Return of the Devil's Spawn

by John Moore

  Charlotte arrived at ten sharp. The always-together New Orleans girl was dressed in jeans and a short sleeve pink patterned blouse. I recognized the look. It was the New Orleans version of hunting clothes for women on the prowl. This look wasn’t the nighttime do-me-now slutty look. No, this was the I’m-great-girlfriend-material look. She wanted to be noticed by someone, and I thought I knew who.

  “Charlotte,” I said. “What are you doing? He works for us. You can’t date him.”

  She put her head down and batted her eyes in her best Scarlet O’Hara impersonation. “Why, whatever do you mean, Alexandra? These old rags? Just something I threw on.”

  She made me giggle. I’d learned one thing about this city. Sex, love, friends, and work blended together like cream in coffee. No one was going to stop it, and no one really cared either. New Orleans was a free-for-all city when it came to matters of the heart or certain other organs unmentionable in polite company. Speaking of which, I had so many balls in the air at this moment, I couldn’t worry about Charlotte’s sex life. If she wanted Michael, she was going to have him; there was nothing I could do about it. We’d just have to deal with the aftermath the best we could. Even I had to admit, he was very handsome.

  While we waited for Michael we discussed the best way to go to market with Sweet Treat stevia. Our budget was limited, so we had to create an enticing message. The best place to sell the product was health food stores and other health-conscious places. Selling in health food stores required us to get into the food distribution network. That was not an easy group to break into. Our messaging would depend on who our target market was and where we planned to sell our product. If we couldn’t get into health food stores, we’d have to find other outlets.

  Michael brought with him an alligator-skin briefcase, stuffed full. Wow, I thought, he has expensive tastes. I wondered what Tom would think of alligators being killed to create fashion accessories. Alligator hunting was legal in many of the Southern states as a method of managing their population. Louisiana had more swampland than any other state except Florida. Gators could be spotted on any day drive through Cajun country. Every Cajun had a gator story to tell, but I don’t think any of them had alligator briefcases. Michael was from a western state, so to him it was just a fashion statement. I was more interested in the papers inside.

  “Wow. What a beautiful place. How about a tour?” Michael asked.

  “OK,” I said. I took him throughout the condo except formy and Tom’s room and Piper’s room, feeling funny about an employee in my private areas. Since he wasn’t from New Orleans, the way we lived interested him. I understood because being from the Midwest I’d gone through a similar culture shock. We returned to the dining room table, and he put his expensive briefcase down and brought out a table full of spreadsheets.

  He’d done comparative studies of other product launches in the food industry. There was a pattern he’d discerned from the successful ones. They knew exactly who their market was and how to access them. We needed to do a little more research on our market before we launched or crafted a message. Charlotte was the expert in market research, so she volunteered to spearhead the project.

  “Michael, we can work together on this if you don’t mind,” she said, throwing me a wink. “You can analyze the data I find and plug it in where you think it will do the most good.”

  Oh shit, did she just say that? I thought. What a shameless double entendre. Plug it in where it will do the most good. Her New Orleans uptown girl was really showing. He crafted a sly smile and shot it at her, showing they were on the same page for sure. The electricity in the room could power the Christmas lights in Jackson Square. These two were destined to get together. I hoped they could keep their work lives and personal lives separate. But I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a real attraction—more than their mutual good looks—or if she was just trying to find someone to make her forget Mr. Morris.

  Michael and Charlotte decided to have lunch in the Quarter together, leaving Piper and me alone in the condo. I wanted to go to Clint’s strip club, and Piper chose to stay in the condo. I walked down Bourbon Street thinking about Victor and Bart and what they were doing. The thought of those two devils together ate at me. They had to have been standing outside my new condo to intimidate me. But why?

  My preoccupation caused me to bump into a couple walking in the same direction as me. I apologized. “That’s OK,” the young man said.“We are from Indiana. In New Orleans for our honeymoon. This place is crazy.”

