“As you wish,” Peters said. “But that's not until tomorrow. Fee's itinerary doesn't have her doing anything until the morning, and that's just publicity. I'll have the cars here for you to inspect ahead of time. No trouble there. Until then, there's nothing more for us to do. She'll be perfectly safe here in the hotel overnight.”
“Oh, I don't know about that,” Boo-Boo interrupted them, rocking his chair back and forth on its rear legs. “While I was waiting for you all to come down, I saw her and that big fellah turn out the door and light out down Bourbon Street.”
“What?” Elizabeth and Nigel exclaimed in unison, leaping to their feet. Boo-Boo didn't move.
“Why didn't you stop them?” Elizabeth demanded, staring down at him. If this was an example of American agents, then they were sloppy, haphazard, and careless. No wonder they were always having troubles over here.
“Nothing strange by me,” Boo-Boo said, looking up at them with a hurt expression. “Most folks who come to town want to see the Quarter, and all. Plenty of interesting night life. Finest music in the world. Any bar you go into probably has at least one live musician. Usually a band.”
Elizabeth felt herself swaying slightly with exhaustion. “But it's past twelve,” she said. “The bars will be closing.”
Boo-Boo shook his head. “Ma'am, bars around here don't close until at least dawn. Some of 'em don't open until midnight.”
“We've got to catch up with them!” Elizabeth had a vision of Ringwall's ruddy face turning more purple than usual. “Right now!”
Boo-Boo rose slowly to his feet, shaking his head at the haste with which out-of-towners seemed to move.
“Well, all right, ma'am. Whatever you want.”
Chapter 6
Elizabeth had barely taken three steps outside before she was drenched in sweat. The heat and humidity of New Orleans wrapped itself around her like a hot, wet blanket, all prevailing and merciless.
Pausing in an attempt to orient herself while fighting off a sudden wave of dizziness, she turned to her companion, only to find him chatting with the doorman she had passed without really noticing.
“Hey, Boo!” the uniformed man said. “How ya doin', man? Ah didn't see you come in.”
“Came in off Conti,” Beauray was saying, all the while exchanging a bewildering series of handshakes and palm slappings with him. “No sense fightin' the crowds if you can walk inside.”
“You got that right!” the doorman responded, throwing his head back in an exaggerated laugh.
“How's that pretty lady of yours these days?”
“Mean as a snake, and that's a fact!”
“Umm. Mr. Boudreau?” Elizabeth began. “I hate to interrupt, but . . .”
“Be right with you, darlin',” Boo said, holding up one finger in restraint. “Say, Willie. Did you see a cute little thing come out of here a while back? Green hair?”
“Hard to miss her,” the doorman said, nodding. “She and the folks she was with headed up Bourbon towards St. Anne. Lookin' to party would be my guess.”
He made an offhand gesture to indicate the direction.
“'Preciate it, man,” Boo said, holding up his hand for a parting palm slap. “Got to roll, now. You tell your lady that Boo said, `Hey,' hear?”
“Later, Boo!” the man said, waving, then returned to his duties with an aloof, deadpan expression.
“Sorry 'bout the delay,” Beauray said, putting a hand lightly on Elizabeth's back and steering her into the street. “I figured it would be worth the time to be sure we was lookin' in the right direction.”
Thus began one of the strangest, most memorable walks of Elizabeth's life.
The world-famous Bourbon Street was closed to vehicular traffic at this hour, but was nonetheless choked with pedestrians. At first, Elizabeth was overwhelmed by a kaleidoscope of apparently random noise, music and lights.
“NO cover charge! NO minimum drinks!”
“ . . . feelin' tomorrow, just like I feel today!”
“Spare change?”
“Oooh, Darlin'! Lookin' GOOD!”
“ . . . Can't touch this!”
“Lucky Dogs! Get your Lucky Dogs! Right here!”
Within the first block or so, however, a certain order became apparent to her in the seeming chaos.
