Chapter Seven

Remy rolled the plans for the Black Diamonds development he’d left out overnight and secured them with a stout rubber band. He replaced the small sculptures that had held down the edges on his desk. Often, he could tell much about clients if they remarked on one of them: cat lover, nature lover, lover of women, free spirit. But Julia had given nothing away. He suspected she rarely did.

After she took her leave, he’d gone back to the top deck, polished off what remained of the wine and boudin, and went to bed. He slept well, very well, only sorry Julia hadn’t agreed to join him under the black satin spread. In the morning, he didn’t bother to shave. A little dark scruff would help him fit in better at the noon luncheon investors’ meeting as would a black fitted tee that showed his lean strength, and the jeans he donned after his morning run and a brisk shower. He placed the plans next to a slim briefcase that contained the prospectus headed Black Diamonds Development—Find your perfect setting. Julia had it right. His target buyers were city people seeking an escape from crime, noise, and traffic—who still didn’t want to mow lawns in order to live in the country.

Breakfast consisted of two cups of black Community Coffee and a couple of slices of toasted whole wheat bread smeared with strawberry preserves from a hand-painted jam pot, both made by the local traiteur, the faith healer Rosemary Leleux. Supposedly, her pots brought luck. He’d need it today. Considering he’d run five miles, it wasn’t much of a meal, but the provided lunch would tilt toward fried and greasy.

He fiddled away the rest of the morning making calls, the most important to the man who would bush-hog the Bayou Queen property and make it accessible from the road again. He phoned another to install heavy-duty culverts in the drainage ditch that could handle the weight of heavy equipment. When his watch showed eleven, Remy set out for the shady home of his ancestors and their contribution to Cajun culture, Broussard’s Barn, an old-timey dance hall, some distance out in the country among the cane fields.

The Barn had started out as a country general store way back before the turn of the twentieth century. Barely providing enough income for a very large family, the Old Broussard of the day cleaned out his barn, knocked down the stalls, and turned the place into a dance hall with enough lively chank-a-chank music to whet the thirst of the dancers for his wife’s lemonade and cherry bounce. Should they get hungry, the store stayed open to provide soda crackers, tins of sardines, and other salty snacks, or canned peaches in heavy syrup for those who had a sweet tooth, all innocent enough.

Eventually, an enclosed ramp connected the store to the barn to keep the customers out of the weather and above the mud. Everyone entered through the store, nowadays to pay a modest cover charge, but the hall, expanded and updated over the years, had many exits that satisfied the fire marshal but owed their origins to its days as a speakeasy. Even a trapper could get a jar of white mule, known for its kick, in exchange for a muskrat pelt during the days of Prohibition. Hot jazz bands out of New Orleans replaced the accordions, fiddles, and triangles. The high and low classes mingled and got drunk at Broussard’s Barn. The family kept the peace with a shotgun, a baseball bat, and a pearl-handled pistol still kept beneath the counter. Cops were not called then or now. The Broussards made a fortune that even the Depression didn’t whittle away. No stocks for them. They bought up land from defaulted farmers and sold or rented it later for solid profits when the good times rolled again. “Because da land, it never goes away, no,” became a family adage.

Remy parked in the shell-paved lot near the store. Across a half-grown cane field stood the ancient cypress and bousillage house where many a Broussard had been born and died. Two-hundred-year-old oaks shaded its newer tin roof. As the barrier of the cane field implied, business was never conducted there.

The strings of clear bulbs that illuminated the lot were turned off for now, as were the lights by each door of the rundown motel to the rear of the dance hall. The girls who rented them by the hour at night probably still slept. Starting out as cribs for prostitutes, the ladies of the evening now had slightly better accommodations and the protection of the Broussard’s bouncers for a cut of their profits. Everyone knew. No one talked about it.

Remy also turned his eyes away. He had nothing to do with this end of the family business. Entering through the darkened store, not open as this hour, where the shelves of old canned goods had only fairly recently been replaced with convenience store foods and a large beer cooler—cigarettes, snuff, and condoms still kept behind the counter—he descended the creaking ramp into the Barn. The stage and the dance floor, now more likely to host country/western bands and their fans, stood empty. Overhead, the house lights burned illuminating a section of four tops pushed together and set for a meal with cutlery wrapped in paper napkins. Sweating bottles of beer sat at each place.

The smell of meat splattering fat on a griddle filled the air. All the aroma and noise emanated from the kitchen behind the substantial and well-stocked bar. Well, he’d arrived a little early. Remy pushed two more tables together and unrolled the Black Diamonds plans. No handy sculptures around, he used a bottle of hot sauce, the salt and pepper shakers, and a metal napkin caddy to hold down the edges. As he fanned the brochures out to one side, thunder sounded in the tunnel, and he knew his great-uncle had arrived along with—he counted the place settings—six of his minions, all relatives.