  His wife blushed as he spoke. Her fair skin, naturally blond hair, and Indianapolis 500 T-shirt gave her away. They were a cute couple straight off of the farm. I gave them directions to Jackson Square, and they walked off admiring all the French Quarter architecture. Seeing them made me realize how far I’d come since I left Indiana. I was proud of the progress I’d made and determined to see our plan to provide accessible organic food to the people of this great city through to the end.

  People on the street were already partying, plastic cups with daiquiris and hurricanes populating most of the hands. Some had cups of beer, and all had fun on their mind, but none had any idea about the vicious underbelly of the city.

  When I entered Clint’s office he was sitting at his desk; a hypodermic needle lay on top of his papers. He glanced at me and motioned for me to sit. He grabbed the needle and disappeared into the bathroom in his office. He emerged a minute later without the needle.

  “I know why you are here,” he said. “You’ve come to brag about the progress Dusty is making at your do-good center. Right?”

  “Well, she is doing well, but that’s not why I’m here. I just saw Victor Ivanovich with Bart Rogan outside my condo,” I said. “What do you know about them teaming up?”

  “Fuck!” he shouted. “You saw those two together? When?”

  “About six or seven hours ago. They were standing across Bourbon Street looking at my condo,” I said. “Victor smiled at me before they turned their backs and walked off.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Clint said. “That’s bad news. Victor’s making a run at us again. He hasn’t talked to any of my girls yet. He’s probably concocting his scheme now. Victor most likely wants to take you out as well. He must be hooking up with Rogan for some strategic reason. I read about your fight with Rogan. He’s probably got it in for you too, so you’d better watch your ass.”

  “I know Rogan has money,” I said. “As a matter of fact, he has lots of it. Does Victor need his financial backing?”

  “Hell no!” Clint said. “Victor has millions to spare. He is a multi-national corporation by himself. He’s hooking up with Rogan for some other reason. I don’t have any idea what it is.”

  “What about the murders in the Quarter? Do you still think Victor has nothing to do with them?” I asked.

  “Those killings are just too weird for Victor or your buddy, Rogan. Some real deranged serial killer is doing these murders. There are long voodoo pins stuck through the ears of all of the victims.”

  Holy shit, I thought. Voodoo? Could Mandy and her group of robed crackpots be involved in the killings? They were worshiping Bob Broussard, and maybe he was killing people as part of a demented ritual, or maybe the acolytes were killing them as human sacrifices. Did Voodoo practitioners do that? I mean real ones, in Haiti or Africa, not serial-killer-crazy American ones. I had no idea, and I tried to calm myself.

  Clint sat quietly at his desk trying to make sense out of Victor’s return to the city. I stared at him, thinking about the syringe he took in the bathroom with him. Was he a heroin addict like Piper’s mother? My Lois Lane instinct got the better of me, and I had to ask.

  “What was in the syringe, Clint?”

  “None of your goddamn business,” he barked.

  “The way I see it, with these devils loose, you and I are going to have to work together again. I just want to know what I’m dealing w
ith. What was in the syringe?” I asked again.

  Clint rolled his eyes, totally disgusted with me. “It’s insulin, if you have to know, bitch. I’m a diabetic.”

  Before I could react, one of his thugs walked in and said, “Victor Ivanovich is here to see you.”

  Chapter Eleven:

  Tropics

  Clint shifted his gaze to me. I tried to remain calm, but my flushed face betrayed me. “Is he alone?” Clint asked.

  The over-sized man with a ruddy complexion answered, “Yep, boss. He’s by himself. We checked the street outside. He’s all alone.”

  “Well, then, let’s not be rude and keep the man waiting,” Clint said in as sarcastic a tone as he could muster. “Bring him in.”

  I was trying not to pee my pants. Victor wouldn’t have come alone if he was going to start trouble. Still, I knew what he’d done to so many people, killing them without a second thought. Victor was pure evil, specializing in hooking women on heroin and turning them into sex slaves. I could feel my heart again pounding in my chest.

