From Griffen’s perspective, the French Quarter by day was a whole new world. By the time he normally got out and about, galleries and shops were closing, restaurants had already switched to dinner menus, and happy hour specials were nonexistent. Always before, when he had been out and about in the day, it had been with a specific purpose in mind. The shopping trip to improve his wardrobe, for example. Now he was just wandering, adrift and curious.
Bourbon Street showed some of the most dramatic changes. Oh, there were still tourists wandering in search of beads and booze. They were fewer, though, and seemed just a bit out of place. As if everyone else had gotten the menu of when the party started, and they missed the note.
What surprised him were the trucks. Bourbon was foot traffic only at night, so it was during the day that deliveries got made. Trucks delivering beer and soda, food and supplies, or just UPS delivering the occasional package were parked up and down the street. Strong men with pushcarts loaded with kegs and boxes moved in a steady stream, preparing the businesses for the night to come.
After a few glances into various bars and hot spots, Griffen decided against visiting the Irish pub. He didn’t really want to see it empty. Or worse, occupied with that certain kind of drunk who really had no place to go. Those desperate, lonely souls were depressing drinking company at best, and though they were around at night, they seemed to disappear into the throng. In the light of day they seemed more apparent. Though he didn’t really expect them in the Irish pub, he decided against taking the chance.
He wandered toward a little bar half a block off Bourbon. At night, it was a homey kind of place, full of service-industry workers, locals, and low-key tourists with more sense than most. He was curious, as close as it was to Bourbon, just what it would be like during the day. Especially since they didn’t serve food, so wouldn’t be attracting much of the lunchtime crowd.
It was empty. The music from the jukebox was turned down low, the twin TVs were muted, and not a soul sat at the bar. The daytime bartender sat engrossed in a novel. She carefully turned the page, put in a marker, and set it down before looking up. When she finally saw Griffen, her face split into an impish grin. He was so surprised he hadn’t yet managed a second step into the bar.
“So, what will it be, Big Brother?”
“Valerie?!”
“No, I’m her evil twin, hidden from you for all these years. You’re letting all my air-conditioning out. Come in and shut the door.”
Valerie stood and started to pour Griffen’s usual. He closed the door, and dazedly took a seat at the bar. As she put the drink in front of him she looked him over critically, smile fading slightly.
“Wow, I didn’t expect you to be near this shell-shocked. I’m going to be charitable and attribute it to a hangover,” she said.
“Well…that is part of it. Just surprised; why didn’t you tell me you got a job?”
Just what she needed, Griffen thought. A regular schedule. All the easier for an assassin to find her.
“Mmm, maybe because I just got it yesterday, and you didn’t get in till seven this morning. I thought sleep just might be a good thing before I joined the workforce.”
“Congratulations, Sis. I didn’t even know you were looking for work.”
“I noticed. That will be four-fifty for the drink by the way. And you better tip. I know where you live.”
Griffen couldn’t help but laugh as he pulled out his wallet. He watched as she made change, and had to admit to himself that she could probably make a killing at the job. Personality, wit, and tight jeans would pretty much guarantee her popularity, with local and tourist alike. Still, something bothered him slightly about the whole thing. She pretended not to watch him as he laid a few bills out of his change for tip.
He also quelled his fears, helped with a few sips of his Irish. The George seemed good enough to find her regular schedule or no. Not a comforting thought, though a little amusing. His personal stalker and possible murderer was professional enough he didn’t have to worry more. Griffen felt like toasting the irony.
“So, how’s the job so far?”
“Are you kidding? Daytime shift may be the most boring thing I’ve every experienced. I’ve sat through English lit classes more thrilling.”
“How long till they get you on nighttime then?”
“Well, I’m swing shift relief now. So I’ll play bar back till I learn the ropes. Figure a couple of weeks to a month.”
“Don’t you need some type of licensing or paperwork in this town for a bartender’s job?”
“Well, uh…let’s just say you aren’t the only one who can enjoy this dragon game sometimes. The paperwork has been ‘taken care of’ for me.”
Brother and sister shared a laugh and Griffen sipped his drink. The alcohol really did help him shrug off the lingering effects from the night before. As he rolled it around on his tongue, he looked over Valerie again, more speculatively. She quirked an eyebrow at him.
“What?” she said.
“No, I think the question was why.”
“Why what?” Her tone was just a bit hard-edged, just a touch dangerous.
“Why this, why the job? It seems just a bit…odd.”
“Yeah, well, so does most of our lives for the past several weeks.”
Valerie started pacing behind the bar, fidgeting with the bar rag and searching for words. She stopped and looked over Griffen, just as he had her. She shrugged her shoulders and leaned against the bar, seemingly at ease. The tension in her shoulders and back was obvious, though.
“Mainly, I was bored.”
“More bored than this?” Griffen waved at the empty bar.
“Well, a different kind of bored I guess. I mean really, Griffen. I dropped out of school; I hopped down to New Orleans. There is only so much lounging around a girl can do.”
