Dragons Deal

by Robert Asprin

  Fourteen

  Valerie looked back over her shoulder onto the street. Two men had stopped, one lighting the other's cigarette, just out of the light of the vintage streetlight. "They're still there."

  "If you want, I will take them out," Gris-gris said, guiding her by the elbow to one of the naugahyde-covered booths. "It would be my pleasure. I just want you to relax and have a good time. You took a weekend night off just for me. I want you to be happy."

  Val almost said yes. She kind of liked having a boyfriend who was willing to kill two people just because they were bothering her.

  She hadn't really thought she liked the bad boys, but the mild men she picked up she often forgot a week later. The dangerous aspects of Gris-gris really turned her on. Griffen carried a knife in his pocket, but Gris-gris had actually used his. The boys she had dated at college would probably pass out if you showed them one. That was one reason why she continued to see him when there was so much variety in the Quarter.

  "No," she said. "Unless they come in here. As long as they keep their distance, I'll be okay."

  "Whatever you say. Hey, Clarissa!" he shouted. "You got some service coming out here?"

  "You shut up, Gris-gris!" Clarissa shouted back. She was pouring coffee for a man at the counter.

  "You want me to come and mess you up over there? My lady wants some service!"

  "Hey, Val, honey," Clarissa called over. "That man bothering you?"

  "No," Val said, grinning at him. "Not yet. Unless I get lucky."

  She glanced out the window. The men had stopped on the other side of the street. They stood smoking and talking, but she knew, she could feel, that they were watching her out of the corner of their eyes. Her temper flared. The room suddenly seemed too small, as if her world was constricting.

  A light touch brushed her hand. "Hey, sweet thing, keep it down. They only used to seeing one size of you in here, okay?"

  Val looked at him in shock. She glanced at their hands. Hers were bigger than his. She had grown without thinking about it. She shot a hasty glance at the other people in the diner. "Did anyone see?"

  "Maybe the two guys outside, but I think they already know. Right?"

  Val concentrated hard on returning to her normal size. Damm it. She thought that she had gotten that reaction under control! It was the tension from worrying about Melinda jumping out and surprising her that was throwing her off. She had to get herself together.

  The men outside had not been sent by Melinda but by Griffen. She was perturbed by his overprotectiveness even though she understood it. It was sweet. She knew it meant he cared; but they went everywhere she did, even when she went out running in the mornings. She hated the idea of being under surveillance. Even more, she hated the reason she had to be under surveillance. Mai insisted that Melinda was a fearsome opponent and would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. Well, if she wanted Val's baby, she was going to be disappointed.

  She found herself getting angry all over again, but she controlled herself before she started Hulk-ing out all over again.

  "Sorry, I'm not being fair to you," Val said to Gris-gris. "Thanks for asking me out this evening."

  "We haven't really had any time alone lately," he said.

  Val glanced out at the loitering men. "And we don't exactly now."

  "Well, I hope they ain't gonna be following us everywhere." He looked her up and down with interest. Val felt her own response growing. Her body was changing, but not enough to interfere with lovemaking.

  "They'd better not," she said, huskily. "I owe you my undivided attention for a while."

  "And why is that?" he asked, studying her. She liked the incredible dark brown of his eyes. When he looked at her, they seemed to absorb her gaze so she couldn't break away.

  "Well, all the nice things that you say and do for me."

  He looked pleased. "You're a special lady. I'd do it just because you're you. But your family has treated me right, also. That means something to me."

  Val looked into those deep eyes. She didn't want to fall in love with him. She was too young. They really didn't know each other well. She liked spending time with him. He let her take the lead on their lovemaking. That meant something to her. So little of her life before New Orleans had been in her control. Her uncle had chosen where they went to school, enrolled her in the college of his choice, even given her a clothing allowance in store credits so she had to shop where he chose. Gris-gris gave her freedom to act. Whether or not they had any kind of future together was something she didn't want to overanticipate. What happened, happened. She tore herself away from his gaze and gave him a sardonic smile.

