Danse Macabre

by Kory M. Shrum

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Dani said, managing a smile before turning and running off into the dark.

  19

  King paced his living room. Ten steps toward the enormous armoire in the corner, twenty steps toward his checkered kitchen tile. Then back toward the balcony door and armoire again. His feet seemed to wear grooves into the wooden floor.

  He didn’t want to page Lou a third time with the 911 directive. This wasn’t an emergency. But his anxiety sure as hell was rising with every moment he didn’t hear from her.

  When he’d asked her to follow his tail, he’d expected her to watch from a distance. He’d cut a lazy path through the French Quarter, giving her plenty of time to get a good look at the man who’d followed him.

  But on Royal Street, while he himself was deciding whether or not to turn a block early or to head back to his own apartment, he’d heard the sharp intake of breath. The muffled cry.

  King turned in time to see the man pulled into a shadowed doorway and disappear.

  Under the pretense of confusion, should anyone on the street look out the window and see him, he’d calmly walked back the way he came and frowned at the doorway. He inspected its empty corners even though he knew what had happened. The unmiraculous details of a worn wooden door could tell him nothing.

  King returned his cell phone to his pocket, removed it again, only to stare at the screen.

  “You rang?” a voice called.

  King turned to find Lou leaning casually against his bedroom door, her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, her mirrored sunglasses pushed up to rest on top of her head. He thought her face looked a little red, especially around the mouth. Perhaps even swollen.

  Maybe the other guy got a punch off before she—what? God, killed him?

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She gave a noncommittal shrug. “Why did you page me?”

  “I wanted to know what the hell happened back there.”

  With this request aside, he became aware of his bulking size taking up most of the living room. He crossed to the refrigerator and opened it. “Can I offer you a drink?”

  She agreed to a soda and settled onto the red leather sofa beside him.

  “I asked him some questions.”

  “And?”

  “He’s dead,” she said.

  “His answers must’ve been wrong,” he said, twisting the top off his root beer.

  “He was a senior editor at the Louisiana Herald,” she said.

  “What the hell did a reporter want from me?” he asked. He could think of a few reasons, but none that required a man to follow him. Most journalists simply interviewed him if they needed information on a case.

  “He was looking for me,” she said, finally cracking open the lid on her soda. “He thought he could find me through you.”

  “Oh.” That answered some questions and begged many more. “What did he want you for?”

  She opened her arms as if to present herself. “I’m Louie Thorne. Daughter of Jack Thorne, slain hero.”

  “No,” King said. “Damn. I thought we’d killed all those leads.”

  Except for the rumors that she lived in an asylum, of course. King had left those stories, mostly in small publications around the country. Why not indulge in a little misdirection?

  “You and Konstantine both,” she said. There was something in the way she said his name that made King look at her.

  “How in the world did they tie you to me?” he asked.

  “I think Daniella had something to do with that.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl Mel hired. She’s an undercover journalist. Also for the Herald.” Lou took a long drink on her soda.

  “Shit.” King fell back against the sofa. “She looks young as hell.”

  “She’s probably my age.”

  He didn’t argue. Piper was also her age, if a hair younger. But how could King explain that it seemed as if centuries stretched between Piper and herself? That in no world could he look into Piper’s eyes and Lou’s eyes and say they were of the same mind.

  “Do you think she knows anything?” King asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Another strange tone that left him searching her face. “You can’t kill her.”

  “I can’t?” Lou asked, her head cocked like a bird’s. “True, it’ll be my first woman but—”

  “No, I mean she’s a kid.”

  “I’ve killed dealers who were younger,” she said, turning the drink in her hands.

  “You can scare her,” he insisted.

  “Maybe she doesn’t scare so easily.”

  “I think she has a thing for Piper,” he said. This was mere conjecture. Coming out of his apartment he’d caught the look that the girls exchanged before he’d put his full weight on the stairs and made his presence known. “Maybe Piper can get her to understand—”

  “Or she’s using Piper to get information.”

  “Fuck.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen Piper.

  “The journalist isn’t my only problem.”

  “Our only problem,” he corrected her.

  She regarded him for several long seconds.

  “We are a team,” he said, wondering if she misunderstood. “Your problems are my problems.”

  “You need to be careful,” she said.

  “If I—”

  “Not from me,” she said, turning the soda again. The can caught and reflected the light from the overhead fan. “Petrov doesn’t want to hire me. He wants to kill me.”

  “That escalated quickly.”

  “Apparently it was the plan all along. He wants revenge for his son, Alexei.”

  “I assume you killed Alexei?”

  She took a drink, denying nothing.

  King sighed. “If a journalist can tie us together, I guess a rich Russian mob boss can do the same.”

  “Revenge is dangerous,” Lou said.

  King suppressed a laugh. “You would know.”

  “If he were still trying to buy my loyalty, he might have gone easy on you. Only broken a leg or a finger. Or maybe he’d cut something off.”

  King snorted. “This is going easy on someone?”

  Lou didn’t seem to hear him. “But if he wants revenge, then he wants to hurt me. He will kill you.”