“Well, how about going back to school? Transferring credits into LSU or Tulane?”
“Oh, please. I had given up on my degree a while ago; it didn’t interest me in the least anymore. I just didn’t know what else to do with myself, so was going through the motions. Then you needed help, and I had something to do with myself.
“Ah…I left you in the lurch didn’t I?”
“And Big Brother snags the gold ring.”
Griffen nodded and started to frown. He hadn’t really considered that. That Valerie had come to New Orleans because of him and then he had gotten distracted. Hadn’t even known she was looking for work, how out of touch could he be? Valerie watched his expression, reached over, and clouted him on the ear hard enough he almost fell out of his chair.
“Stop that!”
“The hell, Valerie!” He grabbed the side of his head protectively and rubbed it.
“You needed that. No sulking gloom for you.”
“But—”
“Don’t ‘but’ me, Big Brother. Even if mine did get me this job.”
“Sis!”
“Oh, you are so easy to tease. Look, you left me in the lurch, yes, but I left myself in it more. I was back to not doing anything with myself. That’s what this job is about. It works or it doesn’t, that doesn’t really matter. There are other jobs. In the meantime, I’ve got something going, and no reason to mope anymore.”
“Okay, I can understand that. It’s just…you can do more than bartend.”
“Of course I can, stupid. I am Valerie, hear me roar. But what’s wrong with bartending? Just because I can do more doesn’t mean I should. I’m bored, not a work fanatic.”
“Oh, no, it’s true, the Quarter does corrupt absolutely.”
“Just figuring that out are you? Besides, other than tour guides, bartenders get the best dates. Of course, I could try tour guide next!”
Griffen shared the laugh with his sister.
“I just wish there was something I could do to help,” he said.
“There is, if you don’t mind sharing,” Valerie said, still smiling.
“What’s that?”
“You could let me know what’s going on that you’re not telling me about.” Valerie was no longer smiling.
The request caught Griffen off guard.
“What…I don’t…” he stammered.
“Let me make it easy for you,” Valerie said.
She moved to her purse, fished in it for a few moments, then returned to where he was sitting.
“I’m betting it has something to do with this.”
She laid a tarot card on the bar in front of him. It was a match for the two in Griffen’s wallet except it was a bit faded and distorted…as if it had been wet and then dried out.
“Where did you get that?” Griffen said.
“Remember when we were walking down Bourbon and you got hit by a go-cup?” Valerie said. “Well, I found this in the go-cup when I picked it up.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“Look at who’s talking,” she challenged. “I remember what you said about getting one of these up in Detroit, but you’ve been ducking the question every time I asked about it. Then someone trashes your car and you are jumping more and more at shadows. I kept waiting for you to fill me in, but I’ve given up. So talk to me, Big Brother. What’s going on?”
Pushed into a corner, Griffen filled her in on the situation with the George, trying to keep it as casual and unimportant as possible. For example, he left out that he was in his car when it was ruined.
“I see,” she said when he had finished. “So why couldn’t you tell me about this sooner?”
“Well, Mose and Jerome…it’s just that female dragons have a bad reputation for overreacting,” Griffen said weakly. “We were afraid that if you knew, you’d try to take an active hand and maybe get hurt.”
“Uh-huh.” she said, deadpan. “Do you see me storming around or getting angry? I agree, this sounds way out of my league. I’m more than content to let you and Mose deal with it.”
Griffen felt muscles relax that he hadn’t known were tense.
“You don’t know how much of a relief that is to me, Val,” he said sincerely. “Not telling you has been bothering me. If nothing else, now that you’re on board, I can bounce some things off you.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like Nathaniel, for one,” he said. “It seems to me that…”
Valerie was suddenly looming over him.
“You leave Nathaniel out of this,” she hissed. “I care for him and he cares for me. End of story. Go off and play whatever dragon games you want, but keep away from us!”
With that, she marched back to the end of the bar and picked up her book, pointedly ignoring him.
After a moment, Griffen finished his drink and left without saying anything more.
So much for female dragons not being temperamental.
Forty-four
At first, Griffen took little notice of the spatters on the sidewalk.
Mostly, he was coming to grips with exactly how spooked he was by the events of the last week. He didn’t usually come in this early, but somehow cruising the Quarter late at night had lost its appeal. He realized now that he had been reluctant to come out at all. It wasn’t so much that he was scared. Just totally out of his depth.
Voodoo queens and dope dealers. People using animals to spy on him or perhaps even to attack him. Life on the University of Michigan campus in sleepy small-town Ann Arbor had failed to prepare him for this.
The now familiar scenery of the Quarter suddenly seemed a bit ominous and threatening. Was the rolling boom box that had cruised past him a few blocks ago just showing off, or was it one of the packs of dope dealers keeping tabs on him? Was it his imagination, or did the tarot readers on the Square stop talking to each other to watch him as he walked past?
He suddenly focused on the splatters on the sidewalk. Originally he had dismissed them as splashes or a leak from some tourist’s go-cup. But the red was too dark for a hurricane, the lethal rum drinks they served at Pat O’s. Besides, they were too regularly spaced.
