French Quarter (30 page)

Both of the other men frowned.

“I guess it doesn’t much matter how. They do. And they’re rattled. Which means they’ve got something to be afraid of. Roughly translated, we’re close to finding out who killed Errol—or the killers think we are.”

“We’ve got to find Celina,” Cyrus said abruptly. “Dear Lord, we must locate my little sister. She’s fragile enough without being exposed to this type of horror.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. His own insides were trying to fold in on themselves.

“What do you mean, yeah?” Cyrus said, grasping Jack’s arm. “Celina has suffered greatly. We both know that. And she’s pregnant, Jack. I’ve been concerned about her because she’s not as well as she should be. She’d never stand up to harsh treatment.”

“Harsh treatment?” Dwayne’s voice broke and squeaked upward. “You think someone would treat our Celina harshly? That they’d hurt her? Surely they wouldn’t do any such thing.” He tottered to one of the chairs in the office and fell into it. “She should never have been allowed to remain in this house after Errol was killed. She should have been taken somewhere absolutely safe and watched over all the time. I should have insisted she come to live with Jean-Claude and me. Oh, my God!”

“Cool it, Dwayne,” Jack said, feeling close to being sick. “We’re going to work our way logically through this. And while we do that, we’ll hope she comes walking through that door.”

“I’ll rattle her teeth till they fall out!” Dwayne cried. “How dare that girl frighten us all like this because she wants to shop for a few useless baubles.”

Jack gave way to a faint smile. “Let it out, Dwayne. It’ll help. One of us has to stay here in case she comes back. I’ve got to search for her.”

Dwayne and Cyrus chorused that they were going too. “Wait a minute,” Cyrus said. “Let’s think about the route she’d take.”

“She’d take the same route I just did,” Jack said.

“Unless she’s gone shopping somewhere.” Dwayne stared at Jack. “I need a drink.” He hurried into the parlor and poured liquor into three glasses.

Jack followed reluctantly with Cyrus trailing close behind. They both took the snifters Dwayne offered.

They drank and retreated to chairs, where they sat in silence, sipping at their brandies.

Jack got up to draw the heavy brown drapes over the windows. “There’s no point in running around this town with no idea where to look,” he said. “I’m waiting another half hour. Then I’m going to the police in person and I’m not leaving until they put out a bulletin.”

“I feel as if everything’s gone mad around us but we’re the only ones who notice,” Dwayne said. “Surely they ought to have leads on what happened to Errol by now.”

“I talked to O’Leary again,” Jack told them. “He said somethin’ garbled about wanting to avoid giving the killers any signals. But I think I understand. I did hear from Errol’s lawyers. Lowell and Maxwell. Very well thought of. Evidently they’ll read the will anytime we’re ready. I’d told them we’re not ready.

A choking sound escaped Dwayne. He made no attempt to hide the tears that welled in his eyes. “It’s all so cold. I miss him so much. He was always there for me. The least judgmental man I ever met.”

“Me too,” Jack agreed.

Cyrus said, “I never really knew him very well. What I did know, I liked. For Celina to be so fond of him, he had to be a good man.”

“I thought the two of them had something going,” Jack said, no longer concerned with holding anything back from these two. “I thought Celina had wormed her way into his affections. That she’d played on his weaknesses—at least where women and sex were concerned—to get close to him. I thought she was an opportunist.”

“Amazing how stupid an intelligent man can be sometimes,” Dwayne said, heading back to the brandy with his empty glass.

“I deserved that,” Jack said. “I never gave her a chance, but I couldn’t see beyond the beauty pageant title and all that goes with that in my mind.”

“None of that was Celina’s idea. She did it for my mother.”

“I know that now,” Jack said, somewhat sheepish. “But I didn’t then, and I came to hate her. When Errol died, I thought it was her fault somehow.”

Dwayne made a tutting sound. Cyrus remained silent.

“I think I’ve been as honest as I can be with her about that. I haven’t held anything back.” Nothing but a great chunk about his activities with Win Giavanelli, and the plans he’d set in motion long before Errol’s murder. Those matters were not for any woman to be involved with. “Oh, hell, why doesn’t she come back?”

