by Susan Fleet
No need to panic. No one in New Orleans knew her.
She glanced behind her.
Fear clawed her chest like a ravenous beast.
Cowboy Hat had long legs too, and he was gaining on her.
Clutching the bottle of Aquafina in her sweaty hand, she turned the corner and broke into a trot. Her car was a half-block away. Almost home free.
“Hey, Natalie,” called a nasal voice. “Wait up.”
CHAPTER 5
Poised to attack, she turned to face him, legs flexed, arms by her sides.
Her mind, shocked into paralysis when he called her name, had gone into preservation mode. He knew her. Knew she was in New Orleans.
Who was he? How big a threat?
Cowboy Hat trotted toward her. No cowboy boots. He was wearing Nikes and a broad smile. “Hey, Natalie, great to see you. Don’t you remember me? Tex Conroy. We went to school together in Pecos.”
Tex Conroy. His face was fuller now and the dark beard made him look different, but she felt the same panicky breathlessness she’d felt whenever she'd been around him in school. She pushed the feeling down to her midsection and summoned a smile. It took every bit of acting skill she had.
“Oh. Hi, Tex. I didn’t recognize you.” And desperately wished he hadn’t recognized her.
"You look different. Your hair's shorter. I like the new color." He looked her up and down, eyeballing her breasts, then her bare legs. He smiled and leaned closer. For a disgusting instant she thought he was going to kiss her. She backed up a step.
“But when I saw that bird hanging around your neck I knew it was you, Natalie.”
Involuntarily, she touched the firebird pendent. Her good luck talisman. Not this time. This time it had betrayed her.
"Hot damn!” Tex exclaimed, chortling like a teenager, the obnoxious teenager she'd known in high school. “Wait till I tell the guys you’re here. Are you on vacation or do you live here?"
Wait till I tell the guys you’re here. Her heart slammed her chest. If he was here with his friends, this could be a huge problem. She breathed down to her diaphragm, part of her taekwondo skill set. No way could she allow anyone to know that Natalie Brixton was in New Orleans when Peterson was murdered.
Not when she was so close to her goal. Mom had waited too long.
"I'm here on a work assignment," she said. "How about you?"
"I live here. Left Pecos five years ago after my Daddy died. I'm bartending at a beer joint down on Decatur Street."
“Sorry to hear about your father.” Speaking platitudes as she fought to overcome her fear. Old fears and new ones. She was afraid to talk to him, equally afraid not to.
Leering at her, he said, "How ‘bout we have dinner? We can catch up on old times.”
Old times. Had he forgotten his nasty taunts about her mother? Her mind churned with alternatives, all of them bad. Dinner? Impossible. She had to leave New Orleans now. But if Tex called his football player buddies, he'd tell them she was here. He would also tell them what she looked like.
"Gee, Tex, I can't. I’m off to another assignment.” She mustered a friendly smile. "Tell you what. I’ve got one more chore to do before I leave. If you come with me, I’ll buy you a beer afterwards."
He grinned, showing crooked yellow teeth. "Well now, that sounds like a mighty fine proposition. What’s the chore?”
Walking along beside him, she fell into familiar habits, honed to perfection after all these years. Be what he wants you to be, use your imagination and bamboozle him. “I work for Golf Magazine. My boss sent me here to photograph the golf courses. There’s a big tournament coming up.”
“Yeah? I ain't heard nothin about a golf tournament.”
She doubted he'd ever played a round of golf in his life. Tex was a macho man with a cop for a father. Golf was for sissies. Real men played football.
“The magazine has a long lead time. Do you have a car?"
"Sure do. It’s parked right around the corner, near my apartment."
A chill ran down her spine. For a week she’d been staying at the Sunshine Inn and all that time Tex had been living in an apartment two blocks away.
"Great," she said as they turned the corner. “Why don’t you drive? The golf course is in City Park near the art museum. There’s a nice lounge in the clubhouse."
"Sounds good to me," Tex said, and stopped beside a powder blue Cadillac.
"Wow, you must be doing okay, Tex."
