by Greg Herren
“Does it have something to do with that awful man who was murdered Friday night?” Mom asked. “Because he deserved it, and no one will ever convince me otherwise.”
“I don’t know, Mom.” I buried my face in my hands. I knew I probably shouldn’t tell them about Colin and the body in the apartment, but I had to tell someone. The fear that it had something to do with Taylor’s disappearance was too strong, and it was eating me up inside.
And they were family. Mom and Dad would never rat me out. Mom would go to her grave before she would tell the cops anything.
I took a deep breath and looked at them both. “Something else kind of happened Friday night…”
The great thing about my parents is they don’t judge. Ever. They raised us all to have a sense of morality, a strong idea of right and wrong, but Mom and Dad’s moral teachings probably wouldn’t have passed muster for most people. Their politics definitely shaped their morality, and their deep distrust of government at every level—city, parish, state, federal—colored their values. But they also encouraged us to be free thinkers, to make up our minds, to come up with our own moral codes—even if that conflicted with what they believed.
Colin is a perfect case in point. I loved Colin, and so did Frank, therefore so did they. They looked at both Frank and Colin as two more sons, welcomed them to the family without question. Years ago, we had all been led to believe that Colin had been responsible for the deaths of two of my uncles—my mother’s half brothers (it’s a really long story)—and then he disappeared from our lives for three years. It turned out in the end (it’s an even longer story) that he wasn’t responsible, but his job as a secret agent for hire required him to let us think that.
When he came back into our lives, Mom and Dad welcomed him back, not just to New Orleans but to our lives and our family, even before I was willing to listen to him.
That had been a lesson in the meaning of family I hadn’t known I’d needed.
Whenever Colin tried to explain, they just told him he was family and that was all they needed to know.
“If Colin killed him, he must have been a very bad man,” Mom said, reaching for Dad’s bong and loading the bowl carefully. “And you were smart not to tell the cops anything about that. Keep your mouth shut. Police involvement could put his life at risk—and yours, and Frank’s as well. Do you think these Russians might have taken Taylor?”
“It’s something we have to consider.” I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. “I called Angela and left a message. She hasn’t called back, of course. I just don’t know what to do.”
“Sometimes nothing is the right thing to do,” my mother said, lighting the bowl and taking a big hit. She blew out the smoke. “And you’ll know the right thing when the time comes. I just hate the thought of anyone hurting him.” Her eyes glinted. “If they hurt Taylor, there’s no place on Earth where they’ll be safe.”
She does scare me a little sometimes. “It’s not like it’s the first time,” I replied. It was ridiculous how many times we’d all been kidnapped or held as hostages. “But these people know where we live, Mom, and that worries me. Even if they don’t have anything to do with Taylor being missing…when will we be safe in our home again?” If Colin was telling me the truth. He’s lied to me before.
And that was the worst part of this whole thing. I didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t. Much as I wanted to believe Colin…
I didn’t know my ass from my elbow, to quote Papa Diderot.
“Have you reached out to Taylor’s mother yet?” Dad asked, taking the bong from my coughing mother and passing it to me.
“Why would we do that?” I shook my head. “His parents gave up all claim to him when they kicked him out.”
“Scotty.” Mom gave me what we all call the look. “No matter what else she may be, the woman is his mother. And when the news breaks—and you know it’s just a matter of time before some vulture claiming to be a reporter is going to release that Taylor was the young man with Eric Brewer the night he was murdered, all hell is going to break loose. And if he’s missing…” She shook her head. “I’m not a lawyer, but even I know that looks bad, like he ran away or something because he has something to hide about that night. You have to find him.”
“What can we do to help?” Dad asked.
“Just keep an eye out for him.” I took a hit from the bong just as my phone started beeping. I put the bong down and reached for my phone.
There was a text message from Serena: Scotty can you come over to Margery’s? She wants to talk to you.
Margery Lautenschlaeger?
Wanted to talk to me?
