Phantom of the French Quarter

by Colleen Thompson

  “What am I doing?” Her whisper echoed in an alley that reeked of garbage and a pungent smell she didn’t dare risk considering too closely.

  Though the rain had finally stopped, recriminations bounced back at her off wet brick and concrete: Reuben’s and the detectives’ warnings about Marcus, along with Jacinth’s scolding that she was too quick to think the best of all those she encountered.

  In every other way, you’re brighter than anybody I know. In Caitlyn’s memory, her sister’s dark eyes gleamed with worry as she spoke. But you’re going to end up hurt if you keep dragging home strays and feeding strangers.

  Caitlyn sighed, realizing they’d all been right. She’d been dangerously naive, and kissing Marcus, a man who’d carried her beyond the help of Reuben and the police, proved it.

  It proved, too, that she had gotten over her boyfriend in Ohio, who’d waited only three days after her move before texting that he guessed he wasn’t cut out for long separations. Apparently he’d never been cut out for monogamy, either, according to her friends.

  As devastated as she’d been, when she tried to picture Tony’s face now, all she could see was Marcus, looking at her the way a lion looks at a gazelle. At the thought, her stomach quivered, though less with the fear she should be feeling than with the longing to call him back and offer herself up for his dinner.

  Scowling at her own foolishness, she shook it off and moved on. As she crept back toward the streetlight, her head ached and her nausea reawakened.

  A door swung open just ahead of her, blocking her escape from the alley. Loud music and cigarette smoke poured out of what she supposed must be a bar. An instant later, three men followed, each one bigger and louder than the last. With nothing taller than a small forest of discarded beer bottles for cover, she pressed her back against the wall and trusted to the shadows, her instincts warning her that she mustn’t make a sound.

  “Come on, how ’bout a taste here?” a jumpy outline wheedled. “Hook me up, bro—c’mon.”

  “Screw that,” said a hulking figure. “You show the green and we’ll deal.”

  “Ain’t jerkin’ us around, are you?” a third voice demanded. “’Cause if you’re wastin’ our time…”

  A palpable threat hung in the air, and Caitlyn winced at the realization that she’d stumbled onto a drug deal. Icy terror twisting in her belly, she waited, holding her breath and praying they would finish their transaction quickly and ooze back inside. Oblivious as they were, it might have happened that way. And probably would have, had the edge of her skirt not caught a standing longneck and tipped the bottle over.

  In the narrow space, the clatter of glass echoed loudly.

  Caitlyn turned and raced toward the alley’s opposite—and mercifully open—entrance.

  Almost immediately, footsteps followed, accompanied by a man yelling, “Hey, sweetie! Come to Papa!” and a roar of coarse laughter.

  And then more footsteps, hard on her heels, closing in with every step.

  SWEAT WAS STREAMING down Marcus’s face by the time he heard raised voices and men’s shouts of excitement.

  Tell me it’s not Caitlyn. But he didn’t allow the wish to slow him as he rushed toward the disturbance.

  He was quick to realize he wasn’t the only one hurrying to find out what was happening. In this seamy collection of strip clubs, last-call dives and liquor, lottery and po’boy sandwich shops with bars on every window, young men, transvestites and a few hard-looking women tended to mill around at midnight, many of them up for anything to ease their squalid boredom.

  Especially the kind of “anything” involving a fresh-faced, beautiful young woman who clearly didn’t belong.

  By the lurid glow of a neon sign alternately flashing the messages Girls, Hell Yes! and Clothes, Hell No! he spotted at least a dozen lowlifes stumbling in the same direction. Not caring who he pissed off, Marcus pushed his way through oily clumps of humanity, parting them with such speed that only a handful of curses and one fist caught him—a glancing blow he barely felt.

  His thrumming heart in his throat, he finally spotted Caitlyn as she threw open the door of an older silver car and called to the driver, “Oh, thank God it’s you.”

