Haunting Melody (24 page)

The entire time Anna’d been reciting from the
book, the creeps in the robes and loincloths were depositing their
knives on the ground in front of them, then bringing the goodies on
their trays to the altar and dumping them beside Denise. They
proceeded to writhe around the altar in an awful parody of a slow
square dance gone berserk. Every few seconds one of the men would
scoop up a loose bouquet of lotus blossoms and toss them over
Denise and Nevin like flower girls sashaying down an aisle at a
wedding.

The whole procedure was so ridiculous it
started to be comical. The silliness subsided quickly when I heard
Anna utter the next line.

“He has taken the woman by force, destroying
all who oppose him and pronounced her his wife and their child the
child of Atem and Hathor as befitting their place on this
earth.”

Force? Not nice. Even less nice was seeing
Ptah Junior discard his own white robe and stand in front of the
altar in a loincloth. I doubted that Jockey’s were underneath the
gold fabric that reached to the middle of his thighs. I expected
that cloth to soon end up in the hands of the ex-madam while this
maniac climbed onto the altar to do what Anna’s clients do on a
nightly basis. Until I’d wrecked their playground by lighting a
match.

Briley and Frank’s faces had gone white. I
knew they were envisioning the same horror.

“Enough!”

Frank shouted, threw off the burlap
tablecloth, stood and toppled the table to the floor. Briley and I
jumped up with him. All three of us charged to the front of the
tent as the startled guards hurried to retrieve their knives.
Curses and screams sounded from a furious Madam Anna.

Briley tackled a goon who was weaponless, but
determined. The pair of them went sailing past the altar to land on
the ground and start a serious wrestling match. Frank headed for
one of the bearded, masked males whose knife had stayed neatly in
the band around his waist. He didn’t waste time on pleasantries.
Briley’s big brother just ran up and socked him right in the nose.
Blood spattered on the ground, on Frank, and on the altar.

I had smaller, but meaner fish to fry. Anna.
She’d threatened me with a crossbow. She’d dislodged an arrow from
that weapon that missed my throat by inches. She’d slapped me -
twice. She’d sent in the disgusting ape George to rape me. She’d
been nasty to Denise and Nevin and conspired with her brother to
force Denise into a sick ceremony. Finally she – and possibly her
brother as well - had watched while Briley and I exchanged very
passionate kisses. She wanted to make Briley her own private
gigilo. My dislike for the woman had been fueled into a hunka hunka
burnin’ hate.

I grabbed Anna and socked her in the jaw,
which at least shut her up for a moment. She tried to kick me in
the shin but I saw it coming and whirled around in time to avoid
any real harm. What happened next was nothing short of a good
old-fashioned cat fight. The pair of us tumbled to the ground and
wrestled with one another, pulling hair, scratching, and
clawing.

Anna almost got the upper hand when she tried
to bite my elbow, but I was bigger and stronger and faster and
managed to not only keep my arms from her teeth but get in a good
blow to her stomach. She lunged back with surprising strength and
punched my chest, which enabled her to get to her feet and haul it
toward the knife pile the guards had left less than a yard away
from this impromptu boxing ring. Neither Briley nor Frank was in a
position to help me. The sound of cracking bone and shattering
teeth coming from their direction made me shudder. I prayed that
neither McShan would be hurt.

Two of the disciples of Ptah Junior ran off.
They were limping, so they weren’t speedy about the retreat, but as
long as that retreat narrowed the numbers of the bad guy’s forces I
was happy. Briley started after one of them, but was thrown to the
ground by a larger masked man. Frank then delivered what must have
been a whale of a painful hit to the white-robed man who’d been
guarding Denise and Nevin. The man now lay unconscious. Frank made
sure he’d stay that way by delivering a kick to the side of his
head.

I quickly focused back on my own situation.
Anna had retrieved the discarded knife. She faced me and we circled
one another until her back was to the altar. I tripped over the
robe Ptah Junior had thrown to the side of the altar and landed on
the ground, hitting my head enough to make me dizzy. I’d just given
Anna an instant upper hand. She grabbed my wrist then raised the
knife. I could see no way to escape.

I prayed that Fiona Belle would suddenly
appear with any music from any time and whisk me any place that
wasn’t here.

