New World Fairy Tales Page 3

  SEEKS LOVE

  The King of the Krewe of Olde Stratford broke with strict tradition last night by publicly revealing his identity in a bid to find the mysterious lady he danced with at the Lundi Gras Krewe Ball.

  Brandan Orlando, 33, says he is ‘completely unconcerned’ about his expulsion and only wants to find the lady (right). ‘She’s amazing,’ he said. ‘I’d do anything to find her. Please — if you’re reading this — please get in touch.’

  Mr Orlando’s lady friend may care to consider that he’s the owner of Orlando Publishing Ltd, and worth an estimated $3.9m. She can contact Mr Orlando via our offices, or through the PO Box detailed below.

  He was handsome and kind-looking, with a lovely smile. And that other picture . . .

  The woman in the photograph was beautiful, powerful, in control. No wonder he fell in love with her. But I’d only borrowed her skin for a few brief hours. I put the paper down.

  ‘Look, Beth,’ said Cindy. ‘It’s that couple we saw at the ball. Wow, he’s rich . . .’

  ‘She’s got some nerve,’ said Beth, ‘wearing that slutty costume. Don’t you think, Mom? Mom? Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Are you all right, I said?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Back in Delacroix, everything cold and grey now. My body wouldn’t go back to sleep; I woke in the night wanting, yearning. This was how it would be from now on. I’d be the slave of these two beautiful, thoughtless girls until the day someone married them; and then I’d be nothing to anyone any more, and I’d live alone until I died.

  A rainy afternoon. Cindy was on the phone, Beth was watching television. I was cleaning the kitchen, a mountain of ironing to do afterwards. I barely looked up when I heard the gate. I went to the door, dishcloth in hand.

  Standing in the doorway was Brandan. I bit my tongue in shock.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, trying to smile.

  I dropped the dishcloth.

  ‘I . . .’ he held out a wet paper bag. ‘I think I have your shoes.’

  The wicked black stilettos, left behind so I could run faster. I looked at them wordlessly.

  ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ he pleaded. ‘I’ve been looking for you for weeks — I went to every hotel and boarding house in New Orleans, trying to find someone who knew you. I met this amazing old woman, Hazel. She told me she’d kept those dresses for the right person . . . please, talk to me, tell me it’s you . . .’ His voice broke. ‘Oh, God, I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘It’s Ella,’ I said, finding my voice at last. ‘My name’s Ella Jenkins, and I’m an ordinary, boring, thirty-eight-year-old housewife with two grown-up daughters. I’m the dullest person I know, even Hazel called me one of nature’s doormats. I’m sorry, this is why I ran away, it was so much fun being someone else for a while, but that was just for Mardi Gras —’

  He kissed me then, and left my heart leaping. I had to press hard on my chest to keep it in.

  ‘Shhh,’ he told me. ‘Please, Ella, darling Ella, shut up. I love you. I’ve thought about no-one else since I met you. You’re the most incredible, heart-shaking thing that’s ever, ever happened to me, and I know this is crazy, and I just don’t care.’ He knelt at my feet. ‘If you don’t want to marry me, just give me a year and a day. At the end of it, if you’re not happy, you can leave. Or you can marry me now and take half of everything I own, I’ll risk it. I just want you to give us a chance. Please, Ella, say yes.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Beth wandered onto the porch, wrinkling her nose at the rain. ‘Who’s this guy? Cindy, get out here, there’s something weird happening —’

  ‘This is Brandan,’ I said, dazedly. ‘He wants me to marry him.’

  ‘Marry him — Mom, that’s nuts, you’ve never met him before —’

  ‘Actually, I have,’ I said.

  Cindy arrived, holding the cordless phone she’d begged for.

  ‘I’ve called the police,’ she told Brandan. ‘Don’t worry, Mom, we’ll get rid of him.’

  Brandan ignored her.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk on the way.’

  ‘I — I don’t have any shoes on.’

  He held out the stilettos.

  ‘If that’s the only thing stopping you . . .’

  ‘Yes!’ I said, laughing. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!’