I texted back, Frank and I will head over there in a few minutes.
Serena: Terrific. Look forward to seeing you both.
I stood up and the head rush from the weed almost caused me to sit back down. “Whoa, that’s some potent stuff.”
Dad nodded. “Yeah. It’s the best batch we’ve had in a while—I should have warned you.” He started shoving buds into a plastic Ziploc bag. “Here, take some with you. It’ll help you stay calm.” He sealed the bag and rolled it up.
I shoved it in my pocket as I stood up. “Thanks. I have to run now—a witness wants to talk.”
“So, you want us to call you if we see or hear anything?”
I nodded. “Stay here, for home base, while Frank and I head over there.”
“What if he comes back to your apartment?”
I hadn’t thought about that.
Fuck.
“I’ll come mind the fort while you’re gone,” Dad said, getting up and walking over to the hall closet.
“No, you don’t need to do that,” I replied. All I needed was for Dad to get kidnapped. I still had nightmares from the last time that happened. (It’s a really long story.) “Love you both—will keep you posted.”
I galloped down the back steps and out the gate onto Dumaine Street. It was still raining, and the wind was still blowing. The gutters were filling with water. I groaned, jumped over the gutter, and started running as quickly as I could in my trench coat. The streets of the Quarter were almost completely deserted as I made my way downtown on Royal, hurrying from balcony to balcony, cold water dripping from my soaked stocking cap down the back of my neck and down my back. I was almost ready to start sobbing from the cold by the time I made it back to Decatur Street and the welcome cover of the balconies on our block. I unlocked the gate and run down the tunnel to the courtyard before taking the stairs two at a time. “Frank?” I called as I entered the apartment, tossing the sopping wet cap into the laundry basket and heading down the hallway to the living room.
He wasn’t there.
Fuck.
“Frank?” I checked out on the balcony, but he wasn’t there, either. There wasn’t a note on the little whiteboard on the refrigerator—our preferred method of communication—and I checked both bedrooms and the bathroom to be sure.
I went out the back door and climbed the steps to Taylor’s apartment. The door was locked, and I opened it. “Frank?” I called out tentatively. “Taylor?”
There was no answer.
I pulled out my phone and texted Frank: where are you?
I checked everywhere—the bedrooms, the closet, the bathroom, everywhere—but there was no sign of either of them up there.
I ran back downstairs. This time, I checked for Frank’s coat.
It was also gone.
What the hell, Frank?
I had a really bad feeling about this.
Chapter Seventeen
Queen of Pentacles
An intelligent and thoughtful woman who is rich and charitable
What to do, what to do, I didn’t know what I should do.
Should I go to Margery’s, or should I wait for Frank?
What if—Goddess forbid—something had happened to Frank, too? And shouldn’t I help look for Taylor, or at least hold down the fort in case he came home?
But…if I just sat aro
und waiting and wondering, I’d probably lose my already tenuous grip on sanity.
I texted where are you again to Frank, but this time I heard his phone chime in the living room.
Great, so he’s run off without his phone, too. What’s the point of having a phone if you aren’t going to carry it with you?
I refused to consider the notion he hadn’t had a choice.
Best not to even think that way.
I scribbled on the dry erase board in the kitchen: Off to interview a witness. Please text me when you read this and signed my name to it.
I changed into dry socks and dry jeans before summoning an Uber. I found a dry stocking cap in a drawer to replace my sopping wet one and grabbed an umbrella from the closet.
While I waited for the Uber, shivering, I repeated to myself over and over, Frank is probably doing exactly what you’re doing now—a lead came up and he ran off to check it out and didn’t think to take his phone with him. Worrying won’t change anything. Worrying just makes things worse.
I felt slightly better when I got into the Subaru that pulled up to the curb.
I checked my phone for messages again as the driver, a pretty young woman of color, pulled away from the curb. She turned up Barracks to avoid the traffic congestion of Decatur Street as we headed uptown. We chatted, mostly about the weather, nonsensical conversations to while away the time as we rode together. Talking to her helped keep me from worrying and freaking out.