I closed my eyes, expecting that blade to go
slicing into my chest. Nothing happened. I opened my eyes and
watched Anna slide to the ground. A grinning Nevin Dupre stood on
the altar above her holding the large black book in his two small
hands.

“Nasty lady.”

I sat up. “She is indeed. Hi, Nevin.”

“Allo, Mel-o-de I knew you’d come and get
Maman et moi! I keep telling zem but zey not believe me.”

He jumped off the altar right into my arms.
Briley and Frank quit pummeling the last thug then ran over to
participate in the reunion.

As soon as the McShan boys left the so-called
guards unattended, the cowardly goons ran away. Ptah Junior had
long since made his getaway at the very beginning of this
short-lived battle. Anna was under our control. The fact that the
other miscreants were now loose to hunt any or all of us again
didn’t occur to us then. A mistake.

None of us cared. We’d saved Denise and
Nevin. That was all that mattered, at least for the moment. Denise
opened her eyes and gazed at me holding her son in a tight hug. She
was obviously still quite groggy but as her focus cleared, she
turned and saw Briley, then Frank.

She shook her head. “I am dreaming, no?”

“Denise, it’s Melody. Remember? From the
Follies?”

“Oui! Melody? Where am I? Nevin! Ou es tu!
”

Nevin squirmed out of my arms to climb up
onto the altar and gently kiss his mother’s cheek. “Je suis bon,
Maman. Mel-o-dee and Briley and other nice man sent those awful
people away. ‘cept her.”

He pointed to the ground where Anna lay
still. Breathing but still. Nevin proudly declared, “I conk her
myself!”

Denise was staring at Frank, looking at him,
then at Briley, then back. “I must be dreaming after all. This is
not possible, n’est pas?”

Frank took her hand. “It’s very possible,
Mrs. Dupre. I’m Frank. Frank McShan. You helped nurse me to health
back in France. Remember?”

“But this is . . .” She looked around. “Where
is this?”

I smiled and gently stated, “Memphis,
Tennessee. My hometown, I’m kind of sorry to say, since the clowns
that kidnapped y’all brought you here for, uh, evil doin's so to
speak.”

She shook her head. “Je ne comprends pas. We
drove down in auto and that ‘orrible Anna says what honor I ‘ave
soon becoming the bride of some god. My English is not perfect yet
but nothing make sense to me.”

Briley growled, “Just as well. Let’s simply
say you were in danger of playing a large role in a stupid, evil
ceremony and leave it at that for now, okay?”

Denise took the hand Frank extended then
gracefully stepped down from what looked like would have been the
conjugal altar.

She smiled tentatively. It was apparent she
was choking back tears. “I sure zere ees more, but I wait to hear
it. I want now to hear how Monsieur Frank McShan came to be part of
thees brave band of rescuers!”

Briley was in the middle of tying up Madam
Anna with strips of Ptah Junior’s purple robe and stuffing a rag
into her mouth. He grinned. “Let’s let Frank tell you on the ride
back.”

Frank nodded. He hadn’t taken his eyes off
Denise.

Anna stirred and moaned. She opened her eyes
and glared at the group surrounding her. If Briley hadn’t forced
her into silence by means of the makeshift gag, Anna doubtless
would have been giving us all an education in Egyptian
obscenities.

I growled at her. “Not so elegant now, are
you, you crazy slut. Playing Peeping Tom behind mirrors trying to
get off on watching. Lusting after my - uh- lusting after men who
aren't interested in you.”

Briley winked at me. Then he hoisted Anna to
her feet as we prepared to leave the tent and head back to the car
to drive to the police station. Cops might have been able to turn
blind eyes to this lady’s house of prostitution, but with Denise
ready to swear out a complaint of kidnapping, the Memphis police
had to listen and act.

Frank took Denise’s hand in his. We all
walked in silence to the back of the tent. Frank lifted the flap
then stepped into the open air with Denise by his side. Briley
pushed Anna forward. I brought up the rear, letting Nevin ride
piggyback.

I inhaled the heat of the night, thankful to
be sniffing scents of grass and dirt and even the fumes wafting
from one of the lumber mills a few miles down the road. I never
wanted to be around the sickening odor of lotus blossoms again.
Though if we were smart and fast enough we could probably track
down the disappearing guards and leader of this group by using our
noses.

