A loud snicker came from the booth behind them. Val turned around to glare. "You poor hunk of scum," said a large man with tattoos all the way around his thick neck. "I'm watching you jump whenever that girl tells you to. You are so whipped, man!" He made a gesture with one finger like a flower stem wilting. His friend, who had a long scar from his ear to his throat, sneered.
"Yeah. She too much woman for someone like you. You ain't got enough manhood to please her, so you actin' like her personal servant."
Val was shocked and furious. She started to open her mouth. Gris-gris reached over and put his hand on her arm. She spun to look at him. He wasn't angry. He was smiling.
"Man," he said, "you only wish you were whipped like me." He sighed and grinned widely, the look of a satisfied man. "You would be luckier than a four-leaf clover to be whipped like me."
The others looked shocked. Their expressions shifted to something like admiration.
"That good, huh?" asked the large man.
"Oh, yeah," Gris-gris said. "There are ladies that are worth bowing down for, and this lady here is one of them. I have no shame for showin' my gratitude in public. You ought to think about that sometime." Val felt her cheeks burn. She was so flattered it made her breathless.
"Thank you," she whispered. Gris-gris gazed at her and dragged her into those deep eyes again.
"Honey miss, you are somethin' special. I don't mind what you do, as long as you take some time to do it with me."
"Forget about the food," Val said, taking his hands in hers. She squeezed them, as if trying to communicate her growing need to him. She did not need to. He looked as eager as she felt.
"Too late, Clarissa!" Gris-gris bellowed, a broad grin on his face. "Maybe some other time. Got somethin' better in mind!"
Arm in arm, they slipped out the door. For a while, Val managed to forget--or care--about being followed.
Fifteen
The young waitress at the Cafe du Monde set down a heavy white mug of coffee and a plate of fresh, hot, white-coated beignets in front of Griffen.
"Now, y'all watch it. They're hot!"
"They taste the best that way," Griffen assured her. She smiled, slapped a bill down, and went on to the next customer.
Griffen took a huge bite of beignet. The searing heat of dough just moments out of the hot oil parboiled his teeth, but it would take molten lava to hurt a dragon's mouth. He loved the sensation and the flavor of the fresh doughnuts. The chicory-infused coffee was just as hot. Its slightly spicy smell made the perfect counterpoint to the sweet, puffy, square doughnuts. No wonder this place was always full, at every hour of the day or night. It was a national treasure. The day they put him in charge of everything, he was going to grant Cafe du Monde landmark status.
As he took the next bite, the ringing of his cell phone surprised him. He inhaled at the wrong time and got a lungful of powdered sugar. He reached for the handset while trying to cough the white powder out.
"He-hello?" he hacked. "Yes, this is Griffen McCandles."
"Peter Sing. I sat in on your game the other day?"
"Yes!" Griffen said. Hastily, he drank a swig of coffee to clear his throat. "Hey, good to hear from you. What can I do for you?"
"I am in the mood to play poker," Peter said. "You said you would be happy to have me in on any of your games. Do you have one going on tonight?"
Griffen hesitated for a moment. "Let me check my list," he said. He stared out of the restaurant across Decatur Street at Jackson Square. He was torn as to what to do.
Following the game at the Omni, Jerome had taken him aside and said he didn't trust the man. Coming from anyone else, Griffen could have ascribed any number of motives for disliking another person, but Jerome was different.
Jerome was smart, experienced, tough, and streetwise, but the main talent in which he excelled overall was as a judge of character. Mose had noticed it when Jerome was very young and relied on it from then on. Griffen would have been a fool to ignore his warning.
"I'm sorry, Peter," he said. "The only thing running tonight is a closed game for a few regulars. They're not very good. You'd outshine them, and they'd get pissed at me."
"I could hold back," Peter offered. "I really want to play."
"Sorry." Griffen was pleasant but firm. "Hey, how about this? I have a late-night game set up day after tomorrow, some really experienced players who want to come around after a show at Preservation Hall. They're high rollers. Much more your speed. You'd enjoy that a lot more. The action won't get started until after ten."