“Could she have gone to her parents?” Dwayne asked, unable to keep a curl from his lips at the mention of the older Paynes.

Cyrus got up and made a call. He didn’t ask outright about Celina but talked around the edges. What were his folks up to this evening? Why? Because he cared about them. So did Celina. She had an odd way of showing it. Why was that? Because she refused to do as her parents told her, and cultivate the Lamars. Well, Cyrus couldn’t speak for Celina on such matters. She was a big girl who could make up her own mind. Why didn’t they speak to her about it the next time they saw her. They intended to do just that.

He hung up. “She’s not there.”

“Could she be dealing with some business?” Dwayne asked.

“Not at this time of night,” Jack told him. “Why did I leave her alone?”

“You can hardly follow her around all the time.”

“Follow her, nothin’,” he said through his gritted teeth. “I’m gοin to tie that girl to me. Or maybe I’ll use handcuffs.”

“Look,” Dwayne said, “we should sit down and get good and drunk. Then, when she gets back, we can manage a real raging row. What d’you say?”

“Sounds kind of good,” Jack told him, but the words felt hollow.

Cyrus gave a forced chuckle. “I hope we’ve got enough booze. I want to be
really
mad at her.”

Jack refilled their glasses, and they perched on chairs, listening for the door and staring at the telephone. He locked at his watch. Nobody laughed anymore.

She smelled the waterfront.

Two men, and she was almost sure there were two, pulled her from the back of the van. They untied her ankles, then each of them held one of her arms and bundled her along roughly enough to cause her to trip repeatedly.

They had driven into a building of some sort. She thought she was right about that because the noises had changed, and when the back doors of the van had opened, she’d heard big doors sliding shut. Like hangar doors. Or warehouse doors.

Α warehouse on the waterfront, or near enough to the waterfront for her to smell it, and hear river sounds.

They walked her onward until she cracked her shins on something metal and choked on her own cry. Promptly the two men hauled her off the ground and swung her forward. Α door with a high metal threshold.

They said nothing to each other, and nothing to her. Not that she could have responded.

She was released.

The air about her changed subtly as people moved. She listened to their footfalls, and strained to hear anything else that might help when—and if—she got away from here.

Had they brought Antoine here?

She trembled inside.

Was he here now?

Would they do the kinds of things to her that they’d done to him?

Was Antoine dead? She believed he must be. And she’d done wrongly by not trying to get help for him regardless of what Rose had said.

Why didn’t they say something?

The hands gripped her arms again, hands that were hard, the fingertips a sharp pressure into her flesh. They moved her inexorably forward. A dank odor rose and permeated the bag over her head. Several times she stumbled, but they held her up and she felt them move her through one area after another.

At last they stopped walking and released her. She made no attempt to move. There was no question of speaking.

To her horror, a length of string or something similar was wrapped around her neck and tied, she presumed to keep the bag in place. She shuddered so violently her teeth drove into the cloth they’d used as a gag, and she retched.

Noises—scuffling, sliding, wood scraping on wood—continued for some time. Then she was lifted again by one man on each side of her. They set her down and she wobbled. Gingerly, she shifted her left foot forward an inch, then backward, and realized she’d been set on top of a stool or short stepladder.

She ached to scream that they were sick, and that she had nothing they wanted, and was no threat to them. Why were they doing this to her?

If she wasn’t very careful she’d fall, something she couldn’t afford to do, especially now. If she ever got away again, she’d take great care of herself, and of her baby. She’d follow Jack’s instructions to the letter.

Jack had insisted that it was dangerous for her to walk about the city alone. Why would he be so certain of that? She’d never had problems before.

A sound like a whip snapping through the air captured her entire attention. A hand descended on her right arm. The man held her steady and shifted her feet a little, making her stance more stable. She’d like to ask him why he was bothering, when he obviously intended to make her suffer.

Another hand ran down her back—and rested on her bottom and squeezed.

Her knees began to buckle. Nausea welled into her throat. They could do whatever they wanted to her.

The hand lingered, then was removed.

One hand settled on the back of her neck, another worked something over her head.

