Devil Dead (21 page)

“Just shut up, Novak.”

After Novak's appearance and departure, the day crawled along in an uneventful chain of forever. Lydie had been right on about the aching feet, with one godawful headache added on for good measure. The last thing Claire wanted to do was go partying, especially in the crowds of the French Quarter, but Lydie liked to talk and Claire liked to listen for clues to Andrea's disappearance, so it was a match made in heaven. They ended up at the Devil Dead by one o'clock in the morning, sitting at the bar and drinking a couple of weak Bloody Marys. Claire only pretended to drink. She hated the taste of all alcohol except for an occasional beer. She wished she had some water in a bottle. She wished she was home in bed with Black. Or back in Tahiti in bed with Black. Yeah, that was it.

After a while, Claire quit watching the wannabe vampires and werewolves, and remarked as casually as she could make it, “What's the deal on this Andrea girl? I heard the other girls whispering about her today.”

Lydie swept her red hair back behind her ear and looked closely at Claire. The ruby stud in her ear sparkled in the dim light. “Really? What did they say?”

“Just that she was working down there and then she was gone and nobody could get hold of her. That kinda thing doesn't happen very often, does it?”

“You'd be surprised. Girls who work at Tit Tats get tired of the guff and grind all the time and then just up and quit on the spot. I've seen more than one just walk out the front door, uniform and all, without a word to anybody. Makes Daddy crazy. There's a big turnover.”

“What was that Andi girl like?”

“I liked her. I didn't think she was haughty at all, like Daddy always said. I think she's a real sweetheart.”

“Maybe she ran off and got married. Maybe she has a boyfriend?”

Lydie hesitated a long moment, seemed to think about it, and then she said, “There was a guy. Pierre. Real tall guy, big. He talked with a French accent. He used to come in all the time and bitch at her for wearing those shorts we gotta wear.”

“I know a guy named Pierre. Last name of Clark?”

“No, it was Dubois, I think. Pierre Dubois, yeah, that sounds right. He was from Paris, and they used to fight all the time. He was always on her back about something. They'd sit in a booth in the back and whisper but it got kinda heated at times, if you know what I mean.”

Claire filed that away. Seemed their little Andrea had a guy for every day of the week: drug dealer, some frat jock, and now French hothead. Andrea might need some tips in her boyfriend selection skills. “Yeah? Maybe she ran away with him and got married.”

“Wouldn't surprise me. I think he might've been into drugs. He looked zonked out of his head sometimes and got mad easy. They whispered and talked real fast in French so none of us could ever understand them.”

Hmmm. Very interesting. This Pierre guy? That was the guy that Jonas had said was Andrea's friend and sometimes more than that. Claire was gonna hunt him down and ask him some serious questions. “So Andrea was fluent in French, huh? Wish I spoke it but I never got a chance to learn. Is that what your accent is? It's faint but I can hear it a little bit.”

Lydie looked startled for a second but then she smiled. “Yeah, I spent some time in Quebec when I was little. I think Andrea said that she lived in Paris for a while, but she liked it a lot better here.”

“So Pierre's French? He work somewhere here in New Orleans?”

“Yeah, he followed her to the States, I think she said. I heard her say that he came over on a work visa. Could be he might work out on those oil derricks in the Gulf, you know how they do? Two weeks on, two weeks off, that kinda job. Maybe she signed on with him out there. Maybe she got hired on as a cook or something. She's pretty strong for a woman, you know, worked out on weights and jogged, all that kinda stuff. They make good money working out on those rigs. Or could be, he just finally persuaded her to go back home to Europe with him. I think that's what he wanted her to do. Go back to Paris. I overheard that much of their conversation one night. She had a little bit of an accent but not as thick as his. He didn't like her workin' at Tit Tats, wanted her to quit, just like all the husbands do. Hey, why all the interest in Andi, anyway?”

Claire shrugged. “No reason. Just thought it was kinda creepy that she just up and disappeared like that.”

