French Quarter

by Stella Cameron

  “Took your time gettin’ home, didn’t you, sweetheart?”

  At the sound of Wilson’s voice, Sally jumped and spun around. “You’re supposed to be at a meetin’, aren’t you?”

  He lounged against the wall just outside his study. “Over a long time ago. And where was the lovely wife who was supposed to be at my side?”

  She didn’t want a fight. “I’m tired, Wilson.”

  “I asked you a question.” He straightened. “Where have you been?”

  He had no right to order her about or to demand. “I’ve been out.” She took the black scarf off her head and looked straight into his face. “I need more time to myself. I’m sick of meetings, and smilin’ at people I don’t like, and being nice to people who twitter at me, then talk about me behind my back. It’s shallow. I’m about fed up to the teeth with shallow people, and shallow talk, and selfishness.”

  Wilson sauntered toward her. “Why, that was quite a speech. I didn’t realize you knew that many words. You’d better be careful. If too many people hear you going on like that, they’ll start thinkin’ you’re not just a pretty face.”

  “Good night, Wilson.”

  “You’re not going anywhere until I tell you I’m through talkin’.”

  “I am not your dog,” she told him. “Do you understand me?”

  “Why are you wearin’ that ugly thing? You look like an Italian grandmother in mournin’.”

  She smiled sweetly. “I wonder what some of your constituents would think if they knew you’ve got a nasty comment to make about every ethnic group on the planet.

  “As long as I’m not with the group in question, what I say about them can only serve me well. My motto, beloved, is ‘Know thine enemies and scorn them when they’re not around.’ In other words, I’m a consummate politician—in all things. And don’t you just love me for it?”

  “I hate you for it.” She stopped with her mouth still partly open. Those were words she’d thought often enough, but never intended to say aloud.

  Wilson’s smile evaporated. He narrowed his eyes and closed in on her. “Finally you tell the truth. People have suggested that you aren’t the faithful, supportive little wife you pretend

  to be, but I’ve always defended you. I’ve been a fool. Get in my study.”

  She turned away from him and said, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “We’ll talk tonight,” he told her. He strode beside her and took hold of her hand. “We’ve got a few things to get straight.”

  Sally had to run to keep up with him. He rushed her into his study and shut the door.

  “Don’t manhandle me, Wilson. You forget, bruises show, and you can’t afford to have people wondering why the little wife looks as if she’s been beaten up.”

  “I’m not into beating women,” he told het. “But if I were, there are plenty of places that don’t show.”

  She sat down, but wouldn’t let herself look away from him.

  “What were you doing at the Hôtel Maison de Ville?”

  The breath she took choked her, and she coughed. She kept on coughing and got up to get some water from a carafe. Drinking gave her a chance to regroup.

  “Well?” Wilson said.

  Clearing her throat, she wiped at her tearing eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’ll make it plainer. Why did you meet Cyrus Payne, Father Cyrus Payne, at a hotel?”

  She shook her head.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You always had a soft spot for him. You wanted him when you were a kid. You were always oversexed. I haven’t forgotten what you did to him at the prom. He’d die if he knew you told me about that.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Wilson fastened a hand on her arm and swept her against him. “I guess you figured the poor, frustrated father would be ripe for you to pick, huh? How was it? Was it the ultimate kick for you—fucking a priest?”

  “Stop it.” With every shred of strength she possessed, Sally fought to free herself. “You wouldn’t know a good man if he saved your life. You are the most selfish creature I ever met. And you’re sick to say a thing like that about Cyrus.”

  “Oh, Cyrus, is it? Cyrus, Cyrus. Did he come like a Roman candle? Get it? Roman candle?” He guffawed.

  Sally averted her face.

  Wilson shook her. “Nothing gets away from me. Nothing that belongs to me, not unless I decide to make a gift of it. I haven’t started giving to the Church that I can remember.”

  “You’re wrong,” she told him. “There’s nothing like that.”