A
noose.

She was standing on some sort of narrow stool, or short ladder with a bag over her head and a noose around her neck. Her hands were tied. Only her feet were unfettered, but if she made the slightest move in the wrong direction, she’d fall... . She’d fall—and hang.

The noose tightened, and pulled until the back of her neck was forced upward.

Cowards. Filthy cowards. One woman who had been easy to pick off in an alley, and they felt they had to terrify her before they killed her.

When one of her tormenters took each of her nipples between finger and thumb and pinched, she screamed low in her throat and barely managed to right herself.

“Cut it out,” a voice said clearly. “Leave her be.”

Confusion overwhelmed her. She was to be dependent on one crook with a conscience, while a pervert was determined to take advantage of her helplessness.

“Nod or shake your head.” The same voice spoke. “You know a man named Antoine.”

She immediately nodded. The more honest she could appear, the better.

“Very well?”

She shook her head.

“But he worked for your boss—Errol Petrie?”

Celina nodded.

“Good. You’re doing just fine.”

Pressure low on her belly passed downward and between her legs. The silent man cupped her mound. Blackness swirled inside her head. He humiliated and hurt her.

“Let it go,” the other man said. “If you’re horny, we’ll make sure you get something real good before the night’s out. I heard of something juicy. Just be patient.”

A grunt was all the acknowledgment this announcement received.

“Celina. Did Antoine come to you and tell you about something he thought he saw one morning early? On the morning after Errol Petrie was killed.”

She shook her head violently.

“Emphatic. Have you been asked that before?”

She nodded, and tried to steady her stance as much as possible. She detested the notion that these men were looking at her when she couldn’t see them, and that she was utterly vulnerable before them.

“Antoine didn’t tell you about someone he thought he saw at the Royal Street house on the morning after Errol died?” She shook her head again.

“Good, good.”

“But his wife, Rose, she came to see you?”

What was she to do? She shook her head slightly.

“Well, now, that sure is commendable. Loyalty while under fire. Want to try that answer again?”

A hand slid inside her top and rose to fondle her breasts. He undid her bra and used both hands to squeeze and push her breasts together.

“Want to try again, Celina?” the voice asked. “Rose came to see you.”

This time she held absolutely still while the beast she couldn’t see handled her with an intimacy that made her feel faint.

“Did Rose tell you Antoine had seen someone that morning?”

She shook her head. The air was cold on her naked breasts, and she realized the one man had lifted her blouse to give his buddy a view.

Please, God, don’t let them rape her.

“Enough!” the voice said. “Give it up
now.
”

She was promptly released. Her blouse covered her again.

“Okay, I believe you. But Rose did come to you, and I’m sure she showed you one or two things. Don’t bother to deny it. She had instructions about what she was to do. She came to you with some show-and-tell. But you haven’t told anyone, have you?”

Celina shook her head no.

“Good, good. My buddy here and I are going to have to give this situation some thought. That will take some time. Meanwhile, you just stand real still, Celina. If you do, and if we decide we can afford to let you go, we’ll be back for you. But if you get careless and fall off that step stool, well .. .
c’est la vie.
Isn’t that what they say?” He fumbled beneath the hood and removed her gag. “Wouldn’t want you choking to death on us. Nο one will hear you anyway.”

Their footsteps retreated.

She swallowed and moistened her chapped lips.

Not a glimmer of light showed through the bag over her head. Her bra had been left undone and rested bunched and uncomfortably taut beneath her breasts. How that kind of man reveled in humiliating people—especially people weaker than himself.

For a long time she heard no sound at all. Then came a sound she wished had stayed away. The scratch and scrabble of rodents. She smelled and felt the dampness. The rodents squealed as they went about their business.

Celina felt the extent of the step with her toes. No bigger than about ten by five inches, and squared off at the edges. Maybe the stepladder was homemade. What if it was weak? What if it broke under her weight .. .

In the distance she heard a clock strike. She couldn’t make out what time it was. Her darkness was utter, her fear overwhelming. Sweat streamed down her body. She braced her feet slightly apart, hoping to steady herself.