's your daq?" The loud, sloppy roar of his gasping straw against the bottom of an empty paper cup punctuated the end of his inquiry.
"Great." she replied begrudgingly. "It's killer."
CHAPTER FIVE: The Higher the Hair, The Closer to God
Copyright by Aileen M. McInnis, 2006. All rights reserved. Contact the author at aileen_mcinnis@yahoo.com .
The Real Beaded Shoe- Where's its mate?