by Tabor Evans
"Did Paul tell you anything about why he wanted me dead?" he asked tautly.
Again Annie shook her head. "Only that it had to do with a business arrangement he has with Jasper Millard, and that I shouldn't ask any more questions."
"You don't know anything about that so-called business arrangement?"
"No. I swear, Custis, I don't. I... I thought they were just friends."
Longarm's expression was bleak as he asked, "What happened after Paul hit you?"
"He..." Annie swallowed hard. "He threw me on the bed in my room and... and took me."
Longarm's teeth grated together. "Your own brother?" he asked, horrified and furious.
She looked down and wouldn't meet his eyes. "He has been doing it for years."
Paul Clement was going to be damned lucky if he just wound up behind bars, thought Longarm. He wanted very much at that moment to put a bullet through the head of the sick, murderous son of a bitch and be done with it.
But as long as he was working for Uncle Sam he wasn't judge, jury, or executioner. He drew a tight rein on his emotions and said, "And after that?"
"He locked me in my room, as he often does. I finally managed to get out a window and reach a branch of the magnolia tree on that side of the house, so that I could climb down. I knew I had to find you, so I could warn you that Paul was trying to have you killed."
"I'm obliged, but I already figured that out," he told her. "Your brother and Millard are partners in a smuggling ring, but it's not so much what they're bringing into the country that's got 'em worried about me. It's what they're shipping out."
"What?" asked Annie, a quaver of dread and apprehension in her voice.
Before Longarm could tell her, he heard rapid footsteps and the sound of a gun being cocked somewhere behind him.
He shoved Annie to the side as he whipped around, hoping that the push would send her out of the line of fire. A man in a tweed suit was standing behind one of the pillars that supported the hotel's second-floor balcony, using the pillar for cover as he aimed a Smith & Wesson revolver at Longarm. The weapon geysered flame and lead as an ugly whip-crack of sound split the early morning air. Longarm's gun was in his hand by now, and he heard the whine of the slug past his ear as he triggered his Colt.
Instinct and luck guided his shot. His bullet smashed the shoulder of the bushwhacker, knocking the man backward. The Smith & Wesson went flying.
That gunman wasn't the only threat, however, as Longarm saw right away. More men with drawn guns were darting from pillar to pillar, closing in on him and beginning to fire. At the same time, another cab drew up at the curb and several men leaped out of it, also with guns drawn. Clement must have discovered that Annie had escaped from the mansion and figured she would come looking for Longarm, and now he and Millard were desperate to get rid of both of them at the same time.
The doorman had ducked into the hotel for cover as shots rang out, but he was blowing his whistle frantically, the shrill sound keening through the air. That would summon the police, thought Longarm--but by the time help arrived, he and Annie would be dead, both of them shot full of holes.
Unless he did the unexpected.
Annie had slumped to the granite steps when Longarm shoved her, and so far she seemed to be unhit by the flying slugs. Longarm reached her side in a single bound and grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet. He couldn't leave her behind. He snapped his last two shots at the men who had just emerged from the cab. The vehicle's driver, realizing how much danger he had innocently gotten mixed up in, was already whipping his horses into a run. As the gunmen ducked aside from Longarm's shots, the big lawman leaped down the steps toward the cab, hauling Annie with him.
He threw her bodily at the door of the cab, which was still flapping open as the driver pulled away from the curb. With a startled cry, Annie grabbed the door and pulled herself inside. Longarm leaped right behind her, but the door was already out of reach. The best he could do was catch onto the back of the cab with one hand while the other still held his Colt.
His arm felt as if it was nearly jerked out of its socket, but he managed to hang on. As he pulled his feet up, his body was thrown against the rear of the cab. The impact knocked the breath from his body, but still he held on. He jammed the empty Colt back in its holster, taking only a couple of tries to do so, then began clambering up the body of the cab.
Behind him, more shots blasted. Bullets thudded into the cab only inches from him. Longarm hoped the driver had the sense to swing around a corner as soon as they reached the end of the block. That would put them out of reach of the gunmen.