Most of the crowd were tourists or sightseers. They traveled in groups or pairs, lugging their cameras or hand-cams with them like identifying badges. While some of them wore three-piece suits that marked them as conventioneers, the majority were decked out casually in shorts, new T-shirts sporting New Orleans designs ranging from the silly to the obscene, and some of the most ridiculous hats it had ever been her misfortune to see. They moved at a leisurely pace, stopping often to look in windows, listen to the music radiating forth from various bars, or to take pictures of each other standing next to street signs, the little tap dancing kids, or even trash cans.
“Table dances! World famous love acts! NO cover charge!”
“Crawfish! Best eating in the Quarter!”
“ . . . Hey now. Jump in the river now . . .”
“ICE cold. Get your ICE cold Coca-Cola here!”
In the space of a few blocks they had walked from Conti, Bourbon Street featured at least eight bars with live bands and/or singers, eight more with recorded music blaring from speakers, six shops featuring exotic dancing or other delights (“wash the girl of your choice!”), more than twelve souvenir shops selling masks and feather boas, coffee and beignet mixes in yellow cans, hot sauce with health warnings printed on the labels, metallic-covered plastic beads in a rainbow of colors, and the ubiquitous tasteless T-shirts. Every one of the shops overflowed with tourists.
Overhead on the first- and second-floor balconies (second and third floors here in the U.S.; Elizabeth realized they counted things differently here), stood crowds of men and women brandishing plastic cups full of beer. People in the dense crowd below shouted up to them, and threw bead necklaces up to the women on the balconies. When one flushed girl in her twenties had collected an armful of necklaces, she hiked her shirt up to her neck. She wasn't wearing anything underneath it. The crowd erupted in cheers of joy. New Orleans was more wide open than Elizabeth had ever dreamed.
This part of the city resembled an undermaintained amusement park. Worn, broken pavement, cracking paint, wrought iron twisted like lace and painted in muted colors. Men held up signs that advertised psychic readings, draft beers for $1.00, or that the end was near. Walls sported unexpectedly bright colors, yellow, purple, moss green, Venetian red. Buildings proudly displayed brass or ceramic plaques describing their origins, name, function, and first owners often dating back two hundred years or more. London could take a cue from the Big Easy's excellence of labelling. World War II had been over for more than half a century, yet the city seemed still to be trying to misdirect invading Nazis.
There were others in the crowd besides tourists. Some, like the shills outside the restaurants and topless bars or the couples selling roses from pushcarts, were obviously workers, not unlike the mounted, uniformed police who sat at each intersection like watchtowers in the flow of humanity. More subtle were the gaudily-dressed individuals who strutted stylishly up and down the street, stopping occasionally to pose for pictures with the tourists in exchange for tips. Also workers, but self-employed, not salaried. Then, there were what could only be thought of as “locals,” making their way through the crowds with bags of groceries or baskets of laundry, obviously running household errands even at this late hour. It was an interesting reminder that the French Quarter of New Orleans was a functioning community where people lived and worked, rather than a planned, constructed amusement park.
Even more noticeable to Elizabeth, however, was that of this latter, non-tourist population, it seemed that at least two out of every three knew her escort.
“BOO-RAY! What's happenin', man?”
“Hey, Boo! Where y'at, bro?”
“Boo, darlin'! When you comin' by again?
”
Every five or six steps, Boudreau was pausing to wave at someone or to exchange handshakes or greetings. Despite her impatience to be on their mission, Elizabeth could not help but be impressed with how well-known Beauray was, though she was a bit taken aback by the volume of the hailings . . . by both meanings. That is, they were not only numerous, they were loud!
People down here seemed to do all their conversing, not to mention their casual greetings, at the top of their lungs. If they happened to be across the street, on one of the everpresent wrought-iron balconies, or half a block away, it didn't really matter. They just reared back and shouted a little louder, neither minding nor caring that dozens of total strangers were forced to listen in to every word. It was completely different than anything in England, even in weekend street markets. Elizabeth put the fault down to the French influence that had founded New Orleans in the first place.
“Do you think we'll be able to find them?” Elizabeth said, making an effort to wrench Beauray's focus away from his friends and back onto her and their assignment.
