‘The complications of physical death,’ Grant thought. What an odd thing to say!
Grant wanted to look back to see how Maddy was taking all this—to see if she was buying any of their propaganda--but knew better than to turn his back on them. Instead, from their point of contact, Grant could feel a shiver roll through the length of Maddy’s body like a death shutter and got his answer nonetheless.
“So, all the chasing and the gunplay--I suppose all you've been doing is just trying to make this more entertaining for us?” Grant asked snidely.
After a moment’s hesitation, the Blank Man said, “You were the one who brought Pedroza into this. He added unnecessary complications.”
There’s that word again, Grant thought. Complications.
On an impulse, Grant asked with trepidation, “Did you kill him?”
Grant could see the taller man give a gallows smile. “No, but then, you probably wouldn’t have had any problem with it if we had, given your stance on the death penalty.”
Grant felt his blood run cold.
How could they have..?
Glancing around, Grant saw that the street was still empty. In that moment, he considered the wild impossibility that the two men standing between them and safety had stopped Time itself for this confrontation.
How could they have known about the private conversation he had held with Rudy unless they could read his mind? And if they could do that, what else could these men do?
Despite the sudden doubt that plagued him, Grant could feel Maddy’s firm hand squeezing his reassuringly.
“Make this go away for Grant and I'll go with you,” he heard Maddy say.
Oddly, the Blank Man held both his hands out as if offering to carry luggage for her.
“My terms,” she snapped, as her hand loosened in Grant’s.
“Yes, that's fine, Madelyne. Let's discuss this in the car,” the suited man replied, starting toward her eagerly.
As Maddy moved forward, her hand slipping out of his, Grant threw his arm out protectively.
Standing beside him, Maddy peered up into Grant’s eyes and gave him a single determined nod. I’m ready, she seemed to be saying.
“Excuse me? Is everything ok?”
Grant looked around at the sound of the new voice and saw a tall fair-haired man in his forties, dressed in a leather jacket and tie marching up to the car from the opposite side of the road. He flicked a cigarette out of his hand with a graceful, fluid motion.
Then almost like oxygen rushing back into a pressurized room, Grant felt the humid breeze of the Quarter hit his skin. And like the turning of a knob of a radio, the sound of traffic slowly became audible again along with the cascading patter of the water drops from the fountain across the street.
Grant blinked in confusion.
What the hell just happened to me?
He watched as if through another’s eyes as The Blank Man flung himself into the sedan, which forced itself back into the busy traffic of Canal Street, that had not existed only seconds before.
Had it ever been empty to begin with? Grant wondered.
Maddy stared at the sharply dressed man across the street with a mixture of confusion and wonder. “Brigham?” she managed under her breath, her voice pitched high in amazement. “What..?”
The man smiled and gave a wave. “Madelyne, is that you?”
Waiting for a lull in traffic, the man trotted across to join them. He instantly moved forward as if to embrace her then simply held her at arm’s length by the shoulders, almost as if to inspect her. When she moved in slightly, he gave her a light peck on the cheek then continued to stare at her.
Grant studied the man, his mind reeling in five directions at once. “Excuse me,” he snapped, looking up the street to reassure himself the black sedan had indeed disappeared before returning his attention to him.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Maddy muttered, ignoring Grant for the moment.
“Having a smoke... Oh, you mean in New Orleans,” the man answered with an accent--British, just not the Cockney type associated with the working class in the UK, but something further north. Geordie, he’d seemed to recall hearing it called.
“I own the Old Miss, the restaurant that just opened upstairs,” he exclaimed excitedly. “Oh, Maddy, this place is a dream. You've got to see her.”
Grant stepped forward and offered Brigham his hand. “I'm Grant.”
Brigham shook his hand without completely taking his eyes off Maddy.
“What has it been? Close to three years?” she asked him.
“Two and a half,” the Brit corrected concisely. “I simply must show you my baby.”
Maddy shifted awkwardly in place, casting a look over at Grant before nodding.