  And I put on those black stilettos, took his hand, and ran away with him into the rain.

  Interview #9

  — Henry Reynolds

  Baton Rouge, Louisiana

  You know how Baton Rouge got its name, right? Back in the seventeenth century, this French explorer came up the Mississippi, rounded a bend in the water and found this huge cedar tree with dead fish and animals nailed to it. He called it the Red Stick. Baton Rouge.

  Me, I always wondered about that. That explorer was a good Christian, same as we are, he could see that Red Stick for what it was. But it still musta got into his head, because when it came time to name that settlement they founded . . .

  Course, I ain’t educated the way you are. I’m just a retired Louisiana cop, never got past high school, and I ain’t ashamed of that, neither. But I reckon I can tell you a tale to make you wonder if that explorer mighta been onto something, when he decided to call his brand new settlement after that Red Stick, that offering to the Devil himself.

  There was three of us — me, Mike Stone and Randy Lewis — been hunting this guy for days. Robaire Lebrun; a tragic excuse for a man. Sold drugs, pimped his woman, beat his momma; an all-round blot on society. Well, now he’d shot some other piece of trash, and we was coming after him for Murder One.

  We chased him, and we lost him, and we found him, and we chased him again. He ran like a frightened rabbit; but we chased him right across town, on foot I might add, which tells you how bad we wanted him. Finally had him pinned in the alley down the back of Peachtree Street.

  We’d done all the running we could stand that day, and we was hot and tired and thirsty. I took out my piece.

  ‘Robaire, I am just about done chasing your sorry self! Don’t you make me shoot you now.’

  He looked at us wild-eyed, chest heaving, hands scrabbling. Probably high on something; he mostly was. And then, darn if he didn’t find an unlocked door and dash inside.

  ‘Go around the front,’ gasped Mike. ‘I’ll take back.’

  It was July, and we was sweating like hogs. Mike opened the door and snuck inside. Randy and I ran back down the alley, wiping our foreheads, counting doors, round to the sidewalk to find the fifth building, which turned out to be a restaurant. The afternoon sun was like a poke in the eye.

  ‘There he is,’ I gasped, pointing. ‘Look!’

  He was walking out of that restaurant like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  ‘Robaire!’ I shouted. ‘Robaire Lebrun!’

  He didn’t even flinch, just kept right on rolling. The sun made my eyes water, but we both saw it — clear as day — he turned towards the restaurant — reached into his pocket — and started back.

  No way was he walking back in there and shooting his way outta trouble; not with my friend and fellow officer inside. I figured I had no choice.

  So I shot him.

  How did it feel? Dear Lord, how the — how d’you think it felt? Not good, okay? The Good Book tells us, Thou Shalt Not Kill, and a sin that grave’s a heavy burden. But what you don’t realise — because it’s the job of folks like me to fix it so you don’t have to realise — is we are in a war out there. And in wars, people die. Was Robaire’s life worth the lives of the restaurant customers? Not a chance. So yeah, I shot to kill, you bet. Clean shot, straight to the heart; dropped him like a sack of potatoes.

  Robaire Lebrun, lying on the sidewalk in a pool of his own blood. Mike and I had him covered just in case, b
ut we was pretty tarnation sure he was dead. Crowd starts to gather. Randy gets on the radio and calls it in. We keep our pieces trained on him and listen to the pretty girl in Dispatch taking notes.

  ‘Ambulance required, repeat, ambulance required. Suspect has been shot resisting arrest. Yes, m’am, that’s right, shot resisting arrest. We had cause to believe he was about to open fire on a crowded restaurant. Robaire Lebrun, African American male, five seven tall, slender build . . .’

  Mike and I start to feel uneasy.

  ‘We’re outside the Bubbling Saucepan Diner on Peachtree Street. Crowd is gathering, repeat, crowd is gathering.’ Code for we shot a black guy, get here quick. ‘Request back-up . . .’

  ‘Looks bigger’n five, seven,’ murmured Mike.

  ‘Says five, seven on the rap sheet,’ I murmured back.