“That depends. Do you happen to know if the folks we're lookin' for have eaten recently?” Beauray asked, leaning close to her so she could hear him over the street racket.
“Not really, no,” Elizabeth said. “Why?”
“Well, it'll be rough findin' 'em if they've holed up in a restaurant somewheres,” he said. “There're almost as many restaurants as bars in the Quarter, and it's hard to see into most of them from the street. If they're just wanderin' or stoppin' off once in a while for a drink, we should be able to find 'em with no problem.”
“They seemed to have virtually ongoing food service in First Class, but that was hours ago,” Elizabeth said. “I don't know what they had to eat up there, but the food in Economy Class was pretty ghastly. I ended up making do with a few candy bars, myself . . .”
Beauray halted in his tracks and cocked his head at her.
“Is that what's wrong?” he asked. “I must be goin' crazy, forgettin' my manners like that. Here I am draggin' you up and down the street, and all the while it never occurred to me to ask if you was hungry. I thought you were lookin' a mite peaked.”
“I'm not really all that hungry,” Elizabeth protested, embarrassed by the sudden attentiveness. “I don't think my stomach will catch up with me until tomorrow.”
Beauray squinted at her, the blue laser beams boring into her eyes. “You sure?”
“I'm fine. Really,” she insisted, though touched by his concern. “Tell you what. If it will make you feel better, I'll have another candy bar. They do sell them here, don't they?” she asked, playfully.
Beauray studied her for a moment, then shrugged.
“Well, as soon as your stomach catches up with you, you've got to promise to let me treat you to some of our fine N'Awlins cookin'. In the meantime, though, if it's a candy bar you want, I've got just the thing for you.”
Taking her by the elbow, he steered her off the street and through the door of one of the numerous T-shirt shops that prospered between the bars and dance clubs.
The icy blast of the shop's air conditioning was such a welcome relief from the saunalike streets that for a moment Elizabeth thought seriously of asking Beauray to continue the search alone while she waited here. A few breaths later, however, her sense of duty and her companion returned to her at the same time.
“Here. Try one of these.”
He thrust a cellophane envelope into her hands, containing what looked for all the world like a light brown cow pat . . . from an unhealthy cow.
“What is it?” she asked, trying to keep the suspicion out of her voice.
“They're called pralines,” he said. “It's a favorite candy in these parts. Go ahead and try it. They're good.”
Unable to think of a graceful evasion, Elizabeth unwrapped his offering and took a cautious bite.
It was heaven!
Like most of her countrymen, Elizabeth had an incredible sweet tooth, and the candy she was now sampling was like nothing she had ever had before. It tasted almost like pure turbinado sugar, but with a smoother texture; like a very sweet toffee, but soft, and had a goodly dollop of chopped pecans mounded in the center.
“Are you sure you wouldn't like something more solid to eat?”
Beauray's voice brought her back to her senses, and she realized guiltily that she had wolfed down almost the entire praline in a very few bites.
“No. This is fine,” she said hastily. “You're right. They're quite good.”
Her companion frowned at her for a moment more, then shrugged.
“All right. If you say so,” he said. “I surely do want to see you some time when you do have an appetite, though.”
Elizabeth was inwardly writhing with embarrassment over her brief display of gluttony as they made their way back out onto the street. She was not, however, so uncomfortable as to fail to mark the location of the store in her mind. Before her stay in New Orleans was over, she planned to stock up on a few boxes of those pralines. Delicately, she licked her fingers, and smiled blithely at Beauray. Maybe they even had a mail order business so she could order more from England. A few of these would go a long way toward sweetening Ringwall's sour temper when she gave her expense report.
* * *
Music, music was everywhere in this city. Fee drifted from door to door, borne on an energy wave that carried her along the street without feeling its cobbles under her feet. The crowds were thick, but no one bumped into her. Fee found herself walking to the beat of the music pouring out of doorways, down from balconies, unexpectedly around corners from impromptu groups who had sat down wherever the muse had struck them, never paying attention to the people passing by. She might have been alone in this mob of people who were simply enjoying themselves.
