“It’s nothing,” he said. “Please. Go on.”
“No. Tell me,” Rose pressed. “What is it that concerns you?”
“It’s silly, but it’s that cockroach,” he said, pointing to an oversized insect determinedly making its way toward them. “I saw one just like it when I was leaving my complex and…I know it sounds crazy…but I’d swear it’s the same one. I think it’s following me.”
“I see,” Rose said, leaning forward to stare at the indicated insect. “Well, if you like, I can do something about that.”
“Could you?” Griffen said. “I’d appreciate it.”
He didn’t really believe Rose could do anything, just as he didn’t really believe the cockroach was following him. Still, he was curious to see what kind of hex or ritual the voodoo queen would come up with. He didn’t have long to wait.
Rising from her seat, Rose poised for a moment, then took a long step and stomped hard on the insect with her foot.
“There,” she said, resuming her seat. “That should take care of it. Someone will have a headache for sure.”
“I’d say more than a headache,” Griffen said, stifling a grin. “I doubt it has a mind left at all after that.”
“Not the bug, Mr. Griffen,” Rose said, shaking her head. “I’m talking about whoever was using their mind to control it.”
“Control it,” Griffen said, staring at the insect’s remains.
“Remember I told you that some of the folks down here are afraid of you?” the woman said. “Well, there’s one group that has a rapport with animals. Even more than the witches and their familiars. It would not be unlike them to use various animals to spy on you…or even to attack you if they were fearful enough.”
“Well, you said that you would tell them that I’m harmless. Right?” Griffen said. “That should take care of everything.”
“I said that I would try,” the voodoo queen said. “Not everyone listens to Rose. I have something here that might help you with those that don’t.”
She dug into her handbag, and produced something that she handed to Griffen, who examined it. It was a double strand of small black and red beads.
“You put those on now, and wear them all the time,” she said. “They will give you some protection, and mark you as a friend.”
Griffen followed the instructions, then hesitated, suddenly awkward.
“Um, look,” he said. “I don’t want to be disrespectful or insulting, but may I make some sort of a contribution to your temple or whatever to show my thanks for your help and advice?”
“No need for that,” Rose said with a laugh. “You just remember who your friends are while you’re sorting things out. You may need some allies, and there are times we might need to call on you for assistance as well.”
“I see. Sort of ‘Someday I owe you a little favor.’ Right?” Griffen said.
“Something like that. But without the hokey sound track.” The woman smiled. “Now, you go along home. You won’t have any trouble sleeping now that we’ve talked.”
Griffen was leaving the Square before it occurred to him that he hadn’t said anything to Rose about not being able to sleep. He turned and looked back, but couldn’t see her anywhere.
“Hey, Grifter.”
He spun around to find Jerome approaching.
“Jeez! You startled me, Jerome,” he said. “Don’t sneak up on me that way.”
“Since when was walking down the street ‘sneaking up on you’?” Jerome said. “I swung by your place to see if you were still up, but when you didn’t answer I thought you were already asleep. I was just going to have one last one and call it a night.”
“Sorry,” Griffen said. “I guess I’m just a little jumpy. I was just talking with one of your voodoo people and I’ll admit, it spooked me a bit.”
“Really? Who was it?”
“She said she was a voodoo queen, name of Rose. She gave me these beads to…what is it?”
Jerome was staring at him.
“Excuse me. Did you say ‘Rose’?” he said softly.
“That’s how she introduced herself,” Griffen said. “Why? Is she someone important?”
“Grifter,” Jerome said carefully. “Rose has been dead over eight years now.”
The beads suddenly felt very cold around Griffen’s neck.
“I don’t like that. No, suh. I don’t like that one bit.”
Mose was pacing back and forth in his living room as Griffen and Jerome watched. Griffen noticed that the more upset the old man got, the more he slipped into a black southern accent.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She seemed nice enough to me.”