I get the convenience of Uber, but I’m never sure what the proper etiquette is in the car. With a cab, you just get into the back seat, tell the driver where you’re going, and that’s the end of it. Sometimes you get a chatty cab driver, but most times you don’t, and you just sit in the back seat with boundaries pretty much predetermined by decades of riding in cabs. Maybe Uber is the same, but without the glass window separating the front and back seats…yeah. I never know if I’m supposed to sit in the front or the back or what I’m supposed to do. Technically, an Uber driver is just a cab driver you summon and pay through a phone app, but…it’s also not the same.
We used to be warned about getting into cars with strangers. Now we do it, without a second thought, every day.
The enormous gates were open when my driver turned into the driveway of the Schwartzberg mansion. The house was built in the decades after the Civil War and was an anomaly in New Orleans. There was no other house like it in the city—it had its own aesthetic and design, never duplicated.
Isaac Schwartzberg originally made his fortune as a jeweler to New Orleans society before the Civil War. He’d built the house as a kind of fuck you to his anti-Semitic clients, who were more than happy to buy his diamonds but wouldn’t invite him and his wife to dine in their homes—or allow them to join the Boston Club or the more exclusive Mardi Gras krewes. His goal was to build the biggest, most spacious mansion in the city—a showplace impossible to forget once seen, completely different from any other building on St. Charles Avenue. He brought in an architect from New York known for the colossal “summer cottages” he’d built for the wealthy in Newport or the Hamptons, told him exactly what he wanted, and opened his wallet, ready to spend whatever was necessary to get it. He wound up buying several lots and tearing down the houses already there. Most people in town called the house “Isaac’s Folly” behind his back.
As far as fuck yous went, it was impressive. He definitely got what he paid for.
It was intended to look like a castle/mansion hybrid on the outside, while the inside was designed along the lines of royal chateaus in the Loire Valley. He even had an artificial hill built for his house to rest on, so that it was higher than every other house on the Avenue. It was one of the few big mansions in the city made of stone—tan Arizona sandstone, imported at tremendous expense by railroad. It was built in a square, each side the same length, and at each corner of the house was a square tower with crenellated molding at the top. The windows were all huge, but the curtains were rarely, if ever, open. I didn’t even want to think about how much the entire property might be valued at today. Once the house was finished, he and his wife went on a tour of Europe, buying paintings to adorn the walls and sculptures for the alcoves and the gardens behind it. The collection was one of the most famous in the South, and Margery was always loaning pieces to museums. The library was one of the largest private book collections in the South—there were rumors that a first edition Huckleberry Finn, autographed by Mark Twain, was its showpiece.
There were even stories that Twain himself had actually stayed in the house on a visit to New Orleans.
Margery was the last descendant of Isaac to bear the name Schwartzberg. The Buchmaier family were also direct descendants of Isaac—they lived in a much more traditional Victorian mansion farther downtown on the Avenue. When Isaac wisely diversified his business into alcohol, he’d handed the jewelry business over to his daughter Leah and her husband, Judah Buchmaier. The liquor business Isaac founded, Black Mountain Liquors, stopped producing their own liquor in the 1970s but were still the major liquor distributor in New Orleans—and you’ll never go broke supplying this city with liquor.
Margery herself had married into another liquor dynasty. The Lautenschlaegers had gotten rich on beer, schnapps, and wine.
The Schwartzberg mansion was polarizing—people either loved it because it was unique and different, or hated it because it was unique and different.
I’m one of those who fall into the “love it” category. I’ve always wanted to see the inside. Both sets of my grandparents knew Margery—my grandmothers worked on charity events with her on a fairly regularly basis—but I’d never actually met her or had the privilege to be invited inside the castle. I’d seen her at some events, but we’d never been introduced. She had never attended any parties at either set of grandparents’ homes.
