Dragons Wild

by Robert Asprin

  “Well, any gambler needs good luck,” Jerome said, resuming his walk. “Just keep listening to your instincts. So far they’re the best thing you have going for you.”

  Jerome’s words stayed with Griffen, and he gave them considerable food for thought. He had always been good at reading people and situations…something he was now being told was part of his dragon heritage. Now that he was consciously thinking about it, however, his senses and observations seemed heightened to a new level.

  Now, whenever he walked down the street or sat down in a bar or restaurant, he was aware of who was looking at him and who wasn’t. More particularly, of those who looked at him, he was building a sense of who was friendly, who was curious, who was neutral, and who seemed to be harboring some kind of hostility.

  For the most part, the tourists and conventioneers barely glanced at him, if that. Of the locals, whether if was due to his new found notoriety or simply the fact that more and more people were recognizing him as a Quarter regular, he found an increasing percentage noting his presence and tracking his movements with the casual attention a veld full of antelope will give to a strolling lion.

  It was both unsettling and exhilarating at the same time. Back up north when he walked across the campus, he had been all but invisible, his passing noticed by only a scattered handful of acquaintances. Here in the Quarter, while the transients were oblivious to his presence, he was being watched by the locals as a power to be reckoned with.

  One night, he was walking Fox Lisa back to her apartment. She had called him from her bartending job and suggested that he pick her up when she got off work so they could spend some time together, and he had complied.

  It was a weekday night, so the side streets were virtually deserted except for a few single pedestrians either making their way home or to a late-night club for a nightcap. The weather was pleasant, if warm, and he enjoyed her company as she clung to his arm and chatted about the problems that had arisen on her shift, obviously decompressing now that she was off duty.

  All at once, the night felt wrong.

  There was nothing tangible or specific that had changed, but he suddenly realized he was feeling edgy and a bit tense, as if there was static electricity dancing just above his skin.

  A month ago he would have shrugged it off as a mood swing. Now, however, he surreptitiously swept the street ahead with his eyes.

  Nothing in particular caught his attention, but the feeling persisted.

  Leaning down slightly to kiss the top of her head, he glanced behind them.

  One guy walking alone on the far side of the street about a half block back. No feeling of threat there.

  He looked ahead again.

  There was a man standing in the shadows twenty feet ahead, partially hidden by the cement steps running up to an apartment door. It looked like he was tying his shoelace, but it seemed to be taking him a long time to do it.

  The setup didn’t seem to match the way Mose described the George operating, but he figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

  He kissed the top of Lisa’s head again and murmured in her ear.

  “Don’t like the looks of the guy ahead, there. Be ready to get behind me.”

  With that he straightened again and continued walking, casually putting his hand on the knife in his pants pocket.

  Angling their path so it slanted closer to the curb, he stopped about eight feet short of the man in question and made as if to kiss Lisa on the lips.

  The man came out of the shadows and started toward them, one hand hidden in his pocket.

  Griffen moved a step forward, steering Lisa behind him with his left hand.

  “Can we do something for you?” he called while the man was still six feet away.

  The man continued toward them.

  “I was wondering if you could…”

  “Hold it right there!”

  Griffen realized with a start that Fox Lisa was beside him, a small, black, automatic pistol in her hand leveled at the man in front of them.

  The man froze in his tracks.

  “Let’s see your other hand…and it better come out empty.”

  The man slowly removed his hand from his pocket and held it empty at shoulder height.

  “I don’t want no trouble,” he said. Soothingly.

  “You got him?”

  The call came from the far side of the street. Griffen glanced back and recognized the man who had been walking behind them as one of the two men who had been shooting pool in the Irish pub when he and Jerome had met with Gris-gris.

  “I got him,” Lisa called back. “Make sure he’s alone.”

  The shadower waved and moved on ahead.

  The man under the gun hadn’t moved, but he kept glancing nervously down the street behind him and muttering softly to himself.

  Fox Lisa took two steps forward, her weapon still leveled, and jerked her head toward Griffen.

  “I want you to take a long look at this man,” she instructed. “Do you know who he is?”

  The man stared at Griffen and shook his head.

  “This is Griffen McCandles,” she said, drawing the name out for emphasis. “You may have heard of him. He’ll be taking over Mose’s business.”

  The man stared harder at Griffen and said something that sounded apologetic.

  “Remember him and tell your friends they can save themselves a load of trouble if they walk wide around him. Understand me?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “All right. Get moving and don’t let us see you again tonight.”

  The man turned and sprinted away down the street.

  “That was a good call,” Lisa said as she returned her automatic to the pocket in the back of the fanny pack she was wearing. “Most people wouldn’t have spotted…What?”

  Griffen continued staring at her.

  She cocked her head and frowned.

  “Is something wrong, lover?”

  “You’re carrying a gun,” he said.

  “Yeah. So? Sometimes it comes in handy…like tonight.”

  “It’s just…I’ve never known anyone who carried a gun before.”

