Fat Tuesday (33 page)

"Wouldn't my death have been your revenge?"

"I don't want Duvall to mourn you. I want him to come after you."

Then she did the last thing he expected she laughed.

Angrily, he withdrew his hand and left her to her joviality, figuring that if she felt well enough to laugh, her dunking in the bayou hadn't had any serious effects. He was a sap to get all emotional about it.

His shoes squished on the planks as he stepped over a crowbar no doubt her weapon and made his way to the far side of the shack, where he ignored the cold and stripped to the skin.

He washed himself vigorously with water from the rain barrel and a bar of no-nonsense soap. He scrubbed his hair with shampoo and rooted into his ear canal with a soapy cloth, hoping to discourage any microorganisms from moving in permanently. When he felt sufficiently clean, he went into the cabin to dry himself in front of the heater before dressing.

The shampooing had aggravated the goose egg on the back of his head.

It hurt like a son of a bitch, but neither his vision nor his memory was impaired, so he didn't think he'd suffered a concussion. He took a few aspirin to dull the pain, then went back outside.

Mrs. Duvall's case of the giggles had subsided. In fact, she appeared to have fallen asleep."Hey." He nudged her knee with his toe.

"You've got to get cleaned up."

Groaning, she drew her knees closer to her chest."That water's got all sorts of creepy-crawlers in it. I don't want you dying on me of some parasite."

He tried to take her hand and pull her up, but she didn't cooperate.

Swearing beneath his breath, he bent down and forced her to sit up.

"I'm tired, too, lady. You brought this on yourself. If you hadn't done such a damn stupid thing, you wouldn't be feeling so bad."

He made her stand, then half led, half carried her to the side of the shack and the cistern. He refilled the bucket with fresh water and slapped the bar of soap into her palm.

"Wash all over," he instructed."Ears, nose, everything. Scrub hard.

You should be as pink as a baby's butt when you're done. After you're finished, I'll tend to the wounds on your back." He was concerned about infection. Open wounds were extremely vulnerable to bacteria, and the swamp was a hatchery for unicellular killers.

He left her to wash and went back into the cabin, where their uneaten fish supper was beginning to stink. He gathered up both the cooked and uncooked portions and wrapped them tightly in a plastic bag. He placed the lid on the cooking pot, deciding that he would dispose of the grease later. He no longer had an appetite and doubted she did. But maybe he should ask her.

On his way out, he grabbed an extra couple of towels and pulled the quilt off the bed. Taking these with him, he moved to the corner of the shack."Mrs. Duvall?" he called. She didn't respond. He listened for the sound of splashing water, but heard nothing. He didn't detect any sound or movement at all."Mrs. Duvall?"

When she failed to answer a second time, he looked around the corner, but he needn't have worried about being a Peeping Tom. She was still dressed, sitting on a low stool against the wall, her head bowed, her hands lying listlessly in her lap. The bar of soap, Burke noticed, was still in her right hand.

"What's the matter?" He approached warily. Her seeming disassociation with her surroundings could be another trick. When he got closer, he saw that she was shivering."I know it's cold out here, but you really should be washing that stuff off you. The sooner the better."

"I wanted to die."

"What?"

"I wanted to "

"I heard what you said," he said testily."It's just a hell of a way to go, drowning in that shit."

"No," she said, shaking her head, which was still tangled and wet and matted with duckweed."When I was a little girl, I prayed every night before I went to sleep that angels would come down and carry me to heaven before I woke up."

He realized now that her laughter on the pier had been a symptom of hysteria. This was phase two of it. She'd been terrified of the swamp, of drowning, maybe of him. Should he shake her, slap her, or humor her?

He decided on the last."At one time or another, all kids pray that.

Usually when they're pissed off at their parents and want to teach them a lesson for being so strict."

"I was ashamed."

"Of wanting to die?"

"No, of the things Angel did and made me do."

If this was an act designed to spark pity, it was a damn good performance. She spoke in a faraway voice, sounding very much as she must have as a child, curled up beneath the covers, imploring angels to come down for her.

