by Hailey North
Guilt shot through Penelope. She stood accused and had no defenses. “I—uh, I was only thinking that you talk as if you know so much, and I can’t see why you’re so much smarter than I am.”
“Ahhh.” That seemed to be Mr. Gotho’s favorite expression. “Ego.”
He stood there, arms crossed against his chest, regarding her steadily.
When he didn’t say anything else, Penelope finally asked, “Ego?”
“Your ego stands in the way of your quest for Mrs. Merlin. Until you can put it aside, you will not be able to assist her.”
“But that’s ridiculous!” Penelope waved in front of Mr. Gotho’s face the list Mrs. Merlin had dictated to her. “I have everything that she needs written down here. I only need to purchase the items and I assure you I’ll be gone. It’s as simple as that.”
Mr. Gotho shook his head. “Those without a pure heart may not receive the riches of the inner sanctum of the Bayou Magick Shoppe.” He placed a firm hand on her shoulder and spun her about. “Time to go,” he said, hustling her through the hall and back across to the other side of the counter.
“When you have cleansed yourself of your ego, you may return. Please tell Mrs. Merlin it is our most sincere wish to assist her, but that you need . . . ah, let us say a bit of work. . . before you may serve as her emissary.”
“Well, of all the high-handed—” Penelope swept through the front of the store, nose in the air. She’d rarely been so insulted. Here she’d taken time on her precious day off, on Sunday, the only day of the week she didn’t work, work, work, and this man had thrown her out of the store. She had a good mind to storm back in there and tell him what she thought of him.
She looked around her. The glare from the afternoon sun bounced from the sidewalks straight back to her eyes. She needed sunglasses, something she’d have to take care of soon. Even though Chicago summers grew warm, sometimes even unbearably hot, the sun in New Orleans scorched itself into her eyes the way the northern sun never had.
“So you see I was telling ya the truth.” The street hustler popped up, again seemingly out of nowhere. “I can tell you didn’t have such a good time in that shop.”
Penelope shook her head, feeling dazed and more than a bit ruffled. What would Mrs. Merlin say when Penelope returned empty-handed? And how would she continue to entertain a visitor who demanded almost constant preparation of oatmeal, Penelope’s least favorite dish, even lower on her list than meatloaf, her mother’s other staple?
“Five dollars, I take you someplace fun,” said the man, a hopeful look on his scrawny face.
Penelope shook her head, feeling like a prize-fighter staggering back for another round. “I’ve got to go back inside,” she said. “But thank you.”
The man danced away, forming the sign of the cross in front of his chest.
Her heart sinking, Penelope reentered the shop. She walked straight to the front register where the girl with three crosses stood polishing jewelry. Surely this sweet-faced girl would help her to assemble the list. The sooner she got what she needed, the sooner her life could get back to normal.
“Hello,” Penelope said, “I have a few things I need.”
The girl smiled. “Sure. What can I get for you today?”
Penelope held forth her list.
The girl read it, her face growing grim. Then she smiled, almost too brightly, and said, “I am so sorry, but we don’t carry any of these items.”
“But that’s impossible!” Penelope snatched the list back. “I was told by a reliable source that this was the only place in the city to buy frog’s testicles and horsehair liniment and iguana jelly.” She gripped the edge of the counter, restraining her temper.
The girl turned to another customer coming up behind Penelope. “I can take you here,” she said.
The camera- and shopping-bag-laden matron pushed her way to the register, elbowing Penelope from front and center. “Good,” the shopper said, “I’ve been looking for these bat’s wings for my nephew back home. He said he just had to have them from New Orleans.”
“Oh, they’re the best,” said the salesgirl.
Penelope stood staring at her list, wondering if she was losing her mind. This shop could provide bat’s wings but not frog’s testicles?
Then she underwent a most horrible thought. Had Mrs. Merlin made her the butt of some joke? Was she up to some magickal mischief while she’d sent Penelope out on a wild goose chase?
Mrs. Merlin was probably laughing into her oatmeal at the idea of Penelope having to ask for something so unbelievably absurd as frog’s testicles!
