Mo & Curio and the Cunt with the Funny Hat

"You covered for a kiddie raper?" Curio rubbed her temple. Sometimes the Fontenots' justifications for undertaking some reprehensible feats in order to stay alive and in business were appalling even to her.

And she murdered for him.

"Well, when you put it dat way, lemme qualify it." Fontenot wiped oyster juice from the more salt than pepper goatee he frequently wore. "When you was seventeen, I reckon you done had a grown man's peckah down yo mouth a coupla times?"

Curio shrugged and smiled.

"Well, ole Lamar der, he was upraht in da seat and dat boy was a having at it when dem cops rolled up. Now, it's all a scandal cuz by law seventeen-year-old soon-to-be transsexual sons of prominent socialites not supposed to be tongue-ticklin no older man's peckah out at two in the morning behind no water parks. But I reckoned dat boy ain't got no gun to his head and ole Lamar swears weren't no money involved. I kinda like dis old place and I do a lot of bidness up cheer. So I stepped in, got dat old man used to run da paypah nyah to make the article tee-niney and misspell his name a little. Got dem parents of his, who looking all distressed but knowing dey boy likes dem peters in his mouth already anyway, I got dem squared away. And she be eternally grateful."

"You're such a saint." Moses shook his head smiling. He knew Grizzly was capable of far worst.

"How did you know all this was happening up here?" Curio was puzzled. It seemed insignificant to a man of his stature in New Orleans.

"He used to fuck her." Moses grinned and shook his head. He knew the story from back when it happened. Back in the street war days.

Curio's eyes widened. "No!" She covered her mouth in amused shock.

Grizzly merely shrugged with a deferring flip of the hand to Moses.

"Damn. You get around. But her?" She wrinkled her nose.

"So what's wrong in Jackson?" Moses spoke through a mouthful of crab cake. For him it was better to keep the point honed on what was required of him and Curio rather than dredging some miniscule snippet of history. Such things often ate at her. The freshness of the world, however warped it was to her from the moment she was born by her junkie mother, still filled her with wonder and burgeoned notions of how she felt about morality and the way things ought to be.

Moses tried to whittle away such flights of fancy. Their lives...the life she had chosen after a year of his futilely trying to deter her from joining him in the very brutal business to which he had long ago dismissed as normal operating procedure...were always in jeopardy from a hundred unseen factors. He needed her grounded, dull to the wonderment of why? Sharpened to a fine hone of accomplish, rather than the mind-dulling why.

Her inquisitive mind had only known the streets of New Orleans as a child and later as an orphaned teenager for whom living came at whatever the city's lurid toll was for allowing her to awaken the next day. Now as a beautiful young woman, one who he taught his crafts, taken her off from the dank streets and into his sincere, safe and loving embrace, shown her much of the South, vacationed in distant tropical locales in celebration of jobs well done, she was more self-aware. More opinionated, challenging the reasoning of him and their employers, self-assured, even cavalier.

But also, more eager to see job through in a manner she now found arousing. For all her eye-rolling and grimacing when the payroll's phone call came, Curio Phelonie loved to get on the clock. He loved her moxie. Even Grizzly and Pete Fontenot, no bastions of defending the ability of women to run with the boys, had come to assent to her as a potent ally.

"What brings you two friends of mine up to this fine city is a man by the name of Stuart Whitman."

"You indicted?" Moses snapped his head at Grizzly, alarmed. Fontenot smiled and shook his head.

"So you know who he is. I'm impressed, Tex."

"I watch the election results like most everyone does. Saw the name in an article about Fordice getting in up here."

"Dat new govanuh? Him I might can get around." Lamar suddenly appeared with fresh wine and breadbaskets and got the party reloaded before sauntering away again.

"Who's this guy? For those of us poor idiots that could give two shits about elections?" Curio downed a glass of red wine.

"The new Attorney General for this state. A real go-getter. Pretty smile, credentials, smart as a whip. Cut his teeth locking down hoodrats down in Harrison County. Task forces and governor committees and whatnot. Pedigreed sumbitch."

"He got your hand clamped in a jar somewhere?" Moses asked, chagrined. Grizzly had eluded convictions many times. Sometimes the acquittals had been as a result of a witness disappearing and only Moses Holliday knew where he, or she, resided.

