Charming Grace (50 page)

Unlike in the movies, a gunshot at close range will nearly deafen you, so now we were all blinking in pain and squinting, and still trying to wrestle the last Gump off Armand and keep the other Gumps from grabbing more guns. It was only a matter of time before somebody got shot.

Ka-blam blam blam blam blam.
Splinters and plaster showered us. Everyone froze. When the Gumps saw who’d blasted half the ceiling out, they backed up like big crabs looking for sand dunes.

Grace just inside the doorway, pointing one of their own semi-automatic rifles at them. Her horrified expression relaxed once the smoke and splinters cleared enough for her to confirm I was okay.

She smiled. Then she looked at the Gumps again and narrowed her beauty-queen eyes in a deadly squint that would have done any action hero proud. “Put up your hands, or it’s
hasta la vista, babies
.”

The Gumps put up their hands.

Stone sighed in defeat.

“The least you could do,” he said, “Was leave Schwarzenegger out of it.”

Chapter 21

“Gracie, my love,” Boone said to me as we sat in the morning shadows of the warehouse sipping coffee and making out as discreetly as possible, “I’ve seen a whole bunch of media circuses around Stone, but
this
one’s a three-ringer with an extra clown car.”

True. Several dozen police cars, Swat team units, and a bevy of TV satellite vans filled the parking area. Uniformed officers, detectives, Swat commandos, and reporters pressed in close around Stone and his helicopter. Roarke and Armand stood in the crowd, bruised and scraped, like Boone, but sharing a contented, father-son cigar. The Gumps had already been hauled away in handcuffs, so now the main attraction was Stone.

Stone loved it.

“I swear to you,” I told Boone, “I saw him sneak out a compact and slap a quick coat of powdered bronzer on his face.”

“So when I found out my brothers were in trouble,” Stone orated for the microphones, while standing squarely in front of the helicopter photo-op with his hands latched oh-so-casually in the pockets of the camo fatigues he wore with a black golf shirt, “I said, ‘Nobody messes with my
bros
.’” Stone paused dramatically. “
Bros.
That’s Cajun for
brothers
.”

“Stone,” a reporter called, “Where’d you get the Black Hawk?”

“I picked it up on the way from California last night. In Texas. Bruce Willis is filming an Iraq war movie there. His prop people loaned me the big chopper and a pilot.”

I leaned closer to Boone. “Since when does Texas look like
Iraq?
”

“If you squint right, longhorn steers are just camels with handlebars.”

I grinned then studied his bruised face and fought tears. Every few minutes one of us gave the other a love-you-glad-you’re-alive look. What we’d survived together, and what we now knew about Boone’s family, was the icing on our personal cake. “I don’t usually like reality better than daydreams and self-deluding fantasies,” I told him. “But this morning, I
love
the real world, warts and all.”

“Me, too,
chere
.” He gave me one of
those
looks, melting me. “When I knew you were okay, that’s all I needed.” He paused, smiling. “And when you shot out the ceiling with an AK-47, it made my day just perfect.”

We kissed. I brushed plaster and splinters off his shirt. “ By the way, am I correct in assuming Stone doesn’t know Roarke’s his father?”

Boone nodded. “There hasn’t been a good time to tell him. He’s workin’ this crowd like a used-car salesman with a quota to meet.”

“Stone!” another reporter called. “Let’s get a picture of you with your brothers!”

Stone grinned. “Now there’s a picture I want to see on the front of every magazine in the country! Except
The National Enquirer—
”

“Aw, now
bro
,” Armand said slyly. “The
Enquirer
does pretty color pictures, and I look
good
in color.” Armand strode into the limelight before Stone officially invited him. Despite scrapes and bruises he looked handsome with his dark, reckless eyes and fashionably scruffy four-day beard. He belonged in a
Vanity Fair
ad for gangster chic. He threw an arm around Stone’s shoulders. Stone did a
blink-blink
of surprise at being upstaged, then gave up and smiled. Even Stone couldn’t resist Armand. “Folks, I want you all to meet my dashing oldest-younger brother!”

