by Gred Herren
Pray for a brave heart.
I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer for strength and patience, and when I opened my eyes we were moving again. I felt somewhat calmer. Of course Rain was right. I had to stay calm. Frank would be fine. If I panicked, I wouldn’t be any use to anyone. I tried calling Colin again, but no luck.
He can’t just be on the phone this whole time. He must have just shut it off.
Why would he do that? I wondered, and then realized Rain had said something I hadn’t heard and was waiting for me to answer as she turned onto O’Keefe. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I was asking you again why you think Mom and the grands hate each other,” she replied. “I mean, that’s just crazy.”
“Well, I think it’s pretty obvious the way they talk to each other—”
She waved her hand. “Please. They just like to argue. Papa and Maman adore Mom. And Dad, too. They may not always agree—well, they never agree—but the grands are really proud of them.”
It was my turn to stare. I’m sure my jaw had dropped too. “You aren’t serious?”
“Scotty, who always bails Mom and Dad out of jail?” She laughed. “Maman and Papa, that’s who—and they never just send someone or a lawyer. They go, every time, and sit there in the waiting room until Mom and Dad come out, and then they all go out for dinner and drinks.” She gave me a wink. “Like you said, just your typical American family.”
“But Papa is always just so mean.”
“That’s just how he is. He’s like Storm. You don’t think Storm’s mean, do you?”
“Well, no. He’s just annoying—on purpose.” Storm was the most horrible tease. Sometimes he drove me absolutely insane. At least he’d stopped calling me “my queen.” But he still called my psychic power my “psycho gift.”
“Well, Papa is the same way. That’s how he shows affection. Is it how I’d prefer he be? No. I don’t particularly like being quizzed on a regular basis about why I’m not pregnant, but hey.” She shrugged, turning onto Esplanade. “Now, do you need my help with rescuing Frank?”
She was so completely earnest that I had no doubt she would be willing to strap a dagger to her leg, and I had this mental image of her in a commando outfit. I couldn’t help myself. It was all so absurd that my Uptown Mrs. Doctor sister was eager to help in a rescue mission that I started snorting with laughter.
“Don’t laugh at me! I’m serious.” She punched me in the leg as she pulled over at the corner of Decatur and Esplanade.
“You have no idea how much I love you right now.” I leaned over and kissed her on the tip of her nose.
“You sure you don’t need my help?” She frowned at me. “I never get to have any fun.”
She’d always said that when we were kids. I grinned back at her. “I know, it’s not fair.”
She laughed then and gave me another hug. “Oh, Scotty, don’t you remember?” She pointed her index finger at me and did a dead-on impersonation of Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest: “Ah, but nobody ever said life was fair, Tina.”
That made me laugh, and she laughed with me. She reached over and wiped the tears off my cheeks before planting a big, wet, sloppy, slurpy, noisy kiss on me. “I love you, little bro.”
“I love you, Rain.”
She twisted her face into her best grimace and rolled her eyes. “Even now you can’t call me Rhonda? What does it take in this family to get a little respect anyway?”
“I will never call you that.” I grinned back at her. “Rain was the little girl who always pulled me out from in front of cars.”
She gave me a long look, her eyes shiny with fresh tears, before blowing me a kiss. “Frank’s going to be fine.” And then I got out of the car.
I watched her negotiate the U-turn at Frenchmen and waved as she drove past. I kept watching—and waving—until the trees shielded the Range Rover from my sight. I took a deep breath and started walking up the sidewalk to my front door. I’ve got to find Frank, I thought, and felt the tension starting to build again. I started looking around for Sasha on the street. He wasn’t in front of my gate. Maybe he’d gone into the coffee shop to get warm; it was still a bit damp and chilly.
I glanced across the street and my blood ran a little colder.
The guy who’d been watching the house was there again.
I stopped dead in my tracks and took a better look.
