Cold Blood

Chapter 11

Lorraine was woken by a shaft of sunlight, diffused and softened by the gathered muslin curtains, coming through the doorway to the bathroom and the balcony beyond. For a moment she was unsure where she was until she saw Robert Caley already showered and shaved.

‘What time is it?’ she murmured.

‘Seven.’ He walked to the closets, just a small towel round his waist, and selected a shirt, suit and tie, tossing them on to an elegant spoonback chair. Lorraine sat up and blinked. He turned and smiled.

‘When you sleep you look like a ten-year-old, but for that scar. How in God’s name did you get it?’

Lorraine drew the sheet around herself. ‘Oh, some bar someplace. I’d better get back to my room.’

‘No hurry. You want me to order some breakfast?’

Lorraine squinted up at him. ‘You think that’s wise?’

He laughed, dropping the towel to pull on his briefs; he was completely relaxed about his nudity.

‘Maybe not, but you can call from your room then we can eat together.’ She sat up, watching him pull on his trousers. ‘I have a meeting, eight o’clock.’

Lorraine swung her legs from the bed and he came towards her, bending down to kiss the top of her head. He leaned over and traced the scars on her back, then on her arms. ‘How did they all happen?’

Lorraine drew away from him. ‘Well, at some point I didn’t care too much about living. They’re the self-inflicted ones, the others...’

He cupped her face in his hands. ‘Wherever you’ve been, my darlin’, is past. You’re with me now.’

She looked up into his face, trying to fathom him out. ‘I was there though, Robert, like it or not I was a drunkard.’

He kissed her, holding her tightly. ‘But you’re not now. You’re my lovely Lorraine, and last night is one I will remember for a long time.’

‘Me too,’ she said softly, wishing he would get back in the wide boat bed again, wanting to hold him naked, wanting him to make love to her again. For a moment she felt that he wanted it too but his phone rang and he eased away from her to answer it.

‘Hi, Phyllis. No, no, I’m already dressed. How is she?’

Lorraine picked up her robe from the floor and slipped it round her shoulders. He had his back to her.

‘She is? That’s good. Well, tell her I’ll call later.’ He turned to face Lorraine as he pressed line 2 to pick up a waiting call. ‘It’s Phyllis, says Elizabeth is fine, maybe another week.’

He returned to his call, his manner changed. ‘When? It was set for eight this morning... what? Shit, okay, no, I can make it. Call him back and tell him I’ll be there, and thanks, Mark.’

He replaced the receiver and sighed. ‘Lloyd Dulay wants me to meet him at his place so I’m going to have to move fast. Will you leave me the number of your hotel so I can call you?’

She nodded. He finished dressing and put on his shades.

‘Talk to you later.’ He kissed her cheek and closed the door behind him.

Back in her own suite, Lorraine sat on the balcony. What the hell did she think she was doing? She must have been out of her mind; no matter what the night had been, or meant, she couldn’t help but feel depressed and listless. She called down for a pot of hot, strong black coffee, and drained three cups and smoked two cigarettes before getting ready to leave.

Lorraine walked back into Robert Caley’s suite. To her surprise it had already been cleaned and the bed made up. There was no indication of their night together: it was as if it had never happened. She crossed to the escritoire to leave her hotel and phone number, pulled the lid down to write, and then saw a stack of documents left neatly in order and a file with ‘CASINO DEVELOPMENT’ printed on it. She wondered if Caley had forgotten it in his hurry to make the meeting; she opened the cover and saw the site for the proposed casino underlined three times: the Rivergate Convention Centre.

Lorraine picked up the file and returned to her own suite. She began jotting down notes. Some of the information blew her mind. Two hundred thousand square feet of gaming area, two hundred tables, six thousand slot machines, and a projected five and a half million annual customers. Lorraine was filling up the pages, salaries estimated at a hundred and seven million. The sources of funding listed were as mind-blowing: a hundred and seventy million equity, almost five hundred million in bonds, a further hundred and forty million bank credit, and on it went to mount up, the grand total well in excess of eight hundred million. The document listed the hard costs, including the parking structures, gaming equipment, state taxes, city taxes, interest, cash load pre-opening, finishing fees and expenses. She noted that the expenditures totalled as much, if not more, than the sources. Finally listed was the projection of revenue, ending up with a profit margin target of around a hundred and twenty million.

Detailed on the following pages were the proposals of what seemed to be the rival consortium, Doubloons, consisting of nine Louisiana residents, nine wealthy men clearly eager to make themselves even wealthier: no wonder Caley was so strung out about whether he or they would be awarded the concession. Lorraine noticed that the costs in excess of forty million dollars had been incurred in securing leases on the site where the casino was to be completed, and wondered if Caley had borne all of these himself. If he had, then not only must he be very wealthy but, as he himself had implied, was stretching himself to the very limit too.

Lorraine returned the file to his room and could not resist opening up every drawer in the desk. She found his real estate licence, his New Orleans office address, details of new hotel developments, mostly in the riverfront area, and one of the hotels which was part-owned by both Robert and Elizabeth Caley. Contrary to what he had said about his wife having nothing to do with his business, her name appeared on numerous deeds. But most shocking to Lorraine was a folded document in the name of Anna Louise Caley. It was secured with a seal and a red ribbon, and contained details of Anna Louise’s trust fund. Using the paper knife, warming it over her lighter, Lorraine worked on easing the seal up without breaking it until it came away from the paper. The thick, yellow-papered deed was deeply creased and brittle and she opened it with care. She gasped: there had never been a mention at any time, verbally or in any statement she had seen, of a trust fund for Anna Louise Caley, and the amount was a staggering hundred million. The trust fund was to be managed by her mother until Anna Louise became twenty-one, and should she fail to live to that age, then the fund would automatically revert to Elizabeth Caley.

Rooney had put on a suit he hadn’t worn in a while, and had been surprised that it fitted him, but those few pounds he had lost had made him look and feel better.

‘My, you look snazzy,’ Rosie remarked as he walked into the restaurant across the street from the St Marie, and he flushed.

‘Remember our deal? No diets while we’re here.’

‘Sure, and I’m game — while we’re here, we can eat anything we like.’

Rooney clapped his hands and grinned. ‘Right, let’s go, they got pancakes here that are delicious, and Nick and Lorraine will be down in a second.’