“I’m not talkin’ ’bout Rose,” Mose said sharply. “She was always a fine lady. I’m talkin’ ’bout what she told you. ’Bout the animal folks gettin’ stirred up against you.”
Griffen frowned.
“But she also said that she was going to talk to them and try to calm them down. Won’t that take care of it?”
“She said she’d try to calm them down,” the old man said pointedly. “That’s not the same thing. What’s more important is who stirred them up in the first place. That sounds like dragon work to me.”
“You think it’s Stoner?” Jerome said from where he was leaning against the wall.
Mose thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“Naw. It’s not his style,” he said. “Stoner is more one to use his own people. He doesn’t have the patience to work with locals.”
“Any ideas, then?” Jerome pressed.
“My first thought is that it might be Malinda,” Mose said. “But she normally sticks to the northeast.”
“Who’s Malinda?” Griffen said.
“Old-school dragon,” Mose said. “She works with her family. The dragon equivalent of Ma Barker. Greedy as hell. Her main thing is building up wealth…and I don’t mean with investments. She gets her money the old-fashioned way. She steals it.”
“She’s a thief?” Griffen said.
“More like a pirate,” Jerome said. “She’s a corporate raider. Buys up weak companies, then breaks them up and sells them piecemeal. It’s the white-collar version of a stolen car chop shop.”
“The thing is, I don’t see where she’d profit by going after Griffen,” Mose said. “He’s not a threat to her. And there’s not enough money in our operation to interest a high roller like her.”
“Don’t forget she’s got those kids,” Jerome said. “She may be looking for something for them to sharpen their claws on. If she thinks our operation is weak and ripe for a takeover, targeting Griffen as a backdoor in would be taking care of two birds with one stone.”
“Could be,” Mose said slowly. “That kind of two-pronged attack, creating a diversion so you don’t notice her marching up on you, would be just her style.”
“So, what are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Griffen said.
“I’ll put out a few quiet feelers in that direction and try to get a fix on what’s going on,” Mose said. “We don’t want to put any moves on her until we’re sure she’s the one stalking you. If we’re wrong, then she’ll see it as an attack, and we’ll have to deal with both her and whoever it really is coming at us.”
“I guess I meant, what am I supposed to do?” Griffen said. “Do I just sit around and play decoy? Or should I be trying to talk to these animal people myself?”
“Leave that job to Rose,” Mose said. “I think it’s time to work on your animal control skills a bit. Just in case they won’t listen to Rose.”
“I don’t know,” Griffen said. “I mean, I’d love to get some training. But I’ve fooled around with the animal control thing a bit since I got down here, just for curiosity and because it sounded neat. Frankly, I haven’t had much luck with it.”
“It’s like any other muscle or skill,” Mose said. “You’ve got to work with it, practice it, and develop it before you can rely on it. Besides, you might have been playing into a stacked deck. If you’ve been tr
ying to control the animals that you see hanging around you, they could be the very ones that are already under someone else’s control, watching you.”
“Just what animals have you been trying to control, Grifter?” Jerome said.
“Oh, there’s a bunch of feral cats living in our courtyard,” Griffen said. “I’ve been trying to work with them, get them to come to me or something. Mostly, they just stare at me or ignore me completely.”
Jerome threw back his head and laughed.
“Cats?” he said. “Man, Grifter, you can grow old and die before you can get a cat to do what you want it to. Even with a dragon’s life span. Those are some of the most independent beasts God dumped on the earth.”
“It’s better to start with dogs or maybe birds,” Mose said. “Tell you what. Come on by tomorrow night and I’ll show you a couple exercises.”
“Um, actually I have a date with Lisa tomorrow night,” Griffen said.
“Cancel it,” Mose said. “Either that or meet up with her later. Right now we have to keep our priorities straight, and our highest priority is to keep you alive.”
Thirty-four
Griffen was suddenly awake, but he didn’t know why.
Turning his head slightly, he cracked an eye and focused on the large numbers on the digital clock on his bedside table. 1:30. Okay. Now the question was morning or afternoon. There were no windows in his bedroom, and the door was closed, so daylight or the lack thereof was no clue.
