And there was Paula’s testimony itself. King wanted to chew on it for a moment.
“What are you playing at, Mr. King?” Mel arched an eyebrow and inhaled a second time.
An excellent question.
What was he doing? He wasn’t an agent anymore. He wasn’t even a private investigator. In Louisiana, he needed a license. His DEA experience would qualify him, and what knowledge he might lack in regulations he could easily acquire in a certification course offered by the Louisiana State Board of Private Investigator Examiners.
But he wasn’t certified and he hadn’t considered it before Brasso showed up with this case. Could he even call it a case? He was looking for a missing person. Was he a liaison then? That too required documents and clearance through special channels.
What are you playing at?
“I’ve taken up a hobby,” he said at last. “I hear it is very important to keep yourself active once you retire, lest you die of boredom.”
At least that was the truth, in part. Something about Brasso’s request had sparked him. He was awake, engaged with the world in a way he hadn’t been for the months since he’d left the bureau and headed south like a snowbird.
King often envisioned his mind as a police station. Rows of desks and men—all looking like King himself—working furiously. Each one processing a part of his task or problem.
Right now, one considered how to talk to Brasso.
Another formed a list of all the reasons he couldn’t simply turn Venetti over to his old partner.
He wasn’t a search dog that could be put away once it’d found the cocaine hidden in a suitcase. He had Venetti, but he didn’t have answers. He didn’t have closure.
A third King-helpful voiced his concerns for Mel and Piper. What he was doing was dangerous. He’d known it the second the two men tried to tail him.
A fourth from an imaginary desk in his mind called out, but what about paying the girl? If you cut this case short, how will you compensate her? How will you pick up the slack for Mel? The longer King worked on the case, the more expenses he’d accrue. The more expenses the larger the burden he could carry on his landlady’s behalf.
And it wasn’t safe to turn over Venetti now. He owns them, she’d said. If he had Lou pack the girl up and send her to Brasso, she could very well find herself in the bottom of the bay after all.
All of this was his mind avoiding the biggest question of all.
Lou.
The angel of death.
He swam to the surface of his thoughts and caught Mel watching him through the haze of her cigarette smoke. Her lips pursed around the filter.
“Come on. Don’t look at me like that, Mel. This is another source of income. We can hang a sign from the balcony, Robert King’s Detective Agency. You can charge me commercial property rent, if you like. Steady income. Isn’t that what you were hoping for?”
Mel dropped the spent cigarette and stamped it out with a fierce twist of her boot. “Hope is a demon, Mr. King. And don’t you forget it.”
17
Konstantine opened his suitcase on his bed and unpacked a stack of dress shirts. Then he removed the row of dress pants all the same shade of midnight. And in the third row, his underwear, socks, gray silk pajama bottoms and two pairs of sweatpants. He considered the contents for a moment, wondering if he should put them in the dresser provided by the hotel, or if it was better to leave his suitcase packed, in the event he had to leave immediately.
His computer pinged. He went to the desk and opened the chat program.
“Konstantine,” he said, hoping there was no hint of the eagerness straining his muscles in his voice.
“Hey boss, it’s me, Julio.”
“Go on.”
“We checked the surveillance for the club and think we found your girl. I’m sending you the pic.”
Konstantine’s heart sped up. “Sure.” Sure was casual enough. Neither eager nor indifferent, but ice slid down his spine. It was sheer force of will that kept him from shuddering.
Julio was one of Padre Leo’s most trusted servants, and was recommended by the benevolent father himself.
The chat box pinged again, registering a receipt of the image Julio had sent. Konstantine waited for the rainbow wheel to stop turning and the fully downloaded image to appear.
A black and white photo popped up on the screen.
“Down in the left corner there’s a woman by the bar,” Julio went on though his face was hidden behind the expanded photo. “You can’t tell, but she’s looking in Castle’s direction. And when he goes to the bathroom so does she.”
He hadn’t needed Julio to point her out to him. He’d spotted her immediately. The remarkable exactness between his imagination and reality made the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Her hair was shorter now, only shoulder length. A short ponytail pulled all the hair from her face. He imagined sliding a finger beneath the black elastic, and plucking the band out of her hair. The hair would fall across her thin, feline throat. It was so small he was sure he could wrap his entire hand around it.
He was sixteen when he first saw her.
He had killed his first man a week before and had barely slept. Instead, he’d toss for hours and when that failed to settle him, he would quietly leave the apartment and walk the city streets until exhaustion won at last. When he left, he left a note. He had not wanted his mother to get up in the night, see him gone, and worry.
It had been his mother’s only stipulation. At night he will be home in his bed, Padre Leo. You cannot imagine the terror a mother feels when the night grows long, and she doesn’t know where her child is. So Padre sent him home at sunset each day.
He ate dinner with her. He kissed his mother goodnight. And when her gentle snoring rumbled from the adjacent bedroom, he would be gone again, knowing Padre would have a job for him if he wanted it.