Hungover, dressed in the clothes he slept in, dark shades on, Nick listened as Lorraine recounted her findings. Watching Rosie and Rooney eating pancakes with syrup, Lorraine realized she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since dinner on Caley’s private plane. She ordered scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, which made Nick feel even more ill.

‘How did you get your hands on all this?’ Rooney asked with his mouth full.

‘I stayed at the same hotel, in the same room Anna Louise disappeared from. When I went in to thank Mr Caley, he had already left.’

‘Went in?’ Nick enquired.

‘Yeah, there was a connecting door, I had the key. Caley had a breakfast meeting with Lloyd Dulay.’

Nick poured himself more coffee. ‘So you stayed in the room next to Caley’s?’

Lorraine nodded. ‘Yep. I questioned the staff, which was the reason I accepted his offer, so quit with the snide remarks, Bartello. What is that shit you got round your neck?’

‘It’s a gris-gris.’ He leaned close to Lorraine. ‘What’s that on your neck, sweetheart? Get bitten in that fancy hotel, did you?’

Before Lorraine could answer, Nick took off, and she inched up her collar. ‘Mosquito bite. I must have given one little bastard a real night out.’

‘I’ll give you something for it,’ Rosie said at once. She had brought a first aid kit with every conceivable thing they could require.

‘It’s nothing, just forget it.’

Rooney was scratching his ankle, now sure he had been bitten by something too.

‘I think the same little bastard just got me. Heat’s like a blanket an’ still only January. What this place must be like in the peak of summer, God only knows.’

‘Well, hopefully we won’t be here more’n a few days,’ Lorraine said, a little sharp as she was not getting much response from anyone to her findings. In fact, they seemed to accept it all, as if they knew it already — Robert Caley was still their number one suspect!

‘I’m out of here, see you later — we’ll meet up in my room. It makes me feel like Snow White or something, by the way, Rosie — it’s got about five beds.’

Rosie was getting rattled by all the complaints about their hotel rooms.

‘Listen, if you think you can do better, go ahead, but it’s Mardi Gras, there wasn’t much on offer.’

‘Don’t get pissed, I was just mentioning it.’

Rooney sniffed.

‘If we get short of cash, we can all bunk in together or maybe make a few bucks rentin’ them out. You want some more coffee?’

Lorraine drained her cup and nodded. ‘I’ll be right back.’ She set off towards the restroom and Rooney signalled to the waitress to order a fresh pot of coffee.

‘Where’s Nick?’

‘Getting cleaned up, I don’t know,’ said Rosie, still irritated.

‘What’s the matter with everyone this morning?’ Rooney asked, puzzled.

‘I was in a perfectly good mood when I came down for breakfast,’ Rosie snapped back.

‘Now, don’t get all steamed up about Lorraine, we’ve all mentioned that we got enough beds for a basketball team.’

Rosie banged the table.

‘Well, we can check out, one of you can try to find accommodation that can take all four of us at the same time. I spent enough time trying to get the best deal I could, but not so much as a thank you, it makes me sick.’ Rooney reached over and patted her hand.

‘Come on now, no one minds, and you never know, one of us might get lucky.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she glowered.

‘Have a few friends call in! Just a joke, sweetheart.’

‘Well, I don’t find it funny, it undermines my confidence. You might all have been doing this investigation work a long time, but I haven’t, and you make me feel inadequate.’

‘Then I’m sorry, Rosie, but you know, you could take it as a compliment — cops always get at each other, joke around, it’s the way we interact. Treat you any different and you should worry.’

She flushed and suddenly smiled. ‘That right?’

‘Sure. Now, did you want another coffee?’

Rosie nodded.

She felt a lot better — in fact, she always did when she was with Rooney. He was restoring her confidence, especially as a woman, in more ways than she had ever hoped possible.

At the turn of the century the Dulay home, an amalgam of Victorian gothic turrets and towers and an incongruously Mediterranean-looking front portico, might have been thought a vulgar, ostentatious hybrid, but it had cost a king’s ransom to build, and Lloyd liked to let people know that there was nothing shabby genteel about his family: they had had money then, and they had money now.

Robert Caley drove along the allée of specially trained oaks through Lloyd’s extensive grounds — the formal garden, the wilderness garden, the kitchen garden, the cut-flower garden, the water garden — which the Dulays had laid out on several acres of prime site near the agreeable cool of parks and country clubs between river and lake shores, and which glowed like green velvet even when every other yard of ground in the state was a bleached grey-brown. He rang the door, and a uniformed maid ushered him through several waist-high bronzes of the Dulays’ favourite dogs and horses into the breakfast room. Caley never ceased to marvel both at the crassness of Lloyd’s taste and the boldness of its execution: the modelling of plaster- and woodwork throughout the house was overall heavy, and Lloyd had decided to offset the darkness of the breakfast room’s panelled ceilings by commissioning modern murals around the walls, in which neo-classical nymphs and satyrs peeped through more thick foliage. There was something lascivious in the painting, and Caley wondered whether the young Creole goddess, attired in French maid’s costume and presently pouring coffee at the mahogany table, might perhaps have been the inspiration for one of the voluptuous nudes to which she bore a striking resemblance.

There was only one place-setting at the table, where Georgian silver-covered dishes faced a large, abstract sculpture in coloured perspex which served as épergne: Lloyd fancied himself as a collector of modern art, but his reforming zeal had not yet encompassed the 200 feet of glazed chintz fussily swagged, draped and festooned across the room’s huge picture windows by his grandmother, nor the half-hundredweight of early Anglo-Irish glass hanging from the ceiling, the chandelier’s enormous pendants almost touching the plastic structure beneath. The effect was grotesque.

‘Just coffee,’ Caley said, and the maid acknowledged him with only the smallest of nods of her beautiful head with its wide cheekbones, pale coffee-coloured skin, delicate nose and large, slanting, almond eyes.

The heavy door burst open and Lloyd Dulay strode in. He stood at six feet three and, despite being in his seventies, ramrod-straight, his shock of white hair combed back from his high forehead. He was a formidable man and beside him Caley felt small in comparison.

‘Sit down, boy, sorry to change the meeting place but I had a round of golf this morning that hadda continue. I made five birdies, five. Thank you, Imelda, honey.’

Dulay touched the maid lightly with his big wide hand and she smiled, eyes downcast, almost too demure, too beautiful. Caley knew she was probably Dulay’s mistress, he was famous for keeping them ‘in house’, and perhaps in this case, on display to his guests.

