Robert Asprin's Dragons Run

by Nye, Jody Lynn

  Griffen groaned as he scribbled notes in his pocket pad. He felt as though he had been railroaded into helping, probably because he had been railroaded. He could have walked out of the meeting, but Fox Lisa was so enthusiastic about the idea that he didn’t have the heart to do it.

  His cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number. It might have been one of the halls calling to let him know they had changed their mind about the fees. He put on his most professional voice.

  “Good afternoon, Griffen McCandles.”

  “Hey, Griffen, I’m sprung!”

  “Gris-gris!” Griffen said, delighted. “Where are you?”

  “Down near your front door, brother. Want to buzz me in?”

  Griffen went out to unlock the street door to the courtyard himself. Gris-gris was waiting, bobbing from foot to foot like a little boy. He sprang over the threshold and grabbed Griffen by the hand. He looked healthier than he had in weeks. The dull matte of his cheeks had become shiny and clear again. His eyes gleamed like onyx. Griffen felt his spirits lift.

  “Man, it’s good to see you,” Griffen said.

  “It’s good to see anybody outside my parlor,” Gris-gris said. He seemed almost wild with unspent energy. “You probably used to it, with the connections you got, but I never had such a rush. I felt that plant die. It just let go, and I got hit by this wall of energy, all but knockin’ me down. I sat beside a couple of deathbeds in my time, and I never felt anythin’ but sorry for the person who was passin’. This was different. Way different.”

  “When did it happen?” Griffen asked.

  “About five minutes ago.” Gris-gris darted from one side of the sunny courtyard to another. “I couldn’t wait to get out of that house. Had to put that place behind me, at least for a while. I think I ran all the way here. Say, you got anything to drink, man? My mouth feels like the Sahara.”

  “I have some pop upstairs. If you want something stronger, we’ll have to go out.”

  “No, man,” Gris-gris said, a little grin raising the corners of his mouth. “I mean, I’m just thirsty. It’s like all my senses come back to life at once!”

  He followed Griffen toward the door of his garden-level apartment, then darted up the stairs to Val’s. Griffen followed him, taking the steps two at a time. The smaller man flipped a key ring out of his pocket and let himself in.

  It had been over a month since Griffen had gone inside his sister’s apartment. After she had been gone more than a week, he had cleaned out her refrigerator and turned the air-conditioning off. The air in the small flat felt stale and still. Gris-gris walked through each of the rooms in turn. He turned to Griffen forlornly.

  “She really gone.”

  “Yeah,” Griffen said. “I hope you didn’t think I was hiding her from you, did you?”

  “No. You had a right to, if she ast you—you her brother. I knew you’d tell me the truth if she didn’t want to see me. Just had to see for myself. Any news on her?”

  “No. I hired a . . . kind of private detective. No news yet, but he has more of a chance of finding her than we will.”

  “Somethin’ special?” Gris-gris asked. “Like you?”

  “Yes, but not like us. George is different from anyone else I know.”

  “Let me know if you hear. Is that Mrs. Melinda involved?”

  “Probably,” Griffen admitted. “I can’t prove it one way or the other yet.”

  Gris-gris pounded a fist into his palm. “If I ever get my hands on that lady . . .”

  “I’d leave her alone if I were you,” Griffen said, alarmed. “She’s dangerous.”

  “So am I!”

  Griffen gave him a wry grin. “I know. Come on down and have a drink.”

  In his apartment, Griffen popped a couple of cold cans and poured them into glasses. Gris-gris threw himself impatiently onto the couch, dislodging all the flyers and notebooks.

  “Hey, sorry,” he said, bending to pick up the papers. “What’s all this?”

  Griffen shrugged. “More stuff for the campaign. Penny wants to run a pool tournament. I’m trying to find a venue, but they all want too much money. Between you and me, she’s out of cash. We need a place that can hold a couple of hundred people, but the fees are too high.”