We got all the way to the Flynn truck before
we noticed the man standing by its side, talking to the boy we’d
left in charge. He turned and waved his arms. It was too dark to
see much but the voice was instantly recognizable when he called
out, “You found them! And I missed it! Damnation!”

Izzy.

Briley grunted. I couldn’t tell if this was a
response to the appearance of the reporter or because Anna had used
her unbound foot to kick him. He lifted her higher and carried her
like a sack of dirt over to the truck, then let her fall into the
passenger seat without bothering to ease the drop. Once she was
safely in the truck, he turned and faced Izzy.

“How in blazes did you get out here? No wait,
that’s not the question I want to ask. I really don’t care if you
stole a car or took a trolley or rode in on a white stallion or the
naked lion these creeps stripped. Let me rephrase. Why are you
here?”

Izzy stated nonchalantly, “You are all so
preditable and trusting. I filed my story last evening, secured a
room at the Peabody, which is a lovely hotel, by the way, then
waited outside Melody’s relatives’ house late this afternoon until
I saw you emerge. And what a sight! Frank! Great to see you again!
I’d love to get your story after I get the full scoop on whatever
just occurred in that tent. Anyway, I’m afraid I couldn’t get
transportation soon enough to allow me to take part in the battle.
But I did get to see the bruised and battered bearded gentlemen
come racing out and head over to a truck not nearly as nice as this
one.”

He patted the 1915 Model T.

Briley sighed. “For a man who writes as much
as you do, you certainly talk a lot without really imparting
information. You didn’t happen to see where the man in the bull
mask went, did you? He’s the leader of this cult or crazy society
or religious sect.”

Izzy shook his head. “Sorry. I ducked down
under the truck as soon as I saw trouble headed my way. I had no
desire to tangle with any of the guys who came racing by. They were
huge, angry, and scary.”

I glared at Izzy. “Way to go, Mr.
Johnny-on-the-spot for every bad thing happening. We could have
used a hand grabbing him.”

Izzy looked crushed. “Melody. I’m a writer.
Not a fighter And it wasn’t a ‘him.’ It was many big ‘thems’.” He
smiled. “I do kind of I have a knack for showing up in time to get
great scoops but not personally getting involved in the
action.”

I smirked at him. “Well, I hope this scoop at
least gets you a better job.”

His face grew somber and I caught a glimpse
of an Izzy I’d never seen before. One who cared. “It will. But I
promise all of you this. I may dress like a refugee from a charity
house and I may laugh off events such as cathouses burning to the
ground. Casting that aside, I’m a damned good reporter and I will
get to the bottom of whoever killed Francesca, kidnapped Denise and
Nevin, and is behind this god-awful cult. Bastard. Pardon me,
ladies.”

Briley nodded to Izzy and motioned back to
the truck. “In that case, Isaac, hop in. You’ll get a great story
on the way to the police station.”

Izzy brightened. “I accept the ride and the
tale. Did I mention I have some good news?”

I glanced at him. “Which is?”

“Remember, there were two other chorines who
vanished last spring? Well, lo and behold, in the midst of the
charred ruins of Madam Anna’s house of pleasure, two young ladies
appeared who were quite anxious to tell their story to the police.
They’re on their way back to New York via the midnight train.”

Briley whooped. “Praise be! Though I’m
curious as to how they got the cash to return to Manhattan so
fast.”

Izzy stared at the ground. “I’m aware of your
intense dislike of Steve Clow and the Brevities rag, but since we’d
reported on their disappearance I telephoned him to give him the
scoop they were safe. Clow immediately wired enough cash for the
girls’ fare home.”

Briley asked, “With an exclusive of their
stories to Broadway Brevities, no doubt?”

Izzy grinned. “Yes, but I’m the one who’ll
write it. I promised to be discreet and tactful about the whole
experience.”

All of us piled into the truck. Anna, gagged
and tied up, and Briley, as chauffeur, were the only ones who
didn’t have to share space. I held Nevin, Frank held Denise, and
Izzy held on to the running board on the side, shouting questions
as we made the trip to downtown Memphis. It was slow, hot, and
cramped, and one of the best rides I’d ever taken.