"Custis!"
The shout made him look up. Annie was hanging over the rear seat of the open-topped cab, extending a hand toward him. "Get down!" he called to her, but she shook her head stubbornly.
"Let me help you!" she cried over the rattle of the cab's wheels.
Figuring that it would be better not to waste time arguing, Longarm grasped her hand. At the same moment, he managed to finally get a foothold on the cab's body, and in a matter of seconds he pulled himself up and sprawled over the back of the seat, knocking Annie to the floor of the cab. Her face was white with fear, but she laughed hollowly at the awkwardness of it. Longarm was lying half on top of her. "This would be more enjoyable under other circumstances, Custis!" she said.
That was sure enough true. Longarm started to push himself up, then had to grab the side of the cab to catch his balance as the vehicle swayed at high speed around a corner. That was just what Longarm had hoped the driver would do. He raised his head for a last glance down the street in front of the hotel.
"Damn it!"
That glimpse had been enough to tell him that the men who were out for his scalp were piling into another cab, one they had stopped on the street at gunpoint. Longarm saw them jerking the cab's previous occupants and the driver out of the vehicle. One of the killers was going to handle the reins himself, more than likely. Then Longarm couldn't see any more, because the corner of the hotel cut off his view.
The gunmen weren't going to give up as easily as he had hoped. Longarm reached up and tapped the driver on the shoulder. The man cast a glance that was wide-eyed with fear at his unexpected passengers.
"Keep going as fast as you can!" shouted Longarm. "Head for the city hall! I'm a lawman!"
The driver bobbed his head and whipped the horses that much harder. Longarm was thrown against the rear seat as the cab lurched forward.
A bullet spanged off the metalwork beside him. "Look out, Custis!" screamed Annie.
Longarm swiveled his head and looked behind them. The other cab had taken the corner even tighter, and was now racing after them. He saw muzzle flashes from the guns of the men who worked for Clement and Millard. Since Annie was already sitting on the floorboard, he told her, "Stay down there!"
Looking forward again, he saw that the cab was approaching the riverfront. If the driver took a left when he reached the docks, that would bring them back to Decatur Street in a few blocks, and then they would reach the city hall within minutes. Longarm wanted to get Annie into the safety of the building and find that special prosecutor's office. There would be plenty of work for the man once Longarm laid out the story.
In the meantime, as he crouched on the floor of the cab next to Annie, he shucked the spent shells from his Colt and thumbed in fresh ones. Maybe he could slow down the pursuit, although he would have to be careful not to hit any pedestrians or other innocent bystanders along the street. Longarm raised himself up and lined the Colt's sights on the cab that was chasing them.
Before he could fire, a bullet sang past his ear, and he heard a grunt of pain. Annie screamed. Longarm jerked around, afraid that she had been hit. Instead, he saw that the driver of the cab was half-standing, clawing at his back where the bullet had caught him. With a groan, he toppled backward, landing upside down on the floorboards next to Annie. He was either unconscious or dead.
Longarm didn't have time to find out wh
ich, because the team pulling the cab was still running flat out--straight toward the Mississippi River.
Biting back a curse, Longarm clambered over the driver's body and scrambled over the front seat toward the driver's box. He looked desperately for the reins and saw them dangling over the front of the box. He made a frantic grab for them, but they slid out of his reach, falling under the hooves of the racing horses.
If someone didn't stop those animals or turn them aside, Longarm realized, they were going to run right into the river in about thirty seconds. He threw a glance back at the pursuers. They were still there, only they had closed the gap a little. Bullets were still thudding into the cab.
There was only one thing to do, Longarm told himself as the runaway cab crossed the street that ran alongside the river. The hooves of the horses thundered on the planks of a short dock as Longarm balanced himself and then leaped forward, intending to land on the back of one of the leaders so that he could at least use the harness to pull the team to a stop before the cab plunged into the river.
