Asimov's SF, April-May 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He had about sixty thousand stacked in front of him and Mike could have covered the bet, but it wasn't a percentage play—losing would have left him with the short chip stack and it was too early in the evening to take the risk. He tried staring a hole through Pellerin, fussed with his chips, and eventually mucked his hand.

  “You're not the dumbest son-of-a-bitch who ever stole a pot from me,” he said.

  “Don't suppose I am,” said Pellerin.

  As I watched—and that is what I mainly did, push in antes and watch—it occurred to me that once he sat down, Pellerin had stopped acting like dead money, as if all his anxiety had been cured by the touch of green felt and plastic aces. He was one hell of a hold ‘em player. He never lost much and it seemed that he took down almost every big pot. Whenever he went head-to-head against somebody, he did about average ... except when he went up against Mad Mike. Him, he gutted. It was evident that he had gotten a good read on Mike. In less than two hours he had 90 percent of the man's money. He had also developed a palsy in his left hand and was paler than he had been when he'd entered.

  The door opened, the babble of the casino flowed in and a security man ushered a doe-eyed, long-legged brunette wearing a black cocktail dress into the room. She had some age on her—in her mid-thirties, I estimated—and her smile was low wattage, a depressive's smile. Nonetheless, she was an exceptionally beautiful woman with a pale olive complexion and a classically sculpted face, her hair arranged so that it fell all to one side. A shade too much make-up was her only flaw. She came up behind Pellerin, bent down, absently caressing the nape of his neck, and whispered something. He said, “You're going to have to excuse me, gentlemen. My nurse here's a real hardass. But I'll be glad to take your money again tomorrow night."

  He scooted back his chair; the brunette caught his arm and helped him to stand.

  Mike, who had taken worse beats in his career, overcame his bad mood and asked, “Where you been keeping yourself, man?"

  “Around,” said Pellerin. “But I've been inactive ‘til recently."

  * * * *

  I smelled something wrong about Pellerin. Wrong rose off him like stink off the Ninth Ward. World class poker players don't just show up, they don't materialize out of nowhere and take a hundred large off Mad Mike Morrissey, without acquiring some reputation in card rooms and small casinos. And his success wasn't due to luck. What Pellerin had done to Mike was as clean a gutting as I had ever witnessed. The next two nights, I stayed out of the game and observed. Pellerin won close to half a million, though the longest he played at a single sitting was four hours. The casino offered him a spot in the tournament, but he declined on the grounds of poor health—he was recovering from an injury, he said, and was unable to endure the long hours and stress of tournament play. My sources informed me that, according to the county records, nobody named Josey Pellerin lived in or near Lafayette. That didn't surprise me. I knew a great number of people who had found it useful to adopt another name and place of residence. I did, however, manage to dredge up some interesting background on the brunette.

  Jocundra Verret, age forty-two, single, had been employed by Tulane University nearly twenty years before, working for the late Dr. Hideki Ezawa, who had received funding during the 1980s to investigate the possible scientific basis of certain voodoo remedies. She had left the project, as they say, under a cloud. That was as much as I could gather from the redacted document that fell into my hands. After Tulane, she had worked as a private nurse until a year ago; since that time, her paychecks had been signed by the Darden Corporation, an outfit whose primary holdings were in the fields of bioengineering and medical technology. She, Pellerin, and another man, Dr. Samuel Crain, had booked a suite at Harrah's on a corporate card, the same card that paid for an adjoining suite occupied by two other men, one of whom had signed the register as D. Vader. They were bulky, efficient sorts, obviously doing duty as bodyguards.

  I had no pressing reason to look any deeper, but the mention of voodoo piqued my interest. While I was not myself a devotee, my parents had both been occasional practitioners and those childhood associations of white candles burning in storefront temples played a part in my motivation. That night, when Pellerin sat down at the table, I went searching for Ms. Verret and found her in a bar just off the casino floor, drinking a sparkling water. She had on gray slacks and a cream-colored blouse, and looked quite fetching. The bodyguards were nowhere in sight, but I knew they must be in the vicinity. I dropped onto the stool beside her and introduced myself.