  Victor walked in Clint’s office cocky and confident. He gave me a sideways glance, barely acknowledging my presence. Instead, he kept his eyes trained on Clint. He was dressed the same as I’d seen him outside my condo, a gray suit with a light blue shirt and an aquamarine tie. He wore a handkerchief in his coat pocket expertly tucked to create four triangle tops, his vibrant green eyes seeming to shine a beam of light in every direction he looked. Clint sat, as he always did, unaffected by Victor or anything else that presented itself to him. He was a seasoned French Quarter mob boss and had seen just about everything imaginable come in and out of his domain, like the federal anti-gang task forces, Los Angeles’sCrips and Bloods, and Hurricane Katrina. Victor was only the latest would-be threat to blow into the Crescent City.

  “Good afternoon, Clint,” Victor said. “I see you are looking well.”

  Clint wasn’t much for small talk. “I know this isn’t a social call because if it were you’d have a bottle of vodka, so get to the point.”

  “Americans, always worried about their time,” Victor said with an amused smile, leaning casually against the wall. He glanced at me frozen in my chair and said, “I wanted to tell you myself that I was in town. Of course, now I see that you already knew. I am not here to interfere with your business. Our understanding is that as long as you are the boss of this little enterprise, I will not expand my operation into your territory. No need for you to prepare for any troubles.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing here?” I blurted.

  The two men shifted their eyes to me. I guess I wasn’t supposed to speak in a meeting like this, but I didn’t much care for their rules or them, for that matter. I knew all people were capable of good and evil acts. The fight between good and evil started when Adam and Eve drew their first breaths. It would be around long after I’d drawn my last. But these two had given into evil far more than most of us, and Victor more than Clint. Victor was devoid of good. He was pure evil, and I wanted to know what he was up to.

  “I have promises to keep, my dear,” Victor said merrily as he turned to leave. Before he stepped out of Clint’s office, he turned and said, “Mr. Cunningham, I just wanted to tell you myself that I am not in town to threaten your operation. So if you leave me to my other business, I’ll leave you to yours.”

  Victor flashed his iridescent green eyes at me and left the club. He obviously didn’t want Clint to misread his intentions. But he didn’t say the same to me. Promises to keep? Promises to Bart Rogan? Clearly, he was telling us that I was in his sights and Clint wasn’t. He didn’t want Clint to have any reason to help me.

  “That smooth bastard is a very dangerous man,” Clint croaked as he stuffed a handful of M&Ms in his mouth. He’d just told me he was diabetic and had given himself an insulin shot; then he stuffed his face full of candy. He must have a death wish, I thought. He was right though: Victor was dangerous. He was a stone-cold killer, and as far as I could gather, he only valued money. People seemed to be expendable in Victor’s life, and I was pretty sure I was one of the people he’d marked for elimination.

  I left Clint alone with his candy. As I walked out of the club onto Bourbon Street, I thought about my gun. Should I start wearing it again? Could I use it if I had to? I couldn’t say for sure I would be able to. Maybe I shouldn’t strap it to my leg if I wouldn’t use it. Pulling it out and hesitating could get me killed. I could still remember El Alacran standing next to Victor on the steps of my old condo, and I couldn’t get the expression on his face when I shot him out of my mind. Over and over the scene tromped through my brain. Over and over again he died. Died from bullets I fired into his body. Alexandra, I said to myself, snap out of it. Get your head in the game. Victor could be on the street now about to attack you. Take your head out of your ass and pay attention to what’s around you.

  A light misty rain began to fall on my face, seemingly coming from nowhere. It was one of those rains that fell when the sun was shining. Jess said that meant the devil was beating his wife and the rain was her tears. I kept walking, scanning the streets for the three devils I knew: Victor, Rogan, Broussard. Those devils had no wives, but if they did, they’d surely beat the crap out of them.

