Chapter Nine

Sunday, April 24, 2005

     Thin pink clouds feathered across the sky like atmospheric sea foam washed up on a vast blue beach, left behind by the currents of the night air.  A cold front swept through the area two nights earlier, a freak occurrence so late in the year and so far south.  The air felt dry and chilly on the skin.  The River Parishes always felt like paradise when it was like that.
     Normally bustling streets became strangely empty on a Sunday morning.  Traffic all but died, bequeathing peace and quiet to places normally flooded by the sound of engines, brakes and horns. People were few and far between.  Sometimes the streets looked like a bomb went off.
     Neither Conrad nor Jessica slept after they returned home the night before. Adrenaline and speed made it impossible to cross over into the land of dreams.  They cleaned themselves up and went to bed, but they never turned the light off.  Instead they cuddled each other and talked.  When the sun came up they finally dozed off for a few hours.
     Bright afternoon sunshine streamed through the windows when Jessica awakened.  She rolled over, found Conrad missing and decided that she needed to slumber more lightly in the future.  The man exited the bed with incredible stealth.  The item would definitely be a point for future discussion between them.
     She found waking up alone horribly unnerving at that particular moment.  The hours of sleep had troubled her greatly.  She had nightmares that caused her to quiver with anxiety even after she sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes.  Everything around her seemed surreal.  The sunlight cast shadows that moved and the afternoon felt oddly cold.  Jessica slipped back underneath the covers and burrowed into the mattress for warmth.
     While Jessica lay there she delved into the landscape of her dream, seeking to recall the drama that had unfolded behind her eyelids.  She latched onto the subconscious tableau and attempted to analyze the scenery and events.  The memory threatened to dissolve into nothing under the examination.  The harder she tried to remember the more convoluted the dream became, as many dreams are wont to do, but Jessica at last captured the memory before it disappeared.  She dragged it into her conscious mind for dissection, intending to capture the images on canvas afterward.
     In one dream the bloody girl from the night before was spread eagle on the floor of her old apartment.  The girl didn’t have any clothes on, and she was dead.  Her ice blue eyes stared off into nothingness, devoid of expression or movement.  Jessica could clearly see the places where bullets punctured the girl’s stomach and thigh.  She kneeled down beside the body and explored the girl’s wounds with her fingertips.  The crimson fluid around the holes felt sticky and cold.  Suddenly the girl looked directly at Jessica and moved her lips, but there was no sound at all.
     In another dream Jessica was in the painting Conrad told her was identical to one of his grandfather’s.  The painting was an empty beach landscape, but in the dream a small man with a dark complexion sat in a chaise lounge close to where Jessica was standing.  The man looked very old.  He turned to look at Jessica, and smiled with a smile that made her feel loved and wanted.  Thunder clouds blew across the sky and strong winds gusted down the beach.  Heavy rain covered the earth and the sea in a torrential downpour.  As the intensity of the squall increased, pieces of the man started to blow away in the gale like confetti.  Shreds of the man’s smile stuck all over her as the storm whipped his tattered form into nothingness.  Jessica looked at herself from outside of her body.  A paper mask dominated by a hideous leer had replaced her face.
     Other vague remnants of dreams swirled around in Jessica’s mind, but she chose not to think about it anymore.  What she remembered bothered her, and gave her more than enough material for visual rendering.  She sprang out of bed and hurried over to her garbage bags full of belongings.  She never went anywhere without taking drawing materials with her.  She took out her big sketchbook and began to draw what she had seen.  The process dispelled the uncanny atmosphere from the room.
     The face of the kind looking old man emerged slowly from the paper.  Jessica chose to draw that first because of its clarity in her mind.  Within ten minutes the face closely resembled the one she had seen in her dream.  She sketched a rough outline of the man’s body sitting on a chaise lounge, and then she turned to a fresh page.
     Jessica sat there a couple of minutes with the pencil poised in her fingers before she decided not to continue.  Portraits of talking corpses never interested her very much.  She didn’t read too much meaning into the dream about the girl.  Jessica knew that the nightmare was probably the result of all the stress she experienced during the night.
     The front door opened to admit Conrad carrying a paper bag full of Chinese takeout.  The hunger in Jessica’s stomach exulted in his arrival, and she closed her sketchbook.  The part of her that woke up alone geared up to give him a tongue-lashing.  She opened her mouth to loose a stern reprimand, but right then the scent of the food entered her nostrils.  The smell persuaded her that after dinner would be a better time to talk about his disappearing tricks.
     “Hi, honey!  I see you’re up.  I brought you food and a surprise.  Here, take the food,” Conrad said while handing her their dinner.  Jessica took the bag mutely, unsure of how she wanted to greet him.  As soon as the food was in her hands Conrad turned around and went back out the door.  She was about to voice a loud protest when he came back in with a dozen long stemmed red roses and baby’s breath.
     “I also brought you roses.  I wanted you to know how special I think you are.  I feel horrible that our date ended badly last night.  I know this doesn’t begin to make it up to you, but here they are anyway,” he said as he held out the roses.
     Jessica still hadn’t uttered a word.  She had just taken a short roller coaster ride from indignation to reluctant appeasement, and then incredulous delight.  She put down the Chinese takeout, took the roses from Conrad and tackled him.  He crashed to the floor with her on top of him.
     She kissed him several times, and then words flooded out of her, “You’re an angel, but please don’t leave me alone while I’m asleep.  I had a nightmare, and when I woke up alone I freaked out.  Wake me up from now on.  I want to see your face when I wake up.”  She kissed him again.
     “I’m sorry.  I just wanted to wake you up with food and roses.  Oh, there’s also a box of chocolates in that bag,” Conrad apologized adeptly.  Jessica didn’t respond.  She held on to him tightly for a little while, but her stomach drove her to get off of him and eat.
      The bag boasted full containers of stir-fry broccoli and beef, egg rolls, spring rolls, chicken chow mein, and wonton soup.  On the side of all that rested a big heart shaped box of chocolates.  Jessica loaded down a plate and dug in.  Conrad stared in growing amazement while he nibbled on an egg roll.  He never suspected a girl her size could hold so much food.  When she finished off two plates and a bowl of soup, she opened the chocolates, but she apparently preferred to savor those rather than wolf them down.
     “That was really good.  Thank you so much.  I feel a lot better.  My system needed some fuel to recover from the beating I gave it last night,” Jessica said with a satisfied grunt.
     “Remind me never to take Dexedrine again, will you?  Besides the fact that I sprinted into the aftermath of a shooting, I didn’t handle coming down well at all,” Conrad lamented.
     “I know what you mean.  I get frazzled when my sleep schedule is disrupted.  I hate to say this, but I have responsibilities to attend to today.  I have to write that paper I was talking about, and I have to read about a hundred pages for my other classes.  I can’t allow myself to fall too far behind because of my personal life.”
     “I can totally respect that.  I need to handle a few things too.  Do you need me to do anything?”
     “No, I’m going to the library to do my paper.  I’ll probably study for all of my classes there,” Jessica told him.
     “Well, then I’ll see you tonight,” Conrad said.
     “Around midnight.”
     “Around midnight it’ll be.”