  “I'm not in the mood,” she said.

  “Neither am I, cher. The doctor tells me it's permanent, but when I saw you I felt a flicker of hope."

  She ducked her head, hiding a smile. “You really need to go. I'm expecting someone."

  “Under different circumstances, I'd be delighted to stick around and let you break my heart. But sad to say, this is a business call. I was wondering how come a bunch like the Darden Corporation is bankrolling a poker player."

  Startled, she darted her eyes toward me, but quickly recovered her poise. “The people I work for are going to ask why you were talking to me,” she said evenly. “I can tell them you were hitting on me, but if you don't leave in short order, I won't be able to get away with that explanation."

  “I assume you're referring in the specific to the two large gentlemen who've got the suite next to yours. Don't you worry. They won't do anything to me."

  “It's not what they might do to you that's got me worried,” she said.

  “I see. Okay.” I got to my feet. “That being the case, perhaps it'd be best if we talked at a more opportune time. Say tomorrow morning? Around ten in the coffee shop?"

  “Please stay away from me,” she said. “I'm not going to talk to you."

  As I left the bar, I saw the bodyguards playing the dollar slots near the entrance—one glanced at me incuriously, but kept on playing. I walked down the casino steps, exiting onto Canal Street, and had a smoke. It was muggy, the stars dim. High in the west, a sickle moon was encased in an envelope of mist. I looked at the neon signs, the traffic, listened to the chatter and laughter of by-passers with drinks in their hands. Post-Katrina New Orleans pretending that it was the Big Easy, teetering on the edge of boom or bust. Though Verret had smiled at me, I could think of no easy way to hustle her, and I decided to give Billy Pitch a call and see whether he thought the matter was worth pursuing.

  I had to go through three flunkies before I got to Billy. “What you want?” he said. “You know this is Survivor night."

  “I forgot, Billy. Want me to call back? I can call back."

  “This is the two-hour finale, then the reunion show. Won't be over ‘til eleven and I'm shutting it down after that. Now you got something for me or don't you?"

  I could hear laughter in the background and I hesitated, picturing him hunched over the phone in his den, a skinny, balding white man whom you might mistake for an insurance salesman or a CPA, no doubt clad in one of his neon-colored smoking jackets.

  “Jack, you better have something good,” Billy said. “Hair's starting to sprout from my palms."

  “I'm not sure how good it is, but..."

  “I'm missing the immunity challenge. The penultimate moment of the entire season. And I got people over, you hear?"

  Billy was the only person I knew who could pronounce vowels with a hiss. I gave him the gist of it, trying not to omit any significant details, but speeding it along as best I could.

  “Interesting,” he said. “Tell me again what she said when you spoke to her."

  I repeated the conversation.

  “It would seem that Miz Verret's agenda is somewhat different from that of the Darden Corporation,” Billy said. “Otherwise, she'd have no compunction about reporting your conversation."

  “That was my take."

  “Voodoo business,” he said musingly.

  “I can't be sure it's got anything to do with voodoo."

  “Naw, this here i
s voodoo business. It has a certain taint.” Billy made a clicking noise. “I'll get back to you in the morning."

  “I was just trying to do you a favor, Billy. I don't need to be involved."

  “Honey, I know how it's supposed to work, but you're involved. I got too many eggs in my basket to be dealing with anything else right now. This pans out, I'm putting you in charge."

  * * * *

  The last thing I had wanted was to be in business with Billy Pitch. It wasn't that you couldn't make a ton of money with Billy, but he was a supremely dangerous and unpleasant human being, and he tended to be hard on his associates. Often he acted precipitately and there were more than a few widows who had received a boatload of flowers and a card containing Billy's apologies and a fat check designed to compensate for their loss and his lamentable error in judgment. In most cases, this unexpected death benefit served to expunge the ladies’ grief, but Alice Delvecchio, the common-law wife of Danny “Little Man” Prideau, accused Billy of killing her man and, shortly after the police investigation hit a dead end, she and her children disappeared. It was rumored that Billy had raised her two sons himself and that, with his guidance, hormone treatments, and the appropriate surgery, they had blossomed into lovely teenage girls, both of whom earned their keep in a brothel catering to oil workers.

