Let the Dead Sleep

by Heather Graham

  Chapter Seven

  SOON THEY WERE past the Central Business District and Quinn studied the neon lights in the faded section of town. Here, the words bygone elegance could definitely be applied. Some of the structures were pre-Civil War; others had been haphazardly constructed through the years. The paint on most of the buildings was chipping, and people—as faded, as hopeless, as the facades of the buildings themselves—sat on doorstops, drinking from paper bags.

  “A far cry from your home,” Danni said.

  “And yours.” He sent her a grim smile. “Bourbon Street may be the home of partying, sex and booze to visitors from around the world, but your place on Royal sits on some of the most expensive property in the city.”

  “I wasn’t making a judgment,” she said.

  “Neither was I.”

  “You grew up in the Garden District, right?”

  “I did.” He glanced in her direction. “But I worked some mean streets as a cop and I saw a few places where no one even pretended there was hope for the future. Sorry. I’m still not convinced you should be with me.”

  She looked straight ahead. “You were appalled that I knew nothing. Now I’m learning,” she said. “It’s not that I want to be learning... I’m still...well, I’m more openminded. Let me put it that way.”

  He wasn’t sure how to argue with that. He used an age-old response. “You’re a girl.”

  “Yes, that’s a fact. And?”

  He smiled. “I guess I’ll have to take you to a shooting range.”

  “Actually, I can shoot. At a target, anyway.”

  “Yeah. It’s different, shooting at flesh and blood.”

  “Look, I don’t...I don’t know if I can embrace all this. I’m afraid. There’s a lot I don’t like. But I’m stubborn as hell and I’ve decided I’m going to try to understand. You came to me, and now I’m not going away.”

  “You’re still...a girl.”

  “Yes, you’ve proved your powers of observation! I’m involved now, Quinn—and you know I have to be.”

  They both grew silent. Neon lights were blinking, although most of the businesses there only had a few lighted letters in their names.

  They found the bar where they hoped to run into Numb Nuts, also known as Sam Johnson. Quinn hesitated.

  “What are we doing?” Danni asked.

  “Hoping to park where I’ll have a car when we leave,” he said. “Oh, screw it.”

  It wasn’t legal but he parked at a broken meter. He noted that Danni nearly stepped on a shattered beer bottle as she exited the car.

  “Come on, Wolf,” he said to the dog. “Watch Danni.”

  Her eyes widened as the dog obediently fell into step beside her.

  Despite the dog, he set a protective arm around her as they passed a group of down-and-outers guzzling from their paper bags near the doorway. He stood at least six inches over the tallest of the bunch, but they’d fallen silent, watching them. When they passed, someone let out a whistle.

  Quinn counted on Wolf to be aware if they were followed.

  They were not.

  “You’re armed, aren’t you?” Danni asked in a whisper as they walked through the slatted doors to the bar.

  “You have a problem with that?”

  She laughed. “No, I’m just glad.”

  “We’re looking for an old Creole named Sam Johnson,” Quinn said quietly. “I don’t really want to ask for him. I don’t want to put him in a spotlight.”

  “He’ll be in a spotlight as soon as he’s seen with us, I’ll bet.”

  An ancient air conditioner hummed against one of the windows but Quinn guessed it was more for show—there were ceiling fans blowing and two of the street-side windows were open. The floor was filthy; it was some kind of linoleum that hadn’t seen a washing in a decade, and it was littered with cigarette butts and ground-in gum. The woman behind this bar seemed way past retirement age, but she was wiry and strong and busy giving her opinion to a burly man with trousers hung low and BVDs up high.

  Two men who looked to be centuries old were playing a game of checkers and three women—old hookers—were lounging, legs spread, on the beaten-up couch that stood against one wall.

  Quinn and Danni had barely entered when Wolf gave a low warning growl.

  Then they heard a shout of pain and fear. It came from the group they’d just passed outside.

