82 Desire

feeling every second to know what it meant.
    But now, on the Pearson, sipping his Scotch and water, that notion he’d had about finding himself seemed slightly preposterous. He certainly wasn’t comfortable in Dean Woolverton’s skin.
    And yet … and yet … he wasn’t the old Russell Fortier either.
    When he came off that boat, he was dazed. He went to work every day and tried not to think about what had happened. He certainly didn’t try to interfere with the Skinners. After he came back, he simply found ways to avoid participating in their operations. He no longer had ambition for the things the Skinners could buy him—more power and more money. He had plenty of both.
    “You just lie around and look at the ceiling,” Bebe hollered one day. “What do you want, Russell? Anything?”
    “I think,” he had said, “a farm in Tuscany.”
    Bebe had physically drawn back. “What?”
    “I don’t know why I said that. I don’t want anything.”
    “That’s the problem,” she said.
    He didn’t even want her. Or rather, he did want her. He wanted her to himself. He wanted the old Bebe, the romantic Bebe, who had time for him. Bebe the councilwoman had time for everyone but him. He didn’t want a farm in Tuscany—he wanted two weeks with his wife in Tuscany.
    He wanted to be absolved of his sins.
    He wanted Eugenie home again (their daughter from boarding school).
    There were things he wanted, all right. He just didn’t know how to get them—even how to begin to get them, to broach the subject of getting them.
    And then he saw Bebe kissing Ernest LaBarre.
    Two weeks after that, he met Cindy Lou Wootten, who was two kinds of forbidden fruit, which, given his state of mind, made her irresistible. He proceeded to make an ass of himself.
    And after that, he couldn’t climb out of his depression.
    So when crazy Ray Boudreaux came along with all his crazy talk, that was the end of the line. He had actually phoned Bebe to say he wasn’t coming home that night and driven out to Veterans Highway, where he had checked into a cheap motel and plopped down on the bed with his fingers laced under his head and stared up at the cottage cheese on the ceiling until morning.
    He never again managed the feeling he had on the boat. But it became abundantly clear to him what he wanted, which was out.
    He wanted to be off sailing, the wind in his hair, the spray on his face, land nowhere in sight.
    His father had made it all possible.
    ***
    “Mama,” Talba said, “what’d you think? What’d you think of your baby?”
    Her mama said, “Why you embarrass me like that? Don’t nobody need to know about that name thing.”
    “Mama, it’s the central event of my life.”
    “Yo’ life! It ain’ my life, too? You think you can just do what you want with ya life?”
    Lamar said, “I didn’t sell a damn thing. Didn’t get but one inquiry.”
    As usual, Talba’s attention went directly to him. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. They loved it, though. They just didn’t have any money. The poetry crowd’s not the gallery crowd.”
    “I don’t know why the hell I let you talk me into it.”
    Talba’s mama sniffed. “She didn’t talk you into nothin’. It was your idea from the git-go.”
    Talba saw him start to flare and braced herself. But Miz Clara just got up and flopped into the kitchen, wearing her ancient slippers. Talba absolutely couldn’t understand why her mama was so mean to Lamar.
    Blessedly, the phone rang.
    A voice said, “This is the client.”
    “What?”
    “I’m Gene Allred’s client. The one you worked for.”
    Talba’s heart started to pound. “What’s your name?”
    “Uh-uh. That’s not for you to know. You did a damn good job, Ms. Wallis. Mr. Allred was real impressed with you.”
    His voice was familiar, but she didn’t know why.
    “He told me so on the phone. He said he had the file I needed, and I could pick it up the next morning.”
    Talba waited, but he seemed to be at a stopping place. Finally, she said, “Yeah?”
    “Friday morning. You remember where you were Friday morning?”
    She’d been at Allred’s office.
    “Meeting me,” the man said. “The guy in the ski mask.”
    “The guy who’s not Detective Skip Langdon.”
    “That’s the guy. Listen, you want to work for me again?”
    “You gotta be crazy.”
    “Hey, everybody says that. But I pay well, and the work’s real easy.”
    Not wanting to contribute to her own delinquency, Talba didn’t answer. She knew she