Baton Rouge Bingo (7 page)

“It happens to you a lot more than it does to normal people,” she retorted, but her smile took the sting out of the words.

Much as I hated to concede, she did have a point. “Seriously.” I thought back to the first time it had happened, that same Southern Decadence weekend when I’d met both Frank and Colin. Since then, it had happened a lot more often than I’d like to admit, or remember. “But it’s been a while.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not even twenty-four hours, baby brother.”

“Har har.” I looked back into the kitchen. Taylor and Frank were sitting at the island, talking intensely. “What do you think of Taylor?”

Her face darkened a bit, and she scowled. “He’s a good kid, a really smart, sweet kid with good manners. What is wrong with his parents? I mean, look at him.” She wiped at her eyes. “They should be proud they raised such a good kid. So what if he’s gay? I swear to God, I want to drive up there and knock their idiot heads together. It’s all so stupid, and to claim religion as a basis for throwing out their child? No thank you. You’d think they’d turn their backs on a religion that would tell them they need to treat their kid like garbage. What kind of God, what kind of religion would ask that of a parent? Where’s the compassion? Where’s the Christian love?” Her eyebrows came together. “I just hope someday I get the chance to tell his dad exactly what I think of him. I’m so glad you and Frank are taking him in.”

“Yeah.” I looked down at my hands.

“What’s wrong with you? Is there something more you’re not telling me?” She looked at me shrewdly. “Mom said you were nervous about having him around. You do know that’s stupid, right?” She narrowed her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I shrugged. “I just don’t know, Rain. Am I the right person to be around an eighteen-year-old?”

“Listen to me.” She reached over and grabbed my hands. “You’re a good person, Milton Scott Bradley, and you know it. You have a big heart, and you always put others ahead of yourself. Mom and Dad raised us all right, and who better?” She giggled. “I remember when
you
were eighteen.” She rolled her eyes. “Constantly horny and going out all the time—he’ll be much the same, I would imagine.”

“I suppose,” I said dubiously. “Did he say anything about his plans? For after the summer?”

“Scotty.” She leaned forward and grabbed both of my hands. “We are all going to do everything we can to make him a part of the family—because he
is
family. Don’t
ever
forget that he’s family, okay? If he wants to go back to school at Alabama, we support him. If he wants to stay here and go to Tulane, we support that choice. If he wants to go to Paris to live with Jean-Michel, we support that decision.”

The door slid open, and I stood up as Frank and a red-faced Taylor came out onto the porch. “Taylor, I want you to meet my partner, Scotty. Scotty, this is
our
nephew, Taylor.”

I held out my hand and took his, shaking it. “I’m glad to finally meet you, Taylor. Welcome to New Orleans, and welcome to the family.”

“Thanks for putting me up,” he mumbled, looking down at his shoes again. “Sorry you have to.”

He was so adorable my heart melted. I threw my arms around him and gave him a big hug. He stiffened at first, but relaxed and hugged me back. “You’re family, Taylor. You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you like. You always have a home with us. I hope you know that.”

Frank beamed at me. “Go get your stuff, Taylor, and we’ll take you home.”

Without a word and still blushing, Taylor disappeared back into the house.

“Thanks, Rain.” Frank kissed the top of her head. “Taylor’s crazy about you.”

“What’s not to be crazy about?” she asked, one eyebrow arching upward. She stood and linked arms with us, walking us back to the foyer. “Frank, you were amazing last night. As soon as I burn the DVD, I’ll bring it over so you can see for yourself.” She punched him lightly in the arm. “I was so proud of you!”

Frank’s face turned just as red as Taylor’s had. Before he had a chance to say anything, Taylor was coming down the hall with a big green duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Rain hugged him. “Don’t be a stranger,” she said with a big smile. “I mean it!”

“Here.” I took his duffel bag, which was surprisingly heavy, and carried it out to the Explorer. I tossed it into the back and closed the hatch door.

“You all have to come over for dinner. Soon. I mean it!” Rain called from the front steps as we climbed into the Explorer. She waved as Frank backed out of her driveway.

“So, what do you think of New Orleans so far?” I asked, turning in my seat.

Taylor blushed furiously but grinned in a way that was so like Frank my heart almost skipped a beat. “I haven’t really seen much of it,” he confessed. “Rain just picked me up at the airport and we rushed home so we could see Uncle Frank’s match.” His eyes got wider. “That was
awesome
,
Uncle Frank. I never knew you were a professional wrestler.” His face clouded. “Mom didn’t tell me anything about you.”

“Well, for one thing, you don’t have to call me
uncle
.”
Frank smiled at him in the rearview mirror. “I told you, Frank’s fine.”

