Charming Grace by Deborah Smith Page A

pushover for hobbits. “I tell you what, poteet , if your mama gives me your name and address I’ll make sure you get a signed Super Cop movie poster in the mail.”
    “Wow. Okay! What’s a poteet?”
    “That’s Louisiana talk for ‘Little Super Cop.’”
    The kid grinned. A woman in the crowd yelled, “Hey, you’re that Cajun bodyguard , aren’t you? The one who let Grace Vance do this to Stone.” She waved the Enquirer . Everyone around her suddenly perked up, stared at me, and realized I was infamous. “Autograph, autograph!” they clamored, and the whole crowd surged forward, holding out autograph books and Enquirers .
    “Fire in the hole!” Tex yelled in my ear.
    A long, low, white limo purred up the shady small-town street. The crowd pulled back to gape at it. Mojo stared at me worriedly. “Run,” he mouthed. When I shook my head he sighed then swung open a side gate to the estate’s cobblestoned driveway.
    I straightened my shirt, brushed some imaginary dust off my nice pants, then planted my Hush Puppies a little farther apart in the clipped spring grass and waited. Sure enough, the limo glided through the gate and stopped. One of its tinted back windows eased down a few inches. A sinewy female hand with white-tipped nails and a diamond ring the size of an acorn appeared. The hand jabbed a muscled forefinger at me, then jerked a thumb up the driveway. The hand went back inside the limo, the window glided up, and the limo moved forward.
    Tex arrived beside me. “I’ll cover the gate, son,” he drawled in a whisper. “You go take your beatin’. Like I said: Cover your balls. Wish I had a safety deposit box to loan ya.”
    I trudged manfully after the white limo up the long drive. The limo stopped in a cobblestoned parking area hidden behind gardenia shrubs and big walnut trees. The limo driver gave me an apologetic look as he got out and opened the back passenger door. Five-foot-five of brawn, breasts, and long, straight, blonde hair vaulted out, dressed in leather and armed with a look that could peel the varnish off a chair. She flexed her biceps.
    I flexed mine. “Problem?”
    Diamond Senterra stared at me with big, mean blue eyes. A T-Rex would have looked friendlier. “Don’t give me that sarcastic Cajun charm, you fuck-up. I know you got your job back. Sucking up to my brother for a cushy paycheck. Best opportunity you’ve ever had, you loser. You and your smarmy convict brother. The po-but-proud Noleene brothers. Listen here, numbnuts, your ass is grass if you let Grace Vance humiliate my brother again. There won’t be any more fat paychecks. And there won’t be any glam security job for your worthless bro when he gets out of prison. I may not have been able to talk Stone out of handing you losers a wad of charity, but if you let a couple more incidents like the one with Grace Vance happen I won’t have to tell him to kick your useless ass out of here for good.”
    I’d learned a lot about patience in prison. Every time Diamond ripped me a new one I just nodded and zoned out, going to what a prison priest, Father Roubeaux, had told me to think of as my ‘spiritual safe house.’ For me, that meant a backwoods bar with a Zydeco band playing a two-step, a warm breeze on me, a comfortable table overlooking a slow river, a cold shot of bourbon and a bowl of jambalaya on the table’s checkered tablecloth, and, in recent times, a big redhead named Grace Vance smiling beside me in a tight t-shirt and cut-offs.
    “What do you have to say for yourself?” Diamond yelled.
    Turn up the music, bartender. And bring my lady another beer .
    “Nice day,” I answered. “Your scales have a pretty shine.”
    “ What did you say?”
    I’d been chased by cops, shot, knifed, beaten up, and locked up. I’ve had four-hundred-pound bulls try to trample me in the Angola prison rodeo and four-hundred-pound inmates named Mohammed threaten to make me their prom date. So Diamond didn’t scare me.