Penelope whirled around and dashed out of the Bayou Magick Shoppe. Running much more quickly than was good for her in the July heat, she jogged toward the side street where she’d parked her car.
She’d start her own fire and hold Mrs. Merlin’s feet to it until the wee woman ‘fessed up to just what she was about.
About to step into her car, Penelope paused and glanced around her. She told herself she was relieved that the man with bedroom eyes hadn’t shown any sign of following her that morning. No doubt after her tongue-tied behavior of the night before he’d loped off after more responsive prey. Like that trollop in 39B.
She squelched a tiny bubble of disappointment. Despite the way he had of annoying her, Tony Olano definitely made her life more interesting.
“Get over him,” she muttered, watching as a short fat man in a suit trundled slowly past her on the sidewalk. He looked like a character out of a Dick Tracy comic strip, decidedly a bad guy. Penelope jumped in her car, slammed the door, and locked it.
She’d had enough of troublemakers for one day.
Chapter 9
The instant Tony spotted the man known to both law enforcers and lawbreakers as Rolo Polo tailing Penelope, he knew Squeek had been telling the truth when his old informant had sought him out late the previous evening.
Squeek had found him hours after Tony had left Penelope’s apartment—hours after Tony had sworn off using her to get to Hinson. When he’d held the earring to her ear and his finger grazed her cheek, he’d scarcely made contact. Yet that scant touch had socked him squarely in the gut. The vulnerability lurking in those blue eyes of hers haunted him.
Tony had known at that moment he couldn’t cause her any more trouble. Not if he wanted to continue facing himself in the mirror.
He hadn’t expected the vulnerability. When he’d closed in on her, her eyes appeared more like those of a gator blinded by a night hunter’s light than the eyes of a woman about to be kissed.
A damned desirable woman.
Tony shifted his vantage point behind a conveniently unlocked gate to a Bourbon Street townhouse, and pulled his scarred yo-yo, his favorite thinking aid, from a pocket of his shorts.
The funky voodoo shop lay in the residential section of Bourbon, where tourists dwindled to more manageable numbers and locals were glad of the fact. Only an occasional pack of sweating conventioneers decked out in name tags and plastic carryall bags wandered by on the street. The relative quiet gave him time to think about last night.
Last night, when he’d been about to kiss Penelope.
The yo-yo danced to within a hair’s breadth of the sidewalk before he called it back. That’s how close he’d been to kissing Penelope Sue Fields.
Just to rattle her. Shake her up. Fuss with her prissiness. Yeah, Tony, show her what she’s missing by hanging out with a guy like Hinson instead of Tony Olano.
What did Hinson have that Tony didn’t? A fat bank account? Fancy suits, lots of them. A law degree. Tony spun the yo-yo harder.
His ego told him she’d been attracted to him. His reason told him she’d been repulsed by his touch.
He checked the storefront of the Bayou Magick Shoppe. Penelope remained inside. Tony had had to hold a hand over his mouth when she’d fallen for the oldest scam on Bourbon Street.
Movement down the street caught his eye and he captured the yo-yo in his palm. A man almost as wide as he was tall, we
aring a wrinkled brown suit far too heavy for the heat, turned onto the street. He carried a colorful tourist map and was making quite a fuss over unfolding it and holding it in front of him.
Tony frowned.
Rolo Polo waddled closer, stopping not three feet from the gate that hid Tony. He finished fiddling with the map and stood staring at it, apparently trying to pass for a tourist.
Fat chance. Rolo Polo had the map upside down. Tony shook his head, wondering how a guy like Rolo kept his job as Hinson’s boss’s number one enforcer.
But then, from his years as a policeman, Tony knew a man didn’t have to be smart to be cruel.
The fat man rustled the map, then quickly swapped top for bottom. Tony chuckled under his breath, a sound that died in his throat when he considered Rolo Polo’s presence and how it impacted on the reason he’d come in search of Penelope this morning.
When he’d gone out the night before, restless and strangely discontented, Tony had paid a visit to Smokie’s on Oak Street, a disreputable bar where cigarette smoke, drunken braggarts, and the siren song of video poker machines provided what passed for ambience.