  “I can help,” Gris-gris said. “I got some connections myself. I know a couple of good places. They’ll knock some money off the fees as a favor to me.”

  “Really?” Griffen asked, feeling the tightness in his belly ease. “Thanks, Gris-gris.”

  “Huh. Least I can do since you been sittin’ with me, keepin’ me from going out of my mind. I just wasn’t right.”

  “Well, now you are,” Griffen said.

  Gris-gris was never one to linger in the past. “But you was lookin’ for a pool hall. What could be in it for the owners?”

  “In terms of cash, the bare minimum,” Griffen said. He found the paper with the figures on the floor and handed it to Gris-gris. “Pretty much everything she has left at the moment has to go for publicity. When we get some donations in, I can put down a deposit. We’d offer a percentage of the gate and all the catering profits.”

  The smaller man couldn’t sit still any longer. He sprang up onto his feet and started pacing restlessly.

  “Okay. Let me call some people. Who you talked to so far?”

  Griffen gave him the flyers from the three halls he had visited.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s one of my cousins,” Gris-gris said, pointing to the second flyer. “I’ll see what I can get him to do. Meantime, I got to get some games organized for tonight. Thanks, man. See you later.”

  He gulped half the glass of soda and set it down. Griffen had to hurry to open the door for him.

  Forty-one

  Duvallier pushed Griffen’s note toward him across the table.

  “It’s a mighty polite letter,” he said, enjoying the dismayed look on the young dragon’s face. “You just forgot one little thing: I didn’t have no way to get back in touch with you to give you an appointment.”

  “What?” Malcolm asked. He snatched up the slip of paper. His eyebrows rose as he read the brief message.

  Duvallier clamped his cigar in his mouth. He was not allowed to smoke a stogie in Antoine’s private dining room, not that he would with Miss Callaway looking on. The order for a dozen oysters had already been put in the moment he walked in the door, and shrimp étouffée for the two of them was waiting until he decided whether he needed a second dozen oysters or not. But business first.

  “He ain’t in the book, and seein’ as how he was the one who was askin’ me for a favor, I didn’t see no reason to go lookin’ for him.”

  “Griffen, this is unacceptable!” Malcolm said. “In such a delicate matter!”

  The younger McCandles glowered.

  “Don’t be so hard on the boy,” Duvallier said, grinning at them. “I bet you weren’t so perfect back when you were a tadpole. But how’d you expect me to reply to you, son? Telepathy?”

  “You could have sent one of your ghosts,” Griffen said, his face expressionless.

  That Griffen probably was nearly as good a poker player as he thought he was. The boy was trying to keep his temper, but he wasn’t going to roll over and play dead just because he was at a disadvantage. Duvallier could feel the fear radiating off the youngster. Brave. That was admirable, though fruitless. He relaxed in his chair. He preferred it when they fought back.

  “Now, that’s not nice. Makin’ my friends and acquaintances do the work when you were the one who was careless like that? I didn’t say I couldn’t find you. I just said I couldn’t be bothered to find you.”

  Griffen had to be pretty embarrassed, but he continued to cover it well. Malcolm had expressions, just not too many of them. Just then, his long face showed carefully modeled contrition.

  “I apologize for m
y nephew,” Malcolm said smoothly. “He is unaccustomed to undertaking high-level negotiations.”

  “Not necessary here, son. Politics is pretty low-down stuff.”

  Malcolm, as Duvallier knew he would, assumed a position that looked like authority, resting his elbows on the table and tenting his fingers. Appearances weren’t everything, as Duvallier could have told him, but he let him talk.

  “Mr. Duvallier . . .” he began.

  “Reginaud, Malcolm! Last warning.”

  “Reginaud, then. Have you given any more thought to my proposal? The group that I represent has a good deal at stake in the Dunbar candidacy. We would be grateful for your assistance. We are fast reaching the point at which Penny Dunbar can or cannot remain a viable contender for the office of governor.”

  “Running out of money, ain’t she?”

