Charming Grace Page 5

  Older Dahlonegans fondly remembered Susan Hayward’s sojourn in the mountains during the 1950’s, when the friendly, beautiful, tough-talking actress filmed Climb the Highest Mountain. Only a few rare centenarians recalled the creaky 1920’s silent western, filmed around old gold-mining camps that hadn’t yet been bulldozed or burned.

  Mark Twain’s connection to our town went back farther, to the 1840’s, when a leading citizen stood on the handsome little balcony of the Dahlonega courthouse begging a crowd of our gold miners not to heed rumors of easier pickings on the other side of the continent, in California.

  The first major U.S. gold rush happened in northern Georgia during the 1830’s, with Dahlonega at its epicenter. Within ten years every stream, river, gully, and trickle of gold-flecked water within easy reach was dug, sluiced, panned, and dredged. Most of the protesting Cherokee natives were rounded up and marched westward from a local fort in Auraria, a frontier community named after the Latin word for gold. Naming places after gold was, apparently, a pioneer hobby. Lumpkin County became a place of treasure hunters, saloons, brothels, red-clay mining trenches and all-purpose gangsta fortune seekers. Only a few pioneer burgermeisters and burger-ma’ams focused on forming a polite civilization out of the ore-speckled mud. My people, the Bagshaws, were among that self-anointed core who held on and held up.

  “Look at those hills, boys,” the top-hatted Dahlonega potentate orated to the disenchanted 1840’s miners, waving an arm at a fertile green mammoth called Crown Mountain. “There’s still millions in ‘em.”

  The miners left for California anyway, but liked the speech so much they took it with them, embellished it, and made it famous. Out west, a young gold-field writer named Samuel Clemmons heard the tale. And so, “There’s gold in them thar hills” eventually made it into a Mark Twain short story, and the rest was Cliff Note history.

  Until now.

  “Incoming! Noleene, run for your life!”

  Magnified by my high-tech earpiece, Tex Baker’s squeaky drawl made me jump like an armadillo on a New Orleans interstate. My spine tingled and everything soft drew up in self-defense.

  Incoming. Code for Diamond Senterra, the Stone Man’s 35-year-old baby sister. She was a swaggering stack of body-built womanhood with an emphasis on the hood. Diamond talked like a Jersey Teamster, played hit women and kick-ass villains in her big bro’s movies, sold her own line of workout clothes and vitamins on the Home Shopping Network, and had been Stone’s most trusted career advisor going back twenty years to his days as a pro wrestler. The fact that she hated me like cats hate dogs didn’t make my job easier. Every time I got fired, Diamond had pestered Stone into doing it. Every time Stone hired me back, she got madder.

  “It’s the she-beast?” I said into the mike clipped to my shirt collar.

  “Hell, yeah. With her fangs sharpened and her little pointy tail switching. Incoming! I mean it, pardner! Cover your balls and run for your life!”

  “She’s huntin’ for bear and once she gets her fangs in you you’re gonna be her bearskin rug, son,” Tex went on in my earphone. “I’ll take over the gate. You haul ass inside the house and hide.”

  Tex Baker was not normally scared of anyone or anything short of his four ex-wives. The tall ex marine had served two tours in Vietnam. He was also a retired cowboy and stunt man who’d wrangled for John Wayne in True Grit and a couple of other films. Now Tex worked for Stone, managing the Stone Man’s dude ranch in California and hanging out on Stone’s movie sets to help with security. He looked like Jack Palance with a crew cut and one ear. The chewed ear had been bitten off by a horse or an ex-wife, I wasn’t sure which.

  I motioned to our sidekick, a brawny little black guy named MoJo Baybridge. Mojo had wanted to play pro football, like two of his brothers up in New York; Mojo could kung fu the Gatorade out of an NFL linebacker or shoot an Enquirer photographer out of a pine tree at two hundred yards. Only one problem: he was only five-feet tall.

  After Stone sprang me from prison, he turned me over to Tex and Mojo. They were supposed to teach me the rules of Senterra Land and make sure I toed the straight and narrow. But they were also supposed to help me take care of business. Personal business.

  “Stone says he doesn’t want to know how we go about it,” Tex growled, “but it’s our job to get you laid.”

  “No hookers, Stone says,” Mojo added. “Just actresses.”

  “Thank you kindly,” I deadpanned, “but I’ll get myself laid, when I’m in the mood.”

  Tex stared at me. “Hell, son, you just spent ten years in a cell whacking off. How much longer you want to wait?”