  ‘Ain’t skinny neither. And Robaire was wearin’ a T-shirt. This guy’s wearing a dress shirt.’

  We stared at each other.

  Let’s be clear. We saw a man who broadly matched the description of our suspect come out of the location we knew he was in and make a threatening gesture, and we reacted accordingly. The death of Mr Daniel Arbuckle was a tragic mistake. He was a decent man and a credit to his community — a little forgetfulness about restaurant bills aside — who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that’s the nature of the war we’re engaged in. We were exonerated before a disciplinary board and by the coroner.

  I can see from your face the thoughts you’re entertaining. Well, I recommend you put those thoughts right back out on the doorstep. Yes, Mr Arbuckle wasn’t the first man I shot in the line of duty. In point of fact, he was the third. And yes, as it happened, all three of them were black. You know what that means? It means I am a cop.

  You know how many drug dealers I put away? How many pimps? How many whores? How many robbers and wife-beaters and carjackers?

  Know how many of ’em was white?

  So we went through the disciplinary, not the first for any of us. We went to church and asked forgiveness, and prayed for the soul of Mr Arbuckle. We put it behind us. That’s what you have to do, the only way to live with it. We eventually got Robaire, and sent him down for fifteen to twenty. We went on fighting the good fight. Summer turned to Fall, and the rains started coming in.

  And then, one night . . .

  I’d seen this girl — this woman — at the inquest. There was a million reasons why I shouldn’t have been looking. She sat by the family of Mr Arbuckle, and Lord knows we had little enough to say to each other. I was far too old and fat and bald for her; and I was kind of seeing Marilena from the traffic division besides. But I swear, when I laid eyes on her . . . she was like a poem set to Blues music.

  She was the colour of sweet chocolate, and she had kind of a beige-coloured dress — I don’t know the proper name for it — but she wore it like it was her skin. Her hair curled like ribbons on a jeweller’s box, long black ribbons held back from her face with clips like butterflies. She wasn’t skinny the way the girls all seem to be nowadays, she was curvy and ripe and — ah, hell, she was womanly, meaning she reminded me I was a man, and that’s as dainty as I know how to say it. I stole glances at her whenever I could, while the Medical Examiner droned, and Mr Arbuckle sat stiff and straight as if he’d died there, and Mrs Arbuckle’s mother wept into a tissue.

  And when I was in the witness box, I saw her watching me.

  I admit I sucked my gut in, stood a little straighter. I felt dumb doing it, but as I live and breathe, she truly was that luscious. She made even a middle-aged man who oughta know better wish he was young and sinful again.

  ‘So, Officer Reynolds, you both saw Mr Arbuckle reach inside his jacket, is that your statement?’ prompted the ME, and I dragged my attention away from her mouth and back to the business at hand. But I could feel her eyes on me the whole time.

  I admit I was more’n a little flustered when I finally got down off of the stand. To be perfectly honest, it felt like she couldn’t wait to get her hands on me.

  When I got back on duty, I looked through the Arbuckle file for any clues about who she might be. Arbuckle had a sister, but it wasn’t her — nice girl, but nothing like that siren who’d been haunting my dreams. Wasn’t his girlfriend neither — she was a pretty redhead from Pennsylvania. Certainly wasn’t his mother. Didn’t seem to be any part of his extended family. I asked around, but nobody else even remembered her — nobody except Mike and Randy, and believe me, they’d noticed her too.

  I guess some dumb-ass part of me was looking out for her for a while, wondering if she’d show up at the station, needing a little advice from the officer she’d seen at the inquest. But she never showed.

  Not until that Godforsaken night.

  Marilena and I had drifted apart, nothing dramatic, it just fizzled, so I was home alone. I was watching the game and drinking the fourth beer of the night when the doorbell rang. A cop’s gotta be careful, so I checked out the kitchen window first.

  The rain was coming down heavy, and she was stood beneath the porch light wearing a black leather coat and long black leather boots. The rain clung to her hair like diamonds. I sucked in my breath. My hand was right on the lock, and I must confess it was trembling a little.

