Carnival

by Kory M. Shrum

  Piper propped her head in her hand. “I don’t know. It’s dark in here, so I can’t see your face really well, but you look…weird.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean, your face is fine, but you look upset. Did you have a bad hunt or something?”

  Lou thought of Walker’s last pitiful screams before Jabber’s milk-white maw wrapped around his throat.

  “No,” she said.

  Piper finally lowered her head to the pillow, fluffing it for added height. “So there’s nothing you want to talk about? No feelings you’re dealing with? No explanation as to why you smell like some Italian dude and are clearly wearing his clothes, but you just climbed in bed with a lesbian in the dead of night? No? Everything is perfectly fine, is it?”

  “I’m fine,” Lou said, noting her own defensiveness.

  Piper snorted. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but you do have emotions, Lou-blue. Like everyone else. Maybe you want to check in on them once in a while.”

  Lou thought of the dream again. Of her father’s startled cry before he lifted her into his arms and threw her into the family pool—even if it was to save her life. “I had a bad dream. That’s all.”

  As soon as she said it, she felt stupid.

  Piper’s face softened. “What kind of bad dream?”

  “The night my parents were killed.”

  Piper sat up, exhaling. “Why are you dreaming about the night you lost everything? Did something scare you?”

  “No.”

  Piper was undeterred. She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Are you sure? What did you do tonight?”

  “I went to the bar and got Walker—”

  Piper clucked her tongue. “No. What did you do with Konstantine? Did you have sex?”

  “No.”

  “No, I guess having sex wouldn’t send you running to my bed in the middle of the night.” She broke into a huge grin. “Or would it? Was it bad sex?”

  “No.” Lou gave her a dangerous look.

  Piper only laughed. “Oh man. You’re killing me. Listen, you just need to listen to yourself. Figure out how you feel. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  Lou frowned. “With who?”

  Piper put one hand under her head and snorted. “Freaking Dani. I mean, why does she have to be so beautiful and intelligent. And have you seen her hands? They’re so pretty. And she kisses like—”

  Lou sat up in bed. “Do you want me to leave? It sounds like you need to be alone. Or I could go get her.”

  Piper elbowed her under the covers. “Don’t even joke about that. Besides, you’re the one who didn’t have sex and then decided to come sleep with a lesbian.”

  Lou elbowed her.

  Piper folded, protecting her ribs. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let you do what I do in these situations.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Run off and sleep with someone else. That’s how I roll.”

  Lou only frowned harder.

  “Seriously, ever since Dani showed up, I’ve been thinking about calling my ex about twenty times a day. I know, I know. It’s not healthy. Unless you’re here for some distraction too, because if you are…”

  Piper puckered up and leaned in for a kiss.

  Lou pushed her off, smiling.

  Piper continued making dramatic kissy faces until Lou had the pillow pressed firmly over her face. After a momentary struggle, Piper tapped out.

  Once the laughter had died and they’d settled back down to their own sides of the bed, Piper spoke up once more.

  “Listen. We are smart, capable women. We’ll conquer this bullshit. At least we aren’t psychopaths.”

  “I murder people.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve also got some empathy. Lady loves you, and dogs are never wrong.” Piper adjusted her head on her pillow. “You’re worlds apart from trash humans like Jeffrey fucking Fish. Oh, do you want to know what I found out about him today?”

  Lou turned on her side to face her. “Yes.”

  “In high school he worked part time in a cemetery. Two cemeteries, actually, that were side by side. One for people, one for pets. It looks like he was there for about a year before he got fired.”

  Lou’s compass stretched out through space and time, locking on Fish. But there was no immediate thrum of danger. No doubt he would make his move soon, but at least for tonight, the beast was still caged.

  “Can you guess why he got fired?” Piper asked, rolling on her side to face Lou.

  Lou thought of the photographs again. The glossy sheen capturing the pain and fear on the women’s faces. Their tear-stained faces. The spit drying on their lips and chins from so much screaming.

  “No,” she said.

  “He was caught digging up the graves. Digging them up so he could look at the decomposing bodies. What a freak!”

  Lou thought of the grocer standing in her bedroom window, face scrubbed for the night. She didn’t want her to become another photograph in Fish’s collection.

  She couldn’t let that happen.

  Piper placed a hand on Lou’s arm. “We’ll stop him before he hurts that girl. You’re amazing, and I’m going to help you get the evidence you need. We’ve got this. But first, we have to sleep.”

  Sleep, Lou thought, and worried she wouldn’t be able to manage it in this bed either.

  But she was wrong.

  14

  King reached into his fridge and grabbed the cold neck of a soda bottle. He twisted the cap off with the end of his shirt and threw it into the sink. The first deep gulps were delicious, even if they did burn his throat.

  He’d left the office for a mid-day lunch. It was a perk he enjoyed as the boss with the added convenience of living around the corner from the agency.

  With a satisfied sigh, he put the soda down and unwrapped two leftover steak enchiladas. He removed the aluminum foil before popping them into the microwave.

  That’s when he caught Lady’s steady gaze. She was too proud—or well trained—to outright beg, but King was no fool.

