Or was the pounding in her head?
Wow! She honestly didn’t know. The details were hazy, like a painful childhood incident that had suddenly crept back into her consciousness. Why couldn’t she remember the door? What was it about her door?
Ariane tried to open her eyes, fought to pry her lids apart, but the pain was too intense. Wave after wave crashed inside her head, causing her to lurch forward into the fetal position. As she did, the maelstrom surged toward her gut, inducing the worst muscle spasms of her life. To her it felt like her innards were exploding upward. Like her gallblad der, liver, and intestines were inching their way toward her mouth, swimming ever so slowly up the back of her throat on a viscous river of bile.
“What’s wrong with me?” she called out, hoping God would provide her with an answer.
“Shhh,” a motherly voice replied. “Just relax. The pain will soon pass. I promise.”
The sound of a strange voice sent shock waves through Ariane.
“Who are you?” she shrieked, now trying to open her eyes with twice the urgency of before. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”
The voice sighed at the query. “You’re not in your bedroom.”
That was news to Ariane. She honestly couldn’t remember leaving her apartment. “I’m not? Where am I, then? What’s wrong with me?”
“I’m not sure where we are. I wish I knew. And as to what’s wrong with you, you’re having a reaction to the drugs. But don’t worry, it’ll pass quickly.”
“Drugs?” Ariane mumbled.
“Yeah, sis, I said drugs.” The female paused to let the information sink in.
Sis
? Did she say
sis
? Why the hell would this person call her
sis
?
Oh, God! The reason suddenly dawned on her.
“Tonya? Is that you?”
Tonya Edwards looked down at Ariane and attempted to smile. “Of course it’s me-unless you have another sister that you’ve been hiding.”
“No, but . . .” The presence of her pregnant older sister only added to Ariane’s confusion. Tonya lived in Colorado. What in the world was she doing in Pittsburgh? “Why are you here? Is something wrong?”
It was the understatement of the year.
“Yeah, sis, I’d say something is wrong.”
Ariane swallowed, the bitter taste of bile still in her mouth. “Is it the baby?”
“The baby, Robert, you, me. Pretty much everything.” Tonya tried to lower herself to the floor, but her belly prevented it. “I’m not sure why, but our family’s been kidnapped.”
SLIGHTLY banged up but happy to be alive, the two friends walked to their rented Mustang in total silence. As they strolled past the ancient cemetery, Payne shuddered slightly, realizing how close he’d come to his own funeral. If the sniper had been a little more accurate, Payne and Jones would’ve been returning to Pittsburgh in wooden crates, not in the comfort of a private jet.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Jones said, studying his silent friend. “Are you all right?”
Payne nodded as he slid into the car. “As good as can be expected.”
After strapping himself in, Payne allowed his mind to drift back to the incident at the tattoo shop. Even though the shooting was unexpected, Payne knew that Ariane’s kidnappers were bound to become aware of his presence. But the big question was, how? How did they find out about him so quickly? Was there a spy at the airport? At the Fishing Hole? Or was the late-night gunplay an unlucky coincidence? Maybe Sam’s death had been ordered several days before, and the sniper just happened to show up at the same time they did. Sam was the first one eliminated, so maybe he was the number one priority of the hit. Maybe the Plantation Posse, or some unrelated gang, had been planning to silence him for an entirely different reason. Even though it seemed unlikely, it was a possibility.
Shit, in New Orleans, anything was possible. One trip to Mardi Gras would prove that.
“By the way,” Jones asked, “where are we going? Or are you planning on driving around this city until someone starts shooting at us again?”
“That’s not what I had in mind, but now that you mention it, that’s better than anything I can come up with.”
“Stumped already?”
“I wouldn’t say stumped, but I’m pretty confused. There are simply too many variables floating around in my mind right now. And I can’t figure out which ones are important.”
“I was thinking the same thing. There are lots of questions and very few answers.”
“You’re right about that. However, two things are bothering me more than anything else. I can’t figure them out for the life of me.”
“And they are?”
“Number one, if Ariane was kidnapped for money, why the hell would the Posse try to kill me? I’m the one with the bank account. Why eliminate me? My death would instantly take away their chance of a big payday.”
Jones nodded. It was a thought that hadn’t entered his mind. “You’re right. That’s a pretty big issue, one that I can’t answer. What’s number two? Maybe I can help you with that.”
“That one’s even more confusing. Where the hell is Levon?”
CHAPTER 24
BECAUSE
of his size and the weapon he carried, Levon Greene showed no fear as he walked through Louis Armstrong Park. Like most American cities, New Orleans had a policy against large, gun-toting black men walking in its city parks after midnight. But Greene knew he was in no danger of being stopped since most cops were at Sam’s Tattoos, trying to solve that shooting.
As he emerged from the darkness of the tree-lined sidewalks, Greene tucked his pistol in the waistband of his Dockers, concealing it completely under his shirt. Despite the early-morning hour, up-tempo funk leaked from Don na’s Bar and Grill, a famous jazz club off of St. Ann Street. A group of well-dressed men and women waited to show the bouncer their IDs. Greene didn’t have the patience to linger in line, so he shook the hand of the starstruck guard and slipped inside without delay.
