[Bayou Gavotte 03.0] Heart of Constantine

by Barbara Monajem

  Last night’s concert had gone well—almost perfectly. Followed immediately by near catastrophe this morning on the mound.

  “I always wanted to believe you,” Gideon said, “but I’m a cop. I prefer solid proof.” There was a brief silence. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be what I’m not telling you anymore.”

  “If you really want my help, you might consider being more cooperative,” Gideon said. “It’s damned difficult working with you.”

  “Virtually impossible,” Constantine replied.

  Gideon sighed. “You think Marguerite was raped?”

  “Probably not. Why would someone risk leaving his own DNA behind if the idea was to frame me?”

  “If she calls us or shows up at the hospital, I’ll let you know,” Gideon said. “I wonder why she supported you in such a dramatic way. It seems way out of character. She struck me as scholarly and reserved.” Pause. “She’s a pretty girl, though. Smart, too. And—”

  “Gotta go.” Constantine ended the call before Gideon, who did anything his wife demanded like the love slave he was, started in on how badly Constantine needed a wife, too.

  There. Duty done, responsibility discharged. From now on, he would stay out of Marguerite’s way. If Gideon thought the girl needed protection, he would take care of it. Mentally, Constantine brushed her out of his life.

  The crackpot bird said nothing. It should have at this point, but Constantine brushed away his consequent uneasiness as well.

  His phone rang: Ophelia, Gideon’s wife. She was a hereditary vampire, one of those rare human beings born with a gene that, with the onset of puberty, resulted in fangs, powerful sexual allure, and useful attributes such as excellent hearing, night vision, and physical strength. She was also a landscaper and one of Constantine’s staunchest friends. “You don’t know who Marguerite is, do you?”

  He hated not knowing stuff, especially stuff that mattered. “Apparently not.”

  “Neither did Gideon,” Ophelia said in a satisfied tone. “Her father was a filmmaker. He made some of the first great porn for women. I know exactly how great, because I watched a lot of it during my dry years.” Before her marriage, Ophelia had gone celibate for a while, and she’d tried everything to keep her desires under control. “It’s really gorgeous as porn goes, but there was a huge scandal when he was caught using a sixteen-year-old actress who had gotten hired with a fake ID. If he’d been an ordinary porn king, it might not have mattered so much, but he preached his own version of women’s rights, which got a lot of influential people riled. The press ran with the concept that he was a pedophile.”

  “Sucks,” Constantine said, “but so what?”

  “Well, for one thing, it wasn’t true. The guilty party was a male vampire who wanted the girl to be his leading lady in one of the films.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “Tony told me.” Tony was an older vampire who owned a restaurant in town. “McHugh’s dead now, but there was a lot of respect for him in the vampire community because he didn’t out them to save his own skin. But keep this to yourself, because Tony says Marguerite doesn’t want her background generally known.”

  Good luck to her. Ninety-nine to one, Nathan would dig it up. Why had she taken such a risk with her story about tantric sex? Maybe it wasn’t to protect Constantine at all but to protect herself from a rape story instead. Absurdly, a vague disappointment pricked at him.

  At a tremulous wail in the distance, Ophelia said, “Talk to you later,” then added smugly, “I just thought you and Gideon should be in the know.”

  Fine, but Marguerite’s past didn’t make any difference to him. With any luck, he wouldn’t have to see her again.

  He laid his head down again and resigned himself to a long wait. During a short reconnoiter when he’d returned to the mound, right after Marguerite left, he’d learned a little about the Enemy: a reasonably agile man of medium weight with around size eleven boots. Couldn’t get much more average than that. The dude had done a hell of a lot more damage slogging up the mound, carrying Marguerite, than Constantine had in months of running. More interesting was last night’s guitar. The kid had wrapped it in a sweatshirt and stowed it in some brambles on the back slope of the mound. When? Constantine wondered. Why hadn’t he taken it home?

  With luck, he’d be back for it soon, and Constantine would get all the answers he needed.

