Wild Swans (28 page)

“What’s your name, boy?” she whispered.

“Tony.”

“I’m looking—” She paused again. Tony’s eyebrows went up. She cleared her throat and said, “I’m looking for old man Winthrop. Jimmy Winthrop.”

“That’s my dad. Why?” he asked looking suspicious. “What’s he done?”

“What hasn’t he done?” she laughed.

Tony didn’t laugh.

“I have to talk to him that’s all.”

“Any particular reason why you can’t say it to me instead of him?”

“Because honey,” she said, feeling her sass return, “what I have to say to him would scald out your ears.”

Tony gave her a bored disdainful look. “You’re another one of his floozies aintcha?”

“Not on your life, kid,” Althea snapped. “I have business with him.
Honest
business,” she emphasized when she saw the doubtful expression on his face.

“Dad,” Tony shouted. “Some broad is here to see you.”

“Amanda?”

“Fuck if I know.” He looked back at her with a questioning gaze.

Althea nodded.

“Don’t’ curse in front of the lady, son.”

“She ain’t no lady.”

“Is it Amanda or not?”

Again, Althea nodded.

“Yeah,” Tony said, sounding bored.

“Send her on back,” came the muffled reply.

‘Thanks,” she said to Tony. She gave him a final passing glance, and headed towards the back of the store.

After passing dozens of shelves and long aisles filled with incidental objects, she came to a door at the back of the shop. It was a narrow door, haphazardly paneled, with a brass knob. A crooked sign swinging from a peg at eye level stated “employees only.”
This is it,
she told herself. Gathering up her courage, she knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

The scent of the room struck her first. It virtually reeked of stale perfume and something she couldn’t identify. Something sinister, she decided. As Althea stepped into the office she noticed a badly done Lana Turner look-alike sitting cross-legged on a chair in front of the desk. She had a steno book in one hand and was looking somewhat befuddled as Althea made her way deeper into the office.

The room itself had a shabby lived in quality. It had the standard office equipment; a typewriter perched in the corner on a narrow desk that the secretary (at least Althea assumed that’s what the woman was) worked. The larger desk at the back of the room was cluttered with paper, empty cigarette packs and stacks of invoices spilling out from an overworked inbox.

Jimmy Winthrop sat behind the desk, his long thin hands resting on the edges, as if he were about to rise. The man himself might have been handsome once, Althea conceded, but that had been a long time ago. Now she faced a portly little runt of a man with a receding hairline, wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses and a dingy, gravy stained shirt.

So this is the monster who deflowered my mother in the back seat of his Desoto all those years ago.
She snorted.
He’s not much. He’s not scary at all. He’s just...pathetic.

Turning to the presumed secretary Althea said, “Beat it, toots.”

“How dare you?” the Lana Turner look-alike said.

“Who the hell are you?” Jimmy Winthrop demanded. “You ain’t Amanda.”

Without further ado, Althea grabbed the shady looking secretary by her bleached blonde hair and threw her out the door. She slammed the door shut, and finding a little latch beneath the door knob, she flipped it, effectively locking them in.

Her father had risen now, his tie drooping into a cup of coffee as he leaned forward, his mouth gaping. He looked ludicrous, like a bass on a stringer.

Althea strode up to him and leaned over the desk, so closely that her nose almost touched his.

“Hello Daddy dearest,” she said.

“I have no idea who you are young lady,” he replied, reaching toward the phone, “but you’re getting out of here before I throw you out.”

Althea snatched the phone from him, surprised at the ease in which it slipped out of his hand. She ripped the handset free from the phone’s body and tossed it into a pile of invoices, its cord lying like a half coiled snake against the handset.

Mr. Winthrop stood fully, his face turning purple. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’m here to have a little chat with you,” Althea said, as she noticed Mr. Winthrop starting to make his way around the cramped desk and toward her. “And don’t dream of trying to lay a hand on me, either. This ain’t the 1930’s bub, and we ain’t in the back seat of a Desoto. If you try anything I’ll scream rape so loud and so hard you’ll be Methuselah before you see the light of day again.”

