?You need any help??
?I don?t know,? Mike said. ?You know anything about grapes??
?No.?
?You ever prune a vine??
?No.?
?You ever pull weeds??
?No.?
?Well, brace yourself,? Mike said. ?You?re in for a real treat.?
12
After killing Vincent Minelli, Nikki Enders had returned to Andrew Foley?s drab apartment and waited a full twenty-fours hours before admitting to herself that the boy had bolted. She did not relish the tedious work of digging him out of his hiding place.
And her wrist hurt like hell. She?d swallowed three Aleve, and the thing still throbbed a steady rhythm all the way to the hospital. That greasy oaf Romano had given it a tough twist, aggravating the injury she?d received in Italy. The wrist wasn?t broken, but the doctor at the emergency room put it in a brace and declared she had a very severe sprain, the worst, in fact, he?d ever seen. Everything was swollen and inflamed and generally not how a healthy wrist should be. She was not to lift anything or even hold a pen or a pencil.
Now she sat in a first-class seat aboard an American Airlines jet to New Orleans, sipping (from a glass in her good hand) a rum and Coke. All of her bright and shiny new guns had been dumped back into the train station locker. The man with the voice would not be happy at the delay, but his happiness was of little concern to Nikki and anyway he could just sweat for a bit and goddammit her wrist hurt and she hadn?t slept and she wanted to go home.
But she knew she?d have to call him soon. He?d wanted all this handled quickly. Well, it wouldn?t be. Not now. Someone had warned Andrew Foley, and now it would take a while. There would need to be phone calls and questions and then in a day or a week or a month someone would catch wind of Foley, and she?d be dispatched to finish the job.
But not yet, not at this minute. Right now there was only a rum drink and a comfortable seat and deep, dark sleep.
* * *
The taxi dropped her in front of the old Garden District house, a block removed from the St. Charles streetcar line. She loved coming home to New Orleans, to the old house. Three stories, white columns, impeccable landscaping. There was something old-world about the place. Or maybe it was just like being in an old movie.
She rang the bell, and a gray-haired black woman answered the door. ?Welcome home, miss.? She stepped aside, allowed Nikki to enter. ?Do you have anything for the gun cabinet??
?I?m traveling light, Althea. How?s Mother??
?Good days and bad days, miss. The GPS chips we sewed into her clothes help a lot. She sneaked out yesterday and we found her in ten minutes, no problem. Any luggage??
?Just this.? She indicated the bag slung over her shoulder.
Althea took the bag. ?I?ll put this in your room. Your mother is in the library.?
?Thank you, Althea.?
Nikki paused under the giant chandelier. It defied gravity up there, looming and glittering like an obscenely expensive sword of Damocles. The sunlight flooded in and danced among the crystal, giving the chandelier the illusion of movement. But it didn?t move. It hung there. It had hung there for years. Probably decades of dust up there. Did anyone even look up at the chandelier anymore?