  “I won’t ask how you know that.”

  “Everybody does, son,” Duvallier said, enjoying the moment. He didn’t have to refer to the notes that Miss Callaway had in her laptop thing, though she had it open and facing him for his use. “When you are runnin’ somewhere between eighth and seventeenth in a race with nineteen contestants, you have to stand out in one way or another. This state has how many representatives? And how many state senators? And how many of them are tryin’ to better themselves by goin’ for higher office? Well, that’s not her best suit. She stands on law and order, but who don’t? Even the politicians who are takin’ money under the table—and I know she is, too—stand for law and order. So that leaves makin’ headlines in some way. She hasn’t broken no big scandals about any of her fellow candidates on television or in the papers—just the opposite. Congressman Benson’s been trying to drum up dirt about Penny, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Griffen said.

  “He tries hard, but, trouble is, he has no bait on his hook. That girl annoys a lot of people, but it ain’t nothin’ out of the ordinary. And the last thing she might do: appealing to other people’s greed and good citizenship at the same time by hostin’ an event for charity.”

  Malcolm paused. Duvallier jumped on the hesitation.

  “So that’s what she’s up to. What kind of grand gala is she trying to run?”

  “I bet you know that, too,” Griffen said. He glanced at his uncle. Malcolm paused, then nodded. “I’ve spent the last several days trying to line up a pool hall. I know they’re not all busy between now and October, but for some reason they just can’t find a date for a charity tournament. A bunch of pros I’ve asked to participate say the same thing. They can’t make it no matter when it is. I think you’ve been talking to them all.”

  The boy had perspicacity. If he had had the chance to take him under his wing, Duvallier could have made a great man out of Griffen. Too bad about the dragon blood.

  “I got friends,” Duvallier admitted, with creditable modesty. “I made some phone calls. Maybe I suggested they had better things to do with their time on those days.”

  “Why prevent such an event?” Malcolm asked. “If indeed it only prolongs the inevitable, what harm does it do? You said if she survived to the jungle primary, you would back her.”

  “She’s finished. She just don’t say so yet, but she will.”

  “I doubt that very much,” Malcolm said. “So much is at stake—why not let her try her best?”

  “What’s her best if we haven’t seen it yet? She hasn’t got the credibility to go on. You could tell her that for me.”

  “I won’t,” Griffen said, maybe a little more forcefully than necessary. “You can try and throw her off her game all you want. She will finish this primary. Maybe she will even become governor.”

  “She can try,” Duvallier said, putting his cigar in his mouth and clamping it with his teeth. “She is mighty welcome to try. Well, gentlemen, it’s a shame we didn’t get nowhere today. It was nice to see you.” He picked up the menu to the right of his plate and read down the list of the day’s specials.

  “What will it take for you to back off your contract on Penny’s life?” Griffen asked.

  Duvallier raised his eyebrows. So he dared to mention the elephant in the room. Good boy. He glanced up. The fear was still there, deep inside that façade, but the youngster was bolstering it with courage. He spoke around his cigar.

  “Make me an offer. I’m still open to negotiation.”

  Griffen extended his hands, palm up, across the table, his face open with appeal.

  “We’ll have the event, with or without your interference. Name an amount. If we raise more than that for her campaign, you let her live. After that, winning the election is up to the voters.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  “I’ll fight you for her,” Griffen said simply.

  “You don’t even like the gal,” Duvallier said with a shrewd smile. “I got a better idea. I don’t like to step into the ring. That don’t make for a very fair fight. You sound like a knight in shining armor. You meet my champion. You beat him, you win. Miss Penny can go on and do whatever she wants. Meantime, I might stir the pot a few more times. I’m havin’ fun watchin’ all of you jump.”

  Griffen leaped to his feet. The smooth negotiator was gone. Steam shot out of his mouth and nose.

  “Fine,” he said. “Send whatever you want. I’ll take him on.”

  Duvallier laughed up at him.