"I think that's why God took my baby. To punish me for praying for the wrong things."

Burke had heard enough."Come on, stand up."

He pulled her to her feet and began undoing her belt buckle. If the fabric had been dry, the oversized pants would have dropped the moment the belt was loosened. Instead the heavy material clung wetly to her thighs.

He dropped to his knees and pulled the pants down her legs.

"Listen, it doesn't work that way." Taking hold of one ankle, he guided her foot from the pants leg. He did the same with the other foot.

,"God's too busy running the planet to keep scorecards on everybody.

He tossed the pants aside and went for the buttons on Dredd's old shirt, undoing the bottom one first and working his way up. He talked to distract himself from the smooth belly he was addressing."All that guilt shit, it'll eat you up. Believe me, I know. So you've got to stop thinking that you're to blame for losing your kid, or you'll get as crazy as me. It was biology. That's all."

"You don't have to do that."

He raised his head and looked hard into her eyes and saw that she was lucid. Her malaise had passed. He came to his feet, but his hands remained resting lightly on her waist."You were losing it."

"I'm okay now."

"Are you sure?"

"Are you afraid to leave me alone after what I said about wanting to die?"

"Maybe."

"If I still wanted to die, I could have let myself drown. I didn't want to."

"I didn't want you to either. If you had, it would have been my fault for not believing you when you told me you couldn't swim."

"And your conscience is overloaded as it is?"

"Something like that."

He lost track of the seconds that ticked by, because he had her undivided attention at least her gaze didn't waver from his and he was acutely aware of her skin warming beneath his palms.

Apparently she became aware of it too, because she glanced down at his hands, and, when she did, he released her and stepped back.

"That muck is beginning to dry," he said."It'll be hard to get off.

Lean over the railing and I'll help you wash your hair."

She looked hesitant, uneasy with that idea. A little vexed over her diffidence, he added, "A bucket of water is heavy, especially if you're trying to pour it over your head. Okay?"

Without any more discussion, she moved to the edge of the pier and leaned across the railing. Burke emptied half a bucket of clean water over her head, then worked shampoo into a good lather, scrubbing her hair from roots to ends. He rinsed out the worst of the filth, then shampooed a second time.

Soap suds foamed over his hands as his fingers slid up through her hair to massage her scalp. Lava flows of bubbles ran down her nape and into the valleys behind her ears. A strand of soapy pearls slid down her throat, over the gold chain of her cross, and beyond, into the collar of Dredd's ugly flannel shirt and onto what Burke knew were beautiful breasts.

He didn't stop shampooing until the lather completely gave out, and then reluctantly. He filled the water bucket again. Dialogue seemed inappropriate, somehow, so he reached around and cupped her chin in his hand and tipped it down. Slowly he poured the rainwater over her head, moving it first to one side, then the other, guiding it by applying the slightest pressure to her chin.

Finally the last drops trickled from the bucket.

Burke backed away. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at the back of her bowed head, then he filled the bucket again and set it on the pier near her feet."There's a towel behind you there on the stool.

You'll be cold when you finish. Might want to wrap up in the quilt."

Then he left her.

Inside the cabin, he stood in the center of the room, breathing hard and pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. His headache had migrated from the knot on his head to the backs of his eyeballs, where it pulsed like a gangsta rap beat. He was sweating like it was July instead of February.

Clumsily, he assembled the first-aid items on the table. He was repositioning the table and one of the chairs nearer the heater when she appeared in the doorway wrapped Indian-fashion in the quilt, a towel turban around her head."I left my clothes soaking in the bucket.

I'll rinse them out in the morning."

He motioned for her to sit down."We might just as well do this before you get dressed."

"All right."

When she was seated with her back to him, he pushed the quilt off her shoulders, exposing her back. He examined the wounds and was relieved to see that all looked closed and none showed signs of recent bleeding.

With as much detachment as possible, he dabbed each one with antiseptic, then reapplied the salve.