     Conrad took the two o’clock bus downtown to see his father.  Sometimes the time flew by, so they hadn’t seen each other in two weeks.  Conrad was anxious to talk to him about Jessica, just for the thrill of telling him how fantastic she was.  Old Man Ryland, as some people called him, did not approve of many of Conrad’s life choices, but he would appreciate “The Jessica Factor.”  Old Man Ryland valued relationships with beautiful women above all other things.
     Old Man Ryland was born John Brennan Ryland in 1942 in New Orleans to Irish immigrants.  His parents moved eighty miles north to Baton Rouge when little John was eight years old so that Conrad’s grandfather could work at a petrochemical plant.  The plant work paid very well, and by the time John was entering high school the poor Irish immigrants belonged to the upper middle class.  Everything could have been wonderful.
      Conrad’s grandmother celebrated financial success by sending her son away to boarding school.  She never enjoyed the responsibilities of motherhood.   Getting rid of her son struck her as a welcome relief.  The woman never showed affection very well.
     New Orleans Mafia families patronized the school.  Lots of the students were street soldiers and crime bosses in training.  New Orleans Italians never liked the Irish, and that brand of racism ran rampant among the more famous students at the boarding school.  John Ryland wound up fighting for his life and his reputation on a regular basis.  The boarding school changed young John Ryland forever.
     John became a hardened reactionary while in high school in order to survive the experience with his sanity intact.  He rejected everything his mother and father stood for, and his ideology reflected that.  John embraced communism at a time when the choice was very dangerous, and made the mistake of leaving evidence of his political ideals.  McCarthyism branded him as a communist while he was in college.
      Because of the blacklist John Ryland was ostracized from society and unable to make a living wage.  He turned to the contacts with organized crime he made while in high school.  Old Man Ryland became a drug dealer.  Over the years he grew to be highly skilled at both conducting the business safely and discreetly and hiding the proceeds.  By the time Conrad graduated from college the old man was a venerable master.  He helped Conrad make money on the side, but he strongly disapproved of his son’s wishes to follow in his footsteps.
     John Ryland lived in the second oldest neighborhood in Baton Rouge.  Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard unveiled Beauregard Town in 1811 as the comprehensive street plan for the government of the parish and the homes of then affluent citizens.  The layout was stolen from Napoleon’s philosophy of civil defense.  Many of the neighborhood streets radiated from central hubs like spokes.  The original idea maximized the usefulness of cannon placements.  The cannon idea never saw use in Beauregard Town, but the diagonal streets remained as a curious reminder of the origin of the neighborhood’s map.
     The neighborhood still existed on the river in downtown Baton Rouge, but aside from a dwindling number of historic homes nothing else stayed the same. 
In 1975 the city destroyed a large part of the neighborhood nearest the river, and built an enormous government and entertainment complex where the old mansions once stood.  The complex eternally proved that some architects were sadistic morons.  It looked like a concrete abortion from the Ryland home. 
    Other architectural atrocities added to the impression that kindergartners planned Baton Rouge.  In 1995 a national gambling corporation built a riverboat casino complex across the street from John Ryland’s house.  It was a five story glass box.  The structure leaked in dozens of places during light rains, and large puddles formed during thunderstorms.  The city government awarded the contract for the casino, but profited very little compared to the corporation.  Old Man Ryland hoped to make a fortune selling his house to that corporation.  He lost hope when the corporation backed out.  His despair became pure outrage while he looked out his window at the monstrous glass box every morning.
     Sheraton began construction of a ten-story hotel in 2000.  That created over a hundred rooms with an unobstructed view of John Ryland’s front door, and vice versa.  The hotel needed a parking garage, and once again he hoped to sell the property for a large sum.  When the garage went up three blocks away Old Man Ryland gave up.  He thought there was a vast conspiracy that taunted him, even to the present day.  Conrad found that hilarious.
     The bus dropped Conrad off at the corner of Government and St. Ferdinand, and he walked the last five blocks.   He enjoyed the exercise, but walking was getting very old.  When he got to St. Philip Street he felt right at home.  He turned into the short driveway of the house, walked up the steps and knocked on the front door.
     “Nice of you to stop by so often,” his father said sarcastically as he answered the door.  “Come on in.”
     “I was going to come by a few days ago, but my life got really hectic.  A few things happened that I hadn’t planned on,” Conrad said with a big smile.
     “I can see that you’re pleased with yourself.  Why don’t you go ahead and tell me whatever it is you’ve got on your mind.  Don’t worry.  I’ll act like I didn’t see it coming.”
     “I’m living with a gorgeous girl from a wealthy family.  She moved in with me yesterday.”
     “Ha.  That’s a good one.  I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor.  So, what’s really going on with you?”  John Ryland asked his son.
     “I’m not joking, dad.  Her name is Jessica.  Don’t think for a second I’m going to let you meet her anytime soon either.  The last thing I need is to expose her to my drooling father before she’s ready.  You might scare her away.”
     “You’re serious?  You were single two weeks ago, and now you’re living with a woman.  Nice work, son.  Let me know how that works out for you.  I guess I should feel proud that I taught you not to rush into things,” Old Man Ryland carried on with his acid cynicism.
     “Why do you have to be so mean all the time?  It’s not my fault you can’t get a beautiful twenty-one year old to move in with you.  I tell you what.  Since you’re obviously disturbed about this I will let you meet her.  You won’t last ten seconds with her before you think I made the right decision.
     “Her full name is Jessica Marie Sinclair.  She graduates from LSU after another thirty hours.  She paints landscapes, which I need to talk to you about.  Her parents own part of Sinclair Oil.  Oh, also, I’m in love with her,” Conrad elaborated on his relationship.
     “I’m happy to hear you met a woman you like, but you shouldn’t trust everything you feel.  Especially when you haven’t known a person for very long.  At least one of us had a good weekend.  I’ve been down in my back.  I can’t do anything.  My kitchen is filthy, and I worry I’m getting bed sores.”
     “Please.  You never stay in bed, even when you hurt so bad you can’t walk.  You want me to clean up your kitchen.  No problem.  Would you like me to give you a sponge bath while I’m here?  Change your bedpan?”
     “You’re not too big for me to knock you down.  You best watch what you say to your old man.  Would you wash my dishes though?  I hate washing dishes.”
     “I know.  Yes, I will wash your dishes, as long as you talk to me while I do them.”
      Conrad walked through the house to get to the kitchen.  His father was a collector.  John Ryland filled the house from floor to ceiling with bar items, American Indian crafts, military surplus, porcelain on steel signs, antique furniture and homemade shelves to hold everything.  Conrad knew that Jessica would be inspired by it, and that he would have to bring her over there to take a look.  He grew up there and he still marveled at the overwhelming volume of things that filled the house.
     When they got to the kitchen Conrad saw the nasty mess that needed cleaning.  He wasn’t surprised that his father refused to touch it.  The old man considered washing dishes woman’s work.  Since he didn’t have a woman the dishes stayed dirty.  Conrad took care of them on his occasional trips downtown, but his father had to break down and wash them every now and then.  The pile gave off the unpleasant odor of rotting vegetables.  John Ryland kept the kitchen doors closed for that very reason.  The rest of the house looked immaculate by comparison.
     “How did you get involved with an heir to the Sinclair fortune?  I wouldn’t have thought that someone of such high breeding would slum with the lower class,” John inquired while his son started to work on the sink.
     “Jessica doesn’t get along with her parents.  They just cut off all of her support, so she moved in with me.  All of her close friends are in New Orleans.  She didn’t have any other place to go, and she wants to finish college.  I had to help her out.”
     “You’re going to be supporting a member of one of Louisiana’s wealthiest families.  I just thought I knew about irony before this.  How long do you think this will last?”
     “I decline to answer that question on the grounds that it may jinx my relationship.  It feels like we were meant to be together, like we met by fate.  I hope it will last forever, but it’s too soon to tell right now.”
     “What kind of things does she paint?  Is she going to be able to make a living as an artist?”
     “She paints landscapes and people.  She may be able to make a living doing it.  I don’t know for sure, but I can tell you she’s not like me.  She hasn’t alienated every contact she meets, like I did.  She stands a much better chance of becoming a successful artist than I stand of becoming a successful writer.”
     “Son, you can’t be a successful writer if you don’t spend your time writing.  You can write a pretty poem, but it takes work to write books that people buy.  I should have beaten you more often.”
     “Can we not talk about my writing?  Poetry is what I write, and most of it is too personal to publish.”
     “I think you wrote most of it while you were on hallucinogens.  I haven’t understood one of your poems since you were in elementary school,” John remarked dryly.
     “Be careful, dad, you’re illiteracy is showing,” Conrad joked.  His father graduated from college in sociology, and had a keen mind.
     “We were talking about Jessica.  Whatever you do, don’t marry her.  Any chance you have of making the relationship work will evaporate if you get married.  Marriage is one of society’s greatest evils,” John lectured him in all seriousness.  Old Man Ryland displayed a bitter streak about marriage since all of his failed.  He blamed his ex-wives and sometimes himself, but mostly he blamed the institution for existing in the first place.
     “Don’t worry.  I haven’t had the time to plan a wedding since she moved in yesterday.”
     “I have something you may want to take a look at when you’re finished.  It’s in the apartment out back.  I got it last night, so you came at a good time.”
     “Not to change the subject, but I did something stupid last night.”
     “That doesn’t surprise me or narrow it down.  Would you like to give me a hint?”
     “I took Jessica to a party at Buzz’s house, or so I thought.  While we were there some girl got shot in the street.  I ran outside to help her instead of minding my own business…”
     “And the police charged you with attempted murder.”
     “And Jessica followed me outside and saw a girl bleeding to death in the street.  She had nightmares about it this morning.”
     “The girl who was bleeding to death or Jessica?”
     “Jessica, dad.  I don’t even know if the other girl is still alive.  Anyway, I should have tried to shelter Jessica from that sort of thing, but my actions directly exposed her to the scene.  I feel stupid today.”
     “You took your new girlfriend to a shooting.  Nice.”
     “It’s not funny.”
     “I bet you haven’t even tried to find out what happened to the victim.  Sometimes I wonder who your real father is.  You’re definitely not mine,” John laughed.  He and Conrad looked exactly alike.
     “I looked in the paper, but it didn’t say anything.  It was probably too late to make the paper today.  I’ll look again tomorrow, but I’m not sure I want to know what happened to her.  While I’m thinking about it, do you have any idea what happened to that beach landscape my grandfather painted?”
     “That doesn’t narrow down his paintings at all.  What did it look like?”
     “It was the one with the beach house in the background, and the beach house had an art deco look to it.  The sky was sort of purple, and he made the sand dark.”
     “That one is up in the front somewhere.  It’s not hanging up.  It’s stacked up underneath something, if I recall correctly.”
     “Thanks.  I should find it without a problem now.”
     “Why are you looking for it?”
     “Jessica painted one of the same beach house, I think.  I’ll have to look at it again to be sure.”
     “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was the same one.  How many people do y’all know in common?”
     “I don’t think we know anyone in common.  What does that have to do with the painting?”
     “Life is full of strange coincidences.  You said it felt like you were fated to be with Jessica.  I’ve felt that way before.  Reality goes haywire when a strong love takes its first breath.  I’d be willing to bet the beach house is one and the same.  Before too long you will discover all sorts of ways you and Jessica were interconnected before you ever met.  Don’t let it bother you.  It happens to everyone.”
     “Dad, how stoned are you right now?”
     “Very.”
     “I thought so.  I’m almost done with the dishes.  You said you have something to show me, and I’m beginning to suspect it’s not a new car for my birthday.”
    “You totaled the last car I gave you.  You have to save up your money if you want another one.”
     “I understood that already.  That reminds me.  I quit my job.”
     “Congratulations.  Every single thing you’ve done since the last time you were here diametrically opposes good sense.  I bet this is the real reason you came over.”
     “No, I came over because I love doing your smelly dishes.”
     “Ungrateful punk.  Hurry up so I can show you my surprise.”
     Conrad finished up with the dishes and washed his hands thoroughly under hot water.  Then he and his father walked out the back door of the house, and across the courtyard to the garage behind the house.  Old Man Ryland built the courtyard and turned the garage into living space in the late 1980’s.  It wasn’t as appealing as a French Quarter residence, but it beat the hell out of what had been there before.  Before the courtyard and the apartment there was only a yard full of dirt and a falling down tin building.
     John stuck his key in the door and opened up the garage apartment.  Conrad followed when he stepped inside.  A row of three garbage bags caught his attention.  They were lined up in the middle of the room neatly, and they were all about the same size.  Conrad smelled fine sativa, and his breath caught in his throat.  That was a lot of weed.  He tried to estimate how much the bags contained.
     “One hundred pounds, if you were wondering.  I paid seven thousand dollars, and I still owe fifty-five hundred.”
     “That’s only $125 per pound.”
     “There’s nothing wrong with your math skills.  I’ll let you have some of it at $200 a pound.  Maybe that can tide you over until you get another job.  You’re a lucky boy.  I’ve always been amazed at how lucky you are.  You quit your job, and I get this deal out of the blue.  If it had been me who quit the job, I would be bankrupt within a month.”
     “You don’t work, dad.”
     “Up yours.  You may not consider it work to sit on top of two hundred pounds of weed without messing your pants, but I do.  Do you want to hold it?”
     “Hell no.  That’s too much.”
     “That’s the right answer.  Had you said yes I would have been obliged to tell you where to shove it.  Like I said, I’m not finished paying it off.  Also, it’s not too much.  It’s illegal to have any of it, so what difference does it make to have a lot of it?  The only difference is the profit margin.”
     “Aren’t you forgetting about the jail term?”
     “I hope you aren’t planning on turning yourself in, because I’m not.  I’ve been doing this for a quarter of a century, and nobody in authority has ever been the wiser.  The only way for the police to find out would be for someone to tell them.  It doesn’t matter if you have a little or a ton, the key to the operation remains security.  You have to be sure about whom you sell to, and they have to be sure about whom they sell to.  You have shown me that your friends play it safe, or I wouldn’t have let you in on this.  You can’t let it make you nervous, though.  If you’re nervous at all, then I don’t want you involved.”
     “I’m not nervous about you having it here, but I live in a cheap apartment by campus.  My neighbors could probably smell it through the walls.”
     “Do you think you’re ready to move heavy weight?  It’s not the same as moving quarter pounds.  Can your friends unload it fast enough to make it worth your time?”
     “I can’t answer that question at the moment because the opportunity has never before presented itself.  I can go see a couple of people and get back to you tonight,” Conrad answered.
     “Don’t do anything unless you’re sure it will be safe, and unless it will help you.  I’m not rich enough to bail you out of your messes, but I can provide you with a little comfort margin.”
     “I understand all that.  Do you have anymore disgusting tasks you’d like me to handle?”
     “No, that was it.”
     “Then I have people to see.  Take care of yourself, dad.  I’ll be back some time later tonight.”
     “You be careful, Conrad.  Don’t do anything stupid tonight.  If I were the worrying type, then you would have already killed me.”
     “I’ll try to do better.”
     “Tell that girl I want to meet her, too.”
     “I’ll do that.”