"That is not very good customer service." Peter sounded annoyed, so Griffen kept his tone apologetic.
"We really do try to give our clients what they want," Griffen said. "Do you want me to arrange a game for you tonight? I can try and set something up and get back to you with the details."
"That will not be necessary," Peter said tersely. "I will attend the game in two days. Give me the location."
"When I have it, I will let you know," Griffen promised. Sing signed off without saying another word. Griffen punched in Jerome's speed-dial number and told him what happened. "See if you can put something together with a few clients who won't mind losing money. I'm going to sit in myself and keep an eye on him."
Jerome sounded incredulous. "You listened to me? You actually listened to somethin' I said?"
"I've learned my lesson," Griffen said, humbly. "I hated turning down money, but if you don't trust him, I don't want him near the operation unless I can be there myself."
Jerome sounded relieved. "I just get the feelin' that he's the first snowball in some kind of avalanche. I'll set something up for Friday night."
"Thanks," Griffen said. When he hung up, he already felt better.
Sixteen
Griffen stalked toward the Fafnir den. Etienne's message had sounded urgent. Anything that got him out of bed before noon for the second time in a week had better be urgent.
He strode among the Mid-City warehouses. No part of the old city was much more seedy or run-down than any other part, but there was just something about industrial buildings that tended to look abandoned and derelict even if they were being used by a thriving business. The den, the bright yellow paint on its huge sliding doors slivering in the baking heat and humidity, seemed like it hadn't been used for years. According to Terence Killen, it was rented from a garden-furniture importer who had two other warehouses and wouldn't need that one until April, plenty of time for Mardi Gras staging and takedown.
Griffen reached the apron and felt as if he had been hit in the head by a hot, wet fish. The power that the old building exuded made him believe in science-fiction force fields. Passersby, mostly locals, walked around him on the sidewalk, meeting his eyes with a friendly expression of puzzlement but never looking at the nondescript warehouse itself. If they didn't feel it, why did he? What was it?
He managed to push his way through the sensation and enter the den by way of the small door next to the main entrance.
The contents of the bustling facility had changed since he was there before. It was not just that the floats there were much closer to completion, nor that dozens more people were working on them, or spreading plans out on tables, or conferring in corners. Something unseen was building in the very air. The feeling was much stronger inside than it had been outside. It was intense. Griffen wanted to fight back against it. Not that it was sinister, but it was powerful. Yes, that was it: power. It was concentrated here as he had never felt it, not even at the conclave. It must be true that dragons possessed far more power than the average being of supernatural heritage.
He let himself absorb the sensation for a moment. Like a perfume, it entered his body by every pore and orifice. His natural mojo fought off the intruding energy until he could accept it as nonthreatening. He even liked it.
With a proprietary air, Griffen surveyed the dozens of people working on floats. They were making the float that would carry him through the streets of New Orleans. He tried
to pretend that he was a real king, and these were his lackeys. They were going to go out and do battle with the rush-hour traffic and the minions of the tourism industry. He would wave to his thousands of loyal subjects, many of whom would be young ladies who would show their loyalty to him by raising their shirts with nothing on underneath. Then the whole idea overwhelmed him with the absurdity of it. He laughed out loud. The big dragon in the corner seemed to wink at him. He had to stop getting his information from the evening news.
Somehow, the sound of his voice echoed above the noise of drills, lathes, and saws. Etienne and Terence looked up from what they were doing and came to meet him.
"Mr. Griffen!" Etienne said, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back with his little notebook. "Good to see you!"
"Hi, Etienne," Griffen said. "You called me? Is this important? You got me out of bed, you know."
The werewolf-dragon hybrid immediately flipped to a page in his book. "Time-line," he said. "You still don't have a tuxedo yet, do you?"
"Well, no," Griffen admitted. "I was going to go when I had a chance. Is that why you called me?"
