by Anne McClane
Her back against the door, still in a defensive posture, Lacey considered their close quarters in the back room of an Uptown bar and thought she’d never encountered more trouble than Nathan…What’s-his-name.
“What’s your last name?” the words escaped her lips before her brain could stop them.
“Huh?”
“Sorry. I was thinking how you’re right—I have no basis to trust you. I don’t even know your last name.”
“It’s Quirk. Nathan Quirk.”
“Okay,” Lacey replied. “That’s a start.” Her hand finally quit shaking. Lacey changed her focus to the cramped and tiny desk to Nathan’s left. She tried to make out the total on a liquor invoice. An awkward silence grew.
“What did your wife say when she saw you?” Lacey asked. His face still bore the evidence of the weekend’s events.
“Nothing.”
Lacey raised her eyebrows.
Nathan shrugged. “That right there was about all she gave me, but more apathetic. She never asked. When the kids did, the story was that I fell.”
“She didn’t want to know?” Lacey already regretted the question when it was halfway out of her mouth. The less she knew about his relationship with his wife, the better.
“I don’t know what’s going through her head,” Nathan said. “Her father is a different story.”
“Her father?” Lacey asked, her eyes still focused on the invoice, but her mind elsewhere.
“Yeah. He’s my boss.”
“Oh. That can get…sticky.” Her sense of trouble grew.
“He got one look at my face, practically sneered, and told me not to meet with any clients until I healed up.” Nathan returned his gaze to Lacey.
“Well, that’s awkward.” She didn’t know what else to say. She shifted her focus from the invoice to an outdated work schedule pinned on an ancient, crumbling corkboard above Nathan’s head.
“Look.” Nathan snapped out of some reverie. “I don’t think I’m going to go to the police. But if I do, I wanted to be sure you would be on board with that.”
Lacey finally looked at Nathan. “Yeah, of course,” she said. “But I don’t really see how I have much to do with it. I know less about what happened to you than you do.”
Nathan rolled back a few inches in the chair and folded his arms. “I don’t know what you told your boyfriend about what happened,” he said. “He obviously wasn’t home that night, and I don’t know if you even mentioned anything about it to him.”
“Nathan, what the hell are you talking about?”
“If the police came knocking at your door asking about it, I just wanted to be sure it wouldn’t put you in a spot.”
Lacey shook her head, resisting the urge to fling the door open and run away. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said. After a beat, she added, “And why wouldn’t you go to the police? If you think your family needs protection?”
“I’m trying to figure this out.” He stood, slowly. “And I’m trying to keep it contained. It might only get worse if I went to the police. Something tells me the less anyone knows about whatever happened, the better.”
Lacey felt a pang of guilt about telling Angele. She masked it. “Look, I’m the one who woke up naked underneath the 610, next to a fully clothed stranger. I’m not looking to publicize this whole thing either.”
Nathan’s gaze returned to X-ray mode. “I figured that about you.” He lightened. “If you don’t have a boyfriend, then who was the guy in all those pictures at your house? Don’t tell me he’s your brother, because that would just be weird.”
Agitated, Lacey fumbled about, wanting to put her drink down. Her hand was numb. “What the hell are you talking about?” She took a mental inventory of the pictures in her living room.
Nathan took her drink from her.
“There’s a few pictures of my brother, I guess,” she said, “but if you’re referring to who I think you are, there aren’t lots of pictures. I took down most of them.”
“Whoa. Then what’s left are very prominently placed.”
Lacey struggled to put Fox out of her head. “He’s not my boyfriend. Well, he was a long time ago, but he’s gone. Totally out of the picture now.”
“Interesting choice of words,” Nathan said, eyes bright. It was the first time she’d seen him smile since he’d pulled her into the back room.
Lacey stood up straighter, still holding up the door. “I would think you have bigger things to worry about than if I’m going to get in trouble with my imaginary boyfriend.”
“I can’t argue that.”
Lacey felt the walls closing in on her. “Nathan, why did you ask me here? It’s not to get our stories straight, since you’re not going to the police.”
