My stomach twisted at the mention of our clan leader’s name, but I recovered quickly. “Which is why he ain’t gonna find out, is he? I’m just trying to keep my skills fresh. Where’s the harm in that?”

Jimmy Boy hooted with laughter a second time. “Your skills? A clever six-year-old could pull off a quick-change and do it with more finesse. Like I said, you ain’t got no sense.”

I aimed a quick jab at his bicep but couldn’t help chuckling. “Shut it. You’re just sore she didn’t write her number on that twenty before handing it over.”

“You might be on to something there,” Jimmy Boy said. “That girl was sex on two legs.”

“That girl was a buffer. Country people don’t bring anything but trouble. Besides, you’re the one who always says to never let a pretty face get in the way of a good con.”

He winked. “That don’t sound like me at all.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just get this thing started before your girlfriend thinks you’re hanging around to take up some more of her time.”

Jimmy Boy leaned into the steering wheel as he turned the key again. The engine rumbled to life.

“There she goes,” he said. “See? You take the time to find her sweet spot, and she’ll purr like a kitten.” His mouth spread into a wicked grin. He wasn’t talking about the truck.

CHAPTER TWO

JIMMY BOY JERKED the pickup sharply off State Highway 90 onto a side road. Other than a white sign with black letters that warned this was private property, there wasn’t any indication where the road might lead. The truck sped along smooth macadam that was maintained better than any laid by St. Tammany Parish. The narrow lane disappeared into dense woods, but the hot sun beat down on the truck again as soon as we crossed through the line of trees into a section of cleared land.

From the front, the Village looked like any other trailer park around this part of Louisiana. A little nicer, maybe, since the doublewides were all in pristine condition, but there wasn’t much to make it stand out from the crowd unless you were really looking. Statues of the Madonna, Jesus, or one of the saints guarded each front yard without exception. The statues varied in size and number, but each one was painted in colors bright enough to make a Mardi Gras float look tasteful.

Every driveway was home to at least one car, usually more, and they were all as bright and new as the statues. A few looked more expensive than the trailers themselves. The wheezing engine under Jimmy Boy’s hood seemed even older and louder in such company, and I mentally rehearsed the speech I’d make to Maggie about why she had to let us buy a new truck this fall.

I squinted against the dusty air that blew through the open window. The Village was alive with activity—not typical on such a hot day when most would rather stay inside and enjoy the bought air. Today, though, the women were going through their return-from-the-road routine, which went far beyond unpacking a few suitcases. They congregated in small groups, updating one another on their family’s latest purchases or comparing the gifts their husbands had bought them while they were away. They chitted like birds over gold and diamond jewelry in voices so loud I could hear them over the noise of the truck. I could almost see them making mental calculations to determine whose husband spent more.

Their younger daughters, dressed like miniature versions of themselves in sequins and beads, hovered outside these little klatches, mothering similarly dressed dolls. The older girls, those closer to their teens, attempted to join the conversations now and then but more often quietly observed in an effort to learn the role they’d be expected to play in a year or two. A few boys who were still young enough to hang around with the ladies chased each other with thumbs and forefingers stretched out, shouting “bang!” at one another and irritating the girls who were unlucky enough to be in the way of their game.

This time of year, the Village would normally only be home to the elderly and a handful of women whose husbands had died or been incarcerated, but the wedding of Pop Sheedy’s daughter had brought nearly everyone back from their summer travels to the north and west. Once word had spread about the newly arranged marriage, the men had left their work on the road and brought their wives and children home a full two months before the end of the season. Most hadn’t arrived until late the night before, but Jimmy Boy and I had been back for a few weeks since neither of us were comfortable leaving Maggie on her own for long stretches.

“Think those boys need any help?” I asked as Jimmy Boy snaked the truck around the large pavilion that marked the center of the Village. A group of men dressed in dirt-smudged jeans and plaid button-up shirts rolled large aluminum kegs into the pavilion. Another set of men lifted the kegs into tubs of ice.

