City of Masks

27

Charmian could remember when she'd actually enjoyed these outings. It had once given her pleasure to visit the marvelous formal gardens in and around New Orleans and Baton Rouge, to trade tips on planting and pruning, or where to buy the best bulbs or slips. It was an opportunity to get out of the house and see some countryside while you shared complaints about your servants and your grandchildren and your husband, if you still had one. Which most of the Garden Society did not, any longer: The van was full of puffs of blue-white hair.

My "geriatric buddies," Charmian thought sourly.

But over the last couple of years the outings had become nearly intolerable. She went along only out of a sense of obligation as their chairwoman. The rides were tedious, the van claustrophobic, the gossip savage and as small-minded as it was hugely irrelevant. The blue-haired blue-bloods looked refined, but Charmian knew that for what it was: a veneer of delicacy over a hard, ruthless core. They were vicious social carnivores only too eager to use their money and position against the less privileged or each other. After two decades of rising crime in New Orleans, most of them had even started carrying pistols in their purses Charmian herself had succumbed to the fashion. The little ladies' guns were supposedly for self-defense against the criminal underclasses, but looking at the busy blue heads now she suspected it was only a matter of time before their disagreements about how to fertilize an oleander, or what dish to order at Antoine's, brought the guns out.

It was an uncharitable perspective, she knew, one sharpened by the knowledge that it applied to herself as much as the others. But now even the gardens had lost their appeal. Especially since the events of the last few months.

Still, this time she'd been actually relieved when the van had come, grateful that Tarika had interrupted her talk with Cree Black. An excuse to escape, to have time to think. She'd felt some of her resolve slipping, indecision stealing in as the woman probed her.

Inconceivable: Charmian Celeste Lambert Beauforte beating a retreat from someone of Cree Black's class and background!

Being undecided was an invitation to the world to wreak its worst upon you. Decisiveness was the foundation of strength. Even if you made the wrong decision, making any at all allowed you to act with authority, the certainty born of resolve. And that was always better than vacillating, hesitating, allowing the world to act upon you rather than you upon it. And you never retreated.

"You heard about Billie? Isn't it just too terrible?" Lydia Lanier whispered loudly.

Lydia was a plump, shapeless old thing with excruciatingly bad taste in expensive clothes, and her face showed that however terrible Billie's misfortune might be, Lydia was loving every minute of it. When Lydia had clumped aboard the van, Charmian had prayed that she wouldn't choose the empty seat next to her. There were other seats – only eleven members had opted for this tour. But she had, obviously because she was burning to tell Charmian this little tidbit. And she was a big woman, overflowing the seat next to Charmian, crowding her with upper arms the size of hams and thighs like sofa cushions.

"Terrible," Charmian agreed. Whatever it was. She turned her face to the window to signal her desire to be left alone with her thoughts. The van headed north through the city toward the Ponchartrain causeway.

The thing to do was to regain composure, take the initiative. Pull back to a different line of defense and consolidate it. Clearly, from what she'd seen and what Paul Fitzpatrick had told her, she'd underestimated Cree Black. The woman was not the persuasive charlatan she'd hoped would spread some palliative balm on Lila's problem, calm her down, help her past this crisis. She had some freakish talents of insight or perception, and she had a quality of… what? Not idealism, because she had clearly seen and experienced too much to be naively optimistic about the human condition. Charmian tried various words, and none of them quite fit Cree Black, that quality that made her so dangerous. Maybe commitment was the word: She had a deeply held philosophical belief that you had to get to the bottom of things, that doing so was always the best path, always the best foundation of healing.

So maybe she was naive after all.

"Not that we all couldn't see it coming," Lydia Lanier went on nastily.

Charmian turned to look at her, affronted at her intrusion, and gave her a gaze that would have withered a vase of zinnias. But Lydia was either too stupid to notice the look or too arrogant to acknowledge it. Charmian almost said something sharp, but there was no point: It'd only get passed around and cause a ruckus, get all the busy hens squawking.

"Tell me what you've heard," she whispered conspiratorially.

Lydia tipped her big head toward Charmian, lowered her voice, and told the tale. Charmian tried to look appropriately scandalized and tuned her out.

