Sailor & Lula by Barry Gifford Page A

You’re just shit scared Lula feels the same way about Sailor as you did with Clyde.”
    â€œOh, Dal, how could she? I mean, do you think she does? This Sailor ain’t nothin’ like Clyde.”
    â€œHow do you know, Marietta? You ever tried the boy on for size?” Dalceda laughed. Marietta drank.
    â€œAnd Mr. Dogface Farragut comes mopin’ and sniffin’ around you regular,” said Dalceda. “You could start with him. Or how about that old gangster, Marcello ‘Crazy Eyes’ Santos, used to proposition you when you was married to Clyde?”
    Marietta snorted. “He stopped askin’ after Clyde died. My bein’ too available musta thrown him off the scent.”
    â€œThat’s most certainly the case with Louis Delahoussaye the Third,” said Dalceda. “I don’t think he’s asked for it more’n twice in six months for a grand total of a not so grand eight and one-half minutes.”
    â€œDal? You think I oughta keep dyein’ my hair or let it go white?”
    â€œMarietta, what I think is we both need another drink.”

NIGHT LIFE
    â€œI wouldn’t mind a little night life,” said Lula. “How about you?”
    Sailor cruised the Bonneville slowly along Napoleon Avenue, casing the neighborhood. It was nine o’clock at night and they were in the town of Nuñez, on the Louisiana side of the Louisiana-Texas border.
    â€œHard to tell what’s shakin’ in a place like this, honey,” said Sailor. “You don’t want to be walkin’ in the wrong door.”
    â€œMaybe there’s a place we could hear some music. I feel like dancin’. We could ask somewhere,” Lula said.
    Sailor turned left into Lafitte Road and spotted a Red Devil gas station that still had its lights on.
    â€œSomeone up here might know somethin’,” he said, and pulled the car over.
    A skinny, pimply-faced guy of about eighteen, wearing dirty yellow coveralls and a crumpled black baseball cap with a red felt N on it, walked over to them.
    â€œGas?” he said.
    â€œGot enough, thanks,” said Sailor. “We’re lookin’ for a place has some music, where we can maybe get somethin’ to eat, too. Anything like that around here?”
    â€œCornbread’s,” said the attendant. “They got western. No food, though, ’cept bar nibbles.”
    Lula slid over in the front seat and leaned across Sailor.
    â€œHow about rock ’n’ roll?” she asked.
    â€œThere’s a boogie joint just about a mile straight out Lafitte here. But that’s a black place mostly.”
    â€œWhat’s the name of it?” asked Sailor.
    â€œClub Zanzibar.”
    â€œYou say it’s straight ahead a mile?”
    â€œAbout. Where Lafitte crosses over Galvez Highway. State Road 86.”
    â€œThanks,” said Sailor.
    The Club Zanzibar was in a white wood building on the left-hand side of the road. A string of multicolored lights was hung over the
front. Sailor parked the Bonneville across from the club and cut the engine.
    â€œYou ready for this?” he asked.
    â€œWe’ll find out in a hurry,” said Lula.
    When they walked in, a band was playing a slow blues and three or four couples were swaying on the dance floor. There were a dozen tables and a long bar in the room. Eight of the tables were occupied and six or seven men sat or stood at the bar. Everyone in the place was black except for one white woman, who was sitting alone at a table smoking a cigarette and drinking Pearl straight from the bottle.
    â€œCome on,” said Lula, taking Sailor by the hand and leading him onto the dance floor.
    The tune was John Lee Hooker’s “Sugar Mama,” and Lula insinuated her body into Sailor’s and left it there. After that the band picked up the beat. Sailor and Lula danced for twenty minutes before Sailor begged off and dragged Lula over to the bar and