by Greg Herren
I hoped Levi was okay. I said a quick prayer for him.
It seemed like I waited forever, but only a few minutes passed before she finally came back. She was talking into her cell phone as she waved me to come down the passage and join her in the dark courtyard. She was standing inside a yellow cone of light being cast from one of the fixtures on the back staircase—but it was much darker back there than usual. Millie and Velma liked to keep all the courtyard lights on all night.
My legs were wobbly. I let the gate slam shut behind me. I put my hands against the walls on either side of the passageway to help me keep my balance. When I reached Venus, she was putting her gun back into its holster.
“Is he—” I asked, afraid to hear her answer.
“He’s not there,” she said, giving me a look I didn’t like. “His door is wide open, but there’s no sign of him.” She folded her arms, her face carved from stone. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? And don’t leave anything out.”
Chapter Four
THE MOON
Unforeseen perils
Venus finally left just before midnight.
Frankly, I was beginning to think she would never leave. She’s a good cop, which means she is very thorough. She’d made me go over my encounter with Levi so many times I’d begun to feel like I was reciting from a script. She’d taken lots of notes, her face impassive. Any time I started speculating, she’d cut me off with a curt “Stick to the facts, Scotty.” Properly humbled, I’d shut up and wait for her next question. Finally, she closed her notepad and put it into her jacket pocket.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked.
She gave me a look that made me squirm a bit. “We?” she replied, a faint smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “We aren’t going to do anything. You, on the other hand, are going to play nice with the police for once.”
“I’ve always played nice with the police,” I objected. “Name one time I didn’t cooperate.”
Her smile broadened. “I don’t have all night.” She stood up and stretched. “All right. This is what I’m going to do. I’ll get in touch with the police up in Ohio and see what I can find out about this Marty Gretsch’s murder, okay? There may be a connection, there may not be.” I started to protest but she held her hand up for silence. “It’s a starting place, at any rate. But from all indications, Garrett wasn’t tortured before he went off the balcony. And you only have this Levi’s word about this murder in Ohio.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I would like to talk to him.”
“Are you going to put out an APB?”
Her smile faded a bit. “Don’t use police lingo, Scotty.” She sighed. “I really can’t do a whole lot until he’s been missing for twenty-four hours. For all we know, he might be out on Bourbon Street and just left his door unlocked.”
“But—”
She held up her hand again. “If he shows up, call me. I don’t care what time it is, you call me. Got it?”
I nodded.
She glanced at her watch. “All right, I’m heading back to the station.”
I walked her out and shut the gate behind her.
I took a deep breath and started climbing the back stairs. I thought about knocking on Millie and Velma’s door, but it was late. They hadn’t responded earlier when we’d knocked, but they might have come back home while Venus was grilling me. They wouldn’t be happy to be awakened—they never were—and I was too tired to deal with a pair of angry lesbians.
All I wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and go to bed. You need to call your mother and tell her about Doc, I lectured myself.
I didn’t want to make the call.
But when I got to my own door, I hesitated. I looked up the stairs. Venus was a good cop, which meant she never bent the rules. She had probably just gone up there, made sure he wasn’t there, and that was it. Bound by rules of admissible evidence, she wouldn’t have searched the place. My word was not enough probable cause for her to search the place, and if there was no “in plain sight” evidence that Levi had been taken against his will, her hands were tied.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t there for someone with a little less scruples to find.
I went into my apartment and scrounged around in my kitchen junk drawer. Millie and Velma had given me keys to every door in the building, in case of an “emergency.” They’d never told me exactly what qualified as an emergency, but I had never once abused their trust by using my keys to go anywhere I wasn’t supposed to—like their apartment or the carriage house on the back side of the courtyard where they stored things. They might not like the idea of me going into Levi’s apartment without his permission, but I felt I could make a pretty strong argument to justify my quasi-legal entry. But where were the damned keys? The junk drawer was a mess. Frank and I both just threw things in there that didn’t have a specific home elsewhere. Whenever I had to try to find something in there, I always swore I would clean it out and organize it—and promptly forgot the vow once I found what I was looking for. I started digging through the mess—cigarette lighters, key rings, stamps, blank envelopes, old clogged pipes, paper clips—and began to fume with irritation. Tomorrow I am cleaning out this stupid thing, I swore just as I spotted the Saints key ring. With a smile of triumph, I grabbed it and slammed the drawer shut.
Millie was a little anal, so each key had a label taped to it.
Feeling enormously proud of myself, I made sure the key marked APT 4 was on the ring before heading out the door.
It was raining again, and it had gotten even colder. I shivered and started up the stairs to the fourth floor.
I hadn’t been up there since I helped Frank move down into my apartment. Back in the days when there’d been the three of us, he and the Liar had shared the fourth-floor apartment. We spent most of our time down in my apartment, but once the Liar was gone, it just didn’t make sense to keep both apartments. We converted my spare bedroom into a room for Frank to keep his clothes and things in, and left the guest bed there. I’d never liked going up to the fourth floor much, frankly. Even though my apartment was pretty high up, going up to the fourth always gave me a touch of vertigo. The first three floors all had sixteen-foot ceilings, so the top floor was at least fifty feet up in the air. The wind always seemed more blustery and stronger the closer you got up there, and it didn’t take a lot of imagination to see the wind blowing me right off the stairs and falling to my death in the courtyard.
