The Empowered

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by Craig Parshall


  Breaking through the surface of the water and gasping for air, I saw the wharf about twenty feet away. My clothes were like lead, weighing me down, as I stroked with Olympian effort toward the wharf. But when I got there, the concrete dock was too high for me to pull myself up.

  Exhausted, and mustering all that I could, I swam around the edge of the wharf until I spotted a rough beachhead and painfully stroked toward it. When my feet hit the soft silt river bottom, I pulled myself forward, waist-deep in river water, then knee-deep, finally dragging myself out of the water and dropping onto the solid dirt of the river’s edge, face-first.

  When I made it to the nearest sidewalk, I was trying to get my bearings straight. I tried to turn my cell phone on, but it didn’t light up. So much for waterproof cells.

  I needed to get to a hotel or a restaurant so I could pick up another cab and return to the relative safety of my hotel, but I was feeling disoriented and a bit lost. In the interim I had heard a few sirens, and it sounded as if they were heading down to the river’s edge, in the vicinity of where the demon driver steered his limo into the Mississippi, with me in it.

  All the while, I kept thinking about that bloody hammer and about the thudding sound of something heavy rolling back and forth in the trunk of the limo every time we took a turn.

  13

  River water squished out of my shoes with each step. I noticed a storefront that had a For Rent sign on it. The window of the empty store was covered with paper, but there were posters on the side going into the alley. They were pictures of a few younger women and several girls of varying ages, from children to middle schoolers perhaps, with their birth dates and when they had disappeared. My heart sank. I studied one of them: Peggy Tanner. Disappeared eight months ago. Blonde hair, green eyes. Twelve years old.

  I remembered Turk’s comment about the dead girl they found at Bayou Bon Coeur. Please, God, I prayed silently, keep Heather from showing up on one of those posters. Keep her safe. And help me find her. Then, as I kept walking and feeling more desperate, I added, Anything, Lord. Give me anything.

  It was getting dark as I walked down Bourbon Street, feeling helpless and hungry and, of course, still soaked. The lights were on at Bud’s Diner, so I stepped in. The place was crowded. All I wanted was to get some directions to the nearest cabstand.

  A guy I took to be Bud was behind the cash register, cracking jokes with a customer who was paying his bill.

  A waitress with a plastic menu scurried up to me and said, “Hi, honey, I’ve got a table for one and it’s got your name on it.”

  I shifted in my stance, my shoes squish-squashing and creating a small pond of water on the floor. I thanked her but said I was only looking for a cab to get me back to my hotel. As she eyeballed my soaked clothes, she asked which hotel, and when I told her, she said it was only a few blocks away and gave me directions. I thanked her and pulled out a soggy five-dollar bill and handed it to her as a tip for her help.

  I stepped out to the vestibule of the diner, and just for laughs I pushed the power button on my cell phone again. Incredibly, it lit up. I couldn’t believe it. I immediately tried to call Heather, but it went straight to voice mail.

  I tried Heather’s number one more time, hoping by some miracle that Heather would pick up, and I noticed two uniformed New Orleans cops approaching the cash register to pay for their meal. As I heard the disheartening sound once again of Heather’s voice mail, the police officers started up some friendly banter with Bud. He responded by saying something to them about their “fishing a limo out of the drink tonight.”

  I clicked off my cell phone and listened closer.

  One of the officers shook his head. “C’mon, Bud, does everybody in this city have a police scanner?”

  Bud chuckled. “Best radio show in town. So who was the dead guy in the trunk of that car in the river?”

  “Come on, knock it off,” the officer said.

  His partner added, “Hey, Sarge, maybe we ought to take Bud with us to the coroner’s so he can sit in on the autopsy too.”

  Then the waitress I had talked to swept up to the register, right in front of Bud and in front of the two cops, and she waved my wet five-dollar bill in the air and said, “Who pays a tip with soaking-wet money anyway?”

  Bud replied, “Somebody involved in money laundering,” and they all laughed.

  Except for me. I wasn’t laughing. I quickly stepped outside to the sidewalk.

