Robert Asprin's Dragons Run

by Nye, Jody Lynn

  “Weren’t you supposed to bang on the door and yell ‘New Orleans Police’?”

  “Maybe you just didn’t hear me identify myself,” Harrison said. “Although we’ve found in the past that giving perps a few seconds to hide the evidence screwed our cases in court. Not everyone remembers whether or not we identified ourselves when we entered the room.”

  “Aren’t those reporters going to know?”

  Harrison shook his head. “Video isn’t worth keeping. I’d be surprised if that tape wasn’t erased before morning. Nothing happened. They didn’t get their big exclusive.”

  That brought Griffen back to the matter at hand.

  “How did they know there was going to be an exclusive? Where did they get the information we were going to be here? Where did you get it?”

  Harrison lowered his brows. His eyes turned wary. “Why?”

  “Because I think we were both set up. I quit helping the Dunbar campaign this evening. Did you get a call after six?”

  “No,” Harrison said. “No call. One of my CIs came to me about an hour ago. Said it was a big game with thousands of dollars on the table. Maybe a couple of underage players. I brought it to my lieutenant. He said to go on it. Then the news crew showed up, said they were coming with us on the bust.” Enlightenment dawned, and the big man’s eyebrows went up. “Is that SOB informant working for her?”

  “I have reason to believe that’s true,” Griffen said.

  “Goddammit. I told you I hate elections. So I’ve got a double agent? Thanks for the tip. I’m going to go ream the little weasel a new one.”

  “I have to get back in there. Brenda’s waiting.”

  Harrison smirked at him.

  “It’s not too smart to play around with your employees.”

  “I’m not playing a round with her. She’s dealing the cards.”

  Harrison pretended to be shocked.

  “So you were lying, McCandles? To me? You promised you’d be straight with me.”

  Griffen saw he was kidding, so he played along.

  “Harrison, I’d be a rotten poker player if I couldn’t lie with a straight face, now, wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, it would make my job a lot easier. Go on back. Sorry to interrupt.”

  “No problem,” Griffen said. “If you have time tomorrow, meet me for a burger at Yo Mama’s.”

  “Sounds good to me. You can buy.”

  “Only if I make some money tonight! Good night!”

  Griffen waited until the elevator doors closed on the chuckling Harrison, and he saw the indicator numbers begin to fall. He listened carefully to make sure no one was coming up in the concrete fire stairwell, then let himself back into the hotel room.

  “You were a long time, Griffen,” Malcolm said. “Any problem?”

  “Nuclear option,” Griffen said blandly. Malcolm’s mouth opened slightly. It was the most shocked Griffen had ever seen him.

  “What’s that?” Marcellus asked.

  “Ann Arbor term,” Griffen explained. “It means the Queen of Spades is gumming up the game.”

  “Well, don’t she always?”

  “Whew!” Douglas exclaimed, puffing out his cheeks. “That was exciting! I thought for a minute we were going to get hauled down to the police station! The old NOLA hoosegow.” He patted his pockets. “I’m not used to keeping bail money on me anymore.”

  “Well, it didn’t happen,” Griffen said.

  “I knew it wasn’t going to,” Douglas said, beaming. “Malcolm here assured us that you would handle it.”

  “He did?” Griffen asked, surprised.

  “Yes,” Malcolm said, with an austere smile. It was the most relaxed Griffen had ever seen him. “You have always displayed a preternatural knack for self-preservation. I assumed it would extend to your clientele.”

  “Of course,” Griffen replied, just as blandly. Douglas slapped his knees.

  “Nice ruse, telling them you were here for a rendezvous. I can’t wait to tell the fellahs back in Vegas. They’ll howl!”

  Griffen went to the bathroom door and knocked. “Brenda, it’s safe. They’re gone.”

  The dealer poked her head out. She emerged, clutching the rack of chips and the bank box in her arms.

  “That was a close one,” she said. “Kind of like the old days. When Mose was running things.”

