"Yeah, I figured that out," Val said. "Otherwise, you might have civilized your own kids."
Melinda put an arm around her and patted her on the back. "I tried. You have to believe me. But after a while, they go their own way. And Lizzy--never mind. I don't want to rehash the past. She will not bother you. I can keep her busy somewhere else. All I want is to be in my grandchild's life as it grows up. Malcolm doesn't understand the softer feelings. He sees them as weakness. I know that you need the entire range to be effective. I can be brutal, but real loyalty comes when you love someone."
"I know that," Val said.
"I will limit my contact with you, if that's what bothers you so much," Melinda said, "but you have to allow me some. You are a strong woman. I do believe you now when you say you can handle what's coming. What I ask is if you feel something is going to be too much for you, that you swallow your pride and ask for help. It's harder than going it alone, I know. But you have talents of your own that even your prodigy of a brother will never have an inkling of."
Val was confused. "What kind of talents? I can grow big and I'm superstrong. What else?"
Melinda regarded her pityingly. "You don't even know what you have got there under the hood, do you? No, of course not. That Mose didn't want you to know that your potential is greater than your brother's."
"What?" Val was suspicious.
"I am not lying. They haven't told you about female dragons, have they? They fear us, darling. They fear us. We can run circles around them. There isn't a male dragon that can equal us, and they didn't want you to know that. I will help you reach the pinnacle. You can learn to control all your talents. Ask Griffen. He knows more than he has ever said. They call us female dragons wild. But we can control that savagery and make it work for us. You shouldn't be wasting your time pouring drinks in a side-street bar and rolling the occasional man who catches your eye. You could be running a major corporation or a small country."
Val pouted. "I like my life the way it is."
"Shut up!" Melinda roared. It was the first time she had turned on her own power. Until then, Val had thought of her as what she looked like, a middle-aged East Coast matron who might have just come from a mah-jongg game. Now she looked like a dragon, a fierce, bloodthirsty beast. "You can't be serious! Living in a dump of an apartment, with thirdhand furniture and thrift-shop clothes? At least you should learn your capabilities before you throw them away. Take responsibility for yourself! Live, don't just exist. If I give you no other gift, as the mother of my grandchild, I will give you that. You don't have to like me, but you should respect me. I am what you could become."
Val had regained her aplomb. "And who says I want to be that pathetic?"
Melinda's eyes narrowed, but she seemed pleased. "You are so young," she said. She patted Val on the cheek. Val flinched backward. "I want you to think it over. I'll be in town. Good-bye, dear. I'll call you."
She seemed to vanish among the ancient wooden shelves. Val rushed out of the storeroom, expecting to see chaos in the bar, but it was clean. The stoic-faced men in suits had cleared up the room while she and Melinda had been in the back. Not a shard of glass or a drop of liquor was on the floor. They had reopened the shutters. Even the broken chairs had been repaired. All that was left was to turn the CLOSED sign back to OPEN.
That woman! That woman was going to haunt her the rest of her life! Val looked longingly at the whisky behind the counter.
No.
As much as she hated to admit it, she found sense in some of what Melinda said. She did need to take a harder look at where she would be a year from then, or five, or ten. Griffen was working for the future; why shouldn't she?
And what was that information about female dragons that she claimed he was concealing from her?
Forty
Griffen fingered his tie. He was getting used to formal attire. In fact, he looked good in it, something that he had resisted knowing. It was just so much trouble! How women went through all of the fussing and froufrouing to get ready for a date, he didn't know. He knew his gender was not innocent of having expectations about women that were difficult to meet naturally. Long, dark eyelashes, for example. Rosy cheeks and lips. A smooth, curved figure. Men, as Val had remarked with some asperity, could show up in anything and, as long as it was clean and in good repair, would be accepted at any event up to white tie. He had seldom had to rise to the occasion. He had failed to appreciate how much the women he had dated did to look nice for him.