  I wasn’t sure how to explain, without sounding like a sissy, that prison made everything about life feel dirty, including pure, plain, good ol’ sex, and now, as much as I wanted to grab the nearest willing female—okay, the nearest willing twenty or thirty females—I also wanted to feel nice about it. Clean. Decent. Romantic.

  “Just point me in the right direction,” I told Tex and Mojo. “And I’ll get myself laid when the moon’s right.”

  That self-disciplined philosophy made ‘em wonder if I was gay, I suspect. But it also won their respect. Not long after that I had myself all the ladyfriends a man could handle without investing in Viagra, and b) Tex and Mojo became my buddies, not my keepers.

  I turned from my courageous duty guarding the frilly garden gate in front of Casa Senterra Dahlonega, as somebody had named Stone’s big, rented Victorian on a historic street off the town square. A bronze plaque by the driveway gate said Persimmon Hall, Est. 1842.

  “What the hell’s a persimmon?” Stone said the first time he saw it.

  “It’s a kind of tree fruit,” I explained. “Possums like it.”

  “Do I look like a possum? Cover that sign.”

  So now the plaque had a canvas condom over it.

  Casa Senterra had seven bedrooms, a private pool, and two acres of lawn and giant oaks, all surrounded by a girly picket fence that wouldn’t even keep out girls. In front of me, on a sidewalk lined with little dogwood trees and azaleas just past their pink prime, about thirty fans inched forward eagerly, all clutching autograph books and hot-off-the-press copies of the National Enquirer, featuring Stone’s backward belly flop into mountain laurel.

  “No autographs, folks,” I said again, trying not to look obvious while I darted glances up the street so Diamond couldn’t surprise me. “Maybe later on today. Mr. Senterra’s working right now.” Stone was inside the big house with his agent and publicity team, debating whether to put off the start of filming until the Enquirer gossip died down.

  In my ear Tex said, “You hear me, son? Diamond’s driver says he’s no more than a minute away. You got time. Head for the woods, then cut across to the main road. It’s just a half mile over to the old gold mine by the Wal-Mart. Hide in them mining caves, son. Hell, get to the Wal-Mart and you can hide in the garden shop. Just hide somewhere.”

  I grunted. “I just got my job back.”

  “Hell, son, what good’s a job if your ass is laying out in the street with Diamond’s fang marks on it?”

  Someone poked me on the knee. I looked down. A half-grown hobbit in a Super Cop t-shirt peeked up at me through the azaleas. “Mister, can you get Super Cop’s autograph for me, please?”

  Okay, I’m 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. Except she was right about the screw ups and Stone’s dwindling confidence if I couldn’t handle Grace. I couldn’t afford to lose this job. I was putting a lot of fat paychecks in the bank and keeping the door open so Armand would have something worth staying straight for when he got out of prison. And okay, yeah, I didn’t want to lose Stone, Kanda, and their kids, either.

  I caved. “I apologize. I’m working on the problem with Mrs. Vance and I’ll keep her under control.”

  “Don’t give me any stoic attitude, you oversized asshole.”

  “Nothing personal.”

  “Why am I wasting my time trying to explain things to a mouth-breather like you? All right, listen up, you swamp thing: This film is my brother’s ticket to real dramatic respectability. He wants it to be a success. He wants to be taken seriously by the critics. He deserves to be taken seriously! And so do I!”

  “I know this movie is important to Stone,” I said. “I’ll take care of the situation.”

  “You better!” She leaned in, stabbing her muscular manicure at me. “Quit being a pussy! Intimidate Grace Vance! Scare the shit out of her! Do whatever you have to do to make her back off! Because I’m not going to let some screwed-up pampered bitch with a martyr syndrome ruin this film for us.” She froze. Then, “You get that look off your face. Don’t you threaten me that way.”

  Threaten her? I’d never hurt a woman in my life, never even looked at a woman with an intent to hurt her. Neither had Armand. Gigi Noleene’s po-but-proud sons held doors for women, paid for dinner dates, spoke respectfully, and carried spare condoms in their wallets. We were the Sir Walter Raleighs of career criminals. Even where Diamond Senterra was concerned.

  So I just said, “You got a bone to pick with me? Bien. But you want to do harm to Grace Vance? Non. You best keep that nonsense to yourself.”

  “What did you say to me?”

  “I said,” leaning toward her a little, and lowering my voice, “Stone wouldn’t like your attitude. Don’t make me get him involved.”

  Her face paled a little under custom-mixed Beverly Hills make-up. “Are you trying to intimidate me? You think that just because my brother is good-hearted enough to hire you back every time I convince him to fire you that he listens to what you say?”