An overactive imagination can be a curse sometimes.
Finally, I got to the top landing. The bright yellow light outside the door lit up the landing pretty well. It was also the smallest landing, and even though the building had been rebuilt after the fire four years ago, it had a slight downward tilt from the building settling. Right by the railing overlooking the courtyard was a small metal ladder attached to the wall by screws that led up to the trap door that opened onto the roof. Other than roofers, no one ever went up there.
There wasn’t enough money in the world to make me climb that ladder. For one thing, you had to hold on with one hand while opening the trap door, and the ladder was too close to the edge for me. One slip and next stop—the courtyard.
I tried the doorknob but it didn’t open. Venus must have locked the door behind her when she’d left. I slipped the key into the lock and smiled when I heard the deadbolt slide back. I opened the door and flipped the light switch.
All three apartments had the exact same floor plan. The front door opened into a hallway. The two bedrooms were to the left, with a bathroom located in between them. On the right wall, just inside the outside door, was a door to a massive closet. The kitchen was the next door on the right, and the hallway ended in a one huge room sectioned off into a living room and a dining area. On the far wall of the lower-floor apartments were three sets of French doors that opened out into the balconies. The fourth-floor apartment didn’t have a balcony, so there were only windows on that wall.
Levi’s hallway was bare. No tables, nothing
on the walls, and no rugs. I opened the closet door and flicked on the switch. It was empty, not even empty boxes from when he’d moved in. The floor was dusty, and cobwebs hung in the corners near the ceiling. I turned the light off and crossed the hall to the first bedroom.
It, too, was empty. No furniture, nothing. I closed the door and headed into the bathroom.
The bathroom was spotless—which I wasn’t expecting. Given Levi’s age and sexual preference, I was expecting a bathroom that bordered on being a public health hazard. But the sink and the counter gleamed in the light. The toilet was scrubbed clean. There were no telltale spots of toothpaste on the mirror like there were on mine. The only thing on the counter was a small, clean glass. I opened the medicine cabinet. On the bottom shelf were his razor and shaving cream. The second shelf held his toothbrush and a rolled-up tube of toothpaste. The top shelf held a bottle of face wash designed to fight acne. I smiled a little—I’d used that brand when I was in high school.
I closed the door and looked at the shower. The bathtub was completely clean. There were no hairs or soap build-up in the drain. A huge purple bath towel was drying on the rack for the shower curtain. The floor mat next to the tub matched the towel. Underneath the sink I found more rolled-up purple towels, and a stash of toilet paper, along with a toilet brush and other cleaning supplies inside a blue plastic bucket.
I walked into the kitchen. The refrigerator was empty other than a half-empty gallon jug of milk, a six-pack of Diet Dr Pepper, and some sandwich meat in plastic containers. There was nothing in the freezer. A quick glance through the kitchen cabinets revealed some inexpensive dishes and glasses, a box of Honey Nut Cheerios, and an unopened loaf of bread. The rest of the cabinets were empty, as were the drawers, except for one filled with local take-out menus and some cheap flatware.
The bedroom he used, on the other hand, was a little sloppier. The shorts and T-shirt he’d been wearing when he’d come down to my apartment were thrown into a corner on top of some other dirty clothing. The single bed was unmade. A can of Diet Dr Pepper sat on the nightstand, along with an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and ashes. A straight porn magazine was open to a quite nauseating picture of a large-breasted bleached blonde servicing two well-endowed, tattooed men who looked a little malnourished. All that was in the nightstand drawer was an opened box of condoms.
Definitely straight, I thought as I tore my eyes away from the lurid magazine.
The walk-in closet was next. As I opened the door and reached for the light switch, it crossed my mind that if Levi had just gone bar-hopping I was seriously invading his privacy, and it would probably be best if I got out of there—
The closet flooded with light, and I whistled to myself.
The closet was a walk-in, just like the ones in my bedrooms. At eye level was a shelf that ran along one wall, across the back, and back up the other side. To my left hung the shirts I was accustomed to seeing Levi in: sweatshirts and sports team jerseys. Dirty, worn-out running shoes were placed neatly on the shelf above. There was a pile of cheap-looking cotton boxer shorts neatly folded next to the shoes, and beyond that were the unflattering shorts he usually wore. On that side of the closet, everything was as it should have been.
But the right side was a completely different story. I pulled down a pair of expensive-looking black leather shoes and checked the inside sole for the brand name. I whistled. Storm wore that brand, and they cost a minimum of $200 a pair. There was a black wool suit with a Versace label, Dolce and Gabbana slacks, shirts from Hilfiger. Next to the designer shoes on the upper shelf were two stacks of brief-style underwear, all with designer labels.
I remembered him saying to me, I’ve got money.
I put the underwear back on the shelf. Apparently, he hadn’t been kidding.
I closed the closet door and walked out into the living room, thinking.
He’d said his grandfather had a farm, and he was a college student. That had, to me, implied poverty.
