Dragons Wild

someone’s turn in starts consistently falling short of what we’ve learned to expect, there’s probably some skimming going on.”

“Then what do you do?”

“What you get to do is investigate.” Mose smiled. “You have to check around and find out if there really is some skimming going on, and if there is, if it’s the runner or the bartender or both who are doing it.”

“And if we find out that someone is skimming?” Griffen said. “What do we do?”

“Now don’t be thinking Hollywood gangster scenes again,” Mose said. “If it’s the runner, we fire him and put in a replacement. If it’s the bartender, we just take that stop off our list…or recruit another bartender.”

“That seems fair enough,” Griffen said. “Do we do anything about recovering…”

Just then, his cell phone started ringing.

“Excuse me a minute, Mose.”

He glanced at the caller ID, but didn’t recognize the caller. For a moment he debated letting it go to voice mail, but decided it might give Mose the wrong impression about his diligence.

“Griffen here,” he said into the instrument.

“Mr. Griffen? This is Jumbo. You may not remember me.”

It took a second, but Griffen placed the name and voice. If was the man who had been serving as Gris-gris’s bodyguard when they first met.

“I remember you, Jumbo. What’s up?”

“Something’s happened I thought you should know about,” Jumbo said. “I hate to bother you, but…”

“No problem,” Griffen said. “Tell me what’s happened.”

He listened for several minutes, his mouth tightening into a grimace.

“Okay. I think I get the picture,” he said at last. “Are you on a cell phone? I’ll get back to you in a little while and let you know. Thanks for the call.”

He flipped his phone shut, cutting off the connection. Then he leaned back in his chair and thought for a few moments.

“Okay, Mose,” he said. “You’ve been saying that we have to take care of our people. Exactly how far does the definition of ‘our people’ extend?”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“Well, it seems that Gris-gris has been picked up by the police under some rather strange circumstances,” Griffen said. “Is he considered one of ‘our people’? Should we do anything about it?”

“You tell me,” Mose said.

“Excuse me?”

“Gris-gris pulled out of our network under my management, then signed back on directly with you,” Mose said. “Since then, he steered a lot of new independents our way. More important, Jumbo called you, not me. I figure that makes it your call as to whether or not he’s one of ours. He thinks so, and Jumbo thinks so. The only question now is if you think so.”

Griffen took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly, puffing his cheeks.

“In that case, I guess he’s one of ours,” he said.

“In that case,” Mose said, “there’s an attorney and a bail bondsman we usually use when our people get into trouble. Hang on and I’ll get you their numbers.”

“Actually, Mose,” Griffen said, “let me try something else, first.”

He flipped his cell phone back open, scrolled through his directory, and hit the “send” button.

After four rings, there was a pickup on the other end.

“Yeah?” came a gruff voice.

“Good evening, Detective Harrison,” Griffen said with a smile, even though he knew it couldn’t be seen at the other end. “This is Griffen McCandles.”

There was a brief pause. Mose’s eyebrows went up and Griffen smiled at him.

“Okay, Griffen. What’s up?”

“Something has come up, and I was wondering if you could check into it for me.”

Another pause.

“It seems that one of our people has been picked up by your colleagues,” Griffen said. “He’s known as Gris- gris, but his real name is…”

“Yeah. I know him,” the detective said, cutting in. “What’s the charge?”

“That’s sort of what I was hoping you could check for me,” Griffen said. “According to the information that was passed to me, they haven’t charged him with anything.”

Again, a pause.

“Actually, they can do that,” Harrison said. “Legally, they can hold someone for seventy-two hours for questioning without charging them.”

“I’ve heard that,” Griffen said. “This seems to be a special situation, though. From what I’ve been told, he was picked up because he was walking down the street arm and arm with my sister. Strangely enough, they let her go.”

He could hear a deep sigh at the other end.

“Look, Griffen. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but we don’t do that kind of crap anymore. This town runs on tourist dollars, and that would go away real fast if the cops started hassling every mixed race couple they saw in the Quarter.”

“That’s what I figured,” Griffen said, winking at Mose. “As a matter of fact, the way I heard it, the officer that picked him up was also black.”

“So what’s the problem?” the detective growled. “Am I missing something here?”

“The interesting thing is, the way I hear it, that officer also happens to be the older brother of a girl that Gris-gris was dating before he took up with my sister.”

This time, the pause was lengthy.

“You know, Griffen,” the detective said at last, “you have a bad habit of pushing my buttons. If there’s anything I hate worse than protected gambling operations or the Feds messing around on my turf, it’s cops who abuse the power of their uniforms. Okay, I’ll check into it…and this one’s worth a beer, not a lousy cup of coffee.”

Thirty-eight

The Irish pub had never been so damned noisy before. It wasn’t people noise either. Griffen had yet to live through a Mardi Gras, but had run into some nights when even the slightly out-of-the-way pub had been packed enough that there were no seats available and the press of strangers had pushed him out into the night to find something a bit calmer. So he could have lived with a certain amount of uproar in the form of men and women looking for a good time.

Dogs on the other hand. That was another story.

It was one of the strange customs of New Orleans, particularly the Quarter. Apartments were so small, open spaces so rare, that those with canine companions tended to bring their dogs everywhere. Everywhere. Outside restaurants, groceries, and shops one could often see an animal or two tied up waiting for its owner. Bars, though, bars were notoriously lassie fair, or was that laissez-faire?

There were seven of them in the pub that night. Not only in, but unleashed and running free. As one, they started barking when Griffen walked in. From the incessant yap yap yap of something that looked like it should be at the end of a mop, to the deep rawlf of a Great Dane whose head was easily higher than the pool table. They moved toward him, barking their heads off, as various owners tried to quiet them down. Their shouts, and those of the bartender, were almost enough to drive Griffen back out.

Stubbornly, he ignored them and pushed his way over to where Jerome sat at the bar. The dogs quieted eventually, except for the little mop that followed Griffen the whole way and sat on its haunches as he took a seat.