The Cajuns by Gus Weill

Author:Gus Weill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2004-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

In Richelieu, Papoot hung up the telephone gingerly, as if he was afraid it might shatter. He sat back of his simple desk in a small, nondescript office he maintained for seeing his “little people.” No coffee was on the premises because, as he had explained to Bobby, if you give ’em coffee they gon’ sit forever. Nor were the chairs opposite his desk comfortable. The idea was to get ’em in, get ’em out. Every one of them wanted something. Most of it illegal and impossible, a lot of it desperate. For these, he was the court of last resort. A son on death row at Angola. The trick was to give very little and make it seem a lot, a trick at which Papoot Gaspard was a master. All of them, every last one of them, left smiling, most with a couple of folded-up bucks to “go have a beer on Papoot! Hee, hee!”

The only regal thing in his office was the chair in which he sat. It was the Governor’s chair, with the state symbol embossed in its brown leather back. Governor Richard W. Cole had given it to him when he had run out of anything else to give. Papoot had looked longingly at the Governor’s hand-carved desk, but the Gov had made like he didn’t notice.

Not that the Gov didn’t owe Papoot Gaspard! The first time Cole ran for office, Papoot had delivered Richelieu Parish against overwhelming odds. In fact, Richelieu had put Cole over the top.

This particular debt had been repaid thousands of times, but still the payment would go on forever. There was no getting through with Papoot Gaspard. When you owed him, the debt lasted until one of you died. Richard W. Cole fervently hoped that it would be Papoot.

Moose sat opposite Papoot in one of those uncomfortable chairs. He was not there because he had anything to contribute but because Papoot loved an audience. And you had to give it to Moose, he didn’t say anything unless asked, and Papoot almost never asked him anything. He was a wonderful mix of a live body and nothing—the perfect audience. And even, upon Papoot’s instructions, a deadly one.

Papoot pushed his Panama back on his pink baby face, sat back in Richard W. Cole’s chair, and laced his fingers over his belly. “He’s gon’ try to fuck me. It was plain as your nose. I know that long-legged bastard like I know me, and there’s a fuckin’ in the air. Fuckin’ old Papoot. You believe he’s gonna get away with it?”

Moose knew better than to answer. Papoot was asking himself the question. And he answered it. “Hee, hee! Hee, hee!”

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