Big Easy Bonanza

around her knees. There was no one she could call.
    Monique woke up at around noon on Monday, got dressed, and went over to the restaurant. The bartender, a guy named Larry, filled her in on the news. Darryl had been busted down in the bayou. Larry didn’t know too many details yet, but it had made the radio. She tried to act as though she was extremely shocked. She made a scene about being upset, then drove back to her apartment in the Mazda and waited. She was preparing to go to work at four o’clock when the phone finally rang.
    “Hey, babe,” he said. He sounded really tired.
    “Hi, honey. Where are you?”
    “In jail. The good officer here is letting me make a phone call.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “Oh yeah,” he sighed. “I’m fine. Here’s what I need you to do. I want you to go to the safe in the office and take out fifteen thousand dollars. There should be that much there. Give it to Jimmy. It’s for my bail. He’ll know what to do. He ought to have me home by tomorrow.”
    She liked the way he said “home.”
    “Have you got my car in a safe place?” he asked.
    “Yeah. It’s parked right outside. Everything is okay.”
    “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “I’ll be here,” she told him.
    * * *
    Darryl was naturally bummed out about his bust, but Monique sensed that he was also trying to figure something out. She could tell the pieces weren’t fitting right. He was back at work at Champs, but he was very distracted. All of the employees told him how sorry they were, and he told them to forget about it. Everything would work out. The bar still did good business, the same as always, but the guys in suits, the ones Darryl always called “the players,” disappeared completely. The phone in the office stopped ringing.
    Darryl started drinking a little bit more.
    “When this is all over, let’s take a trip,” Monique suggested.
    “Where would you like to go?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Canada, maybe.”
    “What’s in Canada?” he asked.
    “Wouldn’t it be fun to go someplace really different? I’d like to see the Yukon, and the Mounties with the red coats.”
    “It’s really cold up there.”
    “I don’t think it would be too cold in the summertime. They have to be able to pan for gold, like you see in the movies, so you know the water can’t be frozen all the time. Have you ever been?”
    “No,” Darryl said.
    “Well, I’d like to go.”
    “Suits me,” he said. “We can celebrate me getting out of prison.”
    “You’re not going to have to go to prison, are you?”
    “Being realistic, Monique, it’s a possibility.”
    “Were you in before?”
    “When I got busted?”
    “Yes.”
    “Just for a couple of months. It was one of their so-called nice places, up near Monroe.”
    “Was it real hard for you?”
    “No, just boring. You see some shitty things happen inside, though. You got to stay on your toes to keep out of trouble. You hear as little as possible, you know what I mean. I guess it’s hard to imagine if you’ve never been there.”
    It was an opening, but Monique didn’t take it. They were at Darryl’s apartment, and Monique tried to comfort him with hugs and kisses. He was so listless that it took some time to get his motor running. Trying in the only way she knew to make things up to him, she told him to lie back and forget his troubles. She slipped off her dress and knelt over him, gently trailing her hair over his face and chest, letting his hands roam over her body until he was aroused.
    Lying in his big bed afterward, sharing a cigarette, Darryl started up again. “Did you ever wonder what it feels like to be on the moon?” he asked.
    She asked him what he meant.
    “Just circling around in orbit. No communication. Lost in space, but under the control of something bigger than you. You can’t get away from it, and you can’t get any closer to it.”
    She didn’t know how to respond, so she said, “Yeah, I kind of know what you mean.”
    “It’s really weird,” was all the comment Darryl would make. She squeezed his shoulder to encourage him, but he was finished.
    Still, he seemed to have it under control. He would tell jokes and make the customers laugh.
    He came over to Monique’s apartment and got the blue bag about a week after his arrest. First he opened it up and gave her $50,000 in cash. That was for her to hold on to, he said. It was money to take care of herself with, hire lawyers, or whatever she might need or he