Risky Whiskey

by Lucy Lakestone

I turned and ran.

  19

  The statue was already between me and the door of the bar, so the only way to go was in the opposite direction. I tore down the narrow street and into the next block, which was slightly busier with pedestrians who seemed oblivious to the fact that I was running away from a statue. I ricocheted through a party of drunk bridesmaids wearing tiaras, bumped into a couple of frat boys and rocketed around a corner. I had no idea where I was. The street was lined with houses with balconies and the occasional bar, where I didn’t want to be trapped. But there was noise in the distance, and a couple of blocks down, I saw barricades. Bourbon Street. There were always cops on Bourbon Street.

  And then a pedicab popped out in front of me at the next corner and I almost got a face full of bicycle chain as I stumbled to avoid it.

  It was already gone when a strong arm grabbed me around the waist. “That’s the most runnin’ I had to do in a year, bitch,” said the deep voice in a strong Nawlins accent. Meaning his voice sounded almost New Yorkish—but we natives would call him a Yat, as in, “Where yat?”

  I elbowed him and started to scream, but he clasped a hand over my mouth. I could smell the paint, the makeup.

  “You’re done interfering,” the statue said in his gruff voice, dragging me toward a dark doorway. “And you’re a pretty little doodle bug, too, aren’t ya? Ah, I might get me an extra bonus tonight before I drop you in the watah.”

  No. No! I was not going out this way. And I had to do something before he got me somewhere even darker and scarier. I tried to stomp his foot with my clunky heel, but since my feet were barely touching the ground, I wasn’t doing much damage. This guy was big. Brawny.

  I’d dropped my phone in the street, but I still had my purse in a death grip. It wasn’t much of a weapon. Then again, it had Neil’s medal in it.

  We were almost to the doorway. Mustering the strength I had left, I tried to calculate my swing and whipped the purse up and over my shoulder.

  “Unh!” he grunted, dropping me immediately. He clutched his bronze forehead, but he was still on his feet. So I swung again, hard, catching him solidly on the back of the head. He dropped to his knees, looking only moderately dizzy, and then I ran like hell.

  I got past the barricades of Bourbon Street and found myself drowning in drunks. It didn’t have to be Mardi Gras to be a wild and wacky party here every single night. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like the volatile nature of the crowd, the terrible drinks, the seedy carnival atmosphere. But I knew there were cops here, and I looked around wildly, trying to find one.

  There. I ignored the police on horses and ran toward two officers who were standing in the street, hands on their belts, surveying the crowd as if they’d rather be battling alien invaders instead of monitoring this smelly bacchanal. I ran up to them, a man and a woman, and tried to keep it simple. “I was attacked. He tried to pull me into an alley. Up there. Up there!”

  “Show me,” the woman said, running in the direction I’d pointed. I tried to keep up, pointing again so they’d know where to turn. “Was he armed?”

  “Not sure. I don’t think so,” I puffed. “Maybe.” Yikes. What if he had been armed? One gunshot, and I’d—I didn’t want to think about that.

  The two cops went ahead of me. “Here!” I said. “It was here.” They had guns drawn, and they moved up and down the street, around the intersection, while I hid behind a column that hid approximately one-third of my cheese-diet-enhanced hips.

  Finally, they stopped, and I started to breathe properly again. The male cop was talking on the radio. I spotted my phone in the street and grabbed it. The screen was marred by a crack but still working. It was covered in texts, but I didn’t have time to read them before I was interrupted.

  “Can you describe him, ma’am?” It was the female cop again. More cops showed up on foot and in a squad car, and the scene got kind of crazy.

  “He was bronze.”

  “Bronze? Black, you mean?”

  “No. I mean, he might’ve been, but I don’t think so. He was bronze. Painted bronze all over.”

  This information didn’t seem to faze her in the least. “Like this?” She pointed at my dress. Damn it, the bastard had ruined my dress, too. There were smudges of bronze makeup all over it.

  “Yes! He was one of those statue guys. This was the third time I’d seen him today.”