22
Striding through the expansive entrance, Brigham held Maddy’s arm as he led her through the casino, past slot machines and gaming tables, leaning down to her ear in order to be heard above the sound of cascading coins and the electronic pinging all around them.
“Wait, are you trying to tell me that you own a piece of this?” Maddy asked with wide-eyes.
“Well, I could lie to you, but I’ve never been able to pull the wool over your eyes effectively,” Brigham said, giving her arm an affectionate squeeze and tipping her a wink. “We’re still paying off the start-up loan, but we’re definitely on our way! You’ll see.”
Entering a few steps behind, Grant pushed forward with his eyes planted strategically down until nearly colliding into the bosom of an Amazonian redhead holding a Hurricane big enough to drown both her and the elderly gentleman she towed behind her.
Stepping out of their way, Grant stopped and stared around himself for the first time, his feet slowing to a complete halt. Like a child at the gates of Disneyland, his eyes glazed over and his jaw drifted slowly down as he took it all in.
It took him a few moments to realize that someone was calling out his name.
“Grant!”
Looking up in confusion, he saw that Maddy stood about ten yards away facing him as Brigham waited patiently just behind her. He was unable to engage his mind enough to move forward then wondered why he should follow her anyway.
Why are you debating this? She doesn’t need you anymore, his gut offered. After all you’ve been through, you deserve this.
No money, he answered desperately. I’m tapped out. Nothing left to wager.
Yes, that was him in a nutshell, wasn’t it? Nothing left to wager. And that was the direct result of his inability to disavow the call of that inner voice in the first place.
Suddenly, he felt a solid grip on his hand and a tug in the opposite direction and simply followed the momentum.
“Geez,” he heard Maddy mumble into his ear as he stumbled along after her. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”
Maddy gave him a gentle shove, forcing Grant into step between her and Brigham.
“By the way, whatever happened to that restaurant in Vegas?” she asked.
“Bought it. Renovated it. Flipped it. It was just a stepping stone,” the Brit replied with a hearty laugh, glancing awkwardly at Maddy and Grant’s linked hands as he held the elevator door open for them. “So what have you been up to the last two and half years, love?” he asked, settling in beside them.
“Oh, the usual.” Maddy glanced at Grant, his eyes still glued to the sights and sounds of the floor as if trying to memorize every aspect in as short a time as he could.
“Well, let’s see. You were fleeing some bad relationship when I met you and then disappeared rather abruptly again,” Brigham commented. “So, am I to take it that you’ve been continuing to avoid failed romances all this time?”
“Hmm? Let’s see. Yeah, actually that about covers it, really. Right, Grant?”
The door slid shut effectively cutting off the noise of the casino like the slamming of a bank vault door. Grant jerked slightly as if awakening from a dream. He glanced up at Maddy then down at his hand gripping hers tight
ly. He released it and gave her a smile of embarrassment. “Sorry,” he whispered in the stillness of the elevator’s piped-in music.
A moment of awkward silence ensued.
“You still managing bands?” Maddy finally asked.
“No, that lifestyle got a little… chaotic. Had to put on the brakes before too long,” he said with a sly glance casually over to Maddy, then back up at the floor numbers. “But I still have my contacts in the industry just in case this restaurant business gets a bit too dull.” He caught Grant’s eye and tipped him a wink.
“Brigham managed acts like Ludicrous Confusion and Toxic Dogs,” Maddy added.
Grant gave a shy, uncertain smile.
“And what do you do, Gram?”
“Grant,” Maddy corrected.
“Sorry, I’ve never met a Grant. I know lots of Gram’s,” he replied. Then under his breath, “Grams and ounces.” The door opened and Brigham strode through into the muffled crowd-noise of a full house with light jazz floating like a spring breeze just over the patrons’ voices.
Head down, Grant started to follow. Maddy put her hand out and touched his arm.
“You okay?” she asked, looking him in the eye.
