The Price of Blood Part 20

"Take me to your room."

The gumbo rain beat on the gallery as the curtains billowed through the open windows and people shouted happily, running, in the street. Across the way, loud music cranked up louder to compete with the thunder-Warren Zevon, "Roland, the Headless Thompson Gunner."

She touched her wet hair, excused herself, and went into the bathroom. Broker sat down in an armchair and stared at the bathroom door. When it came to women, the last few years, his work had cast him, at best, in a slick beer commercial.

Lola had the complex fine detail of a David Lean epic, which is to say, of Broker's fantasies. And he thought how Lean should have made a film about New Orleans. No need to build a set. The whole place was theater. The air itself was special effects and the brochure on the bedside table said this hotel had been built in 1847. Broker loved a good historical epic and he loved to read history, which he saw as a cold record of solved crimes...

The bathroom door opened and Lola stood for a moment fluffing her hair with a towel. She put down the towel and came over and stood in front of him.

She took off her earrings, making that nice female gesture, elbows to the front, head c.o.c.ked, hands to the side of her face. "You have to tell me...what you expect."

"I'd like you to undress," he said.

"Okay." Her hands were in his hair and he could almost believe she'd been five years on the shelf when she kissed him. He did not believe Cyrus LaPorte got kissed like this. She was the original frog-changer kisser. Why settle for being a jazz kind of guy when he could be a prince...

She stepped back and held him by his shoulders and stared directly into his eyes. Her hair had artfully tumbled out of place and the gliding rain shadows dabbed film noir war paint on her face. She said, "All I'm saying is, I could be in a position to do you a favor. And not just tonight."

Slowly she stepped out of her shoes and unb.u.t.toned the front of her dress and peeled it back and down over her shoulders. The dress shivered down in a damp little pile around her ankles.

"If I return the favor," he said. Her back was to the mantel of a marble fireplace. There was a mirror over it but he couldn't quite make out her bare shoulders.

She closed her eyes and shuddered when he ran his hands down her neck over her shoulder blades. Her back squirmed and he felt a lattice of raised tissue under the faint patina of perspiration. He turned her around and switched on the floor lamp next to the mantel.

"Please, Phillip..." She lurched free and flung an arm at the lamp, knocking it over. It bounced on the bed and crashed to the floor where it continued to throw a cone of light up the side of the wall.

"Show me," said Broker.

Reluctantly she turned and bowed her head. Long raised marks started just above the waistband of her panties. They clawed diagonally from her left b.u.t.tocks across her back, went under her bra straps and stopped at her right scapula. The dead welted tissue cast a quarter-inch shadow.

The scars were the first real thing he'd seen in New Orleans. Broker shook his head. "Doesn't make sense you'd stick around after a beating like that."

She turned and her eyes glowed under the jungle of her hair. "I intend to outlive the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and get his money, his house, and keep his name."

"That simple?"

"It's not simple. He plans to outlive me and replace me with younger suitable breeding material. There have to be more LaPortes to rape and pillage the world."

"And you know this because Bevode told you?"

She smiled ruefully. "We're all going to eventually wind up in Vietnam. Bevode has upstart potential. He strongly hinted at a boating accident. He has gallantly offered his services to come to my rescue and help Cyrus fall in the ocean in my place. The diving crew that runs the boat are his relatives. All I have to do is kneel at his big herpes-infected c.o.c.k for the rest of my life. But then who would save me from Bevode?"

"You're the one who chose to live with pirates all round," said Broker.

"Not like this." She raised her lips and expected to be kissed.

"Slow down," said Broker.

"This ride don't come with brakes." She breathed in his ear and threw her arms around his neck.

She was beset by problems. And like her town, she was elaborately guarded by gates and fences and levees and potions and masks. But in the end they formed a flimsy tinsel wish against the Bad Thing that comes out in the dark cypress swamps, out of the gulf, out of the damp night air: yellow fever, cholera, flood, fire, hurricane, slave rebellion. But now that he was next to her, compared with Nina, it was like being at the gym and the idea of actually s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her became about as inviting as being strapped into a motorized Nautilus machine. Pumping iron.

He could see Bevode doing it. Not him.

Broker pushed her onto the bed and didn't join her. She propped herself up on her elbows and gave him a quizzical look.

He shrugged. "If I jump in the sack with you you'll forget me by tomorrow morning. This way you just might remember me the rest of your life."

"Honest and dumb and romantic." She shook her head. "Cyrus and the boys will eat you alive."

"Old fashioned," said Broker.

"Get me that shirt," she asked, suddenly modest, holding an arm across her bra. Broker threw her the souvenir T-shirt that was draped across the chair. It was black with a white pattern of alligator skeletons in a chorus line across the front and NEW ORLEANS, spidery in bone letters, glittered incandescent in a flash of lightning as she pulled it on.

Her eyes started slowly and then accelerated and flowed over his face like an army of marcher ants testing every crease and plane and pore for a way into his thoughts.

