Subject: LaCroix Takes The Wheel (fwd) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 21:11:08 +0500 (GMT+0500) The Duesenberg jerked sharply, dead before it had moved an inch. From the back seat there was a little gasping noise, quickly smothered. LaCroix turned and glared at Nicholas. He stroked the smooth wood of the steering wheel speculatively with his thumb. "Janette?" "I swallowed an insect," she said demurely. "How unfortunate," LaCroix murmured. "I hope it doesn't give you indigestion." Nicholas glanced over his shoulder. Janette lounged in the back seat, elegantly enough, but the tip of the feather that trailed from her cloche hat quivered with delight. He understood her happiness, though he couldn't share it; Janette thought that everything could be like it had been before, the three of them together...forever. He turned, suppressing a sigh, and stared through the wind screen. He wouldn't be out with them tonight if Janette hadn't been the one to ask. "Start the car again." He measured his words carefully. "Press down on the gas pedal as you let out the clutch." "I remember your instructions from the first time you told me, Nicholas." LaCroix touched his hand to his charcoal grey fedora, adjusting it infinitesimally. He reached for the starter. Nicholas braced himself. *Sputter.* Jerk. Die. Nicholas gave the dashboard a consoling pat. The Duesenberg had been the only bright spot in his life since LaCroix had fetched him like a truant schoolboy from Los Angeles. Sleek and red, its eight cylinders purred like a litter of kittens as the miles disappeared under its white-sided tires--not that Nicholas could go far enough. LaCroix had brought them to one of his southern properties, once a thriving plantation, now just a decaying wreck of a house in the middle of North Georgia. Search though Nicholas might for a refuge of his own, every sunrise brought him back to the plantation house, back to LaCroix. *Sputter.* Jerk. Die. LaCroix had sneered when the Duesenberg was delivered from Atlanta. His snide remarks had made Janette laugh while Nicholas wiped the dust of the road from the touring car's gleaming sides with a chamois cloth. And now LaCroix wanted to learn to drive-- *Sputter.* Jerk. Die. Nicholas had agreed to this farce for Janette's sake. Only for Janette. *Spu...RRROOOOOAARR!* "You can't force it!" Nicholas shouted. The Duesenberg's motor stopped with a grinding noise that tore into his heart like...yes, like a wooden stake. He'd been thinking of wooden stakes lately. And the sun. Always, the sun. LaCroix's leather-gloved hands tightened, then relaxed on the steering wheel. "*Don't* raise your voice to me, Nicholas." This was for Janette... "It isn't difficult," Nicholas said, a little desperately. "Push down on the gas, like this, and then--" He tried to show the rhythm with his hands, push down, let up, push down, let up. Slowly, LaCroix turned his head. Little bits of gold began to flicker around his pupils. "And then let up on the clutch! Yes, Nicholas, let up on the clutch!" LaCroix mimicked Nicholas' motions, both of them pawing the air like a pair of shadow boxers. There was a giggle from the back seat. They both whipped around, glaring at Janette, who was sitting bolt upright, her blue eyes round and bright, her lips pressed tightly together. She looked from Nicholas to LaCroix and back again. "I'm just watching the stars." She waved an elegant finger at the sky. "See? There's the little spoon." As if their muscles were very stiff, Nicholas and LaCroix turned away, settling themselves in their seats. "It is indeed a lovely evening," LaCroix murmured. "It's the Little *Dipper*," Nicholas muttered. The night was dark and hot and close as black velvet sheets. The Duesenberg's powerful headlights showed nothing but the empty road running through deserted woods. The only sound was Janette, rummaging through her handbag, then the click as she opened and closed her cigarette case. Her lighter flared. "I thought we were going for a drive," she said innocently. LaCroix pressed the starter. The car jerked; Janette swore; Nicholas smelled burning wool. "My carpeting!" "I'll have it repaired." LaCroix stared out into the night. Janette made sputtering noises as she gathered up the spilled contents of her purse. Nicholas refused to ask whether her cigarette was out. "We'll try it again," he said through clenched teeth. "As I count. Down, one, two- -and up--slowly!