  Griffen made a face. “I didn’t know you missed them.”

  “I don’t!”

  She sat down at the table and began to set things up. Griffen broke his own rules and went to the bar. He poured a glass of red wine and set it down at Brenda’s elbow.

  “Just this once,” Griffen said. “You deserve it.”

  “You bet I do,” she said, flipping open a new deck and cracking the cards into an arch. “That was a good save, Griffen. Mose would be proud.”

  “It was great!” Douglas said. He turned to the young man behind the catering table. “Hey, Marcel, you were right! I never have had an experience like this one. You’ve got a permanent customer! I’ll play with you fellahs anytime I’m in town.”

  “You’ll be welcome,” Griffen said. “Who’s on the button?”

  “You are,” Brenda said.

  She flicked cards to each of the players in turn. Malcolm reached for his tentatively. His eyes met Griffen’s.

  “I believe we will have to conduct an interview in the morning,” he said. “With the Queen of Spades.”

  “Yes,” Griffen agreed. Malcolm turned to their guest.

  “Well, Douglas, do you ever have surprise visits from the Health Department? I believe they enjoy appearing on-site without previous notice.”

  His conversation remained effusive, but his game became more cautious than before.

  Griffen could hardly blame him.

  Thirty-five

  Val stared at Henry eyeball-to-eyeball. No matter how much she shouted at him, the blond man’s face maintained all the emotion of a wax mannequin. She took a step back from him and inhaled deeply.

  “What do you mean, I can’t go out?” Val asked. “I have a date! Mike is going to pick me up at six.”

  “It’s not safe,” Henry said. “We found a prowler on the grounds late last night.”

  Val blinked her eyes blearily. She glanced at the clock. Seven. Normally she would have been awake by then, maybe even swum her laps, but not after a late night like the one she had had. She tried to react more like a responsible adult. The estate was out in the middle of nowhere. Break-ins had to be a genuine concern.

  “Did he get in?”

  “No,” Henry said. “He tried, though. He attempted to break in through your window. When we looked over the site, we saw a lot of the same footprints in the same place over several days. Have you seen anything suspicious?”

  Val couldn’t help but feel guilty, remembering the missed meeting with her unknown note-writer.

  “No,” she said, tossing her head. “In case you forgot, you kept me up until three doing accounting.”

  “Come with me,” Henry said. He took her by the arm and escorted her firmly toward the stairs.

  “Where are we going?” Val asked, bumping down the steps beside him in her slippers. She grabbed for the banister to steady herself.

  “The security center,” Henry said. “This way.”

  On the ground floor beside the sweeping staircase, he took her to what looked like a plain wall with a large portrait of an eighteenth-century ancestor of Melinda’s on it. He placed his hand against the white plaster. Val was deeply impressed when the whole panel swung out to reveal a corridor with carpeting on all four sides. Henry drew her into the tunnel. The door swung shut behind them, but they weren’t left in the dark. Lines of tiny blue lights came on near their feet. In no time at all, Val’s eyes had adjusted.

  “I didn’t
know this was here,” Val said. Her voice sounded muffled because of the padding on the walls.

  “That, my dear, is the entire idea.”

  At the end of the hallway, they stopped at a plain door painted solid black. It opened to one side like the doors on the U.S.S. Enterprise, but silently.

  “How does it know it’s you?” Val asked.

  “It doesn’t. They do.” Henry swept a hand forward.

  The room before her was low and fairly small but jammed to the ceiling with racks of machinery studded with bright LEDs and video screens. Three men and women, all about her age, sat at the consoles, glancing from screen to screen, tapping on keyboards or adjusting knobs. The temperature was uncomfortably warm from all the electronics. Cool vents near the ceiling tried in vain to regulate the heat. The employees wore thin, short-sleeved white shirts, but they still looked hot. The room seemed to pulse with energy.

  “Freaky,” Val said. “Like the nerve center of a spy operation.”

