Read Online Kiss of Noir by Clara Nipper - Free Book Online

cypresses with enormous tortuous knees squatting above the placid black water. I saw millions of turtles sunning themselves and dropping nonchalantly into the water if I approached. I saw huge herons, still as statues, fishing, and flocks of pelicans basking on land bars. I heard birds I never knew existed and sometimes great crashing through the dry areas that sounded like buffalo, but I was assured it was not. Something scarier, I decided.
    But twilight was the worst. That’s when I imagined the terrible creatures on the hunt rising out of the steamy swamp. When I heard what I learned were owl screams, I almost jumped out of my skin. I was convinced that one evening, my headlights would pick out some enraged carnivorous beast that no one knew existed and had quietly been feasting on humans for centuries. Charles Darwin should have studied here, I thought. So I tried to travel only in daylight and I tried to stay put once I got somewhere. Once I was at Ellis’s at night, I never went out again, even as a favor to run an errand. Ellis didn’t press it.
    “I love this area. The swamps are so beautiful,” Payne said dreamily.
    I grunted.
    “There are lots of people who live by their wits in there to this day,” Payne said, sweeping her arm toward the water.
    “Really.”
    “Yeah, there are Cajun camps all through these swamps. They hunt and fish and almost never come to town. These wetlands go on for miles. Even experienced swamp guides can go in there and get lost forever.” Payne’s voice was thin.
    “Yeah?”
    “Uh-huh. And some people don’t even have camps, they live on floats year-round.”
    “What’s a float, another word for boat?”
    “Like a houseboat. Wouldn’t that be great?”
    I looked at Payne sideways. “No.”
    “When I retire that’s what I’ll do.” Payne’s voice was determined yet soft.
    “What, you’ll trap and kill your own meat?” I laughed.
    Payne was serious. “Sure will. I do it on weekends now. Mostly nutria, but sometimes I get bigger animals.”
    “What’s nutria? Kelp?”
    “No, like a very big rat. But good stuff.” Payne smacked her lips.
    “Sure, sure it is.” I rolled my eyes.
    “You should come with me this weekend.”
    I stared at her. “Thanks, but no. I have to wash my hair.”
    Payne glanced at my gleaming bald scalp and laughed. “Chemicals.”
    “Huh?” I asked.
    “I’m in chemicals. Big business down here.”
    “Hmm.”
    “And you?”
    I sat up straight. “I coach ball.” I refused to put it in past tense.
    “Oh yes.” Payne nodded, her grin sparkling. “I saw you.” Her voice was snide and she said nothing more, driving in silence.
    Finally, I responded. “Ah, another fan. You follow my team pretty hard?”
    “Nope.”
    I asked nothing more. The swamps surrounded us now as we headed for the Gulf. I couldn’t place where we were going.
    “Since having you skin and gut rodents this weekend didn’t appeal, how about we go to the club?”
    “There’s a club in this tiny Catholic backwater?” For the first time, I gave Payne my complete attention.
    “Sure, several.” Payne turned on to a bumpy two-track dirt road. “Roll up your window, the dust will get in.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “To Fat Mammy’s, of course. Don’t you know the best food is never on the main drag?”
    I thought about it. Payne was right. In Los Angeles, the best authentic Mexican and the finest true Chinese were always holes in the wall down an alley or tucked into a corner without a sign. And without advertising of any kind, those places were always packed with people. People happy with food. The kind of food that was so good you didn’t want to eat it in front of anyone at a table, but get it to go and have a porcine orgy with it once you got to the privacy of your own home. But the food was so tempting, it made you suck in your breath in the car and you ended up tearing through the sacks at a stoplight for a morsel to tide you over. Then, at home,