  "Did I tell you about Griffen's meeting with his krewe?"

  "Yeah. Are you going to be a queen?"

  "No," Val said, peeved at the memory. "And I am not buying Griffen's explanation that the krewe has chosen a queen and wouldn't tell him her name. I think he's just putting off having to choose one of us because he knows the other two are going to be mad at him. Still, being a maid sounds like fun. You'll come to the parties with me, too, won't you?"

  "That's all out of my league, mostly," Gris-gris said, honestly. "Society people, rich people, educated people."

  "But do any of those matter? I want you there."

  He nodded. "Then I will be there, pretty lady."

  Val hesitated. The subject of finance was a delicate one. She had no idea what Griffen was paying him as a runner and spotter. "We'll have to buy tickets. I think they'll actually cost a few hundred dollars. If it's too outrageous, I'll understand."

  Gris-gris waved away the trouble. "I can afford that. It's my once-in-a-lifetime chance to escort a maid of Mardi Gras to the ball. I have to find me a suit, too. Can't go there in what I own."

  "Oh! I have to find a dress," Val realized with a shock. "I'm so used to wearing casual clothes wherever I go around here. I don't think I have anything even remotely suitable."

  "Plenty of places to find a gown," Gris-gris assured her. "You could even have one made. I've got an aunt who would love to dress you up."

  "A tailor?" Val was delighted and momentarily distracted at the thought of having a dress made to order. "I've never had anything made for me."

  "Yeah, but we do all the time," Gris-gris pointed out. "It's a lot cheaper than buying fancy clothes. There's probably as many tailors and dressmakers down here as there are in New York because of Mardi Gras and Halloween."

  "I never thought of that, but yeah. I can see that. Michael Kors probably doesn't do a lot of parade costumes."

  Gris-gris laughed. "Designer-line masquerade? That'd be something else."

  Val was suddenly ravenous. "I need something to eat right now," she said. "Sorry. I could blame it on you-know-who"--she glanced down--"but it's just me. I forgot to eat lunch."

  "Clarissa!" Gris-gris cried, without breaking eye contact with her. "You'd better feed my honey soon, or we'll go someplace that knows how to cook real food!"

  "You think you know what it tastes like?" Clarissa asked skeptically. "Ain't been that long since you actually started paying for your meals."

  "Look, mama, I am going to get beat up here if you don't deliver!"

  A loud snicker came from the booth behind them. Val turned around to glare. "You poor hunk of scum," said a large man with tattoos all the way around his thick neck. "I'm watching you jump whenever that girl tells you to. You are so whipped, man!" He made a gesture with one finger like a flower stem wilting. His friend, who had a long scar from his ear to his throat, sneered.

  "Yeah. She too much woman for someone like you. You ain't got enough manhood to please her, so you actin' like her personal servant."

  Val was shocked and furious. She started to open her mouth. Gris-gris reached over and put his hand on her arm. She spun to look at him. He wasn't angry. He was smiling.

  "Man," he said, "you only wish you were whipped like me." He sighed and grinned widely, the look of a satisfied man. "You would be luckier than a four-l
eaf clover to be whipped like me."

  The others looked shocked. Their expressions shifted to something like admiration.

  "That good, huh?" asked the large man.

  "Oh, yeah," Gris-gris said. "There are ladies that are worth bowing down for, and this lady here is one of them. I have no shame for showin' my gratitude in public. You ought to think about that sometime." Val felt her cheeks burn. She was so flattered it made her breathless.

  "Thank you," she whispered. Gris-gris gazed at her and dragged her into those deep eyes again.

  "Honey miss, you are somethin' special. I don't mind what you do, as long as you take some time to do it with me."

  "Forget about the food," Val said, taking his hands in hers. She squeezed them, as if trying to communicate her growing need to him. She did not need to. He looked as eager as she felt.

  "Too late, Clarissa!" Gris-gris bellowed, a broad grin on his face. "Maybe some other time. Got somethin' better in mind!"

