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Until the moment I saw Mark Morvant sitting at my patio table with a sly smile on his face, the recurring nightmares had all but vanished and I had nearly convinced myself, with considerable effort as the years crept by, that my past was finally dead and buried.
"Hello, Paul," he said in his mellifluous baritone with that memorable southern lilt. In college he had worked studiously on the timbre of his voice, practicing for the day when he would address larger audiences. "Long time no see, cuno."
I sipped my gin and tonic and smiled at the word. Cuno was a term of endearment from the Spanish cunado, meaning "brother-in-law." Or possibly a dirty word, cono. Nobody knew for sure. It was like calling an old friend cuz. Somehow the appellation had been appropriated by the Cajuns and the Y'ats_ the white trash New Orleanians who always greeted you with Hey, man, where y'at? instead of the usual How's it going?
"Hello, Mark," I said, trying to sound calm and cordial. "Yes, it has been a long time."
"This is my associate, Louis Robb," he said, gesturing with a long white hand at the hulking presence standing beside his chair. "Louis is a retired police officer from Shreveport. We go back a long way." He smiled darkly. "Though not as far back as you and I."
Louis Robb and I approached each other across the patio flagstones and he shook my hand with a silent nod. His grip could have broken my fingers, something I was sure he wanted me to understand from the outset. He was much taller than I, maybe six-three, the deep cleft in his chin measuring exactly
at my eye level.“Can I offer you gentleman some refreshment?” I asked, resisting the temptation to rub my sore hand. “Coffee? We have a shipload.” It was an old family joke that no one ever laughed at except the Blanchards themselves. “Or would you care for something stronger?” I raised my gin and tonic.
"No, thank you," Morvant answered for both of them. There was an almost feminine grace in the way he gestured with his long hands. I remembered that several of our fraternity brothers had speculated that he was gay. "We won't be long, Paul. But I appreciate your hospitality. That old mammy of yours seems to have forgotten her manners."
I shrugged. "She's been very ill," I said by way of apology.
"And how is her boy?" he asked. "The one in prison."
It had taken him less than five minutes to raise the question. First blood was drawn.
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