  “Statue guys?”

  “A street performer. You know what I mean?”

  She sighed. “I know what you mean. Have you been drinking tonight?”

  Duh. It’s New Orleans. “I was drinking earlier,” I admitted.

  “Are you sure about what you saw?”

  “You see the paint on me, right? Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  I took a moment to take inventory, starting to feel pretty stupid about the whole thing. “I’m OK, I think. I mean, I’m fine. A little bruised but OK.”

  I shivered when I thought about what might have happened. And then she asked me a lot of questions. I didn’t give her the whole backstory of our struggles this week, just stuck to the statue sightings and the attack. Finally, she asked if I needed help getting where I was going.

  “I think I’m good, if you’ll just walk me back to Bourbon Street.” I didn’t want to be in the crowd again, but I really didn’t want to be alone on a dark street again this evening.

  “No problem. I’d suggest you get back to your hotel and get some rest, and take it easy on the booze.”

  I bit my tongue. Yes, inebriation was the cause of most of the problems these cops encountered, but it’s not like it was my fault a statue attacked me.

  I thanked her when we parted ways at the barricade, and then I looked at my phone. Crap. A bunch of texts from Neil asking where I’d gone and one from Melody saying she and the trombone player were going to make a night of it, and she’d chat with me in the morning. And there was a voice mail.

  “Pepper,” Neil said. “I’m really worried about you. Are you OK? Call me as soon as you get this.”

  For the first time tonight, tears pricked my eyes as his concern broke down the walls I’d thrown up around myself after the attack. I stumbled into a long, narrow, neon-lit bar, sat on a stool and called him back.

  He answered on the first ring. “Are you OK?”

  “I am now.” I sniffled and tried unsuccessfully not to sound like I was crying.

  “Are you sure? Where are you? What happened?”

  “I was attacked. I’m OK. The police talked to me. I’m in a bar on Bourbon Street. I don’t want to walk home alone.”

  “Tell me which one. I’ll be right there.”

  Once I got off the phone with Neil, I really started crying.

  “What’s up, sugar?” asked a skinny young man behind the bar with glowing umber skin and a friendly smile. “Looks to me like you need a drink.”

  I looked up and around, noting with horror the colorful frozen drinks swirling in round windows, lined up behind the bar like miniature washing machines from hell.

  “Give me a shot. Tequila. Good stuff,” I added. Tequila was the drink of choice for memory erasure, but it was better to go for premium to soften the hangover the next day.

  Neil found me perched on a stool, two shots in. He came over to me and cupped my chin and looked me in the eyes. “Are you OK?” He was so quiet I almost didn’t hear him. Or maybe it was just that everything else was so loud.

  My tears had dried up by then, and the tequila had taken the edge off. “It was the bronze statue guy.”

  “The busker?” he asked in surprise.

  “Yeah. He attacked me outside the bar. I think it was him who called me to get me to go outside. He had a phone in his hand.”

  “How’d he get your number?”

  “I don’t know. It’s one of the numbers on my bar’s website. It’s listed on various records online. Easy enough.”

  “Why didn’t you come back inside?”

  “I was to
o far from the door. I tried to run away, but he caught me a few streets over.”

  “Oh, Pepper. What did he do?” Neil took one of my hands in his.

  “He grabbed me and tried to drag me off the street.” I shuddered. “I don’t know what he was going to do, but I stopped him with this.” I pointed at the bag still looped over my forearm.

  “Your purse?”

  “Your medal in my purse. Just stunned him enough so I could run away.”

  A corner of Neil’s mouth quirked up. And then he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. He was warm and comforting and something more, projecting an intensity that made me dizzy. Or maybe that was the tequila. Heat suffused me, along with the strangest feeling of well-being, especially given the night I’d had.

  “Be careful,” I muffled into his vest.

  “What?” He pulled back.

  “Be careful. You’ll get the paint on you, too.”

  He held my hands and looked me over. “Your poor, beautiful dress. I want to kill him just for ruining it. I want to kill him, period.” His gaze darkened. “Tell me what he said.”