They didn't speak. Nor was there any white noise to fill the claustrophobic silence no radio or TV or traffic sounds. Nothing alleviated the absolute quiet except their breathing.

When he was finished, he awkwardly raised the quilt to cover her shoulders and patted it into place."Warm enough?"

"Yes."

"I, uh, brought some stuff along. Things I thought you might need while we're here. You'll find them in a totebag in the bathroom."

He'd known to pack for a few days when he left New Orleans for the tour of Jenny's House. She hadn't.

"Thank you."

"Sure."

She went into the bathroom and closed the door. Burke uncapped a bottle of water and drank nearly all of it. His arms and legs felt shaky, he was still slightly dizzy and his ears were ringing. He blamed his light-headedness on taking aspirin on an empty stomach, on the exertion of saving his hostage from drowning and a boat from sinking, on the blow to his head. He attributed it to everything except the actual cause.

When she came out of the bathroom, the towel around her head was gone, but her hair was still wet, tucked behind her ears. She was wearing a gray sweat suit. It was one he had bought for her before leaving New Orleans."I would've given you that to wear this morning," he said, "but Dredd already had you up and dressed. He wasn't in any mood for me to undo something he'd done."

She was looking directly at him, but he got the impression that his words weren't registering. At first he thought she might have lapsed into another semicatatonic state, but he understood her speechless dismay when he glanced down at her outstretched hand.

The box of body powder wasn't crystal and it didn't have a silver lid.

It wasn't nearly as fancy as the one he'd seen on her dressing table, but it was the same fragrance, the scent he'd detected on her in the French Market and in the confessional.

Reading the question in her eyes, he shrugged slightly and said, "The day Father Gregory and I came calling, I snooped around."

She set the box of powder on the table and continued to stare down at it while tracing the familiar embossed logo on the lid with the tip of her finger."How did I ever mistake you for a priest?" Was he supposed to answer that? He didn't know, so he said noth Still staring at the box, she said, "That day in the confessional ..."

"Umm?"

She made a small motion of dismissal with her shoulder."Nothing."

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Go ahead. What?"

"Did you ..." She paused to take a deep breath."Did you touch my hand?"

It seemed to take a long time for her eyes to reach his. In fact, time slowed to a standstill. Her last word hung in the air for several secondss like the final vibrating note from a violin. When it finally died, the silence was palpable and sweetly oppressive.

Burke's heart was beating hard and fast. Something delicate was hanging in the balance, but he didn't dare define it. The distance between them had miraculously dwindled, although he couldn't remember stepping closer to her. Nor had she moved. Her hand was still on the lid of the powder box, while the other remained motionless at her side.

It was that hand that the back of his brushed against. Barely Withdrew. Hesitated. Touched again, and this time stayed. Hands turned simultaneously. Palms slid against each other. Held. Held, then pressed.

Fingers slowly interlaced.

Burke bent his elbow, raising his right hand, her left. Then he rotated his wrist, bringing her hand topside. He looked down at it marveling over the delicacy of her skin, the slenderness of her fingers. Her third finger in particular.

"Your wedding ring is gone," he remarked.

"It slipped off in the water."

Her wedding ring was gone. But she was still another man's wife.

Not just any man's wife, but his bitterest enemy's. If Duvall felt like kissing her neck where a vein pulsed against the slender gold chain, then he was entitled to do so. If he wanted to see and touch and fuck her, he could do that, too. And that pissed Burke off, so he took it out on her.

"You can buy yourself another diamond. With Duvall's life insurance settlement."

"That's a horrible thing to say," she cried, jerking her hand free.

"If I really wanted to get horrible, you know what I'd do."

To her credit, she didn't recoil in fear. Rather, she tilted her chin defiantly."Am I supposed to thank you for not raping me?"

"You're not supposed to do anything. This isn't about you. It's between Duvall and me. All you are is bait to draw him out."

"You're doomed to fail, Mr. Basile." She shook her head and gave him a sad smile."I understand the reasoning behind your plan, but you've miscalculated my husband. He won't take the bait. He won't come for me.