  I wasn’t stupid. I just shrugged.

  Diamond sputtered like an old engine on a bass boat. “Don’t fuck with me, Boone. I’ve protected my brother from ‘yes men’ and stooges and show business parasites for twenty years. I’ve helped build his career and I’ve faced down every power-hungry fucker in the movie industry to take care of our family business. I’m not letting him coddle a half-wit incompetent bodyguard who can’t even keep him from being photographed by the goddamned Enquirer in the middle of the goddamned woods. You take care of him or I’ll take care of you.”

  She stomped off to the house. Nothing jiggled except her hair. The woman was hard.

  I walked back up front. My shoulders itched as if I’d been flailed with switches. The sky settled down on my shoulders. Bluff or no bluff, she was Stone’s sister and I wasn’t. Stone was a family man. If push came to shove, I’d get the shove.

  The tourists had wandered off. I thought about the little boy who hadn’t gotten a chance to get Stone’s autograph, and that made my mood worse. Tex and Mojo stood there on the lawn looking at me the way dogs look at what’s left of the leader of the pack after he’s been run over by a dump truck.

  “Got his ass chewed,” Tex whispered to Mojo, loudly.

  “All the way up to his chin,” Mojo squeaked. “Man, you put out bad karma or something. She goes ape-shit around you. I don’t get it.”

  “Just my natural charm.”

  “Why do you take it, man?”

  “In the big scheme of things, she’s small.”

  I said nothing else, but Tex looked at Mojo and elaborated for me. Tex was always doing that, interpreting my world like I was from Mars and he spoke Martian. “He’s got bigger fish to fry, my friend. Got to get Armand out of prison, and the Stone Man promised him that Armand’s got a security job waitin’ for him here, you know? Boone’s got to get his brother squared away in that job. Armand’s a long shot on the road to rehab, see? And next time Armand falls off the straight and narrow, it’ll probably be for life.”

  “A lifer,” Mojo mouthed, shaking his little head. “I didn’t know.”

  “That won’t happen,” I said. “I won’t let it.” A bus pulled up and another herd of Stone’s fans began climbing out. I left Tex and Mojo to deal with them while I patrolled the yard’s side fences. I felt like some kind of fence was always around me. Three states to the west, my only living family was sitting in a ten-by-ten cell, and until I got him out and convinced him to be an upstanding citizen, I sat in that cell with him. I was his only hope.

  Just as he’d always been mine.

  Chapter 5


  I was eight years old and running from God, man and the law on a pony named Frenchie. Mama had died two days before and life for us Noleenes had taken a big turn for the worse. Behind me, Armand kicked a faster gallop out of a small pinto he’d named Go Man. “Keep ol’ Frenchie’s ass movin’!” he yelled. I dutifully gouged the fat pony with my bare heels, feeling bad about it. Frenchie was my best friend, next to Armand. Ahead of me, the pine woods and swamps closed in on our sandy jeep trail. I gagged on the smell of stale water and rot, stinking and smothering in the heat of that August day.

  A dusty parish police car roared around the bend behind us, fishtailing but sticking to the narrow trail like a toy racer on a track. We didn’t stand a chance. “Head off!” Armand yelled, and pointed to our right. I swung Frenchie off the road with Armand and Go-Man on his chestnut tail. We curved Frenchie and Go-Man among the pines like pole racers at the rodeo. The patrol car slid to a stop. I heard a door slam, then, “Goddammit, you little sonsuvbitches! They ain’t nothing and nobody out yonder in the world to care for y’all! Come on back here!”

  Armand slid Go-Man to a stop and wheeled him around. “Go’n fuck a goat!” he shouted. Even at twelve Armand had a suave way with words. “I’ll take care of my little bro and ‘tween the two of us we’ll take care of ourselves!”

  Armand whirled Go-Man again and took off after me. Small tree limbs slapped me in the face, setting loose tears I could blame on the pines. Mama lay in a morgue over in a little bayou town we’d called home; we wouldn’t even get to see her buried. Our dear ol’ daddy, a man named Drew Noleene, only looked out for us from some snapshots Mama had kept in her frillies drawer. He’d left when I was a baby; Armand had only a vague, but good, recollection of him, and so made up plenty of exalting stories.

  “He was a secret agent like James Bond and the gov’ment sent him off to Russia to kick some ass,” Armand would say. Or, “He went down to N’awlins and got a fine job on an oil tanker. Those oil people are payin’ him the big money, and he’s gonna come back rich some day. He took the job for him and Mama to buy us our own ranch. He told me so right ‘fore he left.”