He was in midair before he realized that the attempt had come just a little too late.
Then they were at the end of the dock and the horses and the cab were falling out from underneath him and he was falling too, and Annie was screaming and the waters of the mighty Mississippi came up and slammed into him, wrapping around him and pulling him down into the deepest darkness he had ever known in his life.
He was cold when he woke up, so cold that he thought he would never again be warm. The chattering of his teeth told him that he was still alive. A dead man couldn't feel like this--or so Longarm assumed. But then the thought struck him that maybe he was dead. Maybe what he was experiencing was the coldness of the grave.
And the fact that he was aware of the sensation meant that he was being brought back to a mere shambling semblance of life. He was being turned into a zombie!
The cry burst from his lips before he could stop it, and he heard an ugly chuckle from somewhere nearby. "Waking up, Parker--or whatever your name really is?"
The question came from Jasper Millard.
Someone else was close by. Longarm felt icy fingers clutching at his hand. The fingers of a corpse? No, they weren't that cold, he decided, and they had the strength and vitality of life as well.
"Custis! Please wake up, Custis. I thought you were dead."
Longarm's eyes fluttered open. "A-Annie?" he croaked out.
Her face swam into his line of sight, filling his vision as she leaned closely above him. Her hair was wild and damp, and there was a fresh bruise on her face. But she still looked beautiful to Longarm, because she was alive and that meant he was alive too.
The real question was how long that would hold true for each of them.
His vision had cleared enough for him to be able to look up past her and see a wooden roof high overhead. As she babbled her gratitude that he was still among the living, her voice echoed hollowly, and Longarm realized now that Millard's words had had a definite echo too. They were in a large room somewhere--not the Brass Pelican, Longarm decided. Someplace else.
"I think we should just go ahead and shoot him right here and now. He's bound to be a lawman."
That was Millard's voice again, booming out its threat. Someone answered him in a smoother, more sophisticated tone. "No, it will be much more effective to feed him to the alligators. Perhaps part of his body will be found too, and send a message to the authorities." Paul Clement, thought Longarm. That son of a bitch.
"Yeah, like we sent a message with that other badge-toting snooper? It was bad enough that all of his corpse didn't get eaten, but then you had to go and leave that voodoo doll on his boss's doorstep. I don't like messing with that voodoo shit, and besides, it just stirred up the law that much more."
"I believed it would confuse the issue enough to throw off any investigation into Ramsey's death," Clement replied coldly. "I did what I thought was best, Jasper--and you should remember whose idea our arrangement was in the first place."
"Yeah, yeah," replied Millard in a surly tone. "You're a damn genius, all right."
"I've made us a great deal of money so far. The other plantation owners on Saint Laurent and the neighboring islands are quite happy to meet our price for the workforce we provide."
Their squabbling had confirmed all of Longarm's speculations and answered all the questions that had brought him to New Orleans. The knowledge wasn't going to do him a hell of a lot of good, though, unless he could somehow get away from his captors and find some help.
While Millard and Clement were talking, Annie had been stroking Longarm's face and huddling against him in fear. He was aware now that he was soaking wet and lying on a hard floor. Probably no more than half an hour had passed since the runaway cab had plunged into the river; based on that fact, the high ceiling, the shadows that filled the big room, and the likely proximity to the riverfront, he figured they were in a warehouse. Millard probably owned at least one such building, so that he could store the goods he smuggled into New Orleans until he had a chance to dispose of them.
A warehouse would be a good place to hold prisoners who were destined to be shipped out to the West Indies and a life of slavery on the sugar plantations too. Longarm wondered if there were any such captives here now, or if he and Annie were the only prisoners.
There was only one way to find out. His hands weren't tied, he realized, so he got them under him and pushed himself into a sitting position.
"Don't try anything, Marshal," warned Clement. "You are a United States marshal, I take it."
"Custis Long," admitted Longarm. "I'd show you my badge and bona fides, but I left 'em back in Denver."