     The opportunity to make thousands of dollars had just landed at Conrad’s feet.  He kept his fingers crossed that the chance would not go to waste.  The first place he went when he left his father’s house was to the casino complex across the street.  There was a bank of pay phones in the giant glass box.  Hundreds of people used the phones, and Conrad used them when he wanted to be safe.
     He kept all of his phone numbers in his head, so he never lost them or left them behind.  Buzz got the call before anyone else.  They were always good friends, but that was only part of it.  During their reunion Buzz revealed that he had been very successful unloading weight.  The nice possessions that filled his apartment came from the proceeds.
     “Hey, Buzz, it’s me,” Conrad said discreetly.
     “Hey, what’s going on?  Was last night crazy or what?”
     “Yeah, it was, but that’s not why I’m calling.  Remember that thing we talked about?”
     “I definitely do.  What’s up?”
     “I think you’ll like what I have to say.  Would you like to meet in a couple of hours?”
     “That sounds good.  How about McDonald’s on State?”
     “I’ll be there in two hours,” Conrad agreed.
     The next person Conrad called was Lucas, the head cook at The Gates.  Anybody who ever worked in a restaurant knew that a lot of the employees dabbled in drug sales on the side to supplement the low income.  Lucas made more money than a lot of people, but the amount still wasn’t enough to live a comfortable life.  Conrad kept secrets very well.  Lucas knew that and was the same way, and that led to trust between the two men.  A short conversation later they were set to meet at the Starbucks by campus in two-and-a-half hours.
     The last two people Conrad called were former classmates from the university.  They had been good friends in college, but since then their relationship had been strictly business.  One was a high school history teacher named Paul Morton.  The other was a landscape architect named Alan Kelly.  Both of them worked hard and lived stable lives, and they had lots of friends who were also upstanding members of the community.  All of their friends liked to smoke weed in their private time.  None of their friends would do anything stupid that might lead to trouble.  Conrad set up a meeting with Paul Morton three hours later at the LSU Student Union.  He planned to meet with Alan Kelly shortly after that at the law library, a touch that brought a grin to his face.
     Conrad chose to walk to the university rather than take the bus.  The recent turn of events filled him with nervous energy, and he wanted to work it off.  While strolling down the street he thought about the business at hand.  There was a minimal risk involved with selling weed, but it was still a risk.  The trickiest part was setting up the exchange in a way that wouldn’t draw any attention.  His concrete rule was to never sell anything out of his apartment.  That meant he had to go out in public with it.  Staying calm and collected was of the utmost importance, because something unexpected never failed to happen.
     He never made a conscious effort to become a drug dealer.  It just happened.  During his first year of college everyone he partied with used drugs on the weekends, and that was a lot of people.  His friend Ryan, from the Pentagon Dorm, approached him with a quantity deal on weed.  Around the same time he knew a dozen people who wanted it.  Within a month he was well established.  He made a little money, but not enough to live on.
     After Conrad graduated from college his father shattered all of his comfortable notions about life.  Old Man Ryland sold marijuana all of Conrad’s life, but he was so secretive his son never knew about it.  John revealed the information because he deduced that his son was doing the same thing.  John figured it would be safer and more lucrative for Conrad to go through him.  Many nights the old man could not sleep for fear his son’s naiveté would land them both in hot water.  Under his tutelage Conrad stopped selling for peanuts around the clock.  Instead he sold quantity once or twice a month.  Minimized time involved meant minimized risk.
     He walked slowly, so it took Conrad an hour to get to the university.  The contents of a record store provided him with enough entertainment to pass the time until his first meeting.  With five minutes to spare he sauntered down the street to the McDonald’s.
     Buzz was already waiting there in a car.  He had food from the drive through.  Conrad walked over to the car and got in.  Buzz looked like he wanted to say something, but he had stuffed too many French fries into his mouth at one time.  Conrad waited patiently.
     “What’s up, Conrad?”  Buzz finally asked.
     “I have access to high quality sativa for $500 per pound.”
     “Are you serious?”
     “I’m very serious.”
     “How many pounds can you get?”
     “As many as you can afford.”
     “Ten?”
     “I can do ten, if you can afford that.”
     “How do you want to do it?”
     Conrad went into a lengthy explanation about the exchange.  He broke it down into two parts.  In the first part Buzz brought him the money at home.  In the second part Buzz came by a hotel room to pick up the ten pounds of marijuana.  Conrad settled on a hotel on the interstate east of LSU for that purpose.  Buzz drove him the short distance to the hotel to get a room, and then back to the Starbucks where Conrad got out.
     The young Ryland repeated the process with the other three people.  Everything happened almost the same way.  The amount of weight involved differed in each case.  Lucas wanted two pounds. Paul, the teacher, could only come up with enough for six, but he said he would want more almost immediately.  The landscape architect, Alan, wanted twenty, a request that made Conrad sweat. 
     The fact that all of the people had access to enough money for their purchases on a Sunday fell below Conrad’s radar.  If Conrad were omniscient, then he would have known where the money came from without trying.  Buzz sold drugs on a regular basis, and kept his investment money handy for weekends and the middle of the night.  Lucas always had that kind of money in his wallet, because he used his wallet as a bank.  Paul called two friends who kept money the same way Buzz did.  Alan kept his marijuana money separate from his clean money, in a safe at his office.  Conrad didn’t care about any of that.  He already knew they would have the money, on a Sunday or any other day.
     He got Alan to drop him off at his apartment.  Conrad’s plan had them dropping off money thirty minutes apart, starting at seven o’clock.  Buzz would get his weed first because he dropped off money before anyone else.  The landscaper would take possession of twenty pounds after everyone else had come and gone.  They all had the hotel room number.  They would drop by the room separately every thirty minutes for two hours.  He counted on a taxi to drive him home shortly after midnight, when he expected Jessica to return home.
     Buzz dropped off $5000 at seven o’clock.  He looked apprehensive, but Conrad assured him that everything would be fine.  Lucas brought by $1300 twenty minutes later, a little bit early.  The old cook was so happy about the extra money he scraped up that Conrad decided to give him three pounds for it.  Paul Morton dropped off $3000 right on time with little discussion.  The guy looked like he expected to be ripped off, even though Conrad had never pinched a gram from him before.  Alan Kelly showed up with $10,000 on schedule.  He pulled out a .45 magnum after he handed over the money.  He made Conrad promise there would be no need to commit murder later.  Conrad half expected that.  Alan was wound very tightly.
     Conrad liked the feel of almost $20,000 in his pocket, but he was also uptight.  The money bulged out the pockets on both sides of his pants.   He asked the architect to drop him off at the city courthouse downtown.  That request genuinely frightened the man.  It was a cruel joke designed to make the architect worry.  Conrad reckoned .45 magnums were one of his least favorite things in the world, and felt the architect deserved to sweat a bit.
     John Ryland opened the door for his son at 8:45 p.m.  Together they weighed out the thirty-nine pounds of marijuana into the appropriate amounts.  The weed smelled wonderful.  After it was all weighed out Conrad wrapped it in fifteen layers of plastic wrap and placed it all in a duffel bag.  That was to keep the smell down on the ride to the hotel.  John drove him across town as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and told Conrad to call when he got home.
     The next two hours seemed the longest of Conrad’s life.  He practically held his breath the entire time.  He was used to doing things on a much smaller scale, but everything went exactly according to plan.  After Alan left with his twenty pounds Conrad almost ran out of the hotel.  The only thing that calmed him down was the idea that he was home free unless he looked guilty.  With that thought in mind he calmly wandered out of the hotel like he was bored.  The taxi he called showed up at the Denny’s across the street a few minutes later.
    
     Conrad arrived back at home before Jessica.  He earned $11,500 while she studied at the library.  He decided not to tell her about it right away.  In case something went wrong with his buyers, she would not be able to implicate herself if she knew nothing.  He also hated to give her any reason to worry.  After he took off his shoes he called his father to tell him that everything was all right.
     “Hey, dad.  I’m at home.”
     “Did everything go okay at your job interview?”
     “Yeah.  Everything went well.  I got the job.”
     “That’s good.  You need the money.  Bring your girlfriend over one day.  I promise I’ll behave.”
     “That reminds me.  I forgot to look for that painting.”
     “Look for it when you bring Jessica over.”
     “I’ll do that.  Well, have a good night.”
     “I love you, Conrad.”
     “I love you too, dad.  Bye.”
     “See ya,” his father said before hanging up the phone.
     Conrad made a mental note to bring Jessica to meet his father before it became a major issue.  While he was thinking about that he wondered how his mother was doing on the other side of town.  He hadn’t talked to her in over a week.  He thought about picking up the phone to call her when Jessica returned home.
     “Hi, honey. I’m home,” Jessica said, and the room filled with warmth and happiness.  She took off her backpack and her shoes and plopped down on the couch next to Conrad.  She put her arms around his neck and asked him, “Did you miss me?”
     “I missed you horribly.  My life is empty and meaningless without you, not to mention my bed,” Conrad mused.  Jessica hit him several times, and then she went to the kitchen to eat.
     “You get to live.  The Chinese food is still here.  You’re lucky.  I don’t know what I would have done if you had eaten it all, but it would not have been pretty.”
     Hunger washed over Conrad like a tidal wave when Jessica heated the food in the microwave.  The smell did things to a person that was beyond human control.  He joined her in the kitchen to prepare a plate.  They were quiet while they satisfied their craving for food.
     “What time do you have classes tomorrow?” he asked her when they finished eating.
     “I’ll be done at three o’clock.  Why?”
     “I have a surprise for you.”