The van took them up the ramp onto Route 10, and the city dropped away beneath them. In few moments, the huge cemetery complex opened on both sides of the highway, the innumerable crypts mottled gray after the rain, squalid looking. The sight gave Charmian a charge of energy. A little memento mori.

Okay, so Cree Black was determined to get to the bottom of this. And with her abilities, there was some chance she just might. What made Lila hate herselfso much she breaks mirrors? – that was too close for comfort. But she could be obstructed. Better, she could be channeled, directed down paths that led only to partial, manageable truths. Charmian would need to decide the most secure line of defense and stick to it. Paul could help there.

She had thought it through so long ago, had done her best to figure all the probabilities and angles, had made decisions, and it had more or less worked. True, Lila had become the weak little thing she was, and in carving away the rotten places in her memory she had left big holes in her life; but she had managed to marry, to have kids, to have a halfway decent house. And Charmian had come to believe it was done, closed, that all the guilts and ghosts had been permanently sealed away.

Until Josephine had reappeared and changed everything! Who would have thought the woman would live that long? She was older than Charmian, eighty at least by the time she'd appeared at Charmian's door, two years ago: tall, broad-shouldered, her hair a cloud of frizzled gray, her long, sinewy arms as tight and creased as hard salamis, her dark face drawn long with that tiresome excess of piety, sobriety, contrition. InteDectually, Charmian had long since forgiven her, but still the unexpected sight of her awakened a surge of rage that she had barely repressed.

The recollection made the area around Charmian's breastbone tighten, and for a few seconds she had a hard time breathing. She deliberately mustered a full, slow breath, hoping that Lydia wouldn't notice.

After Josephine's sudden reappearance and that one afternoon of confession and accusation, she'd disappeared again without a trace. Once Charmian had sorted through the implications of her visit, she had even discreetly hired Crescent City Confidential Services, a highly recommended private detective firm, to locate her. But they'd come up dry. And then Temp Chase got himself murdered, and it had seemed best to just let Josephine fade away again.

Cree Black had zeroed in on everything, every question she'd asked had been relevant. And she'd been in New Orleans for only five days! She really was a sort of medium. She'd seen two ghosts; soon she would learn who they were. She'd pinned down the dates. She'd asked about Josephine.

Josephine! The tension gripped Charmian's chest hard. Surely Cree couldn't find Josephine, not if Crescent City Confidential couldn't!

Or could she?

How to stop or deflect her? According to Ron, Lila had now hired Cree herself, slapped down a check for her retainer; there was no way to fire her. Maybe they needed to consider more strenuous means to be rid of the woman – something to consider there. Ron might have some ideas on that score. He certainly knew enough lowlifes who might be willing to take on an odd job.

Charmian inventoried the ways Cree might penetrate to the truth. One was certainly the photos. They were not at the house; they had not been there when Charmian had looked for them after Lila had announced her desire to move back in. But Charmian knew who must have taken them, the only person who could have, and Cree Black would no doubt find her way there eventually. Had he destroyed them, as would have made sense, or preserved them for some devious future use? Hard to say.

"You are in dreamland this morning!" Lydia said. "I hope this doesn't mean you forgot to take your little smart pills this morning, darlin'? You haven't been listenin' to a word I've said!" The fat face loomed at Charmian, and suddenly she knew she couldn't do this, couldn't spend the day in Baton Rouge with the Garden Society and pretend that there was nothing the matter, and put up with Lydia and whoever else wanted to pour trivialities into her ear. She couldn't do it. Not when there was so much to be done. Not when the family was in danger.

That thought gave her resolve. But she'd have to act fast. The van had left the highway and turned north on Causeway Boulevard, and if she didn't get out now they'd get onto twenty-eight hellish miles of bridge and from the middle of the lake there'd be no turning back, she'd have to go to Baton Rouge and a day would be lost. And Cree Black would make more connections.

"I need to get out of this seat," she told Lydia. "Now. Stand up and let me out."

Lydia's eyes widened in surprise but quickly narrowed shrewdly as she sensed Charmian's urgency. The woman had a radar that picked up other people's distress, which she positively fed upon. "Why, Charmian Beauforte, whatever is the matter?" she drawled, speaking as slowly as she could. "You look like – "

"Get out of my way, you prize sow!" Charmian hissed. "This instant!"

