She shook her head. “Poor Broker. Standing there thinking you’re touching bottom.”
“No. I was recently disabused of that illusion,” he said.
“Then you know you’re standing on a dying man’s shoulders.”
“Jimmy Tuna,” said Broker.
She nodded. “When Jimmy goes, so do you, and so does young Nina Pryce.” You could bury empires in Lola’s sad, empty eyes.
“You have any suggestions?” asked Broker.
She said, “I’ve been married to Cyrus LaPorte for fifteen years and this house is full of lies I raised from infancy. I suggest you start telling somebody the truth.”
Broker met her gaze. He stood far from home, on alien ground, surrounded by whips, skulls, twisted antlers, and an eight-foot-tall, one-armed pirate.
31
Lola left the desk, turned her back on him, and walked to the window, where she gazed down on the wedding crowd. “I wonder if she has any idea what she’s getting into?” she mused.
“You calling me a liar?” Broker enunciated.
She faced about, leaned back on the windowsill, and the gauzy curtains enfolded her like embroidered wings. “Hardly. I’m calling you
They stared at each other for a full minute.
She continued. “Honest and I’d say pretty dumb. You’re way off your beat. This is New Orleans and you’re messing with Cyrus LaPorte. You can disappear like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And the sewers wouldn’t even belch.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Broker. “Looks to me like the palace guard is down to one coked-up kid making sure nobody steals the stairs. And I’ve got the general’s pet creep in a jail up north. Am I missing anything?”
She leaned back. “Ah, you mean the boys. The boys are in sunny Vietnam, diving and watching over the boat.”
“That leaves one naked general.”
Lola inclined her head. “Really.”
Broker stared, pointed at the safe, waited a moment and said, “How’s the addition so far?”
She walked in the direction of his eyes, stopped and traced the circle of the bullwhip on the wall. Her finger traveled down the suspended lash and touched the top of the safe. “Are you really that bold, Mr. Broker?”
“How alone are we? What about the punk on the stairs?” he asked.
“Virgil Fret,” she said with distaste, “is driving Cyrus across town to commit adultery with some bimbo milkmaid.”
“There’s lawyers. This thing called divorce.”
“Cyrus is old fashioned. You know, ‘till death do us part.’”
Broker cocked his head.
Lola’s smile was practical. “I haven’t wasted a word or a dollar since I turned twenty-one years old. So listen very carefully. That painting up there is not symbolic. You’re among pirates, Mr. Broker. Cyrus plans to kill you and Nina as soon as you lead him to that poor dying convict. Which is the risk you run for your high adventure. But I’m not having anything like an adventure and the fact is-he plans to kill me, too.”
She paused to let Broker evaluate her words, which were veined with intrigue and not necessarily going in the direction of sincerity. Then she caressed the old safe with her palm. “Have you ever seen fifty pounds of pure gold that’s been cradled in the salt sea? It’s better than diamonds.”
She left the safe and walked toward the doorway to the hall. “Now I have to shower and get dressed. That should take about fifteen minutes. I suggest you use the time well. I’ve told the officers downstairs that you’re my guest so they won’t interfere.” She paused at the door. “There’s nothing on the third floor. That’s where I live.”
Broker stared at the safe. He hadn’t stolen anything since he got caught shoplifting comics at Nestor’s Drug Store when he was nine.
Best way to hurt a fucking pirate. Take his gold.
It involved getting in. Getting out. And a key. Once he’d established that he was alone on the second floor he peeked into the bedrooms and checked the French doors and windows for evidence of motion detectors. None. He went into the bathroom and urinated. After he washed his hands he eased open the linen closet and saw a 12- gauge shotgun nestled among the towels and sheets. It was loaded with buckshot. Remington, not Westinghouse, was the local security system.
He walked down the stairs, avoided a room full of wedding guests at a wet bar, and went out on the pool deck and continued on past a three-car garage to the side street driveway. His eyes inspected the heavy wrought- iron fence.
A flushed woman in a bale of lavender lace tumbled up to him. “Are you the help for setting up the band?” she asked breathlessly. Her cheeks were rouged with excitement and champagne.
“Take off,” growled Broker. The woman flared the whites of her eyes and departed.
He tracked the iron lilacs and his eyes stopped at a thick tangle of vines that engulfed the fence in the corner by the pool. No cameras. No sensors. No dogs. Probably a few armed good ole boys usually hung out here. But more than that. Reputation guarded the place. Nobody in town would be dumb enough to incur LaPorte’s disfavor.
Broker, of course, didn’t live here.
On the way back in he studied the twisted oak that grew up over the hedge and shaded the house. One of its Spanish moss-draped branches curled next to the gallery off LaPorte’s study. A sturdy drainpipe ran down the corner of the house. But would it hold a heavily laden man? Probably not. The tree was more reliable.
He went back inside and walked past an unconcerned uniformed patrolman who leaned against the staircase, lifted a fork from a plate of food, and nodded. Upstairs, he padded the hall for a closer look at LaPorte’s bedroom at the end of the hall. Inside he saw a king-sized bed with fresh sheets turned down, a long gun cabinet, and two sets of mounted antelope horns on the wall next to a Frederic Remington cavalry print. Nothing in the room or in the long closet suggested that Lola LaPorte slept there.
He glanced up and down the hall and slipped into the master bedroom. He slid open the drawer on the bedside table and saw the dull gleam of gun metal, a snub.38 Smith. Some change, some business cards. Didn’t figure he’d leave the key to the safe just laying around.
Probably kept it with him all the time.
There were three other bedrooms on the second level. In the first one the bed and furniture were stockaded with sheets. When he opened the second door he hesitated on the threshold, stayed by a potent sense of trespass.
The room contained an ornate, white wicker bassinet, a cradle, a changing table, and a baby bed bundled with a gaily colored bumper and matching quilt and pillow. The furniture items and the shelves on the wall were piled with a Noah’s Ark of stuffed animals and dolls. A glider rocking chair and ottoman were positioned in the corner by the window. Next to the chair he noticed a basket full of children’s books. He could read the title of the top book,
Someone used this room. It was spotlessly maintained and the smell of freshly ironed cotton hugged the sunlight filtering through the fluffy curtains. Broker backed into the hall and slowly closed the door. He wondered if he had just stumbled into the dungeon where Lola LaPorte visited her emotions.
Okay. He reminded himself. It’s all too easy. They were tricky folks. But so was he.
The third bedroom adjoined LaPorte’s and was unvisited by the cleaning staff.
A bench and a set of weights were strewn around the unmade king-size bed and a stipple of suspicious stains stiffened the sheets. Candystripe Calvin Klein briefs and a pile of socks lay in a corner. The dresser drawers were askew and a silk T-shirt draped from one of them. There were a dozen suits cloaked in cellophane from a dry cleaner in the closet, and a dozen pairs of shoes lined up below them. A rainbow of expensive silk ties littered the door. He went in.
