by Greg Herren
Frank.
I hadn’t told Frank.
I fumbled for my phone. “Oh, God, I have to tell Frank—”
Dad reached over and took my phone away from me. “No, you don’t. He’s on his way home. He’ll be here soon, in fact. Your mom and I called him as soon as we heard from Storm.” He smiled at me. “We knew you’d be too worried about Taylor to think of anything else.”
I really have the best family.
“How did he—how did he take it?”
“As well as can be expected.” Dad smiled, taking the bong from me and taking a hit. “Eric Brewer is lucky he’s dead. I can’t imagine what Frank would do to him. If there was anything left to do anything with after your mother and I were done with him.”
I heard feet pounding up the back steps, and the kitchen door opened. I got up and ran into Frank’s arms. For the first time all day, I felt like everything might wind up being all right. “How is he?” Frank whispered.
“He’s sleeping. I don’t know. I’m worried.”
“Everything will be okay.” Frank sounded like he was convincing himself. “Everything will be okay.”
We spent the afternoon there, talking and smoking pot and waiting for Taylor to need anything, to wake up. He was glad to see Frank, and I let them have some time alone together while I tried to think pleasant thoughts. When Frank came back out his eyes were red. Mom and Dad wanted us to stay for dinner, but Taylor had gone back to sleep and we decided we’d head home, making them promise to call us if anything changed or if Taylor needed anything.
As we walked, hand in hand, back home down the cold streets of the Quarter, Frank said, “I love you, Scotty.”
“I was so afraid you’d blame me—”
“You couldn’t have done anything to prevent this from happening,” Frank said as we walked across Ursulines. “You need to let that go, babe. We’re going to get through this, and we need to be strong for Taylor.”
“I know.” I hesitated, then blurted out, “Just to prepare you, the apartment is kind of a mess.”
“That’s fine, we can clean it up before we head back over to Mom and Dad’s.”
“Well, it’s a little bit more than that.” I filled him in on everything that happened with Colin last night.
He listened, his face expressionless. “So, we need to get a new television and replace some frames and glass, and the rug.”
“Yes. Oh, and the car’s at the airport. We’ll need to pick it up.”
He nodded. “Okay, the first thing we need to do is clean the apartment, make sure you got everything. You used bleach where the blood was, of course, but we’ll have to run over to the West Bank to Target and get everything replaced before we can bring Taylor back home. Did you check the upstairs to make sure everything was fine up there?”
“I looked around a bit when I fed Scooter, but I was in a rush to get to the Aquitaine,” I admitted. “But it may not be safe there for us. Should we bring Taylor home?”
His face looked grim. “Once we have this Taylor situation under control, we need to talk about the Colin situation. I love him, too—but this? We’re accessories after the fact, Scotty, Christ. I love him, but not enough to go to jail for him. I don’t blame you—what else could you do?” He bent down and kissed my cheek. “What a shitty twenty-four hours you’ve had.”
“Yeah, I agree with you about Colin,” I replied. “And I appreciate the sentiment, but Taylor had it a lot worse than I did.”
Chapter Seven
Ace of Pentacles, Reversed
Great plans may come to naught
Since we had to pick up the car from the airport, we decided it made more sense for Frank to go to the Target on Clearview Parkway in Metairie to look for a rug and replacement frames.
We rode out to the airport in comparative silence. I was exhausted, and all I wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for a week. I leaned my head against the cold passenger window of the car. It was getting darker, and the temperature was dropping. The hot air blowing from the car vents just wasn’t enough to warm me up. I was thinking I might not ever be warm again.
We took the off-ramp for the airport service road.
“Where are you going?” I asked Frank as he bypassed the exit to Airline Highway, where the Park ’n’ Fly was located, and headed for the terminal.
“It will look funny if I drop you off at the Park ’n’ Fly,” Frank replied. “I’m going to drop you at baggage claim so you can take the shuttle. Grab my overnight bag from the back seat and you’ll look like just another passenger. No one will notice you.”
One of the reasons I love him so much is because he’s so smart.
I’d prefer to think I hadn’t thought of it because I was tired, and my brain fried.
He pulled the car to a stop alongside the concrete island across from the Southwest baggage claim. He leaned over and kissed me. “I’ll see you at home. Be careful driving. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I said, grabbing his overnight bag from the back seat. I slung the strap over my shoulder and watched as he drove off, disappearing around the turn at the end of the terminal along with the other cars and taxis. I shivered and crossed the three lanes to the parking garage. There was a Park ’n’ Fly van idling at the curb on the ground floor.
The driver, a heavyset woman in her early fifties, smiled at me as I climbed into the van. “Do you have your ticket?”
The van drivers always give you a slip of paper with the spot number where you parked written down so you didn’t have to remember. I made a face. “I don’t remember what I did with it,” I smiled at her, “but I’m pretty sure it’s N-47.” I pulled out my phone. “Yes, here it is in my Notes. N-47.”