“The name’s Armand Noleene,” Armand said in a luxurious Bourbon Street drawl. “Let me spell it for you.” And he did, flashing rakish smiles at the female reporters.

Stone laughed. “See the resemblance to me? Charming, handsome, and he knows how to spell his own name. A natural.”

“I’ve always wanted to be an actor,” Armand said.

Stone beamed. “Folks, you heard it hear, first! I’m signing him up!” Stone thrust out his hand to Armand. “I’m putting you in my next movie. The publicity’ll be great. Even better if it turns out you can really act. Deal?”

“Deal,” Armand said. They shook. “I think I’ve found my callin’.”

Huddled in the shadows of the warehouse, Boone and I burst out laughing. “They’re
serious
. Go figure. My brother, the actor.”

“It’s
perfect
for Armand. Look at him. He preens for the camera, just like Stone, and he obviously loves attention. I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about him anymore.”

Boone’s face filled with quiet satisfaction. “Amazin’.”

Stone peered in our direction. “Noleene! Come here and join the party!”

Armand waved at Boone to come over, too, but Boone shook his head. Armand and Stone made a big show of looking exasperated together. Boone sighed.

“Comeon, Gracie. They’re gonna dog me until I give in.” He stood, tugging at me to follow him. “Showtime.”

“No.” I shooed him away with a soft gesture. “Take someone else with you.” I nodded toward Roarke, who still stood in the edge of the crowd, a quiet, proud smile on the well-worn landscape of his face as he looked from Boone to Armand to Stone.

“You’re right,” Boone said softly. “No time like the present to let the world know who he is. And Stone might as well get the news this way as any other.”

He headed through the crowd to his father, and gently put a hand on his shoulder. Roarke stared at Boone, frowning when he realized what Boone intended. Boone bent close to him and they held a whispered conversation.

The reporters craned their heads to see why the youngest Senterra-Noleene brother had stopped beside the tall, graying man they knew only as a friend of the family. Stone frowned at Boone’s failure to obey stage directions. “Quit jabbering and comeon over here, baby brother,” he called, waving a hand jovially. “Bring Roarke with you. I’ll introduce him to everybody. After all, he came along for the ride with me last night.”

Roarke finally nodded but looked grimly resigned. Boone kept a hand on Roarke’s shoulder, pushing, until Roarke moved forward woodenly. When they reached Armand, Armand kept one arm around Stone and put his other arm around Roarke’s shoulders. Stone frowned at all this to-do over someone who wasn’t him. “Okay, folks, so let me introduce Jack Roarke, the man who rode along—”

“Who saved your life this morning,” Boone put in.

“Well, there was a lot of commotion, and I don’t recall the details—”

“If it weren’t for Roarke,” Armand added jovially, “We’d be standin’ here tellin’ these nice reporters how a bullet bounced off our big brother’s head.”

Stone sighed. “All right, Roarke is the man who
saved my life
—”

“And who made us what we are today,” Boone interjected.

Stone gave him a puzzled look. “Uh, my baby brother likes to make things sound more dramatic than—”

“No. It’s true. Without Roarke, you, me, and Armand would just be a twinkle in God’s eye. We sure wouldn’t be
here
.”

Stone glared at him. “Since you’re the only one who knows what the hell you’re talking about, why don’t
you
do the introduction? And then I think we ought to get one of the paramedics in the crowd to take a look at
your
head.”

Boone faced the reporters. “Jack Roarke is the man who sent Stone an anonymous letter a few years ago, tellin’ him he had two half-brothers in prison who needed his help.”

Stone’s jaw dropped. “
You?
” he said to Roarke. “You sent me that letter? Why? Did you know my father?”

Roarke looked at him pensively. “No. I
am
your father.”