"Just exactly what do you want?" asked Broker.

"I want everyone to get what they deserve." Her brows knit, witchy, and her eyes shot a spark of wrath from way back in the cypress swamps. "You know what I want."

"I won't do that."

"None of us know what we'll do when we finally stare ten tons of gold in the face."

And that was the first truthful statement he'd heard in New Orleans. He said, "I'd say there's a good chance Cyrus and Bevode could wind up in a Communist jail. Will that do?"

"I already know that." She threw up her hands. "h.e.l.l, they know that. Can you guarantee me he'll go to jail before something happens to me?" she demanded.

"I'll give it a h.e.l.l of a try."

"Phillip, did you really leave a letter implicating Cyrus in a lawyer's office?"

"Nah, why let word get out."

She shook her head. "Are you a cop or a thief? They go together easily enough down here but I don't know about Minnesota."

They listened to the rain as Broker considered her question and lit a cigarette and smoked half of it. He turned to her. "Two questions. Can you help me get into that safe? Second, why would you?"

"Yes," she replied with finality. And, "To hurt him."

He believed the smolder in her eyes. For now.

"What about that zoned-out kid on the stairs?" he asked.

"We'll spike his malt. Hiram and I."

Broker raised his trimmed eyebrows.

She gave him a wry smile. "Cyrus once told me the army is run by clerks in peacetime and radiomen in wartime. Well, down here, homes of a certain station are run by the staff. Hiram gets Virgil a malt and a bucket of fried chicken every night. Don't worry about him." She c.o.c.ked her head and concern pursed her lips. "I know you need money to help your folks, and that makes sense, but I'll bet you've never stolen anything in your life."

Broker had thought about this a lot. "It's not stealing. It's like...capturing the flag."

"Ye G.o.d, this is for keeps. Men are such kids."

Broker drew himself up. "Some men," he said stiffly.

She peeled out of the T-shirt, rolled off the bed, and stooped for her dress. "I didn't really want to do it with you anyway," she said as the silk slithered over her tanned arms and fell to her knees. "Nothing personal. I just don't like it anymore."

"I understand."

"Do you?"

"No. Look, how do I get the d.a.m.n key?"

She spoke matter of factly as she dressed, called for a cab, and brushed her hair. "After midnight no one should be up except Hiram. He'll be down in the den watching TV. Cyrus always locks up before he goes to bed, but I'll leave the French doors to the study open. You can climb a tree, can't you?"

Broker nodded impatiently.

"Okay." Lola put on her coat. "Cyrus sleeps with the key on a thong around his neck. He always keeps his right hand tight in a fist around it. But if he's lying on his back and he snores, poke him firmly in the left side. He'll turn over and let go of the key and stop snoring."

She held out her hand. He took it and she said, "If you find Jimmy Tuna they'll come after you hard. If you can detain Bevode it might help."

"As in 'permanently'?"

"No. Cyrus won't go to Vietnam without him." She slipped a business card from her pocket and handed it to him. The card was for the Century Riverside Hotel, 49 Le Loi Street, Hue, Vietnam. Imperial Room was written in flowing felt tip across the calligraphy-swirl red capital-C logo. "You'll need all the help you can get once you're over there. Till then." She peered at him and was gone. He closed the door behind her.

Broker stared at the card and filled in the silent question that had been in Lola's eyes: If you get over there.

35.

BROKER REMOVED THE BOWLING BAG FROM THE closet and changed into his dark outfit while he had a conversation with himself in the bathroom mirror. If she wasn't for real, he was on his way to eat a twelve-gauge. But he had something to prove to himself and he was going to do it.

He'd put LaPorte on a pedestal once. Now that pedestal was a stack of stolen gold.

Cut him off at the knees.

He sat down on the toilet and stared at his injured thumb. Could slow him up. Slowly he unbandaged it and gingerly removed the gauze that stuck to the infected sutures.

First he lightly dabbed some Vaseline on the finger and looped a single layer of gauze around it. The jelly held the gauze in place. He took a deep breath and eyed the roll of adhesive tape on the sink counter.

He started to whistle "Everything's Coming Up Roses." When he wrenched the first turn of tape around the thumb all his saliva poured out at once. He spit it into the sink, took a second tight turn, and all his saliva dried up. When he'd finished, his whistling sounded like a shaky bone xylophone. There. Armored in adhesive. He tested it against the sink. Still painful as h.e.l.l but less vulnerable.

Then he strapped his .45 on and pulled on the light raincoat and Nikes. He smiled at the black wool watch cap, dropped it in the bag, and padded down the back stairs from his hotel room. This is how it all started.

He'd rented a gray V8 Buick, in case he had to drive fast. Now he spread a street map of New Orleans on the seat and studied it by the dome light. He decided on the residential neighborhoods west of LaPorte's place to find what he needed.