  Marcus wanted to shout to her but didn’t, deciding she was safer with a friend—even her damned pit bull—than she could ever be with him. The door closed and the car zoomed off, leaving him standing there alone, staring after her.

  At least for the few seconds before the drunken bikers he’d shoved caught up.

  “THANK YOU so MUCH,” Caitlyn repeated for the fifth time in five minutes. As little as she liked Mumbling Max Lafitte, she meant it. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t happened by.”

  He shot her an angry look, his balding scalp flashing as passing headlights bounced off the shine. “Reuben was going nuts looking for you out there. Where the hell have you been?”

  It was the first thing he’d said to her as they proceeded toward her home.

  “I got lost,” she said simply. “Fell and hit my head.”

  Rather than asking if she was all right, he muttered, “Damned irresponsible, abandoning your tour group like that. Always figured you for flighty.”

  “You be sure and share that with your boss,” she snapped. “Maybe he’ll toss you some extra kibble.”

  “Bitch like you might like that better than I would.”

  Light strobed over his sneer, reminding her that he’d been there when the storm broke in the cemetery, horning in on her group and all too close by when someone had hit her on the head. Someone who had tried to drag her off in the confusion.

  Chills erupted in an instant, with every fine hair on her body lifting. She could barely force words past the painful knot in her throat. Barely think of anything but throwing open the car door and bailing out into the street.

  Could it really be him, a man she’d worked with for months?

  “You know what?” She struggled to keep her voice steady. “There’s a convenience store on the next corner. If you’re going to be a jerk about it, just drop me off there and I’ll call a cab.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, the same tic she’d noticed each time he’d crumbled beneath his boss’s criticism. Passive-aggressive as Max might be, she reminded herself that he had always backed down when confronted. “Sorry you got hurt,” he said sourly.

  The car glided past the store, which Caitlyn noticed had closed since she’d last been by.

  “But not for calling me a bitch?” she pressed. “What exactly is your problem with me, Max?”

  He flicked a sullen glance at her. “You heard Josiah. Always harping on me about how I was the veteran, but you were the one bringin’ in the money.”

  “If he hadn’t been riding you about that, it would have been something else. You know him. But this business lately with you crowding out my tour groups, this is starting to feel personal. And I’ve been nice to you from day one, and you know it.”

  He shrugged. “Let’s just say I don’t like you and leave it at that.”

  “I don’t think I will. I’m asking you again, Max. Either explain it, or quit bothering me and we’ll never have to speak again.”

  He turned onto Esplanade Avenue, his clenched fists jerking the wheel so abruptly that her head throbbed in protest.

  “You really can’t imagine why I’d hate some pretty blonde thing—a damned Yankee, at that—who comes swishing her tail into my business and showing me up? Acting like she’s entitled to everything I’ve worked for.” His voice dropped to a low growl. “You’re no better than your mama.”

  An electric jolt seared its way up her spine. “You knew my mother when she lived here?”

  “Everybody knew Sophie Villaré. Worst damned tease in town. And that daddy of yours… Never met a problem he didn’t figure he could solve with his fists—including stealing another man’s woman when he took a fancy to her. No surprise he ended up dead.” The look Max shot her boiled with resentm
ent. “And I’ll tell you straight out, I’m not one bit sorry, either.”

  A memory splashed over Caitlyn’s vision, an image of Detective Lorna Robinson rearranging letters to spell out V-I-L-L-A-R-E. Though he must be in his late fifties or maybe even older, could Max Lafitte be working with an older woman…perhaps even his own mother? Could he have somehow convinced her to play the role of Eva Rill to help him avenge some wrong, real or imagined, her parents had inflicted on him?

  In the light of day, she wouldn’t even consider such a wild possibility. But closed inside this car, inside the black bubble of Max’s anger and frustration, the idea didn’t seem too far-fetched to imagine.

  “That’s my house—right there,” Caitlyn squeaked out. “Thanks again for the ride.”

  When he didn’t answer, she held her breath, unable to bear the tension of not knowing whether he would slow down or zoom past.