"Nah. But dey an awful lot of money coming around here with all dis gambling dey got a-goin. Dis here new hotshot, he got his eyes on dem gambling boats. Just a-waiting on some hoodrat like mahsef to step his mobstah ass into the middle of a RICO sting. Half of deez folks around nyah, dey got wires on dey phones and dey eager to drop a dime so dey can get some atta-boys from the Man and a little carte blanche when dey get something else fall into dey wallets at a later opportunity. The flip side of dat is he a Democrat. A lot of wealthy men of means around here, dey ain't too keen on a man like dat looking into how dey do business so dey didn't send him a check. He ain't gonna forget dat."

"Sounds risky. An AG? That's major heat..." Moses tracked ahead of his employer. Curio saw him stiffen in a way she only saw when a job as related to him was fraught with less than normal perils.

"Oh, you ain't poppin him." Grizzly laughed. "Hell no. Jowanski be all over it around here. He anudda wolf lurking around dis casino business. Him I can deal with better den dis young Turk nyah. Folks round nyah, dey don't like dem Feds sniffin round Mississippi. Dey still got dat civil rights memory. Jowanski probably lookin for some meat, I gots no doubts bout dat." Fontenot pulled out a huge boiled prawn from the pile and wiggled it like a flaccid dick at Curio, who smirked, "But he ain't gittin' mah lil shrimp in his net."

"Dat's because you got your shrimp hiding in that innkeeper's blue-veined fat roll up right about up in here." Moses circled his belly button, guffawing. Fontenot hooted.

Curio rolled her eyes. "Ewww! Boss? You into dat wet spot in the flour shit? If you a chubby-chaser, is Pete safe around you when you get drunk?"

Grizzly laughed harder at her remark.

"Joking aside." Grizzly wiped tears from his eyes as he chuckled. "Dis fella Whitman, he likes da ladies."

"So does Curio." Moses said. He could already see far ahead into Grizzly's mind. His eyes cut to her. She puckered her lips at him and gave him a quick tongue flitter between two of her dainty fingers.

"Who knew you would hit dat kinda motha' lode, Tex. Lucky you. Dis here fella, he gots one particular woman he takes a shine to. But really she a call girl. Or as the press will put it, high-end escort. But dat just a name fo a hooka dat ain't never had to dance at a titty shack and still got all her teeth. Pete lookin her up."

Moses rested his jaw in the L-crook of his thumb and forefinger. "Dead woman or live boy? You running out of originality, you know." Griz only smiled and caught a crawfish tail in the air.

"Live boy?" Curio curled her lip in disgust. "Tell me she ain't got a kid." Both men looked at her, the same condescension evident in the puzzlement on their brows. Grizzly broke into a silent chuckle and cast a quick glance at Moses that completely read, "Dumbass" to her. She seethed inside but only gestured with her hands for a further explanation. Moses rolled his face on his hand-perch and looked at her with bored resignation.

"The esteemed Monsieur Fontenot intends to have a prominent political figure in a conservative state done in by a sex scandal methinks. He called us so that means some wet work of the most vibrant kind."

"What the hell does sex with boys have to do with anything?"

"Man, dey don't teach civics worth a damn in school deez days."

"Dey don't teach much about the bicameral system over in dem flophouses by the river, monsieur. Dey teach you to keep a knife in your bra and to break your last beer bottle and have it handy next to you when you go to sleep." Curio growled back at him.

"Well, dey say the school of hard knocks passes out da most interesting degrees. Well, Miss Curio, to enlighten you, here's some civics dey wouldn't have taught you in school but I bet you understand."

"Professor Fontenot." Moses shrugged and stole the last crawfish tail from the platter before Grizzly could stab it. His speed of hand was amazing.

"Dickhead." Grizzly instead rounded up a fistful of Cajun-boiled prawns. "You don't know about yo' former govunah, ole' Fast Eddie Edwards. He a party boy but we all down der where we are. Where we from, such things like rich men gettin' laid, dey not such dynamite. He once said dat de only way he couldn't get re-elected in da state of Louisiana is if he got caught in a bed with a dead woman or a live boy. And he probably right."

Moses could see the light bulb pop in her head.

"Dead hookers don't go much good on da campaign literature does it?"