“No worries,” she said, making a note on a pad by the steering wheel.
I sat down in the back. There were three other people in the van—two men and a woman—and they were all staring at their phones. The van door closed, and the driver pulled away from the curb. I pulled out my own phone and checked for text messages or emails or something, anything, from Colin.
Of course, there was nothing.
What a fucking day.
I’d spent the day so worried about Taylor I hadn’t given much thought to the Colin situation. But at least Frank was home now, and I didn’t have to deal with it alone.
It started raining again as I tipped the driver three dollars and climbed down out of the van. I clicked the fob to unlock the car and got into the driver’s seat. Once the van pulled away, I grabbed an umbrella from the back seat and unlocked the hatch door. As the rain pelted the umbrella, I used my phone flashlight to check the back. No visible blood, no carpet fibers—at least nothing I could see.
Colin said he’d clean it out. I should’ve known he’d be thorough.
It was why he was still alive.
I started the car, turning the heater up and shivering while I waited for hot air to start blowing through the vents. The rain was making it hard to see, but in the distance, I could make out the headlights of the van moving down a row in the back. Once heat started coming out of the vents, I turned on the windshield wipers. The parking ticket was right where Colin said it would be—tucked into the visor.
My hands shaking, I backed out and drove to the exit. Cars were zooming past on Airline Highway, and only one of the exit lanes was open. I pulled up behind a big black Lexus SUV and waited my turn. My hands were still shaking a little, so I gripped the steering wheel more tightly.
It’s just a natural reaction to all the shit that’s gone down since last night, I told myself.
I was also bone tired. I’d been running on adrenaline since getting out of bed and now was crashing, hard. I’d need to stop and get a bottle of Coke somewhere.
Hell, if there was a Starbucks with a drive-through anywhere nearby, I could get a double-shot-of-espresso-latte.
Which sounded so heavenly I almost moaned aloud.
I started searching for a Starbucks on my phone when the SU
V moved through the gate. I put my phone down, pulled up to the booth, and handed the young black man working the booth the ticket stub.
He put it into the machine and remarked, “Well, you weren’t here for very long.”
I handed him a twenty and smiled. “I just had to fly over to Houston for a meeting.” The lie rolled off my lips easily. I started fiddling with my phone again. There was a Starbucks on Veterans before it crossed under I-10. I could make a detour there and get right back on the highway.
Perfect.
The booth attendant nodded, handing me my receipt and change. “Have a great day, and thanks for parking with us.”
“You, too.” I drove the Honda out onto Airline Highway and turned right, heading for Williams Boulevard. Williams bisected Veterans right before the on-ramp. I turned right there and kept an eye out for the Starbucks sign. I was disappointed to see there wasn’t a drive-through, but I had to stop—if I didn’t get a boost of caffeine, there wasn’t any way I could drive all the way home. My eyes were drooping by the time I pulled into the parking lot. The cold rain was bracing as I ran inside. I was the only person there and took a seat to wait for them to make my drink after ordering.
I couldn’t remember the last time I was so tired. I just wanted to get home, crawl back into my bed, and sleep. They called my name. The hot cup felt terrific in my hands and I took a sip. Hot, caffeinated, perfect. I carried it back out to the car. It was still raining, and the wind just seemed to go straight to my bones. I put my latte in the cup holder and started the engine again. The rain was coming down hard, big fat wet drops pelting the windshield and the car so hard I worried about dings. Lighting flashed close by and thunder shook the car.
Great. There’s nothing more fun than driving on I-10 during a thunderstorm.
I took another healthy drink of my latte. My body was starting to warm up, and I could feel energy starting to flow through my blood again.
I turned on the satellite radio and tuned into the local NPR station, WWNO. Some cool jazz would be perfect.
Instead, it was a news broadcast, already in progress.
“…found in Bayou Le Saire out along Chef Menteur Highway this morning by a party of fisherman.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I turned up the sound.
“The male, so far unidentified, was beaten badly and his neck was apparently broken, according to the New Orleans Police Department. He was a Caucasian male, between the ages of thirty and forty years of age, about six feet tall and weighing around two hundred pounds. He was wearing black jeans, black sweater, and black coat. If anyone has any information that could help the police either identify him, or help find his killers, please call the tip line at…”
I turned off the radio.
Fuckety-fuck fuck.
The cops had already found him.
How was that even possible? Bayou Le Saire was out in the middle of nowhere. Yes, the Chef Menteur Highway ran beside it, but at this time of year there shouldn’t have been any fisherman or shrimpers out. Few people went that way, preferring I-10 to get to the North Shore.
So how was this even possible?
This day was just getting better and better. My hands shaking, I started to text Frank but deleted it before finishing. I couldn’t have anything on my phone in case…well, if the police ever needed to look at my phone.
And given I’d turned up at a murder scene this morning because the person who found the body—and was a suspect in that murder—had called me, it wasn’t far-fetched to assume the cops would at some point want to take a look at my phone.