  Much to my relief, no call came the following morning. I thought that Billy must have checked out Pellerin and Verret, found nothing to benefit him, and hadn't bothered getting back to me. But around ten o'clock that evening, I fielded a call from Huey Rafael, one of Billy's people. He said that Billy wanted me to run on out to an address in Abundance Square and take charge of a situation.

  “What's up?” I asked.

  “Billy says for you to get your butt over here."

  Abundance Square was in the Ninth Ward, a few blocks from the levee, and was, as far as I knew, utterly abandoned. That made me nervous.

  “I'm coming,” I said. “But I'd like to know something about the situation. So I can prepare for it, you understand."

  “You ain't need nothing to prepare you for this.” Huey's laugh was a baritone hiccup. “Got some people want watching over. Billy say you the man for the job."

  “Who are these people?” I asked, but Huey had ended the call.

  I was angry. In the past, Billy had kept a close eye on every strand of his web, but nowadays he tended to delegate authority and spent much of his time indulging his passion for reality TV. He knew more about The Amazing Race and Project Runway than he did about his business. Sooner or later, I thought, this practice was going to jump up and bite him in the ass. But as I drove toward the Ninth Ward, my natural paranoia kicked in and I began to question the wisdom of traipsing off into the middle of nowhere to hook up with a violent criminal.

  Prior to Katrina, Abundance Square had been a housing project of old-style New Orleans town homes, with courtyards and balconies all painted in pastel shades. It had been completed not long before the hurricane struck. Now it was a waste of boarded-up homes and streets lined with people's possessions. Cars, beds, lamps, bureaus, TV sets, pianos, toys, and so on, every inch of them caked with dried mud. Though I was accustomed to such sights, that night it didn't look real. My headlights threw up bizarre images that made it appear I was driving through a post-apocalyptic version of Claymation Country. I found the address, parked a couple of blocks away, and walked back to the house. A drowned stink clotted my nostrils. In the distance, I heard sirens and industrial noise, but close at hand, it was so quiet you could hear a bug jump.

  Huey answered my knock. He was a tall drink of water. Six-five, six-six, with a bluish polish to his black skin, a lean frame, pointy sideburns, and a modish goatee. He wore charcoal slacks and a high-collared camp shirt. Standing in the door, a nickel-plated .45 in hand, he might have been a bouncer at the Devil's strip club. He preceded me toward the rear of the house, to a room lit by a kerosene lantern. At its center, one of Pellerin's bodyguards was tied to a wooden chair. His head was slumped onto his chest, his face and shirt bloody. The air seemed to grow hotter.

  I balked at entering and Huey said, “What you scared of, man? Lord Vader there ain't going to harm you. Truth is, he gave it up quick for being a Jedi."

  “Where's the other guy?” I asked.

  “Man insisted on staying behind,” Huey said.

  I had a sinking feeling, a vision of the Red House at Angola, guards strapping me down for the injection. “Jesus Christ,” I said. “You tell Billy I'm not going down for murder."

  Huey caught me by the shoulder as I turned to leave and slammed me up against the wall. He bridged his forearm under my jaw, giving me the full benefit of his lavishly applied cologne, and said, “I didn't say a goddamn thing about murder, now did I?” When I remained silent, he asked me again and I squeezed out a no.

  “I got things to take care of,” he said, stepping back. “Probably take me two, three hours. Here go.” He handed me the .45 and some keys. “You get on upstairs."

  “Who's up there?"

  “The card player and his woman. Some other guy. A doctor, he say."

  “Are they...” I searched for a word that would not excite Huey. “Uninjured?"

  “Yeah, they fine."

  “And I'm supposed to keep watch, right? That's all?"

  “Billy say for you to ask some questions."

  “What about?"

  “About what they up to."

  “Well, what did he tell you?” I pointed at the bodyguard. “I need something to go on."