“Yeah,” he said a little too quickly. “Listen, Maddy…”
“No seriously,” she snapped, her hands latching onto his as he tried to back away out of the elevator. “You kinda soft-balled the whole addicted to gambling thing, didn’t you? This is… a bit more significant.”
“I..,” he started to then fell silent. Giving a heavy sigh, he admitted, “Honestly, I didn’t think any of my past shit mattered anymore.”
“Why? Because you expected to die today?”
He gave her an almost apologetic look and dropped his eyes.
“How much?” she wanted to know. “How bad did it get, Grant?”
He abruptly yanked his hands out of hers. “I’m okay now,” he quipped, attempting a wry smirk at her that fell flat. “Really.”
Maddy studied him with concern as he stepped in front of the sensor to keep the elevator door open and turned slightly away, obscuring his face from Brigham’s eye-line. “I need to know if you saw this guy Brigham ahead of time? I mean, did you know this was coming?”
For a moment, she looked completely clueless. This was her default look when challenged about her hidden talent, and she fell naturally into the role before remembering that Grant knew everything.
It was odd how this little foray back into the past could cause her to lose her tentative grip on the present. Grant knew all her secrets, she had to remind herself.
She stared into his eyes for a moment searching for something more than simple concern. “No, I…” She shook her head at him. Brigham had been a complete surprise. She quietly analyzed it for the first time. How could that be?
She decided to chalk it up to putting Grant in charge and how his positioning had disrupted her normal vision. After all, she hadn’t seen Sadie either, had she?
“Madelyne,” Brigham called from behind Grant.
Grant stepped casually aside and allowed Maddy to move into the entryway of the upper-scale supper club. Behind Brigham, who conversed with an oak of a man whom she took to be the maître d', sat a roomful of well-dressed men and women in mostly suits and dresses. The supper crowd.
Maddy felt instantly awkward as she joined Grant in the center of the entrance.
The eyes of the maître d' passed over Maddy and Grant--quietly assessing who it was his boss was making such a fuss over--then back to Brigham. With a nod, he waved to the head waiter and took him aside for a few words before the waiter bustled off on his mission.
Brigham joined them with a bright smile. “We’ve got a great view of the river. That is what sold me on the place. You’ll see.”
Grant watched as Maddy cast a nervous look down at her worn shoes while Brigham gazed at her with an intensity that he’d last seen outside his apartment in Houston when a crack addict pleaded with him for money. A moment later when Maddy looked back up, the expression had disappeared but Grant’s memory of it sat like a bur deep in his sock.
“Brigham, aren’t we a little underdressed for this place?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Madelyne,” he snapped. “You couldn’t possible look any less than fantastic.”
Maddy rolled her eyes, while Grant gave Brigham a forced smile.
Brigham met his eyes and for a moment Grant saw something there that put him instantly on the defensive, then his smile reappeared as did the head waiter. “Right this way, Mr. Gordon.”
Brigham gestured for Maddy to lead the way, then stepped into stride beside Grant, giving him a firm pat on the back. “We like to keep up the profile since we stole Miles Fletcher from Manhattan, but we’ve yet to turn anyone away if they weren’t wearing a tie.”
“Miles Fletcher,” Maddy gasped in wonder, turning to look back at Grant.
Grant returned her look, but added a head-shake of confusion. “Is he good?”
“He’s one of the best chefs out there,” Maddy snapped, giving Grant a slap on the arm. “Heat of the Kitchen? Cheyenne Proper? Don’t you watch television?”
“I owned one,” he admitted. “Though I think it might have been kicked in by Rudy’s friends the other night.” At the thought of his tiny one-room apartment, Grant felt a strange mixture of feelings that was one part nostalgia and one part dread.
The wreckage of his apartment was a physical manifestation of the way he felt about his life. The mere thought of returning to Houston and settling back into his comfortable yet fatalistic rut sent chills up his spine, much like the thought of walking into a dark alley on the wrong side of the Big Easy.
What I am doing here anyway, he asked himself. Don’t I have a job to get back to?
