Page 33 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

“A man could die of thirst around here.”

“That’s the general idea,” she said and meant it. Her last boyfriend had sponged off her for a year. Her ex still came sniffing around, looking for a handout. Either money or sex. She gave him neither. No wonder she had such a bad attitude about men; she surrounded herself with losers. She had a fleeting thought about her current relationship. A relationship only Cricket knew anything about. Even then Sugar kept most of the details to herself. The affair was clandestine. Hot. Off limits.

Dickie Ray scrounged through the cupboard and found a pint of Jack Daniels with a trace of liquor in it. Frowning at the scant amount, he nonetheless drained the bottle into his cup. “Hardly worth the work,” he muttered, stirring his concoction with an index finger.

“No one’s got a gun to your head.”

“Leastwise not today,” he said with an enigmatic wink, then lifted his cup. “Let’s drink one to whoever it was that had the balls to get rid of Bandeaux.” With a quick nod, he took a long guzzle of his drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

“You talk to Donahue lately?” he asked, finally getting to the reason for his visit.

“Not since the last time you asked.”

Dickie snorted. “Some hotshot attorney.” Dickie’s bad mood quickly got worse.

“He’s doing what he has to.”

“It’s been months,” Dickie grumbled, and Sugar picked up his empty soda can and dropped it into the overflowing trash can. Caesarina wandered over to sniff the trash, then settled on her rear on the yellowed linoleum and scratched behind an ear with a back leg. “I think he’s stalling us.”

“He’s not stalling.” Sugar, too, was irritated by all the hoops, obstacles and delays that had been thrown at them, but she refused to give up. Flynn Donahue, Attorney at Law, had promised Sugar, Dickie Ray and Cricket that he would find a way to get them their fair share of the Montgomery fortune. After all, they were all grandchildren of Benedict Montgomery, just the same as his legitimate heirs were. The fact that their grandmother, Mary Lou Chaney, had been his secretary rather than his wife was of little consequence. Blood was blood, Donahue had insisted when he’d taken their case nearly a year ago.

Yeah, and what about the rumors that good ol’ Uncle Cameron could be your father? Sugar had heard nasty gossip all of her life. And now was banking on it.

“Nothin’ like keepin’ it all in the family,” Brad Norton had teased in the eighth grade. His whiny voice had cracked and Sugar couldn’t help but notice he was getting a major case of zits. Good. “I guess you all just like you all. I mean really like.” He’d followed the comment by raising his bushy blond eyebrows before sniggering loudly, and his friends, a group of blockheads, had joined in, laughing and pointing.

“What’s it like, Sugar? Is it sweet to think that yer uncle is yer pappy?” Billy Quentin had thrown in, hitching up his pants that were always trying to fall down beneath his big belly. He’d been a fat, stupid boy whose father had bred hunting dogs, poached deer and distilled his own whiskey. No one liked Billy so he was constantly shifting from one creepy clique to the next, hoping to score points. That hot September afternoon, Billy had been hoping that by putting Sugar in her rightful white-trash place, he’d score points with Brad and his friends and elevate his own pathetic social position.

“Better’n knowin’ my dad is a jackass and my momma’s a whore like yours. I’d be wonderin’, if I was you, Billy, why your daddy likes his dogs so much. It might help explain why yer so stupid.” She’d walked off and Brad and his friends had laughed at Billy’s expense. To that she’d turned, looked over her shoulder, and said, “And I’d be careful if I was you, too, Brad. Your daddy’s a preacher and you probably wouldn’t want him to know that you got yerself a messa Playboys under yer mattress.”

“I don’t!” he’d yelled, outraged, but Sugar had just smiled.

“So then you lied when you were braggin’ the other day over at the gas station?” she’d asked, and his mouth had dropped open so wide he could have caught flies. He hadn’t known Sugar had been in the rest room of the gas station on the other side of the door with the broken window transom and she’d heard him boasting to his miserable pack of friends.

That had been just one of dozens of incidents when Sugar had been reminded of the incest that was rumored to be a part of her family. She’d suffered through all the painful laughs, sniggers and disparaging looks. But now, damn it, she was finally going to get her own back. If the damned rumors were true, then she figured it was her right to cash in on the Montgomery fortune.

But the wheels of justice were grinding slow enough to get on Sugar’s last nerve. She was sick of living in this double-wide tin can, sick of being considered white trash by the holier-than-thou legitimate side of the family, and sick to death of dancing for a bunch of drunken middle-aged men who practically came in their work pants when she kicked up her legs. As if any of them would have a chance with her. She was a stripper. Not a whore. It took a whole lot more than a couple of twenties stuck into her G-string to get her to meet some loser in his pickup and give him a blow job.

The sooner Flynn could wrap up this lawsuit, the better. She and her siblings were contesting Cameron’s will, claiming their stake of half of whatever Berneda and her brood had inherited, which just happened to be a shit-load of money. She wasn’t sure how much, but it was in the millions. Millions! Even split seven ways between Cameron’s surviving progeny, that was more money than she’d see stripping in her lifetime. What she could do with just a portion of that money! Not only her, but Cricket and Dickie Ray as well.

“You want it, too,” Dickie Ray observed, as if he could read her mind. “So bad you can taste it.”

“Flynn said this could take years.”

“Bullshit. I might not have years.”

“He’s doing everything he can.”

“That fat turd?” Dickie Ray snorted his disgust.

“Haven’t you heard that patience is a virtue?”

“Don’t you believe it. If you want something bad enough, you’ve got to make it happen. I learned that a long time ago,” he said as she looked pointedly at the clock mounted over the refrigerator.

“I’ve got to get down to the club,” she said, reaching for her purse.

“Fine.” Dickie Ray squared his hat upon his head again and started across the scratched linoleum to the front door. “Tell Donahue he’d better get the damned ball rollin’ and soon. Elsewise I just might have to take things into my own hands

.” He winked at her, and she had the uneasy sensation that he’d already begun.

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