  “Lord Vader wasn't too clear on the subject,” said Huey. “Guess I worked him a little hard. But he did say the card player ain't a natural man."

  * * * *

  Some rooms on the second floor of the townhouse were filled with stacked cots, folding tables and chairs, and with bottled water, canned food, toilet paper, and other supplies. It seemed that Billy was planning for the end times. In a room furnished with a second-hand sofa and easy chairs, I found Verret, Pellerin, and a man in his fifties with mussed gray hair and a hangdog look about the eyes. I assumed him to be Doctor Crain. He was gagged and bound to a chair. Verret and Pellerin were leg-shackled to the sofa. On seeing me, Crain arched his eyebrows and tried to speak. Pellerin glanced up from his hand of solitaire and Verret, dressed in freshly ironed jeans and a white T-shirt, gave me a sorrowful look, as if to suggest she had expected more of me.

  “It's the night shift,” Pellerin said and went back to turning over cards.

  “Can you help us?” asked Verret.

  “What's up with him?” I pointed at Crain with the gun.

  “He annoyed our previous keeper.” Pellerin flipped over an ace and made a satisfied noise. “He's an annoying fellow. You're catching him at his best."

  “Can you help us?” Verret asked again, with emphasis.

  “Probably not.” I pulled a chair around and sat opposite the two of them. “But if you tell me what's going on with you, what's the relationship between the Darden Corporation and Tulane, the Ezawa project ... I'll try to help."

  Pellerin kept dealing, Verret gave no response, and Crain struggled with his bonds.

  “Do you know where you are?” I asked. “Let me you clue you in."

  I told them who had ordered their kidnapping, mentioning the Alice Delvecchio incident along with a couple of others, then reiterated that I could probably be of no help to them—I was an unwilling participant in the process. I was sorry things had reached this pass, but if I was going to be any help at all, they ought to tell me what was up; otherwise, I couldn't advise them on how to survive Billy Pitch.

  Verret looked to Pellerin, who said, “He ain't that damn sorry. Except where his own sorry ass is concerned."

  “Is he telling the truth?” she asked.

  “More or less."

  Crain redoubled his efforts to escape, forcing muted shouts through his gag.

  “I guess that's why you're so expert at the tables,” I said to Pellerin. “You're go
od at reading people."

  “You have no idea, Small Time,” he said.

  I wiggled the gun. “You're not in a position to be giving me attitude."

  “You going to shoot me?” He gave a sneering laugh. “I don't think so. You're about ready to piss yourself just hanging onto that thing."

  “Josey!” Verret started to stand, then remembered the shackles. “I'll tell you,” she said to me. “But I'd rather do it in private."

  Crain threw a conniption fit, heaving himself about in his chair, attempting to spit out his gag.

  “You see,” she said. “He's going to act like that every time I tell you something. I have to use the restroom, anyway."

  I undid the shackles, then I locked Crain and Pellerin in and escorted her down the hall, lagging behind a step so I could check out her butt. When she had finished in the john, we went into one of the storerooms. I set up a couple of folding chairs and we sat facing one another.

  “May I have some water?” she asked.

  “Help yourself."

  She had a drink of water, then sat primly with the plastic bottle resting on one knee. I knew I had to watch myself with her—I'd always been a sucker for tall brunettes who had that lady thing going. She must have had a sense of this, because she worked it overtime.

  “Here's what I know,” I said. “The Ezawa project was investigating voodoo remedies. And Josey Pellerin, according to your bodyguard, is not a natural man. That suggests ... well, I'm not sure. Why don't you just tell me everything?"

  “Everything? That'll take a long time.” She screwed the bottle cap on and off. “The project wasn't considered important at the outset. The only reason Ezawa got funding was because he was a golfing buddy of one of the trustees. And he was brilliant, so they were willing to give him some leeway. He isolated a bacterium present in the dirt of old slave graveyards. He used dirt from the graveyard at the Myrtles—that old house over in Saint Francisville? The bodies were buried in biodegradable coffins, or no coffins at all, and the micro-organisms in the dirt had interacted with the decomposing tissues."

  She left room for me to ask a question, but I had none.