He sat in the middle of the rear seat of the taxi, between Fox Lisa and Mai. Both of them looked spectacular. Mai, in the red silk dress and lipstick to match, dripping with expensive jewelry, sat serenely on his right. Tourists staggering down Royal with plastic cups in their hands stared through the window at her. She waved to them with her fingers together as Griffen had seen the Queen of England do. The gesture didn't seem at all out of place. On his left, Fox Lisa, in electric blue, had become a queen herself. She held her head high. Her red hair had been swept up into a chignon with a peacock-feather eye nestled against it. Griffen realized he hadn't noticed how long and slender her neck was. He felt like leaning over to kiss it. Her many tattoos peeked out from the brief, tight black dress like jewelry. He had never noticed that the twining snakes on her wrists resembled 1920s enameled Cleopatra bracelets.
The streets were more crowded than he had ever seen them. He understood why many of his friends who had lived in the French Quarter longer than he had hid out during the two weeks before Mardi Gras, and why "tourist" was a dirty word though the persons were a necessary evil. It was like one long, very intense spring break, in a much smaller area than Miami Beach. They came to drink and carouse. They came to listen to the music. They came to bare their breasts for strings of beads. They came to scream at the parades and join in dancing on the street once the last band had passed by. Yet there was an entire stratum of the carnival that they never touched, and many of them never knew existed. Griffen looked back on what he had learned in the last couple of months, and marveled. The citywide party that seemed so obvious was multilayered, intricate, took months, if not years of planning, and accommodated hundreds of thousands of celebrants of every kind. He watched the staggering men with pity, knowing that he could well have been one of them as recently as the year before.
They pulled up into the taxi queue in front of the hotel. "Now, remember," Doreen said, putting her elbow on the seatback, "use the glass doors to the ballroom only. The police won't let you in again if you use the main hotel doors. There was a big fuss a few years ago. One of the superkrewe kings got locked out of his own ball because he got arrested for starting a fight with the cops. Don't make me come and get you from the lockup."
"Thanks," Griffen said, handing her the fare plus a large tip. He had taken the winnings from his unexpected game with Peter Sing and paid off his employees, and had been eking out his own expenses with the residue. At least he had enough for taxi fare home, as well.
Fox Lisa slid out on her own and waited on the curb. Griffen alighted and went around to help Mai out of the other door. With both ladies on his arms, he sauntered inside to join the crowd already assembling in the anteroom.
Molly Harting, the wife of the ball committee chairman, waited at a table by the door of the ballroom. She examined their invitations and checked off their names on a list. An ornate display featuring a gold dragon wearing a domino mask and dripping with beads loomed over little tent cards that stood in rows on the table. Each had a picture of the same gold dragon curled around the calligraphed name of a guest.
"That's your table number," Molly said, handing Griffen his card. Mai and Fox Lisa found their own. "Of course, all of you are at the head table. Enjoy."
"Thanks," Griffen said, gallantly. "May I reserve a dance with you?"
She giggled with pleasure. "Your dance card is likely to fill up before I can write my name, Your Majesty. Thanks anyhow. See you inside. Oh!" She reached behind the figure of the dragon and brou
ght out three masks. "Put these on, and don't take them off until your name is called."
"Griffen!" Val called.
Griffen turned to look for her in the crowd. The women in evening gowns and coiffed hair were all strangers. One of them broke away from the crowd and came over to Griffen. The most attractive was a statuesque blonde in blue silk and a white lace shawl over her bare shoulders whose hair had been sculpted into Grecian coils. She had amazingly long eyelashes and very pretty blue eyes. Griffen was speculating on who she might be, when she came over and hit him in the arm with her fist.
"You look great, Big Brother!" she exclaimed.
"Val?" Griffen gulped. He had been checking out his own sister! He hoped no one else had noticed. "Wow, you look absolutely amazing."
Val primped her hair with a careful palm. "What do you think of the updo?" she asked. "And they did my makeup at the salon."
"It makes you totally unrecognizable," Mai said. "I mean that in a good way." Val wrinkled her nose at Mai, who made a face back.