His face hardened. “I needed someone to talk to,” he said finally. “I thought I might be losing it. Like maybe I had imagined everything that happened.”
Lacey thought about Angele’s fugue state theory, but thought better of mentioning it.
“Seeing you again has let me know that I’m not going crazy. It happened.”
He took a step toward her. Lacey felt her will slipping. She realized that she had not succeeded in putting any distance between herself and the incident. Or him.
He stood in front of her, separated by less than a foot. He reached out and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear.
“I have to go,” Lacey said in a quiet voice.
“You haven’t finished your drink.”
“I don’t want it.”
“There’s something else going on here,” Nathan said, his hand now planted right behind her head.
“I don’t want to know. Please don’t call me again.”
She whirled around and shot through the door, leaving nothing but a whoosh of air in her wake.
11
Lacey arrived at Mardi Gras World at 5:47. She had spent the day trying to think of ways to get out of her commitment to stranger Cecil, and trying not to think of Nathan.
Her only option on the first would be to call the Trinity Mission and leave a message. Cecil had been wise not to provide a personal contact number. She convinced herself chickening out that way would make her irredeemably flaky.
She had no option on the second. She could not get her encounter with Nathan out of her head.
There were three other cars in the parking lot. Time crawled as she waited for it to get closer to six p.m. Screw it, she thought. Against all reason, I’m here. Might as well be early.
Lacey checked her face in the rearview mirror, applied a little more makeup to her nose and chin, and mustered up the courage to walk in and report for duty.
She passed an impressive set-up: cocktail tables, white linens, all set under a faux starlit sky. The façade of a French Quarter street scene on the walls gave off the feel of a Parisian sidewalk. Impossibly young people, dressed in black like herself, ebbed in and out of a pocket door at the far side of the room. They seemed to multiply as she approached.
How is this shorthanded? she thought. And where did they park?
Lacey walked through the doorway, a stream of people flowing around her. She didn’t need to look for Cecil. He stood in the center of the industrial kitchen, busy prepping something she couldn’t see and voicing directions to everyone around him without looking up.
“Ah, young Lacey,” he said in a stage-ready voice as he grabbed a summer squash. “You will stay here in the kitchen until you’re needed otherwise. Silverware setup.”
Lacey felt a hand at her elbow. A redhead with horn-rimmed glasses led her to a corner and issued precise instructions for rolling a fork and butter knife into a white cloth napkin.
Lacey was again of two minds. The first: relief that Cecil seemed on the level, and that she would spend a harmless evening performing simple, mindless tasks. The second: she might go insane spending an evening not knowing a soul and performing simple, mindless tasks.
Too much opportunity for her mind to wander. Would she k
now anyone attending the fundraiser? She knew Trip would not be there. But what about Nathan and his wife? It was the down time for New Orleans’s social season; maybe it would draw a crowd for that reason. More relief that she would stay hidden in her corner for the foreseeable future.
Since no one from the teeming mass of black-clad youngsters introduced themselves, Lacey took up the task of applying names. The kindly redhead with the horn-rimmed glasses became the very unoriginal “Ginger”. A male-female duo that she never saw apart became “Stuck on You”. A young man with an intense expression, the one Cecil seemed to rely on, became “Duncan,” because a man-at-arms should always be called Duncan.
Lacey invented a backstory for Cecil. He was a descendant of a voodoo priestess who had always used her powers for good. Cecil had joined the marines on his eighteenth birthday, and was on the ground in Iraq during the first Gulf War. Or maybe some earlier skirmish. He could be forty or he could be sixty-five. It was hard to place his age. Whenever and wherever he’d served, he had earned multiple medals for saving his fellow soldiers on multiple occasions. He had never become an officer, preferring to serve in the noncommissioned ranks. He’d left the marines after ten years and returned to his ancestral home in New Orleans, where he had been quietly living his life and doing good works.
Lacey rolled her wrists and started on a fresh pile of utensils delivered in lockstep by Stuck on You. She checked the time—7:45. Better than she had expected. She had only fantasized twice about running into Nathan and his wife in the dining room.