  “Oh, all right.” He reached into the cabinet beside his stove. He drew out a long rawhide bone and held it in front of her snout. “Will this do?”

  She closed her jaws around the bone, her tail swishing gleefully behind her as she took her prize over to the rug. She stretched long, her hind legs thrown out behind her.

  With seconds left on his lunch, King’s phone rang. There was no number, which was enough to tell King exactly who was calling. “King here.”

  “Good evening,” a man said. The lilting Italian accent gave his words a melodic quality. “I have the information you asked for.”

  “That was quick.” King’s enchiladas beeped. He grabbed a plate from the cabinet and dumped them from their wax carton onto the plate before fishing through a drawer for a fork.

  “What’s for lunch?” Konstantine asked, obviously having heard the microwave ding.

  “Mexican.” King found his fork and shut the drawer. “So what can you tell me about those drugs?”

  “They were mine,” Konstantine said plainly.

  King’s fork hovered above the enchiladas. “Really?”

  “Yes,” he said with a hint of amusement in his voice. “But I didn’t make the kill personally, if that is your next question.”

  King saw Rita Cross’s slack jaw and one gold tooth. His stomach soured.

  He’d never be so bold as to outright accuse the Ravengers’ kingpin of murder, but King also wasn’t stupid. There was no doubt in his mind that he had blood on his hands. Perhaps not as much as Lou personally, but enough.

  “Why were they killed?”

  “He was stealing the drugs, and she was in the home when they came for him.”

  He says it so matter-of-factly.

  “And where is the man responsible? Do you know?”

  “I’m afraid that if you go looking for him, you will not find him,” Konstantine said.

  King sank onto his sofa, placing his pl
ate on the coffee table in front of him. He put his soda on a Margaritaville coaster and threw his fork onto the plate. The anger building inside him made the enchiladas less appealing.

  “Convenient.” He consciously unclenched his jaw. “Did you see the handiwork yourself?”

  “No.”

  “It was brutal. The woman…” He lifted his fork and put it on the plate again. “It was bad. Did you tell them to kill her?”

  “No. I do not condone violence against women. And daily operations of my territories aren’t my responsibility. I do delegate that.”

  Daily operations. Christ. King dragged his hand down his face, trying to clear the image of the fly landing on Cross’s toe.

  “When a man steals from our organization, as Shawn Mince did, there are consequences, Mr. King. If the consequences aren’t severe, more people would steal, don’t you agree?”

  King marveled that a world as lawless as the drug trade relied so heavily on order, but it made a certain amount of sense. In the Ravengers, Konstantine might be CEO. His managers weren’t going to ask him to discipline an employee who’d stolen a stapler. King supposed he had bigger problems to contend with.

  “So his name was Shawn Mince and he was stealing the drugs from the Ravengers?”

  “Given the quantity found, it seems that he was taking them for a long time.”

  “Why did he keep them rather than sell them?”

  “There was likely no opportunity for him to sell without being discovered. He tried and was caught.”

  “So your manager handled the problem?”

  “Manager?”

  “Drug mule. Lackey. Local boss. Whoever is in charge here in New Orleans. This guy discovered that Mince was stealing and he made an example of him.”

  “Yes.”

  King patted his pocket, looking for his notebook and pen. “Any chance I can get the name of the guy who cut up Rita Cross? He deserves to be taken in, don’t you think?”

  Konstantine’s voice crackled across the line.

  “You there?” King checked the bar strength on his phone. Damn dead spots. “Hold on. You’re breaking up.”

  King stood, glancing at the urn.

  “Keep an eye on that, would you?” He motioned toward his lunch.

  King opened the French doors and stepped out onto his balcony. The cold February air nipped his cheeks and ears. He flipped up the collar on his coat, realizing now that he’d never taken it off, and checked the phone again.

  “You still there?”

  “I’m here,” Konstantine replied, his voice clear as a bell.

  “I want his name.”

  “I cannot give you a name.”

  King wrapped a hand around the balcony. Red pressed in on the corner of his vision. “I suppose this is about the drugs. It’s a lot of drugs to lose.”

  “Did I lose them?” Konstantine asked.

  King heard the smile in his voice.

  Then he realized this wasn’t about the drugs or the murder.

  King leaned a hip into the balcony. “Do you own the entire NOLA PD or just a few of the officers?”

  “You’re confusing me with Dmitri Petrov, Mr. King. I am not in the business of owning anyone.”

  “So the cops just take all the drugs out of the house, pack them up, and what, ship them to your local supplier?”

  Konstantine said nothing.

  King opened his mouth to dig deeper—he wanted the name of Rita Cross’s killer, damn it—but a man on the street below caught his eye.

  He was tall, lean, with a bone choker tight across his throat. His leather hat had a crow feather protruding from its left side.

  King first noted the lack of a coat. True, it was warmer in New Orleans than, say, Chicago, but one didn’t walk around bare-armed even in the crowded Quarter. Not in February.

  In the light from the convenience store window, King thought he could make out the hazy outline of a prison tattoo. But it wasn’t clear from where he stood.

  The man was watching Madame Melandra’s Fortunes and Fixes with a hungry expression that King didn’t like one bit. As if sensing eyes on him, the man looked up suddenly and met King’s gaze.