‘How’s Elizabeth?’ Dulay enquired as he removed the cover from one of the dishes and forked a large portion of Charentais melon and berries on to his plate.

‘She’s fine, Lloyd, be out soon.’

‘I sincerely hope so. Carnival wouldn’t be the same without her and we got some fine entertainment this year.’

Lloyd went on to discuss the floats, the big parties and masked balls that different krewes — the local name for Carnival organizations — planned to hold, the new King of Carnival and the young society girl who would be presented as his Queen. Then, seated in his throne-like carver chair and gesturing expansively, he eulogized about the time his own daughter was presented as a maid of Rex, his voice booming round the vast cavernous room.

‘Saffron looked more beautiful than ever that day. I tell you, Robert, that girl could have had her pick of any man falling at her pretty little feet, begging her for a dance. You know, I even offered her, offered, ten million dollars if she got herself married for long enough to give me an heir. That is one of the blights of my life.’

Caley chewed his lip. He couldn’t recall how many times he’d sat opposite this bully of a man, forced to listen to his loud adulation of his whore of a daughter. He even wondered at times if he wasn’t in some roundabout way hinting that Caley should fuck his daughter — which Robert and almost everyone else had — but if he knew her reputation, Dulay never gave so much as a hint. He just seemed to enjoy the sound of his own rasping voice, and not until he had finished his fruit, sausage patties with a variety of savoury confits and old-fashioned Southern biscuits did he fall silent.

As though summoned by telepathy, Imelda reappeared and cleared the table, and again Caley saw that big hand stroke his little ‘in house’ woman. He was sure that if he didn’t have a legitimate heir, he most certainly had a number of illegitimate kids. Rumour had it to be around ten or eleven.

Dulay looked over the cigar box held out for him by Imelda. He chose one, sniffing at it with his big hawk nose, then she clipped the end, brought to the table an antique silver perfume bottle remodelled into a lighter, and slipped out. Not until the cigar smoke rested like a halo above Dulay’s head did he focus his beady, ice-blue eyes on Caley.

‘The Mayor’s meeting with the Governor and some of the legislative leaders in Baton Rouge sometime this week. Way I see it, he ought to save himself the trip — what we got to worry about is right here in New Orleans. Some people just seem to want to stand in the way of change until it rolls right over them, though it seems like there might be something in all this federal law stuff. Or so my attorney is bleatin’.’

‘That’s bullshit, Lloyd, and you know it. They’re just trying it on.’

‘Robert, you’re not hearing me. It’s the delay. Don’t you see, the more they delay granting you the go-ahead, the longer it drags out... and no matter how much you kick against it and say it’s not you they’re turning up their noses at, nobody’s gonna believe it.’

Casey sat back. Even in the chill of the air-conditioned room he could feel the sweat break out on his body: he knew that Dulay had brought up the zoning objections purely as a pretext to cover some move of his own.

‘So are you pulling out?’ he said nervously.

‘Hell, no, I am right behind you. But you are gonna have to give me some proof that it’s not just me in deep in this.’

‘Right now, Lloyd, the only person in deep is me. It’s my own money that’s bought those leases. So far you haven’t put in so much as a cent.’

Dulay stared hard at him and his eyes seemed to shrink. ‘No, Robert, you got my name attached and here that means something, understand me? My name carries a lot of weight in these parts.’

‘I know, I know... sorry, but right now, Lloyd, I’m being squeezed, you got to know that.’

‘Sure I do, nobody likes their balls held in a vice, but at the same time you’re gonna be the man who makes the most, so unless you want to carve up your interest...’

‘I don’t.’

‘Maybe not now, not today, but perhaps you should give it some thought. If you’re gonna go belly up then nobody’s gonna back your development, even if the land you got is worth something.’

‘More than something, Lloyd.’

‘Right, right, but can you keep afloat?’

‘Depends on how long. What’s friend Siphers doing in Baton Rouge?’

Lloyd shrugged. ‘They have to go through some sort of little pantomime of discussing the Doubloons proposal — crease the pages before they toss it out.’

‘You’re sure the Governor is going to toss it out?’

Lloyd pushed back his chair. ‘Sure. This is your show, Robert. You’re the one who made the commitment and got ground broken people said couldn’t be broke. A bunch of guys trying to jump on your bandwagon will just find they fall off on their ass.’

‘So when do you think we might get a yea or nay?’

‘Oh, any day now, Robert, and you’ll be the first to know. As you know, the Governor is a personal friend,’ Dulay said silkily.

There was something in his manner just a shade too smooth to trust, but Caley was too tired to press the old man further and stood up, forcing himself to smile.

‘I’ll look forward to it, Lloyd.’

‘You count on it,’ Dulay said, and gestured towards the door. The meeting was over. He paused as they walked out into the huge entrance hall with its bronze menagerie. ‘They found your little girl yet?’

Caley shook his head. ‘No, but Elizabeth has hired a new agency, they’ll maybe get some results, they seem very capable.’

Lloyd glared. ‘Capable? Holy Jesus, Robert, she’s your daughter! You just hired capable... I’d leave no stone unturned if it was my little girl, I’d hire the best this country has.’

‘We did,’ Caley said flatly.

Dulay held out his arm and it felt like a dead weight on Caley’s shoulders. ‘You sure you can keep going? Money-wise?’

Caley nodded, and the big man hugged him close. ‘I feel for you and my lovely Elizabeth, she must be going through hell.’

‘She is.’ Now all Caley wanted was to get out, but the big man’s arm held him like a vice.

‘You call on me, Robert, I mean it. You’re like family to me and that sweet child keeps me awake at night. What do these agencies think might have happened?’

Caley stepped aside. ‘That she could have been abducted, you know, kidnapped by the opposition, maybe to stop me from opening up.’

‘Bullshit, they’re too big to play that kind of game. Jesus, I know every man on the Doubloons board, lot of old friends, some I was in knickerbockers with, and I can tell you every man is a gentleman.’

‘Why didn’t you kick in with them?’ Caley asked quietly.

Dulay shrugged and walked into the marbled hallway. ‘I wasn’t asked... and I like to be asked. I’m not a man that barges in on anybody’s deal, they gotta come to me. With my kind of capital I don’t get into anything without being shown a little respect.’ He towered above Caley. ‘You’ve always shown me respect, Robert, and for that reason alone I’m with you on this deal. You’re a man that’s climbed up from nothing and I admire you. I also care about that wife of yours, we go back long ways, and I look forward to seeing her soon as she arrives. My house is yours, you know that, Robert.’