Duncan, looking more intense than usual, went to Cecil and said something Lacey couldn’t hear. Cecil left his post in the kitchen for the first time that evening. Lacey imagined everything would either grind to a halt or descend into pandemonium. Nothing did. The throngs of workers continued in and out of the door; everything hummed along. Lacey’s wrists hurt. She wondered why on earth Cecil had recruited her.
“Lacey,” an unfamiliar voice said. She looked up, startled to see Duncan. He had a cleft lip she hadn’t noticed before.
“Cecil asked for you. Come with me out to the dining room,” he said.
Lacey felt a glimmer of panic, and wanted to ask why she had to go to the dining room. But thinking it was best not to question a man-at-arms, she kept her head down and let Duncan lead her to Cecil.
A brass band played, patrons partied, and no one seemed to notice her. The crowd was thin.
Cecil stood at the far end of the room, by a café table with a faux sign above it that read Café au Lait & Beignets. He was standing, talking to a man who was thirtyish, attractive, and very well groomed, his dark hair and clothing styled up to the latest minute. Seated at the table was the man’s exact opposite. Thinning brown hair in need of a trim, jacket thrown over a wrinkled button-down in an attempt to dress it up. His five-o’clock shadow was evident on his pallid, fleshy face. Poor shlubby guy looked like he’d just been told his dog died.
“Ah, there you are, Lacey. Just in time,” Cecil said.
“Just in time?” Lacey asked.
“Yes. You’ll need to sit here with Jerry while we wait for help to come,” he said.
“Thomas here will stay with you.” Cecil indicated the natty man standing at his side.
Lacey stood motionless. “You’ll need me to do what?” she asked. She looked at the seated Jerry and saw that his skin had turned gray and he was sweating profusely, all in the span of about ten seconds.
“Go sit with him, calm him,” Cecil said. Now Jerry’s breathing was labored, and he looked as if he might pass out at any second.
Calm him? I’m going to calm him straight past the point of consciousness, Lacey thought.
Lacey looked at Cecil and saw no chance of negotiation. She sat down next to the poor beleaguered Jerry. Deciding she might as well go all in, she took his hand and smiled, and tried to think of something soothing to say. Jerry offered her a weak smile and promptly went limp, falling sideways right into her.
Cecil and Dapper Thomas rushed over and moved Jerry’s unconscious form onto the floor. Some of Cecil’s black-clad minions had appeared, standing idle. Lacey realized they were blocking the view of the other party patrons.
Cecil knelt down and spoke sharply to Jerry. “Can you hear me?”
Jerry didn’t respond. Cecil felt for his pulse. He pulled out a clean towel he had tucked away unseen, and gestured to someone in the human view shield. A spindly youth stepped forward. It was the one she had already deemed “Peter Parker.”
Cecil told him, “Go wet this, fill it with ice, and bring it back to me.” Next he told Lacey, “Sit here with him while we wait for the EMTs.”
Lacey again stood motionless. Cecil’s face transformed, eyes bright, with a giant smile.
“Young Lacey, this hesitation is what is keeping you from your true self. Please, come,” he said, patting the floor next to him.
Lacey once again sat next to the now-insensate Jerry. In a flash, Peter Parker appeared with the towel filled with ice.
“Jerry has a fever. Take this and hold it to his forehead and neck,” Cecil said, handing her the towel.
Lacey arranged herself into a less awkward position on the ground. As she took the cloth to Jerry’s grayish skin, the lifeless form of Fox filled her memory. The color was the same. But the unmistakable thrum of life was altogether different. There was sweat, there was a heartbeat, there was breath. She felt a slight shock through the towel as she touched his forehead, which radiated up her arm as she spread her touch to his temple and to his neck.
The pleasant warmth in her arm turned into an uncomfortable heat. She removed her hand—Jerry’s pallor seemed already improved. Her hand hovered over his forehead, afraid to touch his bare skin. She felt Jerry take a deep intake of breath, and his eyes fluttered open.
“What happened?” Jerry asked with a faint smile and a creaky voice.
“You passed out. Help is on the way, though,” Lacey said.
“I think it’s already here,” Jerry said, his eyes perusing Lacey.