  “I don’t know where old Sam is. Ain’t seen him tonight,” someone cried.

  “Where’s Sam? You tell me, you low-life bastard, or I’ll start shooting at your balls,” came the reply.

  “Wolf!” Quinn said, drawing his gun from the holster beneath his shirt. He headed for the entry behind the dog, but before even Wolf had a chance to attack, a shot exploded and there were screams and the sound of footsteps running down the alley.

  He turned around and shouted to Danni, “Stay here! Stay here!”

  When he and Wolf burst back into the street, the group had scattered. Two of the men were racing across the road and one was tearing down the sidewalk in another direction. A fourth had run into the darkness of the alley.

  “That way, Wolf!” he ordered the dog, pointing at the corner of the building.

  Wolf barked and raced ahead. Quinn tore after him.

  * * *

  Danni had felt brave enough when Quinn was with her, but standing in the center of the tawdry bar—with the hookers and the checkers players and even the bartender and the old BVD guy staring at her—she wished she’d listened to him and gone home.

  They seemed unaffected by the sounds from the street; they’d paused to listen, but since no one had come in waving a gun at any of the patrons, they’d apparently decided just to stare at her.

  There was nothing to do but stare back. She did so, eyeing them with a frown as she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and hit 9-1-1, reporting her location and explaining that there’d been shots fired. She hung up, trying to look as fierce as possible.

  “I guess no one else was going to report the fact that someone might’ve been shot,” she said.

  One of the hookers, a skinny woman with frizzy dyed red hair, rose and approached her. “Honey, shots are fired around here all the time. With any luck, the cops will come. But don’t hold your breath—takes them a while sometimes. I mean, you know, long enough for a man to bleed out. I guess the cops figure if we’re killing one another, there’s less for them to worry about.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” she said, and yet she had to wonder how she could really think anything about the situation, since she’d never frequented this part of town—and she’d lived in New Orleans all her life. “Human life is sacred.”

  “Oh, Lordy, Lordy, she might be one of them missionary ladies, Mabel,” one of the other old hookers said. Mabel was black. The woman who joined her to study Danni was so pale she must have come from a northern clime.

  “I’m not a missionary,” she said. “I called the cops because I don’t believe they want anyone killing anyone else.” They were both studying her now. “Hey, we all need the tourist trade, don’t we?”

  The pale woman giggled. “Well, I wish the tourists I know had a little more in the way of green stuff, but whatever you say, sweetie.”

  “You come here with Captain America, honey?” the third hooker asked, rising.

  Mabel giggled. “After my, er, recent escorts, I’d pay that boy, I can tell you! You’re a lucky lady, running around with that one.”

  “He’s a good guy. He doesn’t want anyone dying,” Danni said.

  “Quit circling the poor girl!” the bartender called out, walking over to them.

  “Oh, Mama Jackson, we didn’t mean no harm!” the blonde said.

  “You come on up to the bar, honey,” the bartend
er—Mama Jackson—told her. “Don’t pay these girls no mind.”

  “Um, they weren’t offensive, really,” Danni said.

  The hookers giggled in unison.

  “Can I buy a round of drinks?” Danni asked.

  They stopped giggling. “Now, that’s really sweet. Especially since the cops will eventually get here!” Mabel said. “Seeing that you called ’em. Mama Jackson, this sweet thing is buying drinks. Give us the good stuff—something that has a real label on it!”

  “You mean it?” Mama Jackson asked Danni.

  “Yes, of course, whatever they’d like.”

  The checkers players rose and the BVD man turned to look at her.

  “Drinks all around,” Danni said.

  She was suddenly the belle of the bar. The girls cozied up around her and the checkers players smiled at her appreciatively. The BVD man asked, “Hey, that fellow of yours comin’ back?” he asked, wiggling an eyebrow.

  The blonde laughed. “J.J., you’re far too old and ugly for the likes of her!”

  “Hey!” J.J. protested. “I ain’t too ugly for you.”