The question hung unanswered before him as they reached a prime table at a grandiose wall of windows on a slightly elevated landing above the main floor of the restaurant—like a stage, Maddy considered with trepidation.
When the waiter reached for Maddy’s chair, Brigham made significant eye contact with him. In response, the waiter instantly lowered his head and stepped aside. Brigham smoothly took the other’s place, carefully holding the chair out for her.
Conscious of all the eyes from other patrons watching and wondering who they were to garner such special treatment, Maddy darted into her seat, wide eyes watching as an army of waiters descended upon the table.
Before Grant even reached a chair, a waiter slid a steaming plate into the space on the table before him--something so spicy that it opened his nasal passages almost violently. He took a step back as a second and third waiter set dishes down on the quickly-filling table.
Maddy glanced back and did a double-take of the view from the window behind her. “Oh my God!” she nearly shouted, attracting the curious eyes of the diners around her. “Get the hell out of here! Will you look at that view?”
Brigham beamed at Maddy and chuckled nervously—nodding apologetically to a neighboring table--as he found the chair closest to her. “See, I knew you would appreciate it.”
“Look, Grant! You can see a riverboat down there,” she called, frantically waving him over as she leaned precariously on the back two legs of her chair.
Grant leapt up and held her chair steady as he joined her at the window, for a moment forgetting the previous thought of his apartment back in Houston.
Behind them standing at his side of the table with a deepening frown, Brigham cleared his throat loudly. Maddy dropped the legs of her chair to the carpet while Grant scrambled back his seat again.
“As you can see, I took the liberty of ordering a few of my favorite appetizers for you to sample. Oh, and a round of drinks as well. I do hope you’re a whiskey man, Gram. Sorry. Grant,” Brigham corrected himself as yet another server set three drinks down. “I apologize if I’m being too rash, but sometimes my enthusiasm gets the best of me.”
As the waiter set a blue-colored martini in front of Maddy, she
gave a low chuckle and flashed a look at Brigham. “Is this a Black Orchid? You remembered my drink?”
“How could I forget? There was a time when I thought you subsisted exclusively on this particular drink.”
“That’s an amazing memory you have,” she concluded, as her wide eyes reviewed the steaming dishes arrayed before her. Crawfish gumbo. Turtle soup with sherry. Baked oysters on the half shell. Buttermilk fried frog legs.
Brigham watched with a ravenous expression. “We serve a mixture of both Creole and Cajun cuisine here. I just hope you haven’t already had your fill of New Orleans cuisine during your stay,” Brigham added.
“Are you kidding me?” Maddy replied. “Since we hit the city limits, all we’ve had are pancakes and fried chicken.”
“And beignets,” Grant reminded absently, glancing at the view outside.
“Oh, yes. And let’s not forget the beignets,” Maddy chirped, favoring Grant with a secret smile.
Brigham blinked at her in confusion, his eyes wandering to Grant, giving him a series of shame-inducing clucks of his tongue. “Well, hopefully this experience will rectify that trauma.”
“Do you serve Bananas Foster?”
“Are you kidding? The best in town.” Brigham caught the attention of one of the servers. “Andy, please put in the raspberry soufflé order now, and in addition, you will bring us a Bananas Foster with a double serving of Blue Bell.” The server nodded and started away, but at the last moment Brigham caught his arm. “Oh, and a chocolate bread pudding as well. Thank you, sir.” He turned his attention back to Maddy, his smile turning anxious. “Well, that covers nearly our entire dessert menu.”
Maddy watched Grant who stared silently down at his own bowl of gumbo.
Brigham’s smile faltered, as he whisked the ornately folded linen napkin from the table and dropped it into his lap. Clearing his throat, he lifted his drink. “Here’s to renewing old relationships.”
Maddy scooped up her glass and touched Brigham’s as Grant slowly lifted his own hesitantly behind theirs.
His eyes lingering on Maddy, Brigham prompted: “Well then, shall we begin?”
Remember the Future Page 16