Chapter Ten

Monday, April 25, 2005

     The sounds of a busy city resumed with a vengeance on the first day of the workweek.  The inner city hosted a three-hour parade of grumpy motorists every morning and afternoon.  Between rush hours things didn’t become peaceful because of lunch.  Serenity did not return to the area until early evening, when all  the workers returned to their homes in the suburbs for the night.  The downtown area of Baton Rouge emptied of people almost completely after six o’clock.  People who moved to the area wondered if the town closed down after dark because of vampires.  The truth was more insidious.  Racism and white flight turned the downtown area into a wasteland on nights and weekends.
     When Jessica could no longer pretend she was sleeping through the sound of traffic, she opened her eyes.  She saw Conrad lying next to her, studying her face.  A mischievous expression crept across his face.  Jessica pondered the cause of his prankish grin.  She assumed he would tell her, but in the meantime she found the experience annoying.
     “Good morning, Jessica.  Did you sleep well?”
     “You’re staring at me.  Why are you staring at me?  I haven’t brushed my teeth.  I haven’t had coffee.  What?  Why are you smiling like that?”
     “I told you I have a surprise for you.  I was waiting for you to get up.  Besides, you told me not to leave before you’re awake, so I was kind of stuck here.”
     “That doesn’t mean you have to sneak up on me while I’m asleep,” Jessica said acrimoniously.  She got out of bed and stalked to the bathroom.  Conrad was lucky she didn’t see him staring at her butt when she left.  The din of toiletries tossed about the lavatory floated into the bedroom, and then the sound of running water.  In a couple of minutes Jessica stalked back into Conrad’s line of vision.  She rummaged viciously through her clothes and asked,  “Are you going to just lie there like a dummy?”
     “Until you get dressed and have coffee I’m afraid to have anything to do with you.  I didn’t know before, but I know now.  I think I’ll stay out of the way, over here.”
     Jessica smiled inwardly.  She liked the feeling of power she had at that moment, and she didn’t want to lose it by giggling.    She put an angry expression onto her face, and wrestled to fit into a tight pair of blue jeans.  Conrad enjoyed the exhibition.  When she noticed him she snapped, “If you don’t have anything better to do, then you could at least make me coffee.  I like two sugars and a little milk.”
     “Yes, ma’am.  Right away,” Conrad said sweetly.  He left to do her bidding immediately, and Jessica made a note to act angry and demanding more often.
     The coffee was already hot on the stove.  It took Conrad no more than a minute to fix Jessica a cup the way she liked it.  He set the cup down on the table and announced its location.  He walked out the door to get a newspaper without saying anything.  He knew it would probably aggravate her temper, which didn’t bother him.  She was very cute when she looked angry.
     The short walk to the newspaper machine only took a couple of minutes.  When Conrad walked back in Jessica looked at him sternly, but said nothing as she continued to sip her coffee.  Conrad sat down next to her and looked through the local section for the story of the shooting.  He found the write-up on page three, and read through it quickly.  More of the information caught his interest than simply the girl’s medical condition.
     “It says that doctors expect that girl from Saturday night to survive, but she’s still in bad shape.  The newspaper credits ‘a quick thinking bystander’ for saving her life.  Would you like to know who she is?”
     “Yes, tell me,” Jessica answered, her act completely forgotten.
     “Her name is ‘Cynthia Duplessis, the granddaughter of local real estate mogul Jacques Duplessis,’ according to this article.”
     “No way.  I imagine that Mr. Duplessis will feel a measure of repayment when he finds out you saved his granddaughter’s life.  I’m not in the mood to deal with moving the rest of my stuff, but it’s not going to move itself.  I don’t know what kind of surprise you had in mind, but it will have to wait until after we finish the moving,” Jessica stated in a matter of fact manner.
     “No, your moving will have to wait until after the surprise,” Conrad asserted cheerfully.
     “I give up.  What’s the surprise?  Tell me now.  This game is getting old.”
     “Do you think we should get a car?”
     “A car… what are you talking about?  Wait.  Oh my God.  Did you somehow get enough money to buy us a car?”
     “Yes, I did.”
     Jessica screamed a loud, piercing scream.  Then she jumped up and started dancing.  It looked like a high-energy hula.  Conrad made another mental note to take her out dancing as soon as possible.  They both thought the morning had gotten a lot better.
     Jessica stopped dancing and said, “I’ll be ready to go in an hour.”
     Conrad sank his head down into his hands and mumbled something.  There was nobody there to hear him.  Jessica turned on the water in the shower, and in a little while the words from a Mary Poppins song escaped underneath the bathroom door.  Her singing was quite beautiful.  “Just a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down,” caught Conrad’s attention, and he wondered if the song was about opiates.  He shuddered to think it might be about sex.  The idea that it was really about sugar and medicine slipped his mind.
     The hour passed by the wayside.  Jessica still hadn’t finished in the bathroom.  The good news was that she took clothes in with her.  There was a slim chance that when she came out she would be ready to go. 
     Conrad cleaned up the kitchen to pass the time.  He poured her the last cup of coffee, in case she wanted more before they left.  The coffee came out of a French drip pot.  French drip was an old fashioned method for brewing coffee, but was still popular in South Louisiana.  The “cook” poured boiling water over the coffee in small quantities.  The water slowly dripped through a screen, but the grounds could not pass through.  The process resulted in a strong and very tasty brew.  Yankees likened the qualities of the coffee to coal tar, but natives couldn’t get enough strong Java.
     Jessica looked like a vision when she came out of the bathroom.  Her curly black locks were pulled up and back from her face, and her makeup was flawless.  She wore a thin long sleeved Louisiana State University Athletics T-shirt, and an athletic T-shirt had never looked so attractive before.  She had on low-cut khaki cargo pants, and her belly button was exposed.  Nature shuddered that such a simple outfit could look so seductive.  Conrad imagined queens throughout history had not looked nearly so beautiful in jewels and finery.
     “Are you ready to go?”  Jessica asked innocently.
     “You look incredible.  How do you look so good in that outfit?”
     “I lied to you.  I’m a first class witch.  I’ve been practicing Wicca since I became a woman.  You’re under my control now, so don’t try to fight it.”
     “Don’t worry.  I definitely won’t try to fight this feeling.  I always knew you were a witch.  I want you to know that.  You didn’t fool me.”
     “I was joking, Conrad.  Tell me something before we leave.  Where did you get the money to buy a car on such short notice?”
     “Let’s say that we have both been saving up for one.  That’s all you need to know.  By the way, I’m giving you the car as an early birthday present.  You need one more than I do.”
     “My birthday isn’t until September, and I can’t accept a car from you.  We’ve known each other less than a week.  I can’t believe you would even suggest such a thing.  Roses I can accept.  A trinket or a bauble I could accept, but I cannot accept a car.”
     “You can, and you will.  We can work out some conditions if it will make you feel better.  You could agree to let me use the car whenever I need it, provided it doesn’t interfere with your schedule.  If that isn’t enough, you could agree to provide me with sexual favors on demand for a set period of time,” Conrad specified innocuously.  His humorous suggestion earned him a kick to the shin.  He hopped around on one foot briefly.  Jessica pretended nothing had happened and picked up her purse.
     “I’ll let you buy me a car if there are no strings attached.  You can use it whenever, of course, but I’m not doing anything nasty for it.  I need one too badly to put up more than a token protest.  Let’s do it.”
     “I was joking, Jessica.  Ow.”
     “In the future you’ll know not to make light of my virtue,” Jessica spoke and winked.  “Now, what is our destination, good sir?”
     “Somebody has a Mustang for sale down the street.  I thought we’d start by checking it out.  If it runs well we may buy it.  If it doesn’t, then we’ll have to go to a used car lot.  I hate the idea of buying a car from a used car salesman, so my hopes are resting on the Mustang.”
     “Are you talking about the red 1992 model?  It says $5000 on it.  That’s a lot of money.”
     “I think we should take a look at it.  I don’t plan on making any sort of decision until we drive the car,” Conrad insisted.
     “Well, at least we have a rudimentary plan.”
     They walked the six blocks to the red Mustang and checked it out.  The sign in the rear windshield said $5000, as Jessica indicated it would.  The interior appeared to be spotless, but that had nothing to do with the mechanical condition of the vehicle.  There was a phone number on the sign, but Conrad walked up to the front door of the house and knocked.  An old man with gray hair answered the door and looked at Conrad suspiciously.  The sight of the raven-haired vixen examining the Mustang alleviated the old man’s reservations.
     “Excuse me, sir.  Is that your car?” Conrad asked.
     “Yes, it is.  I bought it new in 1992.  I drove the dickens out of it, but I kept it in good condition.  I’m firm on the price.  The car is worth a lot more than that.”
     “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why are you selling the car?”
     “I’ve gone almost completely blind.  I can’t drive anymore, or not without posing a serious danger to the driving public and myself.  Getting old is miserable, young man.  Do yourself a favor and die while everything is still fresh.  My only regret is not taking more chances with my life while I was younger.”
     “Uh, do you think we could take the car for a spin?  I can’t really make any decisions about it until we’ve...”
     Jessica appeared beside Conrad, extended her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Jessica Sinclair.  I want that car out there.  Will you let me drive it?”
     “Absolutely, Ms. Sinclair.  I’m very pleased to meet you.  My name is Neil Russo,” he replied like putty in her hands.  Apparently he was not as blind as he claimed to be.  “I’ll be right back with the keys.”
      Five minutes later the three of them were flying down the interstate at ninety miles per hour.  Jessica drove like a bat out of hell.  Mr. Russo seemed to be having the time of his life in the passenger seat.  In the back seat Conrad continued to pray without a pause.  He started praying shortly after the car pulled out of the driveway, and he never stopped.  Jessica acted as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.  She chatted with the old man amiably as she wove in and out of traffic like a race car driver.  The car ran very well.
     When they got back to Mr. Russo’s house on Alaska Street, Conrad knelt down and kissed the ground.  Neither Jessica nor Mr. Russo noticed his melodramatic action.  Jessica was too busy charming the old man into giving them a deal on the car, and the old man was too busy allowing her to. 
     The old man agreed to take four thousand dollars if they paid in cash on the spot.  Conrad counted out the money.  After a trip to a notary, an insurance company and the Department of Motor Vehicles, Jessica and Conrad both wanted to kill someone, but the car was legal in every way.  They decided to celebrate at Seamus’ Bar and Grill under the Perkins Road overpass.
     The Perkins Road overpass linked the eastern side of the Garden District with University Gardens.  University Gardens stretched north from Lakeshore Drive to Perkins Road, and ran east from the university lakes to the other side of Stanford Avenue.  It was the neighborhood where Mr. Duplessis lived, and the location of Jessica’s old apartment.  The area around the overpass was predominantly Irish.  Irishmen built the overpass, and the area hosted the St. Patrick’s day parade every year.  There were five restaurants with bars on the eastern side of the overpass, and Seamus’ was the best.
     The hostess escorted them to a booth on the second floor balcony overlooking the bar.  Conrad frequented the place while he was in college.  He knew the balcony booths provided privacy while still allowing a view of the bar patrons.  Jessica liked the secluded atmosphere and the music.  She had eclectic tastes in music, and the Gaelic folk songs soothed away the tension of the morning.
     The waiter flattered her when he took their drink orders.  Conrad appropriately pretended not to notice.  Jessica ordered an extra dirty martini, and her boyfriend ordered a Tequila sunrise.  They made small talk about the events of the morning until their drinks came.  Conrad ordered them both lamb chops while the waiter was at the table, and the young couple resumed their lunch hour festivities.  Halfway through their first drink they began a serious conversation.
     “Conrad, I want you to know how much I appreciate the car.  I shouldn’t have accepted it from you, but my life has been so hard without one that I couldn’t refuse.  Nobody has ever done something so nice for me.  Even my parents never gave me a car that was totally mine.  Now, more than ever, I find it hard to believe that I am actually with you.  I never dreamed somebody like you existed.  I don’t deserve to be with a man as good as you.”  Moisture formed in the corners of her eyes.
     “We need to work on your self esteem.  Jessica, you are the best thing that ever happened to me.  I wanted to buy you a car because I think you’re worth it.  Today is my way of demonstrating how much you mean to me.  The money I spent means nothing and that car means nothing.  You are the only thing I care about.  You say you don’t deserve somebody like me, and I feel I don’t deserve somebody like you.  Between us we have enough insecurity to drive a small town to drink.”
     “I know how you must have gotten the money.  I didn’t know you were involved with something so big.  I’ve tried not to think about it, but it would make me feel better if you would talk to me about it.  Please tell me you aren’t taking any dangerous chances.”
     “Normally I would only make a fraction of the money I pulled down yesterday.  I just got very lucky.  I keep trying to tell you that we were meant to be together.  Out of the blue I made enough money to buy you a car.  It’s more than a coincidence.  To answer your last question, I didn’t take any more of a chance than I normally do.  I dealt with all the same people.  The amount involved gave me the shakes, but I trust my people.”
     “Do you ever get the feeling you’re doing something wrong?  I mean, we both know it’s illegal.  I’m not talking about doing something illegal, because legality and morality are not interchangeable.  Have you ever felt that selling marijuana is immoral?”
     “I’m glad you made the distinction between morality and legality.  Like you said, every drug deal is illegal, at least in this state.  I don’t agree that every drug sale is immoral though.  I think circumstances dictate morality in any situation.  The deal I did yesterday was large, but it won’t hurt anyone more than a shipment of cigarettes or alcohol would.  That was not an immoral act.  If the product came from terrorists and was destined for children, then it would have been immoral.  The law doesn’t differentiate between the situations, but as a person I feel that what I did was right as rain.  I managed to get you a car, and that is good.”
     “The circumstances argument could be applied to a lot of scenarios, but I wonder how far you would be willing to take it.  Let’s say that you have had a vision of the future.  You’ve seen a post-apocalyptic landscape where nothing will grow, and survival depends on sheer brutality.  Suppose you could change that future, but you would have to murder several hundred innocent people to do it.  Would the murder be immoral?  Would saving the human race from a future worse than extinction be immoral?”  Jessica queried. 
     She began looking for the waiter to refill her martini.  He brought out salads a few minutes later, and took their refill orders.  The couple didn’t even glance at the salads.  The lettuce sat in front of them wilting.
     “There’s so many problems with that question I don’t know where to begin.  First of all, let me say that it would take a lot more than a vision of the future to justify mass murder.  I think it’s fairly obvious you’re looking for a justification for eco-terrorism with this scenario, and I know you too well to think you would condone mass murder.  I’m going to sidestep this whole thing, though.  I’m not well versed in ethics, and I can’t answer your questions.  That scenario comes across as fantastically hypothetical anyway.”
     “You’re right about one thing.  I would not condone mass murder, but doesn’t warfare amount to the same thing?  How would you describe what happened when we dropped the atomic bombs in World War II?  We killed a lot of innocent people to save lives.”
     “I saw that coming, but it was too late.  I’m a simple person.  I would never accept a position of leadership that might one day require that kind of decision.  I definitely don’t have the ego required to sit in judgment of horrific events like that.”
     “Well, could you kill someone?”
     “I hope that I will never have to make that decision.”
     “But could you do it?”
     “Under the right circumstances, yes, Jessica, I could kill someone.”
     “I could too.  I totally could, under the right circumstances.”
     “This is getting morbid.  I hope they bring our food soon.  Before I forget, I told my father I would bring you by to meet him.”
     “Weren’t we going to wait before you introduced me to your parents?”
     “That was my plan until your mother woke me up Saturday morning.  Something about being caught naked in your bed changed my outlook. Anyway, my father’s a good guy and he wants to meet you.  He never asks to meet anyone, so I told him I would talk to you about it.  You have nothing to fear, believe me.”
     “I’m not worried.  Whenever you think would be the best time is fine with me.”
     The lamb chops arrived, with mint jelly and rose cut new potatoes.  The waiter took the untouched salads away.  Jessica commenced eating hungrily.  Conrad ate more slowly.  Once again he marveled at the appetite of the petite woman.
     When they were finished they asked for the check.  Conrad tipped the waiter twenty-percent.  Because of the restaurants he worked in over the years, Conrad always tipped well.  With the bill settled Conrad and Jessica left to take care of moving her furniture.  Conrad insisted on driving.  He hadn’t finished his second drink, and he outweighed Jessica by seventy pounds.  His driving skills were unimpaired, but Jessica staggered a little when she stood up.
     The engine of the Mustang roared into life.  They cruised out of the parking lot with all of the windows down.  Conrad felt like he owned the world.  Mr. Duplessis’ house was only a couple of minutes away, but Conrad took a detour around the university lakes.  It had been too long since he enjoyed the sense of freedom, and it was a beautiful day.  Neither of them had a single worry at that moment.