  “You got pretty money sometimes, J.J.,” the blonde said.

  Mama Jackson started pouring the drinks—shots in dirty glasses. “This will cost you four bucks a pop,” she told Danni.

  “I’ll spring for it,” Danni said dryly, hoping she hadn’t made a mistake, that she wasn’t going to be mugged for the money in her pockets. She didn’t think, somehow, that Mama Jackson took credit cards.

  But she needn’t have worried. They were on the wrong side of righteous, perhaps, but the crowd in the bar wasn’t out to hurt her. The blonde introduced herself as Lela, and the third one, a brunette, was Foxie.

  “What are you doing in this part of town?” Mama Jackson asked her.

  So much for her old painting clothes making her look as if she belonged. She was lucky; she’d never been down and out. She’d been cherished all her life, and her way through school and college had been encouraged and financed. She’d been expected to grow up and have a career.

  “We’re trying to find a man named Sam Johnson. We’re worried about him,” Danni said.

  “You know old Sam?” Mama Jackson asked. “Old Numb Nuts?”

  Danni shook her head. “But he might have heard about a plan to steal...an object and what he heard might have put him in danger.”

  To her surprise, her newfound friends were willing to help her.

  “I thought Sam was acting kind of edgy,” Mabel said.

  “Yeah, he was talking to me about some fellow and his girl got killed last night,” Foxie put in.

  “If you’re looking for Sam,” Lela told her, “you might want to try the old cemetery on Basin Street.”

  “The cemetery?” Danni repeated. Even if Sam had been killed, he couldn’t possibly be in the cemetery yet.

  “Yeah, he used to go there on account of his cancer,” Mabel said. “You know—he had that man cancer.”

  “Prostate?” Danni asked.

  “Yeah, that’s it. That’s where he got his name. Numb Nuts. He’s a nice old dude. Used to do a lot of talking, only he never had money. After the cancer thing—and the freebie hospital taking care of him—he said that even if he had the money, he couldn’t do nothin’ ’cause his nuts were numb. But before the operation, he used to go hang out in the cemetery. Said he wanted to get used to being with the dead. Then he told me one night that was where he went when he was scared of some of the bigger bastards around here. Maybe you’ll find him there.”

  “Thank you!” Danni said.

  Just as she spoke, they heard sirens; a police car stopped in front of the bar and two officers came in.

  Danni turned and quickly explained that she’d called them because a shot had been fired outside. The first officer sighed. Apparently it was true—shots were fired frequently in the area. “Is anyone hurt?”

  “Not in here,” Mama Jackson said.

  Before the cops could exit, Quinn came through the door. Wolf was at his heels, but Danni hardly noticed the dog. He was carrying a man with an ashen face and a bandage, fashioned from Quinn’s ripped shirt, on his leg. “I’ve called an ambulance,” he said, bringing the man to one of the chairs. “There’s a bullet in his calf. He was lucky. Whoever was chasing him took off when he heard Wolf and me running after him.”

  “That freak was screaming away about old Sam and I’d a told him where he was if I’d a known!” the injured man said.

  “Which way?” the cop asked Quinn.

  “Down the alley. But I heard a motor revving. You’re not going to get him now. I didn’t see the car.”

  He sounded thoroughly disgusted.

  Mabel, Lela and Foxie began demanding better police protection, but while the officers tried to impose some kind of order, the ambulance arrived. Paramedics rushed in, asking questions of Quinn and the injured man, Tommy Lee Hutchins. One of the checkers players reached over the bar for the bottle of decent whiskey Mama Jackson had just poured, but Mama Jackson caught him. While the younger officer left with Hutchins in the ambulance, the older officer began to question everyone. Quinn told him about racing down the alley, stumbling upon the injured man and hearing the car rev out on the street when the shooter made his getaway. Naturally, the officer needed to see Quinn’s permit, and when he did, he realized that he knew the name, and the two began to talk as if they were old friends.