  Then, something; that tickle of intuition . . .

  ‘Can I help you?’ I asked instead, through the door.

  ‘Officer Reynolds?’ She didn’t sound local; more kinda Bajan, I guess. A voice that could read from the phone book and make it sound like an invitation.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘I would like to come in, please.’

  ‘Would you, now?’ That tickle becoming something stronger. I wished I’d got my gun. I could see it lying by the chair, but I wanted to stay where I could see her.

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘I saw you at the inquest,’ I said, stalling.

  ‘And I saw you.’ She smiled widely. ‘I remembered you. If it’s convenient, I’d like to talk to you about that day. There’s . . . something I’d like to discuss with you.’

  That black leather coat was smooth and slick, the kind of garment you see a woman wearing and automatically start thinking how much you’d like to take it off again. It fit her as closely as if she was the creature it came from. I swallowed.

  ‘So,’ she continued. ‘May I come in?’

  No, I don’t know how I knew. I just — knew. You know? Call it — cop’s instinct.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, trying to think. I wanted my gun more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

  ‘There’s something we need to discuss.’

  ‘What would that be?’

  She put one hand on her hip, and smiled.

  ‘You ain’t here for that.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Cuz I’m a cop,’ I growled. ‘I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb. You’ve got better things to do with your evening than seduce a fat middle-aged redneck like me.’

  Her laugh was like music. They do say the Devil has all the best tunes.

  ‘Very well, Officer Reynolds. We need to talk — about justice.’

  Keep her talking — wait for inspiration — damn it, what the hell am I gonna do?

  ‘Justice is for the courts,’ I tried.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, Officer Reynolds, that is the law.’ It felt like she was looking right at me through the wooden door. ‘The law’s powerful, of course; Mr Arbuckle’s dead because of the law. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you have a gun, isn’t it?’

  ‘I got the right to bear arms.’

  ‘Do you have the right to kill?’

  ‘When I have to.’

  ‘And did you have to kill Mr Arbuckle?’

  ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry for what happened, but I ha
d cause, you heard what the —’

  ‘You didn’t shoot him because you thought he was dangerous, did you? You tell yourself that, but you know in your heart it’s not true. You shot him because you were hot and thirsty, and a black man made you chase him and you wanted to get your own back. You couldn’t even be sure it was him. You were like a man coming home and kicking his dog off the porch because he’s had a fight with his boss.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I croaked. At that moment, I reckon my throat musta been the only dry spot in the city. If I’d been thinking clearly, I’d have wondered how we could even hear each other over the rain.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  I tried to answer, couldn’t get the words out. Felt like my hand was glued to the lock.

  ‘This is getting boring.’ She was fumbling with her belt, and the dumbest, horniest part of me was still secretly hoping she was just some gorgeous maniac who got off on bad men doing bad things, and beneath that coat, she’d have nothing more dangerous than her own naked self. The coat fell open.

  ‘The thing is,’ she continued, as she took one of those wicked little fire-devils off her belt and held it in her hand. ‘Since you won’t let me come in, I do believe I’ll have to blow your house up.’

  Instinct’s a dangerous dog to let off the leash. I’ve seen instinct make people run onto guns, jump off buildings, dash in front of traffic, gut themselves climbing razor-wire. But sometimes that dog just gets away from you; and sometimes that dog knows exactly what he’s doing.

  I shot through my house like a bullet from a gun — or like a crude but adequate home-made explosive device through a kitchen window. I didn’t collect my piece, I didn’t grab my car keys, I didn’t get my wallet, and I certainly didn’t stop to worry that I was wearing nothing but shorts and a bathrobe, no shoes, even. That’s why I’m still alive to tell this story.

  That old black dog, Instinct, dragged me out the back door, across the yard and down the sidewalk, away from the boom as the bomb went off, away from the flames as my modest little brick-built home burned to the ground. It pulled me to the end of the street with my bathrobe flapping loose, like an escaped mental patient. Then it kinda ran outta steam and I stood there letting the rain soak me to the skin, while Instinct nosed around the trashcans and we both wondered what to do next.