"Well, yeah," Etienne said, as if it was self-evident. "It is important, Mr. Griffen."
Griffen felt his neck get hot with fury. It was getting kind of old, having Etienne always know what was happening--or not. But Griffen had talked to other prescient people. The gift was not a friendly one. Shirley, a motherly woman who offered tarot readings in Jackson Square, actually quoted to her clients from the dreams she had had about them the night or the week before, not from the cards. Her record, as far as Griffen's experience with her went, was impressive.
"You're just a servant to the dreams," she had told him. "More than half the time I wish I had no idea of what is going to come. Some people kill themselves. Some drink or use drugs to try and chase the pictures away. The rest of us learn to cope."
So Griffen tried to be patient with Etienne. Still, he had woken Griffen from too short a night's sleep.
"It's just a tux," he said. "I was going to get to it. You probably already knew that."
"Well, I did," Etienne said. "And I know you waitin' too long to get going. As king of our krewe, you gonna get invitations to a bunch of associated krewes, Antaeus, Nautilus, and Aeolus, who share our marchin' day, for a start, but some of the superkrewes are glad to have us up and going again, and they will also send invitations. We return the favor. You could end up goin' to a whole bunch of balls and parties. You gonna need at least three suits."
"Three!" Griffen protested. "Why can't I just have one?" Etienne shook his head. "They'll be in and out of the dry cleaners all season, so you gotta make sure you don't get stuck without one. Ain't no substitute for black tie. You can't just show up in a sports jacket and say you forgot. And if you miss, it's a big insult, to them and to us. Get enough suits."
Dry-cleaning a suit ran a minimum of twenty dollars. Griffen multiplied that times three tuxedos, which probably cost more to clean, and added the red ink to the mental deficit he was compiling. But there was no arguing with someone who knew the future and had probably seen him renting the suits. He tossed off a mock salute.
"Aye, aye, Captain."
"See, that's good," Etienne said, with his sunny, patient smile. "It'll all work out okay. Here." He gave Griffen a sheet of paper that looked as if it had been copied and recopied many times. "Here's some local tailors who rent tuxes. You probably won' be able to get any in town unless you lucky, but no sense in not tryin'. Metairie is gonna be out, too. They've got dozens of deir own krewes now. Try Baton Rouge, maybe. I tink that's where you gonna luck out."
Griffen resolved to save time and go to the Baton Rouge addresses first. No sense in reinventing the wheel. Langford poked him in the other elbow with his clipboard.
"While you're out looking for tuxes," he said, "I need you to go in for a fitting on your robes for the parade. We had general measurements for you already."
"How?" Griffen demanded. They looked at him patiently. "Never mind, I know."
"And you need to get your ladies together. They have to go in for their fittings, too."
"Sooner's better'n later, Mr. Griffen," Etienne said.
"Hey, Griffen!"
Phil Grover, in charge of charity, looked up from the enormous fountain pen that he was painting, and came over. "I want to thank you for your donation. I didn't expect anything so soon. A lot of money flows through your operation, doesn't it?"
Griffen pulled back just a little, and not from the red paint smeared on Phil's coveralls. He didn't like outsiders asking about the finances of the operation. "Proportionately, I suppose so."
"Well, it's welcome," Phil said. "I can't tell you what it's going to mean to a lot of families here in the city. We have thirty-four families who have been left homeless or partly homeless because of fire in the last eighteen months. Ladybug gives them grants proportional to their situation and income."
Griffen listened until his ears rang. It was unbelievable how much detail each and every one of the lieutenants kept in his head. He interrupted Phil in midspate.
"How'd you get interested in helping Ladybug?"
"Oh, pretty much every krewe has a charity or three that they donate to. Like your business, money comes in large amounts. Contrary to you, we are officially not-for-profit, so when there is surplus cash not allocated against next year's expenses, we donate it. There are always good causes to support."