  He dozed for a while in the dappled shade of the tree. A crow—possibly the same one—flapped onto a higher branch and alerted him, then soared away again. Now there were people in the park—four of them, headed slowly toward his mound. Two white men, one fortyish and balding and the other younger and taller, with a wavy bush of yellow hair. A woman in her thirties, with a voluptuous figure, smooth café au lait skin, and a faint frown. And Myra again, red-faced and angular with an impatient stride.

  Constantine shifted against the great branch and visualized himself as one with the tree. With a little concentration, he could alter people’s perceptions. He could make them feel ecstasy or pain; he could make them see things that weren’t there. He’d done it regularly at concerts, sending visions into the minds of the audience. It felt like a combination of telepathy and some kind of aura manipulation—similar to giving one-touch orgasms but with mental rather than physical touch.

  Which had been all very well until he’d lost control of his mind and sent his own angry, destructive thoughts into the audience, causing fights and riots—and even some deaths.

  At least he hadn’t lost the ability to conceal himself. Now, with the tree to help him—because the tree was what people expected to see—no one would notice him unless he wanted them to.

  As the visitors toiled up the stairs of the mound, snatches of an insistent voice drifted up to him. “Deep-seated hatred… remnants of reservation upbringing… crowd control… dramatically increase the tendency to violence…” That was the yellow-headed dude.

  “That’s all very well,” the balding man said, “but you can’t base a study on just one individual. Even anecdotal evidence requires—”

  “I’m not an idiot,” the younger man said, and behind him the voluptuous woman rolled her eyes. “I just need Dufray to tell me how he controls people. He can sway whole crowds, making them deliriously happy or turning them to violence. Once I understand how, I can set up an experiment where others emulate him.” He made a rude noise. “It’s a lot more likely to produce useful results than your dumb visions.”

  “My visions,” the older dude retorted, “are an effort to find ways to promote world peace.”

  The other guy snorted. “Yeah, like your drum circles and prayers. What a crock. Control is the only way.”

  Constantine contemplated the drawbacks of controlling one’s tendency to violence. The younger dude’s name was Roy Lutsky, but the crew called him the Loony Pontificator. It had started with letters and phone calls, after which the Pontificator haunted concert venues and the fan club office, yammering on and on, begging and pleading for interviews in the Sacred Cause of Psychology. Security had hustled him out more than once. Lately, the Pontificator had taken to sending abusive emails, pissing off the people who ran the fan club. Constantine could think of a number of methods of getting rid of the Pontificator for good, but none seemed worth the effort, and in any case, the bird would natter at him for weeks afterward about going against its advice. Last night, it had given him grief about his plan to punish a pervert who was harassing underage girls. The bird had decided it wasn’t Constantine’s job.

  Fine, Constantine told it now. That fits right in with my plans to go out west.

  You’d be a lousy-ass hermit, retorted the crow.

  The little group crossed the mound in the increasing heat of the morning. The balding man appeared to have given up on both talking and listening. Myra looked as if she was being dragged against her will, while the voluptuous woman seemed to be thinking of something else entirely.r />
  “They wouldn’t let me within a hundred yards of the concert last night, but there was a sighting here this morning,” the Pontificator concluded. He wore a mustardy-khaki safari costume today. Constantine gave thought to a temporary appellation of Monotone Yellow. Or Turkey Turd Man.

  The voluptuous woman emerged from her reverie. “A what?”

  The older man took a few steps onto the mound, gazing across the wide, grassy surface. “A sighting?” he asked. “Of aliens?”

  “Of Constantine Dufray, of course.” The Pontificator dug into his pocket for a little box of jelly beans and popped one into his mouth. “He’s been impossible to find lately.”

  Constantine considered dropping out of the tree and scaring the Loony right out of the Pontificator.

  “He seems to have been here all night,” Myra said indignantly. “He has no respect for the rules.”

  “He’s a rock star and a vigilante,” the other woman said. “What else do you expect?”

  “It’s true, then!” the Pontificator cried. “He was here, but whoever called to let me know purposely waited until it was too late.” He ate another jelly bean. “What did I do to deserve this?”

  “He pops up way too often for my taste,” Myra said. “Filling the park with noisy fans and having sex on the mound with his groupies.”