Jimmy Boy slowed but didn’t stop. “Nah. Looks like Scrud Daly’s got it under control. Knowing him, he’s probably gone ahead and made those kegs a little lighter anyhow.”

I chuckled. “Yeah. Besides, Bridget’s on a rampage. You better step on it before she sees us.”

I pointed toward the women who were decorating the support posts and roof beams of the pavilion with white Christmas lights and overworked garlands of colored ribbon. In the center of the concrete floor, a flower arrangement stood so tall its highest point scraped the ceiling. Thousands of blossoms spray-painted in awful shades of pink and red were intertwined to form a massive heart. An older woman, her gray-streaked hair tightly wound around plastic curlers, stabbed a bony finger at it, issuing commands. Bridget Sheedy, mother of the bride, had no doubt paid a local florist a small fortune for the flowers, but there was always room for improvement as far as she was concerned.

Weddings took the typical Traveler garishness to extremes, and this one promised to be even crazier than most. The goal of each family was to outdo every other wedding that had come before it, and since the Sheedys were the wealthiest family in the Village, this would be the most elaborate we’d seen. Pulling together such a big event was no small feat when you thought about the fact that Traveler engagements lasted for no more than a week or two.

As we continued toward the back of the Village, mobile homes were replaced by new-ish houses set back at the furthest end of the clearing. Travelers jumped on any opportunity to display their success to one another but didn’t look kindly on drawing the attention of outsiders. If country people saw all these fancy houses, it wouldn’t be long before questions would be asked about where we got all that money, and questions like that were usually followed by visits from the cops.

Around three-dozen houses had been built over the past 30 years, and like our weddings, they were each larger and more elaborate than the last. One house, the largest mansion in the Village and home to the Sheedys, had a façade of bright red brick interspersed with chunks of black coal that glared in the sunlight.

There were still trailers in this part, but these were usually reserved for in-laws or elderly parents, purchased as a sign of devotion by successful children. They sat scattered around the mansions like foothills at the base of mountains, attached to the larger buildings by the power lines that stretched between them.

I looked away from the window when the truck slowed a second time. A small trailer sat off to the side of the clearing, like it was ashamed to be seen in broad daylight. And it was right to try to hide itself away. Even the most modest mobile home was a palace compared to this tiny travel trailer with its hitch propped up on a pile of cinderblocks. Several yards away was a seafoam green house, larger than some but humble compared to the ones built in the last ten years. The same umbilical lines of power connected this house to the tiny trailer. Even though Jimmy Boy and I tried to keep the exterior of the old place in good condition, its bare lawn and empty flowerbeds were as good as a neon vacancy sign flashing outside a motel.

We pulled to a stop next to an old picnic table. When I was a kid it had been bright red, but the sun had bleached it to a faded brick color and no one had taken the time to do anything about it. I swung the door open and climbed down from the cab. Jimmy Boy made a beeline for the trailer, the door banging shut behind him. That morning, the leg of our foldout table had thrown in the towel and collapsed under our breakfast dishes. I’d hoped the mess would finally convince Maggie it was time to move back into the house and have some real furniture, but she’d just set herself to cleaning up and shooed us off to the hardware store.

Instead of going inside to help, I settled myself on the faded red bench and rested my back against the picnic table’s edge. I stretched my legs out across the patch of grass in front of me and tried to imagine what tonight’s party would look like. In years past, the bride’s family would rent a fire hall or hotel ballroom for the reception, but that was before the clan’s reputation as “a bunch of rowdy gypsies” got us banned from every rental space in St. Tammany Parish.

“Back so soon?”

I turned, startled by the voice behind me. It was all brogue without a hint of slow, Southern drawl. Maggie emerged from around the side of the trailer. Our massive wolfhounds, Yeats and Beckett, flanked her, obediently keeping pace as she strode across the lawn. Their wiry coats were a gleaming variety of blacks and grays, but each had a twin patch of white at his chest as if they’d lain down in a puddle of bleach. The mud on Maggie’s long skirt and the basket of lavender she carried on her wrist told me she’d been digging in her garden out behind the trailer.