Which was kind of curious, now that I thought about it more—perhaps evidence of some anti-Semitism on the part of my grandparents?
It wouldn’t hurt to talk to Maman Diderot about Margery. Maman Diderot was sharp as a tack and missed nothing—and was pretty shrewd when it came to character. She saw through a lot of bullshit.
It finally stopped raining as we drove up the man-made hill and parked in front of the house. As I thanked the driver and got out of the car, a liveried servant opened the front door and stood there, patiently waiting as I climbed the stone steps. When I reached the small porch, I realized he was huge—probably taller than even Taylor, which was rare.
“Mr. Bradley?” he asked, his voice deep yet somehow soft at the same time, with a slight bow of his bald head. There was a trace of a British accent in his voice. “Madame is waiting for you in the library. Just walk down the hallway, and it’s the second door on the left.”
“Thank you,” I replied with a smile as I walked into the enormous foyer. The floor was pale pink marble, polished till it shone. The massive chandelier sparkled with thousands of teardrop crystals as my wet workout shoes made squishing sounds on the floor. Everything in the foyer and the wide hallway had to be an antique—it almost smelled of money. Everything was completely spotless, shining in the chandelier light.
I wished I’d taken the time to change into something more appropriate for an audience with Margery Lautenschlaeger at Schwartzberg Castle.
Seeing that the second door on the left was open, I rapped my knuckles on it before entering the room. The room was something out of Architectural Digest. Each wall was built-in bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and each shelf was neatly filled with books organized efficiently by size. Another gorgeous crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling in the direct center of the room, over a beautiful carved wood table. In the very back of the room was a glass case, with an open book inside resting on a red velvet pillow.
The priceless Huckleberry Finn, no doubt.
Margery rose from her chair and walked toward me, a wide smile on her face. I already knew she wasn’t a tall woman, but wasn’t prepared for how short she was up close. She w
as wearing white Keds on her feet, and a pair of black skinny jeans beneath a beautiful white cashmere sweater. She’d allowed her dark hair to fall naturally to her shoulders, but I could see enormous diamonds sparkling at her ears, matching the enormous teardrop diamond hanging on a gold link chain around her neck. Her hands were unadorned other than a plain gold wedding ring. She wore very little makeup—some eyeliner, pale lipstick, and perhaps some mascara. Her smile was warm, and I realized that despite her age there weren’t many lines on her face, or any telltale skin hanging from her chin. Her skin, though, glowed naturally—no surgeon’s knife had ever touched her face.
“Scotty Bradley, at long last,” she said, her voice soft and musical. “Thank you for coming. I’ve wanted to meet you for quite some time. I so admire both of your grandmothers. They are both terrific women with big, generous hearts.”
“Thank you,” I managed to stammer out as she clasped my right hand in both of hers. Her small hands were soft and warm, the nails perfectly manicured. Her eyes were a velvety brown and almond-shaped, her eyebrows too perfectly shaped to be natural, and a faint whiff of Chanel No. 5 lingered in the air.
“Do come in,” she said, her smile never wavering. “Would you care for something to drink?”
As she gently maneuvered me deeper into the room, I became aware that the two dark blue wingback chairs with their backs to the door weren’t empty. “Um, some water?”
“Have a martini,” Serena said, rising from her chair. She air-kissed both of my cheeks. “Thank you for coming, so delightful to see you.” She turned to Margery and drawled, “I told you he was adorable. Don’t you just want to eat him up?”
“Serena,” I replied as she simply allowed her hand to lie limply in mine. Serena wore a gorgeous pair of Jimmy Choo pumps, covered in silver glitter and sequins, matching perfectly the sleeveless top she wore over black jeans. The tight jeans emphasized how strong and shapely her long legs were. Her big, firm breasts were straining at the top in a desperate attempt to break free, and her thick blond hair had been curled and ratted and teased and lacquered into an enormous frame for her face. She seemed to have been bathing in Hermès Perfume 24 Faubourg, the same scent Maman Diderot prefers.