“We’ll just see about that,” Winthrop hissed as he tried to push his way past her. She pushed him backwards and he landed with a deep
harrumph
into his secretary’s seat. Years of her rowing up and down the bayou, plus long walks to and from town had made Althea whip tough, whereas almost two decades of Winthrop sitting on his ass had turned the high school football legend into a marshmallow.

“I know you don’t know who I am,” Althea began as she stood in front of the desk looking down at her father. “But I do believe you’re familiar with a Miss Ruby Marie Thibodaux.”

“I can’t say I am,” Winthrop replied as he pulled out a grayish handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from the bald patch which was now turning an uncomfortable shade of reddish purple.

“Oh, I think you do,” Althea said, as she sat on the edge of the desk, pushing off a pile of papers as she did so. “I’m sure you do. Think back.
Think real hard
, to a night back in 1938. You being the all star football player destined to go to LSU, and a little fifteen year old girl you deflowered just because you could and knew the town wouldn’t do squat about it.”

“What about it?” Winthrop asked. “She asked for it. She—”

“I thought you said you didn’t know her.”

“Okay I knew her. I took the girl out once, okay? She was all over me. She wouldn’t stop begging so I did it, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

“No,” Althea admitted, “but that’s what I expected to hear. Do you have any idea the kind of life that little girl had after you did what you did? Do you even care?”

“Look,” Winthrop said, “I knew Ruby. I admit that. I admit we had a date. Only one date and she came on to me. I gave her what she wanted. How was I supposed to know or even care about what happened afterward?”

Althea slammed her fist down hard on the desk, hard enough to disrupt another mound of paperwork, plus slosh cold coffee from its cup and onto the desk.

“I’m what happened afterwards you nasty little scutt!
I’m what happened
.”

She tilted her head, and then enjoyed the look of sickening shock on his face as he flopped backwards into the chair.

“Hence, the phrase, Hi Daddy,” she hissed. “Remember, that’s what I said when I came in?”

“I know what you said and I don’t believe a word of it.”

“A blood test would prove that I’m telling the truth.”

“A blood test?” He laughed. “That’s rich. Even if you could afford one it wouldn’t prove a thing. Those stupid blood tests are inaccurate and you know it.”

“Well,” Althea said, feeling elated. “It doesn’t matter does it? I’ll go and tell your wife. It’s Dolores, isn’t it? I’ll let her know about the little mishap you had with my mother, and Delores will notice the family resemblance between me and Tony-boy out there—” she said indicating her half brother tending the counter

“—and how I was the direct result of that little escapade you had with my mother on homecoming night. I’ll tell her everything, right down to how you threatened to beat her into a miscarriage if she didn’t get an abortion.”

Winthrop blanched. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I can and I will,” Althea said. “I’ll tell her everything, about me, my mother, and that barely legal
putain
you’ve been keeping. I know you think you’re the next Huey P. Long, but you’re not. You’re just a pathetic little man who treats women like filth. Oh, I can’t wait. I’ll give her the goods all right. I’ll let her know in no uncertain terms what a washed up piece of trash you really are. Then I’ll go to the city council and—”

“—They’re all friends of mine from way back. Nobody will believe you, and I doubt Delores will either,” Winthrop said, waving her aside. His voice eked out confidence but the sweat pouring down his neck spoke volumes.

“They don’t know the entire story. They don’t know about how you tried to make my mother get an abortion, do they? It’s a sin to try and abort a child, and a crime in the state of Louisiana, didn’t you know that? Daddy Dearest?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Then stop whimpering like a little girl, you fat fuck.”

“Your mother told you all of this...told you all these lies...”

“She didn’t tell me anything. I found out the bulk of it on my own. And I think it’s high time you pay for what you did, to take some personal responsibility for the woman whose life you destroyed and for the child you never acknowledged.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Winthrop said. A vein in his temple had taken to pulsing bluish purple and angry. He wiped his face again. “I’ll make you an offer. And after you take it I never want to see your ugly little face again, hear me?”

“What kind of offer?”

“I’ll give you five hundred dollars to go away. Just go away and never come back.”