  “Behave. Do you understand? Behave, or you’ll suffer. Now, tell me everything that was said.”

  “It was private,” she told him defiantly. “You knew I was going to seek his counsel. His spiritual counsel.”

  “Oh, right.” Wilson closed his eyes and tipped his head up to the ceiling. “Spiritual counsel. That’s the first time I’ve heard adultery called that.”

  Arguing with him was pointless.

  “What did he say about Celina?”

  She stiffened. Now they were getting to what was really on his mind. He didn’t give a damn what she did—he only wanted to know if his beloved Celina had been mentioned. “We didn’t talk about Celina.”

  “Liar. What did you say about Celina? Did you tell him I think she’d make a great aide.”

  “Aide?” Sally said. “Unfortunately that isn’t the first time I’ve heard a mistress called that.”

  He slapped her across the face so hard, her neck hurt. She put her hands over her eyes and willed herself not to cry.

  A light tap sounded at the door. Wilson gave her a shove into a chair and said, “Come in.”

  It was Ben who entered. Sally saw him glance at her, and the sneer that lifted a corner of his mouth. He went directly to Wilson and murmured something in his ear.

  “You don’t have to whisper in front of me,” she said loudly, too loudly.

  Wilson gave Ben his entire attention and whispered back. Ben nodded and Wilson followed him from the room, pausing only to point at Sally and say, “Stay.”

  “I always knew we should have bought you a doggie,” she said, but only felt more out of control.

  As soon as the two men had left, she got up and went swiftly to the door. Opening it a fraction, she peered out. Wilson’s back was to her, but he held out his hands in welcome to those two horrible preacher people who’d crashed the party the other night.

  Ben stood diffidently aside, his hands behind his back. She became increasingly convinced that there was something she didn’t know about him. If she could only find out, she’d use it to get rid of him.

  “You owe us,” the preacher said. “You said if we did what you wanted, we’d never go short of a thing.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Reed,” Wilson said in his best win-’em-over voice. “Come into the living room and have a drink.”

  “We don’t drink,” Mrs. Reed said, drawing up her bosom inside a very ugly brown dress. “Liquor is the devil’s tool.”

  “Come on and let me make you comfortable,” Wilson said, unsinkable as ever. “I insist.” He strode to throw open the living room door. He held it open until the Reeds, with obvious reluctance, did as he asked.

  Before he closed the door, Wilson looked back at Ben and grimaced. He inclined his head and Ben nodded.

  Sally closed the door again, very carefully, and hurried to resume her place in the chair.

  After several minutes she decided Wilson hadn’t done as she feared and sent Ben to guard her. She relaxed. Tomorrow she would ask Cyrus to help her figure out what to do. The difficult part would be to avoid telling him more than he needed to know. More than she wanted to burden him with.

  The phone on Wilson’s desk rang. Once only. A button remained alight on his intercom panel. The call had been answered elsewhere.

  Sally knitted her brow. Wilson wouldn’t answer a personal call in front of strangers,
especially strangers like the Reeds, whom he clearly detested. There was only one other phone that rang on this line—the cordless in their bedroom.

  She got up and went to open the door again.

  At first she saw nothing through the crack. Then Opi came downstairs with the cordless phone from the bedroom Sally shared with Wilson. The chubby little man who ran the household went directly to the living room and knocked. Wilson appeared and took the phone. He gestured for Opi to close the Reeds in, which he did.

  In a low voice Wilson said, “Neville? Good news, I hope?” He folded one arm on top of the other and paced, his heels clicking on the marble tile in the foyer. “Too bad. Why did you call if you don’t have news? I told you I’ll take care of you, and I will, if you get me what I want. Your time is running out. I’ve got my ducks in a row. So far you haven’t managed to pull off one thing we agreed to. If I have to do everything myself—including clean up your mess—then I’ll consider any debt to you paid. Do we understand each other?”

  Sally opened the door slightly wider. What could Wilson be talking to Neville Payne about?