"Ah, they sent in a man all the way from Colorado, just so that no one here would recognize you. Quite a plan." Clement's tone was mocking.
"Yeah, and it worked too," said Longarm dryly. "All you bastards are under arrest."
Clement laughed, but Millard just glowered at Longarm. The two partners in crime were standing about a dozen feet away. They were flanked by four gunmen, no doubt some of the assassins who had been sent after Longarm and Annie at the hotel. The men had their weapons drawn and ready, so even though Longarm's hands and feet were not tied, there was no way he could make a move against Clement and Millard.
The warehouse was perhaps half full of crates of various shapes and sizes. There was probably all kinds of contraband hidden here, thought Longarm. He wondered if there was anything around he could use for a weapon. Faint light filtered in through small, filthy windows that were set high in the walls just under the ceiling. A couple of kerosene lanterns that had been placed on crates also provided illumination.
To stall for time, and to satisfy his own curiosity, Longarm asked, "Why did your men pull us out of the river instead of letting us drown? From the looks of things, you wanted us both dead anyway, so you could've let the Mississippi take care of it for you."
"I was nearby, keeping an eye on things," replied Clement, "and when I saw that cab go into the water, I put in an appearance and ordered the men to rescue you and Annie. Then we brought you here because I have an even more appropriate fate in mind for you both."
"Yeah, I heard," grunted Longarm. "You plan on feeding me to the gators. Is that what you're going to do to Your own sister?" Beside him, Annie grew even paler, and her hands tightened on his arm.
"Of course not," said Clement with a shake of his head. "Jasper here got worried when he found you snooping in his office, so he decided that the best thing to do would be to get rid of you, even though you might have been telling the truth about wanting one of those Cuban cigars. I concurred. We can't afford to take any chances of our operation being discovered by the law. Then poor Annie realized that we were trying to have you killed after that donnybrook at the Mardi Gras parade, and she became quite upset. I had to take stern measures to calm her down."
"You raped me!" Annie hissed at him. "The same way you've been raping me for years, ever since I was four
teen years old! How could you? I'm your sister, you... you..." Hatred and horror made words fail her.
Smiling, Clement slid one of the Cuban cigars from his vest pocket and sniffed it appreciatively. "Hardly," he said. "You were never told about it, my dear, but our parents merely adopted you when you were only an infant. You're not a blood relation at all, so I saw no reason not to avail myself of your charms." His fingers tightened on the cigar as venom began to drip from his words. "As a matter of fact, you're an octoroon, darling Annie. You have nigger blood flowing in your veins." Clement controlled himself with a visible effort, stuck the cigar in his mouth, and said around it, "So I've decided to send you to one of the other islands so that you can work in the fields with the other niggers."
"You... you..." Again, Annie could not find the words to convey her loathing of the man she had considered her brother.
"Son of a bitch?" suggested Longarm. "Low-down rabid skunk? No, I reckon that'd be an insult to the skunk."
Clement shook his head and said, "Go ahead and have your fun, Marshal. You're going to be dead very soon anyway."
"Yeah," put in Millard. "And you were a piss-poor right-hand man. Sure, you helped out a little those times Royale tried to get at me, but I could've just as easily been killed."
"What about Royale?" asked Longarm, again trying to postpone his impending death. "What's his part in all of this?"
"Just what I already told you," said Millard. "He runs another smuggling ring, and he wants to put me out of business."
"Does he run slaves to the West Indies too?"
Millard shook his head and snorted in contempt. "Not that I've ever heard. He may be a murdering, cold-blooded bastard, but he's too good to get his hands dirty with something like slave-running."
That just about wrapped it up, thought Longarm. Royale's activities and the involvement of the Voodoo Queen had been mere distractions in this case, despite the dangers they had represented. Almost from the moment of his arrival in New Orleans, he had been right in amongst the very men he was after. Clement's part in the smuggling scheme, and in Douglas Ramsey's murder, had been unexpected, but Jasper Millard was indeed a villain, just as Longarm had suspected from the beginning.
