Through the gates walked Picklehead, dusting himself off and looking both ways before stepping onto the walkway. Darlene ran up to him like she really gave a crap about his well-being. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, pulling her closer.
“Let’s get out of here,” Darlene said. “I know a place we can party all night.” This wasn’t what Lucy had laid out in her plan, but Darlene didn’t have a choice.
Picklehead skimmed his hands over Darlene’s body. Repulsed, she stayed in character and let him get his jollies. Then she gave him a hit of coke, guiding him to an alleyway. He was too high on coke and whiskey to even know where he was going. They made it up the alley. Darlene knocked on a door. Picklehead buried his face in her cleavage as she tried to hold him upright.
The door opened, and Lucy, expecting to see Ethan, hit Picklehead with a syringe to his neck. He dropped on a cart, and they rolled him into the furniture shop below the salon.
Darlene buttoned up and tried to brush the Picklehead funk off her body but soon gave up. It would take a hot shower and a burning of her clothes to accomplish such a task.
“What the hell happened to Ethan?” Lucy said, keeping one eye on her target.
“His dating days are over. Picklehead got the best of him,” Darlene said. “I’m sure he’s dead, and by way of his own gun.”
Lucy had planned to scare Ethan after Picklehead had roughed him up. A quick stick in his neck, and Ethan would have lain immobile and listened to her reasoning about why it was in his best interests to disappear and never see Margo’s daughter again, not even to say goodbye.
But Picklehead had just solved two problems for her.
Darlene’s part was done. She sneaked out to the alley and into the night.
Picklehead lay motionless, and Lucy hoped Walter was right, that he could hear everything she was about to say. This opportunity had fallen into her lap, and she had to take him down. He was a lousy person.
In the furniture shop, Mr. Vic kept several old bridles nailed to the wall, a memento of when the small room in the building was a stable for horses that pulled carriages and for donkeys that pulled work wagons. She hooked a donkey bridle to Picklehead’s face and attached the metal buckles to the arms of the pushcart. It was a perfect fit for his elongated head and had a fitting name—donkey harness.
She wheeled him outside, smiling at Picklehead as he came down from his big rush.
He had only minutes left, but he didn’t know it. A garbage truck rumbled down the street. It was close, close enough to be useful.
“You got anything to say?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, she pressed down on his neck with her foot. “Well?”
“Yeah, I’ve got something to say—you’re a dead bitch.”
Picklehead had been watching and waiting for his chance to get to her. No doubt Felipe had planned to have her killed, preferably before she testified later that morning.
“Didn’t that little hit of coke take the edge off?”
His eyes blazing, Picklehead asked, “What do you want?”
“You can’t take advantage of women without consequence.”
Without hesitation, Lucy stuck the needle into his arm, administering a full dosage of Walter’s wonder juice.
You should have killed me when you had the chance.
Picklehead let out a scream and then another, the sound masked by the garbage truck’s hydraulics as it crushed a new load of trash.
Removing the harness and flipping his body off the cart, she propped him against the building, with his thumb placed on the syringe and the needle pushed into his arm.
The furniture cart cleaned of fingerprints and rolled back into place as if it had never moved, Voodoo Lucy walked through the building and out the front door to Royal Street. Night had turned into morning, and she waved to the cop who’d been sitting in his car all night to protect her.
“Good morning,” Lucy said. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” He thanked her but said his patrol was ending, and he was heading home.
Café Beignet was stirring with early customers. Lucy sat among them, sipping her coffee. Now it was a waiting game—to see how long it would take for someone to discover another junkie overdosed in the alley.
She had an hour to relax before cleaning up to testify at Felipe’s hearing. She reflected on the evening’s events. Two people had died at her hands. Ethan should have taken her advice and left the area. As for Picklehead, he’d gotten what he deserved. She had no regrets.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The shower had just turned off when Lucy heard Wanda beating on the bathroom door. “Lucinda,” Wanda said, peeking in the door.
It had to be vital for Wanda to call her by her real name. From the sound of Wanda’s voice and the sirens coming down Royal Street, Lucy knew the cause.
“There are police swarming Pirate Alley,” Wanda said. “The word is that Picklehead is dead.”
“Couldn’t be better news,” Lucy said, taking a towel to the steam on the mirror. She stared at herself. A smile and a feeling of satisfaction came over her. You got what you deserved. And Felipe will too.
Lucy dressed in a dark blue skirt with an emerald green scarf accenting her white silk blouse and red hair. She touched up her lipstick and hair, then said into the mirror, “I’m coming for you, Felipe.”
She’d spent the last several months studying the wealthy women who frequented the salon. How they dressed, what they purchased on Canal Street, their handbags, their makeup. With her father’s bank robbery money, Lucy had bought the same items. Now she looked like a socialite from the Garden District. Her testimony would be believable; she’d look like what they called an uptown girl, and most of all, she’d impress the judge. Even though deep down, she was still Voodoo Lucy.
She’d