  A large hand effectively covered her nose and mouth. Another large hand gently closed the door.

  Ben Angel removed his hand from her face and swung her around. He smiled with his mouth. His blue eyes were…evil. “I promised you surprises,” he said, shaking his head. “I haven’t been keeping my promises very well so far.”

  “I’m going to scream,” she told him.

  His smile broadened. “And risk having Wilson find out that you’re an alley cat who can’t keep her claws off any available meat? Hush, chère, and let Ben give you a little surprise, him. Yes? Come with me.” He lifted her, then tipped her over his shoulder to carry her.

  Wilson had spent a fortune converting what had once been a spacious buttery between a sitting room and the dining room into his own private bathroom. Ben took her inside and set her down on black granite tiles.

  “You had pictures taken of us, didn’t you?” she said, winded. “Didn’t you?”

  “I know nothin’ about no photos, me,” he told her.

  “In the gazebo. You know what I’m talking about. Why did you do that? As if I didn’t know you intend to blackmail me with them.”

  “You’re tired,” he told her. “I see it. And I see you need to relax and have some fun. The kind of fun you like, huh?” He took off his coat, undid his tie, and slipped it from beneath his collar.

  “No,” Sally said. “I don’t want to.”

  “But of course you do. Take off that bad dress, chère. I got a good surprise for you, me.”

  She tried to get around him.

  He laughed and caught her, closed the door at the same time, and locked it. Holding her arm, he went to the shower and turned it on. “Steam is good, yes? I like steam too. Just like you.”

  She opened her mouth, but he covered it with his own, and when he raised his head again she could scarcely breathe.

  “Scream,” he told her. “No sound comes from in here. You didn’t know? Mr. Lamar tells me. He sometimes needs a place to be. A place where he can do what he want. A politician needs this. So much public life. You understand?”

  “Let me go,” she whispered, staring around the room.

  He continued removing his clothes.

  “I want to go upstairs, please, Ben.”

  “You don’t know what you want. But you will when you get it. Afterward you won’t feel like spying on your poor husband anymore. You’ll be too tired, you.”

  She started to protest again, but stopped when he peeled off the last of his clothing.

  The man’s grin was self-satisfied. “Now,” he said. “We have a nice shower.”

  Twenty-eight

  Jack hung up the phone again. NOPD didn’t want him to call them. They would call him. Unless he had a matter to discuss other than Errol Petrie’s murder, which was under investigation, or the whereabouts of Celina Payne, whom they could not as yet consider missing.

  “Still no satisfaction,” Cyrus said. “Why does someone have to die before they do anything?”

  “Don’t,” Jack told him. “They said they can’t put out a bulletin on Celina yet.” He was afraid to leave in case she showed up, and afraid not to leave in case she didn’t.

  Dwayne shook his head repeatedly from side to side. “We have a right to ask for action.”

  “They say they’re following leads on Errol, but they don’t have any comments at this time.”

  “If they won’t look for Celina, we’re going to have to try ourselves. Where would we start?” Dwayne hitched back a drape and looked out of the window.

  Jack pulled him away. “How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?”

  “More, apparently,” Dwayne said. He set to work with his teeth on his fingernails. The latter were already nonexistent. “I can’t stay here doing nothing much longer.”

  “I don’t want you on the streets alone,” Jack told him. Dwayne raised one eyebrow. “Why, Jack, I didn’t know you cared.”

  “Don’t mess around,” Jack said. If his fears were realized, Win had at least one renegade soldier—unless Win himself had decided to teach “the snot-nosed kid” a lesson. “Antoine spoke to you, Dwayne, and to Celina. I think that’s a problem. Until I’m sure it isn’t, we analyze every step before it’s taken. Don’t ask me to elaborate, because I can’t yet.”

  Cyrus clapped Dwayne’s shoulder. “We’ve got enough to worry about. Listen to Jack. He knows what he’s sayin’.”