  The other woman wrinkled her nose. Not one of his fans, it seemed. “Do they party up here often?” Not too disapproving to be curious, though.

  “How should I know?” Myra said. “I don’t patrol the mounds at night, but we haven’t had a lot of complaints lately. I’m irritated because he had a woman with him this morning, as well as a reporter babbling about date-rape drugs and human sacrifices. By the time I got up here, everyone was gone, leaving a bunch of debris behind. Dufray’s people cleared it up, but he shouldn’t have been here in the first place. If you ask me, it was just another publicity stunt.”

  “Why wasn’t I told?” the Pontificator said. “He talks to tawdry reporters. Why not me?” He popped another jelly bean into his mouth, pulled out his cell phone, and stalked away.

  Myra turned brusquely to the balding man. “What’s your proposal, Professor Wilson?”

  The older man went on at length about methods of inducing dreams and visions. Meanwhile, the Pontificator tore at his shaggy yellow mane and ranted and raved his way across the mound, covering all four corners and slopes and staring angrily across the deserted park at the other two mounds. He returned to the little group, which now stood in the shade at the outer reaches of the live oak tree. The squirrel chattered fiercely at this fresh invasion.

  “I think it’s a workable idea, Eaton,” said the voluptuous woman to Professor Wilson. Shoe size: ten or eleven, fairly wide. The Turd’s: a little narrower, eleven, maybe eleven and a half.

  “Do you really, Lavonia?” Eaton ran his fingers distractedly through the remnants of his hair. “Just imagine: midnight under the full moon. A group of dedicated students meditating in this sacred spot… I’m sure we’ll come up with at least a few good visions. It’s a pity we can’t bring the equipment here, but once they know how to induce a vision, hopefully they’ll be able to reproduce the experience in the lab.” He cocked his head anxiously at Myra.

  “I don’t suppose it will do any harm,” Myra conceded, turning to the other woman. “Or any good, but that’s not my problem. Lavonia, I want you present as the voice of reason.”

  “People see visions at Dufray’s concerts,” said the Pontificating Turd, messing with his cell phone. It looked like he was surfing the Internet. “The question is, how does he do it?”

  “Clever lighting and a lot of people on drugs,” said Lavonia. “You’ll have to make sure no one comes to your meetings stoned, Eaton. That would skew your data.”

  “You have to ask Dufray to attend!” The Turd’s tone had grown feverish. “You could have him explain how it works. They’re not all on drugs. I’ve interviewed hundreds of fans. It might have to do with mass hypnosis, but my personal feeling is that he manipulates his aura.”

  “You’ll have to time your meetings for right after they spray for mosquitoes,” Myra said. “We’ll get a spraying schedule from the city. Just make sure there’s no drinking, no drugs, no littering, no sex, no running up and down the mounds. I’ll hold you fully responsible for any damage.”

  “Once you’ve got Dufray here and he’s done his thing, I’ll interview him,” said the Pontificator. “He won’t be able to refuse when it’s under the aegis of the university.”

  “That didn’t work for you before,” Lavonia said. “Maybe Constantine’s not interested in your study.”

  Constantine gave her a thumbs-up and picked a baby acorn. The squirrel objected loudly. “Hush,” Constantine said, crawling slowly along the branch toward the perimeter of the tree’s vast spread. A red-shouldered hawk circled lazily overhead, and Constantine felt it laughing. His spirit guide must have gotten tired of inhabiting a crow.

  “How can he not be interested?” demanded the Pontificator. “He’ll be reported in all the parapsychology journals and maybe some of the less prejudiced scientific ones. He’ll be invited to conferences, give demonstrations, get the respect and admiration—no, the adulation—of thousands. How can he not want that?”

  “He already has that,” said Eaton. “Much as I’d like to consult him about Native American rituals, I can’t have him here. He would distract the participants, and if he really is telepathic, like they say, he’d skew my study as much as drugs would—maybe more.” He wandered out from under the tree, gazing into the distance and humming to himself.

  Constantine gave Eaton a thumbs-up, too.