“And I’m Scotty,” I insisted. “No formality, okay?”

Frank headed up to Claiborne Avenue. “This isn’t quite the scenic route, but it’s quicker, Taylor,” he explained as he stopped at the light at Nashville.

“I think this is the way we came last night.” He looked out the window.

“Probably,” I replied as we started heading down Claiborne. “This way doesn’t really show the city off at its best, but we have all summer to show you around.”

“Thanks again,” he replied. “I’ll try not to be much of a bother.”

My heart broke a little at the sad tone in his voice.
What kind of parents do you have?
I wondered. Aloud I said, “You’re no bother, Taylor, really. You’re
family
.”
I glanced over at Frank, who smiled back at me, reaching over to pat my leg with his big hand.

No one really spoke again until we reached Esplanade—although I did look into the back when we drove past the Superdome to see the starry-eyed look on Taylor’s face, and again when Claiborne passed behind St. Louis Cemetery Number One. He looked like an excited little boy, absolutely adorable. I felt some of my worry about having him around start to slip away. One of the things I loved about being a native was showing the city off to strangers—and how much fun would it be to show off New Orleans to an eighteen-year-old from rural Alabama? The food, the music, the gay bars, the architecture—I could easily spend the entire summer being a tourist with him. I started making a list in my head of all the places I needed to take him when we made the turn down Esplanade Avenue toward the river.

“Wow,” he said as we drove past the big beautiful old houses. “It’s so beautiful here.”

“What was Corinth like?” I asked.

“Ugly,” he mumbled. “Everything about Corinth was ugly. Especially the people.”

And my heart ached a little bit more, and I vowed to make sure he had the time of his life while he was staying with us.
You never have to go back there
,
I thought determinedly.
This is your home now. Fuck your parents.

Frank dropped us off on Decatur in front of the house and headed off to the parking lot.

“There used to be a coffee shop here,” I explained as Taylor stared at the boarded-over windows on the first floor of our building, unable to mask the shock on his face.

“Was this because of Katrina?” he asked solemnly.

I laughed. “No, the owners got divorced and they shut down, so our landladies boarded over the windows to prevent break-ins. Millie and Velma own the building, and they live on the second floor,” I explained as I unlocked the gate and opened the door. “We live on the third and fourth floors.” I led him down the dark passageway to the back courtyard, remembering how weird this must all seem to him, especially when we reached the sunlight again. Millie and Velma had done an excellent job with the courtyard. In the center a fountain bubbled with koi darting around in the water. Millie, in fact, was trimming back the roses as we entered the courtyard. “Millie! This is Frank’s nephew, Taylor. He’s going to be staying with us awhile.”

Millie straightened up and grinned at us. She was wearing a pair of cut-off blue jeans and a white T-shirt with Frank’s picture in full wrestling drag on the front. Millie was a retired gym teacher in her early sixties. She wore her iron-gray hair down to her shoulders, and she jogged along the levee every morning to keep herself in shape. She wiped at her forehead. “Nice to meet you, Taylor.” She pulled a joint from her shorts pocket, lighting it up and taking a deep inhale. “You smoke, Taylor?” she asked, offering it to him.

He gave me a panicked look.

“It’s okay, Taylor,” I said, thinking,
He’s eighteen and in college. I started smoking when I was thirteen.
“We all smoke—even your uncle. You’re not in Alabama anymore.” But as I watched him take it from her I couldn’t help but feel like I was being a bad parent.

I felt a little better as I watched him take a long hit and hold it in expertly.
Clearly he’s smoked pot before.

The smoke exploded out of him in a coughing fit.

“Yeah, we only get good stuff, Taylor, so if you’re used to dorm pot, you might want to take it a bit easy,” I said as I took it from him and inhaled, handing it back to Millie.

She waved it off. “Nah—you boys keep it. Scotty’s right, Taylor, that’s good shit. Primo. Another hit and I’ll go to sleep, and I promised Velma I’d get these roses trimmed today. You know how she gets.” She winked at us and picked up her shears.

As we climbed the back steps, I asked, “Is that duffel bag all you have?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Mom said she’d ship the rest of my stuff here, but this should do me until then.”

My heart broke just a little bit again as I fit my key into the lock of the third-floor apartment and opened the door. “You’ll be staying upstairs,” I said, standing aside so he could walk inside. “But this is where Frank and I live. The upstairs apartment has the same layout as this one, but we keep all the food and stuff down here. We primarily use the upstairs for guests and storage. Colin’s—” I bit my tongue.

Had Frank told him about Colin?