He’d gone seeking diversion. Looking for trouble is what his ma would have called it. Once inside, he’d exchanged a few hand slaps, winked at Lora and Dawn, the prostitutes Smokie pimped for, then shouldered his way to the bar, where he settled down with a Budweiser.
The beer didn’t seem as cold as usual, the TV blared more loudly than he remembered, and the bartender was a new guy who shouted at customers who didn’t tip to his satisfaction.
Feeling worse instead of better, Tony threw two bucks on the counter, daring the bartender to yell at him. The guy opened his big mouth the same moment Squeek materialized at Tony’s side.
“Where yat, my man?” Squeek, so named for the obnoxious noise he liked to make rubbing his tennis shoes on hard surfaces, raised his hand for a high-five to which Tony complied. High-fiving was a greeting Tony thought pretty silly, but Squeek never failed to greet him that way. A habit, Tony thought, that came from Squeek watching too much television both in and out of prison.
“What’s hap’ning?” Tony sat back down, keeping a sharp eye on the streetwise petty crook. Squeek had helped Tony out in the past, and, never one to forget a friend, an enemy, or an informant, Tony had done the same for Squeek.
“Not much. Not much,” Squeek said, and licked his lips.
“Give us two Buds,” Tony told the bartender, who glared at him, then down at the two dollars, but handed over the beers without giving him any lip.
Squeek’s disappeared in three long swallows. Tony replaced it, his senses gloriously alive. With Squeek there were no coincidences. If he’d found Tony, something was up—something Squeek figured was worth a lot to Tony, and by extension, to Squeek.
Halfway through his third beer, Squeek pushed away from where he’d elbowed up to the bar and jumped first forward then backward. His Air Jordans rent the air with the high-pitched rubbing noise he proudly hailed as his namesake.
“Sounding good, Squeek,” Tony said, wondering who else in Smokie’s was paying attention to Squeek’s little ritual. No matter how many times Tony had pointed out to Squeek that his habit of never failing to perform his trademark noisemaker just prior to relaying a hot tip pretty much shot his cover, Squeek still insisted on doing it.
The man grinned and plunked his elbows back onto the bar, a satisfied smile on his face. Peeling the label from his beer, he began talking to the bottle.
Not once did he glance toward Tony. Not once did he check to make sure Tony heard his words through the din of the bar.
But Tony heard.
Loud and clear.
“Your man, you know the one, the pretty boy in the suit who sent you down, he’s got some big things planned. Yeah, buddy, big things planned.” Squeek rocked closer to his bottle, working a dirty fingernail under the side of the sweating label.
The smoke in the room crawled behind Tony’s eyes as he concentrated on what Squeek had to say. The irritation only heightened his sense that something big was afoot.
“Yeah, I heard he be jumping over the broom. Soon, too. But not because his heart says to do it.” Squeek cackled. “The old man done told him he has to.”
Tony took a long swallow of his beer. He knew the expression Squeek used referred to a manner of wedding ceremony used by slaves when they’d not been permitted church weddings.
So wedding bells were ringing for Hinson.
His hand clenched on his bottle. And Hinson’s boss had ordered the deed be done.
Surely not—
Squeek went on. “Thinking of you, I says to me, Squeek, go find out who the woman is. Tell Tony and maybe Tony can mess with him.” He grinned. “You know, mess with him by messing with her. That old devil wouldn’t like being the second pig at the trough.” He cackled and looked at his empty bottle.
Tony thought about the bills he had left in his pocket. Shit. He hoped some of those singles turned out to be tens. He bought another beer for Squeek and very casually said, “So you got her name for me, right, Squeek? So I can pick something out at the bridal registry.”
Squeek slapped his thigh. “You’re a funny guy, Tony. But yeah, you right, I got her name. A funny name, though. Not so easy to say.”
Tony knew the routine. He knew better than to ask outright what Squeek required as payment in exchange for his information. Squeek had a professional’s pride.
Tony’s mental replay of the night before was abruptly interrupted when the door to the Bayou Magick Shoppe opened. Tony tore his mind back to the present, watching as Penelope hustled down the steps in quite a huff. Tony wished he’d been a fly on the wall inside the shop, but as he’d been expecting one of Rolo Polo’s flunkies to appear, he’d kept well out of sight.