  Arm in arm, they slipped out the door. For a while, Val managed to forget--or care--about being followed.

  Fifteen

  The young waitress at the Cafe du Monde set down a heavy white mug of coffee and a plate of fresh, hot, white-coated beignets in front of Griffen.

  "Now, y'all watch it. They're hot!"

  "They taste the best that way," Griffen assured her. She smiled, slapped a bill down, and went on to the next customer.

  Griffen took a huge bite of beignet. The searing heat of dough just moments out of the hot oil parboiled his teeth, but it would take molten lava to hurt a dragon's mouth. He loved the sensation and the flavor of the fresh doughnuts. The chicory-infused coffee was just as hot. Its slightly spicy smell made the perfect counterpoint to the sweet, puffy, square doughnuts. No wonder this place was always full, at every hour of the day or night. It was a national treasure. The day they put him in charge of everything, he was going to grant Cafe du Monde landmark status.

  As he took the next bite, the ringing of his cell phone surprised him. He inhaled at the wrong time and got a lungful of powdered sugar. He reached for the handset while trying to cough the white powder out.

  "He-hello?" he hacked. "Yes, this is Griffen McCandles."

  "Peter Sing. I sat in on your game the other day?"

  "Yes!" Griffen said. Hastily, he drank a swig of coffee to clear his throat. "Hey, good to hear from you. What can I do for you?"

  "I am in the mood to play poker," Peter said. "You said you would be happy to have me in on any of your games. Do you have one going on tonight?"

  Griffen hesitated for a moment. "Let me check my list," he said. He stared out of the restaurant across Decatur Street at Jackson Square. He was torn as to what to do.

  Following the game at the Omni, Jerome had taken him aside and said he didn't trust the man. Coming from anyone else, Griffen could have ascribed any number of motives for disliking another person, but Jerome was different.

  Jerome was smart, experienced, tough, and streetwise, but the main talent in which he excelled overall was as a judge of character. Mose had noticed it when Jerome was very young and relied on it from then on. Griffen would have been a fool to ignore his warning.

  "I'm sorry, Peter," he said. "The only thing running tonight is a closed game for a few regulars. They're not very good. You'd outshine them, and they'd get pissed at me."

  "I could hold back," Peter offered. "I really want to play."

  "Sorry." Griffen was pleasant but firm. "Hey, how about this? I have a late-night game set up day after tomorrow, some really experienced players who want to come around after a show at Preservation Hall. They're high rollers. Much more your speed. You'd enjoy that a lot more. The action won't get started until after ten."

  "That is not very good customer service." Peter sounded annoyed, so Griffen kept his tone apologetic.

  "We really do try to give our clients what they want," Griffen said. "Do you want me to arrange a game for you tonight? I can try and set something up and get back to you with the details."

  "That will not be necessary," Peter said tersely. "I will attend the game in two days. Give me the location."

  "When I have it, I will let you know," Griffen promised. Sing signed off without saying another word. Griffen punched in Jerome's speed-dial number and told him what happened. "See if you can put something together with a few clients who won't mind losing money. I'm going to sit in myself and keep an eye on him."

  Jerome sounded incredulous. "You listened to me? You actually listened to somethin' I said?"

  "I've learned my lesson," Griffen said, humbly. "I hated turning down money, but if you don't trust him, I don't want him near the operation unless I can be there myself."

  Jerome sounded relieved. "I just get the feelin' that he's the first snowball in some kind of avalanche. I'll set something up for Friday night."

  "Thanks," Griffen said. When he hung up, he already felt better.

  Sixteen

  Griffen stalked toward the Fafnir den. Etienne's message had sounded urgent. Anything that got him out of bed before noon for the second time in a week had better be urgent.

  He strode among the Mid-City warehouses. No part of the old city was much more seedy or run-down than any other part, but there was just something about industrial buildings that tended to look abandoned and derelict even if they were being used by a thriving business. The den, the bright yellow paint on its huge sliding doors slivering in the baking heat and humidity, seemed like it hadn't been used for years. According to Terence Killen, it was rented from a garden-furniture importer who had two other warehouses and wouldn't need that one until April, plenty of time for Mardi Gras staging and takedown.