I wasn’t sure if it was the same guy. They seemed to be of the same size, and the outfit was similar—baseball cap pulled down low to mask the top of the face, a grayish trench coat with the collar turned up, jeans and athletic shoes beneath. If it wasn’t the same guy, it was two guys with the same sense of style, at the very least. The street wasn’t as crowded as yesterday; some brave souls had ventured out from cover since the rain had stopped, although the sky was completely hidden by clouds running every shade of color between gray and black. I didn’t know if he was watching for me, per se, but if Frank had been kidnapped, they might have tracked him back here. They might be looking for the rest of us, if they didn’t have Colin. I casually pulled out my cell phone and dialed Colin again. Nothing. My heart was racing.
It wouldn’t be too hard to track us down; we were all three listed in the phone book with our addresses there for anyone to find. Even if he wasn’t watching for me, I didn’t like the looks of this. It was definitely not a good sign.
I waited for a crowd of tourists to walk across Esplanade and then fell into step alongside them as they headed up Decatur. They were jabbering and chatting away and didn’t notice me on their outer edge. My mind was working. The guy who’d watched the house before had reminded me of Frank. Frank had been a government agent. The plot of every single spy movie I’d ever seen rushed through my head. Maybe Frank had information on someone or something that made him dangerous from his days with the FBI. Frank never talked about his days with the FBI; his cases, the people he worked with, what kind of inside information he’d been privy to that certain people in the government might not want to be public knowledge. My imagination was certainly not helped by the mistrust my parents had sown into me my entire life about the Big Brother in Washington, watching and monitoring our every move. When we reached the door to the coffee shop, I ducked inside, worked up to a fine emotional turmoil of terror and paranoia.
And I wasn’t even stoned.
Nor was Sasha inside the coffee shop. Where the hell was he?
I walked over to the counter and casually ordered an iced mocha from a clerk I didn’t recognize. I gave her a good hard, long look. She was maybe twenty and everything about her screamed poor college student working her way through college—the dreadlocks dyed blue and scarlet, the exposed pierced navel, the row of posts running up the outer lobes of her ears, and the surly attitude. I kept watching her—the paranoia again—but finally decided she was exactly what she seemed. She was also pretty efficient at quickly making an iced mocha. Darcy, the usual daytime girl, was actually pretty slow, which sometimes was annoying if I was in a rush. I paid her, threw a dollar in the tips jar, took my drink, and headed to the hallway to the courtyard. I unlocked the door and slipped through, pulling it shut and locking it again. It’s nice, I thought, having a secret entrance into the house. I took a deep breath and felt relief flood through me. Once inside, of course, the paranoia left, like it was never there, and I felt kind of silly.
But the guy is watching the house. Again. You didn’t imagine that, Scotty.
Velma was sitting at the table, sparking a fat joint. She gave me a big grin and waved me over.
I glanced at the stairs and thought about just waving and heading up, but Sasha wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and there was nothing to do but sit there and wait for him. Besides, my aunts Millie and Velma aren’t the kind of women you can just ignore. They’re not really my aunts; they’re lifelong friends of my mother’s, and a long-term lesbian couple. They’ve been together longer than most straight couples I know. Velma was more than capable of getting
pissed if I blew her off and storming up the stairs behind me. She once beaned Frank with a frying pan, something she now regrets terribly, but he’s never really been comfortable around her ever since. In her defense, he was holding a gun on me at the time, but still.... His head ached for days. So, if Frank had just escaped from abductors, the last thing he needed was for Velma to come storming into the apartment. Besides, she was not, despite my age, beyond grabbing me by the ear and twisting. Not to mention the great deal she and Millie had given me on the rent.
Basically, I’m pretty much their bitch.
I walked over and she offered the joint. I shook my head. I could still remember the self-induced paranoia; the last thing I needed was to enhance it with marijuana. “No thanks, Aunty.”
She shrugged and took another long hit. “Your loss, buddy. This is some primo shit.”