“Nonsense,” she said. “Try not to talk.”
Dapper Thomas stepped up. Cecil was nowhere to be seen. “How’s he doing?” Thomas asked Lacey.
She shrugged. “He’s awake now.”
“He sure livened up the joint,” Thomas said with a wink. “The whole evening was a little too quiet for my tastes.”
Jerry smiled and turned his head back toward Lacey. “Don’t believe a word this guy says…”
There was a commotion as the wall panel behind them slipped away. Cecil was on the other side with two EMTs.
Jerry tried to prop himself up, but immediately lay back down. “Shit,” he said as he put his hand over his mouth.
Lacey returned her hand to his temple. “Hold it there; I told you help was on the way.”
Cecil said something she couldn’t hear to the EMTs. A stretcher appeared through the hole in the wall, Jerry was secured to it, and then disappeared.
Thomas scrambled to gather his things.
“Also take anything belonging to Jerry,” Cecil said. “They are taking him to University Hospital. You should meet him there.”
Lacey wasn’t sure if he was addressing her or Dapper Thomas. She was relieved when Thomas grabbed everything under one arm, nodded, and held out his hand to Cecil. “Thank you,” he said.
“Your friend Jerry will be fine,” Cecil said.
Thomas disappeared, and the privacy wall of workers dispersed. Ginger and Peter Parker replaced the wall panel.
Cecil and Lacey stood alone together. Cecil laughed, a sudden outburst that rang like a sounding bell.
“Tom and Jerry,” he said. “I used to love that show.”
Lacey struggled, and then caught the reference. She chuckled. “You know, I always felt kind of bad for the cat,” she said.
“Tom only reaped the consequences of his actions,” Cecil said.
Lacey stood mute, unsure of how to respond or act. Cecil walked toward the
kitchen. Lacey followed and aimed a question at his back.
“Should I go back to the silverware now?” She hurried her step to catch up.
Cecil turned around, and Lacey stopped short before running into him. They were standing in an uninhabited portion of the hall, near the silent auction table.
“No. You are done here. You can leave whenever you wish,” he said. His arms were folded, and he looked down at her with an unreadable expression.
“You don’t need me anymore?” Lacey said, sounding small.
“Not tonight. You did very well, young Lacey. I hope we get the opportunity to work together again.”
Lacey wanted the opportunity to ask at least one of her million questions. What was wrong with Jerry? Why had Cecil asked her to tend to him? Why on Earth had Cecil asked her here tonight?
She wasn’t able to voice a single one. She looked down, thought whether she had anything to retrieve in the kitchen, and realized she had everything she needed in her pockets.
“Okay, well,” she said, holding out her hand, “it was very nice to meet you, Cecil.”
Cecil grabbed her hand and held it for an instant. A flood of images made her immediately nauseated: a woman’s face, a house that looked like the Becnel house in Galliano, a horrific accident, and at least seventy-two other things she couldn’t identify but only sense.
Lacey stood stricken as Cecil let go. He smiled and said, “I was an infantryman, not a marine. And my auntie was not a priestess, but she did practice light magic. Your talents are considerable, young Lacey, but you still have far to go.” He turned around and returned to the kitchen.
Lacey was caught in some surreal frozen moment of space-time. Cecil was gone, the partiers were distant, their voices and sound muffled, her feet glued to the floor underneath her. The only thing she remembered before leaving was glancing at the silent auction table and seeing a first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird standing on its spine.
12
Sleep was elusive. Could Cecil read her mind? Or was he just amazingly perceptive? If he could read her mind, what else did he know about her? And what were all those images that had come to her when she held his hand? Those images, and more, kept playing in her head, blocking out anything as practical as rest. There was the house in Galliano, with visions of Fox leaving her at the doorstep like a baby in the bulrushes. Flashes of Nathan lying on the ground in a pool of blood, the sound of cars passing overhead a constant, deafening din. The mangled metal of a car crash. Miss Esther Mae, a young woman in a pillbox hat, window-shopping on Canal Street. Angele’s coworker Eli on the back patio of Patton’s, telling her to pay attention.
