something on that order?”
“Naw, I doubt dat. Not da’ kinda gang you mean, anyway. Dere’s more goin’ on here than ya’ think.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Lookit ‘is chest,” he offered, pointing.
Detective Fairbanks pushed his glasses up on his nose and leaned in to look. After a moment of inspection, an intricate pattern became obvious even through the wide swath of dried blood and random burn marks covering the dead man’s skin. The longer he looked, the more it revealed itself, until it formed what appeared to be a crosshatched heart pierced by a long dagger or sword.
“So our killer is a bit of an artist, then?”
Bailey let out another of his trademark whistles. “Cheef, dat’s not jus’ art. Dat dere is a veve. Air-zoo-LEE Don-toe. Whoever done dis did more than jus’ kill dis guy. Dey put a gris-gris on ‘im.”
Fairbanks looked closer at the intricate incisions then leaned back and sighed. Shaking his head he muttered, “Yeah. Okay. I’m definitely gonna need a translator.”
Thursday, December 1
1:12 A.M.
Room 16
Airline Courts Motel
Metairie, Louisiana
CHAPTER 1:
The last time I had been to New Orleans I was with Felicity, and we had come here on vacation… Well, it was actually a working vacation on her part, as she had been hired by an architectural magazine to shoot pictures for an upcoming layout featuring several of the more artful buildings in the city. Still, there had been plenty of time for relaxation, which was more than I could say for my current visit.
Back then, we had stayed at a plush hotel in the French Quarter on someone else’s tab and spent our days doing what amounted to sightseeing, even though my wife had a camera to her eye most of the time. Of course, that wasn’t particularly unusual for her whether she was working or not. It was more or less a by-product of her reputation as one of the top freelance photographers in the country. But, in the end the only real difference between us and the other tourists snapping pictures was that Felicity knew what she was doing and was being well paid to do it.
Me, on the other hand, I was just along for the ride. Still, she didn’t let me off the hook too easily. This meant that I spent a good part of the time playing the role of her pack mule-tirelessly plodding through the streets behind her, toting her padded, lens-laden bags, and at her demand, handing over a freshly loaded camera body or switching out the optics. But, I didn’t mind. We were together, which was the most important thing to me; and besides, I was getting to see the sights with both eyes.
Just as our days were spent wearing down the soles on our walking shoes, our evenings generally consisted of tossing back hurricanes of all varieties. Frozen, on the rocks, in fishbowls…pretty much any way the restaurants and bars served them. Okay, to be honest the hurricanes actually started around midday with a trip to a random bar, but who was watching a clock? This was New Orleans, and that is how things were done in The Quarter.
But, like I said. That was then. This was now, and now was very different-on many levels.
I shook off the memory and gave myself a mental shove back into the here and now, a process easier imagined than done. My brain stumbled a bit, regained its footing in the present but refused to fully surface from the pleasant remembrance. Of course, I’m sure that as much as I needed the normalcy of the thought, it was also being fueled by a simple mnemonic.
Hurricanes.
Hurricanes in a glass…
Hurricanes on the gulf…
I’m certain the residents of the area would agree that the former were certainly preferred to the latter. Especially after the three seemingly back-to-back storms that had so recently rained destruction down upon this magickal city, Katrina being the worst of all.
Even though the sun had already set, gazing out the windows of my rental car as I drove from the airport to my motel in Metairie a few miles outside the city proper, the aftermath had been evident. In fact, the motel itself might have even seen its own share of damage. Looking around, I couldn’t be entirely sure if that was the case or if the Airline Courts had always been in such sad shape.
Storm damage or not, the accommodations certainly wouldn’t garner a rating in the Michelin guide. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that a large amount of work would have been required to simply bring them up to standard with the most basic building codes. However, under the circumstances, I suppose I had no right to complain. The room was mine, and there didn’t appear to be any leaks over the bed. The bathroom was a different story, but I could work around that. I hoped.
Given the short notice, I was actually surprised that I had found a room at all. After my first few calls, it seemed that anything with four walls and a roof was occupied by someone holding a Federal Emergency Management Agency ID card. They had been crawling all over the city in response to the disaster, though if you asked around, the opinion was that they hadn’t arrived soon enough and were accomplishing even less now that they were here.
Upon making it to the Airline Courts however, I was more than just a little amazed that they had accepted a reservation at all. Especially once I saw the sign in the smallish lobby that advertised their hourly rate, as well as individual condoms for a dollar apiece. Of course, profiteering knew no bounds, and the price I was paying for the all but condemned space definitely spoke to that fact.
Again, I shook off the thought and tried to keep my mind from wandering. I was tired. Actually, no, I was exhausted, and on top of everything else that was happening in my life at the moment, I’m sure the fatigue had a lot to do with the sluggishness of my brain. I was fully aware that I was having trouble staying focused, and that was something I couldn’t afford right now. The problem was, whether I could afford it or not, I was too worn out to do anything about it.
I padded over to the side table in the corner and picked up my bottle of water. The mere removal of those few ounces of weight caused the piece of furniture to shift and rock onto one of the back legs, making the lamp that adorned its surface thump against the wall. It was obvious that not only was the rickety hunk of pressboard and chipped laminate unbalanced, but also the room itself wasn’t even close to level. I pressed on the surface of the table with a very slight touch of my fingers. It rocked forward and then back as soon as I removed my hand, causing the tassels-those that remained anyway-on the torn and discolored lampshade to swing back and forth. Why I had bothered with the exercise to begin with I couldn’t say-nervous boredom I suppose or maybe just my mind wandering yet again. Whatever the case, I did it twice more but didn’t find enough amusement in it to continue past that.
As if in reply to the clunk of the lamp, a somewhat spastic thump began against the opposite side of the wall, random at first, then falling into an increasing, though halting, rhythm. It was accompanied by muffled words of encouragement-of the x-rated variety-as well as some thoroughly unconvincing moans.
I glanced at my watch. A few minutes from now the disharmonic symphony would stop, and shortly after that would be punctuated by the sound of the toilet, followed by the room door opening and closing. The flushing toilet would follow that once again, and then the whole process would start over. If I was lucky, there might be fifteen minutes of semi-peace in between.
Of course, there was no mystery at all about what was going on. In fact, my room was probably the only one in the complex not seeing that sort of action tonight, though I’m sure it normally did. It definitely smelled like it.
Letting out a heavy sigh, I looked down at the overpriced bottle of water in my hand, then twisted the cap from it and took a swig. Wandering back around to the end of the bed, I rooted through my carry-on and extracted a container of aspirin. Popping the cap, I poured some into my palm, nudged the excess back into the neck of the