Hard to believe the currently reigning Old Broussard was his grandfather’s brother. A morbidly obese belly strained at his bib overalls, a white T-shirt with stained yellow armpits worn beneath. Sure, the former mayor possessed a prosperous gut well-hidden beneath his tailored suits, but nothing like this rotundity. Both still sported full heads of thick, steely gray hair, his grandfather’s beautifully styled and his grand-uncle’s cut saying he’d paid all of twenty dollars to have it clipped.

“Nonc,” Remy said, using the regional term for uncle, technically noncle. He braced for an all-encompassing handshake from the huge, puffy hand, but got instead a crushing hug to the fat man’s belly, once a hard pile of lard, now as soft and drooping as a woman who had birthed a dozen children and nursed them all judging by his sagging breasts.

Remy stepped back and gestured to the table with his brochures. “If you’d like to take a look before we dine…” he said and heard the snickers from his relatives at his formal use of the word dine.

“Where you from, boy? First, we eat, den we take a look at dem plans.” From deep in his treble-chinned neck, Old Broussard summoned an impressive holler. “Dose burgers ’bout ready, NuNu?”

“Comin’ in a few minutes. Gumbo is up.” Remy’s second or third cousin, anyhow the one who lived next door to him, appeared toting a tray of thick-walled soup cups. He gave Remy a grin missing two top teeth. Unlike most of the family, NuNu had long dirty blond hair coiled under a hairnet, and light blue eyes most folks described as crazy. Acne scars studded his pale face like seeds on an unripe strawberry. Some thought he’d been born of one of the prostitutes from the motel, but if so had definitely been folded into the family and raised accordingly.

NuNu plonked down a cup at each place, spilling some of Remy’s on the checkered oilcloth and barely missing his lap. The gumbo came with an island of white rice in the center and a spoon tucked in the side. “Soup’s on. Turkey/sausage. Broussard Burgers next on the menu.” Shaking his skinny behind practically in Remy’s face, NuNu boogied back to the grill.

Old Broussard sank into his custom-made armchair at the head of the table, the one usually behind the cash register out front. He patted the place on his right with a heavy hand. “Sit by me, Remy. Talk wit’ me. Slick, take dat udder end chair.”

Slick Broussard, head bouncer, conceded his usual seat. Maybe five years older than Remy, he slid toward forty with bulging biceps from pumping iron and a hard gut on him like a Romanian weightlifter. He still wore his hair in a greasy pompadour ending in a ducktail as if he’d never gotten over the death of Elvis. Now, it bore a few threads of gray. No one messed with Slick or ridiculed his retro style. Most predicted he’d become the next Old Broussard when this one died of the expected heart attack.

Remy started to pick up his spoon, but let it drop when the old man bowed his head and muttered the usual Catholic blessing. Then, the slurping began, and conversation ended. The burgers with a side of fries arrived just as Remy finished, leaving much of the rice in the bottom of the cup. A Broussard Burger consisted of a half-pound of ground beef topped with two slices of cheese, double bacon strips, and a mound of grilled onions, all on a toasted bun slathered with a special sauce Remy suspected to be spicy mayonnaise. Devouring one tested a guy’s manhood. Not to finish every bite earned taunts of “wimp”. Remy knew that. His appeared to be topped with extra onions and more goop than the others. He ignored the fries and applied himself to getting the enormous wad of meat and toppings down with sips of beer in between. “Great burger,” he muttered.

“Damn right, it is. Best in da parish. Dat NuNu, he turned out to be some cook, him. Learned in prison. Got his GED dere too. Made good use of his time dere.”

“Considering the condition of his teeth, I hope that’s all he’s cooking.” Remy should have let that observation slide.

Old Broussard puffed up like an offended bullfrog. “He don’t do none of dat drug shit. Anybody does, dey off my payroll.” Broussard eyed the men around the table. Each one dropped his gaze and focused on downing the burger. “NuNu, he lost his teet’ in a bar fight da way a man is supposed to do.”

One of the minions, all of them dressed in boots, jeans, and bicep-revealing black T-shirts with Broussard’s Barn in white lettering across their chests, looked up and bared a grin showing off a gold incisor. “That’s how I lost mine, throwing a guy already hopped up on dope outta here.”

No surprise that the Broussard posse also served as the old man’s bodyguards. Remy forced down another bite of burger, almost done with it. But, some special sauce leaked from the side of the bun and down his shirt. Remy wiped off the glob of pink with a napkin, and figured he’d have to do the presentation with a grease stain on his front. Since a couple of the men around the table had wiped their fingers on theirs, he should feel right at home.

However, the old man issued an order. “Slick, you get da boy a clean T-shirt from da store.”