  The picture was clear. The corpse rolling around in the trunk of the limo must have been the real chauffeur. And my spooky chauffeur was probably his replacement—as well as his slayer.

  Meanwhile, I was the person who exited the limo and crawled out of the Mississippi.

  I was fast-stepping away from the diner, hoping to get out of sight before the two patrol officers left the restaurant and spotted me.

  The list of my entanglements in suspicious events had expanded: insulting the legal profession in the presence of the attorney general; being hauled off stage by FBI agents; having a hotel room where a high-ranking government lawyer would end up being decapitated; and lastly, catching a ride in a limo that had a homicide victim in the trunk.

  It didn’t take a forensic detective from NCIS: New Orleans to build the chain of evidence: a car submerged in the river, containing a dead body in the trunk; the possible murder weapon in the limo, with my prints on it; and then I show up a few blocks away, wearing waterlogged clothes and handing out soaking-wet money.

  That was bad enough. But there was something even worse than my being innocently implicated in yet another murder: Heather was still missing and unaccounted for.

  14

  I was Olympic-walking down Bourbon Street in big strides, past the strip clubs, bars, and souvenir shops, making my way into the section gated off for pedestrian foot traffic. It was lit up with neon iridescence like the Vegas strip and swarming with nightlife. I needed to become invisible. I turned to survey the diner, a few blocks back. By then, the squad car had wheeled out of the diner and onto Bourbon and was heading my way at a high rate of speed. I threaded through the mob of revelers.

  In the street was a batch of musicians armed with trumpets, saxes, and a tuba, belting out jazz tunes. They were coming my way, followed by a crowd.

  The band halted in front of me, switching to a rendition of “Sweet Georgia Brown” while a mob of gawkers engulfed the street.

  It was a great break. I could disappear into the middle of the impromptu audience and then out the other side, picking up my pace. But when I whipped around to check for the squad, it had already parked back at the vehicle blockade, and both officers were out of the patrol car, one looking in my direction and the other one on his radio.

  I broke into a trot, off Bourbon and down a side street where the crowds were thinning and cars were parked in front of apartment row houses. A ruby-red hardtop Corvette was cruising by, but it suddenly slammed on its brakes after it passed me. Then started to back up. I had a bad feeling about that, so I jogged into another alley that was lined with an apartment building on one side and some kind of warehouse on the other, figuring I had lost the Vette.

  Another flyer of that middle school girl, Peggy Tanner, had been posted there. But looking down the shadowy alley, I immediately wondered whether I had made a wrong turn. Whether I was going from bad to worse.

  In a few seconds, I had my answer. Two men stepped out from a doorway, into the middle of the alley, and blocked my path. I looked at one and then the other and realized they were twins. Weird.

  Then something even weirder. A tall, well-dressed man appeared behind them. I recognized him right off, and my stomach dropped.

  It was my chauffeur from the underworld. And no sensory warning. My old knack of catching their stench from hell—a cross between rotting death and burning refuse—had failed me again. And this time there were two of them, plus they brought their coach. Lucky me.

  Shakespeare was right. Troubles don’t come by spies. The
y come in battalions.

  The tall guy who had driven me in the limo bent forward and said something to the twins.

  I tried to find a quick exit to the right or left of me, but there was none. I noticed all the overflowing garbage cans lined up on both sides of the alley. It must have been garbage pickup day. A moment later, I’d be playing the part of the garbage.

  The first of the twins didn’t lay a hand on me. He didn’t need to. So immense was his power that he tossed me into the air with just a gesture and sent me clattering into the row of garbage cans.

  Then his twin brother took over, lifting me up with a flick of his wrist and whacking me against the wall of the warehouse. Things were beginning to get fuzzy in my head.

  The first twin again sent me airborne, back into the garbage cans.

  They took turns playing with me like I was their stepsister’s rag doll. Sending me flying. The moment I hit something and was sprawled out, the other one launched me back through the air. I expected any second for the raw, down-to-the-bare-nerve kind of pain to overcome me. To render me unconscious. I had to act.

