Red Beans and Vice (10 page)

“No wonder the cross is gone and termites ate half the staircase,” Mary said disapprovingly.

“Mary, what’s the deal with the herb garden?” They walked toward the river side of the courtyard, where the retaining wall was embedded with bas reliefs of saints. The sky was a gorgeous shade of blue. The sound of ship horns blaring on the river carried throughout this side of the Quarter.

“Oh, honey, the herb garden is part of New Orleans history. Part of the contract between the Company of the Indies and the sisters was that they’d plant an herb garden. Sister Xavier Herbert was the first woman pharmacist in North America and it was her garden. Course then it was across the street. The sisters had a big piece of the Quarter at the time. They had livestock and a vegetable garden and all.” Mary bent down to pull off a twig of rosemary and held it to her nose. “What will you use? What are you fixing, by the way?”

“Two appetizers and a dessert I named Nola Pie. I’m going to make seasoned rice cakes and put a thin slice of tasso ham on top, tiny cakes for passing. I’m calling them Trinity rice cakes, named after the sisters and the trinity that’s the base of so many Cajun dishes: diced
onion, celery, and green pepper, which I’ll use with the rice. I can use an herb in the mixture so I thought we’d see what’s here.” Heaven started walking slowly down the brick path. The beds were full of green plants, with climbing roses planted behind them going up the back wall. “Lemon verbena, a bunch of different basils, thyme, lavender.” Heaven read off the signs stuck in the ground next to the plants. She bent down and picked a mint leaf from a large bed of mint and stuck it in her mouth. Quickly she spit it back out. “Yuk, something’s wrong.” She picked another sprig of mint and held it to her nose. “Let me smell that,” she said as she took the rosemary out of Mary’s hand. There was an acrid smell about both herbs. “Does this smell funny to you?”

“It’s not quite the way rosemary usually smells. Can something smell bitter or is that just a taste thing? Heaven, what’s the matter?”

Heaven bent over and retraced her steps down the row of plants, peering intently at each herb. “Do you know anything about gardening?”

“I’m a Southern wife. Of course.”

Heaven pointed at something on the ground near the lavender bush. “What’s that?”

Mary looked down. There were small, light-colored granules on the ground. “Something that shouldn’t be here. I think it’s a combination weed killer and insecticide.”

Heaven turned and walked rapidly over to the side of the convent where an old stable was used for maintenance. There were several large trash cans with lids. Heaven jerked off the first lid and started poking gingerly at the trash. ‘You’d think this outfit would have a Dumps ter. Mary, start looking for the weed killer.”

“You don’t need a Dumpster in the French Quarter, Heaven. They pick up the trash twice a day.”

“And people still complain about the smell.” Heaven pulled out a round canister and looked at the label. “Would ‘Bug Be Gone’ be it?” she asked Mary.

Mary took the canister and read quickly. “Yes, but you would never use this product around things you were going to eat.”

“And why is that?” Heaven asked.

“Because it’s a systemic insecticide. You sprinkle it on the ground and it’s absorbed into the root system of the plant when you water. Then the plant becomes poisonous and when the bugs eat it, they die.”

“My point exactly,” Heaven said grimly.

“H
eaven, I remain convinced this is sheer incompetency, not another part of the vast plot against the Sisters of the Holy Trinity.” Will Tibbetts was starting to piss Heaven off with his antiplot stance.

Truely, Mary, Will and Heaven had met at Napoleon House as planned, then gone around the corner to Emeril’s French Quarter restaurant, NOLA, for dinner. They were drinking their second bottle of Burgundy and arguing over the herb garden situation.

“How can you say that?” Heaven retorted hotly. “The herbs are a crucial part in the story of the sisters. It would be a natural place to attack them. And now, none of the herbs can be used. In fact, the whole herb garden has to be dug up and the soil replaced before they can replant. And what if I hadn’t gone over there? Every dish at that party would have contained contaminated herbs. Everyone would have gotten sick as a dog.”

“You don’t think any other hotshot chef would have
noticed the bug killer when they went to pick herbs?” Will shot back.

Mary shook her head. “The gardens have watering systems in the ground. The caretaker said that the riverside gardens are watered in the evening, the streetside courtyard in the morning. If we hadn’t been there right then, the stuff would have dissolved and probably wouldn’t have been detected. There was a funny smell, but it probably would have faded when the granules dissolved.”