The night he saw Castle’s huntress for the first time, he was also sleepless. He’d been lying on his back, reading a spy novel in bed, one hand under his head. His mother’s snores caught up to him at the end of the next chapter. Then he was up, shoving his feet into his Adidas sneakers with their white diagonal stripes—nice, beautiful shoes. A gift from Padre Leo. What better recruitment tool than a well-dressed boy? What kid didn’t want the cool American clothes and expensive Swiss watches? All his boys were dressed to the nines.
He’d adjusted the waistband on his track pants and had turned to look for a T-shirt to pull down over his head.
And there she was.
A girl. In his bed. Thick dark hair fell over her cheeks and face in delicate strands. It cascaded nearly to her waist. Her arms and legs glowed in the moonlight coming from his high windows. Her lips were parted, split like a cherry. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
His thighs pressed to the side of the bed, and he peered down at her. He was half certain she was a trick of the light. Somehow the moon had met his rumpled bed sheets and created this magic.
But her brow knit, and her hand kept opening and closing on her chest. The small movements of a living creature. Not a moonlight illusion.
He watched her, barely breathing until it struck him this was the way his mother slept. Fitfully, until she woke with a scream.
He reached out to touch her pale cheek. As soon as his fingertips brushed her warm flesh, the girl shot up in bed. A sharp intake of breath passed her lips. Her wide eyes searched his room.
He stepped back. He held up his hands in apologetic reassurance.
She squeezed his sheets to her chest as if she was undressed beneath it and Konstantine had been the one to intrude upon her.
It’s okay, he said first in Italian, the language he used with his mother. When her brow creased deeper, he said it again in English.
He took a step toward her, and the moment he did, she rolled right off his bed onto the floor. The sheet went with her, pulled right off the bed—except it kept going. Something about it reminded Konstantine of a magician
’s trick with silk scarves and a hat.
He ran around the bed to the other side, expecting to help the surprised girl off the floor.
Only there was no girl on the floor. The girl and his bed sheet had both disappeared.
All that was left was a thick patch of shadow between his mattress and the closet.
Konstantine understood this about her. Especially now with his father and brothers dead, he understood she traveled by the dark. Somehow, she rode the darkness like a passenger train. And though she had appeared in his bed only four or five more times when he was young, he never woke her again. He learned his mistake there. If she woke, she ran. But if he was still and quiet, then he could watch her sleep. He could lie beside her, breath held until she winked out again. Enjoying her scent. Her warmth and how it radiated off her like the fire in Padre Leo’s office. Sometimes she spoke in her sleep. Once she cried for her father, bright wet tears sliding from the corners of her closed eyes and onto his pillows.
“So it is your girl?” Julio asked.
“Yes,” he said and realized he hadn’t blinked since seeing the image. “Any other sign of her?”
Julio paused. “Not on camera.”
Konstantine reluctantly closed the image so he could see the man’s face. “What do you mean?”
Julio worked his lower jaw as he mustered the courage to give his boss the bad news. Konstantine waited, more out of fear for what might be said than patience.
“She was busy last night,” Julio said finally. He slapped the back of his neck, crushing a mosquito. A smear of blood dragged across the man’s neck when he pulled his hand away. “I’ve had reports coming in all day. We’re missing a lot of mules.”
Konstantine wet his lips and steadied his voice before speaking. “How many?”
“Nine,” Julio said. “So far.”
Nine.
She was angry. Obviously. The question was why. What had he done to piss her off?
“What do you want me to do, boss?” Julio asked. He’d begun chewing on the meat of his thumb.
Konstantine’s appreciation for Julio swelled. He’d executed the task of finding the girl flawlessly. And now he wanted another job. The man’s work ethic was admirable.
“Kill Castle,” Konstantine said. “We don’t need him.”
Julio nodded as if he expected this. “And the girl?”
“Track her movements, if you can. But make no move against her. I will deal with her myself.”
“When do you arrive?” Julio asked, his spatulate fingernails scratching at the blood drying on his neck.
“I’m already here.”
18
Melandra turned over the first tarot card, the reversed Queen of Pentacles. A woman in dire financial straits. She rolled her eyes heavenward and cursed the spread forming on the glass jewelry case.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she murmured to the worn deck in her hand.
She looked up and surveyed her empty shop. It was late afternoon, and the sunlight slanted along the topmost shelves as it prepared to dip behind the buildings. It was warm, collecting the heat from the June day between its walls.
The virtuoso was back, busking on the adjacent corner, and her song drifted through the open door along with the warm air. At least she’d gotten better, Mel thought. When the girl had begun to play on the corner six months ago, each note screeched like a cat with its tail caught in the door.
She hadn’t had a single customer all day.
It was true magic shops had more appeal in the nighttime hours, when people found it easier to believe in ghosts and voodoo and all that lay in-between. But she could usually count on at least a few tourists to stream in during the day. Coming or going from the gumbo shop down the street. Or sugared up on beignets from the square. Foot traffic was good in the quarter, and she had an exorbitant mortgage to prove it.
She kept doing the math in her head. She counted the purchasing customers needed to keep her shop afloat. How many palm readings? How many past life regressions? How many tarot readings? Or maybe someone would want a picture of their aura. She hadn’t done one of those in a while.
