Distraction - Bruce Sterling [63]
“Smells delicious,” he said.
Greta’s phone rang.
“Look, can’t we eat in peace?” Oscar said.
She swallowed a forkful of vinegar-gleaming chicken salad. “I’ll shut my phone off,” she said.
Oscar prodded experimentally at one of the crawdad’s many ancillary legs. The boiled limb snapped off as cleanly as a twig, revealing a white wedge of flesh.
“Don’t be shy,” she told him, “this is Louisiana, okay? Just stick the head right in your mouth and suck the juice out.”
The music from the band stopped suddenly, in mid-quartet. Oscar looked up. The doorway was full of cops.
They were Louisiana state troopers, men in flat-brimmed hats with headphones and holstered capture guns. They were filtering into the restaurant. Oscar looked hastily for Fontenot and saw the security man discreetly punching at his phone, with a look of annoyance.
“Sorry,” Oscar said, “may I borrow your phone a minute?”
He turned Greta’s phone back on and engaged in the surprisingly complex procedure of reinstalling its presence in the Louisiana net. The cops had permeated through the now-hushed crowd, and had blocked all the exits. There were cops in the bar, a cop with the maître d’, cops quietly vanishing into the kitchen, two pairs of cops going upstairs. Cops with laptops, cops with video. Three cops were having a private conference with the manager.
Then came the thudding racket of a helicopter, landing outside. When the rotors shut off, the entire crowd found themselves suddenly shouting. The sudden silence afterward was deeply impressive.
Two mountainous bodyguards in civilian dress entered the restaurant, followed immediately by a short, red-faced man in house shoes and purple pajamas.
The red-faced man bustled headlong into the restaurant, his furry house slippers slithering across the tiles. “HEY, Y’ALL!” he shouted, his voice booming like a kettledrum. “It’s ME!” He waved both arms, pajamas flying open to reveal a hairy belly. “Sorry for the mess! Official business! Y’all relax! Ever’thing under control.”
“Hello, Governor!” someone shouted. “Hey, Huey!” yelled another diner, as if it were something he’d been longing to say all his life. The diners were all grinning suddenly, exchanging happy glances, skidding their chairs back, their faces alight. They were in luck. Life and color had entered their drab little lives.
“See what the boys in the back room’ll have!” screeched the Governor. “We’re gonna look after you folks real good tonight! Dinner’s on me, everybody! All righty? Boozoo, you see to that! Right away.”
“Yessir,” said Boozoo, who was one of the bodyguards.
“Gimme a COFFEE!” boomed Huey. He was short, but he had shoulders like a linebacker. “Gimme a double coffee! It’s late, so put a shot of something in it. Gimme a demitasse. Hell, gimme a whole goddamn tasse. Somebody gonna get me two tasses? Do I have to wait all night? Goddamn, it smells good in here! You folks having a good time yet?”
There was a ragged yell of public approval.
“Y’all don’t mind me now,” screamed Huey, casually hitching his pajama bottoms. “Couldn’t get myself a decent meal in Baton Rouge, had to fly down here to take the edge off. Gotta take a big meeting tonight.” He strode unerringly into the depths of the restaurant, approaching Oscar’s table like a battleship. He stopped short, looming suddenly before them, hands twitching, forehead dotted with sweat. “Clifton, gimme a chair.”
“Yessir,” said the remaining bodyguard. Clifton yanked a chair from a nearby table like a man picking up a breadstick, and deftly slid it beneath his boss’s rump.
Suddenly the three of them were sitting face-to-face. At close range the Governor’s head was like a full moon, swollen, glowing, and lightly cratered. “Hello, Etienne,” Greta said.
“Hallo, petite!” To Oscar’s intense annoyance, the two of them began speaking in rapid, idiomatic French.
Oscar glanced over to catch Fontenot’s eye. There was a two-volume lesson in good sense in Fontenot’s level gaze. Oscar looked away.
A waiter arrived on the trot with coffee, a tall glass, whipped cream, a shot of bourbon.