I made a show of examining the racks of incense.
“Did you hear about the murder last night? Down by the Brewery? I heard something about a Voodoo ritual?”
When Mother Mystic didn’t answer I glanced at her. Her face was stone.
“I heard it was Sunshine, the little blonde waitress,” I continued.
“I do not think I knew her.” She answered coldly.
“I remember her,” the guy at the counter piped up. “She used to wait tables at Big Daddy’s. She was hot.”
“Did she ever come in here? Possibly show an interest in Voodoo or anything?”
He shook his head. “No. Not that I know of.”
“Why do you ask so many questions, Maestro?” Mother Mystic frowned at me, and at her clerk. “I’ve never taken you for the gossip type. What is this thing to you?”
I had planned to treat the whole thing as casual conversation and give a glib answer, but one look at her face convinced me that I needed to level with her if I wanted any real answers.
“She was a friend. I’m just trying to find out what happened to her.”
Mystic looked at me for a long moment. “Come. Into the back.”
I followed her through the beads into the “reading room” usually used for psychic and tarot readings. She gestured to one chair at the small table, taking the other for herself.
“Look,” she half-whispered, “the police have already come here. I did not have anything to say to them, or to you. The girl and her fate were unknown to me until I hear of it this morning.”
“But they say there was evidence of a Voodoo ritual at the murder scene,” I pressed.
She snorted in anger. “Yes. That is what they say. And it did not take but one whiff of that rumor to spread it all over the Quarter. The tourists are spooked. They do not come to Mother’s shop today. They all want to play with the Voodoo—right up until they think it might be real. Now folks are upset, they worry.” She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest, “It is enough that sometimes a fool tries to get me to do a black magic curse for him! Now some nutcase kills a poor girl, tosses some tourist toys around, and everyone believes we are all murderers!”
She sighed, then she leaned in close, her eyes intensely bright. “I’ll tell you this, because I think you of all people ought to know better. The Vodun is a religion. It is about connecting with the saints and with the gods. The Vodun we practice has more in common with the Catholics and their saints than anything else. It’s not about murder.”
“But aren’t there ritual sacrifices?”
“Of course. The same sacrifices the farmer makes every time someone decides they want chicken for dinner. We kill animals in some of our rituals, but we do it more humanely than the slaughterhouses, and we cook them and eat them after. There is no part of Vodun that includes killing people. That only happens in the movies. Whoever did this is some kind of sick bokor want-to-be—knew just enough to think he could do a ritual. Either that or somebody out there has decided to practice the dark arts.” Her eyes turned hard. “If that be the way of it, we’re all in trouble. The Vodun is a respectable religion, of the light, and we do not need anyone perverting it with the darkness.”
I thought for a moment, disturbed by that last possibility. “Just out of curiosity, how do you kill your animal sacrifices?”
She studied me for a moment, then said, “We slit their throats with a very sharp knife.”
I thanked Mother Mystic for her time and headed out the door. I needed to find out exactly how Sunshine died. I still had no idea what the police had actually found at the crime scene.
In almost every detective novel I’ve read or movie I’ve ever seen, the hero has a contact with the police he or she can call on for information. It’s a neat, handy way to get facts not readily available to the general public. Unfortunately, I’ve never been that fond of the police. I try to stay as far away from them as possible. This, of course, precludes having one of them as a first-name-basis friend. Still, it’s the Quarter, and if you try hard enough you can find anything ... even a cop.
Sorry. That’s an overly harsh exaggeration. In truth, the police make themselves easy to find in the Quarter, in their prowl cars, on foot, on horses, and even on bicycles and scooters. Tourists, who are responsible for a great deal of this city’s income, can walk around in protected, well-lit comfort. That is, as long as they stay on ticky-tacky Bourbon Street and retreat to their hotels at a reasonable hour.
I wanted to find someone connected with the police to sit and talk to, and that was tricky. My solution was to stop at a cop bar. This, at least, is not a phenomenon peculiar to the Quarter. It’s my impression that every large city has at least one cop bar per precinct, where the off-duty officers gather to drink and swap stories, both funny and horrifying, of their work. The one in the Quarter is a half block off Bourbon on Iberville, one block short of Canal Street.
It was approaching late afternoon, the optimal time to hit my target bar. Late evening it would be a bit too loud and raucous for conversation, and in the morning the odds of anyone being there who’d know anything were slim.
As it was, I got lucky and caught Sneaky Pete, the owner, behind the bar when I wandered in. He was yet another pool shooter, and got his nickname from using a “sneaky pete” pool cue. That’s a custom cue that is deliberately crafted to look like an ordinary bar cue.
“Hey, Maestro,” he said, straightening from reading the newspaper. He was shorter than me, with a lot of scalp showing through his thinning white hair these days. “What brings you up to this end of the Quarter?”
Objectively, the Quarter is small, some thirteen city blocks by seven. But within this curious neighborhood of ours there are inevitable subdivisions and regions. Denizens of the Quarter are creatures of habit, usually hanging out at specific bars at specific hours. Any deviation is unusual and therefore draws attention. Fortunately I was ready for Pete’s question and had my excuse ready.
