Tante Lulu flipped over the eggs, and winked at him.
Oh. She must have been kidding.
Whew! That’s a relief.
He pressed the fingertips of one hand to his forehead, which was aching rhythmically to some inner drumbeat. This was more than a hangover.
God, my life is going down the drain. But then he stiffened with determination. If I’m going down the tubes, you’re coming with me Ms. Ice Breaux Chemist.
Sylvie didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter Five
Luc never got a chance to kick Sylvie’s butt. Her butt had somehow disappeared from the face of the earth… well, at least from Houma, Louisiana.
After Tante Lulu left, he showered and put on clean clothes for his afternoon appointment at Sylvie’s company to pick up the lab results. Even though he had a long-playing tape on his answering machine, the damn thing had wound itself out during his drinking binge. He must have been really dead to the world. The red light bleeped now that dozens of voice mail messages had been recorded.
Having read the papers from Sunday and Monday, he wasn’t surprised to have messages from his frantic brother René, as well as newspaper and TV reporters. René probably thought this publicity was a deliberate ploy on his part… his usual outrageous M.O. Truth be told, his reputation far exceeded his boring life. Luc decided he would find a way to make that misconception work for the benefit of the fishermen. Sort of like that old adage: If someone throws lemons your way, make lemonade.
The plight of the shrimpers was a serious one, especially since shrimp represented the most important fishing catch in the Gulf region. Shrimp were dying by the truckloads in Louisiana, or their numbers dwindling off, and someone was to blame. Part of it was due to overfishing by commercial enterprises and sport fishermen, but mostly it was due to habitat destruction.
A person didn’t have to be a tree-hugger to care about what was happening, and Luc felt guilty knowing his loose tongue, or association with that dingbat Sylvie, might have mucked up their case. He had a lot of damage control to put together today.
While René’s calls had been expected, the other calls were a bit of a shock. Most hurtful were the anonymous calls from plain folks who said Luc’s meddling threatened their livelihoods.
Then there was Sylvie’s grandmother, Dixie Breaux, a lobbyist for a conglomerate of Southern oil companies, who asked him to stop by her office. Her voice was businesslike, the underlying tone was uptown pissed.
Joe VanZandt, a lawyer for Cypress Oil, threatened, “LeDeux, I’m gonna put your ass in a legal sling if you don’t stop screwing with matters that’re none of your business.” He knew Joe from way back. Joe was a prick, not worth worrying about.
The Department of Environmental Resources was another matter. The DER would naturally be perturbed by any insinuation that they weren’t doing their job. Frank Early, the regional director, demanded, “LeDeux, it’s nine a.m. Monday morning. Be in this office by noon with all the lab work and files you have on Cypress Oil.”
Luc looked at his watch. It was already one o’clock. Not that he’d kowtow to any pencil pusher anyhow.
The last call before the machine tape ran out was the clincher. His father.
Luc went stiff. His father never called him. Never. Even when they ran into each other in public, they barely exchanged more than a few civil words. The company must be really worried if they’d convinced his father to approach his estranged son.
“Lucien, this is Valcour LeDeux.” God, the man didn’t even have the sense to know how offensive it was to refer to himself that way. Not Dad. Or Papa. Even father.
With a snort of disgust, Luc threw a sofa pillow at the answering machine.
“For once in your life, take my advice, boy. Don’t get involved in this bullshit with René and his loser pals. It’s an unwinnable battle. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it.”
Boy? Luc could barely understand his father’s slurred voice. He must have been drunk when he called. As usual.
Which caused Luc to be assailed by a wave of self-loathing at his own drunken lapse. Like father, like son.