  Tourists ran for cover, but locals waited it out. Most knew the sky just needed to cry every once in a while for the ones lost in Katrina. The city was rebounding, but the rain provoked painful memories of loved ones lost and lives forever changed. But the soul of the city hadn’t changed, and this was still the place care had forgotten. We knew how to party, but singing the blues was a big part of our culture too. Music blared from the bars, drawing in the tourists scattering to stay dry.

  Luckily for me, I made it to my home in one piece. Piper was sitting at the computer drinking a large cup of green tea. She’d added Sweet Treat to it, confirming she was a part of the team. “Alexandra, come see this,” she said, pointing to the computer screen.

  I walked over, not knowing what to expect. I enjoyed her spontaneous nature. She was capable of just about anything with the computer. What an amazing little lady. She was scrolling the weather site reading about a disturbance in the tropics.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “Here in New Orleans at this time of year, we watch the weather patterns developing off the coast of Africa closely,” I said. “Tropical low-pressure systems form and make their way eastward. Some turn into tropical depressions and later tropical storms and hurricanes. Many pick up strength from the warm waters of the Gulf and become powerful storm systems. Katrina was a huge hurricane. The winds were strong, but it’s always the storm surge and the rains that cause the most damage. We watch their progress so we can be prepared.”

  “There’s a tropical depression forming now. Will it be a hurricane?” she asked.

  “No way to tell. Just keep watching the weather site to see what their computer models predict,” I said. “It takes a week or more for storms to cross the ocean and make their way to the Gulf. We’ll have enough time to prepare if necessary.”

  Piper had no experience with hurricanes, and I didn’t want to frighten her any more than necessary. New Orleans’ vulnerability to storms was a man-made problem. Damming the rivers to manufacture power prevented silt from depositing in the Gulf. The barrier islands off the coast couldn’t replenish themselves as they were eroded. They had once offered a much stronger buffer to the effects of the storms. If that weren’t bad enough, the runoff of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides into the rivers made its way to the marshlands, killing the vegetation that held the soil in place. Expansive clearing of land above the Mississippi River Delta to create additional farmland made the problem even worse. New Orleans just suffered the consequences of defacing the earth in the name of progress.

  Every region of the country had its dangerous weather events with which to contend. Weather was one of those uncontrollable par
ts of life everyone had to deal with. Whether it was ice storms, tornadoes, mudslides, droughts, or floods, Mother Nature had her way of letting us know who was in charge, no matter what our overblown egos thought. She knew how to teach us respect for her. Yet we still polluted her waters and ruined her land. We were destined to suffer greater consequences if we didn’t change our destructive ways.

  Piper looked up from the computer with a furrowed brow. “I’m going to watch the tropics so we can be prepared.”

  I brushed my fingers through her hair. I put my hand on her shoulder and patted it gently. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Piper. New Orleans and all of Louisiana have been through many hurricanes. Most of them only inconvenienced people because the winds toppled trees and knocked the power out for a week. Katrina was a once-in-a-lifetime storm. Plus, the city has improved the levees since Katrina. We are better protected now.”

  She forced a tiny smile and said, “OK. Now let me show you how I’ve improved our website.”

  Piper navigated to the website. I barely recognized it. She had created a divergent variety of sections. There was a magazine section with articles she’d copied from other news outlets. A viewer could flip through the pages just like a Kindle book. There was a newspaper layout as well with the same articles condensed a bit and headlines like newspapers had. She’d also linked to many anti-pollution sites and reached out to their owners. Piper had created an international confederation of like-minded bloggers who wanted to stop the rampant pollution of the earth as much as we did.

  “Oh my God, Piper,” I said. “This is amazing.”

  She turned her head upward toward me and gave me a huge smile. “And I’ve only just begun. They won’t know what hit them. We now have a network across the globe, and now we can get the word out about any pollution we find. What’s more, people around the world can communicate with us about ACC’s and Aggrow’s activities. So if they pollute a well in Africa, we’ll find out about it sooner or later. And here’s the best part: I’ve created a most wanted polluters list. ACC and Aggrow on the top.”