Chapter Eleven

     South of the university a maroon Range Rover pulled into a garage at a bungalow patterned after a Frank Lloyd Wright house.  Huge stands of tropical flora concealed the front of the bungalow from prying eyes.  Bananas hung from plants that flourished through the winter in the radiant heat of the house; it had been a particularly mild winter.  Split leaf philodendrons the size of Volkswagen buses flanked both sides of the driveway.  Washingtonian palms grew under all of the windows, and bougainvillea completely encased the fence around the yard, even though it should have died back.   Leviathan pecan trees stood sentinel above the entire panorama.  In the dark the landscaping looked primordial.
     A man carrying a duffel bag got out of the Range Rover and let himself in to the house.  A miniature dachshund spun around in little circles on the other side of the door and emitted an annoying high-pitched bark.  When the dog smelled the duffel bag it quit barking, and instead attempted to latch onto it with its teeth.  The man walked to the kitchen counter, set down the bag and picked up the phone right next to it.
     “Hey, Chuck.  This is Alan,” the man said after dialing a number and getting an answer at the other end.
     “Alan, you’re just the person I wanted to hear from.  What’s going on with you?”
     “I just got in from a night at my lady’s house.  Look, you should come over later.  The Tiger baseball game comes on, and I’ve got it in high definition on my plasma screen.  It’s something you should take a look at.”  Alan Kelly delivered the last sentence with a peculiar inflection.
     “Absolutely.  I’ll make a point of stopping by for the game,” the man named Chuck responded, with the briefest of hesitations in the middle to indicate his complete understanding of the underlying message.  Alan Kelly did not own a plasma screen television.
     Alan opened the duffel bag and fingered the enormous bundle of marijuana inside.  Conrad had compressed the package to a certain extent when he wrapped it, but it still took up a lot of space.  Alan pulled a knife out of a drawer near the sink, and made a neat incision in the plastic wrap so he cold get to the buds inside.  The smell of the sativa burst out of its confines in a tangy, acidic cloud.  Alan pulled out a piece and smelled it.  It smelled like a cold morning in a forest in the Rocky Mountains.  Alan whistled softly.
     He pulled out a list of phone numbers and scanned down the list of names for the people he needed to call.  Alan made it a habit never to involve anyone who wasn’t a close friend, but one man’s name popped out at him while he was double-checking his contacts.  Frank Angelo, the man in question, recently began working for him.  Alan talked to the laborer a few times when personally checking on progress at job sites.
     A few days earlier Frank completed a solo job at a golf course Alan Kelly maintained.  The two men started talking, and they seemed to have a lot in common.  The talk turned to the medicinal use of marijuana.  Frank disclosed that his own mother was dying of cancer, but that nobody he knew could get marijuana.  He fretted about her inability to eat, and the wasting syndrome that slowly ate away at her body.  Mr. Angelo was a man in his forties.  His claim that all of his rowdy friends settled down appeared completely believable.  Alan deemed helping a cancer patient a good reason to break his rule and call Frank Angelo.
     The conversation didn’t last long.  Alan invited Frank over that evening, and gave him directions.  Frank either failed to catch the call’s hidden meaning, or couldn’t think of a way to acknowledge receipt.  When Alan hung up the phone he worried he may have crossed the line. 
     He took a small handful out of the duffel bag, and then he carried the large bundle into his bedroom and hid it in the closet.  He kicked himself for calling someone he barely knew, but then he went into damage control.  Alan rationalized that restricting information would alleviate the danger.  He decided to give the worker a small amount for the cancer stricken woman, but not to sell any or reveal the quantity involved.
     Alan Kelly finished making all of his phone calls.  People would come and go for a couple of days, but that was nothing new.  A lot of people came and went from Alan’s house during a regular week because of his landscaping business.  The amount involved made him nervous, but he figured it would be better to buy a lot than to keep going back for more.  It gave him a sense of satisfaction that he had the money for the deal in the first place.  In the first year of landscaping he never had any money.  He originally supplemented his income through drug sales for that very reason.
     The past year treated him very well.  The landscape business took off in the spring of 2004.  After a few months of hectic work Alan purchased the villa.  That was a turning point in his life.  He always wanted one of the incredible houses on Highland Road.  Now he had one, and in another twenty years he would own it outright.  To personalize the location he turned the already densely landscaped yard into a jungle.  He decorated the interior of the house with modern art and furniture.  The previous December he purchased a Range Rover.  Before long he bagged a trophy girlfriend. Life felt wonderful.
     The long night left him desperate for a shower, and he trod down a glass walled hallway to the bathroom.  After the shower he drove to work at his office down the street for a few hours.  Three times a week an accountant came in to balance the books, but she never showed up on Monday.  The morning’s chores consisted of even more phone calls.  Alan ordered plants, a small amount of mulch and bloom starter from a local wholesale nursery.  He talked to his foremen on the phone and checked on the progress of various jobs.  He spoke with the customers he already worked for, and then he spoke to several he hoped to do work for.  Finally, he made some notes for the accountant and went home.
     Alan stopped by the grocery store on his way home and bought beer and peanuts for the baseball game party.  He expected people to begin arriving at his house in the middle of the first inning.  He only invited his close running buddies to watch the Tigers play.  They all considered LSU baseball parties a sacred tradition.
     Almost everyone invited showed up to watch the game.  They were all involved with the clandestine distribution, but most of them didn’t purchase with the intent to resell.  The people that sat around in Alan’s living room were not drug dealers, even though now and then some of them would take money for marijuana.  They were professional men in their twenties who hadn’t completely settled down, and who liked to have fun.
     Everything went according to plan.  Alan unloaded sixteen pounds of the twenty he procured from Conrad.  He sold it to his friends for $650 a pound, so he made $2400.  That left him with four pounds, and that was more than he wanted to keep.  After everyone left he realized Chuck missed the festivities.  Alan breathed a sigh of relief.  Chuck would take most of the remainder off his hands.
     Alan totally forgot Frank Angelo by the time the laborer pounded on the front door.  Alan nearly defecated on himself when he heard the sound of the knock.  Normal people usually knocked more politely.  He was very relieved to see that it was only Frank, and he invited the older man in.
     They made small talk about the landscape industry for a few minutes.  It looked like Frank didn’t have a clue as to why Alan arranged the visit.  Alan cut to the chase and pulled out a bag of weed for Frank’s dying mother.  The older man looked utterly surprised.
     Alan was about to explain the significance of the bag of weed when Chuck walked into the kitchen.  Chuck had known Alan so long he felt comfortable entering the house without knocking.  Chuck scared Alan half to death.  Frank looked even more confused than he had before.  Chuck, oblivious to both men’s reactions, saw the weed and walked over to look at it.
     “Is that the stuff?” asked Chuck.  Alan, caught completely off guard, did not know what to say.  Frank handed the bag to Chuck, whose hand had been outstretched for it.
     “This looks better than that last stuff,” Chuck commented while he brought the bag to his nose, “and it smells better too.  Hey, sorry I missed the baseball game.”
     Alan at last recovered his composure and introduced the two men, “Chuck, this is Frank.  He works for my company.”  He enunciated the latter sentence as if Chuck had deeply offended sensibility.
     Chuck caught on, but there was nothing he could do about it by that time.  An outsider had breached the wall of secrecy.  Chuck shook hands as though nothing happened, but in his mind he cursed vehemently.  Alan looked like he took a knife in the stomach.  The moment passed clumsily, but Chuck came up with a rudimentary lie to cover his tracks.
     “Tell Pedro I’d like a little bit of that stuff.  I just thought I’d stop by on the way home from work,” Chuck stuttered.  He handed the bag back to Frank, and backed out of the kitchen with a bow.  Tension sucked most of the air out of the room.
     “Chuck! Do you have to leave so soon?” asked Alan in a desperate attempt to normalize the situation.
     “I’m afraid so.  The wife’s got dinner on the table,” Chuck lied again; he didn’t have a wife.  Alan had no choice but to allow him to flee.
     “Sorry about that, Frank.  Some of my friends have no manners or brains,” Alan told him with a forced laugh.  “Anyway, I was about to explain that bag to you.  That’s a little something I picked up from my friend Pedro.  I was moved by what I heard the other day, so I thought I’d pick that up for you.”
     Frank looked at him in a puzzling way and asked, “What are you talking about?”
     “Your mother, Frank.  Your mother who is dying of cancer.”
     “I forgot I told you about that, Alan.  I was wondering why you asked me to come over here.  I was even more curious about why you put a bag of weed in my hand.  Oh, this if for my mother.  How much do I owe you for this?”
     “You don’t owe me anything.  I got it to help your mother.  Her health problems sounded terrible, and I wanted to do something to help.”
     “Let me pay you for this, Alan,” Frank insisted with a strange gleam in his eye.
     Alan noticed there was something wrong with the man’s responses, and decided to bail on the conversation, on the house, on everything.  “You don’t owe me anything, Frank.  I have to go.  Right now I’m late.  Let me show you the door on my way out.”
     Frank allowed Alan to herd him toward the door.  Before Alan could close the door Frank added one more thing, “Thank you so much for your consideration, Mr. Kelly.  My mother will definitely appreciate it.”
     “It’s no big deal, Frank.  It’s no big deal,” Alan muttered as he shut the door and locked it. 
     Alan left the house through the back door, heading for the Range Rover.  He started the SUV and backed out of the garage.  He noticed Frank Angelo drove off in a big van with no windows just as the garage door opened.  Alan headed for The Gates.  He needed a drink, badly.  Alan Kelly was a brilliant thinker.  He knew the cops were onto him. 
     When his house faded into the distance he took out a cell phone and called Conrad’s apartment.  He didn’t get an answer.  He swore under his breath.  “Where the hell are you, Conrad Ryland?” wondered Alan.
     He changed his mind about going to a bar and instead got on the interstate.  It was only five miles to a certain apartment complex near Seven Oaks.  His girlfriend lived in a small apartment, but she had an extra bedroom.  Alan decided he would take an impromptu vacation to “the land of beautiful woman” for a couple of days, and he had a few questions to ask while he was there.  He dialed his girlfriend’s cell phone, and she said she would be waiting for him.

ÜÜÜ

     “Alan Kelly is dealing.  I’m sure of it,” said the man Alan knew as Frank.  The man’s real name was Eddy Booker.  He was a seventeen-year veteran of the police force.  He graduated from uniforms after eight years.  By 2005 the Baton Rouge Police Department considered him one of the most effective undercover agents they had.  He was talking to two cops sitting in the back of the van he drove to Alan’s house.  “Did you get the plates on the car that came through?  It was some guy named Chuck.”
     “No, I couldn’t see his plates from where we were parked,” said a man hunkered down in front of a console of audio surveillance equipment.  “Damn, Eddy.  I thought we had him.  The guy who showed up must have spooked the hell out of Kelly.”
     “The front door was wide open.  We could have barged in there without even knocking, like that Chuck guy,” observed a guy by the back door called Big Larry.
     “Yeah, but no court would have admitted the evidence without a search warrant.  What do you think Curtis?  Do we have enough to go to a judge for a warrant?” Eddy asked his supervisor, the man sitting at the audio console.
     “No way.  The guy didn’t sell us anything, and what he gave us is a misdemeanor quantity.  We’ve got nothing,” Curtis admitted.
     “I dug ditches to get this guy, Curtis.  I listened to his bullshit attempts to relate to the common laborer.  Alan Kelly is a first class jerk.  Tell me he’s not going to get away,” Eddy pleaded with the unseen black man.
     “We can’t touch him right now, Eddy.  He may be dirty, but he’s playing smart.  Don’t worry.  He’ll slip up.  They all do eventually.  Let’s all go home.  I hate this cheap ass van,” Curtis complained aloud, and Eddy headed for First District Headquarters.
     “Curtis, I’m not sure if you could tell from the audio, but Kelly made me for a cop.  I slipped up somehow.  I think it happened when I didn’t respond instantly to his, “A gift for your mother,” line.  He’ll never deal with me now.”
     “We could put a watch on his house, and see what happens,” suggested Big Larry.
     “No, I think this one got away, Larry.”
     “So much for that hot tip we got.  The department pays too damned much for that phone line.  I prefer good old fashioned interrogations,” Big Larry, by the back door, notified no one in particular.
     “The informant still remains unidentified.  One of Kelly’s buyers showed up, but we failed to get his plates.  On top of all that I lost my landscaping job.  This keeps on getting better,” Eddy commented without humor.
     “The only thing we know about the informant is that it was a woman.  We considered that the woman may be involved with him in some way, but we have not been able to determine her identity.  She called a couple of times, though. Remember that’s how we got the information to infiltrate this guy by joining his crew.  Maybe she’ll call again.  You never know,” Curtis pointed out.
     “In the meantime we have nothing, and the suspect knows we’re on to him.”
     “You can’t catch them all,” Larry offered as condolence.
     “At least I don’t have to pick up a shovel tomorrow,” Eddy reasoned.
     “That’s right, Eddy.”
     The van rolled up Plank Road through one of the worst neighborhoods in the city.  Cocaine dealers in the area of First District Headquarters knew the sight of the van.  When it was observed coming down the street, young gang members sprinted out of sight.  The van finally pulled into the safety of the police parking lot, and the three narcotics detectives got out.  It was the end of another long and fruitless ordeal, the mainstay of the job.  Even when the job went well the drugs never dried up.