  Her weariness faded away as she walked around the small room, trying to guess what all the devices were for. The center had cameras pointing to every part of the house. She peered at each screen, trying to see if there was one in her bedroom. To her relief, though there was a lens aimed at the hallway just outside it, none of the views showed the interior of any of the sleeping quarters.

  Henry guided her to a seat at the end of the widest console beside a young woman with black hair pulled back from a broad, walnut-colored face with a high forehead.

  “Pull up the footage from camera sixteen from last night,” he ordered her. She tapped at a few keys, then slid her chair to one side to allow Val to get in front of the screen.

  Val leaned in close to look at the black-and-white image. The edge of the pool was in the foreground. The water danced with tiny pinpricks of light, making it look like it had waves tossing. She remembered that it had been raining hard overnight. Beyond it, the ground sloped down toward the left, leading to the front of the house. In the background she saw a window. It had to be her room.

  A stocky figure entered the frame. It approached her window. It raised a hand to feel along the frame. Then the figure leaned toward it, cupping a hand to help it see inside.

  In the lower-left-hand corner of the screen, a set of white dot-matrix-style numbers ticked off, showing the time as 23:15:04 when Val first started watching. At Henry’s direction, the woman reached over to tap another key. The video jumped slightly. The rain was heavy enough to be visible now, backlit by the faint illumination coming from the window. The figure approached several times to look inside. In the last instance, time-stamped 02:47:15, the person, hunched against the rain, raised a hand with something white in it and tucked it into the window frame.

  At the right bottom of the screen, red letters burst into view: ALARM! INTRUSION WINDOW 16.

  The dark shape moved away from the window and moved to the left. It walked more awkwardly than it had at first. Val wondered if it had hurt itself. The video stopped.

  “What do you know about this?” Henry asked.

  “Nothing!” Val said. “When that alarm went off, I was in the lounge with you. Those bells were so loud that my ears are still ringing. You just jumped up, said ‘You’re safe in this room,’ and locked me in. I just sat there. I think I heard dogs barking and people yelling. I’m not sure how long it was before you came back and took me up to my room. That’s all.”

  “And you remember nothing else?” Henry asked.

  “No,” Val said. “I didn’t think I could sleep, but I dropped off as soon as I fell into bed. The first thing I remember after that is your pounding on my door to tell me that I can’t go on my date.”

  Henry made a gesture, and the woman reversed the video. The dark figure reappeared near her window.

  “You’re sure that you don’t know who that is?”

  Val peered closely. “I can’t make out any distinguishing characteristics, but he seemed to walk oddly.”

  “He? Do you know who he is?”

  “No!” Val protested. “Of course not. I don’t know anyone around here. I don’t even know where I am,” she added bitterly.

  “Then how do you know it’s a man?”

  “He walks like a man,” Val said. “That’s what always gives away the female impersonators in the French Quarter. You can tell the ones who haven’t learned to swing their hips yet.”

  “True,” Henry said, thoughtfully. “Yes, it was a man.”

  “Do you think he’ll try again?” Val asked.

  “I doubt it,” Henry said. “He had a rather bad accident when he ran into our . . . dogs.”

  Val’s eyes widened. “A bad accident? How bad? As in killed?”

  Henry looked sorrowful, but his voice was flat.

  “Alas, yes. But we don’t know if he was working alone. Our security is very tight, and we mean business. That’s why I dissuade you from taking a walk around the grounds at night without letting one of us know. Marcella or I can arrange it so you will have nothing to fear. Please, don’t go out after dark. Melinda would have my head on a pike.”

  Val trembled so much Henry had to help her out of her chair. She made herself walk through the black door into the carpet-lined corridor. Could she have been responsible for a man’s being killed? How horrible! She wanted to go home more than ever. She was trapped in this monstrous house.

  Henry hung back for one moment to speak to the employees.

  “We are on lockdown until further notice. Melinda will be home tomorrow evening. If you have any questions, call my number. Don’t bother her.”