  “That’s right. I keep forgetting you’re from up north.” She flashed him a quick grin. “Well, you’re in the South now, and a lot of people carry. It’s even worse over in Texas.”

  “Isn’t that illegal or something?” Griffen managed at last.

  Again the grin.

  “So’s gambling, but we do it anyway. No. Seriously. It’s not that hard to get a concealed weapons permit here in New Orleans. Especially if you live in the Quarter and have to go out at night. Of course, being a girl helps. Anyway, all you have to do is take a class and get certified so they know you won’t shoot anyone including yourself accidentally. Other than that, the only big rule is that you can’t carry in a bar.”

  “But you…”

  “Think a minute, lover. How often have you seen me peel off my fanny pack as I walked into a bar and asked them to hold it behind the counter for me?”

  Griffen realized it was almost a habitual routine for her.

  “I thought you were just doing that because it was like a purse to you and you didn’t want to have to keep watching it all the time.”

  “That, too,” Lisa said. “Still, it keeps me within the rules. Any other questions?”

  Griffen nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Who was the other guy?”

  “Who? The one I ran off?”

  “No. I meant the guy on the other side of the street,” Griffen said. “The one that was hanging back until the action started. He called to be certain you had things in hand.”

  “Oh. That guy.”

  “Uh-huh. You seemed to know each other.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Let me try to make this easier for you,” Griffen said. “Unless I’m mistaken, he was shooting pool on the back table at the Irish pub the afternoon Jerome and I met with Gris-gris. Am I right?”

  “Well, ye
s.”

  “Let me take this one step further. Am I being body-guarded? Did Jerome or Mose hire you and the others to cover me?”

  “Not really hire, even though I have done that kind of work for pickup money sometimes. It was more like Jerome asked for a favor. He asked me and a few others to try and keep an eye on you while you were getting used to the city.”

  She cocked her head and narrowed one eye. Griffen seemed hesitant.

  “Don’t even go there, lover. Not if we’re going to stay friends.”

  “What?”

  “I’m betting your next question was going to be whether or not Jerome asked me to go to bed with you. That’s dangerously close to calling me a working girl. I’ll go ahead and tell you so you won’t have to ask. The subject never came up. All he asked was that I keep an eye on you, and I can do that without sleeping with you. Clear?”

  Griffen winced inwardly at her assumption, but didn’t think the truth of what he had thought would be very comforting—a gun against someone who professionally killed dragons didn’t seem a fair match. He really didn’t want to risk his lover, bodyguard or not, against a true killer.

  “Crystal clear,” he said.

  “Fine. Anything else?”

  Griffen thought for a moment.

  “Okay,” he said. “What do you know about dragons?”

  “Dragons?” Lisa said frowning. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  He smiled and gathered her arm in his again.

  “Just curious,” he said.

  Nineteen

  Yo Mama’s Bar and Grill was a shotgun-style bar just off Bourbon Street across from Preservation Hall and Pat O’Brien’s. Other than a small upstairs dance floor, there was nothing to distinguish it from any of the dozens of bars in the area except its selection of tequilas and that it served the best hamburgers in the Quarter.

  Griffen had discovered it his first week in town and had taken to stopping in two or three times a week. While the local cuisine was interesting and he had made a point of trying the gumbos and jambalayas, he still favored a basic burger or Chinese meal when his stomach demanded something familiar. When he found out that the regular graveyard shift bartender, Padre, shared his love of old movies and trivia, it cemented Yo Mama’s as one of his hangouts of preference.

  One of the few difficulties was determining exactly when was a good time to drop in. Too early in the evening, and the place was packed with tourists. Too late, and it was full of service industry people stopping in for a drink and a burger before going home or moving on to another club.

  Usually, Griffen tried to stop in somewhere between eleven at night and one in the morning. While never empty, the crowd had usually thinned enough at that point that he could chat with Padre without interrupting the flow of service.

  This particular evening, he was seated at one of the booths enjoying a Peanut Butter Burger with a baked potato while idly watching a movie on AMC on one of the televisions that bracketed the bar. Specifically, it was The Great Escape, which he had seen often enough that he could almost recite the dialogue without the closed caption subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

  A heavyset biker type came in and began to walk down the bar with a heavy, almost lurching step.

  This in itself was not unusual, as this stretch of St. Peter was a favorite gathering point for the bikers, and they would wander in and out of three or four bars with their beers while joking with each other or comparing the relative merits of their bikes. For the most part, they kept to themselves and didn’t hassle anyone, so they were generally treated like any other customer.

  Something about this newcomer, however, caught Griffen’s eye. Mildly curious, he watched the man, trying to figure out what made him different.

