of what it might be.
He slept the sleep of exhaustion--slept like a dead man, he told himself wryly when he woke up in the middle of the afternoon--but he didn't feel particularly rested. When he showed up at the Brass Pelican after a meal and several cups of strong black coffee, he felt a little better, but the bartender who was working behind the mahogany took one look at him and said, 'Lord, you look like death warmed over, Mr. Parker.'
Longarm rubbed his jaw and said hoarsely, 'Didn't figure I looked that good.'
'You coming down with the grippe? I can fix up a tonic for that.'
Longarm shook his head. 'No, I just... strained my throat, I reckon you could say. It's getting better, but thanks anyway.'
'Well, if you change your mind, just let me know.'
This fella was a lot friendlier than the one who had unlocked the door for Longarm the day before. Of course, the club was open for business now, so that might have had something to do with his helpful attitude. Longarm looked around the big room. There were quite a few customers drinking and gambling, though not nearly as many as there would be later.
He turned back to the bar and said, 'I could use a cup of coffee. And put a dollop of Tom Moore in it.'
'Coming right up, Mr. Parker.'
When he had first gotten up, Longarm had barely been able to talk at all, and swallowing had been hell. But the muscles in his bruised throat had loosened up, and hot coffee seemed to help the soreness. He was only a little hoarse now, and the discomfort was tolerable. It could have been a lot worse.
He could have been dead, like that poor son of a bitch he'd had to shoot.
The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if the fella had been drugged. In the horror of the night before, Longarm hadn't really considered that possibility. It made more sense than believing in voodoo and zombies, though. Longarm recalled seeing Chinese hatchet men who had smoked so much opium that they might not have noticed right away if somebody emptied a Colt into their bellies.
Maybe Royale had sent the gigantic black man after him. Maybe that was just a new weapon in the war against Millard and anybody who worked for him.
Longarm sipped the coffee the bartender brought to him, feeling the bracing effect of the Maryland rye that had been added to it. He turned to the man and asked, 'Where's Mr. Millard? Back in the office?'
The bartender took out his watch and glanced at it. 'He's probably upstairs. He usually takes one of the girls up to his room about this time of day, if you know what I mean.'
Longarm did indeed. Some men liked their loving on a regular schedule.
Carrying the coffee cup, Longarm wandered around the room, watching the players at the poker tables, the blackjack tables, the roulette wheel, and the faro bank. Not a lot of money was changing hands. The really big players, like Paul Clement, usually showed up at night. For a while, he sat down at an empty table and sipped the rest of the coffee, then got up and walked rather aimlessly toward the door that led to the rear hallway. No one challenged him as he slipped through it and headed for Millard's office.
He hoped that Millard was also a man who liked to take his time when bedding a woman, because Longarm intended to have a look in the office and see what he could find.
The corridor was empty. Longarm checked the knob of the office door, and found it unlocked. He rapped lightly on the panel, and when he got no response, opened the door silently and stepped into the office.
The lamp on Millard's desk was turned down low, but it was lit. Longarm didn't know if that meant Millard would be back soon or not. He eased the door shut behind him, then stepped quickly to the desk. Unless he knew better, he was going to assume there was no time to waste.
Longarm had searched desks before, and he made fast work of this one. He found nothing unusual at first, just the typical paperwork that went with any legitimate business. And for New Orleans, the Brass Pelican was a legitimate business. It was Millard's smuggling activities that put him on the wrong side of the law.
Longarm also found a couple of pistols, a Bowie knife, a bottle of cognac like the one he had shared with Millard and the Clements on his first night in the Crescent City, and a smaller bottle of dark brown glass. It had a cork stopper in its neck, and when Longarm pulled it and took a sniff, he recognized the heavy, sweetish smell of laudanum. With a grimace, he replaced the cork and put the bottle back in the drawer where he had found it.
Whatever drug that giant had been full of, it was even stronger than laudanum, thought Longarm.
Under a litter of old lottery tickets in the last drawer he checked, he found a small notebook. Flipping it open, he saw that someone, no doubt Millard, had used it to keep track of shipping activities. The names of ships, departure dates, and destinations had all been written down in a scrawling, looping hand. Longarm turned to the last page where entries had been made. Four ships were listed there, and the date of their departure had been one day before Longarm arrived in New Orleans.
Their destination was listed as Saint Laurent.
Longarm frowned. Saint Laurent was the West Indian island where Annie and Paul Clement lived most of the year, where they had their ancestral sugar plantation. Though Longarm hadn't run across any evidence linking them with Millard's smuggling operation, he could conceive of Millard and Paul Clement joining forces to bring in shiploads of contraband sugar. From what he had seen and heard so far, however, Clement paid the import fees and sold his sugar on the exchange, all open and aboveboard.
Maybe Millard and Clement were smuggling in something else, although for the life of him, Longarm couldn't figure out what it might be. Or maybe Millard was smuggling something into Saint Laurent for the Clements, but again, Longarm had no idea what. And it was always possible that the ships bound for the West Indies had nothing to do with Annie and her brother at all.
Longarm knew he would have to ponder those questions later, maybe do a little poking around down on the docks. For now, he closed the notebook and replaced it under the lottery tickets where he had found it.
Just in time too, because he heard footsteps in the hall and Millard's voice. By the time the club owner opened the door and stepped into the room, Longarm was lounging in the chair in front of the desk, right foot cocked on left knee, one of the Cuban cigars smoldering in his fingers. He looked up and around at Millard, who had stopped short