  Griffen reached the apron and felt as if he had been hit in the head by a hot, wet fish. The power that the old building exuded made him believe in science-fiction force fields. Passersby, mostly locals, walked around him on the sidewalk, meeting his eyes with a friendly expression of puzzlement but never looking at the nondescript warehouse itself. If they didn't feel it, why did he? What was it?

  He managed to push his way through the sensation and enter the den by way of the small door next to the main entrance.

  The contents of the bustling facility had changed since he was there before. It was not just that the floats there were much closer to completion, nor that dozens more people were working on them, or spreading plans out on tables, or conferring in corners. Something unseen was building in the very air. The feeling was much stronger inside than it had been outside. It was intense. Griffen wanted to fight back against it. Not that it was sinister, but it was powerful. Yes, that was it: power. It was concentrated here as he had never felt it, not even at the conclave. It must be true that dragons possessed far more power than the average being of supernatural heritage.

  He let himself absorb the sensation for a moment. Like a perfume, it entered his body by every pore and orifice. His natural mojo fought off the intruding energy until he could accept it as nonthreatening. He even liked it.

  With a proprietary air, Griffen surveyed the dozens of people working on floats. They were making the float that would carry him through the streets of New Orleans. He tried to pretend that he was a real king, and these were his lackeys. They were going to go out and do battle with the rush-hour traffic and the minions of the tourism industry. He would wave to his thousands of loyal subjects, many of whom would be young ladies who would show their loyalty to him by raising their shirts with nothing on underneath. Then the whole idea overwhelmed him with the absurdity of it. He laughed out loud. The big dragon in the corner seemed to wink at him. He had to stop getting his information from the evening news.

  Somehow, the sound of his voice echoed above the noise of drills, lathes, and saws. Etienne and Terence looked up from what they were doing and came to meet him.

  "Mr. Griffen!" Etienne said, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back with his little notebook. "Good to see you!"

  "Hi, Etienne," Griffen said. "Y
ou called me? Is this important? You got me out of bed, you know."

  The werewolf-dragon hybrid immediately flipped to a page in his book. "Time-line," he said. "You still don't have a tuxedo yet, do you?"

  "Well, no," Griffen admitted. "I was going to go when I had a chance. Is that why you called me?"

  "Well, yeah," Etienne said, as if it was self-evident. "It is important, Mr. Griffen."

  Griffen felt his neck get hot with fury. It was getting kind of old, having Etienne always know what was happening--or not. But Griffen had talked to other prescient people. The gift was not a friendly one. Shirley, a motherly woman who offered tarot readings in Jackson Square, actually quoted to her clients from the dreams she had had about them the night or the week before, not from the cards. Her record, as far as Griffen's experience with her went, was impressive.

  "You're just a servant to the dreams," she had told him. "More than half the time I wish I had no idea of what is going to come. Some people kill themselves. Some drink or use drugs to try and chase the pictures away. The rest of us learn to cope."

  So Griffen tried to be patient with Etienne. Still, he had woken Griffen from too short a night's sleep.

  "It's just a tux," he said. "I was going to get to it. You probably already knew that."

  "Well, I did," Etienne said. "And I know you waitin' too long to get going. As king of our krewe, you gonna get invitations to a bunch of associated krewes, Antaeus, Nautilus, and Aeolus, who share our marchin' day, for a start, but some of the superkrewes are glad to have us up and going again, and they will also send invitations. We return the favor. You could end up goin' to a whole bunch of balls and parties. You gonna need at least three suits."

  "Three!" Griffen protested. "Why can't I just have one?" Etienne shook his head. "They'll be in and out of the dry cleaners all season, so you gotta make sure you don't get stuck without one. Ain't no substitute for black tie. You can't just show up in a sports jacket and say you forgot. And if you miss, it's a big insult, to them and to us. Get enough suits."