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.And there go Miss Lola’s plans to have a family in this fine big house.Mr.Cyrus been trying to get rid of her ever since.They have separate bedrooms for five years so it don’t surprise me she let you know she a bit lonely.” Hiram grinned lasciviously.“Why doesn’t he divorce her?” asked Broker.“What if everybody know Mr.Cyrus a dumb fool marry a nigger gal.And she say half all this hers.They deadlocked.I said she smart.Didn’t say she was ever gonna make saint.But you be gentle with her, not force her like Mr.Cyrus used to do.”Broker cocked his head.“Used to do?”“Uh-huh.She won’t let him touch her no more.Not after what happened.” Hiram paused and studied Broker’s face.“Now this either goin’ scare you away or it gonna piss you off.I hope it piss you off.”Broker wiped sweat from his chin and lit a Spirit.The cigarette turned soggy in the humid air.“You sure sweat a lot,” said Hiram.“You gonna carry that piece down here, get you a baggy sports shirt…”Then Hiram’s words sliced the steamy air into cold autopsy slices.“Mr.Cyrus got likkered blind drunk one night and beat her with that whip he keep and then he get the urge to fuck her when she bloody…push her down the stairs.After that night Miss Lola find out she can’t have no baby ever.”“Why does she stay?” asked Broker.“Man hate hot and forget.Woman hate ice cold forever.She been waiting for Mr.Cyrus want something as much as she want a child.And now that he’s found his heart’s desire maybe she been waiting for someone to appear who could help her deny it to him.” Hiram squinted.“She think that man might be you.”“Why in the hell do you stay around here?”Hiram shrugged and rolled his cigar stub across his broad lips and said frankly, “Mr.Cyrus and I attached, like a cancer.Problem run in both our families.”Broker slipped his hand in his pocket and palmed one of Nina’s hundred-dollar bills.He slid it across the table until their fingers touched.Hiram smoothly drew his hand back and dropped it in his lap.“Royale LaPorte’s hand really in the safe in the study?” asked Broker.Hiram’s eyes popped, polished hard as marbles.A gleam of fire deep inside.“Marie Laveau pack that dead hand in a special jar way back.Mr.Cyrus check on it every morning.”“Where’s the key?”“Never leaves his body.Wear it on a cord around his neck.”“He a sound sleeper?”“Like out cold when he been drinking and lately he been drinking, especially with Mr.Bevode gone.”Another hundred-dollar bill moved swiftly across the table.“That kid, Virgil, he any good?” Broker asked.“Little dope fiend.Surprise Mr.Cyrus let him have a loaded gun.His big brother slap him up alongside the head more than once for blowin’ that toot.”“So, not real alert.”“Not after midnight.”Broker stood up and walked to the small rectangular louvered window and cranked it open a few inches more and squinted at a patch of fitful sky.“Storm tonight,” he said.Hiram grinned.“Big one.Probably tip over some of them brick and mortar graves around town.Scatter bones.Dogs be busy in the morning.”“What would scare the shit out of Mr.Cyrus?”Hiram grinned broadly and extended his withered right hand and delicately squeezed the shiny clip of bone on the chain around Broker’s neck.He winked elaborately.Broker tucked the tiger tooth charm into his shirt, buttoned his sports coat, and reached over and shook Hiram’s hand.The old man opened his palm and saw a third folded hundred.He leaned back and grinned.“Be nice if Mr.Cyrus and Mr.Bevode be gone and Miss Lola be in charge in this house.Maybe we chuck that plastic shit and be polishing the silverware again.”Broker was out the door, pushing through the broiling kitchen onto the lawn but there was no fresh air, just a poisonous steam of magnolias and azaleas against the sticky iron lilacs.Head down, he shouldered through the blurred watercolors of the wedding party and out the front gate onto St.Charles and, from the corner of his eye, he caught the arc of a flung bouquet flash against the leafy swaying air and the outstretched hands and then, as he walked away, he laughed hilariously when he heard the happy applause.33THERE WAS MUSIC, BUT HE DIDN’T HEAR IT.HE walked the cramped streets of the French Quarter, looking for a barbershop.The grillwork sagged from the galleries like twisted metal guts and the people looked like lost groupie-pilgrims searching for a rock concert.A tattooed man walked by carrying a full-grown python over his arms and shoulders.Broker shook his head [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]