KNIGHT'S REPORTS: 3 Book Set (6 page)

He glances at the thing with his good eye. “Yeah, I was just thinking that. You probably would of stuck it up my ass.”

I smile. “You’re really getting to know and love me, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Now, if you try anything stupid,” I say, pulling the seatbelt shoulder strap across my body and snapping it, “especially while not wearing
your
seatbelt, you might just kill yourself.”

The vintage trench knife is actually a set of brass knuckles with a small blade on one end and a long blade on the other. I’ve jammed the small blade into the steering wheel, making the razor sharp, seven-inch end point to the center of Popeye’s chest.

I sniff the air. “Popeye, did you wet yourself?”

“Yeah, yeah — I guess I did.”

I cluck my tongue again. “I’ll bet some of the folks you murdered wet themselves, as well.”

He nods. “And shit themselves, too.”

I frown. “Well, we don’t want that, now do we?”

“No, sir — we don’t.”

“Okay then. Papa Legba? What’s his real name?”

“Don’t know — that’s his real name as far as I know.” He glances at me in the rearview mirror, wide-eyed, obviously wondering if he’s going to get a thump or sprayed for his poor answer.

I smile back. “What about Lance Corporal Billy White Cloud — did you kill him?”

“No, I don’t think so ... I mean, I don’t always know their names.”

I reach across with my cell phone, and he flinches until he realizes I’m not going to thump him. On the cell’s screen, I show him the boy’s photo taken in front of the horn shop.

“The kid with the buzz cut and the guitar,” I tell him.

“No. I didn’t do him. I know the old man and the girl, though. I think they’re going to get popped.”

“Oh yeah, tell me more.”

“The old black dude’s name’s Black Zack. That’s his horn shop
Jazzy Brass
in the picture. The girl’s name is Poodoo, or something like that. They’ve both been nosing around, and Papa Legba doesn’t like it.”

I nod. “So Billy’s still alive?”

“Who?”

“United States Marine Lance Corporal Billy White Cloud — the young man in the picture.”

“Oh, yeah ... uh, I don’t know. I just know I didn’t do him. I’m Legba’s top contractor, but he uses a couple of other locals, too.” Popeye frowns as best he can with one eye popped out. “White Cloud? That name does sound familiar.”

“No shit,” I tell him. With what I’ve put him through so far, I decide to forgive him for his momentary amnesia. “You told me ‘Ms. White Cloud’ asked you to pick me up. That’s Billy’s mother, Tamara. She lives in LA.”

“Yeah, that’s it. I heard Legba on the phone talking to some California boys about doin’ her. She’s probably dead by now. Those Baumgartner brothers are pretty dependable.”

He catches my smile in the mirror. It doesn’t matter what I tell the dumb creep. He isn’t going to set foot out of this car alive.

“Baumgartner brothers, huh? No, actually, she’s just fine.”

“You got ‘em, didn’t you — the contractors?”

“I took care of the Baumgartner boys with both hands tied behind my back,” I tell him.

“I believe you.”

“You should,” I say and let that sink in for a moment. “You know where this horn shop is?”

“Yeah. It’ over in the old
Tremé neighborhood. Lots of bars, horn music and guns.”

“Take me there.”

“You’re the boss.”

I have a thought about Billy’s voicemail. “Who’s Legba in with? Have you ever worked for anyone else in New Orleans?”

“Yeah, I have.”

“Well?”

“Look, please don’t hurt me anymore, but I don’t wanna say.”

“Very wrong answer,” I say and I’m reaching up to give his eyeball a really good whack.

He’s smart enough to know it’s coming, and I let him block my arm.

“Okay, okay ... the sheriff —
Sheriff Jimmie DePue. He’s in with Legba. Legba gives him a cut, and Sheriff DePue makes sure nobody gets in his way. The sheriff usually likes to handle stuff on his own. He says he can make sure there ain’t any loose ends that way. He’s warned me that if I screw up, I could become a loose end.”

