by Sandra Cox
Tamara was on her feet, poised for anything.
“It’s Lai.” Gabby ran past her and out the door.
She looked left and right. Lai was nowhere in sight. She hesitated then headed right, weaving in and out of the crowds.
Gabby scoured the crowd in front of her. Something round, cold and hard pressed against her spine then moved to her side as she stumbled to a stop.
“Keep walking, cow.”
Damn it!
“Suzy, what are you doing?” the black woman wailed, spying the gun.
“Shut up, Rebecca,” Lai warned.
None of them saw the taxi following them down the street.
Chapter Thirty-Four
While the fracas that would be known for years to come as the Wedding Boutique Brawl and published as such in the society columns, was going on Tamara kept her head and instead of calling the police called a taxi, having a good idea what was coming.
Gabriella was a wonderful girl but impulsive. Tamara had no doubt Gabriella would take off in hot pursuit and she would be left to follow as best she could. Either that or stay and completely miss the action.
When Gabby bolted out the door, Tamara was right behind her. Only as Gabby tore down the street, Tamara jumped into a waiting cab.
“Follow that tall blonde, but be discreet,” she directed.
The taxi pulled out from the curb. Tamara pulled her cell phone out of her beaded purple purse. She flipped it open and punched the button next to Christopher’s name and then the send signal.
The phone rang three times then connected her to voice mail. “Drat the boy,” she muttered under her breath. Then aloud, “Christopher, listen carefully…”
As Tamara frantically tried to reach Christopher Gabby listened in disbelief to the bizarre conversation between Lai and her lover.
Becka sobbed loudly as they walked down the street. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Her face looked blotchy and she hiccupped.
Apparently, Lai didn’t think it was either. “Be quiet Becka. Reach in my purse and get my credit card. Go buy yourself a trinket.”
Becka continued to wail. “I knew there had been others and you said I was the first.”
Gabby had just never learned to keep her big mouth shut. “Honey, neither one of you has the equipment that does it for me.”
Lai grabbed her arm and squeezed, pressing dagger-like, red-lacquered nails into Gabby’s arm. Gabby yelped.
Passersby stared.
“Shut up,” Lai hissed. “Becka, you know I love you above all others. You’ve seen the scars on my back. This is the person who put them there.”
“Really.” Becka’s voice came out in a hiss. “Then I don’t care what you do to her.”
“That’s my angel. Now go buy yourself a little trinket.” Lai’s eyes never left Gabby. Walking beside her, she kept the gun firmly wedged against Gabby’s ribs, her arm over it so it wasn’t visible.
Becka helped herself to a credit card from Lai’s small Asian-designed bag as they walked.
“You deserve whatever you get,” Becka said to Gabby. She ran her hand lightly down Lai’s arm then turned and headed back toward the shops.
“Not too bright is she?”
Lai jabbed her with the gun. “Shut up, cow.”
Gabby’d had enough. Too stunned to do anything but acquiesce when Lai had put a gun in her back she had followed Lai’s commands.
“I’m pretty sick of that cow routine,” she said whirling and grabbing for the gun. Then she yelled at the top of her lungs, “Police. Help. Police!”
Lai grabbed Gabby’s finger and pushed it back, nearly dropping Gabby with pain. “Be quiet,” she hissed.
People looked at them uneasily. A couple of men slowed, but all they saw was a tall blonde and young woman half her size that looked to be in her teens. They shrugged and walked on. All except one middle-aged lady who walked beside them, eyeing the oriental suspiciously.
Lai grabbed her cell phone in her free hand and punched in 911, her long red nails clicking against the buttons. “Please patch me through to Officer Daniels.”
“Officer Daniels, I’m on St. Peter’s Street, could you meet us here? There’s a taxi cab that’s been following us for the past several blocks. It looks suspicious. You’re just a block away? Thank you.”
The woman, reassured, patted Gabby’s arm. “You’ll be okay now, dear,” and crossed the street without a backward glance.