Chapter Twelve

Three Weeks Earlier

     The king-sized brass bed bounced and shook while two women wrestled under the covers.  The sound of twittering permeated the room.  As the struggling stopped the covers slipped off the side of the bed.  The women underneath lay exposed to the eavesdropping walls.  Neither one of them had any clothes on.  They were engaged in a passionate embrace.
     The blonde woman on the bottom was Cynthia.  She looked very beautiful.  Her complexion and shape earned her designation as a Georgia peach by the time she was eighteen.  Her skin tanned a light caramel color, and God gave her naturally what other women paid for. 
     By Cynthia’s nineteenth birthday men no longer held any attraction for her.  She told her Catholic parents after she turned twenty-two, and not long after that introduced them to her girlfriend.  Cynthia went through a number of same sex relationships after self-realization struck her, but the woman she introduced to her parents stole her heart.  The woman’s name was Tiffany, and Cynthia loved her so much it hurt.
     Tiffany, a brunette, lay on top of Cynthia and planted small kisses all over her neck.  Tiffany resembled a super model.  She stood almost six feet tall, and she weighed only one hundred twenty pounds.  She looked absolutely physically fit.  Her appearance disguised her tough sensuality.  No man would have believed she preferred girls to boys, and sometimes neither did she.
     At times Tiffany lost her mind when it came to Cynthia.  Her emotions ran the gamut of psychological extremes, partially because of the guilt she sometimes felt about the relationship.  Tiffany experienced severe depression not only because of the guilt, but also because Cynthia had a drug problem.  Fatalism consumed Tiffany if Cynthia threatened to leave. Their relationship faltered several times because of Cynthia’s habits and threats, but for a long time they cared about each other too much to remain separated.
     Cynthia graduated from LSU in music.  She played violin for the Baton Rouge Symphony, and she gave violin lessons to children of the wealthy.  Music paid well enough for her to survive, but not well enough to allow her a life of privilege.  Tiffany took care of that.  Tiffany graduated from the LSU School of Law at the age of twenty-three.  Three years after she passed the Louisiana Bar Exam she became a junior partner in a prominent law firm, and she had half a million dollars to her credit.  The woman showed true genius in a courtroom, winning every lawsuit she took on.
     The two young ladies lived together in Walden, an exclusive neighborhood off Highland Road south of the university.  Tiffany paid for the house.  The French Quarter style house overlooked a small lake.  The picturesque body of water sold most of the houses in the vicinity.  The developers stocked the pond with fish, and ducks and geese swam on its surface year round.  Tourists often drove through Walden to admire its man-made beauty.
     A bathroom and a small sunroom occupied some of the abbreviated upper story, but the bedroom in which the ladies frolicked filled most of it.  The two women opulently decorated the room they slept in.  The king-sized brass bed dominated the eastern wall.  In front of the bed a small Persian rug broke the tedium of the walnut floor.  An antique cedar armoire stood against the northern wall, and a long cherry vanity ran along the southern.  Their entertainment center with a wide screen television sat on the wall opposite the bed.   The bedroom looked spectacular, but the ladies argued in there more than in any other room.
     “I still don’t understand why you have to sleep with him,” Cynthia complained just as Tiffany began to move down. 
     Tiffany made an impatient sound, and put her head down on Cynthia’s chest for a minute.  When she picked her head back up she looked directly into her lover’s eyes.  “We have talked this to death.  You agreed that we needed to do this.  Until we make the bastard pay for what he did, you will never know peace.  We will never have closure unless we go through with our plan, and the only way I can accomplish that is by staying in his confidence.  Besides, I only slept with him.  We didn’t have sex.”
     Cynthia pulled away from Tiffany and rolled over to look out of the window.  Outside a heavy rain fell, and Cynthia felt that fit her mood perfectly.  “I’m not sure what I want anymore.  It all makes sense when you explain it to me, but when I think about it everything falls to pieces.  The man raped me when I was eighteen years old, but I feel like I am the sick one because I won’t let it go.  Maybe the lawyers were right.  Maybe I contributed to what happened.  The district attorney seemed to think so.  Can’t we just let it go, Tiffany?”
     “You’re the one who wanted to do this.  It’s not like we’re going to kill him, like he deserves.  We’re not going to do anything but force him to suffer consequences for his actions, for once in his life.  Don’t you ever believe that what happened was your fault.  No woman deserves what he did to you.”
     “I can’t stand the thought of him touching you.  How can you stomach the feel of his hands?”
     “He’s no different than any other men I’ve met.  Men are all pigs.  I’m thankful I figured that out without getting raped.  When I think about it, I want to kill him.  He’s lucky you’re such a forgiving person.  If you asked me to, then I would kill him, Cynthia.”
     “If you killed him I would lose you.  This whole thing seems crazy.  I can’t believe it’s actually happening.  I wish you had never gone to that party.  I wish you had never met the guy.  Most of all I wish I had never told you his name.  What was I thinking?”
     One of Tiffany’s clients threw a party to celebrate their victory in a large sexual harassment lawsuit.  The guest list consisted mostly of upwardly mobile young professionals.  Tiffany attended as a professional courtesy.  A well-dressed young man approached her while she mingled to pass the time.  She decided to play along, merely to stay in practice.  She was a lesbian in private, but in public she needed her heterosexual appeal.  When the man told her his name, Tiffany wanted to throw her drink in his face.  It was the man who raped Cynthia.  Instead her mind turned to thoughts of longer lasting revenge.
     “Calm down.  This will all be over the next time he scores, which is bound to be soon.  He and his friends go through marijuana like cigarette smokers go through cartons.  They’ll all need more very soon.  I’ve seen his stash, and there’s basically nothing left.”
     “We don’t have any guaranty this is going to work at all.  Sure I came up with the plan, but after you spent a couple of nights together I changed my mind.  Let’s leave the guy alone, Tiffany, for my sake.  This plan makes me feel worse instead of better.”
     “I’m not going to leave it alone.  I didn’t spend time with that worm for no reason.  I’m going to call him in a little while.  I’m going to go to dinner with him, and then we may go back to my apartment for the night.  Console yourself with the knowledge that he’ll be paying for his crimes shortly.”
     “Why did you have to get an apartment?  Why couldn’t you have just gone to hotels, like other sleazy swingers?”
     “I don’t trust hotel bathrooms.  They are a breeding ground for germs.  Also, I like the little apartment I got.  It’s close to my office, so I can easily go there to freshen up.”
     “It seems an awful lot like you actually enjoy seeing him, Tiffany.”
     “Don’t talk crazy, Cynthia.  If you could only hear yourself.”
     “I need to get dressed.  I’m sorry I spoiled the moment, but I’ve been going through a lot of stress lately.  I owe Malcolm a huge amount of money, and he hasn’t been very nice about it.  I need to go talk to him in person.”
     “I can’t believe you went back to doing that stuff, Cynthia.  Everybody thinks they can control it, but nobody can, you least of all.  That stuff is evil.  It puts people through hell.”
     “Nevertheless, I need to see the dealer before he gets angry.  I’ve heard dangerous things about him, now that I’m into him for a couple thousand.”
     “Please try to take care of it.  The last thing you need is trouble with a drug dealer.  I’m glad I never liked that stuff.”
     Cynthia got out of bed and got dressed.  The rain pounded against the roof, but the business at hand would not wait.  Tiffany leaned back into the pillows and watched her young lover move around, aroused by the sight of her lithe body.  Cynthia eventually went to the bathroom.  Tiffany pulled on her T-shirt, and grabbed her cell phone to make a call.
     “Hi, Alan.  This is Tiffany.  Are we still on for tonight?”

     At the turn of the millennium four hundred thousand people lived in a place on the Mississippi River the American Indians once called Istrouma.  At that time different ways of life and economic outlooks disjointed the city culturally and geographically.  Slums covered a large part of the city.  Everyday people reluctantly called those areas home.  Privileged people avoided the poor parts of town, and considered their own neighborhoods a nice slice of the American pie.  Baton Rouge had a split personality, hopelessly divided by its own parts.
     South Baton Rouge interlaced its urban paths and public walks like a ravenous arachnid weaving a massive spider web.  Poverty paved the downtown promenades; it was the glue that held residents fast to the trap.  People strong enough to escape the snug confines of destitution seldom succumbed to the adherent allure of the streets and their vices, once they were free.  Those people never forgot the lessons they learned in the town’s economic wastelands.
     The suburbs and affluent neighborhoods evinced few of the struggles and hardships faced in the slums.  White people comprised a large percentage of the population.  Nobody feared for their safety walking the streets at night.  Prostitutes and drug dealers avoided those neighborhoods.  Residents kept the yards mowed and the streets clean.  The middle and upper classes lived in a completely different reality from the lower class, and in many ways they contrived that reality.  People who didn’t buy into the fantasies about Baton Rouge knew that bad neighborhoods comprised most of the city.
     The slums and the nicer neighborhoods came together in places.  The Garden District sported dozens of beautiful homes.  It shared boundaries with Foo Town and UPT, two notoriously bad neighborhoods.  Spanish Town was the oldest neighborhood in the city, but gentrification made it a sought after place to live.  Gracie, another slum, carried on its miserable existence a stone’s throw away.  The two worlds met in dozens of places.  In these places someone could gauge the sharp contrasts between the two ways of life simply by turning his or her head left and right.
     Anyone who sought deeper understanding of the world would find the task complicated in Baton Rouge.  Truth, beauty, art, science, and order clashed with sex, drugs, violence, hatred and despair.  The collision between good and evil, in a manner of speaking, produced paradoxes and coincidences throughout the spectrum of human life.  The city was not beautiful or glamorous by any conventional standards, but there was a beauty in its imperfections.  Life continued normally under such aberrant circumstances, deviance evolved into normalcy.  One could not help but feel awe to witness regularity and anomaly become one creature.
      Perversion and wholesomeness combined to form the cornerstones of Cynthia Duplessis’ life.  Success and failure blended to make every morning a difficult time for her.  If that wasn’t perplexing enough, she could always flounder in the quagmire between love and hate.  On the day when Cynthia went to see Malcolm, the Jamaican cocaine dealer, she forced herself to reconcile substance abuse with financial insolvency.  The experience did not simplify her life.
     Malcolm stayed on Garfield Street in an infamous, dope infested ghetto on the north side of the university.  He spent most of his time in a ramshackle shotgun dwelling with a postage stamp sized front yard, but he actually lived in a much nicer place.  Few people knew the location of his true residence, and none of them participated in the drug trade.  Malcolm closely guarded the location of his home.  His wife and three children lived there in relative security, and they all wanted to keep it that way.  Even the children were uptight, because their father made them that way.
     Sheets of plywood covered the windows of the house where he conducted business, and the boards of the front porch were rotten.  Syringes and crack pipes punctuated the proliferation of garbage near the front steps.  Squalor captured the attention for blocks in every direction, and the house looked like it belonged in that setting.
     Cynthia arrived at the location just as the heavy rain stopped falling.  She nervously walked up the steps and knocked on the heavy front door, which was probably more solid than the walls.  In the throes of physical craving she approached the clique house fearlessly, but on that day she was miserably clean and sober.  No drugs or alcohol dampened her awareness of the danger she was in, a danger heightened by the money she owed.  The icing on the cake was that she didn’t have the money, and she couldn’t blow it off because Malcolm knew where she lived.
     Malcolm answered the front door sporting a hideous smile.  Cynthia Duplessis did not share dreams with Jessica Sinclair, or she would have felt a gnawing horror tear away at her stomach.  Malcolm’s smiling visage looked exactly like the leering mask that adhered to Jessica’s face in her dream of the storm on the beach.  An evil lurked beneath the twinkle in his eyes, and the grin looked more like a snarl.  Cynthia was not immune to the sensation, and for the first time she knew the full depths of addiction’s consequences.
     “I was thinking you would come by here soon, or else I would go looking for you,” intoned Malcolm in a treacherous voice.  “Come in, Cynthia.  Come in.”
     Cynthia shuffled into the house reluctantly.  She mentally rehearsed the excuse she had prepared while Malcolm locked the door behind her.  The sound of the cross bar sliding into place made her jump out of her skin.  “Malcolm, I’m going to get your money…”
     “You’re going to get my money?  You don’t have my money right now?” asked the wiry Jamaican man with menace.
     “I planned to get it from my girlfriend, but she won’t give it to me.  I kept my habit a secret, and that made her mad.  I was strung out when we met, but I kicked.  She flipped out when she found out I relapsed.  I was clean for a long time.”
     “I don’t care about all that, bitch,” Malcolm told her as he sat down in his favorite chair, “all I care about is the money.”
     “I’m going to get your money…”
     “So you don’t have my money?” he shouted.
     “I will have it.  Just give me…”
     “I’ve given you enough.  When?”
     “When what?”
     Malcolm pulled a gun out of his pants and chambered a round.  “Bitch, I know you’re not that stupid.  When do I get my money?”
     Cynthia was coming unraveled.  Malcolm treated her so nicely when he gave her the drugs.  The whole scene reminded her of a bad dream.  Her voice quavered when she replied, “As soon as I get paid.  My students start new lessons in a couple of weeks,” she lied, “and I’ll be able to give it you then.”
     Her music students would pay her enough to cover the debt, but not for another twenty-three days.  The symphony was in the off season.  Tiffany felt she needed to take responsibility, and refused to cover the debt.  Cynthia could find numerous reasons the money was unavailable, but she was too terrified to tell the man.  She hoped to buy some time with her deceit.
     “Two weeks isn’t soon enough, unless we make some other arrangement,” Malcolm insinuated, and the devilish leer spread across his face again.
     “I’m really sorry, Malcolm.  Look, I’ll call my parents and ask them for the money.  You don’t have to worry about a measly two thousand dollars,” Cynthia insisted in an attempt to lighten the situation.
     “You can call your parents after you take care of our new arrangement.  Don’t worry, Cynthia.  It won’t hurt.  Come over here, and get down on your knees.”
     “You can’t mean that.  I’ll get your money.  Besides, what are you going to do?  Shoot me?  I don’t think you’ll do something like that here, in your office.”
     “I won’t shoot you, but I will beat you within an inch of your life if you don’t do what I say.  Let’s do this the easy way.  You’re a smart girl, so think about it.  Nobody’s going to come running to help you.  The cops won’t care about another junkie trick down here in the hood.  Just do what I say, and I’ll give you more time to get my money.  Don’t try my patience.  I’ve wanted to slap around a white bitch for a long time.  Now do what I say.”