Caley looked back at the huge house, riding like an ocean liner above the smooth lawns, and Dulay’s empty words rang in his ears. ‘My house is yours, you know that, Robert.’ What a joke! Dulay was squeezing for a much bigger chunk, it was obvious, squeezing and waiting like a shark to step in and offer to bail him out for a percentage that Caley could see — sixty: forty: and the sixty wouldn’t be his but Dulay’s.

The chauffeur headed back to the hotel. Caley closed his eyes, thinking of Lorraine and the previous night. No wonder he felt worn out. But he wanted to see her again, needed to see her, because at the moment he knew Dulay was shifting the ground under him, and it felt like he was going to go down.

Nick rejoined the black iron courtyard table washed, shaved and wearing clean clothes. Rooney was making notes on the back of an envelope. ‘I’m going to have a chat to this cab driver’s brother.’

‘Really? Can you fill me in, I mean, what cab driver and who’s his brother?’

Rosie leaned forward. ‘We used him last night, Nick, drove past Caley’s proposed site for his casino, and this guy was full of it. He said his cousin, not his brother, was a cop, said they’re all corrupt.’

Lorraine was sitting with her eyes closed, face tilted to the sun.

‘Okay, I think I’m gonna go back to the bar I wound up in last night. This old trombone player sort of warned me off.’

‘Off what exactly?’ Lorraine asked without moving.

‘Anna Louise Caley.’

Lorraine turned to face him. ‘Go on.’

Nick shrugged. ‘That’s it, he just said to get the hell out, and thinking it over he’s got to have a good reason and a better one than...’ He leaned forward, frowning. ‘... “Murky waters” — he said something like that, roots go deep... I dunno, just got a feeling he knows something. And you, what you gonna do?’

Lorraine yawned. ‘Well, maybe start interviewing Caley’s business associates and, er... what’s her name? Anna Louise’s friend. I think that’ll more than take up my day.’ She checked her watch. ‘So what say we all meet back here about six tonight?’

Rosie looked at Bill who was still scrutinizing his notes. ‘Anybody want me to do anything? If you don’t, I’m gonna go to the Voodoo Museum.’

Rooney tucked the envelope into his pocket and got up. ‘I’ll hire a car, drop you off there if you like, Rosie.’

‘Oh, thanks. See you all later.’

Lorraine held up her hand. ‘Just a second, before you scoot off, Rosie, will you get me appointments to meet all Caley’s business partners and Tilda Brown?’

Rosie nodded. ‘Sure, I’ll do it straight away. You arrange the car, Bill, and I’ll meet you in the lobby.’

Lorraine watched them go off, easing between the tables.

‘They’re getting very friendly, aren’t they?’

Nick rocked in his chair. ‘Yeah, hadda terrible meal out with them. Rooney gettin’ all coy and a bashful Rosie are hard to take.’

‘You serious?’ Lorraine said, laughing.

‘Yeah.’ Nick watched her, wanting her. He instinctively knew she’d had a lot more than just a dinner on the plane with Caley.

‘What did you get from the staff at Caley’s hotel?’ he asked.

‘Not much. Only one thing that’s not on any report was that the maid did not turn down Anna’s bed at around eight to half past because there was a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. Which could mean she’d already left, or...’

‘Nice suite, was it?’

‘Yes, it was.’ She wanted to take off his shades, see his eyes, because he had that irritating smile.

‘You fuck him?’

Lorraine picked up her purse and her note-pad. ‘What you think I am, Nick?’

‘I’d sure take a chance like that, but then chance’d be a fine thing, right?’

‘You said it.’

She edged past his chair and he caught her hand. ‘No offence.’

‘None taken, Nick, but back off about me and Caley, it’s starting to get on my nerves.’

Nick got up and walked with her. ‘Just being cautious, sweetheart, he is our main suspect, right? Even more so now with that little legacy you found.’ He took off his shades. ‘You know, maybe Caley had been dipping into the trust fund. It must be like a red-hot carrot, one hundred million bucks is fucking hot.’

Lorraine felt dizzy. ‘Yeah, I thought of that, and I was wondering if there was any way we could find out.’

Nick slipped his arm around her shoulder as they went into the lobby. ‘You could ask him.’

Lorraine sighed. ‘Yeah, but then he’d know I went through his papers. I don’t want to frighten him off if we’re right...’

‘That is some mosquito bite you got, you should get calamine lotion on it.’ She turned angrily towards him and he pulled her close. ‘Don’t bullshit me, I know what it is. I don’t care if you fucked him or not, just so long as you don’t start to...’

‘Start what?’

‘To care. Because I don’t want you to get hurt, you mind if I say that?’

She rested against him, it took him totally off guard and he held her a moment. ‘Also, I have to admit that it makes me jealous as all hell. Not that there’s any hope for me but...’

She smiled up at him. ‘You never know, Nick, when you’re all washed up and smellin’ cute you’re not a bad-looking guy. Just not...’

‘Your type?’

She laughed softly. ‘You would have been once, like Lubrinski was, but, Nick, you’d be hell on any woman who cared about you. I know your kind, you love the chase but when it’s over you’re bored and on to the next.’

‘Ah, you got me sussed, huh? But you know, me and Tiger, we’re looking to set up a place, one with a back yard so he won’t piss on the carpets, and with the right woman—’

‘I’m not the right one, Nick, and we’re wasting time.’

She saw the hurt look pass quickly over his face and then he gave her that smile of his. He kissed her lips before he sauntered off with his lopsided walk in his beat-up cowboy boots.

As she unlocked her room at the St Marie, Lorraine wished she hadn’t been so dismissive because Nick, like Jack, didn’t come out with those kinds of words easily. In many ways she was attracted to Nick, it was hard not to be, but it wasn’t anything she would allow to happen because what she had said about him was the truth — Nick would never settle down, even with his ‘back yard’ routine. He was and always would be a loner, like Jack.

She sat on the coloured synthetic bedspread and looked up at the bubbled wallpaper and air vent clogged thick with dust; after last night it all seemed ugly and depressing, and although it was still only eleven o’clock, she felt tired out. That awful feeling in the pit of her stomach that Caley was involved in his daughter’s disappearance wouldn’t go away, and even after a night with him, a wonderful, special night, she couldn’t help but be logical. She was able to subjugate her emotions towards Caley, and allow the professional judgement to take over.

There was a sudden tap on the door and Rosie peeked in, carrying a sheet of paper.