  Then everyone was talking at once, trying to tell the officer what they knew—which really wasn’t much—except that Mabel and the girls were able to identify the other men lounging around outside, so at least the cops could track them down and get a better description of the shooter. When Quinn and Danni had finished their reports, it was eleven; he looked tired and worn out, and he told her they needed to go home.

  He watched Danni as she paid the bar bill; Mama Jackson and the others raised their glasses to her and told her to come back anytime.

  Quinn gave her a curious look. She shrugged and waved goodbye.

  “I’m sorry I had to cut out, leaving you in there,” he said. “I did tell you not to come with me.”

  She smiled. “As you see, I can manage.”

  “I guess.” Quinn placed his hand on her back as he steered her out.

  “In fact, I managed quite well.”

  “I just missed him!” Quinn said angrily once they got in the car. “Tommy Lee Hutchins was on the ground screaming, and as soon as I reached him, I heard the car. Wolf gave chase but I called him back. He’s a good dog, but he can’t stop a car, and I couldn’t leave a guy bleeding and screaming in an alley.”

  “And I don’t want to burst your bubble, Quinn, but you couldn’t catch a car, either,” Danni told him.

  “Another near-miss. All this, and nothing,” Quinn said, shaking his head.

  “Just because you got nothing doesn’t mean I didn’t get something.”

  He turned to her, startled.

  “When Numb Nuts is afraid,” she began, “he goes to the cemetery—”

  “Which one?”

  “Over on Basin.”

  “At night? The cemeteries are locked at night....”

  “Yes, they are. People hop the walls, or so I assume. Unless they pole vault or drop in by parachute.”

  His brows lowered. “And you know this how?”

  “Through my new friends,” she said. “Buy a few drinks and...”

  “You could get mugged. Or worse.”

  “But I didn’t. So let’s go to the cemetery.”

  * * *

  Tourists did not flock this neighborhood by night—nor did most citizens. Quinn was easily able to park near the cemetery gates.

  Wolf made an unhappy little whining sound; he knew he was being left in the car.r />
  “Hey, boy, you’re the lookout tonight,” Quinn told him.

  Exiting on her side, Danni said, “Please don’t tell me he’s also the getaway driver.”

  “No, but he’s a good lookout,” Quinn said. He glanced at Danni, at the cemetery wall and the barbed wire atop it—meant to discourage acts like the one they were about to perform.

  “I can go this alone,” he insisted.

  “No. I’m the one with the information.”

  “Can you make it?”

  “I’ll need a boost,” she said.

  They moved along the wall to a place where the top had crumbled, offering a slightly lower purchase.

  Quinn lifted Danni by her legs, giving her the boost she needed to reach the top of the high brick wall that surrounded the cemetery. He was glad to see she was agile and had the strength to haul herself the rest of the way.

  There was barbed wire on the brick and she had to maneuver around it. This was how the church attempted to keep the drug traders and other reprobates—frat kids pledging and common vandals—out of the historic and sacred burial place of the dead.

  It was going to be a little more difficult for him. He called to her softly to meet him around the corner at the gate.

  There, beneath a streetlight, he found a place he could climb. Luckily, by then, the honest citizens of the area were in bed, the dishonest were in hiding and the stray street vendor who might prey on tourists by day had long since given up hope of someone needing a can of soda or a questionable wrapped sandwich.

  He got a foothold and a few armholds, grateful for the extra strength that had come to him after his near-death experience. He moved quickly—not wanting Danni to see just how good he could be at clambering over heights he shouldn’t have been able to maneuver.

  He was somewhat surprised that it had been her suggestion to come here. He was still surprised that she’d wanted to go to the seedy bar with him—and that she’d befriended a group of hookers.

  But being alone in one of the Cities of the Dead in New Orleans wouldn’t appeal to many people, especially at night. Naturally they were all famous for being haunted.