  On the surface, he seemed not unlike the standard issue biker. Medium-length dark hair that looked like it could use washing, a thick mustache perched in the middle of a heavy-jowled face with a couple days’ beard growth adorning it, black T-shirt with the arms cut off, blue jeans with a chain running from the belt to somewhere in his back pocket, and scuffed black boots. Still, there was something…

  Griffen suddenly realized that the man was not interacting with anyone. Usually, when one of the bikers came in, he would nod to the bartender and greet any other bikers in the place, even if just with a wave.

  This man was just walking along, glancing neither right nor left, with his eyes fixed on something on the back wall. Without looking back, Griffen knew there was nothing on the wall the man was staring at. It was simply that unfocused gaze of someone who was totally out of it…or who was watching everything without looking directly at any specific point.

  Griffen glanced over at Padre. The bartender was standing blank faced, showing no reaction to the man, not even a glance.

  Then he noticed that the group of three bikers at the front of the bar were putting money on the counter and gathering up their beers with a quiet, forced casualness.

  At this point, the pieces began to add up, and Griffen was not even a little surprised when the man slid into the booth with him, still not looking at anything.

  “Is there something I can help you with, officer?” Griffen said, pushing his plate to one side.

  The eyes finally focused and the man gave him a long stare. Griffen stared back. At last, the man gave a small nod as if something had been confirmed to him.

  “Detective Harrison,” he said. “Vice.”

  Griffen had not had that much experience dealing with the police. If anything, he avoided them like the plague. While he generally respected them for doing a job he wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, it always made him a bit uneasy to be around anyone who held automatic authority over him.

  Perhaps if he hadn’t just been watching a movie involving Allied POWs outwitting their German captors, he would have reacted differently. As it was, he felt an overwhelming impulse to give this man a hard time.

  “I repeat: Is there something I can help you with?”

  “You’re Griffen McCandles,” the detective said, ignoring the question. “Word is that you’re taking over for Mose.”

  “Mose who?” Griffen said, deadpan.

  Harrison stared at him for a moment, then heaved a big sigh.

  “Look, kid,” he said. “I ain’t wired or trying to trick you. Don’t worry, and don’t try to be cute. Just to keep things straight, let me fill in a few pieces for you.”

  He leaned back in his seat.

  “Mose’s games…the operation you’re slated to take over…it’s protected. Not a grift or payoff, at least not much. I figure some palms are greased somewhere, but mostly he’s protected ’cause a lot of the powers that be who run this city also sit in on his games. The word is that we’re supposed to leave them be, just in case some politicos get caught in a raid. We couldn’t spring them without letting everyone else go and that shit would be too embarrassing to tolerate. For them, and for me…us. What I’m tryin’ to say is, I’m not tryin’ to trip you up or trick you into self-incrimination.”

  “Okay,” Griffen said. “But I still don’t know what you’re talking to me for.”

  Harrison’s eyes closed slowly, and when they opened again they were flat and expressionless.

  “I just thought it would be nice if we met face-to-face,” he said. “Clear the air, so to speak. Also, if you struck me as solid, I thought I’d ask a favor of you.”

  Griffen shrugged.

  “I suppose…if it’s within reason.”

  The detective leaned forward and gave a humorless grin.

  “You’re new in town, Griffen. Still getting used to the way we do things down here. All I’d ask is that you don’t make it too hard for us to turn a blind eye to your doings.”

  “Like how, specifically?”

  “Oh, nothing much. Don’t be too loud and open with illegal games that should be secret. Keep a lid on things much as anyone can around here. And if you should happen to end up with a body at one of your
games, could you drag it outside or maybe even break up the game before you call the cops? That way we don’t have to ignore what’s going on around it. It’s a little thing, but we’d appreciate it.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Griffen said.

  “Good. Glad we understand each other.”

  The detective started to slide out of the booth.

  “Is there any chance you could do me a favor in return?”

  The policeman froze, then slowly turned his head to stare.

  “You want me to do you a favor?” he said slowly.

  “Nothing big.” Griffen shrugged. “Obviously you can say ‘no’ if you don’t want to do it.”

  The detective sank back into his seat and twitched his fingers in a “give it to me” gesture.

  “Like you said, Detective, I’m just a kid. I’m still learning how things work.” Griffen hesitated a second. “One of the things I’ve heard, though, is that the police don’t like the Feds messing in local affairs. Is that right?”

  “Keep talking,” Harrison said.

  “Well, I’ve picked up a rumor that I’ve been targeted by someone in Homeland Security. A guy by the name of Stoner. Word is that he’s looking for me and might use his federal clout to have law enforcement across the country help him find out where I am and what I’m doing.”

  The detective leaned back and cocked his head.

  “Exactly what have you done to earn that kind of heat?”

  “I really don’t know, sir,” Griffen said as sincerely as he could manage. “I just graduated from college about a month ago. Other than running a few card games while I was in school to pick up some pocket money, and this thing I am doing now with Mose, I can’t think of a single thing that would warrant that kind of attention. That’s part of what makes me nervous.”

  Not as nervous as the George made him, but at least it was clear that Stoner and George were unconnected. Their styles seemed far too different.