"Not really. I bought it in Pecos. The sheriff's department was auctioning off some cars they confiscated.” He gave her a sly wink. “I think some Mexicans drug runners were using it."
She gritted her teeth. Tex and his football buddies used to think it was great fun to taunt her about Gabe. How's your wetback boyfriend, Natalie?
Tex unlocked the door and opened it for her. Sir Galahad to the max. Did he think she was going to sleep with him? The car stank of beer, and balled-up Burger King wrappers littered the floor on the passenger side. Tex got behind the wheel, took off his cowboy hat and tossed it on the back seat.
He pulled away from the curb and wheeled right onto Esplanade Avenue. She set her tote in the foot-well and clenched her hands in her lap, knowing what she had to do, but unsure of where or how to do it.
Moments later as they drove north toward City Park, he pulled out a cell phone. Her stomach spasmed in fear. “What are you doing?”
He looked over and grinned. “Calling my friend Tommy.”
One of his football buddies. Her heart hammered her chest. “Now? Let’s wait till we have a beer. I’d love to talk to him. It would be fun.” She held her breath. If he called Tommy now, it would force her hand.
After an agonizing pause, he slipped the cell back in his pocket. “How long is this photo shoot gonna take? I’m mighty thirsty.”
Of course. Tex had always been thirsty, thirsty enough to get smashed at his graduation party, drive home drunk and kill his girlfriend on the way.
“Not long, Tex. Ten minutes tops.” She touched his arm, an intimate gesture promising future intimacies. “Then we’ll have a nice cool one.”
_____
The Riverside Hilton Security Director’s office was on the eighth floor. When Frank got off the elevator at four o'clock, Ivan Ludlow loomed in a doorway across the hall. He looked like Killer Kowalski, six-foot-eight with massive shoulders that swelled the jacket of his tailored business suit.
“Detective Renzi?” Ludlow said, and extended his hand. No smile.
“Thanks for seeing me on short notice, Mr. Ludlow.” They shook and he gave Ludlow points for not crushing his hand. The far wall of his office was floor-to-ceiling glass, yielding an expansive view of the Mississippi River and beyond. A polished-oak desk faced the door, bare except for two items: an old-fashioned metal spindle with pink memo slips impaled on it, and a plastic mini-roulette wheel full of peppermints.
In a corner near the door, two leather chairs stood on either side of a low table. Ludlow took one and Frank took the other. Ken Volpe, the first man on Peterson's enemies list, worked for Bally’s Riverboat Casinos; he'd been in Las Vegas all week, attending a conference. Frank sized up the second man on the list. Coarse black hair combed straight back from his face fell to his shoulders. His most prominent feature: Gila monster eyes, large and heavy-lidded.
Expressionless, Ludlow gazed at him without speaking, a clear message: Talking to an NOPD homicide detective doesn't intimidate me.
“You’re here about Arnold?” Ludlow said at last. His face was like a Cezanne painting, all planes and angles. Although his appearance suggested European ancestry, his speech had no foreign cadence or accent.
“Yes. Someone suggested you might have had a beef with him.”
Ludlow flicked a massive hand as if swatting away a fly. “I have no quarrel with Arnold.”
“Let bygones be bygones?”
Ludlow blinked his Gila eyes. “Detective Renzi, I have an excellent job, an office with a splendid view and no h
assles. The people who manage the Riverside Hilton treat me very well. Ken Volpe found an equally good job. I assume someone told you Arnold muscled us out of Babylon East.”
He couldn’t imagine the dead man he’d seen on the Hotel Bienvenue bed muscling Ivan Ludlow around. Ludlow would have broken him in half.
“Where were you between ten o'clock Wednesday night and two the next morning?”
“Home with my wife.” Ludlow took a framed photograph off the table between them and held it out. Dressed in skiwear, Ivan had his arm around a striking raven-haired woman in similar attire. Beyond them were snowcapped mountains. The woman was a foot shorter than Ivan and she was smiling. Ivan wasn’t. Maybe he never smiled.
“Nice picture,” he said. “Where was it taken?”
“In Switzerland last year. We went there for our vacation.”