Lydia gasped audibly, and conversation in the nearest seats stopped as the gray and blue heads turned. Charmian shoved at Lydia until the pig hoisted her bulk, moved out of her seat, and stumbled back a step, too shocked to speak.

Charmian gathered her bag and got up and limped quickly to the front of the van. She took hold of the driver's shoulder and shook it. "Stop," she told him. "Pdght here. I need to get out of this vehicle."

The driver, a big black man in gray chauffeur's livery, tried to mask his surprise. "Uh, yes, ma'am. Uh, is there something I can help you with, Miz Beauforte?"

"Stop. Open the door. Now. I'm fine. I just remembered another appointment. Go on to Baton Rouge."

"Yes, ma'am."

He braked hard and pulled the door lever, and when it hissed open Charmian climbed down into the street. The whole van of Garden Society ladies looked at her out their windows, shocked, curious, calculating. Enjoy it, ladies. Something really juicy to talk about, Charmian thought savagely. The driver looked down at her briefly, hesitating, but at Charmian's imperious gesture shut the door and drove on.

Charmian straightened her clothes. She spotted a street sign and got her bearings, then took out her cell phone to call a cab.

Ronald's apartment was in a newer office and residential tower on the downtown side of Canal Street. Charmian paid the driver, got out, and went inside. It was not even noon, Ronald would probably still be regrouping from whatever excesses he'd indulged in last night. If she understood his schedule correctly, he'd expect to do some on-line work after lunch and maybe swing by his office by one-thirty, flirt with his secretaries and schmooze with a couple of clients. Well, today would have to be different. She hadn't called because she wanted to catch him by surprise, off balance, bowl him over and roll him right along, make him obey her before he had a chance to think about it. She'd tell him she knew he'd removed the photos, and what that implied, and she'd tell him that Cree Black was finding out everything, and that he'd better start believing in ghosts fast because they were about to come back and make his life hell.

She took the elevator up to the twenty-first floor and walked down to his apartment. She rang the bell insistently and for good measure slammed her bag against the door a couple of times. After a minute she heard the muffled noise of someone coming. The peephole eclipsed, and she heard him swearing inside as the locks rattled and the door opened.

"Goddamn it, Momma, what're you doing here? You know, I would greatly prefer it if you showed me the courtesy of calling before – "

"Let me in. We have some things to discuss."

Ronald didn't move. He had his pants on, at least, that was good, but he stood holding the half-open door in one hand and didn't budge. "Tell you the truth, Momma, this isn't the best time, thank you. I have company at the moment."

She jabbed at his chest with her knuckles, backing him up, and pushed past him. "Get rid of her. Now. And then get dressed and get your wits about you."

She strode ahead of him into his living room, a huge expanse of floor furnished and decorated in what she thought of as playboy-modern. It was complete with the obligatory scattering of liquor bottles and glasses on every horizontal surface, and even a couple of little mirrors, lying flat and faintly dusted with powder, that revealed the more exotic tastes of Ro-Ro and his friends. One wall was all glass, filling the space with a big view of the nearer downtown buildings and then the darker, uneven rooftops of the French Quarter.

Ronald followed her, positioned himself in front of her with a defiant posture, and opened his mouth to argue. But the look she gave him shut him up fast. A door closed in the hallway to the bedroom, and after another glance at Charmian's face Ronald shrugged and headed down there. She heard their voices behind the closed door and the thump of things being moved around in anger.

Charmian waited for whoever it was to hustle past resentfully. She was thinking feverishly, the plan shaping up. She had always been afraid something like this could happen, but she'd supported Lila's moving back into the house because it meant there was at least the possibility that something like a family could be reestablished there. After Lila and Jack, one of Lila's kids, eventually grandkids. They wouldn't be Warrens, grandchildren of Jack's lineage of used-car dealers and barely two steps up from white trash. They'd be Beaufortes – the house would change them. But even that was the least of it, really. It was about Lila. Moving in would assert her victory over the past. It was worth the risk. Or so she'd thought, six months ago. Now she was no longer sure.

Rebuild, Lila, certainly, Charmian thought. Restore. Re-create. Renew, fust don't remember.