“I was just hiking up to Cox Cable to return my box,” I said. I brandished the bag I carried. “They cut off my service a couple of months back and are trying to bill me three or four hundred for their equipment. It’s worth the walk in the heat to get them off my back.” As prepared as a Boy Scout, of course I actually did have the old cable box in the bag. I do have cable in my apartment, but frankly, I watch the Cartoon Network more than anything.
“Get you anything?” Sneaky Pete asked. We were the only two in the place.
“Yeah. I’ll take a Bud draft.”
I rarely drink beer. It’s filling, it’s fattening, and I don’t need any more waistline than I’ve got. But it was in the high nineties outside and far too early to start in on my traditional Irish whiskey.
“You got it,” he said, opening the tap to fill a large plastic go-cup—French Quarter crystal, we call it. “How’s your team doing this session?”
“Struggling a bit, but we’re still in the running.”
Pete also shot on a league pool team, but I’d never really warmed to him or his compatriots. Though I still shot pool and was even co-captaining a team, it seemed I’d once had more enthusiasm for the game. I wondered in the back of my mind if this hobby would go the way of my sword-fighting club. Once, I’d been wildly enthused about that. But it had just sort of drifted away.
We chatted for a few minutes. Though I wasn’t especially enamored of Pete, good manners are valued in the Quarter. Besides, it’s good to collect as many familiar faces as you can, for those occasions when you might find yourself out of your normal prowl range. Sometimes people will come to your aid even if they only know you in passing. And you never know when trouble will come, or when you’ll need that aid.
Eventually I tried to edge the conversation around to the subject on my mind.
“I suppose you’ve heard about Sun
shine getting tagged behind the Brewery last night,” I said, lightly, or as lightly as the statement could be made.
“Yeah. The guys were talking about it when they came off shift.”
“Any word as to what it was all about? From what I’ve heard she didn’t have an enemy in the world.”
Instead of answering, Pete favored me with a long stare, then turned and poured himself a short beer.
“I dunno if I should say anything about that to you, Maestro.”
I didn’t have to fake being surprised.
“Whoa, Petey. You lost me there.”
“If I recall, the last time you were asking about a case here in the Quarter, the perp turned up in the Charity ER about twenty-four hours later.”
I blinked at him, genuinely trying to remember what he was talking about. Then it came back to me. It had happened six or seven months back.
The perp in question was one of those who made a habit of beating up his women. In the final round with his latest girlfriend/punching bag, he had smashed a vodka bottle over her head, coming within a fraction of an inch of taking out her left eye. The doctors at the emergency room convinced her to swear out a complaint against the boyfriend and he got picked up. The next day he was out on the streets again.
I remembered now asking Pete about the incident only because I knew the girl and was concerned, and because it was league night and we were shooting against Pete’s team. I remembered Pete saying that the girl had dropped the charges.
The reason it had all slipped my mind was that I hadn’t hunted the dude down. In fact, I almost wasn’t involved at all. As it happened, I found myself sitting two stools down from the punk at Fahey’s, late, the night after he’d got out of lockup. He started bragging about it—bragging loud, as drunks tend to do.
“Damn straight she dropped the charges!” He said this to nobody in particular, puffing up his scrawny chest like a bantam rooster. You could tell just by looking that he was a mean little shit, but not brawny enough to take on anyone even his own size. “The bitch knew what I’d do to her if it went to court. When I got home I slapped her ‘round again anyway for talkin’ to the cops at all. Re-opened her stitches and she had to go back to Charity, but this time she’s keepin’ her mouth shut. I’ll shut that mouth of hers for good if she tries any of that shit again.”
It wasn’t the sort of trash you normally hear anyone talk in Fahey’s, but Milo was simply ignoring the guy, probably not wanting the headache of tossing him out. Listening to this crap was distasteful enough that I abandoned my seat and shot a couple of practice racks of pool instead. I could still hear him as I shot, though, and my irritation grew until I found I couldn’t concentrate on my shooting anymore.
I gave it up, settled my tab, and hit the sandbox, figuring to call it a night. That probably would have been all there was to it. But as chance would have it, when I came out of the restroom, Bantam Boy—now very drunk—pushed off his stool and went staggering out of the bar, not ten feet ahead of me. I followed him out, but I didn’t follow him, understand. I was just heading home, and he happened to be in front of me.
Even then, had there been anyone else out on the street, I probably would have let it go. As it happened, Toulouse was empty in both directions.
If fate intends something that adamantly, why fight it?
As usual, I was wearing “felon-fliers”—that’s athletic shoes to the suburbanites. I like to move quietly, as it lets me hear what else is going on around me. In the shape he was in, though, I don’t think he would have heard a brass band coming up behind him as he staggered and lurched his way down the sidewalk.
He certainly didn’t hear little ol’ me as I lengthened my stride and slid up close behind him. I took one last glance up and down the street, and then I raised my hand until it was floating just behind his shoulder blades. Then, when he was in mid-stride and off balance, I powered him forward with a full hip twist and all the strength of my arm and upper body. He would have plowed the pavement face first if a street sign hadn’t been in the way. It made a vague, dull, but pleasing musical sound as he hit it and went down. I took the corner without breaking stride and never looked back.