  “You just don’t care, do you?” the Pontificator bellowed. “You don’t give a shit about truly important work.”

  Constantine leaned over and dropped the acorn directly onto the monochrome yellow head.

  “Ouch!”

  The squirrel scolded Constantine again and scurried to the tip of its branch.

  “It must have been that squirrel,” said Lavonia.

  Another thumbs-up. Constantine selected another acorn and bided his time.

  “I’ll get an interview out of him if it’s the last thing I do. It’s criminal, the way he’s thwarting the cause of science, and you’re just as bad, Wilson. As for the people who call and deliberately mislead me—” The Pontificator gaped at the screen on his cell phone. “What the hell? This is Marguerite!” With a shaking hand, he shoved the display toward Lavonia. “She’s the woman who was here with Dufray?” He got right in her face. “You knew, didn’t you? She’s going out with him, and you didn’t tell me! Everybody’s against me, and you’re as bad as all the rest.”

  Lavonia put up her hands. “Calm down, Roy. She’s not going out with him. She got caught in a publicity stunt and went along with it. What else would you expect? She’s a major fan.”

  “But she knows him now. Finally, a breakthrough! She’ll be able to get me an interview!” He pumped a fist. “Yes!”

  “I doubt it,” Lavonia said. “She’s not planning to pursue the acquaintance. She’s a sensible girl, and she knows he’s a dangerous man.”

  Her words fell on deaf ears, judging by the way the Pontificator was capering about. Constantine stifled a twinge of dismay. Not afraid of me, huh?

  The hawk wasn’t fazed. You give up way too easily. There was nothing to give up on, seeing as he wasn’t after Marguerite, but the bird just laughed. Sailing up there on the air currents, life must be peachy keen.

  Maybe it was right, though. Not only had Marguerite shown very little fear, but she wasn’t the least bit sensible. She had stood up for him this morning, most likely on impulse. See, he told the bird, I’m trying to take her at face value. I’m trying not to be suspicious.

  Good for you, it replied blandly. Constantine felt the blood darken his cheeks. Christ, why must it make him feel like a little kid asking for praise? He shook the guide’s presence away and went on with his ow
n thought process.

  In spite of his warnings, Marguerite had kissed him. Again, not sensible at all. Not only that, her roommate had possibly been murdered—and maybe merely letting Gideon know about it wasn’t enough. He took out his phone and sent Jabez, his bodyguard and fellow vigilante, to make sure she’d gotten home okay. There. He’d discharged his responsibility. Again. Damned if he would beg for more snarky approval from the bird.

  The instant the Pontificator stood still, Constantine dropped another acorn.

  “Damned squirrels!” cried the Pontificator, rubbing his head. “They should all be shot. I’m getting out of here.” He took off with long, frustrated strides. Constantine stood up, leaned perilously out through the branches, and lobbed one straight shot directly at the back of his head.

  “What the hell?” The Pontificator whirled. “Did you throw that at me? Did you?”

  “Throw what?” Lavonia frowned. “Eaton, did you throw something?”

  But Eaton was yards away and oblivious, humming under his breath while consulting a compass and a scrap of paper. “Sunrise… five something… a little bit southeast, I suppose, right around where the chicken house is.” He squinted across the park in the direction of Hellebore University’s agricultural complex and began humming again, this time one of Constantine’s more peaceful songs, albeit somewhat off-key.

  We’ve heard that before, the hawk said. Then, Look who’s on his way to the mound.

  “There must be somebody up that tree!” stormed the Ridiculous Pontificator.

  “Only a squirrel.” Myra gave an exasperated wag of the head.

  “And a hawk! Look at that gorgeous hawk!” cried Lavonia, eyes on the sky. “Come on, Eaton. It’s getting way too hot to be outdoors.” They headed for the stairs.

  Constantine swung easily downward. He had just landed on a huge limb twelve feet above the ground, when the fan from this morning crashed out of a path in the woods and thundered up the side of the mound. With a delicious slow-motion anticipation of the enfoldment of doom, Constantine waited for the conflagration. The guy bounded onto the surface of the mound, the others turned, and all hell broke loose.