‘I’ve listed those I could get hold of and those you’ll have to maybe see tomorrow. I got a car booked for you with a driver at a real low cost as some of these are quite a way apart, and Tilda Brown’s place is twenty-odd miles out of town.’

Lorraine glanced over the handwritten notes. ‘So it’s Tilda Brown first, then Lloyd Dulay? Okay, I’ll get cracking.’

The phone rang. It was Robert Caley.

‘Hi, you free for lunch?’

‘Ah, ten minutes ago I was but I’m just on my way out.’

He sounded disappointed. ‘How about dinner?’

‘Can I take a rain-check on it?’

‘Sure. I’ll be back at the hotel early evening, maybe go out to the house, so just give me a call.’

‘Will do.’

There was a moment of silence, both wanting to say some kind of endearment, but neither did. Rosie hovered nearby, listening as she pretended to check her notes. She wondered who the call was from, as Lorraine was suddenly acting coy, and she was blushing.

‘Talk to you later.’

‘Yes, about six-ish,’ she said, and the phone went dead. She replaced the receiver and looked at Rosie.

‘Who was that then?’

‘Robert Caley,’ Lorraine said dismissively.

‘Oh, you seem to be getting along very well.’

‘That’s the idea, Rosie — you get along with somebody, you get more information from them, they talk more freely.’

‘Mmmm, I’m sure they do. So, you going out with him this evening or are we having a case update? Only I got to let Nick and Bill know.’

Lorraine brushed her hair. ‘I just said I would call him, Rosie.’

‘Okay, I’ll make a note of that, shall I? We’ll meet down in the lobby.’

‘Fine, see you later.’

‘Okey dokey.’ Rosie started for the door.

‘You and Bill seem to be getting along pretty well too,’ Lorraine said nonchalantly.

Rosie had her hand on the door handle, her back to Lorraine, and her whole posture suddenly became defensive. ‘Yes, well, I make it my business to get along with him. We’re partners after all, and like you said, you get a lot more out of people if you get along with them.’

‘But Bill’s not a suspect,’ Lorraine said, amused.

‘Maybe he’s not, but as someone learning the business, I need some guidance to keep up with someone as experienced as you.’

‘Ohh, that was a bit near the knuckle, Rosie.’ Lorraine laughed.

‘It wasn’t intended that way, but you can get real nasty if I make the smallest mistake, so all I am doing is making sure I don’t make any more.’

Lorraine was suddenly concerned. ‘Hell, Rosie, you know me well enough that if I snap at you, you know you can have a go right back.’

Rosie smiled. ‘Yeah, well, sometimes I just get the feeling you don’t rate me, but I won’t forget what you just said.’

Lorraine crossed the room and put her arms round her friend. ‘You just always be honest with me, Rosie. Jesus, we all make mistakes.’

‘No!’ Rosie smiled again, assuming a look of mock surprise which made Lorraine laugh again as she crossed back over to the dressing table.

‘I’m glad you and old Rooney get along, he’s a good man. He was a good cop too — bit rusty now, or maybe it’s just he’s not as hungry as he used to be.’

Rosie’s cheeks went pink. ‘You undermine his confidence, Lorraine, like you do mine. He and Nick are working hard, we all are. We’re all after the same thing, and there’s nobody not pulling their weight.’

Lorraine accepted the put-down gracefully, to some degree impressed by her friend — Rosie was more centred than she had ever known her.

‘Yes, I’m sorry, you’re right. See you later.’

Rosie opened the door. ‘Take care, and check in with us, because we are all backing you to the hilt.’

The door closed, and Lorraine frowned. Rosie was different these days: maybe it was working alongside Bill, maybe it was her diet boosting her confidence. Lorraine stared at her own reflection.

‘Maybe,’ she murmured to herself, ‘you should start straightening out as well.’

She touched the bruise of the love bite on her neck, and could not prevent the warm feeling that began in her groin flooding right through her body until she hugged herself. She was happier than she had been for a long, long time.

Tilda Brown’s family home had been built on the lake in the 1970s, a low white ensemble of rectangles and cubes with a nod to tradition in the form of modern reworkings of traditional architectural features, square columns and vestigial balconies barely six feet off the ground which reminded Lorraine of the wingstumps of some flightless bird. Still, it clearly hadn’t been lack of money which was responsible for its boxy blandness, and money was still much in evidence: a European convertible and a fancy off-road funmobile were parked outside, and a gardener was working outside. The large, well-tended yard adjoined the levée, and Lorraine told her driver, a sullen black boy of twenty, to pull up a couple of hundred yards away so she could walk round the back.

‘Wait for me, okay?’

‘Yes, ma’am, you got me booked for the day.’

From the levée she could see a tennis court and pool, each with floodlighting and a flanking cubist pavilion: by the pool a young blonde teenager lay stretched on a sun-lounger, and Lorraine went round to the front of the house before the girl — Miss Tilda, she presumed — looked up and saw her. She rang the door-bell, and a maid in a pink house-dress opened the door.

‘Come along in, Miss Page. Miss Brown is pool-side and she says to ask if you’d like a cool drink.’

‘Thank you.’

Tilda Brown had a perfect, all-over golden tan, her waist length blonde hair silky and well cut, and she wore only the smallest of bikini briefs and top.

Feeling the heat, Lorraine was relieved when Tilda got up from her sunbed and suggested they go to the small air-conditioned pool house, further shaded by large palms. She sat in a chair made of stainless-steel ‘wicker’, its cushions covered in what seemed to be hot pink Spandex, and motioned Lorraine to its twin.

‘It’s real hot already,’ Tilda said, smiling, ‘but I got all goose-pimples, coming in from the sun. You mind if I just fetch a wrap?’

Lorraine returned the smile. The maid appeared to serve home-made lemonade, and Lorraine had drunk half her glass before Tilda returned, draped in a long silk kimono, wearing large dark sunglasses with thick white frames and smelling of fresh flowers. She was very nervous, her little hands shaking as she poured herself a lemonade.

‘Can you tell me about your relationship with Anna Louise?’

‘Sure, she’s my best friend. We both come from here, I mean, not that she lives here full-time like my family, but we first met when we were real young, you know, six or seven years old. Then we didn’t see each other for quite a while, maybe five years, but I got to go to UCLA and we met up again and it was like no time had passed at all. It was nice to be made so welcome at her home because I sometimes got so lonely.’