“Yeah, it is creepy. What about you? You married?”

“No way.”

“Got a boyfriend?” Lydie asked Claire.

“There's this guy I hang with some, but he's outta town a lot. You with somebody?”

“Nobody. Unfortunately for me. I'm all alone in the world.”

After that, they talked some more about work and stuff, while Claire watched the door for Clarence Carver and his devil-worshipping friends, but they never showed up. Almost an hour later, they left Devil Dead and walked down the street to another bar called the Wagging Dog, where they spent another hour in the noisy, crowded dive, which was the last place on earth that Claire wanted to hang out, but all the while she was subtly pumping Lydie for information about girls who had disappeared from Tit Tats and getting to know as much about the other waitresses as humanly possible. She didn't want to have to keep the job any longer than she had to. And she did find out a lot, but mostly about the other girls, where they lived, who they dated, why they had to work in such a disgusting place. Lydie didn't give up her own address so easily, and Claire wondered why.

More important, she discovered that there had been three or four girls who at various times during the past year failed to show up one day, without a word to Daddy the Creep, and who nobody ever heard from again. Even when the other girls tried to get hold of them. Which was quite a bevy of coincidences in Claire's book. After a while, she got tired and was about to beg off and escape the sordid barhopping routine, when Lydie kept staring at something behind Claire's back.

“Wow, look at that guy.”

Claire turned on the stool and glanced over at the front door. Black looked good, all right, and he was staring right back at her, too. At first, of course, he didn't even recognize her. Well, crap and damn it. What the hell was he doing there? And then and most unfortunately, it dawned on him that the sleazy black-haired vixen at the bar was his very own personal honeybunch and was sitting at the bar with her very bare legs crossed and drinking booze with a similarly attired floozy. His eyes traveled down her body and up again, lingering a long moment on her black hair and in much the same way that had been happening to her all day long. However, Black didn't really look as pleased with her as all the other guys had. She almost laughed to herself at his stunned expression.

“He's really giving you the eye, Tammy. You interested? Or is your boyfriend a serious thing?”

“No, no, just somebody I hang out with. Know what? He is looking me over. Think I'll just go over and check him out. You mind?”

“No, I just wish he was looking at me like that. Okay, I'm tired anyway. I'm heading home. Thanks for hanging out with me, Tammy. And good luck with that guy.”

Grabbing her grocery bag full of grotesque Tit Tats togs, Claire slinked herself straight over to Black. He waited beside the door, still looking her up and down, and not in a sunny, happy kinda way. “Hello, Daddy,” she said when she got to him.

“Oh, God, I'm afraid to even ask what that means. Or what you've been doing tonight. But I will. And who's your new friend?”

“I'm undercover, sweetheart. You know, since I'm private now, I do undercover work. My name is now Tammy Jones, and I've come over here to pick you up because my friend over there thinks you're as hot as hell. She thinks you're interested in taking me home with you. Are you?”

“I am rather interested in why you're dressed like that. And what's with the Liz Taylor wig?”

Claire laughed. Poor Black. “It's not a wig. I dyed my hair black, and I'm dead on my feet and I need to get out of here and take a very long shower to lather all the degradation still clinging to my skin.”

“Please tell me that horrible color is going to wash out before the wedding.”

“Of course, it will. I think. Okay, enough about the hair. Act like you're propositioning me for sex so we can blow this dump, and try to make it look good.”

“I don't have to try.” Black put his arm around her waist and swiveled her quickly around until her back was pressed up against the wall. He propped his left arm over her head and grinned down into her face. “Know what? I find that outfit rather stimulating, now that I've seen it up close. You look nice and slutty. Maybe you can wear it around the house every day and see what happens.”

“I know what will happen.”

“Damn right.”

“You're pretty good at this kind of thing, Black. What's up with that? You got lots of practice pickin' up hookers in bars? That it?”

“Is that what you are? I thought you were going for the exhausted-stripper-after-work look.”