  “Spoken like a true hero,” he said, enjoying the fury on Griffen’s face. “But, son, remember the definition of a hero is pretty often a dead soldier.”

  • • •

  “That was unprofessional, Griffen,” Malcolm said, as they walked out of the restaurant onto the sidewalk under the colonnade that fronted the building.

  His uncle could not chide him any more severely than he was chastising himself. Griffen kept the words of the houngan in his mind. Duvallier had time on his side, and he knew it. Who knew what kind of monster Duvallier was going to call up out of the blackness of hell to face him? He had just agreed to fight for Penny’s life. Duvallier was right that he didn’t even like Penny, but Griffen had promised Rose to look out for her. He could get killed keeping a gubernatorial candidate in the Louisiana race. Maybe he was too stupid to live. He thought that he was good at observing human nature and making use of it, but Duvallier just ran rings around him. He wanted to kick himself. The zombie had drawn him out and made him lose his temper as if he were a toddler late for his nap.

  “I know,” he said.

  “It was childish.”

  “I know!”

  “You were vulnerable. You let him get under your skin.”

  “I know!” Griffen exclaimed. “I want to kick myself!”

  “Don’t,” Malcolm said. The slightly amused tone in the elder McCandles’s voice made him turn to face his uncle. “Your father would have been very proud of you.”

  Griffen was taken so far aback he stopped walking.

  “He would?”

  “Eminently. He always championed the underdog. It was one of his least dragonish characteristics. I rather hoped you wouldn’t inherit it, but as you have, I am happy to make use of it. I want to put you by Miss Dunbar’s side until Duvallier repeals his fiat.”

  “What?” Griffen asked. “No!”

  “Did you mean any of the heroic bravado that you spouted at our leathery host?”

  Griffen had to think about it. As much as he did dislike Penny’s behavior, he was outraged that Duvallier could be so cavalier regarding whether she lived or died. And he had promised Rose.

  “Yes, I did,” he said.

  “You really have changed, Griffen,” Malcolm said. He let out a weary sigh. “We must continue as if we believe Miss Dunbar will proceed all the way to the primary, at the very least. What have you got on a venue for the fund-raiser?”

  Griffen pulled out his small notebook and flipped it open to the well-thumbed pages of
notes regarding the proposed tournament. He didn’t want Malcolm to see how many entries were crossed out. He kept the notebook cupped in his fingers as they walked.

  “Well, I’ve been to a bunch of places and talked to the owners,” he said. “Every one of them wants a fortune for the day’s rental, which we don’t have. If we can raise the deposit, I have three pool halls that will let us make up the remainder out of sign-up fees. All three have dates open within the next couple of weeks. That was the range Horsie wanted in order to make strategic buys from the media outlets with the proceeds.” He described the three prospects, from the worst to the best; perhaps not coincidentally, the fees rose with the desirability of the venue.

  Malcolm looked disapproving. “Those are most assuredly not ideal. What about catering?”

  “Each of these places has its own kitchen,” Griffen said. “I have menus at home I can show you.”

  “Pool-hall food? That will hardly do, Griffen. We’ll have to pay a caterer. What about the one you use for your games? That food was more than palatable.”

  “We’ll have to pay another fee to bring in outside food. All of them were firm on that.”

  “Can’t you do anything right?” Malcolm asked, sourly.

  Griffen felt his temper rise, but he didn’t let any of it show on his face. “You want me to look after Penny and set up this tournament, on top of my business? If you aren’t satisfied, I’d be happy to step back and let you handle it.”

  “Hey, Grifter!” A slim, energetic figure dashed out of the sun and swung around one of the verdigris-stained posts of Antoine’s balcony like a teenager. Despite the warm sun, he wore a jacket.

  “Hey, Gris-gris, looking good!” Griffen greeted him with a slap on the back. Under the coat, the other dealer was still painfully thin. “Uncle Malcolm, you remember Gris-gris? Val’s boyfriend?”