‘So you knew each other really well?’

‘We did, and I miss her.’

Lorraine asked if she could smoke, and Tilda shrugged, fetching a small chrome ashtray. ‘You had an argument the day before she left LA,’ Lorraine said as she lit her cigarette.

‘We used to argue a lot, Mrs Page, we didn’t always agree on everything even though we were best friends.’

The girl flicked her silky hair over her shoulder with an immaculately manicured hand, the nails lacquered oyster-pink to match those on her toes. Lorraine envied the Tilda Browns of this world, their ability never to perspire. This was money in front of her, and young as Tilda was, one could tell she had never wanted for anything in her life.

‘Can you tell me what the argument was about? It’d be the morning of February fourteenth last year.’

Tilda’s eyebrows furrowed. ‘Well, you know Anna Louise was a good tennis player and she used to get impatient with me because I was not in her league. Even when we were just warming up she’d do these smashes and I just used to get so angry because it wasn’t a competition. But with Anna Louise...’ She hesitated.

‘Yes, go on, Tilda.’

‘Well, Anna Louise was competitive in everything and I just got tired of it. I said to her that I wasn’t going to play with her anymore and she threw a tantrum, and believe you me, Mrs Page, she could get so angry sometimes, say such horrible things. I had just had enough so I said to her that unless she apologized to me I was not going to travel home with her, no way. I would prefer to travel alone than with somebody as bad-tempered and mean as she was being towards me. Well, she just refused to apologize and so I went in to tell Phyllis that I wanted to leave straight away.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes. Phyllis arranged for Mario to take me to the airport and she also got me my ticket. I called my mama and papa and they collected me here. I said I didn’t want to discuss it, but that I was not going to stay with Anna Louise ever again.’

Lorraine drained her glass and Tilda immediately refilled it. At last she removed her big white-framed sunglasses. Lorraine wanted to see her eyes, to try to ascertain just how good a liar Tilda Brown was going to be.

‘I never saw her again. And I have felt so guilty. The last time we were together we were fightin’, had those cross words with each other, and if... if she won’t ever be coming back, then... It just gets worse, and sometimes I cry about it because we would have made up, no doubt about it, we always did.’

‘So she didn’t call you when she arrived here with her parents?’

‘No, she didn’t, but I wish very dearly that she had.’

Lorraine sipped the ice-cool lemonade, wondering how to play it. Tilda seemed to be the genuine forlorn best friend and even at one point had tears in her grey-blue eyes, but she never looked directly at Lorraine and she was exceedingly nervous.

‘On the night Anna Louise arrived in New Orleans, where were you?’

‘At home. I had a dress fitting, and I ate supper with Mama and Papa before going to bed, ’bout ten o’clock.’

‘And she never came round to see you, to make up to you?’

‘No, but like I said, I wish that she had. All I do now is pray that she is still alive, because I will make up to her for that silly tiff we had... and it was so silly.’

‘Do you know somebody called Polar?’

Tilda frowned. ‘You mean like polar bears? No, I never heard of anyone with that name.’

‘How about Tom Heller?’

‘Oh, I know him, he was at college with me.’

Lorraine was becoming irritated by her sing-song voice. She decided she had waited long enough. ‘You ever go to the Viper Room with Tom?’

Bingo, the cheeks flushed bright pink. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The Viper Room...’

The baby eyes blinked and the blush deepened as Lorraine drew out the picture of Anna Louise being fucked by the guys at the Viper Room.

‘Oh, my goodness...’

‘Mmm, oh, my goodness me. That was taken the night before your little tiff, wasn’t it? You were upstairs, weren’t you, in the private section of the Viper Room?’

Tilda crumbled fast. She bent her head and started sobbing, begging Lorraine not to tell her parents. If her family were ever to know she would be in such trouble.

Lorraine passed Tilda a tissue from a box, covered in the same pink synthetic fabric as the cushions, and she blew her nose. ‘I am so ashamed.’

She continued to sob for a while, then quietened down. ‘Anna Louise used to take pills from her mother. The first time we took them we just acted silly but then she started to take them real regular, you know, and she’d make me drink vodka, she liked vodka. Then we’d go clubbing and... I cannot tell you how ashamed I am...’

‘No need to be in front of me,’ Lorraine said, encouraging her to talk.

‘I don’t remember what we used to do or what I did, I just used to blank out.’

‘But you both used to get screwed, right?’

She nodded, and down came the tears again. ‘I guess so.’

‘The morning you had the little tiff was after you had been out clubbing with Anna Louise so you were probably a bit hungover, weren’t you? So was the “tiff” really about tennis or was it something more important?’

Tilda sighed. ‘Oh, it was just awful, she could be such a bitch about things. She wanted to make sure we had our stories straight so her parents wouldn’t find out. We were down by the tennis courts and you’re right, we weren’t playing. I had such a headache, I was feeling sick, and Mr Caley came by on his way to work. When he stopped and asked if I was feeling unwell, I just started to cry. I know what we did was bad, but she could be very insistent, you know? She’d make threats that if I didn’t do what she wanted then she’d tell my parents.’

Lorraine waited as she dried her tears and then sat back.

‘He was so kind, Mr Caley, sat me down and asked if I was sick, if there was something wrong. He even gave me his handkerchief... and I just cried and cried because I couldn’t tell him what I was crying about. He sat with me until I stopped crying and said that if there was something worrying me it was always best to share, that if ever I wanted to talk to him then all I had to do was call. He was so worried, so kind and thoughtful, more like a friend...’

‘Was Anna Louise sitting with you and Mr Caley?’

‘Er, no, she had gone into the pool house, said she was going to have a swim and...’

‘And?’ Lorraine asked impatiently.

‘Oh, Mr Caley left. He gave me a real nice kiss on the cheek and said he had to go into the office. Then she just flew at me.’

‘Who did?’

‘Anna Louise of course. She began hitting and kicking me, real crazy. She used her tennis racquet and hit me real hard, and then she got me down on the ground and was clawing and scratching at my face and pulling out my hair. She was on top of me, pushing my head into the ground.’

‘Did she think you had told her father about what had happened at the Viper Room, was that why she attacked you?’

‘Yes, she said she had seen me with her father. She wouldn’t listen to me — she said she was gonna make me sorry. I hit her back and then she spat at me, right in my face, saying she would tell my parents, tell everybody that I was trying it on with her father. I was so shocked... I was speechless.’

‘But he was just being kind and fatherly, right?’

