“OK Minou, first things first; I do trust you, I always have; you my boo’sha’, but you a nice person, and you can’t think like Carlo; I know you’ll feel sorry for him one day an’ let slip what you got, an’ he ain’t gonna hesitate to strip you bare and lose it all again; ‘long as he din’t know, you safe; Carlo don’t care for no-one save hisself, and if you in the way, then you in the way, and he fix that. I kept shut because I rather have you mad at me than try an’ find your body. Look what he did to get what you had in the loft; you think he gonna stop there if he find out what you really got? There, now I said my piece, so you go ahead an’ take a shot if you-all think that’s what you wanna do.”
Justine frowned at him as she chewed over his words, but when she grinned at him he relaxed.
“So, just how much money are we talking about here, Johnny?”
John stared sightlessly over her shoulder as he mentally tallied what he knew about, and what he remembered from back when Justine was still just a young teenager.
“I don’ rightly know the full in and out, but I remember there was somethin’ like fifteen million dollars cash, an’ a bunch of investments, stocks and bonds, that kinda stuff; it’s prolly grown some since then, people we got investing’ and watchin’ it for you know how to do the best they can to make sure you ain’t shorted …”
Justine slumped back in her seat. She had how much? That was preposterous, that couldn’t be right; why, they lived in just an ordinary apartment in an ordinary apartment building, with ordinary neighbors, people who kept cats, and grew petunias in window-boxes; people with the kind of money Johnny said she had stashed away lived in swanky Central Park West apartment complexes, not Mineola. She caught Johnny’s expression and straightened-up.
“Johnny, there must be some kind of mistake; Mom told me everything was gone, that all daddy’s business stuff was taken away by the IRS, that there was nothing left…”
Johnny nodded.
“I know, Minou, she had to do that to protect you; fewer people knew about what was waitin’ for you, safer you’ll be. Mama was keepin’ you safe, baby-girl, an’ me an’ all the others we did everythin’ we could to make sure it stayed that way. When we get to Lafayette, you gonna find out the rest, ain’t no more I know.”
*
Johnny had stripped off the vinyl wrap designed to make his classic Blazer look nondescript, old and beat-up, and it now gleamed in its original dark glossy blue paintwork, so anyone looking out for the two of them in the dull, muddy, rust-speckled white over sky blue Blazer Johnny had driven away in wouldn’t connect the young couple in the pristine car it now was. Johnny had looked far and wide to find someone who could make an authentic ‘Road-Rat’ look wrap, and they had done a good job.
Now, with the wrap off, Justine in a long red wig, with concealer hiding the worst of her bruised face and black eye, and Johnny’s dusty-blond crop now a dark, spiky mop, there was nothing to connect them to the pair the Ribeiro brothers were undoubtedly looking for.
The 1, 400 mile drive to Lafayette took almost four days; Johnny kept to I- 81 and I-59 Southbound, with periodic long, circuitous detours to circle around and pick up the interstates much further along, just in case anyone was following them. It was the longest drive Justine had ever been on. The long days on the road and short, restless nights in grimy back-road motels were getting on her nerves, so it was with a long sigh of relief that she finally started seeing the signs for Lafayette.
Johnny, however, showed no sign of stopping, and Justine, by now sick of the road, the car, and the constant traffic, finally asked him where in the Sam Hill they were going, the damned turnoff was right there, and she wanted a shower, a proper shower, in a real bathroom, one where the floor didn’t come alive every time she switched on the damned light!
Johnny grinned at her.
“Baby-girl, we can’t stay in no slick city hotel or motel; if Mister Jerome was right, those people got someone in the police precincts watchin’ out for signs of us; they see us use credit cards anywhere, or even ATM’s, they’ll know where we are, and they gonna be on us like flies on shit. They prolly know by now I come-up from New Orleans, so they gonna figure we headin’ back there jest as fast as we can, which is why we come this way.”
He patted her knee reassuringly even as he threaded through the building traffic.
“Minou, I know someplace real safe, don’t you worry, ain’t no-one comin’ out there less’n they itchin’ to get their heads blown clean off. You just set a while longer, we be there soon, an’ you can have as many showers you think you need; don’t see why though; you look an’ smell jest fine from where I’m sittin’!”