“You more afraid of him than me?”

“No, sir. I told you about him, right?”

I say, “Good answer.” He glimpses me in the rearview mirror, and
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Anybody else I need to look out for?”

“Are you kidding? They’re all over the place. Legba and the sheriff both have all kinds of people they’re tied in with. Nothing against you and your obvious abilities, but you go against them —” He cringes and his hand goes up to be ready to block my next move.

I let him keep his defensive posture. “Yes?”

“Well, you’re a dead man — by sheer numbers. Between the two of them, they have like a whole army of killers.”

“Are they as good as you?”

“A few might be. Some could be better.”

“I’m not scared.”

“I didn’t think you would be.”

I ask him, “You’d like me dead, wouldn’t you?”

“If I’ve gotta be honest  ...”

“You do.”

“Yes, I would. If you’d drop dead right now from a heart attack, I could put my eye back in, go to the hospital and get it patched up, and I’d be back in business in no time. And Legba and
Sheriff DePue would be none the wiser. If you live, I’m a dead man.”

I become very solemn. “But you know how this is going to end, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I’ve never been up against anyone like you, mister.”

In the next second, Popeye mashes the accelerator to the floor, twists the steering wheel toward the curb and drives the car directly into the back of a street sweeper.

Chapter
8

Who Do Voodoo?

I was momentarily stunned by the crash, but the passenger airbag and shoulder harness had done their jobs.

I rolled out of the smashed and steaming limo and looked back. John “Popeye” Poppy had catapulted through the windshield past his knees and onto the crunched hood. With a torn airbag around his ankles, and the trench knife buried in his chest, the terror of the last minutes of his life was etched onto his very dead face. Understandably, blood covered his body and most of the hood — and his right eye seemed to be completely missing, now.

A bolt of guilt and remorse flashed through me, but dissipated when I reminded myself of the many women, children and men he’d mercilessly murdered.

I got to my feet and stumbled away from the three or four people who rushed to my assistance with the usual questions, “Are you okay?” “Are you hurt?”

I pulled my bags out from the back seat, wishing I’d packed lighter. After trotting around a corner, I straightened myself up and regained my composure as best I could. The intersection street signs read
Bourbon
and
Saint Ann
. I was in the French Quarter. The sidewalks were far from crowded now, but they would be packed within a few hours.

As police sirens wailed in the distance. A tall, muscular woman wearing a sequin-covered bathing suit and a gold hat with brightly colored plumes walked by
as I tucked in my shirt.

Her voice was
too deep
, but oddly feminine. “Mmmm, may I help you with that?”

Caught with my hand down my pants, I smiled cordially, turned and stepped quickly into the corner shop:
Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo
.

Police cars pulled up outside, and I was too busy watching out to
watch out
. I ran through a strange cloud of orange dust just inside the doorway, but had the presence of mind to hold my breath. Still, I’d drawn a small amount of the acrid powder into my lungs. I winced and coughed, then bumped into a lovely black lady with two large shopping bags on the floor beside her.

“Well, my-my,” she said with a Cajun accent, “look’t this. What the Good Lord done shoved inta m’lap?”

After taking my forearms, she inspected me as she ran her hands down to my palms.

She wasn’t wearing anything more flamboyant than a bright yellow sundress, and her voice was a high soprano — putting me somewhat at ease.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said, smiling back at her. And she looked up.

Her eyes were as black as the deepest pit. “No trouble, no trouble. But y’seem t’be lookin’ y’way outa some trouble y’own.”

“I’m trying to find a horn shop called
Jazzy Brass
,” I said. “Do you know where it is?”

“I surely do,” she said. “An’ I’m walkin’ by it directly. Ten, twelve blocks. You a’foot, sir?” She glanced out the side window of the shop where the crashed limo was still steaming, and Popeye still lay on the hood.

Although it sounded like a considerable walk, I realized the woman was my ticket out of the mess, at least temporarily. “I’m a’foot, now.”