“Just keep up the smiling and look like you want me so Lydie won't get suspicious. What are
you
doing here, anyway? You're supposed to be in Miami.”

“Got to thinking about you and what you probably looked like in this outfit, and so I came home early to get a look at you. My patient's on the right meds now and calmed down enough to sleep.” He nuzzled her neck and whispered close to her ear. “Appears that I made the right decision.”

“How'd you know I was here?”

“I called Will since you turned off your phone. You know, just like I asked you never to do. He said he was tailing you in case of trouble and that you ended up here and that you'd been working as a waitress all day, and that you were dead on your feet and probably wanted go home but that you never knew when to hang it up. He didn't tell me you were dressed so provocatively.”

“Don't give me that. I told you about this getup on the phone. What do you think two-bit whores wear, Black?” Claire tried to smile seductively as she said it, or at least gave it a shot since she'd never done it before. “And he's right about the tired thing. I've been working at Tit Tats all day long. My feet hurt like you wouldn't believe. All I want to do is soak in a hot bath and take a couple of handfuls of Excedrin.”

“Tit Tats? What the hell is that?”

“Just this real classy gentleman's club/hamburger joint kinda place.”

Black leaned down close, his lips touching her ear, and yes, it gave her a chill down her arm. “You do look rather sexy, I must say. Let's go home and let me take that little crop top thing off you and burn it in the backyard. Then we'll catch up in the bedroom.”

Claire laughed softly. “I'd love to, believe me. But sorry, Charlie, romance is not in the cards tonight. My feet hurt too much.”

“Don't be cruel. I've been gone a long time.”

“You've been gone one day.”

“One day can be a long time when you are dressed in that.”

“Oh, brother, that is just so massively lame, I can hardly believe you actually said it. C'mon, let's get outta here. Novak's right, I've had enough for one day. I'm hangin' it up.”

“My pleasure.” Black put his arm around her waist and led her outside, as if well practiced and adept at escorting loose women out of bars. Once they were outside, she waved good-bye to Novak, who was still watching from inside his truck across the street. They both walked down the sidewalk about a block and got inside Black's Range Rover, and Black instantly forgot to bitch and/or drool over her outfit and became quite the inquisitor, wanting to know everything about the Andrea Quinn investigation, especially if they had any leads that would give a ray of hope to Jonas Quinn and his minuscule wife. She told him what little they knew so far, and then he said they needed to get home and let him admire her outfit while he took it off.

Claire smiled to herself because she wondered if he would admire her disgusting and even worse Tit Tats outfit with as much aplomb. Which by the way, was the stupidest name for a restaurant that she'd ever heard in her life. More important than any of that, however, lay the pertinent question: Why would Andrea Quinn want to work there? Her father was rich enough to float around on a giant luxury yacht with a bunch of white-uniformed, cretin-like, gun-slinging henchmen, was he not? He had to be sending her all the money she could ever want or need, and probably supplying her with credit cards galore, too.

Andrea's parents doted on her, said she had lots of friends in Paris and in Sydney, so why would she degrade herself by working at the most humiliating place in the whole southern U.S. of A., Tit Tats? And what exactly was going on with Andrea's French friend, Pierre? Were they in cahoots about something illegal, maybe? Maybe she should give Jonas a call and see what he knew about Pierre Dubois's extracurricular activities and if they landed in the realm of criminal variety?

“Hey, Black, when did you say you were leaving for Paris?”

“Next day or two, not sure exactly.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

Black stopped at a stop sign and leaned on the wheel when he looked at her. “Are you serious?”

“Oh, yeah. Not quite sure yet, but the investigation might be headed to Gay Paree. You do have some contacts over there, don't you? Some who might be able to get flight information on passengers coming in and out of Paris from the U.S. since Andrea's been missing?”

“Yes. As far as that goes, I can find out who has flown out of Louis Armstrong, too. Jack Holliday can get that info. His company's based at the airport, and he's got connections in aviation.”