I expelled my breath. If Taylor was going to be with us a while, he was going to eventually meet Colin, and why not get all of the questions out of the way to begin with?

“Do you know about Colin?” I led him into the living room and flipped on the light switch. The chandelier flooded the room with light.

He blushed again and nodded. “Rain told me everything.” He took a deep breath and the next thing I knew he was giving me a big hug. “Thank you so much for everything! I’m so glad you’re letting me stay here! It’s so awesome! I’m so lucky! And how cool that you guys have a ménage with a hot international spy!”

Rain apparently told him everything. But then again, he is family.

“I’m just glad we can help out,” I said, extricating myself from his grasp with a big smile.

“Sorry.” He stepped back from me, a sheepish look on his face. “That really is some good pot. I feel pretty stoned.”

“Have a seat and let me get you something to drink,” I said. “What would you like?”

“Water’s fine.” He sat down on the couch. “This is a really nice place.”

“Thanks,” I said, going into the kitchen as the back door opened and Frank came into the apartment.

“Where’s Taylor?” he asked.

“In the living room, he’s a little stoned,” I called as I got a glass down from the cabinet and added ice to it.

“What?”
Frank stormed into the living room, his face red and his jaw clenched.

“I’ve smoked pot before,” Taylor replied, his hands going onto his hips, his jaw clenching just like Frank’s. “It’s not a big deal.”

Frank’s face relaxed a little bit, and finally he laughed. “I suppose there’s no way around it,” he said, sitting down on the couch next to his nephew and putting his arm around him. “The Bradleys are all pot smokers, so it’s going to be around. When did you start smoking?”

“In high school.”

I filled up the glass with water out of the gallon jug in the refrigerator and carried it into the living room just as my cell phone started ringing. I excused myself and went out onto the balcony. It was Mom.

“Hey, Mom,” I said. “What’s up? How are you feeling?”

Her voice sounded shaky. “Have you talked to your father today, by any chance?”

“No. Why?”

“I think you and Frank need to come over here. Pronto.”

Anyone who thinks New Orleans tourism hasn’t recovered from Katrina is someone who clearly has not set foot in the Quarter in a while.

One of the weird aftereffects of the disaster that I’ve noticed involves my memory—everyone I know has the same problem. It probably has to do with PTSD—there was an article about it in the paper back when the
Times-Picayune
was still a daily newspaper. Some memories of my life before Katrina are sketchy and not very clear. I swear I have no memory of the Quarter being as crowded back then as it often is now, but I wouldn’t be able to swear to it. It’s entirely possible I’m wrong, of course. It’s very likely that I view life
before
through the rosy glasses of nostalgia—everything was better
before.
For example, I don’t remember there ever being lines at Café du Monde stretching almost all the way to Jax Brewery. I don’t remember Decatur Street’s sidewalks being so packed with slow-moving window-shopping tourists that I had to detour out and walk in the street.

Despite my sketchy memory, I am certain the Quarter was always deserted during the heat of summer.

Maybe as I’ve gotten older my tolerance for crowds has decreased.

When I walked out through the front gate, Decatur Street was swarming with people. Café Envie at the corner had a line out the door, and all of its tables—both inside and out—were occupied. As far as the eye could see, the sidewalk was packed full of people, and the air had gotten hotter and thicker while I was inside. People heading into the Quarter swarmed past me, and I could hear music playing on the neutral ground on Esplanade Avenue. I took a deep breath and dove into the crowd, wondering if this was how a salmon felt on its way upstream to spawn. By the time I got to the corner I was already sick to death of ducking around people walking at a snail’s pace.

So when I reached the corner, I turned and headed up Barracks to avoid it all. It was the right decision—Barracks was practically abandoned, and I walked up to Royal.

Frank had stayed behind to help Taylor get settled. That surprised me a little at first, but then I realized he wanted some private time with Taylor to get to know him a little better. It made sense—Frank hadn’t seen him since he was a little boy, and they were practically strangers to each other. I couldn’t imagine that—as awful as some of my close relatives were, we were still
family.
Both of my grandfathers had refused to release my trusts to me when I turned twenty-five, but that was more about me dropping out of college than the gay thing.

Taylor seemed like a sweet kid, and I was glad we were able to give him a home while his parents sorted things out. It was probably too much to hope they’d see the light by the end of the summer, buy P
ROUD OF
M
Y
G
AY
S
ON
T-shirts, and march with PFLAG in Pride parades—but stranger things have happened. I hoped they’d at least come to realize that Taylor was still their son, no matter who he was attracted to, and they’d want to be a part of his life.

I thanked the Goddess again that I have such amazing parents.