Truely held up his hand. “Normally I wouldn’t do this, but I’m gonna have to side with the girls on this one, Will, ol’ buddy.”

The two women didn’t even give him shit for calling them girls. They both gave Will a thumbs up and high-fived each other across the table. “If this were the first incident over at the convent I might be able to back you,” Truely continued. “But having this convenient accident with the herbs just before the big dinner?”

“All right, I know when I’m outnumbered,” Will said, holding up both hands in a defensive position. “Just for that, I’ll pay for dinner.” The other three diners clapped.

Heaven stood up. “I hate to break this up, but for the next two days, I actually have to work. They have volunteers to help us, but still. Four hundred people is quite a few to feed. I’m going back to my hotel and my legal pad and my lists. Will you check on me tomorrow at Peristyle?”

“Yes,” Will said, even though Heaven was looking at Mary. “Are you sure, in these uncertain times, that you don’t need an escort back to your hotel?” he offered slyly.

Heaven pinched his cheek. “No way. Mary, Truely, it’s
been a joy. You too, big boy. It’s my turn to pay next.” She hurried out onto St. Louis Street and turned onto Chartres.

The sweet scent of magnolias filled the air, mixed with the aroma of fried fish from Johnny’s Po-Boy down St. Louis. Music drifted out of bar doorways; laughing troops of conventioneers passed Heaven on their way to the next drink. When she reached Jackson Square, she turned and headed toward the river. The square, scene of artists and fortune-tellers, pick-up brass bands and fire eaters during the day, was quiet at night, the gates of the park itself closed, the streets sparsely littered with bits and pieces of debris from the thousands of tourists that passed by there daily. Heaven was surprised it didn’t look worse.

The prospect of going back to her hotel room actually didn’t appeal to Heaven. She was upset and elated at the same time due to the incident at the convent. She was glad they had thwarted the herb garden scheme, but worried about the next crisis.

Why wouldn’t anyone consider the idea of canceling the dinner? She had brought it up again tonight and the other three, Truely, Mary and Will, looked at her like she was crazy. New Orleanians have never let adversity keep them from a good meal, they told her.

Heaven crossed over Dumaine, walking by Café Du Monde, full as always with coffee drinkers and beignet eaters. She went up the ramp to Artillery Park, then down the steps on the other side, across the streetcar tracks to the Moonwalk. She walked a short distance in the direction of Canal Street and found an empty bench.

Heaven was pleasantly surprised at how many people were walking by the river. Many were couples, romantically
entwined. She tried to forget about problems she couldn’t do anything about and watched the Mississippi River flow by for a while. A giant freighter moved silently upstream in the night. Heaven caught a snatch of conversation coming from the darkened deck in a tongue she didn’t understand or recognize. Someone turned a lantern on and off, the silhouette of a crew member appearing and disappearing. The hulk slid by. Heaven wondered if it was a Greek ship, or maybe Swedish. She was imagining a life cooking for sailors as her friend and employee, Sara Baxter, had done in her youth.

All of a sudden, she was jerked back to her body, adrenaline pumping. Someone was trying to strangle her. A piece of cloth, a pillowcase or a tee shirt, had been slipped over her head.

Heaven was borderline claustrophobic. She grabbed at her neck, trying to pull the piece of cloth loose. So far her attacker had done nothing but grunt. Heaven found a wrist and dug her nails into it, such as they were. Cooks had short nails. Now a male voice hissed near her ear. “Listen to me, bitch. Don’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong or you’ll be sorry. Why don’t you go back where you came from.”

Two things happened next. Heaven started to scream and even through the cloth over her head she let out a pretty blood-curdling cry. Then two German tourists who were actually jogging down the Moonwalk at eleven at night must have seen what Heaven couldn’t see because they started yelling in a mixture of English and German, “Get away from her” being the idea they were trying to get across. With the noise coming from all sides, Heaven’s attacker let up the pressure on her neck for a second. Heaven threw off the makeshift hood,
turned and ran for the streetcar tracks, all in one motion. She didn’t take time to look back and see who had done this to her. The attacker’s voice was still ringing in her ear and it wasn’t familiar.