Justine couldn’t help but grin back at his lecherous grin, and reached over to punch him in the upper arm.
“Ow, what that for?” he exclaimed.
“That’s for dragging me off on this wild goose chase,” she pouted, then smiled and reached over again to squeeze his crotch, making him buck, and the Blazer swerve, before he recovered. “And that’s for later, Country-Boy, long as I get my shower first!”
Johnny circled around Lafayette proper so they were approaching from the West, through farmland and smallholdings until he swung off the main Ridge Road and followed a dusty blacktop to the end and onto an unmarked winding country road, to finally swing into the dooryard of a small, frame house. The house looked neat, clean, and deserted, but Justine could feel eyes on her, and when she made as if to step out of the vehicle, Johnny stopped her.
“Nuh-uh, you-all just set a moment, real quiet-like. I’ll just get out- ”
“Heh! Qu’est que tu veux?” (Hey! What do you want!!?) shouted a voice from nowhere Justine could tell, and Johnny froze, his hands above his head as he slid out of the car.
“Tante Amice? C’est moi, Jean-Bastienne, ou est tu?” (Aunt Amice? It’s me, Jean-Bastienne, where are you?) called Johnny grinning even as he turned around slowly to face the house. A muffled curse came to Justine’s ears and the screen door banged open to reveal a small, wiry old woman training a twelve-bore on them.
“Jean-Bastienne? What the hell you done to your hair, boy?” grinned the old lady, “I like to have shot your fool head off you didn’t call out, and who that in the car? She with you? You married yet? Both of you better come on up, don’t stand aroun’ like idjits!”
Johnny grinned as he handed Justine down from the car and herded her inside the small house. Once inside, Johnny made the introductions.
“Justine Pellini, meet ma tante Amice, she my maw-maw half-sister. Tante Amice, meet my girl, Justine; we headin’ home, but we got to be in Lafayette in two days, ‘s why I’m here. We on’y need to stay couple days, we take care of our business in Lafayette, then we headin’ down the bayou; we got trouble on our tail, an’ I was figgerin’ to let them boys chasin’ us get a taste o’ real Southern hospitality, you get my drift?”
Amice grinned as she reached up to tweak Johnny’s ear.
“I do indeed, yes I do! Kind of makes me wish I was forty years younger so’s I could help make them fellers real welcome! You a bad boy, an’ you a lawman, Jean-Bastienne, but you still my petit boug, and your maw-maw skin me she find out I don’t help you along your way. What you want fust?”
Johnny grinned impishly, looking once again like the boy she used to punish with clockwork regularity, but could never stay mad at.
“Justine a city-girl, she think she need a shower, and I could sure use some of yo’ hush-puppies an’ maque-choux right now, an’ if you got any rice an’ gravy…?”
*
Justine luxuriated in the hot shower; Amice’s single bathroom was small, but very clean, and she had no hesitation in stepping into the shower cubicle and washing off three days of road-dust and the memory of those grime-pit motels they’d been sleeping in on their way here. She was in a world of her own, reveling in the steamy heat of the small cubicle, but still felt no surprise when a pair of large, warm hands slid around her waist and cupped her breasts.
“John, no! Your aunt’s in the next room!” she half hissed, half giggled, then groaned softly as his stiff cock parted her buttocks as it slid into the cleft between them.
“Stop it, Johnny-Bear…” she moaned, even as she pushed back against him, wriggling and rubbing her soft, springy buttocks against his hardness.
“Why should I, when I already got these…” Johnny murmured in her ear, rubbing his palms over her taut nipples, the sensation sending a bolt of pleasure through her. Justine gasped again when Johnny’s thick erection slid between her thighs and rubbed along her swelling labia, and she instinctively thrust her rump out as she spread her legs. Johnny grazed and nibbled his sister’s neck as he slowly slid into her, grinning into her neck as she softly chanted “omigod, omigod, yess, yess, omigod…”
Johnny was just getting into his stroke when Justine abruptly pulled away from him, shocking him into stillness.
“Hey, what I do?” he asked, then grinned as she turned and smiled up at him.