She hesitated for just a moment.  Malcolm jumped out of the chair and slapped her so hard she was blinded.  Stars floated in front of her eyes, but she didn’t lose consciousness.  The burning imprint of a hand appeared on her cheek. 
     “Do what I say,” Malcolm repeated, and that time Cynthia knew he wasn’t making any empty threats.
     Hot tears streamed down her cheeks, but she got down on her knees.  Every wrong decision of her life led to that terrible place, like a long fallen row of children’s dominoes, knocked over too soon.  Her choices led into an abyss of unfulfilled ambition and pointless suffering.  While she satisfied the man’s physical desire, doors slammed shut in her mind.  The happy young girl she once was fled into the hidden corners of her mind and cried.  Even while she knelt on the dirty floor, Cynthia knew she was never coming back.

Chapter Thirteen

     Blue jays, robins, sparrows and mockingbirds blanketed the front yard of Jacques’ Duplessis home near the university lakes.  The gardener spread thirty pounds of birdseed in the grass every few days, much to the delight of the avian population.  The birds raised an animated cacophony when disturbed into flight, and boisterously made their presence heard while they waited in the trees.  A red Mustang fueled their ire as it rumbled into the driveway.  The feathered friends returned to their feast once the car pulled down the side.
     Jessica led the way to the door again, and rang the bell to make their presence known.  The old man did not answer.  An uniformed nurse came to the door and examined them closely before she opened up.  The lady spoke to them in a friendly way, gladdened by the happy way the couple held hands.
     “May I help you?”
     “We’re here to see Mr. Duplessis.  I lived in the apartment in the back until a couple of days ago.  He said his maintenance man would help me move, so here I am,” Jessica answered her cheerfully.
     “Hold on, I need to ask him before…”
     “Who’s that at the door?  Ms. Evelyn!  Who’s there?” shouted Jacques from somewhere out of sight.
     Nurse Evelyn rushed into the house, leaving the foyer unguarded.  Conrad leaned into the shadows to peek at the visible contents.  He saw a foyer containing a simple coat rack, and beyond that a living room full of fifties kitsch furniture.  Before he could pull himself back the nurse came back around the corner.  She shook her finger at him and smiled.
     “Mr. Duplessis asked me to show you in.  Right this way, please.”
     The owner of the house lay in his bedroom, consumed by the pain of advanced large cell carcinoma.  The covers were pulled back on the bed, and he rested on top of them fully clothed.  Even though he was dying Jacques Duplessis insisted on getting dressed every morning.  His work ethic endured beyond his physical well being.  He would have tried to take care of himself, but his family insisted on the service of a professional nurse.
     “Come in, Jessica.  I was expecting you today,” the old man said kindly.  “I’m sorry young man, but I forgot your name.”
     “We weren’t officially introduced.  My name is Conrad,” he said, and the two men shook hands.
     “Are you all right, Mr. Duplessis?” Jessica expressed her genuine concern.
     “No, I’m not all right.  I’m no worse today than I have been for weeks, but I am dying.  Cancer is killing me.  I survived everything the Nazis could throw at me, but my doctors say the pollution here was too much for me.  That’s the breaks.”
     “What about chemotherapy and radiation?” asked Conrad.
     “I went through all of that in the past year.  I finally chose to make my exit with more dignity.  The treatment turned my life into a living hell, and none of it made much of a difference.  One day the doctors told me I didn’t have a chance either way.  I decided to square my shoulders, grit my teeth and go to meet my maker like a soldier.”
     “I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr. Duplessis.  Is there anything I can do?”
     “There’s not a damned thing anyone can do.  Now, I assume you still need help moving your furniture out of the apartment,” Jacques directed at Jessica, who nodded her head.  “Will you bring me the phone, Evelyn?  I need to call my man Ned to help this young lady move.”
     “Of course, Mr. Duplessis,” Evelyn told him.  She went to get the phone.
     “Thank you so much, Mr. Duplessis.  You have my undying gratitude for your help.  I don’t know what I would have done without your help,” Jessica spoke with sincerity.
     “I don’t need you to thank me anymore.  I didn’t like the way your mother acted, and it isn’t like I’m doing anything extraordinary.  Your family paid me $20,000 since you moved in.  I can afford to give you that last rent check, and a little help moving.  Like I said, I won’t be needing the money.”
     “I want to tell you something interesting, Mr. Duplessis.  Last Saturday night Conrad saved a young woman’s life.  The woman’s name was Cynthia Duplessis. The newspaper said she’s your granddaughter.”  Jessica then related the events of late Saturday night.  Evelyn returned with the phone in the middle of the account.  The tale entranced the nurse, and she forgot the phone in her hand.
     “That was a brave thing you did, Conrad,” said Jacques quietly, after he thought about the story.
     “I didn’t know she was your granddaughter.  I just knew that somebody needed help.  I considered the event a lucky coincidence.  You helped Jessica, and I was able to help Cynthia.  I was glad I could do something to help your family,” Conrad told the old man.
     “Let me tell you about Cynthia, Conrad.  She was never happy when she was growing up.  The other children picked on her because she wore glasses, and her knees practically knocked together when she walked.  Children show amazing cruelty at times.  Cynthia missed out on all the fun at elementary school, and simply because she was skinny and couldn’t see as well as her classmates.  The cruelty of children never ceases to amaze me.  Things have not changed since I was a little boy, and they probably never will.  My granddaughter was such a sweet little girl.  I don’t think she had a mean or hurtful bone in her body.  Her parents, my son and daughter-in-law, lavished affection on her, but more than anything she craved the acceptance of her peers. 
     “When she grew into adolescence her body and her life changed dramatically.  She exchanged her thick glasses for contact lenses.  Her skinniness changed to slender athleticism, and she filled out in ways that make grown women jealous.  Cynthia’s clumsiness became a gloriously attractive timidity.  All the girls wanted to be her friend and all the boys found her irresistible, but her sudden popularity created even more problems than her ostracism had.
     “Cynthia demonstrated a naiveté that got her hurt over and over.  Because of the abnormal nature of her interactions with other children, she lacked awareness of the treacherous things people will do.  The girls she took into her confidence constantly found new ways to betray her and to make her look foolish.  Boys told lies about her, because they could never get what they wanted from her.  She lacked the social instincts of normal teenagers.
     “Cynthia still desired social acceptance more than anything else, and so she compromised her values to achieve that goal.  She became sexually active because that made her popular with the boys.  She became manipulative and vindictive in her relationships with other girls, because that was the only way she could gain respect.  She clawed her way to the top of the social ladder by any means available.  She lost her innocence as a consequence.”
     Conrad shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot.  Jessica searched for something to say, but she couldn’t think of anything.  Evelyn came to her senses and handed Jacques the phone.  The old man noticed the awkward silence in the room and regained his sense of hospitality.
    “I would greatly appreciate your company.  Consider it one of my last wishes. Won’t you both sit down and talk to me for a little while?”  Jacques entreated them.
     “Of course, Mr. Duplessis.  It would be our pleasure,” answered Jessica.  She sat down in a straight-backed chair close to the bed.
     “I hope you didn’t take my silence as a sign that I wasn’t interested.  It’s just that Cynthia’s childhood sounds a lot like mine.  I didn’t have glasses, but I was ugly.  Children don’t need much of an excuse to treat other children badly.  I never have figured out what normal means,” Conrad explained.  The only other place to sit was a rocking chair across the room.  Conrad walked over and occupied it.
     “There’s no need for you to stand there, Evelyn.  If you’d like you can bring in a chair from the other room.  Of course you don’t have to humor my whims just because you work for me.  It won’t bother me a bit if you don’t want to listen to me ramble on,” Jacques told his nurse.  A coughing attack racked his body after he spoke.  The spasms visibly pained him, and he gasped for breath when they subsided.  Evelyn rushed over and put a hand on his shoulder.
     “I know you don’t like the drugs, Mr. Duplessis, but I can’t stand to see someone suffer.  I want you to do something for me.  I want to sit here with you, but I won’t do it if you’re in agony. I can bring you some coffee if you’re afraid of losing your senses, but please take some of the morphine syrup,” pleaded the nurse.  Jacques didn’t say anything, but he gave a slight nod of his head.  Evelyn poured a small amount of a thick burgundy liquid into a little medicine cup, and Jacques drank it down when she handed it to him.
     “Would you like that coffee?” she asked her patient.
     “Would you do that for me?  I hate going to sleep in the middle of the day.  I wouldn’t take that stuff, but the pain is almost more than I can stand.”  Jacques closed his eyes for a moment, struggling to control the discomfort.
     “It’s not a bother at all, Mr. Duplessis,” she insisted as she left to make coffee.
     “Did y’all want any coffee?  I didn’t think to ask before she walked out.”
     “No, thank you,” Jessica and Conrad responded in turn.
     “Anyway, I was telling you about Cynthia.  She changed everything about herself to fit in, but she didn’t like the person she became.  She suffered from anxiety and depression, and the choices she made worsened her condition.  I think she intentionally did things to make herself miserable.  College life made it very easy for her to deal with her problems by self-medicating.  She drank heavily the first semester.  She also did drugs, but she never admitted it to her parents or myself.”
     Evelyn returned with a tray holding four cups of coffee.  Evidently there was a ready pot waiting in the kitchen, because it didn’t take her any longer than filling the four cups.  The young couple only refused Jacques’ original offer out of politeness.  When presented with the opportunity to reach out and take a cup, they both did so without hesitation.  They added sugar and cream from containers on the tray, while Evelyn fetched a chair from the kitchen.
     “Thank you so much, Ms. Evelyn,” Conrad spoke up first.  He took a sip and found the coffee to be just the right strength.  It was only slightly thinner than tar.
     “Yes, thank you.  This is wonderful,” followed Jessica, and the look of contentment on her face indicated she meant it.  The two martinis at lunch had left her slightly lethargic, and coffee was the perfect cure.
     “You know I don’t have any manners,” said Jacques brusquely.  Evelyn smiled, because that was the old man’s way of saying he appreciated her.
     They all drank coffee in silence for a few minutes.  Mr. Duplessis breathing sounded labored.  His chest made a slight rattling sound that could be heard over the clinking of the cups and the occasional slurp.  Evelyn wore a fatalistic expression on her face.  As a professional nurse she had experienced the loss of patients that she liked on a number of occasions.  She never got used to it, but she pretended to the world that she was above emotion.  Conrad decided that drinking coffee with a dying man was making him sad.  Jessica looked like she might have a nervous breakdown at any moment.