Slick delegated the errand to the scrawniest of the bodyguards who most likely only weighed two-hundred pounds, all muscle. Eyeballing Remy, he said, “I’m guessing a medium.”

Remy couldn’t deny it. When the T-shirt arrived, Slick said, “Go ahead, put it on.” It didn’t bear the plain white block letters of the security force, but instead had a couple doing a two-step beneath the words, “Pass a Good Time at Broussard’s Barn.” Another challenge issued. Remy stripped off his shirt for their amusement. The dozen eyes studied his chest and armpits for hair, which he had, along with a lean set of defined abs that declared him a welterweight if he cared to enter a boxing ring. He gave them a minute to satisfy themselves that he wasn’t a sissy, then donned the shirt.

“There, you one of us now,” Old Broussard declared.

NuNu slinked out of the kitchen with another tray loaded with bread pudding anointed copiously with rum sauce, and made the rounds of the table. “Coffee?” He received a unanimous round of nods.

“Why don’t I do my presentation while you enjoy dessert?” Remy suggested. “Pack mine to go, NuNu, because it really looks great.” Truthfully, he couldn’t hold another bite and looked forward to the coffee to wash down all he had eaten. Before anyone could insist he stay at the table, he scooped up the brochures and handed them around, then went into his pitch, pretty much the same one he’d given Julia and her uncles. He invited them to study the floor plans and outlined the kind of clientele he hoped to attract to Chapelle.

“We’re not good enough for you?” Slick flexed his verbal muscles again.

“Give me your down payment now. I’ll let you have a discount.” Remy kept his salesman’s smile on his face and dearly hoped Slick wouldn’t take him up on the offer.

“Nah, I got my own place on five wooded acres. I like my space. Don’t want to be stacked on top of nobody.”

“To each his own.” Internal sigh of relief.

Still, Old Broussard heaved from his chair and pawed through the plans. Since he took an interest, so did his men. Grease stains marred the edges. Remy put running a fresh set on his list of things to do. The old man looked up with his piggy, yet very shrewd black eyes, like an aging boar that still knew the exact time the slop arrived in the trough and was the first to eat. “What else you got to show me for my big investment?”

Always make eye contact. To glance away showed weakness. Remy met his stare. “I bought the Bayou Queen site yesterday for an incredibly low price. No one bid against me.”

“Mais, yeah. Maybe word got around I was interest in dat deal.” Old Broussard chuckled deep in his chins. “Anyt’ing else?”

“I’ve got a man to bush-hog the lot and arranged for some culverts that will support the heavy equipment for the demolition.”

“You hire Stelly?”

“Yes. He’s reliable and careful.”

“Married to one of my granddaughters. You done good.” Having made the effort to stand long enough, Old Brossard returned to his chair. NuNu circled the table filling the coffee mugs from a large granitewear pot. He jumped a little when a phone rang from somewhere deep in the old man’s anatomy, but no harm done. His grandfather fished out a cell from his bib overalls. “Broussard,” he answered gruffly, though dozens of Broussards populated the parish. Someone had him on speed dial and kept the conversation short. “Dat so. T’anks. Anytime you come around, I stand you for a free drink.” No goodbye. He simply disconnected and gave Remy a hard look.

“Dat I-talian gal from New Orleans you foolin’ around wit’, she axed to be put on the agendas for bot’ da parish and city council meetings next week.”

“I not fooling around with…”

“Yes, you is, Cuz,” NuNu cut in. “She got nice tits. I saw ’em last night.”

“You spied on my house with binoculars?” Remy rose up from his seat. He had some height and more muscle than the scrawny second cousin. The urge to smash the Styrofoam box of bread pudding into that gap-toothed mouth was difficult to restrain.

“Hell, no. I picked up some night vision goggles at the surplus store. When you’re on parole, legal entertainment is hard to come by.” NuNu’s comment drew a laugh from the audience.

“I believe being a Peeping Tom is still against the law.”

“Way out in the country? I was lookin’ for owls just about the time she stood up naked as a jaybird. A birdwatcher, that’s me.”

Remy gathered the man’s soiled apron in his fist. “Don’t do it again.”

Old Broussard’s hand slammed the table and splashed the coffee from the cups. “Enough. You see dat girl don’t interfere wit’ our plans, Remy. Never was a Broussard welcome at da Queen when she lorded over da bayou in her best days. Now da sabot is on da udder foot, heh. Tear her down, you. NuNu, you watch for birds somewhere else. Bon, no?”

Remy released his grip on the apron and wiped his hand on a napkin. NuNu scuttled back to the safety of the kitchen like the cockroach he was. “I’ll speak to Ms. Rossi.” He rolled the plans, collected the spare brochures, slipping them back into his slim briefcase, and started for the exit.

“Hey, you forget your bread puddin’.” Because the old man recalled him, Remy accepted the box and the hearty slap on the back that signaled dismissal.