“I’ll need to interview your wife to confirm your alibi.”
Ludlow shrugged. “As you wish. She teaches German at Metairie Country Day School.”
“Did Arnold Peterson have a gambling problem?”
“If he did, it’s news to me. A group of us went to the Fairgrounds a few years ago.”
“People who worked at Babylon East? Or was it a social event?”
Two Gila eye-blinks. “Arnold and I never socialized. I may have met his wife at a Christmas party. No, this group was from the Babylon marketing department. Arnold and some of the others placed a few bets. I didn’t. I’m not much of a gambler.”
Ludlow’s pager buzzed. He glanced at it and returned it to his pocket. “My men get anxious during hurricane season. No more vertical evacuations, so if the mayor orders everyone to leave the city, we must be ready to evacuate our guests.”
Frank nodded. He’d seen the horrors of vertical evacuations first hand. Prior to Katrina some New Orleans residents had booked rooms in high-rise hotels. During the dark desolate days after the storm they had been stranded in rooms without electricity. No food, no water and no toilet facilities.
But that was then. Now he had a hotel with a different problem.
“Do you know anyone who might have wanted Arnold Peterson dead?”
“No. What did you get from the security cameras?”
A sucker-punch question, one he didn't intend to answer. Ludlow was a security director and had assumed the Bienvenue had security cameras.
“Do you know if Arnold Peterson ever used call girls?”
A tiny pause, but no change of expression. “He never mentioned it, but it’s possible. Arnold was a heavy drinker. Moderation was never Arnold's strong point.” Ludlow gazed at him expectantly. Blinked predictably.
“Thanks for your time, Mr. Ludlow.” Ludlow was no dummy, had surmised, correctly, that they had something on videotape. But he wasn’t going to tell Ludlow about the woman on the video. And Ludlow wasn’t going to tell him anything more about Arnold Peterson.
_____
When Tex stopped at the traffic light opposite the New Orleans Art Museum, she could see people strolling along the tree-lined drive that led to the museum. She told Tex to turn right. No way did she want anyone noticing the distinctive powder blue Cadillac with a young couple inside.
“Where y'all off to next?” Tex asked.
“Arizona. There’s lots of golf courses out there.”
"Must be a bunch of sissies out there. Golf is for faggots."
Good old Tex, as bigoted as ever. She told him to take the next left and drive into the park. The golf course was nearby, but she had no intention of going there. She needed a secluded spot with no people around.
A minute later she saw it.
“Park here,” she said. “The golf course is just beyond those trees.”
“Why can’t we park at the clubhouse?”
“My boss wants me to get some shots of the back nine.” She faked a laugh. “You wouldn’t believe how finicky these pro golfers are.”
He pulled onto the shoulder beside a grove of trees with picnic tables. She got out and slung her tote bag over her shoulder. Without waiting for Tex, she forged past the picnic tables into the stand of trees.
Behind her, Tex griped, “I don’t see any golf course. Where is it?”
Her stomach knotted with tension. It was after four. Would people come here this late for a picnic?
“Beyond those big oak trees. Go ahead and see for yourself." She waved him ahead of her and looked back. The road was no longer visible and she heard no passing cars. Now or never.
She let him get a few steps ahead of her and reached into her tote.
He stopped suddenly and turned to look at her. "What are you doing?"
She smiled brightly. "Getting out my camera. For the pictures."
It was like déjà vu. Taking pictures of Randy beside the Pecos River.
Seemingly satisfied, Tex turned and kept walking.
The familiar cold hard iceberg formed inside her. She took the .38 Special out of her tote, pressed it against her leg and hurried to catch up, her heartbeat an anxious rat-a-tat against her ribs. When she was five feet behind him, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was around. She saw no one.
Listened for sounds of a car. Heard nothing.
Two long silent strides brought her closer. She raised the revolver and fired one shot into the back of Tex Conroy's head.
His head jerked, his body lurched forward, and he collapsed on the ground. His legs twitched for a moment, then lay still.