Then, he heard the music. “Singing in the Rain,” played on a calliope. That made it one thirty in the afternoon. The calliope was on the steamboat Natchez, serenading the tourists boarding for the two o’clock cruise up the Mississippi. “Singing in the Rain” meant that it was raining out, or soon would be, and there would be very few tourists for the cruise.
That was one of the things Griffen loved about the Quarter. Where else could you not only tell what time it was, but also the weather conditions without even looking out a window.
Of course, that still didn’t let him know what had woken him up.
Tap, ta tap tap.
He started to sit up, only to find his arm was pinned under Fox Lisa. He tried to ease it free, but she only snuggled closer to him, pressing her velvety nakedness against him. Okay. There were other reasons than calliope music that he loved the Quarter.
Fox Lisa had turned out to be a delight as a bed partner. She was as playful as an otter, and as inventive as a monkey on fifty feet of greased grapevine. Without thinking, he started to respond to her pressure.
Tap, ta tap tap.
“Hey, lover,” he said softly, pulling his arm free. “There’s someone at the door.”
“Mmmmrphl,” she said, rolling over and burrowing into their mound of pillows.
Griffen hesitated, then leaned over and kissed the back of her neck, biting it gently.
“Mmmmhmm,” she breathed, raising her rump slightly and wiggling it.
Tap, ta tap tap.
Griffen disengaged himself with a sigh and got out of bed. He fumbled in the dark for a moment to find his pants, then eased out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
Even though, as anticipated, the sky was overcast, there was still enough light pouring through the windows to make him squint. Swaying slightly, he managed to pull on his pants as he made his way to the door.
Tap, ta tap tap.
“Who is it?” he called, trying to keep from snarling.
“It’s Jerome, Grifter,” came the response.
He should have known. With the security gates on the complex, the only ones who could have reached his door without getting buzzed in from the street were his sister and Jerome.
Opening the door, he stepped back to admit his visitor.
Jerome swept in brandishing a paper bag, an ovenlike blast of hot, humid air entering with him.
“Brought us some breakfast, Grifter,” he said. “Fresh from la Madeleine. French roast coffee and a couple of napoleons.”
“Terrific,” Griffen said, hastily closing the door against the day’s heat. “Just got up. Be with you in a second.”
Rubbing his eyes, he made his way into the bathroom to take care of his morning business.
“You’re getting to be a real Quarter rat.” Jerome’s voice came to him through the door. “It’s the middle of the afternoon and you’re just getting up.”
“Nothing new there,” Griffen said, zipping up his trousers as he emerged from the bathroom. “I’ve always been a bit of a night owl. That’s why I paid other people to sit in on my morning classes and take my tests back in school. Remember? And keep your voice down. I have company.”
Jerome glanced at the closed bedroom door.
“Fox Lisa?”
Griffen nodded.
“Glad to see the two of you are hitting it off,” Jerome said. “Watch yourself, though, if you start stepping out on her. You can’t keep nothing secret in the Quarter. Wherever you go with another woman, you’re going to run into a bartender or a waiter or a busboy who knows you. Even just walking down the street you’ll be spotted by a cab driver or a rose vendor or a Lucky Dog seller. You might as well just assume that the Fox there will know about it the next time you see her.”
“No big deal,” Griffen said, opening his coffee and taking a cautious sip. “There’s nothing permanent or exclusive going on with Fox Lisa and me. We’re just hanging out buddies and occasional lovers.”
“Uh-huh.” Jerome smiled. “The question is, does she know that? I don’t recall seeing her with anyone else since she’s taken up with you.”
“Whatever,” Griffen said, suddenly uncomfortable. “So what brings you here so early? I have a feeling it wasn’t just to share breakfast or to talk about my love life.”
“Got some good news for you.” Jerome dug in his pocket and produced a set of keys which he tossed to Griffen. “You’ve got your car back. Fixed up good as new. Even had it tuned and its tires rotated.”
