The Auction House

by Vito Zuppardo

  “Anything you’d like to say?” Lucy asked. Her real name was Lucinda Jones, but some called her Ms. Lucy. To street punks like Picklehead, who seemed to be struggling to process her question, she was known as Voodoo Lucy. In truth, she had several names. The one she used at any moment depended on what con she was running.

  Lying on a flat cart used to move heavy furniture, Picklehead glared up at her, his head tightly held by a donkey harness attached to the handles of the steel cart.

  “Well?” she asked, pressing on his neck with her foot.

  “Yeah, I’ve got something to say—you’re a dead bitch.”

  Lucy smiled at Picklehead. He was blinking rapidly, and he had a grayish cast to his face. He must have been coming down from his big rush, something he’d enjoyed only a short time ago.

  “Didn’t that little hit of coke take the edge off?”

  With a look that could kill, Picklehead asked, “What do you want?”

  “You can’t take advantage of women,” Lucy said, grinding her teeth until her jaw tightened. “Woman, teenage girls, and boys, you’re not particular.” She bent down and got eye to eye with him. “Not without consequences.”

  Standing in front of the cart staring at Picklehead, Lucy wondered what made people do such horrible things. The truck’s brakes squealed as it stopped in the alley near the furniture shop’s door. Shortly after, as she expected, the truck’s hydraulics kicked in, the crusher’s noise deafening. That was the sound she was waiting for.

  Lucy pulled a syringe from her pocket, checked for an air bubble, and plunged it into his arm. Picklehead let out a scream and then another, only to be drowned out by the sound of the truck’s hydraulics, which lasted for twenty seconds. By the time the clatter stopped, so had Picklehead’s heart. The sound of the truck receded as it rumbled down the next block.

  Her heart beating fast, Lucy eyeballed the alleyway, then pushed the cart carrying Picklehead out to it. Stripping off the harness and flipping his body to the ground, she propped him against a building. Working quickly, she placed Picklehead’s thumb on the syringe, with the needle pushed into his arm. His hand dropped to the ground, the needle dangling from his skin as if Picklehead had squeezed every last ounce of juice from the syringe.

  With the furniture cart cleaned of fingerprints and rolled back into place as if it had never moved, Voodoo Lucy walked through the building and out the front door to Royal Street, taking her usual seat at Café Beignet. Now it was a waiting game to see how long it would take for someone to discover what appeared to be another junkie overdosed in an alley.

  Chapter Two

  Two months ago

  Lucinda Jones always walked the streets of New Orleans with mixed feelings. Whispers of “Voodoo Lucy” reached her ears from the gossips as she passed. Others worshipped her as a goddess, calling her “Ms. Lucy,” and were proud to be her friend. She stood five feet, nine inches with flawless skin, beautiful blue eyes, and natural red hair. Lucy attracted men without trying, even though applying makeup wasn’t on her daily agenda. A colorful bandana over her hair was her signature look as well as floppy clothes covering her shapely body.

  The legend of Voodoo Lucy had started eight months ago, shortly after twenty-eight-year-old Lucy and her mother Wanda arrived in New Orleans. Lucy had taken a part-time job at Bluff Salon, where her mother had also obtained employment as a beautician. The two received small salaries, decent tips, and free lodging in a tiny apartment above the salon on Royal Street. It was the new start they had hoped New Orleans could offer.

  Lucy’s father had lingered back in Tupelo, Mississippi, to sell off the few possessions that remained after they’d been evicted from their home. Tupelo had nothing for them but memories they all wanted to forget. Her father was supposed to join them within a week, but Lucy had said her goodbyes before leaving. She’d seen it in his eyes—he’d had no plans to meet up with them. After a month of waiting, her mother had finally given up and admitted to Lucy that she’d been right.

  Keeping the salon clean was Lucy’s job, along with fetching cold drinks from the vending machine or cups of coffee for customers. While sweeping up, Lucy frequently found herself drawn to the hair clippings that dropped to the floor. She kept the floor clean but would always save some red, blond, and jet-black hair in a bag. Why? She didn’t know. Maybe it was their color or their texture that called out to her, but something about them was intriguing.

  The French Quarter of New Orleans was home to many quirky people who kept odd hours and the salon wasn’t a nine-to-five type business. Club dancers made hair appointments at nine at night so they could leave and go straight to work. Men working the doors at clubs and bars wanted their hair cut after work—and the clubs closed at five in the morning. Vivien Bluff, the owner, didn’t turn any appointments down, and Lucy and Wanda soon learned why the job came with living quarters above the salon. They were open practically twenty-four hours a day, six days a week.

  After a few weeks, Lucy caught on to specific repetitive interactions that customers had with the salon as well as with Vivien. She was a strange woman and a self-proclaimed psychic reader who had several regular customers and the occasional tourist. Her office was separated from the salon by nothing more than a long bead drape hanging from the ceiling where she sat at a table with an empty chair across from her and flipped through tarot cards most of the day.