I heard my mother sneer in my head, Classist. Just because his grandfather was a farmer didn’t mean they were poor.
But it wasn’t just the farming thing, I answered her back in my head. The way he dressed—and from the closet, it looked like he deliberately chose to dress that way to create the impression of a poor college student. Why, for example, would a college student need all those expensive dress clothes, or shoes that cost over two hundred dollars a pair?
He wouldn’t.
There was nothing of interest in the living room. His laptop sat on a computer desk in the dining area, but it was password locked. The computer desk drawers were empty, other than a bankbook from the Whitney Bank, an old-time New Orleans bank. I opened it.
The balance showed $523,000. The account had been opened the day Levi had moved in here. There had been two withdrawals since then, both for twenty thousand dollars, two weeks apart.
What on earth did he spend forty thousand dollars on in the last month?
The clothes? Maybe, but it didn’t seem like there were forty thousand dollars’ worth of clothes in there. They were expensive, but still.
What the hell is going on?
I put the bankbook back and turned off the lights, locking the door behind me. A cold blast of wind almost knocked me back against the door. Shivering, I started down the stairs when I thought I heard something.
I stopped, and listened.
It sounded like it came from the roof.
I went back up to the landing and waited for a few moments. It was your imagination, I scolded myself, and headed downstairs.
Once inside my apartment, I headed for the couch and plopped down. I reached for the half-joint I’d left before going to Tea Dance in the ashtray and froze with the lighter halfway to my mouth.
Great. I’d left it sitting right there in plain sight with a New Orleans police detective in my apartment.
“Who are you, Levi Gretsch, and where are you?” I asked out loud as I blew a plume of smoke toward the ceiling. The money and the clothes—they didn’t fit in with the image Levi projected. But to be fair, maybe he wasn’t trying to project an image. I’d made assumptions, based on his age and what he wore whenever I saw him.
And if you hadn’t invaded his privacy, you wouldn’t know any different.
As I sat there on the couch, I started feeling overwhelmed. Okay, some of it was probably the pot intensifying things, but still. A little over eight hours ago I was riding in the Easter Parade, not a care in the world. Now my client might be missing, and—
Doc is dead.
I fought the feeling off. There was nothing I could do for Doc, but Levi was still alive—so what I should be doing was focusing on finding him. At least, I hoped Levi was still alive. It was possible Venus was right—this was the French Quarter, after all. He could have just wandered off, maybe gone barhopping, or hooked up with some girl on craigslist. It was also possible he hadn’t pulled his door completely shut, which was why the latch hadn’t caught. But that explanation didn’t cover why the gate hadn’t been closed, and it was the gate that concerned me more than anything else.
Or maybe I was just making too much out of everything. Maybe Doc’s murder—oh, sweet Goddess, Doc is dead—and the similarities between that murder and the story Levi had told me were playing havoc with my imagination.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to Levi’s disappearance than the simpler explanations.
I reached under the couch and pulled out the box with my ancient deck of tarot cards. I hardly used them anymore—since the levees failed, the few times I tried to read them had been utter failures. But I always kept them under the couch, where I always had, and figured it was worth a shot. I’d already had two episodes; maybe the Gift was coming back. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I lit the white candles I always kept on the coffee table, and sat down on the floor and cleared my mind. When I felt peace, I opened the box and slipped out the deck of cards, wrapped in a white si
lk scarf for purity. The deck felt warm and alive in my hands. I clasped them with both hands, closed my eyes, and offered a prayer to the Goddess. I unwrapped the deck and shuffled.
They felt good in my hands.
I sent my question out into the universe, and laid the cards out.
An untrustworthy figure from your past will return and possibly cause problems.
There is danger from the past that must be faced.
A handsome young man is not who he seems.
Pray for a brave heart.
I frowned. Well, that was much clearer than many of the other readings I’d done, but it still didn’t tell me a whole lot. An untrustworthy figure from your past…
My mind went back to that moment on the float as we passed Oz. Surely—
No, I dismissed that thought immediately. That had been my imagination, surely. Colin could never come back to New Orleans. He was wanted for murder.
When we’d first met, Colin had told me he was a cat burglar. That was just the first of the many lies he’d told me. Frank and I thought he worked for an international detective agency, the Blackledge Agency, and we had even thought we worked for them as well. It wasn’t until after Colin had murdered two people that we found out his real name was Abram Golden, and he not only didn’t work for the Blackledge Agency, he was actually a paid assassin. He’d fled the country before getting caught, leaving everything he had behind him.
It had been hard getting over that, but Frank and I had managed. There was bitterness and anger, hurt and fury to get past. Time actually does heal—that isn’t just an annoying platitude. When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans and the levees failed, we all got a little perspective over what’s important and what wasn’t. I’d always had the feeling, though, that we weren’t done with Colin.
I picked up the cards and put them away, taking another hit off the joint. You need to call your mother, an annoying little voice reminded me. I emptied my beer and went into the kitchen to get another one. As I opened the refrigerator door, I noticed the light on my answering machine was blinking, and the digital 1 was lit up. Wondering if Frank had called back for some reason, I reached over and hit the Play Message button as I took a swig from the beer.