*

Mom and Dad’s place is on the corner of Royal and Dumaine, on the second floor of a corner building. Mom had inherited the place from her maternal grandmother, who was apparently quite a pistol. On the first floor was their tobacco shop, the Devil’s Weed. The store specialized in cigars, pipe tobacco, and all the assorted paraphernalia that goes with it, and also does a bang-up mail order business through their website. (Of course they also sell bongs—which they legally have to call “water pipes.”) Before Katrina, they’d also sold specialty coffee, bagels, and muffins—but there was so much competition now they’d discontinued it.

Like I said, the Quarter is booming.

They’d opened their shop when they were first married, converting the upper floor to a spacious apartment where they raised Storm, Rain, and me. I’d lived there until I was about twenty-two, when I moved into my current apartment. There’s a staircase from the storage room that leads upstairs, but the main way up is hidden behind a wooden door right behind the building. Behind the door and the razor wire above it is a wrought iron staircase leading up to the second floor. At the top is a door that opens into the kitchen. There’s also a balcony that runs around the two street sides of the building, but the only access to it is French doors in the living room.

I put my key in the lock and took the stairs two at a time. I hadn’t liked the way Mom sounded on the phone. She hadn’t sounded like herself, and that probably had something to do with my lack of patience for the gawking tourists I’d had to dodge on my way over. I was also drenched in sweat, and my socks were soaked through. When I reached the top of the stairs, I inhaled sharply. The back door was open, and I could feel cold air escaping. This was unusual—Mom and Dad rarely, if ever, left the back door unlocked, let alone open.

“Mom?” I called, stepping inside and pulling the door closed behind me. The kitchen was dark—all the lights were off and the shutters were closed. I switched on the overhead lights and walked through the kitchen. “Mom? You’re scaring me.”

“I’m in the living room,” was her response.

I crossed the kitchen and walked through the doorway into the darkened living room. The shutters in here were also closed. The only light was from a table lamp Mom had turned on. I could see in the light she was wearing a ratty old pair of black Saints sweatpants and a Drew Brees jersey. She was sitting at the end of the couch, holding a joint in one hand while she examined a piece of paper she was holding in the other hand.

She took another hit and offered it to me. When I waved it off, she pinched it out and carefully placed it in a Mason jar about half-filled with roaches. She resealed the jar and placed it back on the coffee table. She waved me over and exhaled, filling the room with pungent smoke. She coughed and took a drink of water, passing me the piece of paper. I sat down in an easy chair and stared at it.

We have your husband. Notify the police and we’ll kill him. Further instructions to follow.

I stared at Mom. “What the hell is this, some kind of sick joke?” I could feel all of my nerve endings coming alert, and I swallowed as panic rose up inside me.
Stay calm, stay calm
,
I reminded myself.
Panicking won’t make anything better or solve anything.

“That’s what I came home to.” She rubbed her eyes and took another drink of water. “It was thumbtacked to the back door, Scotty.” She shook her head. “Of course I looked everywhere, and there’s no sign of him. Emily hasn’t seen him since last night.”

Emily Hunter was a lesbian in her late twenties who managed the Devil’s Weed for Mom and Dad. She’d come down for Mardi Gras after grad school and just stayed. She shaved her head and had an amazing singing voice—the main reason she hadn’t become an international superstar was because she just didn’t care about things like that. She’d become a member of the family during the eight years or so she’d been working for Mom and Dad.

“I don’t get it.” I stared at the ransom note in my hands. “Why would someone kidnap Dad? Is there something going on around here I don’t know about?”

She bit her lower lip. “No.” Her eyes were watery and bloodshot, and her voice shook a little. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t understand.” I took a deep breath to calm myself and control the panic trying to take over my mind.
You can’t panic, you have to stay calm, panicking is the worst thing you can do
. “Is anything else missing?”

She shook her head. “Believe me, I’ve gone through the whole place. Everything’s exactly the way it was when I left for Baton Rouge.”

“But how did they get in here?” I got up and walked over to one of the windows. I turned the bolt and pushed it up. I unlatched the shutters and swung them open, flooding the room with light. “Dad had to have let them in, right?”

Mom and Dad had always been big on security—hence the razor wire over the door to the back steps. The door at the foot of the indoor staircase, which opened into the storage room of the Devil’s Weed, was always locked and dead-bolted. Only once had someone broken into Mom and Dad’s—and they had been thoroughly trained agents who’d gone over the roofs.

But how could they have gotten Dad out without anyone on the street noticing?

“Scotty, it doesn’t make any sense.” She shook her head, the long braid swinging. “Believe me, I’ve tried to figure this out. I can’t think of anything.”