“Where’s Millie?” It was some strong stuff; I could tell by the smell of the smoke. I looked at it longingly, then at the stairs, then back at her. No, Scotty, it’s not a good idea, I told myself. Be strong.
She gestured upstairs and then the smoke exploded out of her in a racking cough that doubled her over. She kept coughing for a few seconds more before finally straightening up, her eyes red and watering, and said, “Whew,” as she reached for her bottled water. “She’s up there with some of her lawyer buddies—you know, the power dykes.” She winked at me. “There’s only so much of that talk I can stand. Where’ve you been?”
“At Maman’s,” I said. It wasn’t a lie; it was the last place I’d been. No sense in telling her what was going on, I figured. She’d tell Millie—Millie is a lawyer in the sharkiest sense of the word; she’s Storm’s role model—and I’d have to deal with that. Like I said, they aren’t the kind of women you can just trifle with. They’d want to help somehow, and if I was even able to convince them there was nothing they could do, they’d both worry themselves sick. Or drive each other crazy.
“Why’re you coming in through the coffee shop?” She narrowed her eyes a bit.
“Because the walkway roof drips,” I said, without even having to think. It does, badly. During a storm you have to keep your umbrella up or risk getting soaked. You’d think when the house had to be rebuilt, they’d have replaced that roof. Sometimes I think they didn’t because they enjoy listening to me bitch about it. I know it’s caused them amusement on more than one occasion to see me get soaked.
She rolled her eyes. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the guy watching the house?”
“You know about that?”
She sighed. “Listen, pal, your aunt and I aren’t stupid people. And after what happened with the arson last summer”—that was when the house burned down—“we keep a close eye on what’s going on in the street. I don’t want to be uprooted again. Sooo, what’s going on?”
I looked at her and then sat down with a sigh. “It’s real complicated. Let’s just say two people are dead, I don’t know where Colin is, we think it might be the Russian Mob, and Frank—well, Frank is missing. I think the Russians might have him. I have no idea who the guy outside is.”
“You want me to get my frying pan?” Her eyes gleamed.
What is it with these women? I wondered. “No, I don’t think so. And the bad thing is, the guy who told me the Russians have Frank was supposed to meet me here, and he’s nowhere to be found.”
She got a weird, guilty look. “Um, there’s a guy in your apartment. Hot, all huge and muscular. I figured there was a story. . . .”
I kissed her on the cheek; said, “Save me some of that stuff ”; and ran upstairs. I got progressively wobblier as I climbed, finally having to grab hold of the rail tightly. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely fit the key in the lock, but finally the door opened and I ran down the hall to the living room. I could hear the television on. “Sasha?” I shouted.
He was sitting on the couch, slouched down in his jeans and a tank top I recognized as one of my dad’s—and it was waaaay too small for him. His face lit up when he saw me. He flicked off the television with the remote, jumped up, and came bounding over to me. He threw his arms around me, practically squeezing the breath out of me in the process. He picked me up off the ground and kept holding—until I finally was able to squeeze my hands in against his chest and push lightly. He didn’t let go, so I pushed harder. Finally, I had to say, “Sasha, I—can’t—breathe.”
“So sorry!” He set me down. “So glad to see Scotty!”
“Yeah, so I gather.” I gave him a weak smile. “How’d you get in here? And where’s Frank?” As I stared into his face, it dawned on me that he didn’t know Misha was dead, and my entire body sagged. Someone was going to have to tell him, and I had this horrible feeling it was going to have to be me. It was just a bit too much for me. He grabbed me before I could fall and propped me up.
“Parents gave spare key.” His ice blue–gray eyes examined me carefully. “Scotty all right?”
“I’m fine.” He let go of me and I looked at him. “And Frank? Where’s Frank?”
“I know where Frank is.” He gave me a big smile. “Now we have to go get.” He nodded his head happily. “Be easy—what you call piece of cake?”
“Piece of cake,” I said, nodding.