  “Yes, sir!” the three said.

  Henry caught up with Val and tucked her arm into his.

  “It’ll be fine, dear,” he assured her.

  “How can it be? That man is dead! I want to go back to New Orleans!”

  Henry pulled her into the light and looked deeply into her eyes as he stroked her hand.

  “Darling, don’t be so hasty. That man’s unfortunate end has nothing to do with you. It could have happened last week or next year. We’ve had to deal with intruders many times. You’re too precious to risk, you know. Melinda really has faith in you. And you’ve completely won over the staff. They all love you. They would all be very sad to see you leave.”

  “But . . .” Val started to protest.

  Henry’s gentle voice was like a calming drone in her ears. “At least wait until you have talked with Melinda before you take any hasty steps. Then, I promise you, if you still want to go, we will put you on first-class transportation back to New Orleans. But you won’t want to. You’ll see. There are too many opportunities here for you. Of all kinds.” A twinkle appeared in his eyes, and Val couldn’t help smiling in response. “In the meanwhile, please feel free to confer with Marcella and the chef about a menu for your dinner with Mr. Burns tonight. Enjoy yourself. Everything in this house is at your disposal.”

  Almost against her will, Val felt her misgivings ease. That man had been trying to break into her bedroom window. He looked as if he were waiting for her. She could have been hurt or killed herself. Henry was right. They were only trying to protect her.

  For a moment, she stood still, trying to decide what to do next.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and have your swim and some breakfast?” Henry suggested. “You need to be ready for your day. Your swimsuit has been laid out—your new one. The old one wasn’t big enough for the two of you. Go on. Meet me back in the lounge at two. We’ll go over some of the corporate records. I promise I will leave you plenty of time to get dressed. Go on now!”

  “All right. Henry, thanks,” she said. “I feel better.”

  He smiled at her. “Just doing my job, darling.”

  Thirty-six

  “Firing people,” Val said, sprawled on her back on a lounger in the sitting room of Marcella’s quarter
s, “is awful.”

  “It is,” the housekeeper said. She sat cross-legged on a huge soft ottoman with a load of music CDs on her lap. “Did you have to let someone go today?”

  “Yes,” Val said. She shifted to one side. Her growing belly seemed to slosh over when she moved. The baby had gone to sleep during a mellow blues recording by Leadbelly. The jazz horns that replaced it had a rapid tempo but kept on a low volume so as not to stimulate him or her into a kicking frenzy. Val had already been to the bathroom four times since dinner. “I hated it, but he literally wasn’t doing the job he was hired to do. The records go back for months. Half of the other people in his section were covering for him. He seems like a really nice guy, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  “Couldn’t you demote him or lateral-shift him to another part of the company?”

  Val shook her head. “There aren’t any openings at the moment. I asked Henry a bunch of times. He would need more experience. He has no computer skills at all.”

  “An older man?” Marcella guessed.

  “No. Thirty.”

  “Then he can get hired elsewhere. The market is terrible for older workers above fifty.”

  “The market’s terrible anyhow,” Val said. She sighed and threw an arm over her eyes. The music made her feel as if she ought to be doing something, dancing or walking, but she was too tired to get up. “Thank God I don’t have to look for a job myself anymore.”

  Marcella smiled. “It’s good that you have empathy for him.”

  “When I can’t feel sorry for someone in trouble, I hope that someone will shoot me in the head, because I won’t be . . . human anymore.” Val hesitated. After all, she wasn’t human, but she had been brought up to think she was. Did dragons really think and feel differently than people? She’d have to think about that later, when she was alone. “Of course, he was too upset to care that I did feel sorry for him. Ugh! Let’s talk about something else! Your rooms are really nice.”

  “Not as nice as yours,” Marcella said. “But I was able to choose my furnishings and color scheme—subject to Melinda’s approval, of course. If I had wanted to paint the room black with neon sculptures, she might have had something to say.”