  King considered this.

  “There was nothing that would have stopped me from killing Angelo Martinelli,” she said quietly, placing her unfinished soda on the coffee table. “His ten-year-old son could’ve been standing between us, and I still would’ve put a bullet in his head.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  But her face said she did.

  “Don’t put yourself between us,” Lou said. She stood suddenly, and he was worried she would disappear on the spot.

  “Hey,” he said. “Before you go, I have to give you something.”

  She hesitated in the center of the living room.

  King crossed to his bedroom and found the dresser. In the third drawer, beneath a stack of folded shirts, he found the padded mailer. He pulled it out, checked to see the two tapes were still there and also the letters inside.

  Lou stood at the balcony door, looking out when he returned.

  “These checked out. I was able to authenticate them, so this isn’t a trap.”

  “How?” she asked, accepting the mailer with both hands.

  “This tape,” he said, pointing at one of the VHS tapes poking through the opening in the top. “This is the one Jack gave me to deliver to Lucy when I found her. It’s just how I remember it.”

  She nodded, regarding the tapes with an unreadable expression. “And the other?”

  “It’s also your dad,” he said, watching her face carefully. “But he’s talking to you.”

  She reached up and pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes. She said nothing.

  “Can I ask for one more favor?” he said, shifting to release pa
in from his tight hip. “Will you go check on Piper? I’m worried about her.”

  He thought she was going to refuse him. She looked like she wanted to.

  “She might be spilling everything to that journalist. Can you just check on her please?”

  “Okay,” she said. “After I drop these off.”

  “I don’t know how you’re going to play them. Who even has VHS anymore? Turns out Mel has one, if you need it.”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  When she disappeared, King thought the knot in his chest would loosen. After all, she’d taken all her intensity with her, and he’d done his job delivering the tapes.

  But instead, his anxiety had only increased.

  He wasn’t sure if it was Lucy’s letter—she deserves to know—or if it was the promise of violence at the hands of Dmitri Petrov.

  Both would have fallout. He supposed the real question was, were they ready?

  Mel had echoed his concerns. But the alarm company couldn’t come until Monday. And his messages with his friends in the canine community had yet to get back to him.

  He’d loaded his guns and kept them close. Mel had done the same.

  But real preparations would take time. Maybe time they didn’t have.

  20

  Piper stepped off the concrete porch and shook the landlady’s hand one more time, offering effusive gratitude.

  The tiny woman with a hunched spine and Coke-bottle glasses shuffled away from her, heading down the street toward her own home at the end of the block.

  Piper watched her as she left, regarding the puff of wiry, white hair crowning her oversized coat.

  It cost Piper a considerable chunk of her savings, but the apartment was now hers. The landlady wanted to take one more look at the contract, update it, and then Piper was to come by their office Monday morning, only three short days away. In the meantime, she could be safe in knowing that no one else would swoop in and steal this amazing find.

  A large, two-bedroom apartment with heat, water, and trash included. It overlooked a courtyard, its paving stones framing a single tree. While the apartment was quite close to the street, Piper didn’t mind a bit of traffic noise. It was clean. It wasn’t too far from work and best of all—it was hers.

  Mom will like it here. It was the perfect place for them to put all of the past behind them and get her well again. Piper would take care of the bills and her mother could focus on her health. Money would be tight, and maybe Piper couldn’t return to school in September, but by next January—anything was possible.

  This will work. This has to work.

  Piper couldn’t spend any more of her waking hours wondering whether or not she would come home and find her mother dead on the living room floor. Or another unexplainable black eye. Or, heaven forbid, her mother announced she intended to marry Willy, and make him her fifth husband.

  Running back toward the bus stop, Piper felt better than she had in a long time. Things were looking up. She still had money in the bank, though admittedly not as much as she’d like. But she had more coming in from the jobs she loved.

  Crossing Canal Street, white breath puffed in front of her face as she looked both ways. She wanted to pop into the shop and check on Mel before heading by her mom’s place to deliver the good news. Stomping her feet on the mat, Piper stepped into Fortunes and Fixes to the flickering moan of the haunted chandelier.

  Dani was behind the counter, bending down to retrieve a brown paper bag. She wrapped one of the Papa Legba figurines carefully in several rolls of newsprint then slid it into the bag.

  “There you go,” she chirped, smiling broadly at the young woman on the opposite side, a small kid hanging off her leg.

  Piper waved at the child, and she bashfully hid her face in her mother’s coat.

  “Come on,” the mom said, drawing her away from the counter. “No, don’t touch.”

  “Hey,” Dani said, leaning over the glass table. “I thought you weren’t coming by for a few more hours.”

  “I wanted to see if Mel needed anything. Sometimes she runs out of stuff before the end of the day but can’t go get it herself, so…”

  Dani jabbed a thumb at the curtain. “She’s back there.”

  Piper’s eyes took inventory of Dani’s body—the curve of her neck, her hip bones, and the bare stretch of skin between her cut-off shirt and high-waisted pants.

  Dani’s smile widened. “You okay? You look…excited maybe?”