"I love your wrap," Fox Lisa said, fingering the edge of the shawl.
"Isn't it lovely? It's from Gris-gris," Val said, pulling her date forward.
"My aunt sent it," Gris-gris said. "Val and Ms. Mai impressed her plenty."
Val and Mai exchanged glances and grins.
Griffen had to do another double take. The slender man, who had never worn anything fancier than a polo shirt around Griffen, had on a Brooks Brothers tuxedo that framed wider shoulders and a narrower waist than Griffen ever would have suspected him of having. The white shirt gleamed in the muted lighting of the anteroom, and his silk bow tie was more perfectly knotted than Griffen's. Griffen would not have known him at all except that he was escorting Val.
"Looking good," Griffen told him. Gris-gris ducked his head shyly.
"It's the lady on my arm that makes it all work," he said. "I never done nothin' like this before. I worked a bunch of krewe parties in days past, but I never came to one."
"Neither have we," Griffen assured him. "Come on, let's go find our table."
All but Gris-gris donned masks, and they entered the room.
"I love my dress," Val told Gris-gris, holding on to his arm. "That was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had."
"Aunt Herbera said she'd be happy to fit you out again anytime."
"Local talent is all very well, but the real cutting-edge fashion comes from New York couture," Mai began. Griffen nudged her hard. Mai started to give him a dirty look, then ducked her head in shame. "But she does impeccable work, I must admit. There is not a stitch out of place, and this is the second time Val has worn it. It is a classic that will last many years." Gris-gris looked pleased.
"My aunt, she been making dresses for kings and queens of Mardi Gras for forty years," he said. "This the first time I've seen 'em bein' worn. She will be thrilled."
The huge ballroom was even more dimly lit than the anteroom, but enough to see the decorations. Around the perimeter and flanking the amazingly long head table were white pillars with gold dragons perched on top. The dragons' tails wound down the columns, almost to the spotlights that shone upward, projecting the winged shadows on the ceiling. Softly rippling banners hung on the walls. One of them, fringed in heavy swags of old gold tassels, looked old enough to Griffen to have been made before World War II. The others were newer but just as beautiful. Round tables filled most of the room around a large dance floor.
An archway made of trelliswork crawling with dragon figures stood at one edge of the dance floor. A photographer stopped them as they reached it and snapped several exposures.
"Trying to go incognito?" a stocky man asked them when the photographer let them go. "It won't work."
Griffen smiled at Detective Harrison. He touched the mask on his face. "I don't know what the mask is for," he said.
"Plausible deniability," Harrison said. "Consorting with known criminals."
"But here you are," Griffen said. "You look good."
"Thanks. Cost me enough to get here, between the ticket and tuxedo rental. Mine wasn't fancy enough for this blowout."
"You have your own tuxedo?" Griffen asked, unable not to sound astonished.
Harrison frowned at him. "You think you can live in New Orleans and never get invited to a Mardi Gras party? Thanks a heap."
"I don't mean to be offensive," Griffen said. "You could fill a library with all the things I don't know about Mardi Gras."
Harrison waved a hand. "Never mind, Griffen. Anyone can tell yours is a rental. But the rest of you cleaned up pretty good."
"Didn't know we could do it, huh?" Gris-gris asked, grinning. Harrison did the same double take that Griffen had.
"Gris-gris? Well, I will be damned. But this is the season for costumes. For everyone, I guess."
Gris-gris was enjoying himself too much to be offended. "That's right, Officer. I hide my inner prince most days. But today I had to reveal myself to take this lovely princess on my arm." He patted Val's hand.
"Enjoy yourself, Detective," Griffen said. "They're signing to us to sit down."
He escorted both of his ladies to the long table at the end of the room. Several people in domino masks were already seated there. All the men rose as the ladies approached. Griffen recognized most of them in spite of the nominal covering, and introduced them to his party.
"These are the dukes and maids," Etienne explained, giving everyone's name. "Lieutenants and committee heads are out dere." He gestured toward the sea of round tables.