“You and Dad haven’t gotten into anything weird with the drugs, have you?”

My parents had always been stoners. Some of my earliest memories were of Mom and Dad smoking joints in the living room with their friends. They always had an enormous supply they kept locked in a private closet, which they were more than happy to share with everyone they knew. They’ve always believed that marijuana should be legal and the laws prohibiting it were ridiculous. Mom and Dad never restricted any of their kids from using it, but were always very clear about the laws and penalties so we could make an informed choice. Storm and Rain don’t smoke that much anymore, but I generally smoke a little every day. It took a while for Frank—those years with the FBI—to get comfortable enough to indulge, but eventually he came around. Mom and Dad usually buy it by the pound and always get the really good stuff. I get mine from them—but I don’t go through it as quickly as they do. They hope it will someday be approved for medicinal purposes in Louisiana, and the Devil’s Weed can become a dispensary.

Of course, the odds of deeply conservative Louisiana legalizing medicinal marijuana any time soon were around the same as hitting the Powerball.

“Of course not.” She waved her hand. “We use the same source we always have, and you know we don’t deal—that’s just asking for trouble. You know the house rules—anyone who wants some can have it.”

“You think they want a ransom?”

“What else could they want?” She bit her lower lip again, and I could see she was close to tears. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. She put her head down on mine.

It was possible, I reflected. Dad and Mom were sitting on a pile of cash—they had inherited trusts, like all of their kids and my cousins and everyone in the family on both sides—but why kidnap
Dad
for ransom? And while the Diderots and the Bradleys both had money, there were far richer people in New Orleans. “We must have
something
they want, Mom.”

“But what?” Mom shook her head again. “What could we possibly have anyone would want?”

“Maybe…” I hesitated. “Maybe this has something to do with Veronica’s murder.”

“Veronica?” She goggled at me. “But…” She paused. She opened the coffee table drawer and pulled out a baggie of weed. She rolled another joint. “It’s possible, I suppose.” She put the joint into her mouth and lit the end, taking a deep inhale.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” My mind was leaping from thought to thought. I shouldn’t have smoked the joint with Millie; I wasn’t sure if what I was thinking made any kind of logical sense or if it was what Frank always called
stoner thinking—
that sense of wonder that’s a by-product of smoking pot. “Well, you’re a lifelong friend of hers, and yesterday we stumbled on her body. And now Dad’s been kidnapped with some kind of weird ransom note left behind. You think that’s a coincidence?”

`”I don’t know what to think, to be honest,” she replied, taking another drag on the joint. “None of this makes any sense to me. None at all. I thought Veronica’s murder had something to do with stealing the tiger.”

“Well, that’s what I thought.” My mind kept racing. “But there has to be some kind of connection, Mom.” The reality of it hit me. “You don’t think they’ll hurt Dad, do you?” I felt a sob rise in my throat that I quickly choked back down.

“I refuse to even entertain that idea.” Mom said, her voice trembling a little bit. “If they harm him in any way—”

The phone started ringing.

We stared at each other for a moment before Mom grabbed it. “Hello? Yes, this is she…I’m listening…no, I want to hear his voice, do you understand me? Hello? Hello?” She put the phone back down. She stared at me for a moment before saying, “I don’t know what to do.” Her hand went to her throat as her face drained of color. “It didn’t seem—it didn’t seem real before.” She swallowed. “Like it was some kind of joke, you know, like he was playing a trick on me and was going to laugh about it, you know?” A tear slipped out of her left eye. “But someone’s really
taken your father
!”
She started sobbing.

Stay strong, Scotty
,
I told myself. “What did they say?” All of my life Mom had been a rock of strength for everyone who knew her. Sure, she had a bit of a temper and always spoke her mind no matter the consequences, and she was passionate about her beliefs. But one thing anyone who knew her could always be sure of was that Mom would always have your back, and she was a tough cookie. I’d never seen her like this before, and it was kind of scary.

“They have him,” she repeated. “But I don’t understand what they want, Scotty. They don’t want money.” Her voice sounded empty and hollow, and her body was trembling a little. “We’re not supposed to call the police, obviously, but for some reason they seem to think I know something about the weirdest thing.” She shook her head. “They said,
we know you know where the deduct box is. That’s what we want. If you don’t give it to us within seventy-two hours, you’ll never see your husband again
.”

“Deduct box?” I stared at her, confused. “What the hell is a
deduct box
?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea, Scotty.” She pushed herself up to her feet, swaying a little. “I—I think maybe I need to go lie down for a bit.” She paused when she reached the hallway, and looked back at me. “Scotty, do you think—do you think you could read the cards for me?”