If five people come in and buy one thing...but this was where her mind split. Would they buy the mix and match incense sticks? Ten for one dollar. It wasn’t enough to pay the electric bill. But let’s say they bought a candle, ranging from $5.99 to $9.99...in that case I’d have to sell...
Why do I do this to myself?
Calculations for sales that aren’t happening is one way to drive yourself mad, she thought.
She was half mad already, she knew.
Here she was.
Alone on a gorgeous afternoon, reading her own fortune because there was no one else to peddle the truth to.
Oh that’s not all, and you know it, she chastised herself. This was no mere reading out of boredom. She’d been itching to turn over the cards ever since that woman came to see King.
The ex-girlfriend, Lucy, was sick. That much Mel knew. As soon as she’d shaken the woman’s damp hand, she’d known it. And whatever she had wouldn’t be fixed by juju beads or a gris gris bag. Maybe Grandmamie could have taken the sick demon out of her, but Mel couldn’t.
She didn’t have that kind of power.
She thought of Grandmamie. They’d called her a faith healer in their little town outside Baton Rouge. A Priestess. The Mother or sometimes Mamie Blue Jeans because no matter how hot it got down in the bayou, Grandmamie wore blue jeans.
Mel could see her in her mind, her saggy breasts lying on a great round belly and balloon arms on either side as she raised a sweating glass of sweet tea to her lips.
“Mmm hmm,” she said to the thickening twilight.
“Uhhh huhhh what?” Mel had asked, a stick creature with dirt splotches head to toe.
“Can’t you feel it, girl?”
Mel had looked out from their porch into the growing dark. The trees were crowded against one another, and the smallest of spaces between them were black as a cottonmouth’s back. But she didn’t feel anything. She heard the chickens cooing in the grass and the squirrels yammering in the trees. And a jay screeching off somewhere. She smelled the beans on the stove. She could taste the licorice in her mouth.
But no feelings of any kind.
“Change is in the air,” Grandmamie said and turned to her. She smiled at her through the round spectacles sitting halfway down the bridge of her nose. “You got to learn how to feel change a’coming, girl. It don’t do you no good to be numb to it.”
Change came as a decree from the governor buying their land so they could run a highway through it.
Change is a’coming, girl.
“I know it,” Mel said in her quiet shop because she’d done as Grandmamie had asked. She’d learned all right. And now she felt all kinds of things she wondered if she had any right to be feeling at all.
She flipped the second card and lay it perpendicular across the first. This is what crosses me. The five of wands glared up at her. A war party in full swing. Staffs slammed against one another and faces contorted in hate. Conflict. War.
“Because that’s what I need,” she sighed.
She flipped the third card, the crowning position, meant to tell her the atmosphere of what was unfolding.
Death. A hooded skeleton with a scythe grinned its bone white grin at her.
This was Grandmamie’s deck, or it had been a long time ago. And she had a faith in these old worn cards that she didn’t have for any others. She sold cards in the shop. Glossy, unbent pieces of commercial trash, most of it. Sometimes a deck arrived and Mel would get a feeling when she turned the pack over in her hand. Sometimes she’d put one of those decks aside for herself. But not even those decks compared to the one she’d inherited on her nineteenth birthday, two weeks before Grandmamie died.
So she believed in the power of her grandmother’s cards, but that didn’t mean she had to like what they said.
She put the cards down and rubbed he
r forehead. “If you ain’t got nothing nice to say, I best stop right there.”
Before she could push away from the glass case holding protective amulets, the breeze rustled the deck. The black cards with gold trim fluttered, and an unmistakable pull centered in her chest. She looked down at the cards, expectantly.
She waited.
Mamie Blue Jeans had taught her more than how to feel change.
She’d taught her to listen.
She’d taught her how to treat snake bites and read clouds as well as bones. She’d learned a spider taking down its web meant rain was on its way.
So when the breeze flipped over the Tower card, she didn’t dismiss it as coincidence.
Unlike Mr. King, Melandra was a believer.
She placed the Tower as the center piece and then flipped the next several cards, rounding out the spread. Longing. Danger. A secret. Lies revealed. Disease. And a man, face down with seven swords protruding from his bleeding back. Betrayal.
The swords gave her pause. It was the suit she associated with Mr. King. The King of Swords being he himself, the other cards from ace to ten, his journey.
She pressed the fingers of her right hand to the Death card and the two fingers of her left hand to her forehead. She closed her eyes.
First only darkness. Bland and flat. Then the darkness swirled like water, gained dimension, and a woman, pale as moonlight, surfaced. Her name—Louise. No. That wasn’t quite right, but close.
Mel pushed deeper, following Louise into the water. Men dropped like offerings at her feet. A mound of bodies, broken and bleeding. Blood on her hands, up to the elbows. Smeared across her mouth and cheeks. She was eating...Mel pushed harder and saw...a heart. Louise held a heart in her hand and was eating it. And when she was done, she danced on their bodies, danced like the death goddess Kali on what little remained of them.
Mel let go of the card and crossed herself. “Holy mother of god.”
“Holy mother what?” Piper said. She stopped short of the glass jewelry case and plopped her backpack beside the register. Her brow scrunched up. “Whoa, Mel, are you okay? You look like you saw the devil.”
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