"A pleasure," Griffen said, bowing over the women's hands and shaking hands with the men.
The dukes followed suit, in "pecking order," as Mitchell might have put it. The ladies all curtsied to him and shook hands with the others. He had heard some of the names. They were prominent in business or society or both in town. He felt proud to be titular head of a group like that.
"What are the masks for?" Mai inquired.
"We reveal the members of the court later on in special introductions," Etienne said. "After you are so obligin' as to assist us in the tableaux. I know y'all are all ready to go on dat."
"We've been practicing," Val assured him.
"For what?" Griffen asked, feeling like a rug had been pulled out from under his feet. "You're presenting a tableau?"
Val winked at him from behind her mask. "You don't know everything that's going on, Big Brother." She let one of the masked dukes lead her away
Etienne's seat was at the center of the table. Griffen was at his right hand, and an empty chair was on his left. The rest of the court spread out boy-girl-boy-girl on either side. Griffen took a moment after sitting down to look at everything.
Etienne had kept his promise: Fafnir could hold its masquerade ball up beside any of the krewes, super or not, with pride. The decorations featured the same masked dragon that had been on the Fafnir invitations. He--or she--had been made into wall hangings like medieval tapestries that hung suspended all around the walls, etched into the champagne flutes at each place, and printed on the name cards. A white card with the sequence of events printed on it was propped against the pristine white napkin folded on his plate. Two bands would play that evening, one jazz and one orchestra. The jazz band was playing at the moment off on the side of the room.
"Canapes, sir?" asked a waiter in black tie. He extended a silver tray to Griffen. Griffen accepted a small plate and napkin. The waiter used a small silver tongs to fill it with a pastry shell an inch across filled with pink crabmeat and topped with a dollop of remoulade, a single perfect shrimp on a black-and-white crust made of sesame seeds, and a globe of salmon paste with a flag made of cucumber sticking out of it on puff pastry. He kept doling out tiny sculptures in food until Griffen held up a hand to stop him. The lady to his right, Regina Bellaut, owner of three trendy exercise studios, exclaimed over her morsels.
"That is just the most delicious thing!"
"It's the best food I've had at any of these parties," Griffen said. H
e had become quite a foodie since moving to New Orleans and was pleased to be able to identify the delicacies to his seatmate.
"Well, I am mightily impressed," Regina said. "It's so nice to have Fafnir up and around again after all these years. My great-granddaddy was a duke of Fafnir."
"Really?" Griffen asked. He realized that she was a dragon and wondered if she knew it. "Did he know a man named Mose?"
"Yes, of course he did! A fine gentleman. He and Great-granddad used to chat about once a week. Probably still do though I don't know. Great-granddad is in Arizona for the climate."
Griffen noticed that beside his water glass was a china figure of a dragon with the date and the name of the krewe on a banner snaking down its chest. The dragon was wound around a treasure chest made of real wood banded with metal.
"What is this?" he asked.
"It's the favor," Regina said. "I think it's a little jewelry box, a ring box, for little valuables or paper clips. This is so much nicer than most of the table favors at other balls. Very pretty, Captain," she said, raising her voice so Etienne could hear.
He offered her a seated bow. "We do it all," Etienne said. "It's got a witchin' on it so you never lose half of a pair of earrin's or have you necklace clasp break. It's good luck."
"Well, thank you, Captain," Regina said. "I will treasure it."
"Me, too," Griffen said.
"Quality's what we aim to offer," Etienne said.
The meal followed suit. Griffen enjoyed a shrimp etoufee that rivaled any he had had at the best restaurants in the city. All the courses were, he thought with a self-deprecating grin, fit for a king.
After dessert was served, Griffen sat back with a full stomach and a sense of well-being. People came up to take pictures of him, alone or with the spouse of the camerawielder. He felt like a minor celebrity. This was a lot more fun than the conclave had been. There he had been a curiosity, one of a kind. Here, he was among fellow dragons. His mask limited his vision to what he could see ahead of him, but that was a minor annoyance.
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