“Wait!” But the lady had already disappeared into the crowd. Gabby glanced back and saw the taxi. Her heart sank as the sunlight caught a sheen of silver hair in the backseat. Tamara.
Lai prodded her with the gun. “Keep walking.”
Gabby weighed her odds. If she acted quickly, Tamara stood a chance of getting away. Gabby whirled, her fist clenched.
Lai’s reflexes were like quicksilver. She ducked.
Gabby’s fist hit air. A siren sounded in the distance.
“Settle down, Blondie, I’m not interested in your boyfriend,” Lai said loudly for the benefit of the onlookers.
“The hell you’re not,” Gabby responded and swung again and again missed.
The cab was inching forward. Tamara had the door open as they pulled alongside. “Get in, Gabby, get in.”
Gabby took a step toward the cab and found herself face down on the pavement as Lai stuck out a dainty, well-shod foot and snagged her then made a grab for Tamara, who scooted further back in the cab.
Gabby looked up, dazed. Blood dripped from her chin. “Go Tamara go. Corrupt cop coming.”
A car driving on the wrong side of the street, blowing its horn, kept the taxi driver diverted from the proceedings on the street.
Before Gabby could say more, Lai was kneeling beside her. “Are you okay?” she asked with patent false concern, just before she pinched a nerve in the back of Gabby’s neck that severed Gabby and consciousness.
Hovering over Gabby’s limp body, her black eyes filled with malevolence, Lai’s gaze locked with Tamara’s.
Tamara slammed the door shut. “Step on it,” she told the driver crisply. Corrupt cop? Lai had a policeman on her payroll!
“Lady, there ain’t no stepping on it in the French Quarter.” Nonetheless the cab moved forward. Tamara’s head stayed craned backward.
They turned the corner. “Stop.”
The cabby stopped, grumbling. “Make up your mind, lady.”
Tamara opened her tiny beaded purse and handed him a fifty dollar bill.
He turned in his seat. “I don’t have change for this.”
“Keep it.”
He looked at her suspiciously. “What do I have to do?”
“If I’m not mistaken, a police car will come by here any minute. Get its license number and if you can, follow it and get the address of where it’s going. If you do that I’ll give you another hundred.”
She pulled out a pen and scrawled her cell phone number on the back of a receipt. Not waiting for a reply she jumped out of the cab.
A horse-drawn carriage sat across the street, facing in the direction they’d just come from. She ran across the road and jumped in. “Head for St. Louis Street and turn left toward Dianna’s Boutique,” she directed.
As the horse clip clopped onto the street Tamara glanced back. The cabbie did a U-turn and sat waiting. Seeing Tamara, he touched his forehead with his index finger then pointed it at her. Tamara nodded.
They approached a gathering crowd that was forming around Gabby and Lai.
Tamara picked up a dark blue blanket that lay on the seat for cool evening nights and threw it over her head.
An occasional car horn sounded and a blues singer sang on the corner as they went a few yards past the crowd surrounding Lai and Gabriella. “Stop here.”
The driver checked the horse. Swishing his tail against the flies, the huge dappled gray halted, just as a police car pulled up in front of the crowd.
A young black man in a blue police uniform got out of the car and began dispersin
g the gawkers. The sun glittered off the badge on his chest.
As Tamara watched, the policeman and theAsian hauled Gabby into the police car, got in after her and pulled away from the curb.
A taxi sitting at the corner pulled out behind the police car.
Tamara leaned forward and hissed. “Follow that police car.” Don’t worry, Christopher, I’ll take care of your bride, but please pick up your phone.
The man turned around. His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Lady you’ve got to be kidding.”
Gabby handed him a fifty dollar bill.
He looked at it dubiously.
“That’s in addition to whatever your normal fee is. Please, do your best.”
The man turned the horse around, barely missing a pedestrian jaywalking in the street. He slapped the reins against the horse’s rump and clicked his tongue. “Giddy up, Dobbin.”