  I told him, and fury lit in his eyes. “Interfering? How are you interfering?”

  “It all has to go back to Bohemia Distillery. I’m interfering because I’m helping Dash, encouraging him.”

  “We all are. But I think whoever is doing this knows that targeting you will have an effect on all of us. Attacking you affects me,” Neil said. The connection between us crackled. He did care about me, and he was pissed.

  “You don’t think the statue guy is out to get us?”

  “I think he’s a tool. I don’t think he’s the guy who drained Dash’s bank account or is trying to ruin his reputation. Why would a thug want to—to attack you?” Or kill you was unspoken. “Unless someone has connected you with Dash and thinks they can get to him through you. You don’t have any enemies, do you?”

  “Not that I know of, though Marian the librarian has threatened to pull my library card if I return another book late.”

  That earned a small smile from Neil.

  “So what’s the end game?” I asked. “They’re trying to break Dash, ruin him?”

  Neil nodded. “It’s the only thing that makes sense, given what’s happened. The ‘why’ eludes me. We need to look into that developer more, the one you said he talked about back in Bohemia.”

  “And see if Fairyland Distillery has anything to gain by hurting Dash, given that Alastair is doing work for them and hates you.”

  “Well, I don’t know if he hates me,” Neil said puckishly.

  I laughed. It felt good to laugh.

  “We’re not going to worry about any of it tonight. I’m taking you home.” He turned to the bartender and took care of the bill, and I didn’t voice one iota of protest. “Not your usual kind of place, is it?” he asked me, looking around at the daiquiri machines, a hilariously distasteful expression on his face.

  “I went for the straight liquor. I can’t handle those frou-frou frosties in colors not found in nature.”

  “Thank God,” he said, putting an arm around me and escorting me back into the river of insanity that was Bourbon Street. “I thought I was going to have to fire you.”

  20

  As we exited the bar, we passed a hawker for a drag show. “Opening tonight! Wham Bam Thank You Glam! See our gorgeous ladies sparkle!” A poster looked out at me from the window of the club featuring a glamorous creature in a dazzling all-silver gown. The hat store clerk. Too bad I wasn’t in the mood for theater.

  Within a block of elbowing our way through the loud, unruly crowd and spotting no less than five bridesmaid and bachelor parties, one arrest, and three instances of tit-flashing, Neil pulled me off the main drag and onto a quieter street. I looked around nervously at every face, every car. It didn’t help that the tequila had made me just a little bit fuzzy. It had caught the last bubbles of my drunkenness from the tiki bar and whipped them up into a froth, a weirdly giddy mood enhanced by exhaustion and spent fear. A mood lightened by having Neil next to me.

  Neil’s arm was still wrapped around my shoulders, protective if not possessive. “Are you OK?” he asked again.

  “Yes. I’m OK. Now I’m just kinda drunk.”

  He laughed. “I shouldn’t be laughing.”

  “Please laugh. If we don’t laugh, then we have to cry, and I’ve had enough of that for the night.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, pulling me more tightly against his body. His noticeably firm body. He’d been hiding a hunk of sexiness under that nerd wardrobe, I was sure of it.

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m having a great time.”

  He laughed again. “We’re almost to the hotel. Then you can get some rest.”

  “I don’t particularly want the evening to end on a note of dread,” I said. “Maybe one more drink?”

  He looked at me askance. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “You!” came a deep, island-accented voice from behind us, and I jumped halfway out of my skin as Neil whirled, pushing me behind him.

  I peeked around him to see a group of eight or ten bewildered tourists led by a colorfully dressed woman wearing a head scarf. “You!” she said again, pointing to Neil, then waving at him to move aside. Yeah, she meant me.

  “I don’t think so,” Neil declared.

  “Oh, stop it now, my boy, and let her come forward. This is what I was telling you about, my friends!” she called to her little tour. The men and women seemed pale and dull under the street light as they crowded up behind the dark and beautiful woman in her flowing gown, dozens of necklaces and jangling bracelets. “Sometimes you can see in the aura a person in need. My child, come here.”