  The smile that spread across his face, a scarecrow’s smile, made the hair on the back of King’s neck rise.

  “The fact remains that a woman was killed. Brutally,” King said, but the anger in his voice had cooled. “Forget about the drugs for a second and think about her.”

  “I assure you that the man responsible for her murder will be handled. I cannot control the actions of every man I employ. I can only make my sentiments known.”

  So your guy makes an example of Shawn Mince and then you make an example of your guy, King thought. It was a stark reminder, should King have made the mistake of thinking Konstantine was only a diplomat.

  A low growl made King look down. Lady’s nose was stuck between the balcony’s slats. If King didn’t know better, she was following the man with her gaze.

  “Yeah, he looks like trouble,” King agreed, giving the dog a pat on the head.

  “Excuse me?”

  King turned back to the conversation. “If you can’t give me names, I guess we’re done here.”

  “I regret that I cannot help you in your investigation. But I assure you the man has been punished.”

  Tell that to Rita Cross.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. King?” Konstantine said.

  King searched the swelling crowd for the man with a crow feather in his hat. “Actually, there is one more thing you could do.”

  15

  Someone knocked on the door. Lou turned toward the sound, toothbrush in hand. Her foaming mouth frowned. This was the second time in twice as many years that someone had knocked on her apartment. Her instinctual response was to run. Simply step into her converted linen closet and disappear.

  Instead she crept toward the front door.

  The last time someone had come, it had been a law firm courier, delivering letters from her dead aunt. But Aunt Lucy was in her grave—or urn, so to speak—along with her parents. There wasn’t anyone left to send letters. And Lou had never given her address to anyone else.

  She looked through the peephole. A woman with a bouquet of flowers and a blue denim hat stood on the other side. ABC Florists was stitched into the cap’s bill with red thread.

  Tired of waiting, the woman put the vase on the floor, wedged the card between the jamb and frame, and left. Lou waited until she heard the stairwell door clank closed before she opened the door.

  The card fell face down onto the industrial carpet. Lou picked it up along with the vase.

  Her first emotion: annoyance.

  Lou carried the flowers inside. Why would he bother?

  Lou appraised the gift. It was a strange vase. Large and wooden with intricate carvings on its sides. The explosion of garden roses, carnations, pink lilies, alstroemeria, baby’s breath, greenery, and a few flowers Lou didn’t recognize on sight.

  Then a phone began to ring.

  Lou cocked her head, locating the sound before lifting the vase. Taped to the bottom of the vase was a burner flip phone. She let it ring while she rinsed her mouth in the kitchen sink.

  Lou answered on the sixth ring, certain she knew who was calling. “How did you figure out my address?”

  “Do you like the flowers?” Konstantine countered.

  “How did you get my address?” Because Lou had been careful, long before Konstantine had taken it upon himself to scour the world on her behalf, to keep her whereabouts untraceable.

  “The law firm who manages your father’s estate and trust have a list of properties. Five are located in your area. I used internet maps to figure out which one was you. Only one fit.”

  When she’d let him heal in her bed after Nico’s assassination attempt, he would’ve seen the skyline for himself. Who else had been in this apartment? Lucy, King. She should’ve known the view was a liability.

  “You
don’t know what I like,” she said plainly, even as she leaned in to smell a gorgeous peach garden rose.

  “No?” His voice was full of amusement. “Did I get the flowers or the colors wrong?”

  She didn’t humor him with a reply, but inwardly she thought, Color. These blooms were too soft and feminine. She preferred deep reds and purples.

  “Perhaps you’ll like what’s in the box better? Can you figure out how to open it?”

  She frowned at the arrangement. “There’s no box.”

  “The vase,” he said after some hesitation.

  She traced the whirls etched into the wood, feeling for any loose seams. One small node, and another shifted slightly under her fingertips as she passed over it. She went back and pressed them again. One then the other, and when that did not work, both at the same time.

  Something clicked. The wooden panel slid away.

  Lou removed the pistol. It was a standard Hi-Power Browning. She palmed the walnut grip and noted the adjustable sights.

  “They discontinued these,” Lou said. “How did you find a new one?”

  “Almost new,” Konstantine corrected. “Very gently used.”

  Lou was certain that guns were never gently used but didn’t argue. She appreciated the weight of the Browning in her hand.

  “There are two,” Konstantine said. “The hammers have been replaced to prevent them from biting your hand.”

  “Do you think I don’t know how to hold it?” Lou inspected the wooden vase again and discovered the second secret panel.

  “No,” he said. Then after a short pause, he added, “What do you think?”

  That I guess you do know what I like.

  Lou had heard something in his voice then. But he’d covered it so quickly she couldn’t be sure.

  “I think…I’d love to see what you can fit in a chocolate box.”

  He laughed at her joke, but it was too tight. It wasn’t the easy vibrato that she enjoyed.

  When the laughter died away and the silence stretched itself long, Konstantine said, “When will I see you again?”

  Was that what this gift was about?

  She hadn’t returned to his bed since the night in the shower. She hadn’t slipped there by accident—at least, not that she was aware—not even to say hello.