Dobbin broke into a lumbering trot. “Come on, Dobbin, let’s move it.”
Dobbin picked up his pace, his huge hooves clip-clopping in a faster rhythm than he was used to.
“Ma’am, he’s getting away.” The black liveried driver was getting into the spirit of things.
Tamara leaned back against the squabs and felt the heat from the hot leather seats seep through her light blouse. “Just do the best you can.”
Tamara could see the police car and the taxi, two blocks up.
Half a block ahead, pedestrians streamed out into the street. The driver pulled on his reins. He swore inventively under his breath then stood up trying to get a better view. “They just turned right,” he shouted.
“Did a taxi turn right also?”
He paused for a moment then replied. “Yes. Yes it did.”
“Then we are all right.”
Just then her cell phone rang. “Where are you?” Tamara listened and nodded. “Good job, James, is it?” She had looked at the name plate on the dash of the taxi. “Keep me posted.”
Except for a few stragglers, the street had cleared. Like spawning salmon swimming upstream, the crowd had surged across the thoroughfare. The driver clucked and Dobbin stepped out, scattering the remaining pedestrians. Several upright digits pointed in their general direction.
“What have those pigs done?” There was obviously no love lost between the driver and the police. “Confiscated your dope?”
Tamara’s shoulders shook. “Worse, my daughter-in-law.” She threw off the hot blanket.
He clucked sympathetically. “Works nights does she?”
Tamara choked. “Uh, something like that.”
“My old lady turned a few tricks before we hooked up. A body’s got to eat.”
Tamara’s mind turned inward as she remembered a dirty little boy running desperately down the back streets of Calcutta, her purse clasp in his grimy little hand. “Yes, a body does,” she answered softly.
* * * * *
The subject of Tamara’s reminiscence walked toward his Jag parked outside the terminal, a black duffle bag thrown over his shoulder. It was muggy and hot. Tiny beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. The sounds of jets roaring to life, car horns honking and racing motors filled the terminal.
He pulled out his cell phone and checked for messages. It had gone off just as the stewardess had requested all phones be turned off during the landing.
Two new messages flashed, both from Aunt Tam.
He reached the Jag, threw his bag on the front seat then slid into the car. He punched in his message code. As Tamara’s voice played back, he felt heat scald him, followed by fear so icy it froze his heart.
Throwing the car in gear, he roared out of the terminal. The car in front of him slowed for a stop sign. He wheeled around it, nearly crunching an approaching Rodeo.
Christopher jerked the wheel to the right and pulled sharply back in his lane, a bare inch in front of the bumper of the car he’d just passed.
He threw the car into a higher gear and went screaming down the road.
Tamara’s message was terse and extremely confusing. Gabriella had been kidnapped by a young oriental woman with a possible black female accomplice and most definitely someone on the police force.
That part he’d understood. When he’d started doubting his senses was when she’d told him she was parked a block away in a horse-drawn carriage and that a cab driver had staked out the apartment where Gabriella had been taken.
If he wasn’t so damn scared, it would be downright funny. But he was scared, petrified in fact, the sweat on his brow clammy and cold. If Lai touched her, he’d kill her. He was going to have to kill her anyway. If he didn’t, she would never stop until she’d killed Gabriella. The woman had no heart, only the cold calculating brain of a cobra.
With one hand on the wheel, his eyes moved back and forth between the road and the phone as he punched Tamara’s number and hit the send button. Green overhead signs flashed by.
Tamara picked up immediately. “Christopher?”
“Aunt Tam, what the hell is going on?”
“Well dear, it’s been a rather eventful morning. One moment Gabriella was trying on a wedding dress. She looked very beautiful, by the bye.”
“Trying on a wedding dress?” For one all too brief moment, Christopher felt joy pump through his body right along with blood and oxygen.
“Yes, dear, then she saw some young oriental person, got out of the dress in record time and took off after her.”
“Damn it, Gabby,” Christopher muttered under his breath. “Have you no sense of self-preservation or have you just no sense at all?”