"Not worth a goddamned. Dis here AG. He an up and comer. Lookin to bust some balls on some hood somewheres. Trouble is, I ain't into Mississippi dat much. But I wanna be. All deez casinos coming up in cheer, no wop mobsters around fo miles. Be a damn fool not to see the benefit of making some friends around nyah. But dis sumbitch, problem with him is dat he good at what he does and he got the advantage of playing defense. He ain't dumb, he know dat people like me comin 'round. He know dem scams, he probably even knows which of dem fellas dat gonna do the glad-handing and da building and which ain't. Dat govunah up der, he a builder. A big ass contractor. And now he in a position to handle some big issues and make a lil retirement change after he gets done with his eight years in. I bet dis AG sumbitch watching him like a hawk, since dey on opposite sides. I get dis bastard on the front page of Clarion-Ledger with a few Hinds County finest leading him into a courthouse instead of guarding him, der's some gratitude a-coming."

"You smoked a joint and went to bed a few nights ago thinking, didn't ya?" Moses chuckled and looked at Curio.

"So you basically pulling a prank like some high-schooler, den? Embarrass some bookworm, kinda? To look cool in front of your friends? Coaxing him into a circle-jerk, kinda." She felt hot suddenly. Flushed with spiced food and the quick realization of how the job may unfold, the telltale tingling under her panties began.

Grizzly marveled at her interpretation. "The only difference between dem men and dem boys is da size of dey toys, mon cheri. A lil different, the prank I'm pullin. Not exactly trippin an egghead with a stack of books in da hallways, but I see whatchew mean."

Curio dropped her chin a few inches, a look of dark intensity blackening her dark eyes in a manner that sent a chill up the Boss's back. He watched the rise of her upper lips as her tongue licked her teeth beneath. A smile that hovered just on the sexy side of maniacal broke her lips apart.

"You reckon dis dipshit we talking about likes threesomes?" She watched Grizzly nonchalantly look her up and down as he had many times before, knew he was seeing her undressed and maybe kissing feverishly naked with one of his paid bevy and peered at him with those dark eyes as she sucked a shrimp just a moment too long before it disappeared.

"Who doesn't?" Immune to her, he shrugged. "Word is, he sure as fuck does."

Moses sighed. Curio throbbed.

Steam poured from the open door of the snug bathroom as the latent moisture from her hot shower mixed with the goose-pimpling air of the room. It coated the mirror at first, as she sat down at the chair and dangled her long chestnut hair in front of her face. Dragging the fine tines of a boar-bristle brush through her wet hair, she intently check as much of her mane as possible for split-ends. Satisfied she was good on a cut for a little while longer, she looked up at her face and upper body as the cold air dissipated the fog on the glass slowly, revealing the regal face of Angelle Pierite.

At the Edison Walthall Hotel, just a few blocks from the Governor's Mansion, the bored woman looked at her wet body as she sat in a plush chair under the glare of fluorescent lights surrounding the large vanity mirror. A white towel draped around her shoulders, covering her breasts as she leaned in close to the glass to pluck and clip around her eyes. It was routine more than necessity. Every night before going to sleep, she did so that she knew it had been done before checkout and the occasional uncertainty of her "next days." Before she met Stuart Whitman, at least. Her days were still uncertain, but wondering where she would stay was, for now, taken care of.

It was a nice thing, being, taken care of. Room service, if she wished, was delivered with a bellhop waving a hand in front of her and telling her, "No ma'am, it's taken care of." A trip to the spa or the salon was paid for with an Amex whose bill was taken care of. There was a used Mazda Miata in the parking garage she owned the keys for that had been taken care of.

She was a kept woman. It agreed with her.

The relationship between her and her only john was a godsend for her. Angelle was thirty-seven, still stunning and svelte though keeping that way was becoming a task rather than a birthright. However, she had ample time to spend on the task, a far cry from keeping up dates five or six times a week with any number of rich men, often with venal sexual demands that turned her stomach to recall. Stuart had a few, but his were tame compared to many and she was thankful for that. That he was handsome, eminent, and passionately doting made her job easier, but she was always cognizant that it was still a job.

One that she had to punch in for, dress for and perform the duties as stipulated. And that was increasingly the hard part as she aged and looked back during the long hours alone awaiting a phone call. Lately, his tastes had begun to filter toward bringing in fresh talent to room 454. Younger talent, eager and bright-eyed, all shapes, sizes and colors paid to join them in coital naughtiness between the twelve hundred thread sheets in the California-king every so often.