  “I put down a deposit on an apartment today, so I’m pretty pumped.”

  “Congrats. They’re hard to find around here. Or at least the good ones are.”

  “Yeah, and this one is perfect.”

  “Is it your first place on your own?”

  “Yeah.” Piper wasn’t sure how much she should elaborate. “I mean, my mom is going to move in with me.”

  “Oh. That’s nice. You’ll be able to take care of her.”

  “That’s the idea,” Piper said.

  “It’s sweet of you to take care of your mom like that.”

  Piper’s face warmed. “She’s my responsibility.”

  Dani’s face pinched curiously. It was as if she didn’t understand the words coming out of Piper’s mouth.

  “What?”

  Dani forced a quick smile. “Nothing.”

  Piper became aware of Mel’s low voice droning behind the curtain as Dani closed the distance between them.

  Piper licked her lips, also aware that her heart was hitching in her chest. “I guess Mel’s busy. I’ll have to check in later.”

  “We could go into the storeroom and see if anything’s missing ourselves,” Dani offered.

  Her face was so close to Piper’s now that she could feel her breath on her moist lips and smell the perfume along the side of her neck.

  “A quick look,” Piper said, her voice cracking in the middle.

  Dani took her hand and pulled her toward the storeroom. Piper’s heart was pounding so hard she thought her head might explode. They closed the door behind them but didn’t turn on the light. For a moment, Piper stood in the dark, feeling nothing but the stagnant air of the place and the slight scent of cardboard boxes.

  Then a cool hand trailed up her arm to the back of her neck. It was joined by its twin on the other side of her face as she was pulled forward. Hot, sticky lips found her. This was when Piper realized that Dani favored some kind of fruity lip gloss. She’d been wearing it for both kisses now. Not that Piper cared. Instead, she sucked the lower lip between her teeth and removed the candy-coating with her tongue.

  “All night, I kept thinking about that kiss,” Dani said. “I couldn’t wait to do it again.”

  Dani laughed. A low, guttural sound that skittered across Piper’s bones. Her breath tightened in her chest the same moment Dani’s hands slid through her hair.

  The kisses grew hungry, deep and fever pitched.

  Piper stepped forward, pushing Dani back. They hit a wall and a cough of surprise escaped her.

  “You seem to know your way around a storeroom,” Dani whispered, the humor coating each word.

  Dani had no idea how true that was. Usually, Piper was the one who suggested the storeroom make-outs, but Dani didn’t need to know that. No girl wanted to know something like that.

  Piper slid one hand up her bare stomach, until her fingers brushed the edge of a bra.

  Denied, she thought, almost laughing. Unless we storm the gates.

  A haunting moan echoed through the dark. But it wasn’t from Dani. It was from the motion-censor chandelier.

  “Damn,” Piper said, pressing her cool hand against the girl’s warm stomach. “You better get out there or Mel will lose her shit.”

  “Not until you tell me when we’re having dinner.”

  “Tonight.”

  “You promise?” Her voice was breathy, and Piper could feel her pulse jumping under her hand.

  “I swear. Meet me here at close. Give me thirty minutes and that’s it.”<
br />
  “Okay,” she managed.

  One more furious kiss and then Dani pushed open the storeroom door, pausing long enough to give Piper a wicked wink.

  Piper stood in the dark, heart pounding for a full minute. Once she felt like most of the blood had drained from her face, she opened the storeroom door to find Mel on the lowest step, heading up to her apartment.

  “Oh, you’re here,” she said, turning back. “I’ve got a shopping list for you. Come on up and get it.”

  Piper didn’t dare look at Dani behind the counter lest she give the game away.

  * * *

  Piper was still heady with kisses when she reached her mother’s street. She warmed her hands in her pockets, her chin tucked into the thick collar of her scarf.

  She wasn’t in a hurry because the asshole would be at work for at least two more hours. She had plenty of time to get in there, tell her mom the news and establish their moving-day plan.

  Then Piper could—hopefully—get the last load of her stuff out of her upstairs bedroom. That would give her plenty of time to deliver Mel’s order, close up shop, and spend the rest of the night with Dani—probably in Dani’s sublet, given her current living situation.

  She smiled into her scarf, mounting the three-step stoop with the sack of McDonald’s in her right fist.

  She opened the front door and stepped into the warm hallway. The glow of the kerosene heater danced on the wall.

  “Mom,” she called out. “I got you a Big Mac.”

  Nothing.

  “Mom?” The silence sent a chill down the back of her neck, pooling in her stomach.

  Oh god, it’s happened. She’s dead. It’s happened, she’s dead.

  She stepped into the living room and saw Willy in the patched armchair, a rifle over his lap.

  Her mother was on the sofa, seemingly unconscious.

  “The fuck—” she said. “Why the hell do you have a gun?”

  “Why the hell are you trying to secret her away like a fucking wetback.”

  Piper had no answer for this. She was staring at her mother, desperate to see her chest rise and fall.

  “What did you give her?” Piper crouched down and pressed a finger to her throat. The pulse was there. Shallow and fast, but it was there.