  Lucy often studied Vivien’s psychic readings. Her clients blurted out their fears behind the bead drape like the area was soundproofed. They mostly told her their worries and Vivien read their cards, saying what could happen if they continued on their current paths. Her pronouncements weren’t anything the clients didn’t already know; they just wanted to hear it from someone else. Vivien was nothing more than a twenty-dollar-an-hour psychologist, calculatedly playing on their emotions and behavior from the minute they walked into the salon.

  The night callers were men, mostly middle-aged, well-dressed and well-groomed. Vivien would sit with them and talk while they sipped on Hennessy cognac, something she offered her preferred clients. It was always the same routine. A few minutes at the table, then she gave the cue by rising with her glass. Her night caller responded by standing and leaving an envelope on the table. Then, with a drink in hand, he followed Vivien to a door she held open.

  Lucy would watch each night from her perch on the top step of the stairway as the men smiled and gave Vivien a kiss on the cheek before walking into one of the bedrooms. Vivien would then return to the table, picked up the envelope, and continue sipping her cognac.

  Lucy’s ears would then focus on the whispers coming from the bedroom. It was always a woman’s voice she heard, followed by a faint sensual moaning that would grow louder and more forceful—then it would be suddenly muted and all Lucy could hear from downstairs was Vivien lighting up a cigarette. Holding her breath, Lucy would wait until the act was completed and the door from the bedroom leading out to the alleyway was closed gently. Almost simultaneously, another well-dressed man would walk through the Royal Street front door, take a seat with Vivien, and be offered cognac in a fancy glass.

  Not all the visitors were men, some were women. There were scary ones, too, and Lucy would hide in the rear room pretending to keep busy when they came calling. Every Wednesday afternoon, a man showed up like clockwork. Dressed in his traditional gang colors and draped in gold chains, he was an intimidating sight. Lucy noticed one odd thing about him: a butterfly tattoo on his thumb.

  Whenever the man arrived, Vivien would summon a bold look for the salon workers and present the man with a smile and hand over one hundred dollars wrapped in a sheet of the morning newspaper. He’d take it from her as he roamed his hands over her body. He was a street thug with no respect toward anyone, much less a woman, the type of man Lucy had grown to hate as a teenager preyed upon by men. Behavior she’d hoped was limited to Tupelo, though that was obviously wishful thinking.

  The way Vivien explained things, the exchange was the
cost of doing business, and a small amount for the protection of her girls and night callers. She identified the man as Felipe Cruz of the Cornerview Gang. He would sometimes make his rounds with Felipe, Jr., securing his teenage son as next in line to lead. It was a criminal cycle that had been in place for decades, and Felipe was making sure the family business would continue.

  Felipe offered that same “protection” to all the business owners in the area. The bartender who cut his whiskey with sugar water. The nightclub owner allowing his provocatively dressed ladies to join customers for drinks, charging the customer twice the price for drinks and the lady’s company.

  It didn’t matter what your scam was; Felipe had seen it all. Serving to a lady what looked like booze but was nothing more than overpriced iced tea in a cocktail glass, better known as B drinking, or the most popular con by nightclub owners, taking an empty bottle of top-shelf whiskey and replacing it with rotgut. Most customers had no clue what they were drinking after their second drink. For a weekly on-time payment, Felipe’d protect you from any pissed-off customers, and his political connections would keep your business off law enforcement’s radar. But that protection came at a price. Don’t pay, and he’d report you to the federal agents at ATF or to the local police, or he’d just burn your place down.

  Everyone paid Felipe Cruz.

  But Lucy hadn’t left Tupelo to end up under the thumb of another man who thought he could throw his weight around. Sooner or later, she’d find a way to handle Felipe Cruz.

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  REVENGE

  The legend of Voodoo Lucy lives on as Lucinda Jones continues her life of intrigue in New Orleans in the heart of the historic French Quarter. Her interesting, unique relationships are interwoven with drug dealer Felipe Cruz, New Orleans Detective Mario DeLuca, and Stella James, an on-again, off-again romance, as Lucy seeks to right the wrongs in her life.

  Her nightmares are getting worse until she discovers the reason for them. She seeks out the perpetrator, intent on revenge, as she engages her voodoo skills by creating a doll to send a message that chills the man to the core. Lucy receives help and cuts deals with unlikely associates, doing what she has to do get justice.

  Lucy also seeks to give back to the New Orleans community, helping abused women by renovating a neighborhood and creating a safe haven for others. She might have somewhat crossed the line, involving money laundering, making deals with politicians, and walking a fine line of legal activities.

  But it’s all pure Voodoo Lucy, as she continues her legacy in Revenge, Book 2 of the Voodoo Lucy series.

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