Chapter 5 #2
I’d always preferred to walk barefoot, though. I always felt like it rooted me to the earth when my mind could be so flighty. Taking a deep breath, I felt my husband’s hand still on my lower back and knew—he was the real root of my life. The center of my world.
“You back with me, girl?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard you were here for a couple of days and wanted to talk to you.” She nodded to my husband. “Nice to see you again, Rocco.”
He nodded. “Signorina Parker.” Then he kissed me on the cheek and said he had business to attend to.
Thandie and I both watched as he fixed his suit and walked away, disappearing inside the house. I was left staring longer than her, though. She cracked up, taking my arm in hers, leading me to a wrought-iron table set in the garden. Then she made a turn and led us back toward the house.
“On second thought, let’s get something to drink before we sit down.”
“Good idea,” I said, thinking we were going for water or something fizzy to bring back with us, but it turned out Thandie was on the hunt for something stronger.
The fridge was stocked with all sorts of delicious foods, and even though it was technically too early for brunch, I was hungry again. Rocco’s pace in the bedroom kept me perpetually starved, though he was always feeding me too, and I was always slipping in a pisolino whenever I could.
I looked over my shoulder while I put together a seafood charcuterie board for us, and she made the drinks. “I’m not a big fan of Bloody Mary cocktails,” I said, scrunching up my nose. “I prefer red gravy over my pasta, not in drink form.”
“This from a woman who doesn’t mind eating red beans and rice with crickets from the Audubon Insectarium in the dish.” She made a gagging noise. “I think you’ll survive a drink with tomato juice in it. Besides, don’t knock my Bloody Mary until you’ve tried it.”
“That’s fair.” I shrugged.
“Mmm hmmm,” she said, continuing to do her thing.
Once her two concoctions were done and I had everything (raw oysters on the half shell, boiled shrimp, snow crab legs, blue crab meat, lobster tails, and four different types of dipping sauces—cocktail, tartar, remoulade, and mignonette) arranged over a layer of ice on the metal serving platter, lemon wedges as garnishes, we took our offerings and headed back toward the iron table in the garden.
Two soldiers met us and offered to take the tray and the two drinks.
We handed them over and locked arms as we entered the garden.
It was a truly beautiful oasis in the middle of a hustling and bustling city.
It was filled with all sorts of fragrant and vibrant tropical plants that thrived in this climate.
Canna, bird-of-paradise, a few different species of gingers, hibiscus, plumeria, tibouchina, angel trumpet, duranta, ixora, elephant ear, mandevilla, and my personal favorite, bougainvillea.
I knew the plants by sight, because Nonna had wanted to plant the same flowers in our backyard after working for the Poésy family.
The garden area of their backyard was a twin to this one.
The backyard to our shotgun was tiny, but we had a small oak, and we planted all the fragrant plants around it, and then we hung fairy lights in the branches and a hammock underneath.
It was the most peaceful place to be in the city—except when the flies and mosquitoes would come at me. Nonna used to say I was so sweet, even the irritants couldn’t resist me. Made me think of Remy, but I dismissed him with a swat of my mind.
Gabriel’s music seemed to float around us from across the street, carried by the slight breeze. He was singing his favorite Aaron Neville tune.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Thandie said, sighing as she took a seat. “Might as well get what you want, none of us are promised the next second.” She was echoing the lyrics of the song.
“Amen,” I said, sitting across from her.
Both seats had already been pulled out. I looked up, my corneas hitting a beam of direct sunlight, before I set my sunglasses over my eyes, giving the brightness a chance to fade. My husband looked out over the balcony, and when our eyes met, he nodded at me.
Oh, he had pulled them out for us. I blew him a kiss. He acted like he caught it and set it over his heart.
“That man’s got it bad.” Thandie had followed my line of sight. Then she turned toward me. “As bad as you do.”
I laughed, digging into our brunch, going straight for a raw oyster. “It’s the truth.”
Thandie looked over the tray. “What, no cricket king cakes today?”
“Not today,” I said. “I was plum out of crickets.”
She laughed, grabbing a crab leg. “Try the drink, Sci Fi.”
She called me that sometimes because of what I preferred to call my bravery with foods on roads less traveled.
Sounded better than nasty shit no one truly wanted.
(Nonna had a talk with me about nuclear war, and what would be left after, and it had had a profound effect on me.