  Chapter Six

  He had grown into the kind of man to take care of his mother, to move her with him to a decent house where the dolls could finally have a room all their own. His mother left her men behind, the men who paid to touch her but sometimes crept into her son’s room, some of them so filthy drunk or thoroughly evil that they didn’t care or notice that the dolls were bearing witness.

  None of that mattered now. All that was important was the way he’d grown into a good man, the kind of man any decent woman should be proud to go home with. The kind of man they had no business—no damned right—to say no to, much less shriek and run away from.

  So what if he still liked to sit in the center of his doll room, thinking? And so what if the blue and brown and hazel glass eyes that smiled back at him had all been changed to green?

  WISHING FOR SOME ICE, Marcus settled for aspirin to cut the ache of the handful of bruises he had picked up. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that the one man drunk enough to ignore his glare would be spending the rest of the evening in an E.R. instead of making trouble.

  Marcus smoothed antibiotic ointment over his scraped knuckles and flexed his stiffening fingers. Finding them in working order, he used his prepaid cell phone to make a call he’d put off for far too long.

  Even after ten rings, Isaiah Jericho didn’t answer. Dread pooled in Marcus’s gut. Would this be the night things fell apart? The night the old man didn’t wake up?

  He clicked off, his hands clenching. But there was no one else to call, so out of desperation, he tried his former mentor once again. “Come on, Isaiah. Pick up. You’re the one who’s always saying how you can never sleep.”

  He could almost hear the complaint. Another of the curses of old age.

  But not the worst of it for Isaiah, they both knew. For a man whose renown in the field of photography had eclipsed even the popularity of Ansel Adams in his heyday, confinement to his home with no new images to photograph and no new vistas to explore was torture.

  For the past four years his former protégé had been the frail old man’s ticket out of hell, and the incredible gift of Isaiah’s forgiveness and earning power had proved to be Marcus’s salvation. How could he ever pay for his brother Theo’s care if their partnership was over?

  On the thirteenth ring, someone answered, and the sounds of Isaiah’s sputtered curses had Marcus sighing with relief.

  “Sorry I disturbed you.”

  “There had better be someone dead,” the old man told him. “I was on the edge of the Grand Canyon, all that light and beauty laid out before me like a king’s feast.”

  Marcus understood at once that Isaiah meant he’d been dreaming, and he felt the pain of longing in the eighty-six-year-old’s fading voice.

  “I can’t afford to wait around here,” Marcus said. “I need to get out of New Orleans or I’m going to end up being picked up for questioning—or worse.”

  He briefly explained the situation, though he glossed over the specifics. Especially the temporary insanity that had prompted him to put Caitlyn in his car and take her to his motel.

  But Isaiah didn’t seem to hear what he was saying. “You can’t leave,” he insisted. “Not until you’ve finished the series. Until we’ve finished it.”

  Though Marcus actually shot the photos, Isaiah was the one who’d adapted the techniques he’d perfected over many years to create a limited-edition series of art-quality prints on the finest papers. These he sold to collectors eager for the “final works” of a master.

  Marcus regretted the deception and mourned the death of his chance to build his own reputation. But with his brother’s care running into the thousands each month and no way to legitimately make that much money, he couldn’t imagine what other choice he had.

  “There are other cemeteries,” Marcus told Isaiah. “Other interesting statues I can shoot.”

  “Not without your new lens. You’ll have it in two days, express mail, if you’re still there to get it. Besides, I need more shots of your dawn angel at noon, at dusk, by moonlight—in every kind of light and weather you can manage. It has to be the same one you sent by email. I need her. Only her…”

  The hunger in the old man’s words painted an image of Caitlyn Villaré in Marcus’s mind. Probably because he’d met her at the exact moment he had snapped the photo that had immediately captured Isaiah’s imagination.

  First one angel, then another…

  “Maybe I can risk swinging back through town in a few months,” he suggested, imagining that Caitlyn might even be glad to see him, once the police caught Megan Lansky’s killer.