The riverfront streetcar ran back and forth from the French Quarter to the Riverwalk shopping mall. Heaven had never ridden it because she liked the walk, but a streetcar was coming from the lower Quarter and Heaven beat it across the tracks and hopped on, along with seven or eight other passengers. She had a small evening bag with her and fished out the $1.50 to ride. Only then did she look out the open sides of the car toward the river. The streetcar took off as a man came jogging toward it, following in Heaven’s footsteps. Heaven knew he was the one. She couldn’t see much, a white guy with dark hair.

Why she got on the streetcar instead of running over to Café Du Monde she had no idea. Her heart was pounding. She couldn’t think straight. She wanted to put space between her and the attacker but maybe going to a public place and calling the police would have been a better bet. Was this the same person who had defaced the convent and all the rest? What else had Heaven stuck her nose in? The scene at the coffee warehouse popped into her head. But this wasn’t the big man that she’d seen there and technically she hadn’t really interfered in Truely’s business. She’d only asked a couple of questions about Truely’s business, inquiring innocently to Will, Truely’s best friend. Heaven peered into the darkness behind the streetcar but her pursuer was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he’d given up on following and was taking a shortcut. A guy in reasonable condition could run down to the end of the line as fast
as the car traveled, what with the stops. The car slowed down and they were at Riverwalk.

Heaven walked rapidly toward the doors of the shopping mall. They were locked tight, of course. “What an idiot,” she said aloud to herself. She hadn’t worn a watch to dinner and hadn’t thought about how late it was. She hadn’t taken her cell phone with her to dinner. “I’m totally unprepared for this,” she muttered and looked around. She needed to get away from the front of the closed mall. It was fairly dark. But, she tried to tell herself, the chances of the guy having followed her were slim. After all, he had delivered his message. Also, even if someone wasn’t chasing her, she shouldn’t be standing around in the shadows of a locked shopping mall.

All of sudden, from the river side of the big building, Heaven saw him appear. He was jogging, not running, and he spotted her but didn’t increase his speed. If the distance was straightened out, he was still more than a block away. Heaven turned away from the direction he was coming and started across the street. She spotted the big casino, Harrah’s, on the other corner. “Perfect,” she said, and ran into the sparkling gambling emporium as fast as she could.

Heaven went looking for the security office, then thought better of it. No one would make a scene in a casino. An assault here would be met with zero tolerance. Heaven spent a few minutes lurking around the front door waiting to see her attacker enter and then realized there were entrances on other streets. He could already be in the building, could have already spotted her, could be making his way toward her right now.

She looked around nervously and walked into the
ocean of slot machines, bought a roll of quarters and sat down in front of a Triple Wild Cherry slot to think.

The blinking, ringing, chinking, the soundtrack of the casino, was soothing to Heaven. She put quarters in the machine automatically and won a few back. Maybe, if she just stayed there a few more minutes and didn’t see the bad guy, she’d get a taxi back to her hotel and the whole thing would be over. The cheery bell told Heaven she’d won again, and this time twenty or thirty dollars worth of quarters must have poured down in the trough. She put them in one of the plastic cups stacked by the side of the slot machine and walked over to another set of machines.

That’s when she realized she should have kept moving from the very beginning. Her red hair made her easy to spot. She sat facing a different direction, her eyes scanning. Another five minutes went by and Heaven was beginning to breath normally. She would just get up and go to the Poydras Street entrance to the casino and get a cab. It would be easy. She shoveled as many quarters as she could in her small purse, leaving the rest next to a slot machine.

At that moment, her attacker appeared on the false horizon of slot machine tops. He was in another room coming her way, moving his head slowly from side to side, like a robotic surveillance camera in a convenience store. Heaven hadn’t seen him except at a distance in the dark, but there was no question in her mind that it was him. He was shorter than he’d seemed up close, more compact.

She shrank down, hoping he wouldn’t see her hair. Maybe he didn’t even know she had red hair. It had been fairly dark by the river. But he must have followed
her to the Moonwalk. He didn’t just go up to the first park bench he passed and tell the woman sitting there to stop being nosy while strangling her. When had he started following her? When she left the convent? The restaurant?