     “I wouldn’t tell you about all this if you hadn’t saved my granddaughter’s life.  There’s something else you should know before I continue.  I don’t know what it said in the newspaper, but her prognosis isn’t good.  The doctor said she might have lost the will to live.  I talked to the doctor and the police about something else I wanted to keep out of the press.  Cynthia was full of cocaine when she died.  I am fairly certain she was the target of the shooting, and not an innocent bystander.”
     That news affected Conrad in a way he couldn’t analyze.  He and Buzz hadn’t rushed to the aid of an innocent victim, and heroically saved her life.  The young lady was a drug addict, and they might not have saved her life after all.  Mr. Duplessis appeared to be immune to the negative energy, but it was bringing down his guests in a big way.
     “Cynthia was raped when she was only eighteen.  She came to me with the story, and I insisted we try to prosecute the young man.  The District Attorney’s Office conducted an investigation, and concluded that Cynthia had it coming.  Their determination crushed her spirit and destroyed her reputation.  I felt largely responsible because I pushed her into making the charge public.
     “I pulled all the strings I could, but there were too many factors against prosecution.  It was a date rape, and even the more brutal cases of date rape can be difficult to prove.  In this case Cynthia sustained no physical injuries.  Witnesses said she and the young man were practically having sex before they went into the building where the incident took place.  The worst part was that she was extremely intoxicated at the time.
     “My granddaughter never recovered from what happened.  She and I were always very close while she was growing up, but after the rape everything changed.  She hardly ever spoke to me.  I think partially it was because of my bad advice, but more so because she gave up on normal life.  The event soured her on the things she always held dear, including family relationships.  I wasn’t surprised when she came out as a lesbian a few years later.  By that time I expected it.
     “I’m telling you these things because I have no one else to talk to.  My son only cares about me to keep up appearances.  He doesn’t want to spend any time here, listening to my regrets about Cynthia.  I regret a lot of things about the way I lived my life, and Cynthia stands at the top of the list.  I devoted more time to my business and making money than to my granddaughter, who doted on me.  I never paid enough attention to her when she told me about her problems.  I thought she needed to suffer so she could become a strong person.  What am I going to tell God when I stand before him?  Cynthia needed toughening up?”
     “People make their own decisions, Mr. Duplessis.  You can beat yourself up over the past all you want, but you’re just speculating.  Your deeper involvement may not have helped at all.  You may have made things worse.  There’s no way to know all that, but I do know a few things.  You didn’t shoot her, and you didn’t rape her.  Maybe the morphine has affected your reasoning.  I can assure you that you aren’t responsible for the things that happened to her,” lectured Conrad.  He placed the coffee cup back on the tray and went back to the rocking chair.
     “I like you, Conrad.  You might be right.  I’m just feeling sorry for myself.  The Duplessis family name will probably die with Cynthia.  I’m too old to have any more children, and my spineless son is probably impotent.  Life has made me extremely tired.  Maybe a long rest won’t be so bad,” Jacques rationalized aloud.
     Evelyn changed her mind about taking part in the conversation.  She collected cups from Jacques and Jessica, and returned to the kitchen with the tray.  She never came back.  Jessica elected to salvage something positive out of the conversation.
     “I was having a great day before we started talking about this.  Cynthia could still pull through.  I mean, you’ve been talking about her like she’s already dead.  You’re acting like you’re already dead.  Think positive.  Everything could still work out for the best.  Would you like a ride to see your granddaughter?  I would be happy to drive you.  Conrad bought me a car this morning.”
    “You have to move your furniture, Ms. Sinclair, but I appreciate the offer.  I bet you two didn’t anticipate this conversation.  I apologize.  You’re right.  All is not lost.  Now let me call Ned so y’all can get out of here.”
     While Mr. Duplessis was on the phone with his handyman, Jessica turned to her boyfriend and whispered, “Holy hell, I only thought I had problems.  Don’t worry, Conrad.  I would never turn lesbian on you.”  She smiled and winked.
     “Would you like to make a wager on how fast I can load up your furniture and get you back home?”  Conrad asked with a return wink.
     Jacques hung up the phone and returned his attention to the young couple.  He noticed the conspiratorial looks between them, and felt a deep sense of loneliness.  He cursed the passage of time and old age.  He would have liked to have sex one more time, but all the Viagra in the world wouldn’t give him the stamina.  He made up his mind never to think that way again, and opted to get the happy, young, sexually active couple out of his sight immediately.
     “Ned should be along any minute.  I apologize again for wallowing in self-pity.  It was inexcusable.  I hope you both have a wonderful day,” Jacques bade them farewell.
    “Thanks for everything, Mr. Duplessis.  Believe it or not, I enjoyed our conversation,” remarked Conrad on the way out.
     “Goodbye, Mr. Duplessis.  My thoughts will be with you,” Jessica leaned over and hugged the old man.  Jacques couldn’t believe how good she smelled, and he scolded himself for being a dirty old man after she pulled away and left.
     It took Ned and Conrad thirty minutes to load the furniture Jessica needed help with.  While they took care of the large items, she stuffed the remainder of her clothes and other belongings into the empty spaces.  Ninety minutes later the contents of the load filled every available square foot of the living room that was once exclusively Conrad’s.  They both thanked Ned profusely, and Conrad slipped him forty dollars while Jessica wasn’t looking.  The only thing left was to make a place for everything.
     “Conrad, where am I going to put my bed?”
     “I was thinking we should lay it flat on top of everything else, and then we could at least walk from one side of the room to the other.  Actually, we’ll use whichever bed you like better, and stand the other one up against the wall behind it.  It’ll be like our own padded room.”
     “A room fit for the craziness of our relationship.  I like that.  If anyone ever asked, then we could say we get crazy in the sack.  That would be funny,” commented Jessica.
     “What’s so funny about that?  Is our lovemaking too sedate for you?”
     “Don’t be silly.  We’re wonderful together.  I’m just trying to make the best out of not having enough room to walk.  The apartment really is,” Jessica considered which word she should use, “crowded.”  She wanted to say, “ a tiny little dump,” but she worried about hurting Conrad’s feelings.
     “This place is a dump, and it’s tiny.  How would you feel about moving?” Conrad almost seemed psychic at times.
     “I love the idea, but I haven’t even unpacked here.  Besides, I would feel better about it if we both had jobs.  I worry about you doing too many illegal things to support us.  You know I’m not judgmental, but I don’t like the idea of you taking chances with your life.  I want you here with me, not in jail.”
     “I want to be here with you.  It’s like a fantastic dream, only it’s better.  I wake up with you.  My dreams suck in comparison.”
     “Mm.  You have a way with words,” Jessica said huskily.
     They drew together and kissed with ardor.  Jessica wrapped her legs around Conrad’s waist, and they fell into a pile of clothes filled garbage bags.  Conrad rolled over on top of Jessica.  He held her down while he kissed her neck and nibbled on her ears, causing her to moan loudly.  She clawed at his T-shirt, and he helped her pull it over his head.  They were neither sedate nor wild.  They were simply very good together.
     “I love you, Jessica,” he told her afterward.
     “I love you too,” she responded, and she meant it.
     Both of them worried about the intensity of their emotions, but there was no way to deny the existence of the love they shared.  Something extraordinary had happened to them.  They found each other.  In a frightening and lonely world the odds against something so beautiful were staggering, but love always defied rules, odds and chances.
     They snuggled together on the available bed, having moved there from the pile of garbage bags.  Conrad traced figure eight’s across Jessica’s back while they lay entwined.  Jessica pressed herself tightly against him, rested her head on his chest and fell asleep.  A little while later Conrad fell asleep as well.
     It was eight o’clock at night when they awakened.  At some point in her sleep Jessica removed all the covers from Conrad.  When she opened her eyes she laughed.  He was three feet from her, totally exposed to the elements.  The sound of her laughter woke him up.
     “God, I’m freezing.  Where are all the blankets?  Where did you go?” he inquired grumpily.
     Jessica gathered up the blankets, and giggled while she plopped herself on top of him.  “I guess I needed some alone time while I was asleep.”
     “You took my blankets.  You tried to freeze me to death.”
     “Poor baby.  We’ll get you warmed up,” said Jessica.  She rubbed her hands all over his cold body.  “Wow.  You really did get chilled.”
     “That cold front Saturday night hasn’t taken off yet.  You realize we wasted a huge portion of the day in bed.”
     “Is that what you think?  We wasted the day?”
     “I was referring to going to sleep at three o’clock.  Yes, I think sleeping with you is a waste of time.  There are so many better things we could be doing while we are in bed,” he explained in a businesslike tone.
     “Oh yeah?  Like what?” Jessica whispered into his ear, and pressed herself against him hotly.
     “Okay.  I can’t stand it anymore.  One more time, and then I’m taking you out dancing.”

     “The story about Cynthia depressed the hell out of me, and Mr. Duplessis regrets didn’t make me feel too good either.  What do you say to someone who’s looking death in the face?  Say hello to God for me?”  Conrad’s sounded slightly more belligerent than he intended.
     “Don’t be so cynical.  The old man just wanted somebody to talk to.  I have never seen any visitors at his house.  He said his son doesn’t care about him, and I tend to think that’s true.  The things he said were sad, but it made me happy to give him a little comfort,” Jessica said defensively and in a slightly distracted tone of voice.  She was applying eyeliner at the time.  She wanted to look good when they went dancing.
     “How could you possibly make yourself more beautiful?  You look too good already.  If you make yourself any more attractive, then I might wind up having to fight over you.”
     Jessica indeed looked incredible.  She wore a long sleeved black see through top with a thin flesh tone bra underneath.  The bra technically provided support, but she wore it for the sake of modesty.  At first glance she appeared topless, but she didn’t feel that way.  She settled on a black leather mini skirt instead of pants.  Once she had gone that far she went the rest of the way, with fishnet stockings and three-inch pumps.  When she finished her hair and makeup she looked like a teenager’s fantasy.
     “Are you going in public like that?  I’m not sure I want to share the sight of you with anyone, Jessica.”
     “I warned you about acting out of jealousy.  You should be proud to be my escort, and not uptight about what people see.”
     “Honey, I don’t even need to be at the club to know that you are the most beautiful woman going there tonight.  Words don’t begin to describe how I feel about being with you.  I feel like the luckiest person in the world,” Conrad pronounced proudly.  He held out his arm to escort Jessica, and then opened her car door gentlemanly.  Once she was safe inside he shut the door for her, before going around to the driver’s side.
     “Thank you for taking me out, Conrad.  I plan to have as much fun as I can.  I haven’t been dancing since…”
     “Since you met me.  You should plan on having fun on a regular basis.  I will insist on it.  I would do anything for you.”
     “Conrad.”
     “Yes?”
     “I feel pretty lucky myself.”