  There was a long pause, during which Marcus heard only the electric hum of Isaiah’s oxygen compressor. Finally the old man said, “We don’t have a few months. Or I don’t, anyway.”

  “You’re sure this time?”

  “Dead certain, if you’ll forgive the pun. The doctors have said only weeks, without the surgery. But that would likely kill me outright, and anyway, I’m tired, Marcus. And I’m ready.”

  Shock detonated in cold waves through Marcus’s chest, though he should have known this day was coming. Should have prepared himself to deal with the emotions, or at the very least the impact on his family.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, hollowed out by how weak the small words felt, like frail sparrows hurled into a hurricane. Even more uselessly, he added, “What can I do?”

  “Finish this…this series, and let me unveil it under both our names. Admit to the deception—that I took what wasn’t mine.”

  “No.” Pain forked through Marcus’s skull. “You were helping me, not stealing. Saving my ass and my family’s.”

  “I was using you. Extending my day in the sun because I couldn’t bear the darkness. But the shadow’s closing in now. I’m running out of time to make peace with it.”

  Marcus shut his eyes and pressed his fingers to his throbbing forehead. How could he thank a man who’d recognized a poor, orphaned kid’s potential, who’d shaped it into something that would forever nourish his soul?

  Voice shaking, he said, “Then use me one more time, Isaiah. I’m going to get those photos for you, and they’re going to be your legacy. Just hang in there for a few days. You’ve got to stay alert and sharp so you can work your magic, do you hear me?”

  From the other end, there was no answer.

  “Do you hear me, you stubborn old man? We’re going to do this one last time. Together. You have my word.”

  AS SHE MADE COFFEE THE NEXT MORNING, Caitlyn tiptoed on bare feet through the kitchen, trying not to wake Reuben. She hated the guilt nestled like a burning coal against her breastbone, the sick feeling she had at the idea of reigniting last night’s argument with him.

  But Sinister, who didn’t give a fur-ball about the problems of mere mortals, brushed up against her naked legs and started demanding breakfast. Caitlyn tried to shush him while quickly rummaging for an offering to appease the hairy tyrant.

  She set down his dish and changed his water, but as she straightened, she saw Reuben standing in the doorway.

  “Sorry the be
ast woke you. Want some coffee?” She tugged nervously at the hem of the T-shirt she had pulled on over a pair of shorts.

  Despite the brightness of her tone, the look on his face warned that he no more bought her story now than he had last night.

  “Sure, and I’ll have a big, heapin’ bowl of truth with it this morning.” He ran his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair, the set of his jaw pure aggravation. “You ready to serve it up yet?”

  Though Caitlyn hadn’t grown up with a dad of her own, ever since Reuben had introduced himself at their grandmother’s funeral, she had come to realize what it must be like, wanting both to please and rebel against the same man. It was an odd way of looking at her own assistant, but considering the difference in their ages and his connection to the father she couldn’t remember, she couldn’t think of him in any other way.

  Her stomach twisting with the same apprehension that had kept her up half the night, she admitted, “You’re right, Reuben. There was a lot more to the story than I told you.”

  He allowed her a tight nod before taking out a pair of mugs and pouring both of them some coffee. Perhaps as a peace offering, he stirred some vanilla soymilk into Caitlyn’s without comment, though he normally had to remark about how plain old cow juice was good enough for him.

  Once both of them were sitting at the table, Caitlyn realized she couldn’t put it off another moment. “This lump I have on my head—I’m pretty certain someone hit me after the lightning strike.”

  “Hit you? So you didn’t trip and fall.” In his voice, she heard his unspoken I knew it.

  “I was knocked out, so I don’t remember,” she said. “But I have reason to believe that someone tried to carry me off.”

  “Somebody attacked you in the cemetery? The same cemetery where a girl who looked like you was found dead?” He stood and paced, unable to physically contain the energy crackling through his huge frame. “Why the hell would you keep somethin’ like that from me? From the police?”