Gasps rose from the reporters, the police, and even the Swat team guys. Cameras clicked. Bright video lights merged with the hot Louisiana sun. Every TV viewer on the planet would see the famous, tough-guy movie star react to a surprise reunion with his long lost dad.

Stone’s eyes rolled back, his legs buckled, and he swooned as gracefully as a schoolmarm in a John Wayne western.

Boone, Stone, Armand, Roarke and I had to spin in circles until we bumped into our new selves. We were all exhausted, disheveled, and reckless. I kept thinking of my theory back in May, when I was sitting atop the gravel pile. About life blindsiding people even when they’re convinced they’re facing the safest direction.

Bless our hearts.

By mid-afternoon the Senterra Traveling Circus had taken over an entire floor of a luxury hotel overlooking New Orleans. Stone’s suite filled up with Stone’s publicists, assistants, friends, studio executives, and reporters. Cell phones rang; faxes whirred, pocket computers beeped. Calls for interviews were coming in from all over the world. And not just for Stone. For all of us who’d been involved.

I recalled the media insanity that surrounded Harp’s death, but the atmosphere this time was so absurdly surreal, so overwrought in its worship of Stone’s Hollywood-style intervention on his brothers’ behalf, that it tempered the terrible memory.

Most of the world’s heroes sacrifice themselves in quiet, un-celebrated moments of honor, not just by dying for the sake of others but also by living, carrying small torches of courage against all odds through dark nights and everyday terrors. Life pushes you forward against your will, until finally you realize you’re braver than you thought. Then you can bear to look around you again, to risk the view and let sorrow become just a memory.

Harp, are you listening? Do you understand?

Ladyslipper, I always understood. Keep moving, and don’t look back.

My grandmother breezed in from the airport with Mika and Leo, grabbed me in a fierce hug, announced, “I knew you’d be all right, because I raised you fight back,” then commandeered Roarke.

“If I tell you I love you in front of everyone,” she said, “they’ll all assume we intend to get married and do cute, romantic things together until we turn into a pair of tame old farts. So I won’t say it.”

Roarke swept her into his arms. “Then neither will I. I’ll just
show
everybody.”

He bent her back and kissed her for a good ten seconds. By the time he let her go she was pink. For the first time in my life, I saw G. Helen blush.

In another corner of the huge room Armand was in his element—his element being bright lights and bullshit. A flock of female reporters surrounded him.

Leo and Mika sought Boone out in a quiet moment. Leo’s eyes gleamed. “Hello there,
Uncle
.”

Boone smiled. “Bonjour,
Nephew
.”

They hugged.

Mika leaned close and whispered, “Leo and I helped Roarke locate the mob boss, you know. We hacked into Caesar Creighton’s home computer and found his street address.”

“And the names of a whole lot of interesting people he does business with,” Leo added. “Which we forwarded to the FBI.”

About now Caesar was probably wishing he’d taken our money and headed for the Caribbean himself. At any rate, Armand was clear of him, and so were we.

“It’s a strange feelin’,” Boone said, “being free.” We found a private spot by a panoramic window in the suite’s two-story atrium. We held each other tight, fearful and intimate and happy, slowly growing accustomed to the scenery we shared. “Feels strange,” Boone repeated gruffly. “Lookin’ down on the French Quarter from way up here; down on the river, the back streets and alleys. Finally gettin’ a good look at who I used to be. Who I still am, I guess.”

I tilted my head back to frown at him. “You mean you’ll always be a man with a past? Certainly. But you’re a man with a
future
, too. I can see it, now.” My voice broke. “You’re going to live to be an old,
old
man alongside me, and our children and grandchildren will
honor
you.”

He tightened his arms around me like the pulse of a heart. “Gracie,” he whispered, “let’s go find a bedroom and play ‘hide the cell phone.’”

I smiled. We slipped into the suite’s huge and elegant living room, only to find ourselves engulfed by Stone’s entourage, which now numbered at least a hundred people, not including waiters and bartenders staffing a lavish buffet.