  “You two stay here,” Jack told them. “I want to run over to my place and check on Amelia and Tilly. If Celina doesn’t show up—and we don’t hear anything by the time I get back, we’ll have to figure out how to start searchin’ for her.”

  Dwayne turned his back, but he nodded.

  “Call if you do hear something,” Jack said to Cyrus. “Leave a message with Tilly if I haven’t got there yet.”

  With a silent prayer that there would be a message by the time he got home, a message saying Celina was fine, he went outside and down the steps.

  At the bottom of the steps he stopped. To his right, a figure crawled among the shrubs. “Hey, podner,” he said, preferring not to go too near, “if you’re looking for a bed, there’s a shelter. You want me to make a call?” They’d pick the poor devil up and take him wherever was most appropriate—or expedient.

  He made to run back up and use the phone, but a whimper stopped him.

  He breathed in, then couldn’t exhale. In one swoop, he dragged his “poor devil” from the shrubs and stood her upright. “Celina! My God, Celina. Oh, Celina. Oh, thank God.”

  A black fabric bag covered her head and was fastened about her neck with string. He fumbled to get the string untied, but his fingers wouldn’t move fast enough.

  She butted him with a shoulder, made another sound, and turned away.

  He hadn’t even registered that her hands were tied behind her back. The knots were simple but efficient and he quickly had them untied. Her arms didn’t immediately move, and when he brought them forward, she moaned.

  Placing her hands under his shirt, against his skin, he guided her head onto his shoulder, worked the small knots in the string, then removed the hood. Underneath, a gag explained why she’d been unable to speak. He removed it quickly and disciplined himself not to hug her. Instead, he took her hands between his and peered at them, at deep grooves where the rope had been. He rubbed her wrists gently, grimaced at her shuddering gasps. As the circulation returned, there would be pain.

  “Can you talk?” he asked.

  “Yes. My arms hurt. And my hands.”

  “Who did this to you?”

  “If I could tell you, I don’t suppose I’d be here, would I?”

  She sounded hoarse but very lucid. “You don’t know who it was? Strangers? Can you describe them? The police are going to need something to go on.”

  “No police.”

  She wasn’t lucid. “We’
ll talk about that. Let’s get you upstairs. Dwayne and Cyrus are there. They’re as crazed as I’ve been.”

  Celina resisted his attempt to shift her. “I said no police,” she told him. “Promise me now.”

  “You aren’t—”

  “Jack! I’m not a lot of things at the moment. But I’m scared. I am so scared I wish I could hide anywhere that would feel safe. There isn’t anywhere safe. They can get me if they want to, I know that now. You must promise not to call the police.”

  “Chère, you know we have to report this.”

  “You aren’t thinking.” She began to rub her own hands and wrists. “This wasn’t random. This was a setup. I left your place, walked right into a diversion, and got pushed into a van waiting in an alley.”

  He touched her hair. This had to be a warning aimed at him. Win had all but promised it could happen. But he’d also more or less promised it wouldn’t. What had changed his mind? Sonny Clete could have decided to preempt Win’s next move and turn rogue.

  “Jack.” Wincing, Celina settled a hand on each side of his face. “You aren’t hearing me. They must have been watching your place. They knew I was there and saw me leave. And they aren’t novices at picking people off. Next time it’ll be a different setup. I don’t want there to be a next time.”

  “And you think not tellin’ the cops is the way to avoid a next time?”

  “I think those people are beyond the law. What made them do that to me didn’t have anything to do with the world I know. I’m not sure…Your father was killed by gangsters. Isn’t that what I was told? You must know about that kind of people.”

  What had made him think it would be easy to make sure she never made connections between him and his father’s world? “My parents died when I was a kid. I wasn’t involved in the way my father made his money.” Stopping her from pursuing this track was imperative.

  “Could there be a reason for someone like those people—the people your father knew—could there be a reason for them to be afraid of you?”

  No instant answer tripped to Jack’s lips. He detested where this was going, but she wasn’t likely to stop. “Do you know what you’re asking? I don’t think I do.”