--one, two, three--" The Duesenberg leapt forward, its engine engaged at last and starting to howl. "Second gear!" Nicholas shouted, half standing in the front seat. "Second GEAR!" LaCroix shifted, then shifted again. Nicholas hung on to the wind screen, listening to the gravel pelt the underside of the car, feeling the thrum of the engine, watching the road disappear beneath them. He heard, or thought he heard, LaCroix give a massive "HA!" as he shifted up again--they were going fifty miles an hour at least now, much too fast, but Nicholas didn't care... ...until he saw the headlights come over the hill. "Slow--" LaCroix went faster. The metal edge of the wind screen bit into Nicholas' fingers. The headlights were coming closer, impossibly slow, it seemed, closer, closer-- LaCroix twisted the wheel as the big panel truck screamed by them. The Duesenberg went into the air and down again with a massive crack. Janette shrieked and Nicholas was flying-- He picked himself up off the ground, much later, it seemed. He was lying next to a fallen log, a log with a branch that stuck straight up into the air. He'd missed it by inches. LaCroix and Janette were out of the car. Janette had a handful of LaCroix's sleeve tight in her fist, and her lips were trembling. As Nicholas rolled over and sat up he saw LaCroix's face settle into its usual arrogance. Had Nicholas missed something there? He doubted it. "You hit the gas," Nicholas said. "Not the brake." LaCroix's eyes hardened. Steam hissed from under the Duesenberg's stylish hood ornament. Its left front tire was flat. Nicholas got to his feet and brushed off his clothes. He staggered over to the car, shaking off the shock of his fall. "The truck should have stopped," LaCroix said. "It wouldn't have." Janette's voice shook. "It's one of Charlie's." "Charlie?" "He's...an entrepreneur." Surely LaCroix had noticed that Janette was coming home drunk on white lightening and bootleggers every night they'd been stuck in this godforsaken place. Nicholas ran his hand over the Duesenberg's fender. He'd seen horses with broken legs that looked less forlorn. He looked back at LaCroix. "I want to look under her. Do you mind?" "I don't mind at all," LaCroix replied courteously. Nicholas waited, but LaCroix didn't move. Taking a deep breath, Nicholas found his log and carried it back to the road. He got a grip under the Duesenberg's running board and raised the car, kicking the log under it to prop it up. "An entrepreneur?" he heard LaCroix ask Janette as he crawled under the car. He didn't listen for the answer. "You can fix it, Nicola?" Janette asked anxiously when he came out again. "It is just a tire--" "It's the axle," he told her, keeping his voice flat with an effort. "It's broken. She'll have to be towed." He bent to brush dirt off his knees. "Nicola--" "Janette." LaCroix cut her off. "That is enough." Nicholas looked up at them. LaCroix held Janette's arm just above the elbow, just where the nerves could be pinched. "The automobile is an expensive toy," LaCroix said. "Nicholas would not want to abandon it. Come." Nicholas stared after them as they rose into the air. "It's not a toy!" he shouted after them. Nicholas rubbed sleep from his eyes as he stepped out into the balcony of the old plantation house. There were no nights so lush as those of the American south, hot and sweet as blood itself. "Be careful, just there." Janette's voice came out of the darkness. "There's a bad spot." The end of her cigarette glowed and faded. Nicholas stepped over the broken board and leaned on the creaking balcony rail. On the overgrown driveway beneath him was a long, gleaming black sedan, low, dark, and dangerous. "It's a Cadillac," Janette said. "It arrived an hour ago." Nicholas straightened and ran a hand through his hair. "Does he expect me to drive it for him?" A uniformed chauffeur came out of the house to stand by the car. "LaCroix let me pick him out myself." Janette came nearer. Amusement warmed her voice. "His name is Miklos. Isn't he handsome?" Her dress was little more than strings of glittering black beads, caught at the hips with a black satin sash. Her hair was in soft curls that caressed her cheeks like a lovers' fingers. Her eyes were hopeful. "We're going to see Charlie," she added. "Do you want to go?" Nicholas turned away. His Duesenberg had been hauled to a mechanic behind two mules owned by a friendly farmer; it would be a week before her new axle came from Indiana. "No." Janette came closer, her heels tapping carefully on the warped and cracked boards. "Nicola--" "I'm going back to school." He picked at a splinter in the balcony rail. "Another university. To study ancient history." "Perhaps LaCroix can help you with your papers." He gave her a look that made her flush, step back. "You will have to ask him, Nicola." "I'll ask." The splinter came off in his fingers, a piece of wood too tiny to be of any use. "But I will go." Janette sighed. "Do you ever wonder what it would be like without him?" Nicholas asked her. She closed the balcony doors behind her as she left. ************* An Epilogue for the Cousins: Nicholas smiled as he stepped out into the night. There had been a thunderstorm during his class, making his lesson on the Valley of the Kings even more dramatic. He nodded to a pair of his students as he went down the steps of the lecture hall. They giggled; they were pretty girls, who always sat front row center and wrote down everything he said. He walked to the street, waiting for traffic to pass. Just as he was about to step off the curb an immense black Buick turned the corner. The driver's face...LaCroix? The Buick's wheels hit a puddle, soaking Nicholas' trousers to the knees. As the car careened off into the night he could hear LaCroix's voice: "AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION, Nicholas!" ************* Your comments are appreciated. Thanks for reading. -----Diane Trap