“Well, then, c’folla me! I could use some han’some male comp’ny.”

I swung one of my bags around to my uninjured right shoulder, looping my arm through a shoulder strap, then I picked up one of the lady’s bags. “I’m E Z,” I told her. “May I?”

Her grin was huge and she showed the loveliest white teeth. “Why, y’cert’nly
are
... ‘n y’cert’nly
may
!”

We went out the door, her holding the second shopping bag in one hand and my arm in the other. With police arriving, people seemed to gather out of nowhere. We turned away from the intersection.

As we walked from the busying scene, the woman on my arm said, “I am Marie Paris Dumesnil de Glapion — n’ I’m very pleased t’make y’acquaint’nce.”

“The pleasure is mine, believe me.”

“Mr. E Z — ”

“Just E Z, please.”

“Well a’right then, E Z. Y’b’liever o’fate o’ coincidence?”

Oddly, I felt a chill on the warm midmorning. It shot all the way up to the back of my head. “A little of both, I suppose.”

“Good. ‘Cause this ‘ere’s fate. Y’bumpin’ int’me, the right time, the right place. An’ here w’are,
Jazzy Brass
.

I glanced about us. The noise, the police sirens, the people on the sidewalks were all gone. The Marie Lavaue shop was nowhere in sight. We’d only been walking fifteen seconds, at most.

She pointed. “There, cata-cornah.”

Across the small intersection, I saw the horn shop from the photos.

Suddenly, her face was before me, eyes wide, and she gave another toothy grin — beautiful, pearly and straight teeth. For an instant, I was entranced. But the spell was broken when I felt a scratch on the back of my hand and a pinch on the side of my head.

The words “
we’ll meet again
” came whispered on a breeze.

I felt a chill again, this time fleeting, running
down
my backbone as if something was leaving me. When I took a second look about, the lovely black woman was gone.

Glancing at my hand, I noticed that something very sharp had cut across my bag’s shoulder strap and barely nicked my skin. Then I found myself staring at the
Jazzy Brass
horn shop.

My bags lay beside me, a chicken feather stuck into one of them. When I checked the back of my hand again, I found a very tiny, raised welt — but there was no blood. I suspected the miniscule wound was caused by the woman’s fingernail.

Looking back at the little shop, it seemed somewhat crooked, out of kilter. Even the street lamp beside it was twisted and bent. Overhead, the heavy grey clouds had cleared, and wisps of white rushed over a bright blue mantle. I could actually see the sun trekking across the sky.

“Oh, shit!” I said to myself.
I’ve been drugged.

Chapter
9

Black Zack's Brassy Jazz

The front door of the horn shop was wide open, and large blow flies buzzed inside in the shaded, cooler air.

When I stepped in, my eyes took time to adjust — too long. I still felt the effects of some kind of hallucinogenic I’d been subjected to in either the orange dust at the Voodoo shop, or from the scratch on the back of my hand — or both. And I was pretty sure
both
had come from the same source, the mysterious woman in the yellow sundress, Marie Paris Dumesnil de Glapion.

I moved cautiously through the cluttered shop to the counter at the far wall. Billie Holiday sang “Strange Fruit” in the background from scratchy vinyl that didn’t do “Lady Day” justice. Still the music and lyrics about lynchings in the Old South were haunting.

A lone fan blew the stale but cooler air as it oscillated lazily. Figuring the proprietor or his help might be in a back room, I eased around the end of the counter toward a closed interior side door.

Still difficult to see through the clutter and shadows around me, I had an uneasy feeling about this place. Perhaps Lance Corporal Billy White Cloud was here. Perhaps I would find him tied up in the back. Perhaps I’d find him dead, stuffed into an old crate.