  I called out. Yelling against them in the name of Christ and in the power of his blood. But their attack didn’t stop.

  I found myself lying on top of a full plastic trash bag, with my head reeling and my insides short of air. Everything hurt. I called out the name of God again.

  The tall guy, the hellish chauffeur and master teacher, took a few steps toward me. His voice was different. Almost soothing. Dripping, like oil. “Your God isn’t here. But we are. Go back home to your island . . .”

  “Or what?” I managed to mutter.

  “Or the person you love will be tortured in a very ugly and very wonderful way. The animals of the swamp will enjoy what is left.”

  So they knew about Heather. Of course. Why wouldn’t they?

  I remembered the words of Jesus. Only by prayer and fasting are some demons vanquished, something I had vaguely considered but failed to follow up on. Now I was no match. Even worse, they were tracking Heather. Maybe even had her.

  I was hurting too much to wonder what would come next. But it would come from an unexpected source. Someone who looked more like a muscle-bound surfer than a PI.

  Turk Kavagian was in the alley behind me, unholstering his .357 Magnum. He called out to the three figures. Then he squeezed the trigger and fired a round in the air. The trio sprinted off, vanishing so quickly that I expected a sonic boom. One thing about demons: bullets can’t stop them, but the same isn’t true for the bodies they inhabit.

  Turk helped me off the pile of garbage and apologized. “Once I realized that you were new to this part of town, I should have warned you. Should have made sure you had a ride.”

  “I did have a ride but lost it . . . then got another ride. It’s a long story.”

  Despite his friendly nod, Turk still looked like he had no idea what I was talking about. “You know,” he said, “that was me in the red Corvette. I happened to be driving by, just by chance . . .”

  Now it made sense. “Thank goodness you did, Turk. But no, it wasn’t by chance.”

  Then I asked if he had seen my assailants.

  “Not really. They disappeared in the shadows.”

  As he motored me to my hotel, we passed right by Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo, where Kevin, Canterelle’s law clerk, worked part-time. That gave me something to think about.

  When Turk dropped me off at the hotel, he said he had already put in a call to try to get me to Bayou Bon Coeur—his bayou master, an alligator hunter and swamp expert by the name of Delbert Baldou. But hadn’t heard back from him. He said he’d be in touch.

  I offered him some soggy twenty-dollar bills, but he refused once again. “Nah. Forget it. Sorry our fine city’s treated you rough. New Orleans is a pretty good place to live, you know.”

  I told him I was sure he was right.

  Hobbling in pain through the lobby of my hotel and bent over like a cripple, I collected my thoughts. First, how I must have reeked of raw garbage after my dance with the dark side. Second, I was glad that Louis Thompson Jr. the piano man had been right about Turk. He came well-armed.

  15

  When I had settled back at my hotel room, I changed out of my clothes, which were stinking of garbage and river water. Then I jumped in the shower. I had already changed into a dry outfit when the landline in the room started ringing. On the other end was the deep baritone of Attorney Morgan Canterelle.

  “Y’all come on down, Mr. Black. I am here in the lobby. We need to talk. I am the fellow in the light-tan suit, black tie. And hard to miss.”

  He was correct on both counts, particularly the second part. Canterelle was about my height but roundly corpulent, maybe three hundred pounds. He stretched out a puffy hand, and I shook it.

  “Had dinner yet?” he asked. “It’s never too late for a good meal.” I told him I hadn’t, and he motioned for me to follow him to his car, which he said was outside in valet parking. I told him that I was involved in some very pressing personal business and wasn’t sure this was the best time to catch a meal together.

  “That awful business, the murder of Assistant Attorney General Paul Pullmen? Everybody at the ABA was talking about it. And I also know y’all been cleared. No surprise to me.”

  “No,” I said. “Not that. You’re right; the Pullmen killing is awful. But I’ve got another pressing issue. It’s about my daughter.”

  “Don’t mean to pry, but I did get the voice mail message about identifying some female attorney who was sitting next to y’all’s daughter at the ABA. It sounded slightly ominous. Might I be of assistance in that?”