Celebrity had some privileges.
Since the sniper had prevented him from using the bathroom at Sam’s, Greene quickly made his way to the rear of the club while trying to conceal his identity from as many people as he could. He simply didn’t have time to sign autographs for anyone at the moment. There were more pressing matters on his mind-and his lower colon-to deal with. After making his way into the restroom, Greene found himself angered by his phone, which started to ring the moment he turned the lock on his stall door.
“Who’s this?” he demanded.
“This is D.J.,” Jones said, relieved. “Are you all right?”
The call was completely unexpected, like hearing the voice of a ghost, and it took Greene a moment to catch his breath. “Am
I
all right? I think the better question is, are
you
all right? I thought you were dead for sure! I can’t believe you’re alive! Did Jon make it, too?”
“He’s fine. He’s sitting next to me.”
“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Greene muttered. From the number of bullets fired, he assumed nobody in the front of the shop could’ve survived. And if someone had, he figured they’d be bleeding all over intensive care by now. “How about Sam? Did he make it?”
“I’m afraid not. The first shot took him out clean. He didn’t have a chance.”
“What about the next one hundred shots? What the hell did they hit?”
“Everything but us,” Jones admitted. “I guess our military training helped us escape.”
“Training? What kind of training teaches you to dodge bullets? Are you guys fucking ninjas?”
“I swear I never fucked a ninja in my life.” Jones chuckled, hoping that Greene understood his joke. “The truth is, luck played a bigger role in our safety than I’m willing to admit.”
“Man, how lucky can two guys get?”
“Speaking of lu
cky, how did you get out of there? I could’ve sworn we left you in Sam’s bathroom. When we went to save you, you weren’t in there. How did you pull that one off?”
Greene smiled as he thought about his easy escape, but it was a secret that he wasn’t ready to share. He wanted Payne and Jones to ponder the mystery for a little while longer. “I’ll tell you in a little bit, okay? But I’m in a public restroom as we speak, and I don’t know if there are people in the other stalls listening.”
“What did you do? Flush yourself to another part of the city?”
Greene laughed. “No, nothing like that, but you’ll have to wait a few more minutes for the details. Where are you guys now?”
Jones asked Payne for details. “We’re somewhere in the French Quarter. Jon thinks it’s called Conti Street.”
“That’s pretty close to me.” Greene gave Jones directions to Donna’s Bar and Grill and told him that he’d be waiting outside when they got there. “But first,” he insisted, “I’ve got some urgent business to attend to, and I’m not willing to do it while we’re on the phone.”
THE
Mustang stopped in front of the crowded club and pulled away with its new passenger. As the car picked up speed, Greene greeted Payne and Jones, warmly shaking their hands. “Military? You guys never told me you were in the military. What branch were you in?”
Payne answered first. “I went to the Naval Academy. After that I got selected by the government to work on a special forces unit.”
“That’s where I met him,” Jones added. “I was assigned to the same team as Jon, even though I was from the Air Force. And we’ve been side by side ever since.”
“I’ll be damned,” Greene muttered. “I’m sitting here with two Rambos. No wonder you guys were able to escape the tattoo parlor. I’m surprised you didn’t kill the shooter in the process. What, are you guys rusty or something?”
“Actually, we wanted to get the bastard but weren’t able to because of you.”
Greene looked at Payne, confused. “Because of me? What did I do?”
“It’s what you didn’t do. You didn’t get us guns that worked.”
“They didn’t work? What do you mean they didn’t work?”
Jones jumped into the fray. “Just like he said. We pulled our triggers several times, and nothing came out. Like a guy with a vasectomy.”
Payne grinned at the analogy. “Tell me more about your gun dealer. Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“No,” Greene assured them. “He’s got a first-class rep on the streets.”
“Maybe so, but his faulty products almost got us killed.” Payne slowed to a stop at a red light and turned toward Greene. “I’d love a chance to meet this guy. You know, to see if I get a good feeling about him. Do you think you could set something up?”
Greene glanced at Payne and shrugged. “I could, but it won’t do you any good. You guys already met him, and you trusted him just fine.”
“Terrell Murray?” Payne asked. “The owner of the Fishing Hole?”
Greene nodded. “The one and only.”
“Why didn’t you mention that before we talked to him?” Jones demanded.
“Terrell is very hush-hush about his activities. Sure, he owns and operates some skin clubs, but those things are legal and can’t get him into trouble. What he refuses to do, though, is flaunt the things that could get him busted. If he sells something illegal, he deals with a restricted list of clientele, and if they betray him, he cuts them off immediately. That’s why I purchased the weapons by myself and why I didn’t mention his name earlier. Can you understand that?”
“Sure,” Payne admitted. “That makes plenty of sense to me. So, why tell us now? If Terrell is so secretive, why risk his confidence by mentioning his name?”
“Sometimes you gotta betray one trust to gain another.”
Payne and Jones pondered the comment, nodding their heads in admiration. For an ex-jock, Greene possessed a pretty good understanding of human nature.