And everything went spinning and gray.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ten of Wands
one who is carrying an oppressive load
“You must pray for a brave heart.”
I heard the Goddess’s soft, gentle voice through the fog as I drifted downward. The light sound of her voice seemed to wrap around me as I floated down, the gray mist swirling around me but nevertheless caressing my skin, as though slowing me as I moved ever downward. Down below me I heard a marching band’s drums being pounded, the blast of the tubas, and the cheers and shouts of a crowd. It was a night parade, and through the mist I could see the flickering torches of the flambeaux carriers. Even though I was drifting, weightless, I felt calm and at peace. My worries and stresses had been taken from me. My body no longer felt sore and tired and exhausted. My feet landed on something solid. Now I could just barely make out the shapes and sounds of people shouting at the riders on a float, and the throws were flying. A string of green, gold, and purple beads landed at my feet, with a medallion attached. I bent down and picked them up off the damp ground, and the medallion leered at me. It was a harlequin’s face, all white with a green and purple cap with gold trim. There was a heart-shaped mole on one of its cheeks, and the bright red lips were pulled back in a leering grimace. Around the edge of the medallion, rather than the name of a krewe, were the words MARDI GRAS MAMBO. I turned it over and over again in my hands.
And the voice came again through the mist.
“You must pray for a brave heart.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, looking around me. I never saw her, no matter how close I could sense her presence at times—yet I always tried, squinting my eyes and peering through the damp, cool air. I know intellectually that she is ethereal, that she doesn’t have to take shape, probably only takes shape when the human she is speaking to cannot understand or comprehend her unless she is in human form, but I still look. “I don’t really understand. You say it to me all the time but I never really know what it means.” I sounded like a pouty child not getting his way, but I couldn’t help myself. She’d thrown quite a few curveballs at me in the last couple of days, and without meaning any disrespect, I kind of wanted some straight answers from her.
I mean, what’s the point of being able to communicate with the Universe if its meaning doesn’t make sense to you?
“You will understand when the time is right. It means what it means. Pray for a brave heart,” she said, her words like the wind around me.
“But that doesn’t help me—and that doesn’t help me find Frank!!” I kicked at the ground angrily, clutching the medallion in my hands.
“Frank is fine for now. You will do what needs to be done.”
I stoo
d there, the medallion in my hand. So many questions, so many possible answers—I didn’t even have the slightest idea of where to start, where to begin. I turned it over in my hand. It was heavier than plastic, and I brought it closer to my eyes. It was made of metal, not plastic. I’d never seen anything like it.
“Life is testing you, Scotty. Nothing comes to you that you cannot handle. It is how you handle what life presents you that matters.”
“That’s a load of crap!” I shouted, waving my arms to try to part the mist, make it go away so I could see better. “I don’t want to be tested!”
“The only choice is how to handle what life presents to you.” Her voice was fading now, she was going back to wherever it was she went, and I would be returning to my plane. The medallion burned in my hands, and I dropped it, and the ground beneath me began to dematerialize, and I began to fall again, slowly, the mist wrapping itself around me, and as the mist and the grayness began to give way to light again, I could hear her words echoing in the distance.
Pray for a brave heart. . . .
“Scotty?” I looked up into Velma’s gray eyes. Her face was concerned at first, but then as my eyes began to focus better, it dissolved into a huge grin. “Just another trance, then. Thank God.” She stood up with an enormous sigh of relief. “I swear you scare the shit out of me sometimes.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to sit up, but I got dizzy and collapsed back onto the back cushions of the couch. Well, at least I was sitting up. The room wasn’t spinning or anything, and everything was slowly coming back into focus. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sasha come back into the room, a soaked paper towel in one hand, folded tightly into a pad. His face also lit up with a smile and what looked like relief. He sat down on the sofa.
“This one came out on the balcony and yelled for help.” Velma looked into my eyes. “No, you seem fine.” She looked over at Sasha, then back to me with a wink.