Rolo Polo peered over the top of his map. Penelope paused on the sidewalk. The same dude who’d taken her for a dollar drifted over. Tony smiled. No way Penelope would let herself be taken for a ride twice. She might be sheltered from reality, but he’d bet she was a quick learner.
Suddenly she turned and reentered the shop.
Tony let his mind drift back to what Squeek had asked of him. Strangely tongue-tied, the informant had danced around his request a bit, then finally blurted it out.
“My woman needs some help.”
Tony had narrowed his eyes, figuring Squeek’s woman had gotten in trouble with the law. For Squeek, he’d do whatever he could. Never once had Squeek fed him bad information, and that was deserving of a lot. “Shoot. Tell me what the problem is.”
Squeek picked at the mess of beer labels on the bar in front of him.
Tony waited. When Squeek didn’t say anything, he prompted, “Is she in bad trouble?”
Squeek looked at him with eyes wide with disappointment. “My woman,” he said slowly, “don’t get in trouble.”
“Sorry.” Tony hadn’t meant it as an insult.
“Me and my woman, we’ve been together now for five years.” Squeek held up four fingers and the thumb of his right hand and nodded solemnly. “A long time, five years.”
Tony had to agree with that statement. It was longer than he’d managed to stay married.
“But we got no kids,” Squeek said.
Tony heard what Squeek said, but for the life of him he couldn’t see how he could help with that problem.
Squeek turned to him then, and grabbed him by the arm. “You promise to find me a doctor who can help my woman and I’ll give you Penelope Fields’s name right this minute.”
His hunch confirmed, Tony said, “You got it, Squeek.” He had no idea how to find a fertility doctor, but his ma would know. And knowing his ma, she’d talk the doctor into seeing Mrs. Squeek for free.
Tony forgot about Squeek’s problems as Penelope rushed out of the shop again. She’d been in a huff the first time she exited the shop, this time she was livid. Tony raised his brows and pocketed the yo-yo as she slapped one loafer-clad foot in front of th
e other. Watching her eat up the sidewalk, Tony reconsidered his conclusion that Penelope was a quick learner. For a woman who’d fainted from heat only the day before, she sure hadn’t learned that lesson.
Rolo Polo jammed his map into a crumpled wad and took off after her. As soon as he’d moved out of earshot, Tony slipped from behind the gate and, sticking to doorways as much as possible, kept both of them in sight.
Driving through the French Quarter toward her Warehouse District apartment, Penelope gathered steam to fuel her indignation toward Mrs. Merlin. How could she have sent her on a scavenger hunt like that?
Stuck at the red light on Canal, she watched the stream of people flowing past, among them a contrasting mix of several women, each with a baby stuck on a hip and clutching one child in hand, side by side with geeky guys in white shirts and pocket protectors in town for what had to be a computer convention. Calming slightly, Penelope reconsidered rushing straight home.
She needed facts. Cold, hard, objective information. Only from Mrs. Merlin’s lips had she heard of such a thing as candle magick. She pursed her lips in concentration. The blare of a horn behind her jerked her into motion and she swung the car sharply to the right, rather than proceeding straight ahead toward home.
She’d go to the Barnes & Noble in Metairie. She’d read about the gigantic bookstore, but never taken the time to visit. She knew enough about the city to find the freeway and find an exit that would lead her to Veterans Memorial Boulevard, which she understood to be the main drag cutting through the sprawling suburb of Metairie.
Penelope found her way there, getting lost only once, which she reckoned wasn’t too bad for someone used to relying on the El in Chicago for her transportation needs.
She knew the second she stepped into the store she could spend the day there, lose complete track of time. Fortifying herself with a cappuccino, she fought off the temptation to wander every lovely book-filled aisle and instead asked directions to the section where she might find books on magick.
Sipping her drink, she took the escalator and studied the New Age section. Intent on her law and tax studies, Penelope had never strayed into such a section in any of the many bookstores or libraries where she spent so many hours of her life.