“And besides,” he continued, “when we go to get your refund, I want you to do the talking. I’d feel safer if you pissed him off instead of me.”
CHAPTER 25
AS
they drove to the Fishing Hole, Jones patiently waited for Greene to answer the question that he’d asked earlier, but it was apparent that Greene had completely forgotten about it-or was trying to avoid it. “Levon, since you’re out of the john now, can you please tell me how you managed to escape from Sam’s? That’s been bugging me for the past hour.”
Payne glanced at Jones and smiled. “You must’ve been reading my mind. I was getting ready to ask him the same thing.”
Realizing that he was the center of attention, Greene grinned mischievously, his eyes twinkling like a small child’s at a birthday party. When he could hold it in no longer, he blurted the secret. “I went through the back wall.”
Jones laughed in a disbelieving tone. “Who are you, the Kool-Aid guy? I don’t remember seeing any Negro-shaped holes in the back room.”
But Greene stuck by his story. “How hard did ya look?”
“Pretty damn hard.”
“Apparently not hard enough, because I got my ass out.”
Payne joined Greene in laughter. “He’s got you there, Sherlock. I guess you aren’t the infallible detective after all.”
Jones leaned forward to object. “Yeah, but-”
“Actually,” Payne interrupted, “why don’t you let him explain things? Maybe you can learn a thing or two from the big man.”
Jones rolled his eyes while he waited for Greene to begin.
“Thank you, Jon. I’d love to help him out. When I got into the back, I did as you asked. I looked for anything suspicious, but there was nothing there but a bathroom and a closet.”
“Right,” Jones blurted. “That’s what I found, too.”
“So, like I said, I went into the bathroom to take care of my business, and-
boom! crash!
– I heard a gunshot then glass breaking in the front. I wanted to come out to check on things, but my pants were around my ankles, and that slowed me down a bit.”
“I bet it did,” Jones muttered.
“By the time I got my pants up, I heard a number of shots. Glass was breaking, walls were shattering, chaos! At that point, I assumed you guys were dead. I mean, come on! How was I supposed to know that you were commandos in a former life? Anyway, I figured I needed to get out of the place without going out the front door, right? I remembered from when I walked into the shop that there was a historical landmark plaque on the front wall, and it said the building used to be a part of the Underground Railroad.”
“Seriously?” Jones asked.
Greene nodded. “Like I told you guys, I’ve been doing a lot of research on my hometown, and one of the things that fascinates me was New Orleans’ role in the slave trade. A number of ports on the Gulf of Mexico were notorious for bringing slaves into this country, but at the same time, a number of ports were used to smuggle slaves out. Shit, there was so much diversity in this city during the eighteen hundreds that people often confused slaves with their masters. In fact, there was one period, in 1803, when ownership of New Orleans passed from Spain to France to the United States in less than a month’s time. If a city doesn’t even know what country it belongs to, how’s it gonna keep track of the people?”
Jones tried to absorb all of the information. Historical facts and local folklore normally fascinated him, but in this case, he wanted to get to the important stuff. He wanted to know how Greene got out of the damn shop without being seen. “Levon, not to be rude, but-”
“I know, I know. You want to know how I did it. Fine, I’ll tell you. The landmark plaque clicked in my mind, and I remembered going on a tour or two where there was a trapdoor or a hidden set of steps that allowed fugitives to slip out of the place undetected. And guess what?”
Payne answered. “You found something.”
“E
xactly! The rear wall of the closet was actually a door. A well-concealed door.”
“Once you got outside, did you try to get the shooter?”
“To be honest with you, no. My nickname is the Buffalo Soldier, but I don’t have much experience with killing people. And the truth is, I thought you guys were already dead.”
“We probably should’ve been,” Jones admitted. “A well-trained gunman would’ve picked us off clean.
If
that was his goal.”
Greene frowned. “What does that mean? You don’t think he was aiming for you?”
“At this point, we don’t know. What would be the purpose of killing Jon if he hasn’t paid a ransom yet? If the kidnappers want his millions, they better not kill him. Right?”
The comment took Greene by surprise. “You’ve got millions? I thought you were some kind of unemployed street baller. You really got that many bucks in the bank?”
“I have a nice nest egg, yeah.”
“I’ll be damned! A rich Rambo! What the hell did you do? Auction your soldiering skills to the highest bidder? Or did you just sell a stolen warhead?”
“Nothing that dramatic. When my grandfather died, he left the family business to me.”
“Like a family restaurant or something?”
Payne shrugged, trying not to brag. “Something like that.”
Greene nodded his approval. “As I was saying, I didn’t have the expertise to take out the shooter, so I did the next best thing. I called the cops.”
“So, that was you!” Jones said, happy that Greene had come through for them. “The police said someone had reported the crime to 911, but they weren’t willing to give a name.”
“I told you, I don’t like dealing with the cops. Plus, I don’t want to read tomorrow’s newspaper and see my name linked to a bad part of town. That wouldn’t be good for my image.”
“Amen!” said Payne as he thought about the irony of Greene’s statement. “Now let’s go inside this strip club and bitch to the owner about the defective guns that you bought for us.”
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