I was just preparing for doomsday, okay? I wouldn’t be the one starving.)
Thandie said one day I’d grow a bug inside of me because of all the nasty stuff I didn’t mind trying.
And the world wouldn’t be prepared because I was so unsuspecting, they’d never see it coming.
She said I’d be like that guy at the beginning of Space Balls when the monster ripped out of his stomach and started dancing on the counter of the diner.
She said she kept bug spray under the counter at The Port just for me.
I cracked up thinking about it, trying the Bloody Mary she’d made for me. “Okay,” I said, letting the flavors settle on the palette. “This isn’t bad.”
She flung a crab leg at me, and it hit my forehead. Pisolino seemed to appear out of nowhere and snatched it, running off with it like he’d just stolen some loot.
We laughed, digging back in, drinking our tomato juice spiked with vodka, talking about everything and nothing. Then after the tray was empty and our glasses drained, she sighed, looking me in the eyes.
“I heard some shit about Remy, Ari. He was rushed to the ER, missing his hand.”
I kept my face intentionally blank, but…his entire hand?! All I saw was a finger! Why did Rocco take…oh. Oh! Because he had tried to hold my hand? I’d told him that, didn’t I? Remy’s hand had touched mine, and I had pulled it away, not comfortable with the contact.
“What happened?” I breathed out, the lie flowing easily from my tongue.
She stared into my eyes. “He’s claiming he was working on his car and it fell on him, his hand getting caught. When they asked him where his hand went, he said he wasn’t sure. He was too panicked to look. Maybe a rat took it.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure what else to say.
“I’m going to lay it all on the table right now.” She seemed to sit up straighter. “Remy Mestengo is bad news. Always has been. I never hid my dislike of him.”
“You didn’t.” I smiled, remembering. When I’d come in for a hamburger and he followed me, or showed up out of nowhere, she always got his order wrong.
He hated tomatoes on his burger, and she never set his plate down.
She basically dropped it. When he’d look at her, she would just look at him like…
what’re you going to do about it? He never said anything to me, but he never messed with Thandie.
“He’s into some real bad shit, Ari,” she said. “I hated that you even associated with him.”
“Do you think…that’s why he lost his hand?”
“You might look innocent, Aria Bella, but we both know who took his hand.”
“Who?”
She laughed. “Okay, you can play the game as long as you want, but I’m here to tell you something.
I know who you’re married to. Rocco Piero Fausti is the next leader of the Fausti famiglia, which means…
he’s the kingpin. The head lion. He blinks, and a man is ordered dead, if he doesn’t take the man’s life himself.
Or in this case, a hand in honor of not just any woman, but his wife.
“Remy’s lucky he didn’t lose more than a hand.
He must have done something to even out the offense some.
I know all there is to know about the Fausti family.
There’s not an agency in this world that doesn’t have them on their radar—law enforcement, secret operations, and the opposite side of the spectrum, dangerous organizations. ”
All I could do was stare at her.
“I told you I had something to tell you. I work, or worked, for The Port, but I’m not really who you think I am. I’ve been working undercover for ten years.”
I sat back in my seat. “Is Thandie not your real name then?”
“Out of all that, and that’s what you ask me?”
“Well, yeah, we’re friends. It wouldn’t feel right if I’ve been calling you a name that doesn’t belong to you.”
“You really don’t care, do you?”
“No,” I said. “Our friendship is real. I felt it.”
She sighed. “You’re right. The job was fake, but that was one truth that came out of it. Our friendship. And yeah, my grandmama used to call me Thandie. My middle name. My first name is Rue. Last name De Pradines.”
“Rue Thandie De Pradines,” I said. “I love it.”
She smiled, looking away from me for a second.
Then she turned back and met my eyes. “Aria Amora Bella…Fausti. I always liked that your grandmama called you by your middle name too. That was the moment I knew we’d be friends.
It felt real. And I loved your grandmama.
She was fierce but a loving soul. She was as real as they come. You are too, Sci Fi.”
I sat closer to the table, lowering my voice. “Are you really from New Orleans?”
She shrugged. “What do you think?”
I stared at her, like a sign would appear on her forehead giving me the answer. But she was a blank canvas.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Is that your gut talking to you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Your accent. No one gets it as right as you have. They try in movies all the time and…” I shivered, pretending to turn off the television. “It’s actually embarrassing.”