“What’s that dear?”
“Nothing, please go on.” Christopher passed a green Jimmy then swerved back in the right lane.
“I knew I couldn’t keep up with her so I hired a cabby to follow them. Excellent fellow.”
The car in front of Christopher slowed putting on its brake lights. “Shit.”
“Christopher?”
“Sorry Aunt Tam, just some damn Yankee driver, sorry again, go on.”
“Well the bottom line is the oriental turned the tables on Gabby and she apparently has enough clout to have someone on the police force working for her. They dragged Gabriella into a police car. And I do mean dragged. I think she was unconscious.”
His jaw muscles tightened and he white-knuckled the wheel. “Do you have any idea where they took her?”
“I’m waiting down the block from the apartment now.”
“Bless you. Give me an address.” He listened carefully.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“It may take a bit longer, Christopher. You won’t be able to help Gabriella wrapped around a telephone pole.”
“Don’t worry Aunt Tam. I love you. Did I hear you say you were in a horse-drawn buggy? For God’s sake, be careful.”
He ended the signal and threw the phone on the passenger seat. His eyes never leaving the busy road, he reached in his glove compartment and pulled out a thin stiletto in a calfskin case and pushed it into his sock, then with both hands on the wheel, he roared down the freeway.
* * * * *
Gabby regained consciousness in stages. The first thing that surfaced at a conscious level was discomfort.
She was slumped forward, her hair falling over her face and shoulders. Her arms were stretched at an awkward angle behind her. And she had the mother of all headaches. Something new and different.
Squinting, hoping not to make the pounding in her head worse, she opened her eyes.
What she saw made Gabby forget all about her head.
On a marble pedestal, not three yards away, sat her globe. She tugged her arms, trying to reach for it, but her hands were bound.
Even from a distance the globe recognized her. It began to churn. Her headache vanished as if by magic and a feeling of calm settled over her.
A gargoyle face popped into view. She shook tousled blonde strands out of her eyes. “Hello, Lai.”
The oriental woman gave her a nasty smile. “You know
me? That is good. It’s always good to know the person who has the power of your life or death in her hands don’t you think?”
“I think you give yourself too much credit.”
Lai’s hand lashed out.
Gabby’s head snapped back. She felt welts on her cheek and warm pools of blood from Lai’s lacquered fingernails.
Anger rushed through her system like boiling oil. “What don’t you untie my hands and try that again.”
Lai laughed an ugly brittle sound. “Do you really think that would do you any good?”
“We can find out.”
“Maybe we can at that, but first there is something I want you to witness.”
Lai walked out of the room and returned a moment later with a hammer.
Gabby could feel her eyes widen like saucers and she started scooting toward the door. This does not look good.
Lai raised the hammer over her head and with all her might brought it down on the globe.
Gabby howled in protest.
The force of the blow was so great that the hammer went flying out of Lai’s hand.
Gabby cowered down as the hammer landed against the wall a foot from her head, punching a hole in the drywall.
She looked at Lai with new respect. Who would have thought such a tiny thing could be so strong?
Then her eyes flew to the globe. She smiled like a proud mama. It hadn’t even chipped it. The force however had cracked the pedestal.
Lai shot her a venomous look as she retrieved the hammer.
Gabby for once kept her big mouth shut.
Lai rubbed her arm.
I hope it hurts like a son of a bitch. The thought gave Gabby much satisfaction.
Lai swung again.
“Keep your damn hammer off my globe,” Gabby screamed.
“Shut up unless you want me to substitute your head.”
Once again, the hammer flew out of her hands. Gabby didn’t duck quickly enough. The corner of the claw grazed her beneath her right eye.
Gabby screamed bloody murder.
“Shut up, bitch.”
“Watch who you are calling a bitch, bitch.”
Lai started toward her then stopped at the cracking sound that came from the center of the room. Both women watched in fascinated horror as the marble pedestal split in two perfect halves and fell to the floor, the globe rolling unharmed onto the carpet.