Like any woman who had a few years on her and an attachment to a man, that tint of fresh excitement she always saw in his eyes as the surrogates disrobed was humiliating and from her perspective, a potential career killer. She was professional enough to do as he asked, and do it with panache. It was not even all that distasteful; the women he brought in were unfailingly pretty in their own way. Of course, there were some she clicked with and many she did not, but she and they swallowed their mistrusts and attitudes and made the ducats.

When she and Stuart would lie in bed alone, it was the idle questions he asked that signaled the sea change she now increasingly dreaded. Every time she cupped her breasts up to age twenty-one height in the mirror, she would hear an innocuous, "What do you think about asking Piper to come over next Friday night?" And she would remember Piper was all of nineteen, not an inch out of place, big breasts with those ski-jump curvatures. Breasts that did not slouch ever closer toward her armpits every year and would not for a long time. Piper, who was without an old c-section scar that vanity kept hidden with a pubic patch that was kept well trimmed but never completely missing. Piper who wore a sunshine tattoo on her lower back and a smiling heart tattoo just above her perennially shaved pubis and giggled with that young laugh untainted as of yet by two decades of nervous Capri 100s.

"Hey, I talked to Carla. How about the three of us...?"

"I'm thinking about some brown sugar, baby. Would you call Gloria...?"

"How about you and me going down to New Orleans tonight and picking up...?"

Men. Angelle often fumed as she penciled in the waxy allure around her green eyes. Never grown up, never satisfied, never truly appreciative of a woman's efforts.

Only eager to possess and play with their toys. Trophies, they placed on a shelf and admired, but only because they had to work to gain them. But toys, toys were bought. Toys could be left on the floor or kicked under the bed when company was coming by.

And when they were broken or another toy came along with some new gadget, an old toy was at best delivered through Goodwill to some new boy who sneered at some new junk unworthy of its old owner and thus unworthy of him.

Or just tossed into the trash. She knew which she was. If nothing else, she was a dynamite keg sitting in the passageway between the bedroom's old and familiar relaxations and the kitchen table's feast of possible plenty. And she sweated nitroglycerine now. He was the Attorney General now. More eyes on him than before. Of course he always said he liked the secrecy, made it all that more exciting and dangerous. Most importantly she played by the rules. She spoke to no one about their arrangement. Kept to herself, few friends, no family. Just a well-kept woman looking suave and robust as she left through the lobby with a smile for the front desk staff...a staff who kept a great many of capital secrets resembling hers.

But, still, Angelle realized she was more risk than reward to him. At thirty-seven, she was replaceable with a younger model, a wife even, though he swore he would never marry lest he have to give up his preferred lifestyle, which he could control and enjoy doing so.

Angelle finished fixing her face and scrubbed her hair with the towel. Her face looked back at her when she was finished. Hair long and wet, hanging straight and drooping, needing attention that night in the cool November air. She was in no mood to give it as much attention as it begged for most nights.

Why should I fix it? Just to pick up some whore I don't know and eat her out with him clapping and playing with himself, trying to orchestrate the scene when if he would just shut the fuck up, she and I could probably manage just fine? But, it's work, ain't it? I guess if I expect to expect Oysters Bienville, I gotta expect to eat Clams a la Crème as well.

Her call came at six on a Friday night. A threesome! She had rolled her eyes and shook her head, mouthing swear words as he droned on about how much fun it would be. She copied the specifics on a notepad as he spoke. She was to pick up the girl at the Amtrak station and bring her back to the room. Per his instructions, the girl was young, brunette and petite. She would be dressed in a form fitting leather suit. Twyla, the madam to the Jackson elite, assured him she was at his total disposal.

And when he said he could hardly wait, she swallowed her bile and replied that she couldn't either.

As the moment arrived for her departure, she pulled out the suit he requested, a white leather form-fitting body suit intended to match the new girl's. For effect, she also threw on a white leather fedora, a peacock feather perched on one side of it, atop her pinned-up hair and cocked it to the side. She was five eight flat-footed. The new girl was short, so in the interest of trying to match her (how can I match a young tiny girl? she snorted as she got ready) she wore flats instead of pumps.

One last look in the mirror... Angelle Pierite dabbed at her hair, drooping one long tress out from the fedora across her left eye. She tidied up the mauve lipstick that fit her pale complexion best, powdered away a freckle that sneaked from beneath her base, told her reflection that she was still one sexy bitch...and if Stuart Whitman tried anything dumb with her she would burn his glass house to the fucking ground. Then she snatched up her purse and stomped from the room to go pick up a woman who was cutting in on the profit.