Althea laughed. “Five hundred? For all the misery you caused? That’s not enough. Not near enough. Make it five...thousand.”

“Five Thousand? Are you out of your mind?”

“Four grand then. Four or my aunt Cally and I will have a lovely chat with Delores and then to the press and expose you for the rat bastard you are. And not just any press, either, honey. I’ll go to the
Times Picayune
and sing like the little songbird that I am. I’ll tell them about the hooker I found in your office when I came here just now. I’ll be the innocent little sweet waif who just wanted to get to know her father only to find out what a cad he really is. Oh how your constituents will love you, finally putting some truth to all those ugly rumors about your womanizing and gambling and cheating and ambition. Do you think that’ll work for ya
, Lieutenant governor?”

“Alright, alright.” Winthrop said. “You win! You win. But how do I know you won’t go to Delores afterwards, huh? How can I trust you?”

“All I want is what’s owed my mother.” Althea sneered. “Consider it payment for services rendered. Surely you spend less than four grand a month for your lady friends. A onetime lump payment to my mother would be chump change to someone like you.”

“You don’t think too highly of your momma do you?”

“I think my momma suffered enough because you couldn’t keep your
bibitte
in your pants. If I had my way I’d hack it off. So be thankful four grand is all I’m asking for.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. How do I know you won’t come back asking for more? Or going to the press anyway?”

“How do you know none of your prostitutes won’t go to the press? Oh don’t worry, honey. I’ve got an honest face. After all...
I’ve got your eyes
...”

Winthrop snarled. “Four grand is all you’re getting. And there better not be any more little bastards popping up asking for cash because they ain’t getting it, I guarantee.”

“That all depends on whether or not you can keep your dick in your pants, Daddy.”

“God damn you,” he snarled as he pulled out his checkbook. “God damn you.”

“No check,” Althea said, slamming her hand down on his open checkbook. “You’re not going to renege on this deal. I’m poor but I’m not stupid...Daddy...I know you can cancel that check as soon as I step foot out of the door.”

“All right. All right,” he shouted. “I’ve got some cash in the safe. I’ll give it to you, and when I do I want you to go away and never come back, got it?”

“Got it.”

Winthrop rose slowly, walked over to the secretary’s desk. He shoved it aside, revealing a wall safe hidden in the recesses between a false piece of paneling. He knelt before it, his ugly brown tweed jacket draping across his back as he unlocked the safe. For a moment, Althea thought about Peter Rabbit and the Beatrix Potter watercolors of small animals wearing clothing. She stifled a giggle.

Grumbling, Winthrop rose from the safe, kicked the door shut with his knee and then returned to his seat. Wheezing, he forced open a half stuffed desk drawer and pulled out a manila envelope. Althea watched him with detached interest as he set down the envelope and picked up the stack of cash he had earlier placed on the table. He quickly counted out the money, then looking up at her from over his horn-rimmed glasses, asked, “Do you want to count it again?”

“No,” Althea replied, trying to sound nonchalant as she watched him. “Just put it in the envelope and I’ll be on my way.”

“How can I guarantee you won’t go squealing to the press huh?” he asked for the third time.

“How do I know you won’t try to have me killed before I’m past the parish line?”

Winthrop sat back, bouncing backwards in his chair slightly, shocked. “You don’t think very highly of me at all do you?”

“Why should I when you raped my mother and made me a bastard?”

There was a long pause. “You know what you’re doing is extortion. I could call the cops and have you run in.”

“You can but you won’t. You don’t want my face in the news, all that scandal getting in the way of your political ambitions. Especially when you are such a devoted family man and all. I heard you traded your last wife in for a pair of 44-D’s.”

Winthrop turned a blistering shade of red. He stared at Althea for a long time, his fingers rippling through the stack of cash. “You look like Tony. The boy at the counter. I assume you met him?”

“Briefly.”

“You didn’t say anything to him about...this...”

“No, just that you and I had some business to conduct. Apparently he thought like all your cronies outside, that I was a stripper or a whore or something.”

“And nothing else was mentioned?”

“Nothing. I swear it. Upon my word.”