It didn’t even make the papers, being a fairly unremarkable incident. Rumor said that he had a broken nose and jaw plus multiple lacerations. Since he still had his money when he was scooped up, it was generally written off as a drunken tumble. He himself had no recollections of what happened. I’d heard his girlfriend—the one lucky to still have her left eye—left town before he got out of the hospital. He had since moved away, too. Good riddance.
I mentally shrugged it away and focused my eyes on Pete, opting for indignation over innocence.
“What? You’re talking about whazizname? The rough-off artist? You think I did a number on him? Com’on, Pete. You’ve known me for ... what ... five years now? Have you ever known me to get into a fight? Even when the other guy was leaning real hard?”
He thought for a moment, shrugged.
“Yeah. You’re right.” He shook his head. “Sorry. Just wishful thinking on my part, I guess. When I heard he took a tumble, I didn’t want it to be that easy. I wanted the son of a bitch to have gotten a bit of his own.”
“It would have been nice,” I agreed, “but we’ll have to settle for what happened. Call it karma.”
“I guess.”
“As far as Sunshine goes, I was just curious is all. Everybody’s tongue is wagging over the murder, naturally. Some are saying she was doped up when it happened, but some are saying she was straight. Since I was here, I thought I’d ask. No big deal.”
“Somebody thinks it’s a big deal,” Pete insisted. “That’s why I flinched when you asked. The boys are keeping real quiet on this one.”
“Yeah?” I didn’t press, just waited, hoping he had more to say.
He did. “They found some dead chickens and Voodoo stuff around the body. You’d think that would be enough to set them on edge. But that’s not what’s bothering them.” Pete leaned closer and dropped his voice, even though there was no one to hear. “The word is she got done with an ice pick, or something like one. Double punch to the heart.”
I gave a low whistle. “No wonder they’re edgy,” I said. “Do me a favor. Forget I asked anything.”
“You didn’t ask. And I definitely didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah. Well, catch you later.”
A lot of thoughts were churning in my head as I made my way down the street. Mostly, I was annoyed that Pete had connected me with that rough-off artist. Even if I had convinced him I had nothing to do with it, it would surface in his mind if anything else came up with my name on it. Repeated coincidences draw attention, and the last thing I wanted was attention. Once, hospitalizing people—or doing a bit more than that—was nothing extraordinary to me, but those days were pretty long ago.
Then, too, the fact that Sunshine had been killed with an ice pick bothered me. It bothered me a lot.
Summer is considered, among most of the local service industry ilk, to be a lousy time to wait tables here. Louisiana’s summers are brutal, heat and humidity spiking into the nineties. At the same time the hotel rates plunge, and the yokels and overseas tourists come. And they don’t come with a lot of money, or they don’t lay out decent tips when they do.
Summer ... and waiters and bartenders prone to panic will panic, and talk desperately about the SEASON. The SEASON starts in October or December or January—depending, naturally, on who you’re talking to—and it means Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, and if we can only hold on until the SEASON, the promised SEASON, we’ll be set, rolling in tip money, and all our troubles will be over!
I don’t subscribe to this faith. Granted, I work at what’s very nearly a locals-only restaurant. I don’t depend on influxing tourists, but that’s not the point. If every day of the year wa
s the SEASON, those wait-folk who bitch and panic the worst would still always be on the verge of financial tragedy. They’d be doing the headless chicken dance, wondering if the $27 check they just wrote Entergy would clear before the lights got turned off. They’d piss and moan about the night’s cheap tips, even while they fed those aforementioned tips a bill at a time to the poker machines you’ll find in nearly every bar in the Quarter.
In short, I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy.
When Kirk, one of Pat O.’s green-jacketed waiters, started that familiar sullen gripe after I’d asked him about Alex, I wanted very much to snatch his tray out of his hands and bash his skull with it. But I wanted more to know where she was. Someone I didn’t know—and who didn’t know Alex’s whereabouts when I’d asked—was currently guarding the gift shop’s array of T-shirts, sweatshirts, champagne flutes with the Pat O.’s logo, and other souvenirs.
“I’m tellin’ you, these tight-ass people coming over here from France an’ It’ly an’ shit ...” Kirk, who was young twenties and still going with his griping, I knew only slightly.
“Kirk.”
We were standing on the large, two-tiered, open-air rear patio. When Pat O.’s is busy, this area is mobbed. Right now, on this summer weekday with the sun still up, it was dead.
Kirk blinked and centered on me.
“Where is Alex,” I said, steel in my voice, “the girl that’s usually in the gift shop right around now?”
He glanced toward the bored girl sitting at Alex’s usual post at the window. I started to push past this dumbfuck kid and go find a manager. Something in me was thrumming like a live wire.
“Bone!”
I turned, and there she was, coming off the stairs from the second level. Relief slapped me like a cold wave. Her message on the answering machine ...
“Oh Bone, I’m sorry.” She took my hand, pulling me through the club’s long brick archway. “I shouldn’t have called. It’s nothing—not what I guess I made it sound like, but I was really upset, and I just wanted to talk to someone ...”
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