‘Why, yes, of course, but she was crazy about him.’

‘Wait, wait, what do you mean, crazy about him?’

Tilda had her hands clenched at her sides. ‘She was obsessed by her daddy, she talked and talked about him, that no man ever lived up to him and that...’ Tilda turned away and up came the flush, her cheeks burning bright red.

‘Go on, Tilda, and what else?’

‘She said they were lovers, that they were in love.’

Lorraine lost it for a moment, so taken aback by what Tilda had said. ‘She actually told you that she was having a sexual relationship with her father, Tilda?’

‘Yes, yes, that is what she said.’

‘Did you believe it?’

Tilda twisted her fingers, pulling at a ring. ‘I just had to leave, Mrs Page. I ran into the house and asked Phyllis to get me a ticket, I never wanted to see her again.’

Lorraine’s heart was thudding. ‘You didn’t answer the question, Tilda, this is very serious. Were Robert Caley and his daughter lovers?’

Tilda licked her lips and turned away, her voice strained, hardly audible. ‘I don’t know, but he was just friendly to me, really and truly, he never made any advances.’

‘What about her other friends?’

‘She only had me, I was her only true friend. She couldn’t tell anyone else about things, everybody thought she was so wonderful, they didn’t really know her. And no one liked to stay at the house because of Mrs Caley acting weird, you know, all boozed up and sometimes so out of it it was just plain embarrassing.’

Lorraine stayed for another half-hour, carefully taking Tilda back over her entire statement to the police and the reasons why she had never before admitted the truth about her argument with Anna Louise that morning. It boiled down simply to her being afraid it would get out that she, like Anna Louise, used to go clubbing, stoned and drunk. Tilda did not seem to realize the importance of the question of whether Robert Caley’s relationship with his daughter had sexual overtones or not. When pressed by Lorraine for proof, she became agitated and tearful.

‘Was Anna Louise just infatuated or do you believe there was more than a father-daughter relationship, Tilda? Did you ever see them together?’

Tilda refused to look at Lorraine, chewing at her lip. Lorraine patiently told her that if what she had said was true it could be the reason behind Anna Louise’s disappearance, the reason she might have just run away and might still be alive but afraid to return. What Tilda finally came out with made Lorraine feel wretched.

‘She told me they slept together, that he had put her on birth-control pills because he was afraid she would get pregnant.’

By the time Lorraine got back to her driver, she had left Tilda Brown looking like a rag doll: her face was puffy from weeping, her nose red from wiping it, and even her little rosebud lips looked chapped and ugly. Lorraine instinctively believed Tilda’s reasons for not admitting what she and Anna Louise had argued about. She had also been given yet another reason why Robert Caley, even more than before, was their main suspect. Lorraine needed a drink, a real one, and she was scared she’d stop and get one so she ordered the driver to take her on to Lloyd Dulay’s mansion. Her initial shock on being told about Robert Caley and Anna Louise made her whirl through a spiral of emotions. Having slept with Caley the night before made her want not to believe it, but why would Tilda Brown lie? And gradually her feeling of betrayal and foolishness turned to burning anger. Robert Caley most certainly had a motive to get rid of his daughter and she was going to prove it.

Nick swore. He knew he’d got off the streetcar a couple of stops too early, and he studied his own route map, ignoring the neat bundle of street maps and locations Rosie had given him with telephone numbers of restaurants, taxi ranks, etc. He didn’t like carrying around anything more than he needed, or anything that he couldn’t stuff into his back pocket. He was near the new Convention Centre, on Lafayette, looking out for Francis X. Roper’s Investigation Agency. He had an old buddy who used to work for them; it was a long shot and he’d not seen or spoken to Leroy Able for over ten years, but worth a try.

Nick got the brush-off from Roper’s agency, a surprisingly smooth-looking place, when he eventually located it. The receptionist, a red-haired spitfire with green-rimmed glasses, gave him an appraising look that’d have stopped a streetcar dead in its tracks, never mind Nick, and she snapped that she did not know of any Leroy Able — she made even the name sound distasteful. This was a high-class agency dealing with fraud cases and working closely with the police. She seemed to give a lot of weight to the word police.

‘You maybe got a forwarding address?’

‘Check the telephone directory.’

‘You got one?’

She pursed her lips and pushed a big yellow directory across her pristine desk. Nick thumbed through it, taking covert glances around him at all the posters and advertisements the company displayed — missing persons, domestic undercover security work, installation of video cameras, surveillance work. Every case, a poster proclaimed, was the firm’s top priority.

‘You busy?’ he enquired, as he checked down the As.

She was about to reply when the telephone rang, and she snapped the name of the agency into the phone, listening with one eye on Nick and suddenly assuming a sweet voice for the potential client on the other end of the line.

‘Yes, sir, we have a full-time staff of six investigators, all licensed and highly trained, and we have our own camera equipment, which includes a variety of long-range lenses and high-powered binoculars. Our teams also carry hand-held radio communications and mobile telephones. I can make an appointment for you, just one moment please.’ She reached for a large desk diary as Nick jotted down Leroy Abie’s address. Whether he was still in business was something he’d find out.

He thanked the woman in green glasses who appeared not to even notice his departure, and headed for Magazine Street in the warehouse district. When he found Abie’s address, he double checked he was at the right place as the ground floor seemed to be a boxing gymnasium.

Nick went up the stairs into the gym, peering through the double door. ‘Anyone know a Leroy Able?’

‘Top floor,’ came a bellow from a stout boxer well into his fifties, slamming the hell out of a punch-bag.

Leroy was thumbing in leisurely fashion through the Times-Picayune, a cup of coffee from which rose the unmistakable smell of New Orleans chicory in front of him, his feet up on his desk.

‘Hi, Leroy Able around?’ Nick asked.

The paper was slowly lowered. ‘Who wants him?’

‘Old buddy, shit, it’s you, isn’t it? Leroy?’ Leroy slowly took his cowboy boots off the desk and stared hard at Nick. ‘Nick Bartello, LA Drug Squad, last saw you ’bout ten years ago, maybe more.’

‘Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve not got a good memory for faces, what you say your name was?’

‘Shit, man, Nick, Nick Bartello.’

‘Oh, yeah, yeah, recall the name now. Siddown, want a coffee?’

Nick was a little fazed by Leroy, he didn’t show any recognition at all. ‘I went to Francis X. Roper’s place, I reecalled you mentioned working for his agency.’

