“Hi, Val,” he said. “Actually, I’m just coming in.”
“Well, since you’re up, want to come running with me?”
Griffen had to admit that the suggestion seemed even sillier to him than animal control.
“You know I’m not much for exercise,” he said evasively.
“You sure?” his sister said. “I’ll spring for breakfast at the Cafe Du Monde afterward.
“Actually, it’s about time for me to crash and burn,” Griffen said. “It’s been a good day, but it’s time it was over.”
“Actually, it’s a different day,” Valerie said pointedly.
“You know what they say down here,” Griffen countered. “Whatever the clock says, the day isn’t over till you go to sleep and wake up again.”
His sister started her stretching exercises to warm up her legs.
“Isn’t that usually for people who work night shifts, like grave shift bartenders and cab drivers?” she said.
“That and people who can pick their own hours of when to sleep and when to be awake,” Griffen said.
“If you say so,” Valerie said, starting for the front gate. “Anyway, good luck on your animal control. Let me know how it works out.”
Watching her go, Griffen had a moment of wry despair of ever being able to put one over on his sister.
“Hey, Big Brother,” Valerie called, returning to the courtyard. “Looks like someone left a message for you. This was taped to the front gate.”
She handed him a regular white envelope with his name written on it. He took it and stared at it for a long moment.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Valerie urged.
“Not right now,” Griffen said, trying to sound casual.
“Don’t worry. If it’s from a new woman, I won’t tell Fox Lisa.”
“Uh-huh,” Griffen said, tucking the envelope in his back pocket.
“So be that way,” Valerie said, sticking her tongue out at him. “I can tell when I’m not wanted.”
With that, she turned on her heel and headed for the front gate again.
Griffen waited until he was sure she was gone, then pulled out the envelope again. From the feel of it, he was afraid he knew what was inside. He opened he missive and confirmed his fears.
Inside was a tarot card. The Knight of Swords. A duplicate of the one he had been carrying in his wallet since Detroit. The sense of safety Griffen had allowed himself to be lulled into by his new surroundings crumbled.
George was not only in New Orleans, he knew where Griffen lived.
Despite all the warnings and promises he had received about the rumor mill in the Quarter, Griffen was startled with how far and fast the word of his encounter with Gris-gris had spread. Even though the confrontation had occurred in the midafternoon, by the time midnight rolled around, he had been stopped or approached no less than a dozen times by people who had heard about it.
“Griffen! What’s this I hear about you tossing four guys out of the Irish pub this afternoon?”
“Hey, my man! Been hearing talk about how you got in the face of a bunch of bruisers today.”
“Here. This one’s on me. Heard about how you stepped in and settled a brawl at the pub.”
The accounts varied, and none of them were correct. The story being spread was that Griffen had either been in a fight or settled a fight with three to six guys bigger than he was. When he tried to clarify that (a) there had only been two people on the other side, (b) one of the opposition had done nothing but watch, (c) he himself had not been directly involved, and (d) no punches had been thrown and the altercation was nothing more serious than raised voices, he was greeted with exaggerated winks and declarations of, “Yeah. That’s always the best way to handle it.”
The pattern continued the next day as Jerome was walking him around the Quarter, introducing him to the various spotters and runners who were involved with the gambling network. It seemed that three out of four or four out of five of the people he met had already heard of him. What’s more, they all made a point of expressing their approval and support as well as telling him how much they were looking forward to working with him.
After a while, this inflated notoriety began to annoy him, and eventually generated a seed of worry in his mind. Eventually, he expressed his concern to Jerome.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jerome said with a wave of his hand. “It never hurts to have a reputation for being a bit of a badass, even if the facts get garbled a bit. It’s not like you’re bragging it up yourself.”
“But it was Valerie that actually braced him.”
“So? You think Gris-gris is gonna say anything about that?”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
Jerome laughed.
“For the same reason Jumbo didn’t step in when it all went down. It would look bad all around if it came out that he got backed off by a girl, and even worse if Jumbo had to help him.”
“But isn’t he going to come back at me over this?”
“Not much chance of that,” Jerome said. “That would make it seem bigger and more important than it already is. Besides, unless I read him wrong, he’s more than a little bit afraid of your sister.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. To tell the truth, I’m a little spooked by her myself. That’s one impressive mama you’ve got there…and remember what I told you about female dragons. You really don’t want to get them stirred up.”
They walked on in silence for a few moments, then Jerome cocked his head.
“Tell me one thing, Grifter,” he said. “If you didn’t know how Gris-gris and Jumbo would react, why did you set it so it would be Valerie who’d do the talkin’?”
“I don’t know,” Griffen admitted. “From what Mose was saying, it sounded like Gris-gris had a problem with me. I figured it would be better to play it from the angle of his disrespect than making an issue of the money…and that bracing him for respect would sound better coming from someone else, like Valerie. I really hadn’t thought about the whole male/female aspect of it. Call it instinct and good luck.”
“Well, any gambler needs good luck,” Jerome said, resuming his walk. “Just keep listening to your instincts. So far they’re the best thing you have going for you.”
Jerome’s words stayed with Griffen, and he gave them considerable food for thought. He had always been good at reading people and situations…something he was now being told was part of his dragon heritage. Now that he was consciously thinking about it, however, his senses and observations seemed heightened to a new level.
Now, whenever he walked down the street or sat down in a bar or restaurant, he was aware of who was looking at him and who wasn’t. More particularly, of those who looked at him, he was building a sense of who was friendly, who was curious, who was neutral, and who seemed to be harboring some kind of hostility.
For the most part, the tourists and conventioneers barely glanced at him, if that. Of the locals, whether if was due to his new found notoriety or simply the fact that more and more people were recognizing him as a Quarter regular, he found an increasing percentage noting his presence and tracking his movements with the casual attention a veld full of antelope will give to a strolling lion.
It was both unsettling and exhilarating at the same time. Back up north when he walked across the campus, he had been all but invisible, his passing noticed by only a scattered handful of acquaintances. Here in the Quarter, while the transients were oblivious to his presence, he was being watched by the locals as a power to be reckoned with.
One night, he was walking Fox Lisa back to her apartment. She had called him from her bartending job and suggested that he pick her up when she got off work so they could spend some time together, and he had