Broker drove through the rain for three hours, back and forth, up and down quiet side streets under overarching canopies of old oaks and Spanish moss that shivered in the storm. On his third try he found what he was looking for. When he had it wrapped in his bowling bag he turned the car back toward the LaPorte mansion.

He parked a block away. He quartered toward the house in the cheap gray raincoat and light slip-on rubber boots. The bowling bag was in his right hand, the .45 snug in its harness across his chest. He walked past a flower bed and a damp humus of soil and orchids brought back tatters of Lola's perfume, a scent of murder, chilly bright and sharp as a fishhook. But this was payback for Bevode, moonlight financing, and a personal challenge he meant to slap in Cyrus LaPorte's face.

A trickle of lightning silently spiderwebbed the trees and the creepy turrets and gables jittered against the electric sky.

Like a f.u.c.king pirate ship. Then came the boom.

He slipped along the alley fence until he came to the overgrown portion he'd spied early in the afternoon. Then he placed the three trash cans, making sure their covers were secure. One, then two, in a stack. Steps. He climbed the cans and tossed his bag over the fence. Then he gripped the thick vines against the spear tips with his right hand and swung himself up, slid over on the b.u.mpy ma.s.sed vines, and dropped down on the other side.

As a peal of thunder smacked the blowing trees, Broker slid along the inky hedge. The yard lights were out and the interior to the house was dark except for lights in the kitchen and another room downstairs. Fainter hall and stairway lights upstairs.

He came to the base of the oak tree and squeezed past it and through the hedge and came out on the pool side. A dozen feet away, through the window, he saw Virgil Fret slouched in a chair at the kitchen table, nodding. An empty bucket of fried chicken sat next to a tall milkshake. Grease spots dribbled on his white T-shirt and the static on a TV screen three feet away on the counter monitored his brain waves. A bright, blocky 9mm pistol was stuffed into his waist band. Broker could almost hear him snoring through the steady rain.

Too perfect. Like Lola's hair. Keep going.

He crept to the back of the home until he could observe the other light. Hiram sat in a den at the other side of the first floor, watching television. He returned to the dark corner formed by the hedge and the tree.

He separated the looped handles of the bag and inserted his arms, effectively making the bag a backpack. The light cotton gloves had serrated rubber grips. He measured his distance and leaped up, seizing a low branch with his strong right hand, grunting as his knees clamped the slippery bark.

Sweat and rain blurred his vision as he struggled up the trunk, finally gaining the larger branches. With hand-and footholds he gained the branch he wanted. Balancing, he inched over the hedge.

Now the decision. Try to leap for the gallery or take the shorter jump to the drainpipe.

He figured the drainpipe wouldn't hold. He gathered himself and sprung for the railing. He hit it mid-chest level. Locked his good hand over it. Pots of impatiens wobbled in their crockery saucers but the sound was drowned by the wind and rain. Nothing fell to the pool deck.

Out of the rain, under the balcony, he quickly stripped off the raincoat and the boots, furled them, and tucked them aside. He removed the wet gloves and put on a fresh pair. The French doors swung open. No need for the jimmy.

Dry as bone, he entered the sleeping home of Cyrus LaPorte like a bad dream.

He squatted just inside the study until his eyes adjusted. He listened, separating out the sounds of the house from the storm. Television downstairs. Roof timbers creaking. Checked his wrist.w.a.tch: 2:13 in the morning.

Then he left his bag and crept down the varnished maple hallway to LaPorte's bedroom. His eyes wandered up the stairwell to the third floor. Was she asleep? Or laying in her bed wide-eyed as a girl the night before the prom.

LaPorte curled in the fetal position on the king-sized bed. Aquarium shadows undulated over him, cast by branches dancing in a streetlight and the grid of window sashes. He wore pajama bottoms. No sheet. The grizzled hair on his chest was white as h.o.a.rfrost.

His right hand clenched against that silvery hair and slowly, in the weaving shadows, Broker picked out the irregular shape of the thong around LaPorte's neck.

Broker squatted behind the gun cabinet, where a flash of lightning would not delineate him, and waited. After a few minutes he could smell the sleeping man, a halitosis of sour alcohol and digestive juices gusting through raw sirloin. His breathing was deep and regular.

Ten minutes later the sound of the television stopped downstairs. Broker strained his ears, thought he heard faint sounds. Hiram going to bed. Must sleep downstairs. Nothing from the kitchen. He wondered if Virgil made rounds. Used an alarm of some kind to wake up.

His sweat felt like a swarming antbath, his legs started to cramp. He blinked to clear his eyes. His gloved hand checked the scissors tucked into his waistband and then squeezed his own neck pendant to calm himself.

Lola was right. And Nina would second her. A lot of what men did was childish. Lord of the Flies childish.

Forty-five tense, cramped minutes pa.s.sed. Then, after a particularly loud clap of thunder, LaPorte squirmed in a stuttering white flash.