Leroy handed Nick a paper cup of black coffee and perched on the end of his desk. ‘You know what I hate? People who start talking with a Southern accent ten minutes after they get to New Orleans. What’s this reecall crap, Bartello, you wop?’ Leroy cuffed Nick’s head and gave him a wide grin. ‘You had me wondering there for a second, man, it’s the gris-gris round your fucking neck.’

Nick fingered the leather thong and the bones. ‘I dunno what the shit it is, was given to me last night down some cruddy bar.’

Leroy fingered the bones, raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, you must have got well and truly loaded, this isn’t tourist shit, this is the real McCoy.’

Nick shrugged. ‘So, how’s life?’

Leroy eased back into his swivel-chair. ‘Ah, not bad, making some dough, of late mostly for the dental board, you know, carrying out medicative investigations.’

Nick laughed as Leroy leaned back and let out a big loud bellow, showing his splendid white and gold-capped teeth.

‘Yeah, man, long way from the LA Drug Squad, but at least I don’t have a leg full of lead. And I’m my own boss.’

‘So you do know who I am,’ Nick said, reaching for his coffee.

‘Yep, just was worried for a second I owed you dough. I don’t, do I?’

Nick shook his head, and looked round the office. Leroy’s joke about the dentist wasn’t right on the level. His office was in good repair and looked like the business was coming in.

‘You want a job?’ Leroy asked, seeing Nick’s curious looks.

‘Nope, I’m on one, that’s why I’m in New Orleans.’

‘Oh yeah, and what’s that?’

‘The Anna Louise Caley girl, she disappeared eleven months ago.’

Leroy nodded. ‘Yeah, I know the one, lot of private Is brought in on it, but me? I stayed clear: I stick mainly to salvage myself.’

‘But you must have heard about it?’

‘Sure, like I said, it was pistol-hot at one time, but as far as I know they all came up with zilch. Word was the girl must just have flown the coop — they do down here, you know, especially around Mardi Gras. Kids flock here, get laid, get stoned and move on with some drifter. City draws them like a magnet.’

‘This one’s different, she’s rich as hell.’

Leroy leaned on his elbows. ‘Rich kids, Nick, are just like everybody else. They like to get stoned and laid, preferably with a little dash of danger thrown in, and then it’s back to Mama and Papa who welcome them home with open arms.’

‘But she’s been gone eleven months.’

‘Then I’d say she’s dead.’

Nick got up and paced around the office. ‘Yeah, I think so too. Question is who killed her, and if I find out I get a nice bonus.’

‘Well, I’d like to help, man, but like I said I got this dental case.’

Nick smiled. ‘So what’s putting you off, huh?’

Leroy hesitated, and suddenly became serious. ‘You want it on the level?’

‘Sure I do, I want whatever you’ve got that’d help.’

Leroy ran his hands through his iron-grey curls.

‘Okay, the Caleys and the types you’re dealing with are high-powered money people. Elizabeth Caley is a big star round these parts, so you’d get a lot of people coming forward with bullshit just for the rewards they offered. I think it was twenty-five thousand bucks. I know that to date something like twenty people have said they seen her, and you chase it up and find it’s nothin’ and then...’ Leroy rocked in his chair. ‘Money runs out and you find you spent half your fee gettin’ fuck-all results. So for the time being I’m sticking to salvage and dental.’

Nick drained his coffee. ‘What d’you know about an old black jazz player goes by the name of Fryer Jones?’ Leroy stared as Nick flicked the bones at his neck. ‘He gave me these.’

‘Fryer Jones did?’

‘Yep, last night.’

‘He’s famous where he hangs out, round the French Quarter and Ward 9. All the young kids wanna hang out at his bar, play a few sets with him and the old guys — he used to be one mean trombone player. They drift there, score some dope, maybe play a few numbers. He uses kids like most use toilet paper but the cops leave him well alone. If he’s not openly dealing on the main drag, he’s out of their hair, out of the main tourist routes, an’ that’s all this city cares about.’ Leroy rubbed his thumb and finger together to indicate money, then he leaned back. ‘I’d say Fryer must be worth quite an amount by now. No kiddin’, he’s been running that bar for decades, got a string of little girls whoring for him, all in the name of jazz, brother! But if you want my honest opinion, he’s a piece of shit, because it’s not all singing the blues that holds them to that stinking bar... it’s what you got round your neck too.’

Nick touched his bones. ‘What?’

Leroy shook his head. ‘You don’t know, do you? Gris-gris is supposed to ward off evil voodoo spells, and old Fryer used to have a few connections in that field. In fact, I think he may even be related to one of the Salina sisters.’

Nick tensed up. ‘Hold it, Salina?’

Leroy nodded. ‘Yeah. One was called Juda, the other... er, shit, can’t recall right now, but she married. They were real high priestesses. Word is that... shit, I wish I could remember her name, but Juda’s sister has a daughter, Ruby, Ruby Corbello, ’bout eighteen, she works in a hair salon. She does some modelling on the side and some new black krewe that’s getting together for the Carnival has put her up as their queen.’

Nick hitched up his jeans. ‘Wait, wait, you’re going too fast for me, man. There’s a Juda Salina in LA, reads tarot cards, that kind of stuff?’

‘They do a lot more than tarot readin’, Nick. If it’s the Juda that’s related to the Corbello family, she’s almost like royalty in some areas... and I don’t mean for the tourists. These are supposed to be the real thing, related to the big voodoo queens they had last century, and they can put the fear of God into people. Like I said, it’s more than booze and drugs gets the kids hanging round those people, and if you got your head screwed on right, you’ll stay well clear of Jones an’ anyone who has anything to do with the Salina sisters. I tell you, you wouldn’t even get me through the door of their place and I wouldn’t go to Fryer’s unless I had a good reason.’

Nick felt uneasy, and his leg was beginning to hurt from all the walking. He rubbed it hard with the flat of his hand. ‘I saved the fucker’s life so maybe he owes me.’

Leroy lit a cigarette, the smoke drifting from his aquiline nose as he looked hard at Nick.

‘Pack up and go home, Bartello, don’t you go getting involved in all this shit. Like I said, you’ll come out with no thin’.’

Nick moved painfully down the stairs, past the gymnasium now full of heavy grunts from kids sparring and thwacking the punch-bag. It was strange, and it always had worked that way, but the more he was warned off something the more it fed his adrenalin. And he didn’t believe in all that voodoo shit anyway.