“The Goblin?” Griffen said, his mind still fuzzy from sleep. “Where is she?”
“Got her stashed away in a garage,” Jerome said. “I’ll take you around and show you where when you can spare the time.”
Griffen was startled to realize that he hadn’t even thought about his car for nearly a month. He had been so busy learning the ins and outs of the gambling operation and the Quarter, not to mention hanging with Fox Lisa, that he had had little leisure time to think about much of anything else. The Goblin seemed like something from another time in his life…pre-Quarter.
“I dunno, Jer,” he said. “I mean, I appreciate your taking care of getting her fixed up and all, but maybe I should just sell her.”
“Sell the Goblin?” Jerome said. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Well, she doesn’t really fit into my current lifestyle,” Griffen said. “I hear it’s expensive to keep a car here in the Quarter, and you were right, I haven’t really needed one. I can walk or cab it anywhere I need to go. Besides, weren’t you the one who told me that a distinctive car like the Goblin would make it too easy to find or track me?”
“As I recall,” Jerome said, “Stoner has already found you. And as for the expense, you can afford it now. Besides, she might come in handy if you want to duck out to the burbs for a movie or a bit of shopping. Why don’t you keep her for a while before you make up your mind. Once you sell her, there’s no way you can get her back. Don’t worry about it right now. You’ve got enough on your plate. I’ll see she’s taken care of.”
Griffen took a long sip of his coffee as he studied his friend.
“I know I’ve asked this before, Jerome, but why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“All this,” Griffen said. “Getting my car fixed, taking me clothes shopping, defending me when the high rollers question whether or not I’m up to taking over things, all that. In general, playing second banana to me, even though you’d be the natural choice to take over for Mose. Why?”
“I thought we had gone over this already.”
“Well, let’s go through it again. For my benefit,” Griffen said. “I’ve got to admit, Jer, I still don’t get it. It’s like I’ve been given the starring role in a play, but no one has bothered to give me a copy of the script. What am I supposed to be doing, anyway?”
“All you got to do is just be you,” Jerome said earnestly. “That’s the beauty of it. You’re a high-blood dragon, and it’s in your nature to gravitate toward building power. I can’t tell you how you’re going to do it. I don’t know. The other night at the big game, I wasn’t lying. Since you’ve signed on, more and more of the independent games are wanting to join our organization. Our network hasn’t changed. The only difference is you. Do you know how you did it?”
“Not really,” Griffen admitted.
“Neither do I,” Jerome said. “But it’s happening. And you haven’t even been around for two months. I don’t know where it’s all going or how it’ll get there, but I’m in for the ride.”
“Okay, Jer,” Griffen said. “I guess I’m in, too. I don’t pretend to understand, but I’m in. You’re the one who knows dragons. Hell, two months ago I thought dragons were as make believe as vampires and werewolves. Now, I not only am dealing with them, I’m…what?”
He was suddenly aware that Jerome was staring at him with a bemused expression on his face.
“Sorry, Grifter,” Jerome said, shaking his head. “I keep forgetting how new you are to all this.”
“Okay. What am I missing now?”
“It was what you just said, about dragons being as make believe as vampires and werewolves.” Jerome smiled.
“Yeah. So?”
Jerome kept smiling.
“Wait a minute,” Griffen said. “Are you trying to tell me that there really are vampires and werewolves?”
“If you mean the movie-type vampires that bite people’s necks and drink blood, the answer is no,” Jerome said. “What we do have, though, is people who feed off other people’s energies.”
“Feed off them like how?” Griffen said.
“There are actually at least two different kinds,” Jerome explained. “One kind is your classic depressive that can suck the energy right out of another person or even an entire party and leave them feeling down, nihilistic. Those people lack a certain kind of energy, the kind that lets you enjoy life, but they need it so they drain it out of the people around them. The problem is they’re kind of a living black hole that just keep absorbing energy without ever being filled themselves.”
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