She lowered the revolver, knelt down and dug Tex's wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. But his car keys weren't there. Where could they be? She had to find them, had to get out of here as fast as possible. And to do that, she needed a car.
She gripped one of his arms, heaved him over onto his back and gasped. His face was a bloody mess, his eyes open and staring.
Her heart pounded like a wild thing. Focus. Concentrate. Get the keys.
Frantic now, she searched his front pockets and found them. Holding the gun against her right leg, she ran back to his Cadillac.
When she emerged from the grove of trees, the picnic area was deserted. Relieved, she got in the car, cranked the engine and glanced in the rearview mirror.
Her heart almost stopped.
A blue-and-white NOPD cruiser was approaching the Cadillac.
Panic clawed her throat. Had someone heard the shot?
Maybe not. No siren, no flashing lights on the cruiser. But the distinctive powder blue Caddy belonged to the dead man someone would eventually find in the woods.
Now the cruiser was almost upon her. She grabbed Tex’s cowboy hat off the back seat, jammed it on her head, turned away and pretended to look at something on the passenger seat.
Moments later the cruiser passed her, continued down the narrow road and disappeared.
Her stomach heaved. She opened the car door and vomited on the grass. After a moment, she opened the bottle of Aquafina, rinsed her mouth and spat on the ground. Her hands were shaking, her whole body wracked with tremors. She had to get out of here.
She did a U-turn and drove out of the park.
Ten minutes later she drove down Esplanade Avenue at the edge of the French Quarter. Her insides were still shaking. Two blocks over she parked the Cadillac in a strip mall near where it had been parked before. She took a packet of alcohol-soaked baby wipes out of her tote, used one to clean the steering wheel and door handles, got out and walked away.
On the way back to her rental car she dropped Tex's keys in a trash bin on the sidewalk, jogged to her car, got in and opened Tex’s wallet. And found 200 dollars in cash. Maybe he’d just gotten paid. When he spotted her in the Circle K, he'd seen the girl he used to intimidate in high school and got excited, thinking she might give him a tumble. What a joke. No, not a joke, a disaster. He’d followed her outside. Forced her to talk to him. Prevented her from leaving. Which left her no choice but to kill him.
Tex had always been a shit, but did he really deserve to die?
She bli
nked back tears.
Her years of living dangerously were catching up to her.
Last night after she shot Peterson, she'd felt triumphant. She enjoyed the risky parts: the hunt, the deception, the challenge of reeling him in. Most of all, she enjoyed the anger.
Anger made her feel powerful. The gun made her dangerous.
She was no victim, she was an avenger.
But she had just killed an innocent man in cold blood.
Killing Tex was an unforeseen complication, unforeseen and dangerous.
Arnold Peterson and Tex Conroy, shot with the same gun. Sooner or later the cops would figure that out. She had to ditch the gun someplace where it would never be found.
She pocketed the 200 dollars, polished the wallet with another baby wipe and cranked the rental car. She didn’t know how long it would take for someone to find Tex’s body and call the police, but with no ID on him, it would take them a while to figure out who he was. By then she’d be gone.
As she pulled away from the curb, raindrops splattered the windshield. Her mouth still tasted sour, but the monumental iceberg inside her was gone. She pulled over beside a trash bin on the sidewalk, dropped Tex’s wallet into it and kept driving. Two blocks later she stopped at a traffic light.
The entrance to the interstate was a block away. She glanced at her wristwatch. 4:35. Rush hour. Traffic would be heavy on the I-10.
The nail that sticks up is hammered down. Her favorite Asian proverb.
Her maroon Toyota Corolla would be one car of many, just another drone headed home to Slidell after work. She'd love to stop on the twin-span that arched over the eastern edge of Lake Pontchartrain and toss the gun, but that would be impossible during rush hour.
She would have to stop in Slidell and dump the gun. Then she’d get back on the I-10 headed east and dump June Carson, too.
June had served her purpose. Time to be someone else.
Hey, Natalie, great to see you. Tex's voice, jolting her. Haunting her.
She closed her eyes, willing the voice to stop.
When I saw that bird hanging around your neck, I knew it was you.