It was blood! Someone who passed by recently was bleeding!
Griffen stopped in his tracks and studied the splatters. Squinting slightly, he tried to see how far ahead of and behind him they extended.
The immediate problem was, they seemed to be the same size in both directions. Was he walking away from whoever was bleeding, or walking up on them from behind. Given a choice, which would he want it to be?
Lacking any data or plan to base his moves on, he decided to continue on home. It was a block and a half farther, and if he made it without incident, it would be someone else’s problem.
Watching the street around him, he proceeded. There was someone sitting on the curb at the corner ahead. Griffen was about to cross the street, when he recognized the figure as Gris-gris.
“Hey, Gris-gris,” he said, approaching the man.
“That you, Mr. Griffen?” Gris-gris said, looking up.
“Yeah. Say, did you notice…”
Griffen suddenly realized the man was hunched forward slightly, pressing his hand against his side.
“Hey,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Some dude stabbed me,” Gris-gris said. “Just walked up and nailed me as I was walking along.”
“Hold tight. I’ll call an ambulance,” Griffen said, reaching for his cell phone.
“Don’t bother,” Gris-gris said. “I’ve been stabbed before, and worse than this. Couple stitches and some tape and I’ll be fine. It’s more embarrassing than anything.”
Griffen had run into this before in the Quarter, but still wasn’t used to it. Where he came from, if you were hurt you went to a doctor or an emergency room. Here, people tended to doctor themselves, up to and including setting broken bones.
“Who did it? Did you recognize him?”
Griffen was thinking of the dope dealers he had tangled with recently.
“Never saw him before,” Gris-gris said. “That’s why he caught me flat-footed. Just some white dude. ’Bout your height, military haircut, built like a football player. Thing was, he knew me. That’s why I come looking for you.”
“What do you mean?” Griffen frowned.
“It’s what he said after he stabbed me,” Gris-gris said, wincing slightly. “He said, ‘Stay away from Valerie. This is to let you know I mean it.’ Then he just walked away. Didn’t even run.”
“Valerie?” Griffen said, trying to absorb the information.
“That’s how I know he knew me, or leastwise that I’ve been seeing your sister. I thought you should know, so I came looking for you.”
With a stab wound in his side, Griffen thought.
“You sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance?” he said aloud.
“Naw. Jumbo’s working door tonight on Bourbon,” Gris-gris said. “He’ll patch me up. Bouncers keep a pretty good first-aid kit on hand all the time.”
“At least let me walk you there,” Griffen said.
Gris-gris flashed a smile.
“That’d just be embarrassing,” he said. “Like I say, the dude shouldn’t have been able to walk up on me that way. The fewer that know about it, the better I like it. Just help me up and I’ll be on my way.”
Griffen thought as he watched Gris-gris walk away, no more unsteady on his feet than half the drunks in the Quarter.
What exactly was going on?
From what he had heard of the George, it wasn’t like him to threaten, much less injure a bystander. What was more, the comment about Valerie would make no sense.
He had met Nathaniel, the guy Valerie was currently dating, but Gris-gris had seen him as well and would have recognized him. Was she seeing someone else? Was it just another jealous clash, or was there something deeper involved. Because she kept a low profile, Griffen tended to forget that she was a coming-of-age dragon, too. Maybe there were others not as inclined to forget.
He realized something else as well. He wasn’t spooked by what was happening anymore. Instead, he was getting mad.
Forty-five
Wednesday was pool-league night and the Irish pub was crowded when they rolled in. Jerome was trying unsuccessfully to explain to Griffen about the Saints.
“I know it’s crazy,” he said. “But that’s the way it is. However lousy their last season was, the fans still hang in there and follow them. I am; last year was one of their worst seasons ever, and people are still lining up to buy season tickets.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Griffen said. “I mean, if it’s basically the same team and the same coaching staff, won’t the fans bail out on them?”
“The publicity people always manage to cook up some line, and everybody eats it up. The starting quarterback, Aaron Brooks, had an injured shoulder during the final games of last season and gave a piss-poor performance. The fans wanted him replaced, but Haslett insists that now that his shoulder is better, he’ll be his old self again. People believe it because they want to believe.”
Griffen shrugged.
“If you say so.”
“You’ve just been spoiled cheering for the Wolverines.” Jerome laughed, elbowing his way to a spot at the bar. “It’s always easy to cheer for a team that’s a perennial winner. It takes a special kind of fan to keep cheering for a team that usually ends up in the bottom third of the division.”
The bartender set their usual drinks in front of them.
“These are on the lady at the table by the door.”
They craned their necks around for a look, then turned quickly back to the bar.
There was a moment’s silence, then Griffen spoke.
“Didn’t you tell me something about how the locals here in the Quarter will never give you away to an outsider?”
“That’s the way it usually is,” Jerome said softly. He beckoned the bartender over. “What did you tell her…exactly?”
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