"There have never been 'next year's expenses' in Fafnir, not since the forties," Griffen said suspiciously. Had he had uncovered the secret Stoner was talking about? Was this a money-laundering operation?
Phil held up his hands and laughed. "You caught me! No, I have been doing the same thing for various krewes here and in Metairie since I was twenty. Not too much younger than you. Now I work for a nonprofit as the vice president, coordinating fund-raising. He named the charity. I started working for the company because I had learned how to fill out the paperwork and shake the can for a krewe, and I keep getting asked to do the same job on krewes because I work in the industry. I suppose you could say that Mardi Gras and my career are entwined. Makes you believe in Fate, doesn't it?"
Griffen was impressed. And puzzled all over again. The krewe seemed to be just what he thought it was. For the life of him, Griffen could not find any sinister meaning in their operation. They were all much, much too busy organizing for Mardi Gras season and doing genuine good works. He didn't understand what Stoner was concerned about.
"Hey, there, Griffen! You listen to this. I know I am right, and this tight-ass is wrong." It was Mitchell, the parade marshal. He came bustling up with a sheaf of papers in his hand. He brandished them at Griffen. "Callum here says I am wasting money, but I am investing for the future of the noble Krewe of Fafnir."
"I am not. I am saying that he is jumping the gun. We have a dozen other places that those funds could go that are more vital."
"What could be more vital than preventing future outlay?" Mitchell asked.
"Preventing a shortfall today! What do you think, Griffen? We would really value your opinion."
"Uh," Griffen said, looking from one to the other. "Isn't this something that Etienne here should solve? I'm only king this year. He's the captain."
Both dragons looked at Etienne and back to Griffen. "But you've got the pure blood, Griffen," Mitchell said, as if it should be self-evident. "You're the senior dragon here. By a long chalk."
Griffen looked at Etienne, worried that he would feel usurped, but Etienne had that serene look on his face that said he had seen what was happening and had learned to accept it or really didn't mind. Griffen still felt guilty, but he asked. "What is it you're trying to work out?"
He listened as closely as he could to Mitchell's explanation of the outright purchase of fifteen small float bodies on a rent-to-own basis, citing the future amortization of assets and depreciation versus rental. Griffen did his best to drag concepts from his Introduction to Business Administrati
on class, but finally held his hands up. "You guys know what kind of money this krewe is bringing in. I don't."
"I can show you, young man," Callum said, thrusting forth his BlackBerry and showing Griffen a complex chart on a screen that was eye-strainingly small. "It isn't nearly enough to cover what Mitchell thinks we need."
Griffen held up his hands. "No, I mean, this is something that the two of you would be better working out on your own. If it takes more discussion than you've given it, then maybe you need to sit down and talk until you've got a real understanding of both positions. I know that if you really ask my opinion . . ."
"Yes," both men said, leaning forward.
". . . All you'll get is a guess, and not an educated one at that."
They looked at one another. Mitchell glowered. "I don't want to hammer all this stuff into this fool's head."
"I'm not sure you could understand what you would need to know," Callum retorted.
Griffen threw up his hands. "Since you asked, my judgment is it's not my problem. Sorry, guys." He turned away. He found that his heart was racing.
"That was a nice, pretty little solution, Mr. Griffen," Etienne said, staying by his side. He smiled. "They each been hopin' you be their own ally, so they haven't bothered to work it out between them. Woulda taken five minutes if they tried."
"That's really why I'm down here today, isn't it?" Griffen asked.
"They had a little lesson to learn, Mr. Griffen, but there's one there for you, too."
"A humility lesson?" Griffen said bitterly. "Thanks a lot."
Etienne looked at him seriously. "In the long run, none of the petty stuff 's important. Just gettin' this parade off exactly right is what matters. You keep that in mind." He patted Griffen on the back. "You just what this krewe needs. Just you walk around a little and talk to people. Enjoy youself for a minute."
He went back to a group of dragons in the corner, leaving Griffen by himself in the middle of the vast room.
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