Bright yellow eyes suddenly appeared in the dark aisle before me, staring from a couple feet above the floor. It told me two things: I was still very much under the influence of some sort of mind-altering drug, and a malevolent force, that I was in no condition to fight, blocked me from going any farther. The thing gave a warning growl and stepped from the shadow. It was huge, wide as a horse and its coat was ablaze.

Suddenly it came at me, and when it opened its mouth, all I saw were huge teeth.

In the same instant a shout came from the open doorway, “El-lah!” something hard hit me on the back of the head.

With the clash of a gong, I passed out.

*   *   *

I awoke with something warm and wet rubbing across my mouth.

The thing staring me face-to-face was covered in golden brown fur, had long, floppy ears and a tongue that seemed to be at least three feet long. Between licks, its huge eyes watched me, curiously.

“Well, y’two jis’ hit it off right away, din’t ya?”

I struggled to see from where the deep voice came. Slowly my world came into focus, and I realized I was on the floor. The large bell end of a tuba lay on one side of me, and a wide but happily tail-wagging golden retriever on the other side.

The large black man from the photo stood above.

“Black Zack?”

“That’s whad they’s calls me — sides udda things.”

“You’re in danger,” I told him, my words coming out weaker than I’d intended.

“She-it, boy! Don’t y’think, I knows’t?” He chuckled. “Why else I’d put that tuba upside y’head? Thought y’was one o’ ‘em.” He patted his dog. “Ol’ Ella Fitzgerald ‘ere know’d bettah, first. She come a’lickin’ on ya, an’ I r’lize m’mistake.” He gave a high-pitched, Walter Brennan-like laugh. “You’s fire-breathah on the countah, there.”

I sat slowly, rubbing the knot on the back of my head, and saw John Poppy’s Mach 10 where Zack had motioned.

I checked my pocket. “Where’s my cell phone?”

“Don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout no cell phone. I don’t bother with ‘em.”

Marie musta taken it.

“My wallet?”

“Nex’ to the fire-breathah.”

He turned away to raise several window blinds and turn on lights. Through the dust motes in the sunshine, the room full of shiny brass instruments came to life.

“Where’s Billy — Billy White Cloud? Is he okay?”

“Now that’s the six’y-fo’ dolla’ question.”

“We need to find him.”

“Now y’talkin’!” he said. “Let’s he’p y’up.” He held out a big, weathered hand.

After assisting me over to a stool at the counter, he went to a small refrigerator, pulled out a bag of frozen vegetables and then slapped it onto the back of my neck.

“There, boy — hope tha’ makes up fo’ the bell-ringin’ I give ya.”

I held the bag to my head. “It does.”

“Wha’s the plan?”

“I hoped
you
had one.”

“Wull, near’s I ca’tell, young Billy’s down’n the Honey Island Swamp, somewheres. Don’t knows where, ‘xac’ly. He done tol’ me tha’s where those missin’ kids gone. Say a sheriff’s dep’ty come by to enlis’ in the Ma-rines. Wanted t’get ‘way — t’save ‘is ass. Tol’ him ‘bout those kids bein’ ‘napped an’ Sheriff DePue was in the middle o’ it. Say couldn’t trus’ nobody — Sheriff had people everwheres. Then, nex’ mornin’ that dep’ty turned up dead.”

“Missing kids?”

“Yessah. There been dozens gone amissin’ o’er the las’ few weeks — pro’ly nea’ fi’ty o’so. Ain’ seed nuttin like’t ‘n all m’six’y-nine ye-a’s.” He held his chin for a moment. “How ‘bout w’go an’ take a drive-by, look see we cain’t find young Billy. I knows some people, knows some people, mi’ know.”

I nodded and stood with the frozen veggies clenched to my head. “Let’s go.”

After another Walter Brennan laugh, he went back to pull the shades and lock the front door. He turned the sign on the glass pane over to
closed
.

“Now Ella Fitzgerald, you’s gonna stay righ’ ‘ere ‘till we get back. An’ don’t ya be havin’ them lil’ yappers afore our r’turn
,
mon chéri!”