  “I think it’s OK,” I whispered to Neil. Besides, I didn’t think this voodoo priestess or whatever she was would woo-woo me with all these people watching. I stepped gingerly out from behind Neil.

  “You are in danger!” she said.

  My mouth dropped open. “How did you know?”

  The tourists gasped at this validation of her talents. She stepped closer. “Take this, my dear.” She lifted a black leather cord from around her neck strung with a pointy tooth wrapped in silver wire, flanked by colorful beads. “From the ancient creature of the swamp. It will give you protection.”

  “Creature of the swamp? Do you mean an alligator?” I barely managed to avoid blurting out that I could get gator-tooth gear at every beach-towel emporium in Bohemia Beach.

  “You are skeptical. You must believe!” she bellowed as I tried to hold my ground, flashing back to my father’s preaching in his storefront church. “This is special. Blessed by me. Wear it.” She looped it over my neck. Then she looked at Neil. “Protection is very valuable.”

  What a scam! Neil shrugged, a smile playing about his lips, and dug out his wallet. He handed the woman a ten. She gave him a hard look, and he handed her another ten.

  “Go in peace and love,” she shouted, looking from him to me, and in spite of myself, a shiver ran down my spine. She leaned in close to me and whispered in my ear. “You cannot get back what the wind has taken away.”

  Then she was herding the tourists down the street. “To my shop, where we will ask for blessings!”

  We waited until they’d turned a corner and then looked at each other.

  “What the hell was that?” Neil asked.

  I was still mulling the priestess’s remark about the wind. “I don’t know, but I’m wearing this thing every day until I get home. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, though I didn’t really feel like I had a choice,” Neil said with good humor. He took my hand this time and led me toward the turn that would take us to the hotel. His grip was strong and dry and warm, and it sent a slow-burning thrill through my entire besotted body.

  I was nervous. On one level I was scared after tonight’s attack. On another I was gently blitzed. On a third I was freaked out by the voodoo tour guide. And lastly, I was wondering where thin
gs were going with Neil. Were they going somewhere? It felt like it. I was up for the ride.

  I knew we were close to the hotel when I heard the tuba chugging bass notes on a tune I didn’t recognize. We were back among the ceaseless activity outside the Hotel Lebeau.

  “Where’d everybody go?” I asked, suddenly remembering our fellow bartenders.

  “Oh, crap, I was supposed to message them. They were worried about you, too.” To my regret, he dropped my hand, pulled out his phone and tapped. My phone pinged in my purse as well.

  “Was that you?” I asked, pulling it out to read it: “Pepper’s OK, but she was threatened. Be careful, everyone. Don’t go out alone.”

  “I added you to the Bohemia Bartenders message group,” Neil explained.

  “Thanks.” Warmth above and beyond the alcohol suffused me, and then I thought of my friends and whether they were in danger. “Are they going to be OK?”

  “I think the trombonist will look out for Melody,” he said wryly, stowing his phone again. “He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. The guys were talking about hitting a couple of the high-end craft cocktail bars.”

  “Damn it, I’m sorry.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I’m sure you would’ve wanted to go with them.”

  He paused outside the lobby doors and put his hands on my shoulders. “All I wanted to do was make sure you were all right.”

  His hands on me, the laughter nearby, the gleaming facade of the old hotel, the cabs coming and going—every sensation coalesced into a whirlwind around us, and we stood in its calm center, looking at each other. He was going to kiss me. Again. I closed my eyes.

  “We’d better get you inside.” His hands had left me, and my eyes flew open to see him holding the door for me as people shifted around us.

  Damn it. I swallowed and followed. I was off-kilter. I didn’t want to go to bed feeling like this, even if I was going to bed alone.

  “One more drink?” I suggested again.

  “All right.” Neil had a helpless look on his face. “People have been giving me samples left and right. I have some interesting stuff in my room. Would that be OK? Or would you prefer the bar?”