Inside Out

95

Sean clenched the wheel as she steered through the French Quarter. Two blocks from the parking garage, light bloomed in her periphery and, seconds later, again. She could only pray the aspirin tablets could stop the migraine, or slow it. She cursed herself for having left her pills behind at the hotel in Arlington. Dear God, not now. Archer either hadn't believed she was getting sick or didn't care. She fought back the urge to panic.

Squinting now just to see, Sean drove up to the fourth floor of the garage, where the Cadillac's driver, facing her from the far ramp, flashed his headlights at her. The brilliant lights brought the headache whipping into her brain like a tornado. Sean pulled into the first open space, her left tire rolling up over the concrete stop. In her pocket she carried a note that she had written in her hotel room: FBI following me. I'll call after I shake them. All she had to do was somehow get Archer's stupid baseball cap inside the Cadillac while the driver was reading the note. If the FBI would just follow the Caddy a few blocks-long enough for her to get away. She had made no plans beyond surviving the day.

The plan. She fought to keep her thoughts ordered despite the pain in her head. She wanted nothing but to curl up in the backseat.

She forced herself to climb from her car, steadying herself by putting her left hand on the roof. The driver slid the window down. She was looking at him as though through a dimly lit tunnel. She had the note clenched in her fist, but before she could pass it on, she was aware of the sounds of someone approaching fast. Before she could turn, a hand covered her mouth. Another set of hands felt her roughly all over. Someone snatched off her cap and she caught sight of a man opening the Cadillac's back door and slipping the hat on a figure seated in the rear. While the men wrestled her inside a van parked nearby, the Cadillac pulled off, tires chirping. She was trying to fight, to escape. This is all wrong! Not yet! Please, God! The men pressed her into the bench seat between them and one of them belted her in.

“Calm down before you hurt yourself,” Sam Manelli said from the seat just behind Sean. He leaned forward, his warm breath on her neck. “We jus' give the feds a little time to get after the car.”

Through the pain and darkness, she managed to say, “Migraine.”

She was aware that the guard beside her handed Sam the note she had failed to pass to the driver. As he read it, he squeezed her shoulder with his free hand. Behind her, a radio came to life. “Covered wagon is headed to the barn. Cowgirl is in the back. Signal track is ten-ten.”

“The FBI is all idiots,” Sam said with total conviction as he crushed the note into a ball.

Through the curtain of pain in her skull, Sean was aware of these things: that her neck was surrounded by Sam's thick arm, that if he chose he could crush the life out of her, and that she was helpless to do anything about it.

“Go by Merle's place,” Sam instructed the driver. The driver crossed Canal and parked in an alley off Baronne Street. Sam stepped out of the van and the man in the front passenger seat accompanied him to a door. Sean closed her eyes. After what seemed like a couple of minutes, Sam and his bodyguard returned. As he climbed in, Sam handed a paper bag to the man seated beside Sean. Sean had to squint to see what was happening. The man reached into the sack to remove a syringe already filled with a few CCs of liquid.

“Please,” Sean pleaded in a whisper.

“Doc said this will fix a migraine headache,” Sam said.

The man slipped the covering from the needle and held her arm stiffly in place. Sean resisted until she felt the sting of the needle.

Sam placed his hands on either side of her head and rubbed gently. “How's your headache now?”

“Don't hurt me, Sam. I didn't know…”

She was fully expecting Sam to increase the pressure until it hurt worse than the headache. “You sleep a little now, and when you wake up you're going to tell me what I need to know. Then you won't have nothing to worry about.”

One thought rang out in her clouded mind. Winter will come.

As the van headed away from New Orleans, she closed her eyes and slept.

When Sean awakened, the headache was a dull shadow of its former self. She was in a dimly lit room, lying on a wide bed. She sat up and looked around. When she realized exactly where she was, fear seized her. This was a room she had been in before. It was Sam Manelli's bedroom.