  “The fact is, she was here with me in New Orleans. But she seems to have gone missing.”

  Canterelle was still standing in the lobby, pointing to the revolving door that led to the outside when he said, in a much louder Louisiana drawl that seemed to resonate up from his immense girth, “I do not know any problem that can’t be solved over a good Cajun meal. No, sir. Now y’all come with me and we’ll figure this out. By the way, the ABA certainly got its money’s worth with that speech yesterday. Indeed they did.”

  He flagged down the parking valet to fetch his car, then asked me, “Now then, any idea where y’all’s daughter might be?”

  Not knowing whether Turk Kavagian’s swamp contact would ever materialize, I told Morgan Canterelle the name of the bayou on Heather’s note and asked if by some miracle he might know anything about it.

  He smiled, acting as if he had been expecting my request all along. “I must confess, Mr. Black, I do not know the particulars about that bayou.” Then he added, “But I just happen to know someone who might.”

  Minutes later we were cruising into the French Quarter of New Orleans in Morgan Canterelle’s antique: a perfectly restored 1970 Imperial, the fat-tire model that was the size of a small aircraft, with a gleaming front grille that had the look of a grinning teenager’s braces.

  Canterelle pulled up in front of a place called Arnaud’s. He hoisted his sizable girth out of the driver’s seat, pulled out his wallet, and placed a twenty and his car keys into the hand of the valet. Then told me to follow him inside, to what he called his “regular table.”

  Arnaud’s was full of fine crystal, starched white tablecloths, and well-dressed clientele served by a bartender in a dinner jacket.

  The maître d’ showed us upstairs to a table on the balcony that had a commanding view of the French Quarter. As we were seated, the staff fluttered around Morgan Canterelle like bees in a flower patch.

  I’m a food lover and ordinarily would have feasted on their Louisiana fare, but my worry over Heather had sunk my appetite. I ordered only a bowl of lobster bisque, while Canterelle chose a huge plate of alligator sausage, adding a crabmeat salad on the side. “So’s I can lie to myself about eatin’ healthy,” he said.

  I wasted no time asking how I could get to Bayou Bon Coeur. He looked up from his starter salad and reminded me
that he was not the one who knew the way there. “What I stated, sir,” he said, “was that I knew somebody who was acquainted with the particulars of that place.”

  “Then tell me who to talk to, because I need to get there.”

  “It’s not that easy,” he complained. “In fact, it’s downright complicated. But then, y’all having been a trial lawyer, y’all know what complicated looks like. There’s the practice of law, and then there’s the in-between parts. Those hidden spaces between the hard ’n’ fast black-letter rules of the law. The cracks where the human drama comes in.”

  I’d had enough of Canterelle’s Cajun philosophizing. “If you can’t help me find my daughter, I’m afraid I’m going to have to say good-bye. I’ve got things to do.”

  As I started to rise, the huge lawyer waved me into my seat. “Such as the sit-down with the missing persons squad at the New Orleans Police Department? Yes, I have connections, Mr. Black. And to be precise, I didn’t say I would not help. On the contrary, I will. But I must ask something from y’all in return. Quid pro quo. I’m sure y’all understand the term.”

  “What do you want?”

  “A particular set of skills, sir. A talent for getting to the bottom of evil deeds. The ones that flow from the shadows.”

  “You need to be specific.”

  “I represent a family who suffered a horrendous loss. Their baby girl, taken from them. Little red-haired beauty. First abducted, then, a year later, found murdered out in the swamps. The police have no tangible leads, and the case has grown cold. Just like the others.”

  It sounded like the case that Turk Kavagian had described.

  “The others?” I asked.

  Morgan Canterelle wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. “There are others, Mr. Black. I represent yet another grieving family as well, whose little girl is still missing. And yet another client with a tangential, indirect connection to all this misery, but that is another story altogether. Here’s the point of it. I have a good relationship with the New Orleans Police Department. I was a local prosecutor once upon a time. But they are turning up nothing but dead ends. Hence these families hiring me.”

 

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