She almost wished she was.
“Wait up,” panted Robbie-cursed-Unterburger, striding to catch up with Fee and Lloyd on her short little legs. They'd almost lost her in the last crowd clustered around the entrance to a blues bar. They hadn't, more's the pity.
All of them were toddling along back there, her band, Green Fire, and her chief techies, but Fee resented Robbie most of all. She was so wet. The girl wanted to get close to Lloyd, and it killed her that she couldn't. You could see the pain and frustration in her eyes. Too bad. Lloyd belonged to Fee. Such a hunk, and so good when it counted. Like later on, if the music continued to turned her on as it was doing right now.
The blare of horns and pounding of drums and pianos pouring out of storefronts interrupted the eternal argument going on between the members of the band. They were always getting into it. You would never know that they were the best of friends, the way they sniped. It was as though Fee had three little brothers, though every one of the men was older than she. She was their leader, literally, figuratively and spiritually. She liked to think of herself as guiding them—although this was where she and Eddie disagreed the most. He could be so . . . Christian sometimes, positively pushing all the guilt buttons from her Church of England upbringing.
She let the sounds of New Orleans carry her along. This was so primevally strong, almost cavemanlike, smooth and rough at the same time, like the best whisky. The music filled her head. She scarcely felt the pavement under her feet. She breathed it in like the air, letting it take her where it willed.
“Let's go in somewhere,” Fitzgibbon protested.
“No, Fitzy,” Fee said, holding up her hand like an Indian scout. “Not until I find the right place.”
“I want a drink,” Voe said.
“You always want a drink,” Eddie complained. He was such a Puritan, worse than Lizzie Mayfield. How very strange to have her appear out of nowhere. It was like old times having her around. How things had changed. Back then, they were earnest young women trying to earn degrees, and pretty good friends, really. Now Fee was rich and famous, and Liz was—what, a spy? But they still had something in common: magic. Fee pouted. Not that Liz truly believed in the connection.
Not yet. But she would.
“Come on, my feet hurt,” Pat Jones, the publicist, complained, falling a few feet behind on the narrow pavement. Some of the others joined in the grumbling.
“Enough!” Michael ordered them, spinning around quick as a snake striking. “You know there's no hurrying her.”
A long way off, a plaintive note rang in the hot, moist air. Fionna raised her head, like a hunting dog hearing the horn. She smiled at the faint sound. “That way,” she said.
* * *
It may have been due to the sugar rush from the pralines, or just that she was starting to relax a bit in this new, strange environment, but soon after merging onto the street again, Elizabeth found herself seeing the Quarter in a whole new light. To be accurate, she found herself feeling it differently.
There was an energy here, a pulse of life that blended with the beat of the ever-present music, at the same time exciting and relaxing. Attuned to Earth Magic as she was, Elizabeth was startled to find herself involuntarily drawing power from the streets . . . something that she rarely if ever could do in a city. She had been prepared for New Orleans to be different, even frightening. This new aspect, however, took her completely by surprise.
“My grandma and your grandma . . . Sittin' by the fire . . .”
“Gotta cigarette, man?”
“Carriage rides! Right here, folks!”
Even the scattered fragments of music and street pitches were taking on a different sound to her. Rather than sounding like random noise, they were like the fleeting bird calls in a heavily wooded area. True, they were still uncomfortably loud, but no longer the jarring, almost threatening cacophony it had seemed at first. She would have liked to relax and enjoy the experience, if not for the fact they still hadn't found Fionna.
“Either we've missed 'em, or they turned off somewhere,” Boo said, coming to a sudden halt. “Let's double back and see if we can sniff out their trail.”
Elizabeth realized they had reached the end of the brightly lit section of Bourbon Street. Beyond where they stood, the bars and shops gave way to shadowy private dwellings and dark storefronts. Definitely not an area she would choose to walk in alone at this time of night, and therefore a doubtful section in which to look for their wayward charges.
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