It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
I had to be careful…because Taylor was a suspect in one murder while his uncles were busy covering up another, completely different one.
Then again, I’d heard Argentina was lovely this time of year.
Leaving the country sounded like a damned good idea.
I plugged my phone into the car and cued up a dance playlist I’d made for doing cardio. Maybe listening to dance music cranked up as loud as possible would put me into a better mind-set and let me forget all of this for a little while.
I always take my problems to the dance floor.
With Deborah Cox wailing through my speakers I got back on Veterans and headed for the highway. The rain was still coming down in buckets. In places, the highway was covered in water. But I just kept listening to my music and tapping my hand on the steering wheel to the beat.
Seriously, there’s nothing better than a gay dance mix for picking up your mood.
I took the 610 bypass and later, the Elysian Fields exit. I finished my latte as I went through the intersection at Claiborne, slowing every time the car went through a deep puddle, sending a spray of water into the air on the right side of the car. By the time I got to our parking garage on Barracks Street, the water had risen so high out of the gutter it was covering the sidewalk. I waited for the garage door to go up and drove inside. Frank’s parking spot was empty, and I turned off the car as the garage door came back down. I could hear the rain pounding a tattoo on the roof, glad again the lot owners decided to enclose it a few years ago instead of leaving it open. I took the back way in, using the shed door to the garage, and listened to the rain on the shed’s tin roof.
I opened the door to the back courtyard and looked through the downpour at the back stairs. The courtyard was underwater, and water was spilling over the sides of the fountain.
Is it safe? I wondered.
Another flash of lightning sent me dashing through the water, soaking my shoes and socks. I went up the stairs carefully and checked Taylor’s door—still locked. Scooter must have heard me, because I could hear his plaintive cries on the other side of the door.
Of course he was crying. He’d been alone since last night, and it was time for dinner.
I unlocked the door and Scooter starting twining around my legs as I tried to walk down the hallway without tripping over him. I cooed at him, pulled his tail, and stroked his back while I got the big plastic jar we keep his expensive cat food in down from the top of the refrigerator.
Once he heard the food hitting his bowl, of course, I ceased to exist.
“I’ll come get you later,” I said as I hurried back down the hallway. I locked the door behind me and went down the stairs to our apartment.
I tried the door. It was still locked. Hadn’t Colin said the Russian guy had already been inside with the door locked?
That didn’t make sense. How did he get in?
Maybe Colin wasn’t telling you the whole truth. He’s done that before, remember? To protect you?
I turned the heat up as I walked down the hallway. I did a quick survey of the living room. I didn’t see anything incriminating. Maybe UV lights would show bloodstains on the floor. But the couch looked fine. It just looked weird to see the prints stacked up against the wall, no television on the entertainment center, and the rug gone.
There wasn’t any reason for the police to search the apartment, was there?
No, Eric Brewer had been killed at the Aquitaine, and Taylor had been there when the police arrived. They’d only need to search the apartment if they had reason to believe he’d come home at some point during the night—which wouldn’t make sense. Why would he go back?
I rolled a joint and grabbed my cards. Smoking some pot and reading the cards, communing with the Goddess and the spirit world, always helped me calm down, and my mind was racing. I was going to need to stay calm and cool, especially when Taylor came home.
I lit the joint and took a couple of hits before pinching it out. I sat on the floor and shuffled the cards. The pot was working already, I could feel myself relaxing. I took some cleansing breaths and cleared my mind.
I spread the cards with my eyes closed, murmured a short prayer, and looked at the cards.
Danger for you or for someone close to you.
A calm head is needed.
A deceptive wom
an who cannot be trusted.
Great. Which Grande Dame did She mean?
As I was picking up the cards, I heard footsteps on the stairs. I finished putting the cards away just as Frank came walking in carrying the enormous box containing our new television. “I got some more stuff down in the car,” he said, tossing me the keys. “Do you mind getting the bags while I hook up the television? It’s stopped raining.”
“Great.” I caught the keys out of the air. “Were you able to get a rug?”
He bit his lower lip and shook his head as he tore open one end of the box. “No. It’s going to be harder replacing that rug than we thought,” he said as he slid the television expertly out of the box. “They didn’t have anything even remotely close. We’re going to have to look at some secondhand places, I think.” He shook his head. “We’re not going to be able to get an exact match.”
“Well, if anyone asks, I’ll just say I spilled bleach on it,” I replied.
Lies, lies, and more lies.
There were more bags in the car than I was expecting. This, I thought as I grabbed them all, and slamming the hatch of the Forester shut, is why I never let Frank go shopping. He always gets too much stuff. I lugged the bags across the courtyard, shivering. It felt ten degrees colder now than it did when I got home. I could smell pot as I kicked the door shut behind me. I dumped the bags in the kitchen and peeked into the living room. The television was mounted on the wall where the old one had been, just above the old entertainment center. Frank was holding the joint I’d rolled in one hand while fiddling with the remote control with the other.